Snacks/Sides

This is a fabulous accompaniment to any Christmas dinner especially if in the warmer countries at this time of year. It also goes nicely at any celebration or just for a special side dish when with a loved one. It is a complete protein side as it contains soy.

This sprinkle lives in my fridge at all times. As soon as it looks like it is running out the frying pan comes out and another batch is born. Some people say pepita sprinkle tastes like parmesan but I never call it parmesan because it really isn’t parmesan. What it is though is a fabulously sensational sprinkle to put on anything and everything.

If you are craving a chicken sandwich but you have made a commitment to your health to not eat chicken. Then this ‘chicken’ sandwich is right up your street.This recipe is definitely inspired by the wonderful vegan graduate chef Pandora from Pandora’s Plate.

We had friends who we love dearly come and stay a few weeks ago and amongst a whole array of goodies they brought with them was a bottle of champagne to share. I had prepared an Indian dinner but not thought much about what to nibble on before dinner.

This is a very morish recipe. Cook and eat straight away as part of a meal or a snack. Goes well with Thai Curry or a salad. This recipe will serve 2 people. With a total of 32g protein. Which is enough protein for 2 people for one meal depending on your height and gender.

This is a fabulously cheesy baked potato without the saturated fat of dairy cheese. So, for those of you who are lactose intolerant or craving cheese or wanting to stop eating cheese this is a must have recipe.

Walnuts are packed with omega 3. If you have ever wondered where you get enough omega 3 on a vegan diet send Veet an email and she will send you some information on this. Keep this dukkah in your fridge at all times and sprinkle it on everything.

If you are raising your children on a plant based/vegan diet or your children have told you they don’t want to eat animals anymore or you have a toddler and you want to ensure they eat well and the food you include in their diet meets all their nutritional needs then send me an email as I am presently working on a fact sheet for ‘Food for Toddlers and Children’ and I will put you on the wait list and send it out to you as soon as it is completed.

A few weeks ago I facilitated the menopause cooking and nutrition workshop. It was a wonderful day of learning and lots of cooking. Calcium is incredibly important for perimenopause and menopause. To be honest it is essential for all stages of your life so make sure you are eating plenty of food rich in calcium today. And what better way to do it than with a yummy sweet treat.

When we were growing up my dad often requested a Waldorf salad. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to a shared meal gathering that I actually had made one. I drew inspiration from Yotam Ottelenghi’s cookbook Plenty More. It will definitely be on my table for celebration dinners and am thinking for those who celebrate Thanksgiving this could be a winner. This isn’t a traditional Waldorf salad it has a few additions.

This fabulous recipe comes out of the last three day Vegan Foundation Cooking Course. Grace and Nells made and adapted this recipe from Celia Brooks Brown’s Vegetarian World Recipes cookbook. If you are an Okonomiyaki fan you are going to love this vegan version and if you have never had Okonomiyaki then this recipe is a must try. Perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

I was on a mission to perfect the filing for sausage rolls. My research involved buying many different vegan sausage rolls. I also looked at many different recipes and think I made 8 lots of sausage rolls before I perfected the recipe. This recipe is the result of much delicious research and I not so humbly confess that you won’t find a better vegan sausage roll filling than this.

If you are wanting a quick grab savoury breakfast, these muffins are the thing. Make up a double batch, keep half out and freeze the rest. They are packed with complete protein, contain vitamin C, A, K, fibre and potassium. Take them up a notch by cutting them in half and adding a nice dollop of hummus.

Huge apologies everyone for my very overdue newsletter and recipe. I was not well for a week then went straight into the Vegan Chef Training that has been fantastic but all consuming.

My apologies to those who love receiving my newsletter on a weekly basis. Since the floods in our area I lost the momentum to write weekly but I am back with renewed enthusiasm and some great recipes to share with you. After two of my courses being cancelled due to floods we were able to go ahead last week and what a fabulous 3 days were shared with 5 wonderful people. We had a full house. Five is the max and we made delicious foods. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Hope you are all well and not affected by the flood damage in NSW and Queensland. If you are please reach out. While I personally am not affected by the floods I do live in a town and area that is presently in devastation. It has been incredible how much support has been offered from people locally and all over the country. I have been out helping and have taken a few days off so as to attend to our own minor damage to garden and cleaning of the outside areas.

Last week I ran the very first three day Vegan Foundation Cooking Course in my new kitchen. I had 5 delightful participants and we created some incredible food and they all got to go home with recipes and a load of tips and tricks that they will be able to implement for years to come. This week on Thursday I begin the next 3 day course. I still have place in all courses in March, April and June. Dates for the rest of the year will be out in the next few weeks.

Can you believe it is almost Christmas 2021. I can’t. If you are still looking for Christmas presents remember I have a range of experience gifts - a one on one cooking class, a 3 day cooking course, a VIP nutrition and cooking package, a miso and tofu cooking class, an aranchini and gluten free ravioli class. All classes can be online or in person. All details are below the recipe.

What an exciting time it has been, buying our first home together. As regular readers know that was a big journey in itself and then the move was BIG especially after nine years in one rental house. I love our new home and can’t wait to start courses and individual sessions in my new kitchen. It is a fabulous space which I look forward to sharing with you all either in person or online.

Who grew up with iodized salt on their table? Did you know what iodized meant or were you just used to reading the word every time you saw it in its white and orange plastic tub. It seemed to be the standard salt everyone had in their homes growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. It was branded as the important thing to have to stay healthy and then it seemed to disappear. It is still sold in supermarkets and is occasionally spotted on someone’s dinning room table or on top of the cooker range.

I am so happy to be back with a recipe for you this week. Last week I sent out a newsletter asking for contributions for weekly recipes and lo and behold, within an hour of the newsletter going out I received a considerable donation via paypal from my very generous parents. I had forgotten they read my weekly blog. So this recipe and the next five will be brought to you via their generosity. I feel so grateful as sharing a recipe each week brings me loads of joy. Thank you Mum and Dad.

For those of you who follow me on social media you will know I have been struggling along with Plantar Fasciitis. Who else has this? Well only two weeks after I put up the post I am happy to report it is pretty much almost gone. I can feel slight twinges of it now and again so will not let my guard down. After being super diligent to add enough foods containing phytoestrogens into my daily diet I am happy to say it’s on the mend. I will keep on adding these foods forever and be diligent about it as they also sport so many other health benefits.

Who loves falafel? I certainly do. These were made in the recent Three Day Vegan Foundation Cooking Course. The recipe makes a big mob of them so I would suggest making the full amount and freezing some as they freeze so well. Before putting the mix in the fridge be sure to taste it to see if you want more spice. Some like falafels with lots of spice and some lightly spiced. Recipe below.

As many of you may know change is happening for the Vegan Cooking School and myself. In November we need to move from our home of nine years. We are on the look out for somewhere to buy to live in and continue running the cooking school from. It is our dream to stay as close to the Mullumbimby region as possible. As a small business owner I thought it would be impossible to secure a home loan but have recently found out that I can get a loan if I can show I have earned $75,000 by the end of this financial year (June 30th). I actually fall $18,000 short of this amount. It feels very important that I secure this loan and that we are able to buy a house, not only so we have somewhere to live but also so I can keep on running the wonderful courses I facilitate and offer the private cooking and nutrition sessions I am launching.

Taro is a new vegetable for me. I have seen it and heard people say how good it is but it wasn’t until Jimi who attended one of the courses I have run this year gifted me some that I got to cook with it.

How are you? I have had a great week since I last wrote. We managed to get away on a quick camping trip, which was incredibly relaxing despite getting caught in a hail storm, the walk we had planned on being closed, tree cutters at the camp ground for hours on the first afternoon and people doing paving for 6 hours with noisy machinery on the second day. Absolutely hysterical and we still managed to love so much of our two days away, the hours when it was quiet, the lovely wildlife and the moon shining through the trees. I sleep so much better when camping.

Last week we filmed the online cooking course ‘Cooking at Home with Veet’ that will be launched mid November. What an incredible experience and what an incredible course it is. It is five modules packed with delightfully delicious vegan food that also happens to be gluten free and refined sugar free. It’s a course that shows you how easy it is to create delicious meals, snacks and desserts that also taste amazingly good.

It’s children’s recipe this week and the lovely Paula who is half way through the vegan chef training has once again developed a recipe for us. Paula’s last recipe was a winner and so is this one.

Wow what a week. Love sent to you all and especially those of you who once again find yourselves in lockdown. I hope you have the ingredients to cook up feasts for yourself during this time. Food is our saviour right now. Get cooking for yourself, your loved ones and your neighbours.

This week’s blog comes with quite a story. I hope you love stories. I love stories, my grandmother always told us stories and I would relish in every word. Its book review week and I am reviewing a very special book this week that unfortunately isn’t for sale. It’s a family cookbook of my best friend from school’s grandmother. Penny Curtis and I have been friends since we were eleven. We both grew up in the Northern Territory. We loved our grandmothers and talked of them fondly. They both lived elsewhere mine in New York state and Penny’s in Herberton, Queensland.

It’s seasonal produce week so here I am with something that is in season, right in my garden, right now. We have three prolific guava trees growing in our garden. The majority of the fruit is feeding the bats, which I am so happy about as the bats had a tough time through the drought and fires. We love that we can share the fruit with them. Yesterday we picked 10 lovely ripe guavas that the bats hadn’t touched and we made the best jam I think I have ever tasted.

It’s children’s recipe week this week and this is a good one to make with the whole family. Put aside 1½ hours so that you can make it with ease and fun. Put on some fun music and get into the swing of cooking as a family. Go to my facebook page to see the video I did on how to make the tortilla. If you don’t have a tortilla press you can roll out the flour with a rolling pin (dusted with corn flour) and cut out round shapes with a wide glass or biscuit cutter.

Two weeks ago I spent a fun filled week with one of my nieces and one of my nephews. We went on daily outings and only on one of those days did we eat out (we went to Sweetbones Café in Canberra), all the other days we packed up our picnic lunch. On one of those days there was a fire in Queanbeyan and when we got there found out that the swimming pool was closed, so we decided to go home for our picnic before going off to bowling.

I am curious to know who of you reading this blog post would like to pursue being a chef as either a hobby or profession. My story was that at the age of sixteen I wanted to be a chef but as I was vegetarian no one would take me on as an apprentice. I let go of that dream and pursued my other dreams, working with people with disabilities and being a primary school teacher. It was only at the age of thirty eight that I decided to follow my original passion and teach myself how to be a top notch vegetarian and then vegan chef. It has been an incredible twelve years.

How is everyone? I am on my way to Canberra to visit my brother, niece and nephew and am curious to know how it will be to see all the fire damage as I travel down south. My heart is with all of you who may be affected by these fires here in Australia. It is also with all of you who may be struggling right now. I hope my newsletter and recipe brings a bit of light relief if that is possible.

Hello Everyone, hope you are all safe and well and those of you affected by bushfires, my prayers, thoughts and love are with you. This is my first blog post of 2020. It was lovely to have a few weeks break from sending out newsletters and I am so excited to be writing again. Someone asked me if I like doing my blog posts and my reply was “I love it, I love sharing recipes and I love writing. What I struggle with is getting photos that are good enough to attach to the blog posts. Photography is not one of my strong points. Anyway it is not stopping me. I have great plans for regular blog posts in 2020 with fantastic recipes. So keep those requests coming in.

How are you all this week? How many of you are effected by the bushfires? I really hope you are all safe. It’s been very full on for many people living in the area I reside. I live in town so am lucky to be in a safe area but many friends are evacuated at the moment and others are staying home in readiness to protect their properties.

Hello everyone, how has your week been? I am in the middle of three days off. These being very special days off for me as I have worked pretty solidly for the last seven weeks with only one full day off and even on that day I attended a workshop and then worked in the evening. It’s been a thoroughly rewarding time. In that time I cooked on two week-long retreats, cooked on a four day workshop and a one day workshop, ran three vegan foundation cooking courses, did a demo at a local food festival and facilitated modules two to five of the Vegan Chef Training. It was epic and I loved it all. I loved especially the facilitation and helping so many people create really delicious well-balanced food.

Almost a year ago I got a phone call an hour before day one of the Vegan Foundation Cooking Course was due to start from a woman named Lisa wondering if there was a space left in the course that day. I had never had such a late booking before. I said “yes if you can get the application form filled out, sent back to me and be here in an hour then the spare place is yours.”

For two decades as a university student, care worker and teacher I took a packed lunch to work. I had no choice there were no options for me as a vegetarian and I have also always been a fussy eater. White bread sandwiches have never cut it for me. And that was pretty much all that seemed to be available at school canteens.

For years people have been juicing, loading their smoothies and eating kale raw. I was led to believe that the natural oxalates found on kale can inhibit the absorption of iron and other essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals. As a result I generally never eat it raw. Just wilting it can remove the oxalates and this fabulous recipe I share with you this week will definitely rid the lush green kale leaves of the oxalates.