Christmas, New Years and Nuggets all rolled into one neat package

I've had a blog break since just before Christmas cause I've been super busy and up at the Sunshine Coast (that's not where I live) visiting rellies. anyway i'm back and ready to post about my food eatin again!

By the way loved everyone's christmas posts I read so many and they were really great, I'd love to live in the States just to have a traditional white christmas with snow and sledding and ice skating and all that jazz. Down here it has been sweltering hot like everyday! Anyway enough with my complaining here is some food....














This is a delicious antioxidant salad from the Healthy Skin Diet, it's got baby spinach, grated carrot, grated apple, raisins, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and a tasty apple cider vinegar/ mango chutney dressing which complements the sweetness of the salad oh so nicely. On the side I had nutty nuggets from this really cool cookbook called BJ's Yummy Vegan Recipes, I bought it from this little vegan restaurant I discovered which serves the most amazing adzuki bean patties and vegan ice-cream, anyway back to the point the nuggets were delicious!















Later on that day I tried an organic food bar called Active greens, which was okay but nothing too special anyway hope everyones new years were great
talk to you soon

Larabar conundrum...(Help needed)

Okay so here's the thing, I have been desperately wanting to try larabars for so long now but unfortunately they don't sell them in Australia *sigh* so I've decided to buy some from ebay, shipping is free so thats good but they sell them in boxes of 16 with just one flavor and I have no idea what flavor to get??? So if anyone has advice on their favorite flavor, or the flavor you can eat most repetitively or the one they know everyone likes, any help would be great. Thanks heaps.


Oh by the way Merry Christmas (only one more sleep) (YEAH!)

A wuthering heights kinda day

So today was quiet. Nothing very interesting happened i did some boring housework and started re-reading wuthering heights. Even breakfast was uninspired, just some Norganic Blueberry Cornflakes- tasted good though.















For lunch I tried the mushroom stroganoff I saw on the simply vegetarian blog, it was very creamy and i think tasted a little cheesy even though there was no nutritional yeast so that was cool












So just wondering this is my first Christmas as a vegan and does anyone have any staple Christmas vegan lunch recipes? I'll basically be cooking for me and maybe my mum everyone else in my family will be having lots of seafood and cold meats.

* Quote of my day: There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them
~ Sylvia Plath ~

Chickpeas and Christmas

So I've decided i'm officially obsessed with chickpeas!
Today I made toasted chickpeas, which I have like one zillion different recipes for but I ended up just chucking together my own. I tossed (maybe about) a cup of chickpeas with 1 tsp tamari, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground hungarian sweet paprika, 1/2 tsp ground turmeric and 1/2 tsp dried rosemary and then put them on a tray in the oven on low for like an hour. They turned out really crunchy and delicious! I added these to a simple salad with a scoop of mango chutney on top (the chutney is the most delicious thing I've ever tasted, it takes a while to make but is well worth it; the recipe is courtesy of Karen Fischer and you can find it on her website here)

Finally I made Dreena's easy pleasin' oat bars from Vive Le Vegan for dessert and then I was really full...
Anyway on a non-related-food topic I actually went running this morning, a feat I haven't been bothered to accomplish for months. I use to go like every morning for a while then Winter hit and I was way too cold to continue getting up at 5.30am. but this morning I was really in the mood for a run, it was so serene outside and it put me in such a good mood for the rest of the day. It even encouraged me to finally put up some Christmas decorations (i know how lame it's like a week till chrissy but whatever, better late than never), we still don't even have a tree up I don't think we've been in a particularly festive mood of late, but I'm attempting to be a little merrier, hence the delicious Healthy, Low-fat, Low-sugar Christmas Cake recipe:

500g mixed dried fruit
1 cup apricot nectar
1 tbsp agave nectar
1 cup cold mashed pumpkin
1 + 2/3 cups wholemeal spelt flour
3 tbsps almond meal
3 tsps baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1. Combine fruit and nectars in a large bowl and leave standing and covered for 1 hour
2. Stir pumpkin into the fruit mixture, then sift in all remaining dry ingredients
3. Spread mixture into greased and base-lined 14cm X 21 cm pan
4. Bake cake at 180 degrees celcius (fan-forced oven) for about 1 hour
5. Remove pan from oven and cover with foil
6. When cool remove from pan, it keeps well in an airtight container for a couple of days and it freezes well also

Merry Almost Christmas everyone