Mirabar

Hi lovely ladies! Today my friend Mel came over to help me attempt (i stress the word) make a larabar style thing. We went on the larabar website and chose to recreate the one with fewest ingredients- the cashew cookie bar. It was just dates & cashews- seems simple enough- right?
So first we soaked 1/2 cup dates in boiling water for a little bit and squished them around then we food processed 1/4 cup cashews until they were fairly fine. We proceeded to chuck the mushed up dates into the processor, combining the two ingredients.
It turned out a little mushy but we were able to shape it into a bar which we stuck in the freezer so it would harden. Here's a video of us, Mel was determined to make a laraball instead of a bar! LOL:
Sorry bout the upside down-ness of the video!

The second vid is just Mel messin round!
Anyway I dn't have a finished product of the laraball cause us greedy girls gobbled it up straight from the freezer, but I did take this pic of my attempt at a larabar:
And now for the verdict...
Well we left it in the freezer for about 2hrs, it was pretty solid but we probably could have left it in for longer if we weren't so eager to eat it! It was pretty scrumptious, probably a little too mushy though and there were still little pieces of date that hadn't processed properly. Since I have no frame of reference to what a larabar actually tastes like I don't know if it comes anywhere near close to tasting similar but we both thought it tasted pretty darn good for what it was. I'll definitley be giving this experiment another try, maybe attempting a flavor with more ingredients next time like the cinnamon roll.
Anyway feedback on the bar is very appreciated, does it look anything similar?? What do you think I could do differently next time?? What are they suppose to taste like in comparison to something?? Thankyou all heaps and heaps
Have a fantastically great night!!

Flannery Fun

Today I stopped by Mrs Flannery's (a health food store) and picked up all these goodies:
It was such a fun trip, I hadn't been to the Robina Mrs Flannery's before & it's so much bigger & better than others! My haul included vegan parmesan, wakame, a bliss bar, mungbean & soybean organic chips, torula yeast, freeze-dried apricots, apple cider vinegar, a kitz super supreme bar as well as kitz herb, dulse & spirulina crackers and some blackstrap molasses! I was so excited, plus mum doesn't think i've been getting enough iron lately and she talked about it to one of the women working there who suggested i drink a warm glass of soymilk with 3tblsp molasses at night before bed to increase my iron intake, which is no problem with me- sounds yum!

After my successful shop we stopped by a little organic vegan restaurant (cause obviously we hadn't bought enough food that day!) The cafe called One World Love Cafe had the yummiest sounding dishes; i found it hard not to say 'i'll have one of everything!' However I was able to restrain myself and ended up with a scrumptious aduki bean patty. It was good crispy on the outside and all squishy goodness inside...
I then tried one of their green smoothies, it was made with apple, spinach and parsley though the parsley was hugely overpowering it so it tasted like i was drinking pure parsley. I'm not the hugest parsley fan in the world but I drank it up anyway knowing how super good it is for me

Mum tried their potato bake with a side salad which she absolutley adored!
I was pretty full after downing my parsley smoothie but i desperately wanted to try the goji berry & coconut slice they had so I took one home for later and it was SU-PERB! So good, this picture in no way does it justice. It was sweet but not too sweet with a hit of coconut-ty deliciousness & a slight goji berry undertone
Anyway I really wanna buy a good yoga dvd on ebay but I can't decide. Anyone know of a really good yoga dvd?? Also I'm going to take the suggestions of several people and make my own lara-type style bars so watch out for those comin your way soon

Keep smiling everyone :)

Sweet Mushrooms..mmm..

I'm lovin my whole frozen stuff at breakfast at the moment, so today I whipped up another frozen treat. It's soaked cashews and dates blended with a little vanilla essence, a splash of maple syrup and a frozen banana. Yummo, it was more of a dessert really but still uber-good for brekkie.

After a long work day (!) i had a small salad with baby spinach, mung beans, sweet potato & flavored tofu and topped with my delicious mango chutney.

I spent the morning making the mango chutney & boy it is so good. I use to think chutneys looked disgusting but I am such a changed girl, now I'm obsessed!! I could eat jars of this thing seriously

Anyways I was extra hungry after my small salad so I had some more of my bliss balls from the other day, they were still good.
That day mum had picked up some extra large mushrooms, I'm talking about monster, mutant mushrooms they were huge and oh so delicious. I grilled them after filling them with a sweet potato mixture and some more mango chutney!! It was pretty good though the sweet potato kind of overpowered my beloved mushroom.

I was seriously craving some cold goodness after dinner and opened my freezer, to my relief finding some forward thinking genius (thanks mum!) had purchased some vanilla soy ice-cream, I then proceeded to eat a large bowl.
The name doesn't lie it's so good!
Peace.

YUM!

Today was very food focused, apart from a five hour gap in which i had to go to stoopid work- which was boooring.
Last night I chucked cut up mango and vanilla soy yogurt in the freezer, thus creating my breakfast for the morn. I think I'll call it mango & 'cream' bowl, it was sooo good! On top I sprinkled some brazillian nuts which had been food processed cause I love eating them all ground up. It was such a yummy breakfast and good for cooling me down cause it is so hot down here.
For a snack I tried the Kitz bar I posted about yesterday, it was Goji Berry and Choc Chip flavor and it was divine, I liked it better than the apple, vanilla and cinnamon one I tired. The buckwheat kernels just made the bar really crunchy and delicious I'm definitely getting more of these A.S.A.P.

I was hungry for lunch after work, mum wanted me to use up the tofu in the fridge that I'd opened the other day. I didn't know what I felt like but after seeing a jar of all natural crunchy peanut butter sitting on the bench I decided tofu and peanut butter would be a dynamite combo, so i spread it on top with some of the ground brazillian nuts from this morning that I hadn't used and tossed them in the grill.
I then proceeded to cut up mushrooms (I LOVE mushrooms) with spanish onion and baby spinach which I lightly cooked in the fry pan and ate alongside some raw green beans.
My nutty tofu, which I'd been expecting to be brilliant (after all what isn't brilliant when peanut butter is involved?) wasn't all that great, it tasted a little bland but I'm determined to try again with some other ingredients added, maybe tamari or something, any suggestions??

Dinner was *drumroll please* ....seitan!
A BIG thanks to Theresa from The Tropical Vegan for supplying me with the recipe. It was brilliant, so yum, not at all what I expected it to taste like, but really, really delicious all the same. And so filling too. I enjoyed my seitan with some cut up carrot sticks and kalamata olive and cashew dip, as well as some snow peas.
Now I'm off to do a quick bike ride and read something- i don't know what yet.
Catch you soon, keep smiling :)

Feedbag(&more)

Jack is fine- thank gosh! The vet said the tumor was as big as a football and weighed almost 4kg! Jack has to stay at the vet a couple nights and Kira is missing him terribly but at least he's okay, thankyou all so much for the support.
Today was so productive, as much as i love chilaxed, lazy days i always feel great at the end of a day when i know i've achieved some much needed stuff. It was a shopping day (the best kind of day!) i found a new school bag at David Jone's which is so cute, it's called a feedbag and ever one bag bought feeds a child for a year. It's reversible and really big, so very useful for my school stuff.

I also found these raw food bar things that are so cool, there my version of the larabar since i've yet to be able to get any! I ate an apple, vanilla and cinnamon one today and am saving this bad boy for tomorrow:
I also watched the Frost/Nixon movie at the Arts Centre, it was so well done! The acting was amazing, especially the man who played Nixon, he was so incredible. Dinner tonight was a mish-mash of things we needed to get rid of in the fridge. I had carrot sticks dipped in this delicious kalamata olive and cashew dip with corn, asparagus and grilled mushrooms filled with homemade 'cheeze' (it's basically nutmeat but it tastes really good!)

Anyway I have to jet, I have to hurry to work before I'm late. Have a fantastic day
Oh and p.s expect to see some seitan being made tomorrow-yeah!

Taking my mind off my dog...

I'm extremely anxious today because my puppy Jack has to go in for an operation. He has a tumor on his spleen, i'm so super-worried that he won't make it out, and praying he'll be okay. I took pics of him this morning, he looked so adorable all shaved...


















This is my other doggy Kira, she is so dopey I just love her!









Anyway trying to take my mind off him I decided to jump on the computer and mess about. I remembered a while ago my friend and I were youtube-ing it up, you know just playing around watching stoopid stuff and we came across this little brainteaser. Supposedly it was tested on professionals and 90% of them got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. It is really funny and hard I got all wrong answers lol! I don't know if that means I'm smart or stupid but it's fun all the same. I tried to put it up on the blog but it took for....ever, so here's the link, you should check it out, very interesting.

As for my eats today they weren't too exciting. I'm loving the summer fruit at the moment so breakfasts have consisted mainly of mangoes, plums, cherries and other scrumptious stone fruits. I wanted to make these millet burgers from Vegan: Over 90 mouthwatering recipes for all occasions and i finally got around to it today.












They did not work at all, but i think that was due to my horrible cooking skills rather than the recipe. Not that they didn't taste good- they were pretty yum but they practically fell apart when i tried to take them off the tray.












On lots of blogs seitan has been a feature of late and I've been dying to try it. Is it very delicious>does it taste anything like tofu or tempeh? Anyway I'll keep you posted when I do make it (hopefully soon!) and weather or not it was a disaster. Oh and thanks for all your comments on my previous post about my career options- i tend to stress prematurely about most things! I'm such a stress head I'm trying to do more yoga to balance myself out a little more. I'm only up to like the second chapter in my ethics book but so far it's been très impressive, very interesting.
Peace Out All!

Lottsa beans?

Holidays are going so quickly, aren't they? only three weeks left now and I'm in my final year of high school which is kinda exciting but kinda scary.
Throughout my life I've always had a different career path in mind, from journalist to teacher to nutritionist or occupational therapist and like a zillion others, but this year (the one year it really counts) i have no idea what i want to do????? When I went to an open day at the University of Queensland the courses that really inspired me were like philosophy and literature, but i don't really know what career path these can lead to except teaching? Anyway to see if I really was interested I bought this book by Dwight Furrow which explains the key concepts in philosophy for students. I'll tell you how it's going...











Onto the food:












Morning tea was a new bar I found called Oxi-Plus, which I thought tasted alright a little too much dried fruit but okay.














Then at lunch I tried an extremely modified version of the Edamame Three-bean salad from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. I got back from work all prepared to make the real version and realized we were out of corn, basil, most of the ingredients for the dressing and chickpeas (shock!), so I settled on a baby spinach, kidney bean, mung bean and edamame variation with a little olive oil tossed in.














Then afterwards I had one of my bliss ball things, i don't really know what to call them, they're a variation of a myriad of different dessert ball recipes. I used soaked dates, coconut, tahini, carob powder, soy protein, agave nectar and almond meal. They were really delicious!
Anyway I'm off to do some much needed yoga, ta ta!