Flat Chat

flat chat

adjective
Definition: busy: extremely busy
e.g. "Sorry, mate, I can't help you - I'm flat chat."

Two weeks left in the semester; a stack of essays to mark; looming paper deadlines; grant applications; interviews; community meetings; animal rights townsville; planning a birthday party; planning rallies and meetings with government; weekly seminars; dinner invitations; Andy's home (!); friends visiting from overseas...

And so I leave you with a week's worth of food in one post.

First up, brussels sprouts. Andy's first experience with them, to be exact. I mostly followed the recipe from La Dolce Vegan which came highly recommended, and for good reason. These were damn good.
Indian-ish feast. Roasted cauliflower with four-seed sauce (based on three-seed sauce from VwaV but we had all the wrong seeds)--nigella, fenugreek, coriander and aniseed. Spicy Indian Rice (minus the toasted almonds) from Vegan with a Vengeance. And plain and sweet potatoes tossed with mixed spice and flour and roasted in the oven.
Cold weather lately has been calling for stew. Hence Andy's creation--it started as an amalgamation of three recipes from La Dolce Vegan and turned into something completely unique. It had red lentils, brown lentils, yellow split peas, potato, sweet potato, leftover roast cauliflower, cumin, caraway, nutmeg, tomato soup, veggie stock, and shallots. And perhaps more. Served on leftover spicy rice and alongside some sauteed Wombok.
Cold weather also makes napping on the couch a welcome activity. If only we all had the time!

Pesto scrolls. I woke up early last Saturday to bake these, so that I could bring them to the Animal Rights Townsville meeting. Unfortunately, my morning didn't go as planned, I didn't get to come home before the ART meeting, and I had to eat these all myself. What a shame. Puff pastry, broccoli pesto, and minced olives = perfection!
Another thing I made for the ART meeting but couldn't bring. Red Lentil Dip, based on the recipe from La Dolce Vegan, but with lots of changes. It had massaman curry paste, cinnamon, peanut butter, cumin, onions and garlic, red lentils, and tofu. Yummy, especially with vegan rice crackers.
For Andy's welcome-home, I made the 'Tease Cake' from Ultimate Uncheese. The bulk of this cake is made not from tofu or soy cream cheese, but from millet. It was surprisingly good. Instead of lemon I used orange, with a ginger cookie crust, and a topping of Maya Gold Ganache.

Andy wasn't hungry for dessert after travelling all afternoon, so I left it in the fridge... and when I came home from uni the next day this is what I found:
Another welcome home meal filled with things Andy didn't get much of on the island--spinach, sauteed with garlic, sesame and carrot; mushrooms baked with garlic and olive oil; and cumin lime baked tofu & broccoli.
And finally, I'll leave you with an update on the kangaroo culling in Canberra that I mentioned a few weeks ago. The government had originally agreed to relocate, rather than murder. Recently, they changed their mind and said they were going to massacre the kangaroo population. Unfortunately for them, animal rights activists and Aboriginal traditional owners are not going to take this lying down. Eight people were arrested after climbing the fence, starting a ceremonial fire and reclaiming their land. Read about it here.

Coming soon: Andy's birthday. We're having a fiesta!!