Mission Beach

Some food, some travel, lots of photos—I’ll try to keep the words to a minimum.

We started our holiday about 40 minutes north of Townsville at Frosty Mango. They make their own tropical fruit ice creams on site, mostly with fruit they grow there, and about half their stuff is dairy-free. I got a lime & basil cone and Andy got a dragonfruit cone.

The next stop was another few minutes up the road, Jourama Falls. Only 6 kms off the highway and then a 1.2 km walk, we got to a lookout to see water pouring down the mountainside.

Then it was back on the road through Ingham and north to Cardwell. Here we stopped off at the Rainforest & Reef Centre and went for a walk along the jetty to look at their shallow, mucky beach.

From Cardwell we just drove straight through to Mission Beach so we could check into our accommodation. Cassawong Cottages is made up of 6 private bungalows—4 family sized and 2 couple sized. We had a big spa bath, a giant bed, a kitchen, front veranda with a bbq, and a back balcony that looked straight into rainforest.

We took full advantage of the kitchen and bbq area.

For breakfast one morning we had pancakes (I pre-mixed the dry ingredients and brought them with us in a jar), with raspberry jam sauce (also pre-mixed in Townsville) and bananas cooked with orange-mango juice.

Full of breakfast we headed off further north. We went along the ‘Canecutter Road’ and saw lots of sugar cane and banana farms.

Then we arrived at our main destination for the day—Paronella Park. In the 1930s a Spanish immigrant built a castle with some serious gardens next to a gorgeous waterfall, and it’s mostly fallen apart now but it’s still really beautiful.

We continued north on the Canecutter Road and stopped at a colourful produce stall in South Johnstone, where we got a pile of avocados, and a two-headed pineapple.

Then we found ourselves in Innisfail, a small city in the north with crazy traffic—so we left pretty quickly and headed back south. We turned off the main highway to stop at Cowley Beach for some hot chips and great views.

We got back to our bungalow in the afternoon and had a snack on the balcony of olives, balsamic vinegar peanuts, crackers with avocado, and champagne.

A walk on the beach across the street from our accommodation worked our appetites back up for dinner—pasta, bbq potatoes, garlic bread, and grilled tomatoes.

We had to check out of our bungalow by 10 am, so we had all day to explore on the way home. Our first stop was Tully, just inland from Mission Beach, and a major sugar cane processing area.

We climbed up the Golden Gumboot at the centre of town. The boot is 7.9 metres tall, which represents the highest annual rainfall they received in the town, which is the wettest place in Australia.

A bit further south from Tully and back to the coast we found Hull Heads, where the Hull River comes out to the ocean.

Just outside Ingham we stopped at the top of a hill to take in the views of Hinchinbrook Island just off the coast.

Then we turned off the highway again to go out to Lucinda and see the “world’s longest offshore sugar loading facility”—a six km jetty. The jetty is so long it curves with the earth’s surface.

Our holiday ended the same way it began... at Frosty Mango. This time we shared a 5-flavour boat. Clockwise from the hot pink one there is Dragonfruit, Custard Apple, Cashew Apple, Mango, and Mamey Sapote.

Three days and two nights without any phone calls, work, or stresses was definitely what we needed.

We're off for a few relaxing days in Mission Beach, full of sand, rainforests, spanish castles, and quiet. Sure, Mission Beach is practically in our backyard, but we decided that we'd be better off staying close by and splurging on accommodation (have you seen the price of petrol lately?!). We got a last minute deal on a fancy pants Spa Bungalow, so we'll be living it up in style for three days and two nights. I'll be back to blog reading and posting next week!

Tofu, cauliflower and beetroot

Three things we’ve been eating a lot of lately.

We tried making SusanV’s mini crustless tofu quiches. We used silken tofu that had previously been frozen; cut the recipe in half; used dried mushrooms instead of fresh; and used tomato instead of capsicum. Some combination of these changes led to a complete disaster—even after 40 minutes in the oven, these had not set up at all. I took them out anyways, and let them cool hoping they would firm up, but... no dice. What we had was a tasty but shapeless pile of tofu mush.

We also had roasted beetroot (which doesn't photograph well) and cauliflower baked in a garlic-cream sauce, which redeemed the meal completely.

A more successful attempt at tofu—firm, fresh tofu from the asian grocery store. I marinated it in a mixture of garlic, ginger, hoisin, soy sauce and apple cider vinegar. Then I fried it up in my kick-ass new pan and it got a little crispy and caramelised. After the tofu was cooked, Andy threw together a noodle and veggie stir fry with chilli and the leftover marinade. Yummy dinner—filling, tasty, easy.

Cauliflower was the star of this dinner. Andy found the recipe for “Cheesy Broccoli and Rice Casserole” in The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. Instead of broccoli, he used cauliflower because it’s ridiculously cheap right now. And he added some frozen spinach. This was a really easy meal that uses exactly one dish in the preparation. It was pretty good, but we both agreed that broccoli would have been better.

Next to the casserole, I made some roasted veggies—parsnips, purple potato, and carrot with black olives and capers (based very closely on La Dolce Vegan’s ‘Roasted parsnips’).

Tasty tofu mush, take two. On the way home from uni yesterday I had a little bike crash when a kid on a bike swerved into me (on accident) as I was passing him on the path. We both ate shit, and I ended up with a scrape on my arm, a sore ankle and knee, some bruises and tight muscles. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t hurt at all.

While I was whinging on the couch, Andy made dinner for me. He decided to make the ‘Indian Frittata’ from Vegan with a Vengeance which features cauliflower, but reckoned it wasn’t going to set anyways so just decided to do it on the stove in scramble form. Then it took on a life of its own—he added potatoes, zucchini, carrot, lots of spices, and used silken tofu because that’s what we had. It was good, but not great.

I managed to suck it up for long enough to throw together a quick side dish—orange and ginger glazed beetroot. I just simmered a few baby beets with orange juice, powdered ginger and salt until the beets were tender and the sauce was thick. It was really good, but next time I’d use fresh ginger.

Now, we still have 1 ½ heads of cauliflower to use before we go to the market on Sunday! What's your favourite way to have cauliflower?

Queen's Birthday weekend

I’m not big on holidays, but this one has to be the silliest. The Queen’s birthday is actually in April, but Australia celebrates it in the form of a three day weekend in June. Don’t ask why, I have no idea. But ridiculous holidays aside, three day weekends are a good opportunity to relax, catch up on stuff, and have fun. In our house, it meant lots of cooking, a few hours at the Palm Creek Folk Festival, some shopping and errands, and lots of cleaning.

I started my weekend on Friday afternoon with a seminar on climate change and heritage in Micronesia, followed by some wine with the presenters (in actuality, much more fun than it sounds). I came home to find Andy making ‘Ethiopian Red Lentil Stew’ from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. With brown rice, bread, and more wine, this was a yummy way to wind down after the last day of the semester.

Saturday we did some shopping and errands, and I got a new cast iron frying pan from a very fancy appliance store. The shop woman told me she uses it for absolutely everything, it’s restaurant quality, it has a 25 year warranty, etc. I’ve only used it a few times, but so far I’m pretty happy with it.

And Nacho loves when we buy things because she gets a new box to play with.

One morning we started the day with tofu scramble with carrot, tomato and spinach.

And another breakfast was the ever-fabulous ‘Fronch Toast’ from Vegan with a Vengeance, served with raspberry sauce.

For dinner one night we made the ‘Punk-kin Pasta’ from La Dolce Vegan. Instead of tinned pumpkin, we used some we had roasted before. Instead of soy sausage, we used TVP crumbles rehydrated in stock, aniseed, and paprika (which tasted a whole lot like Italian sausage). And we added spinach. This pasta was really very good.

We made a batch of Real Food Daily’s ‘Basic Seitan’. After it cooked, we cut it into meal-sized pieces and stuck it into the freezer. We’ve been so busy for the past few months that our frozen stocks have slowly dwindled, but now we’re back to a good level.

We had coriander-cannellini cutlets with mashed potatoes, and sautéed beet greens with corn.

For dessert one night, I used up two old apples and one lonely sheet of puff pastry to make impromptu turnovers, inspired by Pleasantly Plump Vegan.

And finally, the last day of the weekend was spent cleaning for an upcoming real estate inspection. We worked up our hunger, so Andy put together this massive sandwich.

It has leftover cannellini cutlets, ceylon spinach, tomato, cucumber, dill pickles, coriander, mustard, sour cream, and perhaps some other things. It was messy, but oh so good.

Happy belated birthday, Queen, and thanks for the three-day weekend!!

Comforting things.

Sunday was the first day of Australia's winter, so it’s no surprise that I’ve been wearing sweatpants a lot of the time, and that we’re still eating lots of good warm meals.

This one started as a green curry and turned into a bit of a catch-all soup. Red sweet potato, carrot, spinach, snow peas, zucchini, chickpeas, and little gluten chunks were all simmered away in a mix of coconut cream, stock, and green curry paste. A bit of lime juice stirred in added a bit of tang.

And here is a good Australian staple food: meat pie. But without the meat, of course. I rehydrated some tvp (chunks and mince, for some textural diversity) in vegemite stock. We sautéed some onion, eggplant, and grated carrot with some spices. Then we added some shiitake mushrooms and their soaking liquid, and turned it all into a gravy. Some BBQ sauce, some other spices, and then puff pastry make for a yummy meat pie that has Andy thinking about it even a few days later.

What is it about small spaces that cats find so comforting? Whenever we open up a cabinet or closet, Nacho runs in (sometimes dives in). I know this photo is very dark, but she made herself cosy in the pantry, on top of our stocks of soy milk.

I’m pretty sure there is nothing more comforting than apple crumble. This recipe is a slightly modified version of the one given to me by Vaala. Delicious cinnamon-y apples topped with oats, wheat bran, butter, brown sugar, and dried fruit was amazingly good warm from the oven, but was similarly good cold to fill the afternoon hunger after a bike ride.

Beautiful hibiscus flowers are a good reminder that, even when it gets a bit chilly, I still live in the tropics and it’s really not that bad. On Sunday the new Animal Rights Townsville group set up a table at the city’s Eco-Fiesta, and at the end of the day the Townsville Hibiscus Society handed me two of their blossoms.

Even hibiscus flowers like to get comfy at night. When we woke up before the sun for the scientific testing, the hibiscus flowers had closed up shop.

Animal testing

In general, I, like most of you, am opposed to scientific testing on animals. I do make one exception, though--when the testing is done on human animals. Rabbits, dogs, cats, monkey, rats, mice, and any other animals should never be used in the name of science. Ever. But human testing, well, I think that's a good thing.

For the past week Andy and I have been part of a study being conducted by an honours student here at JCU. The criteria: vegetarians who exercise for 90 minutes or more a week. We fit those criteria, so we signed up. What we had to do was keep a 7-day food and exercise diary; and one morning we went in to uni before the sun was up to have our blood pressure taken, get some finger-prick blood samples drawn, and bike our guts out for a VO2Max test. The researcher took blood samples before and after the exercise to test for oxidative stress levels (I think aka free radicals that come from meat, processed crap, and environmental factors). She is comparing vegetarians with omnivores, so I was more than happy to take part in the hopes that more proof comes out supporting the health benefits of veganism.

Here is a tiny peek at some of the food recorded in our diaries...

Mashed potatoes, zucchini couscous, and beans&greens (cannellini and beet greens). The recipes were from Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, which I'm borrowing from a friend. Apologies for the poor photo quality.

Much of this produce from the markets on Sunday. For $22 we got all this. Beets, carrots, tomatoes, bananas, coriander, onions, zucchini, corn, eggplants, avocadoes, and 12--yes 12--tangelos. Funny story about the tangelos: we said good morning to the woman at the stall and she told us the tangelos were $2 for 8, but to grab 10 of them. A minute later her husband came over and told us to grab two more, "to make you feel good". Well, we feel good, but a little overwhelmed by 12 tangelos!!
This produce led to a curry, roasted vegetables, salads, sandwiches, and lots of other yummy food.

I lasted 12 minutes in the VO2Max Test, which was longer than they expected from me. Every two minutes the resistance on the bike increases, so it got harder and harder, and eventually my leg muscles went on strike. But it isn't all give, we get a bit of take, too. Andy and I will both get a detailed nutritional analysis, we'll get the results of the test (which is normally quite expensive), and we got a free set of measuring spoons and scales (practically the day after kristy and I started a movement against scales).

If I hear about her study getting published anywhere, I'll let you all know.

Update: Andy and I had a bit of a competition before the actual test, to see who could last the longest. Well, we found out the results, and here is the report:

Theresa:
Test time: 12 mins 20 secs
VO2max: 48.8mg/kg/min
Max heart rate: 180 beats/min

Andy:
Test time: 12mins 45 secs
VO2max: 38.9mg/kg/min
Max heart rate: 186 beats/min

* you both did very well in the VO2max test to cycle for over 12mins!

Pizza night

After a long week of uni work, meetings, essay marking, and biking, I was really in the mood for something less than healthy. Really, I wanted some junk food. As I’ve been flipping through La Dolce Vegan in the past few weeks, I’ve noticed the recipe for “Cheeseburger Pizza” a few times. Unfortunately, Townsville shops carry neither veggie burger crumbles, nor vegan cheese. But was I going to let that stop me? I don’t think so.

To make ‘burger crumbles’, I made a ‘beefy’ stock with vegemite and soy sauce, and mixed in some onion flakes and chilli flakes. When it boiled, I poured it over some TVP crumbles and let it sit while I made the cheese sauce.

The cheese sauce is my favourite recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, ‘All American Cheez Sauce’. It contains a carrot, which makes me feel a bit healthy and it makes the sauce that nice orange colour of overly-processed cheese.

Then, to assemble the pizza, I just rolled out a pizza dough that I had made earlier and frozen. Instead of pizza sauce, I spread the base with a mix of tomato sauce (ketchup) and BBQ sauce. I layered on a sliced dill pickle, sprinkled on the TVP, and then poured on some cheese sauce. After 20 minutes in the oven, I give you, Cheeseburger Pizza.

Cutting into it makes the house smell like McDonald’s—but without all the death and saturated fat. I think it’s the dill pickles that really make it seem like fast food. I really liked this as junk food, that is, not something to have often. I think Andy would be happy to never have it again. He didn’t hate it, but was reminded too much of Macca’s.

Luckily for him, while I was making that pizza, he was busy with a pizza of his own. He whipped together a Yeast-free Pizza Crust from La Dolce Vegan with the addition of a few dried herbs. Then he spread on some tomato paste, sliced an avocado and tomato, and sprinkled it all with salt and pepper.

Avocado pizza is one of our favourites, and if you’ve never tried it I highly recommend that you do. The pizza crust was okay, but I definitely prefer yeasty bases for my pizza. We both agreed that in a rush this pizza crust would definitely be called upon again.