I love free stuff!

Well, I had a lovely surprise waiting for me when I got home tonight - 5 free tickets to Food Inc! The tickets come courtesy of Animals Australia, thanks guys!

I entered a competition a couple of weeks ago... I enter a lot of competitions but I never win anything - I'm so excited, I hope it's showing at my local cinema.

Dinner tonight was burgers made with Fry's Vegetarian Golden Crumbed Schnitzels - I completely forgot to take photos, I'm obviously not in the swing of this yet. Nothing too exciting anyway, just the schnitzel with some Edam Style Sheese (love Sheese, even more than Cheezly), tomato sauce (of course!) & mustard (LOVE mustard). Not too healthy, I know, but when I get home late sometimes I just can't be bothered... at least the bread was wholemeal grain :-)

Take 3

Ok, here we go again. I'm giving this blog another go, they do say third time lucky, don't they?

Today was a foodie day. Starting out with breakfast at A Minor Place in Brunswick. I've read numerous posts from other veg bloggers about Henry's White Beans (white beans, garlic, rosemary, rocket, dukkah & lemon) and I wholeheartedly agree that these are delicious, the perfect thing for a rainy Sunday morning. The coffee was good, not mind-blowing, but it was strong, smooth but not bitter and not overwhelmingly soy-milky (is it just me or do some Soy Lattes seriously overdo the soy?) Service was great too, fast & friendly, all in all I'd say a 4.5/5 breakfast experience. The partner (let's call him D) went for the Brazilian Breakfast, which was poached eggs, roast tomato, spinach, avocado, henry's beans and toast - well received but definitely not a fan of the beans like me. Sorry - no photos as I forgot my camera, but I promise to do better next time!

After breakfast, we wandered back down Sydney Rd & did a spot of shopping at The Radical Grocery Store (I love walking into a shop knowing that I can buy ANYTHING in there - no need for checking labels here).

This afternoon it was time for my Sunday baking. I like to bake on a Sunday, I think it reminds of my childhood when my mum was teaching me how to cook. My Sunday baking always consists of mine & D's lunches for the week, plus sometimes something sweet from my ever growing list of recipes to try.

For myself this week I wanted to try the red quinoa that I bought last week (I have eaten quinoa before but never cooked with it myself). I was thinking a stew, so I ended up throwing together a Quinoa, Chickpea and Tomato Stew. I kind of made this up, but I have attempted to include a recipe of sorts below.

Quinoa, Chickpea and Tomato Stew

• 1 TBS olive oil
  
• 1 carrot, diced
  
• 1 celery stick, diced
  
• 1 onion, diced
  
• 1/2 clove garlic, crushed
  
• 3/4 cup red quinoa, rinsed & drained
  
• 1 x 400g can chickpeas, rinsed & drained
  
• 1 x 400g can crushed tomatoes
  
• 1/2 cup frozen or fresh corn kernels
  
• 1 1/4 cup vegetable stock or water
  
• 1/2 tsp each of ground cumin, ground coriander & chilli powder
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, onion & garlic & saute 5mins, until softened. Add the remaining ingredients - bring to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has been absorbed and the quinoa has become translucent.

For D, I went with one of my regulars - the Spicy Bean & Lentil Loaf from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. This recipe contains egg & cheese, but is easily veganisable (is that a word???) by replacing the egg with any substitute that you like (I use Orgran No Egg - we never buy eggs for home) and the cheese could be replaced with any vegan cheese or just Nutritional Yeast. (I should also mention that D is vegetarian, not vegan). I'm not posting the full recipe here as I'm not sure about reproducing recipes verbatim from published books (but being the good little librarian that I am, I shall research this during the week & make a final decision).

Dinner tonight was leftovers - Shepherd's Pie - yum! I also made this one up, again, I have tried to reproduce a recipe below.

Shepherd's Pie

• 1 TBS olive oil
  
• 1 onion, diced
  
• 1 celery stick, diced
  
• 1 carrot, diced
  
• 1/2 capsicum, diced
  
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
  
• 1/2 cup mushrooms, diced
  
• 3/4 cup TVP, soaked in 1 cup stock or water until tender
  
• 1 x 400g can crushed tomatoes
  
• 1 TBS tomato paste
  
• 1 tsp each dry herbs (I used basil & oregano)
  
• Salt & Pepper to taste
  
• 1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast flakes
  
• 8 large potatoes, boiled & mashed with soy milk & Nuttelex

Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat the oil in a large frypan or saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, carrot, capsicum & garlic & saute 10mins, until softened. Add mushrooms, TVP, tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs, salt & pepper. Cook, stirring, a further 10-15mins, until the mixture has thickened slightly. Pour the tomato mix into the bottom of a large casserole dish. Top with the mashed potato, then sprinkle with Nutritional Yeast. Bake 15-20mins, until lightly browned on top.

So that's it from me tonight, hopefully I can maintain the momentum this time around, so watch out for more posts soon!

Hot poppy

OK, here is something like a review, let me start by saying I am in no way a food snob; I know what I like & what I like is entirely subjective. I don't want this to be a foodie blog; I think I just want other vegan & vege people to be able to identify non-veg cafes where they can get a decent meal. So... here goes....

Partner & I had breakfast at Hot Poppy in North Melbourne on the weekend. I wanted to go somewhere new & I have never eaten in North Melbourne (though I have had good coffee at Hot Poppy before). I did some research & found their menu online that listed vegan breakfast options, so good to go!

First impressions weren't great. After sitting down & being tossed a couple of menus by a harrassed-looking waiter, we waited 15mins to be asked for our coffee/food order. I was also slightly disappointed that the menu we were given was different to the menu on the website. I cheered up when I saw the new vegan option though - a polenta, avocado, baby spinach & capsicum chutney pide. There were other more standard vegan options, like muesli or toast with extras etc & there were definitely plenty of vegetarian options.

The service picked up slightly & the coffee was good, I'd say 3.5/5. Food was yummy, fresh & full of flavour. Partner had the big veg breakfast, which from memory had eggs, mushrooms, spinach, tomato & pesto. Both servings were also huge & left us full until dinner.

Overall I'd rate the breakfast at around 2.5/5. I will give them a second chance, because the food was good, I just hope the wait-staff were having a bad day, because I really don't understand why someone would choose to work in a service industry when they don't like people. Also, this isn't the cafe's fault, but I really hate smokers in cafes. We usually sit outside to enjoy the fresh air & being joined by a smoker completely ruins the appetite. I don't understand why the VIC government hasn't banned this yet, will have to contact whoever is responsible & ask why the lag behind NSW?

P.S. Sorry about lack of photos, I don't have my digital camera yet.

I'm back!

OK, so it's been nearly 12 months, but I just wasn't sure if I wanted this to be a vege blog or a library blog or something else entirely; so I have been putting off making a decision. I have decided to make this a 'what I'm thinking about' blog, which will no doubt include stuff like cafes I've been to (particularly trying to help other vegans in Melbourne who have the 'vege guide to melbourne', which is brilliant, but just want to know which non-veg cafes can still provide a nice veg meal); it will probably also include fun or interesting library stuff that I find along the way too.

Networking and all that...

I love Facebook - it's really a wonderful way to waste time - I've settled down a bit since joining Facebook about a year ago - I've just incorporated it into my morning routine - breakfast, email, Facebook. I have gotten back in touch with many old friends and have learnt a lot more about my current friends and work colleagues. I can see how some people could find it useful as a professional networking tool, but I prefer to keep it at the social level.

MySpace is also good, thought I don't use it often. I'm hoping to set up a YA page in MySpace by the end of this year - I run a YA film club through my library and I think MySpace would be a good way to reach out to a wider audience.

I'm intrigued by the idea of Second Life, but it also scares me. I've witnessed first-hand what can happen when people withdraw from the real world into the virtual - the results can be messy, as people can lose a lot of real-world social skills. But I still think it's pretty cool. I guess it's important for libraries to have a presence in Second Life, but I don't see any great shifts in service delivery coming from it.

Collaboration made easy

I knew about, but have never looked at, all the online document creation & sharing tools. I think these tools are so valuable for those who can't afford or don't wish to support Mr Gates' expanding empire. Unfortunately in my day-to-day work I will continue to use Microsoft & Adobe products, but I can really see the potential. I like Jott, I sent that one onto my boss - he's always extremely busy and travels a lot, so I think it will be a great way for him to communicate with me on the fly.

Applications like GoogleDocs will make collaboration so much easier - I can picture school & university students getting a lot of value out of it. It could also make communication across library systems (rather than within) more efficient - I'm thinking particularly in terms of new policy development etc. What I think is really cool is you can convert the documents back into Microsoft formats anyway - so if you need to share it with someone who can't access GoogleDocs (maybe no Internet?), you still can!

MashIt!

I love the Web 2.0 trend of coming up with a new buzzword for absolutely everything that happens...


The best mashup I have seen was demonstrated by Chris Sherman at a Power Searching with the Pros workshop (highly recommend it!). Its the Google Maplets feature. Chris used the Geo-Biography of JMW Turner as an example, but there are many many more. Just have a look at Google Maps Directory to see them all!


Here's my first attempt, using Big Huge Labs.