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February was busy with back-to-school, birthday celebrations, Shrove Tuesday, a mouse murder, bike rides, and quite a few new recipes. We ate lots of Asian and Mexican recipes as befits a month of hot weather. I am glad summer is now over and we will have cooler weather but I will miss all the salads and summer fruit. It was also a month of big religious events such as Lent, Ramadam and Lunar New Year.
Above is one of our thrown together salads. This one had fried caramelised tofu, which we first had in rice paper rolls but found it is every bit as good in a bowl with sticky rice (from a microwave packet), edamame, cucumber, red cabbage, carrot, spring onions and furikake.
We are still trying new vegan foods since Sylvia went vegan at the start of the year. We have had Milk tea boba mochi and Pickle crisps both of which have been new favourites for Sylvia. I liked the crisps but am not a mochi fan. Sylvia tells me not all mochi is created equal and she loved the above milk tea boba one much more than the below matcha mochi with the bean paste.
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More vegan goodies: agar agar (for feta cheese below), Beefy Brats (still unopened but destined for greatness, we hope), the not good mochi, Wildy Good Cheese Cauli Poppers (excellent) and Pana vegan Rocky road Chocolate. The chocolate was amazing. Sylvia was excited she could eat it because it was peanut-free and had vegan marshmallow. It is lucky to get one or the other and rare to get both of them in a any sort of rocky road. This one also had vegan raspberry lollies and finely chopped almonds.
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Many months ago, I was given the olive oil bottle on the left by a friend who had two. In February I finally finished the commercial oil spray can. Since then I have had my olive oil in this bottle with a pouring spout and a spray mechanism. This spray doesn't froth up like the commercial one so I like it better. Next to my new olive oil is a pretty bottle of LaEspanole olive oil with an olive flower pattern and my favoured local olive oil from Cobram.
Sylvia has had some chia pudding breakfasts in the last few weeks. She makes chia pudding with soy milk and serves it with coconut yoghurt, thawed strawberries, sliced bananas and my toasted muesli. This seems too much milkiness for me but Sylvia really enjoyed it.
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I was intrigued by this vegan cashew feta recipe which had agar agar and olive brine. It was blended and then cooked. As I have not used agar agar much, I was unsure if I cooked it long enough. It tasted delicious as a spreadable feta but not quite as easy to crumble as the recipe suggested. I definitely want to try it again.
Sylvia made a really nice Pasta salad with jalapeno and chorizo from TikTok. It was quite spicy for me with the jalapenos but I really loved the vegan chorizo chopped up small and fried into crispy crumbles. It was great for one of the last warm days of summer.
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We have enjoyed the spiced rice from the meal prep burritos in a few meals - it is an easy way to add more flavour to meals. In the above photo I had quesadillas with the spiced rice, lettuce, cabbage, red capsicum, yoghurt, salsa and feta.
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This is another very satisfying meal with spiced rice topped with lettuce, red cabbage, tomatoes, corn, seasoned black beans, feta and crispy fried Field roast chorizo crumbles (leftover from the pasta salad).
We have been enjoying La Costena whole black beans in Mexican style bowls. Then we accidentally bought the La Costena refried pinto beans. The labels are pretty similar. We used it because it was there and enjoyed it. When we went to buy it again, we checked the ingredients in the supermarket and found it had pork lard in it. Urgh! So sadly this is off the menu now. But the whole black beans are vegan so we are still buying those.
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My worst cooking experience of the month was making a stuffed onions recipe that Sylvia had chosen. It was a recipe I didn't understand, it took forever, the ingredients didn't work as I expected and I thought the end result was not worth the stress. My idea of stuffed onions was a British one where the onions are hollowed out and stuffed. Sylvia's stuffed onion recipe was more Greek and Middle Eastern where each layer of onion is boiled and stuffed. I learnt the hard way that you don't separate the layers until you boil the onions. I didn't like having the different size layers and also having to cut down the side of the layers being stuffed, Even worse was adding faux mince meat for Sylvia. Of course it knocked all the ingredients off balance and I had to tweak and tweak and tweak! Next time I will make these baked onions with hazelnut, sultana and feta stuffing.
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Sylvia made Sesame noodles from TikTok (rhi.scran): ramen noodles with a sauce of tahini, soy sauce, rice vinegar and maple syrup. We served it with lettuce, red cabbage, carrot, cucumber and furikake. After the photo, I remembered to eat the edamame we had heated. I enjoyed the noodles much more than Sylvia, which is not surprising given that I love tahini and she is not much of a fan.
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Sylvia made some very impressive Tempah and black bean tacos for dinner. Another TikTok find from rhi.scran. I had mine - The filling were made in the frypan with tempeh and blackbeans,
onions, garlic, seasonings, lime juice and water, staffed into tortillas and baked in the oven. I served mine with guacamole, yoghurt, pickled red onion, lettuce and cabbage.
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I made the Sticky miso tofu that Sylvia found on Plant Based RD (I found out that RD at means registered dietician not Road). The miso made it a lot creamier than the fried caramelised tofu you can see at the top photo. I prefer the caramelised tofu but both are great. What was a great revelation was tossing the chunks of tofu into cornflour and seasoning and then air frying it. It was so crispy and delicious. We served it with sticky rice, lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, carrot and edamame. You might have noticed how much we have loved pairing lettuce and raw cabbage this summer!
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I found this Sweet Plus Dubai chocolate in Terra Madre. It was pretty delicious and cheaper (and smaller) than some other bars I had seen. I can't find it on their website so will need to check it out in store when I am next there.
Sylvia's favourite chocolate of the month was also pistachio. She was very happy to find the Loco Love's Pistachio Mylk Praline. It was pricey at $11 for 70g. It had not been easy for Sylvia to find so she was delighted both to be able to eat it and with the bar. She thought it a bit like a vegan Dubai chocolate but I did not, though we both agreed it was delicious.
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Shrove Tuesday always a great reason to make pancakes. I have fond memories of eating pancakes at this time of year as a kid before giving up dessert (which we called "sweets") for Lent. My childhood pancakes were never as decadent as these vegan chocolate pancakes I made this year. I wanted them extra chocolate so I added an extra 1/2 cup cocoa instead of 1/3 cup of the flour. I did not have choc chips but added 2 extra tbsp of sugar and used wholemeal flour. I cooked them with olive oil spray over medium to medium hot heat on my cast iron frypan for 3 minutes on each side. (The timer was more reliable than checking for bubbles.) They were delicious and not too sweet.
I served the chocolate pancakes with a strawberry chia jam (1 cup frozen strawberries, 1-3 tbsp water, 2-3 shakes of mixed spice, the juice of half a lemon, 2-4 tbsp maple syrup cooked on the stovetop about 5 minutes till thickened slightly), Sanitariums's vegan chocolate soy ice cream, Billy Van Creamy's vegan caramel cashew ice cream and maple syrup. Totally amazing! The recipe made a lot for the two of us. (This is not in the spirit of Shrove Tuesday to have pancakes leftover for Ash Wednesday when Lent starts but we are not practicing Catholics!) Next time I think that half the pancake mixture would be find and we would both love more of that chia strawberry jam.
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We held a Birthday tea for Sylvia's birthday. She had cucumber and cashew cheese spread sandwiches, sushi stacks, crisps, fairy bread, vegan marshmallow teacups, pink iced cupcakes and fruit. It was a small and relaxing get together. My mum brought the cupcakes and my dad helped saw through the old padlock on our back shed that refused to open up after I locked it (and I remembered the code).
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Here are some of Sylvia's birthday presents: an Angelina ballerina book, stickers, snacks, chocolates, jewellery, a butterfly hair piece, a photo frame, a Tori Amos CD, a tapestry purse, a tiny tea set and jewellery holders. So much good stuff.
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I also took Sylvia for a little drive in the west of Melbourne which included a visit to the Damona vegan cheese factory where we got all these offcuts cheaply. There are packets of American cheese, feta, Pecorino, Brie which cost $35 in total. We weighed the huge bag of feta a week or two after buying (and using) it. It weighed almost 700 grams and it was excellent. The American cheese was great on pizza and quesadillas. The Pecorino was really good on a Minestrone but had to be crumbled because it did not grate well. We still have quite a bit of it left.
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While out in the West I bought some Pistachio Kunafa Sptead from ipantry in Sunshine. I bought a jar of this from a local Middle Eastern shop last year and loved it so much I went back for more a few months later. They had stopped selling it as the Dubai chocolate craze is on the wane, apparently. Sunshine was the closest place I could buy it, though I had to order online at the door so they could give me the jars. I bought two because if it is not being sold widely I probably wont go out of my way to buy it again for a long time. It is so delicious and creamy and crunchy but is so sweet and decadent too!
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My final meal for the month was a quick Burger bowl (inspired by the one I made in my July 2025 IMK post). I really loved the vegan cauliflower and cheese burger from the Coles plant based range called Nature's Kitchen. We are not going to Coles very often lately due to the some of their underhand practices but these burgers call my name. I at it with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, carrot, cornichon pickles, pickled red onions, yoghurt and tomato sauce. (The tomato sauce is one from my sister at Christmas that has a personalised label! So cool!).
I also used up the last of the packet of parmesan cheese. Sylvia had loved it before going vegan but I don't eat it nearly as much. With her now being vegan, my eating habits are also changing. I am not sure I will continue to buy parmesan regularly, I haven't bought eggs fall year and I only have bought the vintage tasty cheese but none of our regular mozzarella grated blend. I am eating less sweet foods as being vegan has limited the amount of sweet baking Sylvia and I are eating from fancy bakeries. Overall the change is positive and as you can see, we are finding lots of new vegan meals to enjoy!
I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month. Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header. Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.
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