Sayonara Vegan MoFo 2014

So after a long month of Vegan MoFo, we find ourselves saying Sayonara, So Long, Stay in Touch!  It has been a blast but exhausting.  For the final day of Vegan MoFo, I bring you some reflections on the month, some collages of my Vegan MoFo photos, and some random photos of recent food.

The final day of Vegan MoFo means all sorts of dishes I never got to share
 such as this delicious bowl of stew, roasted pumpkin and cauliflower,
raw spinach and sprouts, and leftover Mexican tofu crema.

I have had fun with my nominal theme: The Letter S. It has given me a challenge and a focus. I have made soup, salad, sushi, scramble, sauce, smoothie and sweets*. Dishes have been sweet, sticky, smoky, stuffed, spicy, speedy, savoury, surprising and scrumptious. Ingredients have included spinach, strawberry, sourdough starter, sauerkraut, smoked paprika, salsa, sprouts, squash, sweet potato and sesame seeds.

I had lots of ideas for posts that I never had time for.   However I do find that Vegan MoFo inspires me to try innovative recipes and experiment with vegan cooking.  I love seeing all the other crazy ideas and hope to be trying some of the great recipes I have encountered.

The breakfast roll at True North in Coburg.
Very impressive that a roll of eggs, bacon and bubble and squeak
 can be veganised.  And tasty too!

This year I was possibly the most organised of my 4 years of doing Vegan MoFo.  It was probably my busiest Vegan MoFo too.  I spent too much of it whinging about my stolen car.  As I write we are getting close to buying a new car, god willing!  I am much fitter for riding my bike more but still disorganised and most displeased.

This month also kept me busy because unusually for me, I was away at least one night every weekend.  School holidays and out of town trips have really limited my time and energy for MoFo.  Even this post is scheduled in advance because we headed off on holiday for the last few days of the month.  There is no way I would have posted so much if I hadn't written most of about half the posts before the start of September.

Perhaps the craziness of life gives me a good excuse for feeling that my Vegan MoFo posts list was not quite right this year.  Usually I list posts in order of the day of posting.  This year I had a silly idea to give each day of the week a theme and list posts in that way.  I don't think it quite worked as there was too much overlap and not enough discipline on sticking to the daily themes.  I may reorder the page if I find time.

One of my favourite vegan biscuits (or cookies):
Chocolate Tahini Cookies made with
oodles of tahini, maple syrup and choc chips.

I was delighted to be featured during Vegan MoFo, as well as all the lovely bloggers who gave me a shout out in their posts:

• Featured in Day 2 and Day 18 round up on the veganmofo blog.

• Mentioned on the PPK Forum (Thanks Rosie's vegan kitchen for telling PPK that there are "so many pretty photos" on my blog.  How sweet of her - just don't look at the old posts!)

• My strawberry chia seed jam was listed among Vegan MoFo favourites by Plantaardigheidjes and one of the inspirations for Little Vegan Bear's chia seed jam.

• Listed in the VFNGF daily faves and also included in her top 10 Vegan MoFo savoury recipes.

• Listed by Kari of Bite Sized Thoughts in her Vegan MoFo Round Up. 

• Nominated by Jasmine of Self Sufficient Cafe for a Liebster Award!  (Will do a post on it when I get time.)

• Listed in Vegan Daemon's Vegan MoFo round up for my sauerkraut, cauli and blue cheese macaroni cheese.

As always with Vegan MoFo, many thanks are due.  Firstly to E who puts up with it keeping me so busy and washes so many dishes.  (When I told him I was doing Vegan MoFo again, he joked it must be in spite of his many letters requesting they cancel it this year!)  Secondly thanks to all the lovely folk who organise Vegan MoFo.  It is such a huge and fantastic effort.

And last but not least, thank you to everyone who shared, read my posts and made comments.  I really love the flurry of community spirit during Vegan MoFo and the welcome extended to me as a vegetarian.  I wish I could have spent more time on random mofo, visiting mofo bloggers and commenting but that is the nature of Vegan MoFo.  Too much good food and too little time.  Yet I have loved being part of the craziness. 

I will be back next month with more about my holidays, my new blender and many more recipes.  I am looking forward to blogging at a more leisurely pace.

*Sweets is what we called dessert when I was a kid.  I am not sure how many others used that term but we often would ask my mum "what's for sweets?" 

This post is part of Vegan Month of Food September 2014.  This year for Vegan MoFo my theme is The Letter S.  Today is S for Sayonara.  Go to my Vegan MoFo list for more of my 2014 Vegan MoFo posts.