Mexican spiced rice and rice bowls

Rice bowls are my answer to the demands of having a healthy meal when life is busy.  Once we have the rice, it is not so hard to build a bowl of goodness around it.  Our latest favourite rice recipss is a Mexican spiced rice that we stumbled across when it was a component of a Plant You recipe for meal prep burritos in January.  I have lost count of the number of times we have made the spiced rice since.

[Top photo: Mexican spiced rice with seasoned black beans, air fryer roasted cherry tomatoes, pickled red onion, lettuce, pickled purple cabbage, red capsicum.)

It is a simple recipe but has favourite spices and tastes lovely.  Great flavour for a little effort.  It can be easier with dried garlic but I really love adding jarred minced garlic instead.  Once the rice is made, it feels a lot less effort to chop some raw vegies, add some tofu or beans, rustle up any leftovers and a dollop of yoghurt or a squeeze of lemon juice and dinner is ready with a great tasty rice.   

 

Yesterday I had one of those crazy days when I felt overwhelmed by life.  I was working from home but it did not feel relaxing.  We are having a busy week with appointments, an exhibition, a movie and a walking tour.  At work I had meetings, last minute requests and new systems that challenged me.  Our cat clawed at my back to ask to me take him to his food.  My dad came at lunchtime to attach a new door handle on our backdoor.  The door knob had totally failed a week ago so he came over and hacksaw off latch.  We then gaffer taped over the hole until he was able to return.  Sylvia was on her online classes in the lounge room before going for lunch with a friend and returning in a burst of excitement at the good food.  At 5.30pm I had a history society meeting but wanted to print the minutes before I left.  The printer needed more paper and once I got it printing, it jammed halfway through.  So I rushed over only to find only half the subcommittee there.  I came home with a promise of doing the minutes and then heard that my next door neighbour's gorgeous little cat with the black love heart on her nose had died of kidney failure.

On days like that I start thinking I need to simplify my life.  One easy solution was this spiced rice that we had had on Monday.  I had cooked it on Sunday so that we had an easy meal on the first night of the working week.  Now I am planning to make this or other easy grains each week on Sunday night so I just cobble together a rice bowl of sorts each Monday.  It could be one small change to make life easier! 

One thing I really like about this  is that it does not stick to the bottom of the saucepan.  I have had problems with burnt and/or dry Mexican rice before.  So when I looked at the amount of water on the Plant You recipe, I decided to increase it.  Most times it has worked but occasionally it was a little wet.  As we usually have leftovers, this makes sure that the rice is not too dry the next day (or the day after).  If you prefer a drier rice, I would suggest 4 cups of water rather than 4 1/2 cups.

The above photo collage shows the ways we have accompanied the Mexican spiced rice:

• Top left: fried chopped panisse, seasoned fried tempeh, tofu scramble, grated carrot, lettuce, cucumber and red capsicum.  (Below you can see Sylvia's version of this that also includes sauerkraut)
• Top right: tofu "beef", lettuce, tomato, purple cabbage and chipotle lime cashew sauce.
• Bottom left: cheese and bean quesadillas with the spiced rice, lettuce, cabbage, red capsicum, yoghurt, salsa and feta.
• Bottom right: lettuce, red cabbage, tomatoes, corn, seasoned black beans, feta and crispy fried Field roast chorizo crumbles

You can see that not all the rice bowls we have had were Mexican themed.  We have also had the spiced rice with tortilla chips, tacos, and/or an adobe sauce.  I have previously enjoyed Mexican rice with corn, peas and red capsicum which would work well cooked in this or even some herbs or spring onions stirred in after cooking.  
 

 

This Mexican rice is truly a versatile side dish with many possibilities.  I would like to try it in an enchilada with beans and cheese or maybe in a a nacho bake layered with a chilli con carne, cheese and corn chips, and of course in a burrito.  It would also go well with a variety of salads on the side.  I have even taken it to work for lunch with raw chopped vegies and chickpeas and yoghurt.  I am looking forward to experimenting with it as one of our regular Monday dishes.

More Mexican-inspired recipes with rice on Green Gourmet Giraffe: 

Mexican rice in the microwave (gf, v)
Mexican rice (with salsa) (gf, v)
Okinawa taco rice - meat-free (gf) 
Spinach, pumpkin and bean burritos (gf)
Stuffed squash with tex mex rice and beans (gf, v)

Mexican spiced rice
Adapted from Plant You
Serves 6

 To fry the rice:

• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 1 1/2 cups white long grain rice, (I use basmati)

 Spice seasoning:

• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp garlic powder or paste
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
• 1/4 tsp black pepper 

To boil the rice:

• 4 to 4 1/2 cups water (or less)
• 1 tsp stock powder 
• 1 tbsp lime juice, optional, for brightness

Put together the spice seasoning mixture first so you are ready to add it when rice is cooked.  I usually heat the frypan on low while I do this.

Heat oil in a large saucepan.  Once warm stir in rice and fry for about 2 minutes over medium high heat.  Stir frequently.  It will smell toasted when it is ready but I find it fries a bit while adding the spices so a little underdone is better than overdone.

Add spice seasoning and stir constantly for 1 minute over low heat until well mixed.

Pour in the water and stock powder.  Stir well and bring to the boil over high heat.  Simmer covered for 10 minutes.  Remove from the heat and leave lid on to continue absorbing the steam for at least 10 minutes.

Serve hot or warm.  The spiced rice can be made the night before or kept in the fridge for a few days. 

On the stereo:
Chelsea Girl: Nico

In My Kitchen: April 2026

April was a busy month of Easter celebration food, including hot cross buns and vegan Easter chocolate ,and lots of easy meals.  We were eating more stews and baked potatoes as the weather cooled in the first half of the month before it returned to the balmy mid 20s in the second half of the month. I made old faves (zucchini slice, lentil soup, mock tuna salad) and had fun with some new recipes (a polka dot nut roast of sorts, miso bean pasta and spanikopita).  Sylvia made lots of scrambled tofu lunches.  

As always, I will also write a My Monthly Chronicles post with more about outings and eating out in April. I also celebrated my 19th blog anniversary with post on the Coconut and chocolate layer cake that I made for the Cake picnic last month.

The above picture is from the polka dot nut roast I made for a bit of fun at Easter.  I was inspired by my Christmas nut roast and my Aboriginal flag nut roast but needed to make it vegan for Sylvia.  So I added some tahini as well as besan and aqua faba.  Then I had to work out colours for each of the polka dots.  They all needed tweaking.  The beetroot colour was the best once I pureed it, I wanted the kale to be a brighter greener and the saffron was better in the Aboriginal flag than using turmeric. Another challenge was arranging the coloured dots and finding I needed more "white" batter around them and then realising I should have made the colours random rather than in a row.  It took a few hours at night and was quite an achievement.

I took the polka dot nut roast to my parents place in Geelong for the Easter Sunday roast.  I also made one for Sylvia and E to have for their Easter meal back in Melbourne.  Sylvia did not like this nut roast as much as the Christmas one that inspired it and I will have another go at veganising it.  However I was pleased with it and loved how the polka dots gave it pops of colour when slicing.  I would love to try it again and really want to play more with colours in nut roasts.  I just need more time for it.

On her first vegan Easter, Sylvia was able to find quite a few treats.  Clockwise from top left: Nomo cookie dough chocolate bunny and Mummy Meegz chucki chocolate (vegan creme egg); Plant Cocoa Hot Cross Hazelnut Easter eggs; Nomo chocolate egg with crispy pieces and a cookie dough bunny; Barbie Vegan gummy carrots (package); the gummy carrots; hot cross buns.  Sylvia loved all of it, though was disappointed she did not find any pana chocolate hot cross bun bars of chocolate.  The Planet Chocolate eggs were the best.

I baked the Sourdough Hot Cross Buns - my fave HCB recipe I make each year and experimented with (and posted) a recipe for Matcha, white chocolate and coconut hot cross buns.  They were pretty good except the matcha was too old to be very green.

I returned from Geelong with some good stuff, which is seen here with a couple of treats exchanged at home. Sylvia got the Nomo easter bunny from E, the Mummy Meegz Chickee Eggs (mini eggs) from me and I received the Health Lab Aussie lamington jam filled balls (amazing).  My sister Susie kindly found a bar of Lindt vegan milk chocolate for Sylvia, my dad organised gorgeous personalised glass Easter eggs to be made for each grandkid (Sylvia's is green and came in the unicorn bag), my mum made hot cross buns and my sister Fran gave me a jar of her Frankly Raw peanut butter.

Organising to buy vegan Easter eggs was more of a challenge than the regular milk ones in the supermarket.  I rode to a few places one afternoon to find them.  Pickles Milkbar had a good range of vegan Easter eggs.  While there I purchased a cheeseymite pastry scroll.  I asked about the sausage rolls and was given one to sample - it was a bit much mock meat for me but Sylvia loved it.  

On my travels I also purchased the Sweet William white chocolate melts, were was disappointingly thin an so sweet and the DJ&AShitake, oyster and nameko mixed mushroom crisps.  We have had the shitake crisps before and preferred those to the mix as the oyster mushrooms did not taste great.

I went to a work symposium and had a lovely time chatting to people in the breaks but did not spend much time getting myself food.  While riding home I found I was quite peckish and so I stopped at Cheaper Buy Miles in Sydney Road.  It is a grocery store with cheap remainder stock.  I bought all of this for $13: a packet of (tiny) vegetable mom, two dairy free almond Magnum ice creams, a tin of chunky pumpkin and chickpea soup, a packet of oregano Zeus Street Greek pita crackers, and a huge bag of mini potato cakes.  

Those mini potato cakes were a delightful indulgence.  I usually only have potato cakes with orders from a fish and chip shop.  These ones were so cute and lasted a while in the freezer.  They were great as a snack, a side and on pizza.

A friend offered me a monster zucchini and I could not resist.  It was from her friend's garden but she could not convince her kids to have zucchini fritters.  I made it into a vegan Zucchini slice.  Traditionally zucchini slice has been made in Australian households as an easy way to make dinner with surplus zucchini.  

I weighed this zucchini by chopping it into parts.  Initially it was more than I needed for the slice. I was surprised that the bulbous end weighed about 700g - and I thought the zucchini was much heavier than the 1kg I needed - but once I scooped out the seeds in this part, it weighed about 400g.   

This zucchini slice was much slower than the traditional one with eggs and bacon.  This one took a few hours by the time I had made a batch of tofu bacon, the tofu besan omelette mixture, grated and squeezed out the zucchini, mixed it all up and baked it.  It was amazing.  Well worth the effort.  While I used the Zucchini slice recipe from my blog, I added a bit of extra flour, besan and nooch which meant this time it was firm enough to slice.  I wish I could say how much but it was a bit of this and bit of that.  I also added panko breadcrumbs and sesame seeds on top.  This is the best zucchini slice I have ever made.  

I made my first vegan spanikopita.  I used a traditional spanikopita recipe from Somebody feed Seb with a bit of cross reference to the Lazy Cat Kitchen's vegan spinach and ricotta rolls.  I also used this vegan cashew feta recipe with olive brine that I have made previously.  I cooked it a bit longer this time and it was better for crumbling but still needs to be a bit thicker.  Sylvia was keen on making the spanikopita as a coil.  I learnt that a coil needs to be baked in a tin or it will crack and flick out at odd angles like a broken spring.  It was pretty good.  Could be better.  I am determined to try this again.

Sylvia's favourite lunch at the moment is scrambled tofu.  She fries up some chopped sausage or tofu bacon, crumbles in unpressed firm tofu and adds in lots of seasoning: nutritional yeast flakes, stock powder, dijon mustard, turmeric, smoked paprika, garlic powder, black salt and black pepper.  Then it just needs to be stirred for a few minutes until well combined and sometimes baby spinach is added after the gas jet is turned off.  It doesn't take long at all.  We had had it lots of ways.  Above clockwise from the top are scramble and lettuce in a tortilla wrap; scramble and baby spinach on toast: scramble, tomato, lettuce and rice;  and scramble with mini potato cakes and spinach.  All were excellent.  Sylvia told me that the rice bowl presentation was very la-di-dah!

One lunchtime when we had a good sourdough bread I made a Mock tuna (chickpea) salad and stuffed it into a sandwich with lots of scramble and a generous handful of baby spinach.  It was so good.  I put a skewer in it to hold it together for the photo because it was so stuffed that it was struggling to fit together.

I love tempeh but Sylvia is not so keen on it.  She has been trying some dishes with tempeh that tempts her.  tempting tempeh!  This Creamy Orzo with Tempeh Crumbles was a great dish for the tempeh doubters.  It had vegan cream, cannellini beans, roasted eggplant and sun dried tomato.  I forgot to check the eggplant while roasting and it was pretty charred.  Again I am more of an eggplant lover than Sylvia and was less fazed by her by the char.  I hope we make it again - maybe with peas for a touch of green next time!

Another delicious new meal was this Bean Miso Pasta with a creamy sauce made by blending a tin of butterbeans, including the liquid, with white miso, sesame oil, nutritional yeast flakes and lemon juice.  It was so easy and tasty that it was made two weeks in a row.

I have made this Creamy lentil and vegetable soup two weeks in a row.  It is a great way to use up vegies in the fridge.  I wonder how it would be with some pumpkin in it!  I found it in a favourite Alison Holst cookbook years ago when I cooked from cookbooks so much more than online recipes.  It has been so lovely that I have an urge to return to my cookbooks.  I just need to find more time for them!  I was pleased to update the photo in my original blog post as the first one was not pretty!!!!

I returned to this Gnocchi, Cabbage and Sausage recipe that I had made from a couple of recipes and wrote about in last month's In my kitchen post.  I tried it a different way by adding water after the initial frying so the cabbage was partly boiled and greener than when I had just fried it.  I preferred it this way but Sylvia didn't.  I think it might have had something to do with the gnocchi being cooked too much but can't remember.  This needs more work but it is a good easy meal that I want to develop.

We make pizza with my ridiculously easy Fast track sourdough pizza dough most Friday nights.  This pizza pictured was a fantastic vegan pizza I made that was topped with  tomato sauce, mushroom, capsicum, olives, chopped leftover baked potato, Damona almond feta and grated Damona American cheese.  I usually put dairy cheese on mine but occasionally make it vegan so I can share with Sylvia.

This picture is from my bed when I had pizza leftover on a Saturday morning and was reading in bed.  I don't do it too often but I am finding that occasionally reading in bed on a weekend morning is a great way to get more reading in.  Perhaps this is why I have finished as many books in 4 months as I read in the whole of 2025!  I started a couple that I could not finish as I kept losing track of them with infrequent reading.)  In April I have enjoyed reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer, with Annie Barrows) and Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900-1970 (Jacqueline Kent).

(I have passed on my copy (from the op shop) of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to my dad who is on driving around Tasmania with my mum and family friends.  He highly recommends it for holiday reading!) 

This Crispy rice salad is becoming a summer favourite.  This time we made it with lettuce, avocado, edamame, cucumber with the dressing from the Japanese cucumber salad and a sprinkle of fukikake. It is really good.  I think it wont be made much over winter but I hope it comes back into our meals again when it gets warmer later in the year.

I wrote about buying panisse from the Vegan market in My Monthly Chronicles: March 2026.  This is one of the ways we ate it.  I air fried the panisse while Sylvia fried diced potatoes.   (She preferred the panisse fried on the stovetop in our cast iron frypan).  I served mine in a bowl with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red cabbage, red capsicum, leftover Easter nut roast, yoghurt and pickles.  I really love bringing together bits and pieces in a bowl.

Here is our cat Shadow trying to work out how to open the kitchen door.  My regular plumber (not the cheap one who is no longer answering my call and I fear has retired) came to fix some washers and leaks in the bathroom taps.  He had installed my air con and checked if I was cleaning the filters.  The shame!  After a stern talking to, I smeared them with washing detergent and soaked them in the laundry sink before scrubbing them.  He suggested they get cleaned whenever the season changes!  Must try harder!

I moved a kitchen chair to get the filters out.  Shadow will jump to grab at the round door handle to try and open it when he is desperate to go out. Yet he lives in hope and was happy to get closer where he could try and work it out.  We were laughing to much to take a photo of him jumping to try and open the door.  Sylvia managed to take a photo of him standing.  He is such a long cat!  He is more successful with door handles that we push down to open.  We sometimes hear that thump as he jumps at a door handle.  As the weather cools and we shut the doors more, I expect we will be hearing more thumping soon!  

 

My sister finally flew out from Ireland with her son, 6 weeks after her plane was turned back on her first try.  We went to visit them in Geelong at my parents' home where they were staying.  It was good to see them.  My sister kindly brought presents.  Fruit candles for me.  Percy pig lollies from Marks and Spencer for both of us.  Vegan chocolate truffles from Marks and two gorgeous hair clips that you can't see well in the photo - a peacock and a parrot.  I also brought home leftover fried rice with tofu that my mum had made for lunch; it made a great work lunch.  Sylvia declared the chocolate truffles were wonderful and made her feel so much better that Lindt balls are not vegan.  

My sister also visited us in Melbourne while she was on our side of the world.  We had all sort of plans which changed as her plans changed.  There is never enough time for her on a quick visit home.  Sylvia and I went to Terre Mardre in Sydney Road where we bought lovely hummus, grapes, salad leaves, vegan tomato deli meat slices and a great sourdough baguette.  We served these with some tofutti, carrots, red capsicum, and celery.  The snack platters were great for my sister to fortify her for the epic journey back to my parents' on the bus that was so much slower than the train it was replacing.  Sylvia grazed on them platters with Chris and ate the rest for our dinner!

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 delightful seasonal hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.  

In My Kitchen: February 2026

February was busy with back-to-school, birthday celebrations, Shrove Tuesday, a mouse murder (by our cat), 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.

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.  

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.

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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!

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.

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.  

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).

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.

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.

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!

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.

In My Kitchen: December 2025

December started with the full force of festive frenetic activities and ended with resting in the blissfully quiet period between Christmas and New Years Eve.  I am glad it is time to take down the tree and move on with a new year.  But it was a lovely albeit tiring month with lots of fun and good food and excitement.  I will soon post My Monthly Chronicles December 2025 and you can see a list of more festive posts at the end of this post.

Above are some of our 2026 calendars.  While I no longer write up our appointments and dates on the calendars I still love to hang them in the house.

One summer favourite meal is rice paper rolls.  This is a colourful layout of fillings to be stuffed in the rice paper, with the vermicelli noodles out of the photo.

The weather has been some hot days followed by cooler ones.  There were still days when a baked potato was most welcome.  This baked potato was topped by broccoli, vegan cashew tofu cheese sauce and tofu bacon.  A most excellent idea Sylvia picked up online.

This linguine with a creamy vegan ragu of sausage, tomato and kale were made by Sylvia and were delicious.  Flowers in the background from pruning the garden.

It is ice cream season - the plant based Golden Gaytimes were a hit but I was less enthused by the Weiss Original Fruits ice cream.  I really love the raspberry and coconut Weiss ice creams but could not find that one.  The Salted caramel pretzel choc bits were nice - I liked the crunch and that the pretzels made it less sweet but there wasn't lots of caramel.

We were given this striking tin of Marks and Spencer choc chip shortbreads by our friends in Brisbane.  They were really delicious with a touch of chocolate and buttery crumble.

It was exciting to hear that Marks and Spencer was selling food in Australia but the range is so limited (and expensive) that it does not quite have the joy of being in one of their stores in the UK.  These Colin Caterpillar lollies are fun and vegan.

Our old melamine ladle is faded and chipped so it was time for a new ladle, photographed on a new scarf from an op shop.

We brought home a couple of huge cookies from Oh My Crumbs at the Coburg Night Market.  They were quite sweet but very nice.  Sylvia had gingerbread and I had Dubai chocolate.

Sylvia's latest favourite chocolate is Otherly.  This block of oat milk chocolate was purchased to be chopped up and added to Vegan chocolate mince pies.  So delicious!

This smashed potato, confit garlic and saltbush focaccia and pickle, chive and dill scone from Better Now Bakes at the Coburg Farmers Market were amazing.  So soft and full of favour.

Sylvia was gifted this vegan Farmer Jo Pistachio Spread (from Aldi).  It was pretty sweet by itself but I hope it might find its way into some interesting baking.

Sylvia did some experimenting with recipes before making Christmas day lunch.  She tried a few variations of Pigs in Blankets and decided she love the vegan version of sausages wrapped in bacon with a maple cranberry glaze.  They were easy to cook in the air fryer.

Another Christmas meal Sylvia experimented with before Christmas is a vegan Mac and Cheese which she made with a roux, a cashew cream, vegan (Sheesh) shredded cheese and nooch, inspired by this mac and cheese.  We added peas because ... why not!  It was very good but she went for a really good cashew and tofu cheese sauce on the day which was even better.

I love Nupur's recipes at One Hot Stove because they are flexible and easy.  We made her vegetable dumpling soup but with our own spin: onion, carrot, cabbage, garlic, ginger, firm tofu, kale, rice vinegar (1-2 tsp), stock, salt soy sauce, 1-2 tbsp white miso, dried shitake mushrooms, dried arame seaweed, and dumplings.  It reminded me a little of the way that I like to make miso soup with lots of veg.  We had leftovers and the leftover dumplings were a bit soggy.

We took lots of nice seasonal fruit to an evening picnic in front of Carols: cherries, grapes and peaches.  It was exciting to have these because they are all fruits that we only have fresh during the warmer months when they are in season in Australia.

When we went to see the Christmas lights in the city, we missed our train and had wait 25 minutes for the next.  To kill time, we browsed in an Asian grocer near the station.  This is why I brought home this bag of soy flavoured corn twists (like Twisties).  They had so much artificial flavours that they were too moreish.

After Christmas we had a great Christmas leftovers pizza.  Mine had tomato sauce, a bit of gravy, cauliflower cheese, peas, roast potatoes, roast pumpkin and sausages (because by then we had finished the nut roast).  It was so good.  Sylvia had a similar one with some Damona brie and vegan deli meats from her Christmas morning charcuterie platter.

This Christmas it did not seem right that we only had one ceramic Christmas plate and a couple of plastic ones.  As Sylvia is no longer a little kid, it seemed about time to replace the plastic ones with more ceramics.  We bought these plates at Bed, Bath and Table at their post-Christmas sale.

On New Year's Eve we had haggis nachos with the corn chips baked with a vegan (Sheesh) grated cheese.  It was not as good as dairy cheese but perhaps a vegan cheese sauce might work better here.  However with the haggis, salsa, guacamole and yoghurt, it was wonderful.  We invited E over to share dinner so he could have some pudding.

The (vegan) Gingerbread pudding with caramel sauce had been bought from Smith and Deli for Sylvia and E to have after their Christmas dinner.  They were so full from their dinner and lacking in time that it was left in the fridge looking classy in a black cloth tied with pink ribbon.  So I heated it (in the microwave) on New Year's Eve for a special dessert.  It was served with Alpro vanilla soy custard.

I leave you with more cherries, which are already becoming unavailable in the shops as their short season dwindles.  How I love to eat them fresh for snacks and desserts.  They are one of the joys of an Australian Christmas.

More Christmas posts in December 2025:

Christmas day, food and presents 2025

Christmas sights and lights in Melbourne 2025

Festive Art on Windows, Sydney Road Brunswick 2025

Coburg Night Market 2025

 

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's url to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header.  Happy New Year to Sherry and the IMK crew as this event brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.  And Happy New Year to all my readers.