I recently got home from a trip to Australia where I visited my family for the first time in over two years and met my beautiful six month-old nephew for the first time ever. (Hence the silence on the blog.)
I didn’t photograph my food as much as normal as I was too busy photographing my nephew’s toes but thought I would share a few of my favourite meals and dishes from my time at home (most of which you can also find on my instagram account).
Vegan Barbecue
Being Australian, my parents have a proper barbecue. No little portable bubble that although adorable and fun, barely holds more than a few sausages (like the barbecue my housemates and I have). They have a proper, built in, multi-burner, multi-plate, hooded barbecue. And in a happy stroke of luck, my dad had purchased new hot plates for the barbecue just before my arrival. Meat-juice-free hot plates! Hoorah! I requested that we cook some veggie sausages on the barbecue before it got used for ‘real’ sausages and it ended up turning into a full vegan feast! As well as the sausages we had barbecued pumpkin, sweet potato, aubergine, stuffed mushrooms and some left-over roast potatoes. Heaven.
Chickpea and Grilled Aubergine Curry
Not the best quality photo but a pretty quality meal that I cooked for my mum and me!
Vegan Mezze
One night my Mum and I put together an amazing mezze feast! we had (clockwise from left) green salad, pepper and cucumber with mixed dips (baba ganoush, home-made guacamole, houmous and a spicy dip that I can’t remember the name of…), roast pumpkin with pine-nuts and spinach, dolmades, bulgur wheat, lentil patties, falafel, fresh Turkish bread and corn chips. Seriously amazing.
Stewed Rhubarb Muesli
My grandfather used to grow rhubarb in his veggie garden and we’d have it stewed on top of cereal in the mornings. I absolutely loved it as a kid; I hadn’t eaten it in about ten years but Mum had made some and it tasted just as amazing as I remembered!
Banana-Rhubarb Breakfast Smoothie
Continuing on with the rhubarb theme, I made a smoothie one morning with soy milk, fresh raspberries and a big dollop of stewed rhubarb. Divine.
Vegan Orange Birthday Cake
I turned older while I was in Australia. This birthday cake was my mum’s first foray into vegan baking and I was super-impressed and super-touched that she went to the effort for me. Thanks, Mum!
And just because I can, here are a few shots of Sydney.
