and now we are three

Planet Vegmel is turning three! To celebrate, there will be a birthday picnic potluck at Edinburgh Gardens on September 15th (a Saturday) from around 1pm. Come along, readers, bloggers and friends all! It'll be my first potluck in a year (since the 2nd Birthday Potluck, in fact!), and it'll be great fun. There will be another zine! Maybe more badges! Maybe something new!

You can find more details at the fb event page, which will include up to the minute updates if required in the event of rain.

planet vegmel birthday potluck + blog event part ii

It was Planet VegMel's birthday! So there was a birthday picnic at Edinburgh Gardens, and the weather was beautiful. I took a whole bunch of photos at the picnic, if you'd like to see them you can check them out at my flickr. Cindy has also done a bit of a round up post!

There were zines (which you can download here)



and badges



and there was lots of food!



For drinks, we started with chamomile lemon iced tea, with maple ice cubes, made by K; and a mango lasso made by the Veganator.

Michael made potato chickpea enchiladas, originally seen on veganise this; Emilly made an eggplant salad; and I made the quinoa avocado salad that has been remixed by many VegMelers.

Toby experimented with tempeh bacon, remixed from Where's the Beef. This was probably my highlight of the picnic, I totally recommend it! Also involving tempeh was Em's gado gado.

In news of other remixes, Carla brought along mock crab cakes, remixed from Cindy and Michael; and Mel made tofu quiches, originally seen at Vicki Vegan and Green Gourmet Giraffe.

Danni made sundried tomato bread and pumpkin + miso muffins (remixes from non-VegMel blogs).



For sweets, Cindy and Michael made PB & choc sandwiches, based on peanut butter alligators and chocolate ganache from Sugarspoons.

K made ginger ripple cake, based on a recipe by the Veganator; Mel made apricot delight, remixed from Green Gourmet Giraffe; and Em made Turkish Truffles, a remix of Mel's rum balls. I remixed chocolate caramel slice, from Johanna's original recipe.

In original recipes, Vicki posted about her peanut butter balls; Johanna brought blueberry cake pops (and they were so amazing); and Carla delighted us with lamingtons.

And that was the potluck, but not the end of the birthday:




two more submissions for that recipe sounds very familiar… previous entries can be found here.

Cindy and Michael remixed a beetroot chocolate cake, originally from the Fairest Feed.

Like Cindy and Michael and myself, Mel remixed Toby's Singapore noodles, a delicious noodle treat.

planet vegmel's 2nd birthday: that recipe seems very familiar...

September 14th sees the two-year anniversary of Planet VegMel, the useful and delightful way to read the foodie blogs of veg*ns from around Melbourne. In that time we've grown to 44 contributing blogs, covering all sorts of veg interests around Melbourne. We've also got a facebook page which, no pressure, you should feel free to like, and which is sometimes updated with links and new things that might not make it onto a blog post, such as the fact that there is now a mobile VegMel app!

To celebrate the Planet's two year anniversary, I am proud to announce the 'That Recipe Seems Very Familiar...' blog event. This blog event was suggested by Michael of Where's the Beef, and entails using the recipe (or recipes, don't let me restrict you) of a Melbourne vego blogger, and then blogging about it. Leave a comment on this post with a link to your remix, and on the 14th I will make a post with a round up of the original recipes and the remixes/attempts.



As part of the birthday celebrations, there will also be a Planet VegMel 2nd anniversary birthday picnic potluck at Edinburgh Gardens. Check out the facebook event for more details! Non-bloggers are very welcome to come along.

potluck 2: comfort food

Oh dear patient friends, I apologise for the delay in getting this carnival up. But I promise, though it is small and slightly delayed, that it is still a good read. This time the theme was comfort food, and all of these posts are about comfort food! Delicious, comforting food.

If you are one of my usual vegan readers, please note that not all posts linked to today are vegan, but they don't really talk about food specifics and you should read the posts anyway, because they are important and amazing and good.


Oddcellist talks about comfort food:

When I talk about the things I can cook, I tend not to talk about Chinese food—because I don't cook the way my mother does, even though I hear her voice every time I cook (fry the ginger until its flavor blooms, use day-old rice to make fried rice, people here like things too sweet), because I remain incredibly recipe-bound.

Vi writes (and draws!)about small comforts: tāng yuán.

Azuire writes ٹیڑھی کھی, about comfort food that's monolingual (and not):

What I felt when I discovered that اچار was not called that by others (and I know it was اچار because I'd had an argument about it) was shock. Pure and simple. The English names of food-things that had previously existed only hypothetically were now widely accepted as the only names for things. It felt incomplete, inaccurate.

In comfort fooding, Glass_Icarus maps a history of her comfort food.

I've realized that I don't so much rely on specific foods for comfort as I do on cooking and eating with specific groups of people. 火鍋 with my immediate family is different from 火鍋 with my relatives in Taiwan is different from hotpot with all the different permutations of my "usual suspects," friends from ballroom/undergrad. Dim sum with my "American grandma" is different from dim sum with my Chinese family friends (where there's never any explanation involved but the check-grabbing fights remain the same).

Sam Miskiv writes on disordered eating and veganism (and, in a way, comfort food).

Ephemere talks Hapag-kainan, dibdib: My language is one that eats and is eaten. If one is to speak to me of comfort and discomfort -- speak to me of food. And of rice.

Linstar writes about what makes comfort food:

I’ve often been asked what my favourite food is and I have very usually replied with something along the lines of my mum’s laksa or my mum’s spring rolls or something to that effect. My mum’s cooking. It wasn’t until recently when I was sitting down talking to a work colleague that I actually realised some of my favourite comfort foods aren’t necessarily my mum’s cooking at all, but my mum’s cooking brings an association of love and comfort. I’ve actually come to realise my favourite comfort foods are anything that can be shared, and that it’s the company more than anything which makes comfort food comforting.

And a little aside: Counter Culture, a book which collected food histories from the kids that Lifting Voices works with. Their funding deadline is past but the book looks great!


And now, with my spoon in one hand and my chopsticks in the other, I am off to eat my own comfort food, though I failed to blog about it. Thank you for reading Potluck 2! Potluck is intended to be an occasional carnival for multicultural and intersectional discussions of food, including but not limited to food discussions intersecting with disability, gender, sexuality, fat, animal rights, and cultural and racial issues. If you are interested in hosting the next Potluck, please drop myself or glass icarus a line!

mini cheezecakes

I went on a picnic and baked some mini cheezecakes (as the birthday girl didn't want an actual cake).



These cakes were coincidentally based on the cheezecake I baked for Em last year, but why change a delicious cake? I love this cheezecake a lot, and I've been a bit obsessed with mini things lately, so it seemed like a good time to give them a go.

I only needed about three quarters of the biscuit base mixture, so it's a shame I accidentally poured the whole packet in to get mushed, as there is now a whole heap of biscuit mixture in my fridge! I pressed about five millimetres of biscuit in to the cupcake containers. A note: use foil cups ONLY. Do not use paper cups. It will end in tears and recriminations when you go to eat it the next day.

Other than that alle the ingredients remained the same. I poured the cake filling in to the cake cups, on top of the bases, and put in to bake at 180C for a while. Then I let them cool completely, and made the berry compote and poured it on top. Rich, delicious success!

The picnic was lots of fun, it was a perfect day for it. Shar brought soup, which was super delicious, and Danni made the most successful pizza ever. And there was scrabble! And surprisingly I enjoyed watching season one of Friends.

vegan + gluten-free picnic potluck

So, I don't want to be the Spaminator or anything, so I've been holding off waiting for other people to post to Planet VeGMeL, but I am impatient and eager and cannot wait! And so I bring to you now:

THE STORY OF A GLUTEN-FREE VEGAN PICNIC POTLUCK
(please come back for updates as I link to other bloggers and posts)

On Friday afternoon I hurried out of work and jumped on the train, impatient to arrive home. I dashed off the train and to the house, straight up the stairs and into the kitchen, pausing only to kiss Danni hello.

I had important cooking to do!

But before all this: I woke up and marinated some tempeh in a mixture of tamari, garlic and sesame oil.

And before this: I cooked dinner Thursday night, and as the beans simmered, I prepared a nacho cheesy dip.

We were going to a potluck!

Kristy is new to the world of gluten-free living. Prior to this, she had been planning a cheese-themed picnic potluck for Friday afternoon, so she modified it to a gluten-free and maybe cheesy (vegan OF COURSE) picnic potluck. So keep in mind as you look at these delicious foods that everything that follows is vegan, gluten-free, and VERY TASTY.

So, you may be thinking, in what did all Steph's rushing about result? Well, I am glad you asked! It resulted in an amazing nacho cheese dip, about which I will blog (in detail) shortly. It tasted just like nacho cheese doritos, it was excellent! I do wish that we'd perhaps allowed it to soften a bit before we'd served it, as it was a bit on the solid side. And, since we were a bit time poor, Danni made a guacamole to accompany it.





We rounded out with a quickly thrown-together set of sushi - it's the perfect picnic food, though admittedly not very cheesy!

Cindy and Michael astounded us with these cheese and sausage stick things - they were pretty nifty! I really enjoyed both their taste and the novelty factor (cheese and sausage on a stick! Reminds me of primary school).



I know (because she told me) that Jo really wanted to stick with the cheese theme, so went with 'things you might find on a cheese platter.' I think she should be commended for commitment to accuracy, because the mushroom pate she made included a thin film of oil across the top, similar to one you might find on actual pate. (gross but) Awesome! :o) The recipe she used was this one here.

Her submission also included an olive tapenade, no opinion on its awesomeness because I can't stand olives.



Vicki managed to track down the mysterious and elusive (and expensive) vegan and gluten-free pastry, rumoured to exist somewhere in the supermarkets of Melbourne. With this critical item in hand, she rocked in with spinach and 'cheese' sausage rolls! The pastry was a bit crumbly (to be expected, as Vicki reported it was falling apart as she tried to roll it), but the filling was delicious and it was an excellent and tasty addition to our picnic! She has blogged the recipe here.



In VERY delicious news, Bec and Craig turned up with some amazing potato products. Craig made some potato cakes, which I am going to attempt to replicate ASAP, and because Craig refuses to blog, I am also going to replicate the recipe here shortly, so that everyone else can try them. They were deep-fried battered fatty potato goodness, they were so tasty. I want to make these for Amanda immediately!



Then Bec produced this mashed potato. "So what?" you might say. "Anyone can do mashed potato." Well, anyone can do mash potato, but this mash potato included some Tofutti sour cream, and I have never done that before but I am totally going to do it from now onwards. It added something awesome to the potatoes (I love potatoes).



Kristy and Toby made some cheese-related items. Toby made a goat's cheese sort of thing, that a lot of people declared was more like a loaf, and Kristy made this cheesy dip - I didn't try either of these, they were on the wrong side of the blanket and I was too full! Hooray picnics!



I didn't manage to sample everything savoury, nor did I get close-ups of everything. Some of the stuff I missed: a beetroot salad; crumbed tofu (actually I tried this, it was like fish fingers); strawberries; more chocolate things; olives; more chocolate things; a rice salad; crackers; and apparently my feet. And apparently also whatever Johanna made, but I'm sure I ate it. Hmm.



I am really enjoying this obsession with ice cream. Every picnic, every gathering, it seems we have amazing ice cream with which to contend. This potluck, fantastically, was no different! Cindy pulled out a raspberry ripple coconut ice cream, constructed at Craig's request. What an amazing idea! This idea, plus the execution of the potato cakes, may possibly have made Craig the winner of the potluck, but that is open to a vote and he would have to contend with Kristy's blueberry cheesecake ice cream! BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE ICE CREAM. My word, we may be vegans but we do not sacrifice taste and deliciousness, I hope that is obvious.



There were other dessert things, some of which I tried, many of which I did not. I made the tactical error of trying the chocolate goods before any other sweets (aside from the ice cream, of course, which had to be eaten first before it melted, oh the horror). I really have to remember that chocolate, in bulk, does not agree with me, and there was a large number of chocolate sweets with which to contend, including chocolate balls and a number of slices (not all of which are pictured below, mostly because my camera skills - and the fading light - failed me).

Other sweets included carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting by Vicki, buttery cupcakes by Carla, and a pear torte by Bec (the latter of which was so rich). Also pumpkin cheesecake brownies.



There should be more picnics. Because they're awesome.

all photos here

yee sang + cnye dinner

I am feeling the pressure, as many bloggers have already posted about CNY! Victor's post also includes some of the background to some of the CNY traditions.

This year, as we are far away from my family, instead of the usual family reunion dinner on new year's eve we had a vegan potluck. This was lots of fun, though we have certainly ascertained the upper limit to having people in our apartment (twenty and a baby)! And we had to do the dishes in order to enable dessert!

I made a kapitan, probably my best yet due to the fresh lime kaffir leaves I added, and the slight tweaks I made to the paste (a combination of chilli flakes, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, garlic and shallots). I also cooked up a quick choy sum and garlic in tamari sauce, because I figured that nobody would bring a vegetable dish (I was right!). ETA: oh! Tahn reminds me that she brought a veggie dish also. This is what happens when I don't take photos!

Because I was so busy finding bowls and making sure there was enough room on the table, I didn't have much of an opportunity to take photos. As a result, I will have to rely on others to post about the delicious food, and I will update this post as they do, so check back! There were some amazing dishes (almost all of them gluten free!). Danni did, however, manage to take photos of Em and Jo's yee sang, about which I want to talk.



I was really excited when Jo said they'd be bringing yee sang! Yee sang is a SEA Malaysian/Singaporean CNY tradition to bring abundance. Making the yee sang is quite time consuming, though relatively uncomplicated (although be careful, Em managed to injure herself!), as there are lots of long, thin pieces of vegetables.



Serving the yee sang is very straight forward, crack the dried stuff (in this instance, gluten-free papadums, but dried tofu skin or yao chao guai is more traditional), pour the sauce, and then toss. The higher you can toss, the more abundance you'll bring, so it can get very messy.

Yesterday, first day of CNY, because we hadn't had any noodles at the dinner, after going to the movies I cooked up a char kuay teow and some fried rice with the leftover rice from the night before.

Now we're all set for the new year! Sadly this means my hair is dirty, because of the no-washing rule (can't wash hair on the first day, and I didn't have a chance this morning). But other than that!

ETA: Vicki has posted about her gluten free sponge cake; Johanna has posted about pearl balls and apricot balls; Michael has posted about dumplings; Cindy blogged about orange and szechuan pepper icecream Toby posts about radish cakes.

新年快樂!

unAustralian brunching

We took advantage of today's unfortunate holiday to venture over to Lisa's place for a late brunch.

Please don't get me wrong, I am Australian and I like being Australian, but no way am I going to *celebrate* the invasion and subsequent decimation of a people. It's disrespectful, and it erases our history, which for good or bad is still our history.

Also, as vegans, we are already incredibly unAustralian, just ask the Lamb industry and Sam Kekovich. So we took advantage of the day instead, and had an 'unAustralian' brunch (ie, no animals were injured in the makings of our brunch).

We had a small but very convincing array of sweet goods.



Cate's cinnamon scrolls were where most of us started, and where some of us sadly thought we'd have to end - covered in molten sugar and filled with the same, this sent me into a sugar coma. However do not fear, I was not defeated by this deliciousness! I soldiered on.



Kristy provided lamingtons, I believe because Toby has never before eaten their coconutty deliciousness. These lamingtons were supposed to have soyatoo whipped cream in them, but there was some sort of cream dispensing failure. They were still delicious! ETA these were in fact jelly cakes! Which I ALSO have never before had! INTERESTING.



I woke up early to my alarm this morning, in order to bake some gluten-free berry cupcakes - six strawberry, and six blackberry, freshly purchased from the Queen Vic Markets. I did this by splitting the plain batter, and then carefully mixing into each half. This was the first time I have split a batter for this purpose, and it was lots of fun!

The savouries were also worth getting up for!



Craig and Bec, after cycling all the way from Richmond, appeared with these freshly made dips: one carrot, and one capsicum, to go with Bec's freshly baked bread. It was still warm! And it was very delicious (and gluten-y. and crisp. and amazing).





Craig also provided aoli and tempeh chips. These tempeh chips were super delicious and (allegedly) super simple, I am definitely going to give them a go!



We were super lucky to end up with two potato products. I say super lucky because I LOVE potato products, so I was very interested in eating these all up. Kristy and Toby brought these potato and pea hashy things (I don't know if they had an official name). They were awesome! ETA Kristy informs me these were in fact samosa pancakes. Fantastic!



Chris concocted this baked hash thing (officially, a baked hash thing), topped with nutritional yeast/savoury yeast flakes. It was very squishy but very tasty!



At first I was really conflicted by the 'unAustralian' theme of our brunch. I mean, such a term is immediately fraught with problems and opportunities for parochial crap, and, you know, the positioning of anything that isn't meat pies or anything that is 'foreign' as being, well, foreign.

But such complications didn't prevent me from making only my favourite breakfast food ever, char kuay teow. It is the best. I eat it as often as I can for breakfast.



To round things out (or more accurately, to begin it), Lisa provided us with miso soup and some okonomiyaki. I haven't had miso soup in an age, and it was a delicious and refreshing way to start our brunch. It was great! The okonomiyaki was also pretty tasty, and as Lisa said, clearly nom because it has nom in the name!

full set of nom photos here. I will update this post with recipes as they appear on the internets. Cate has a post up about brunch.

vegan potluck picnic - princes park

Yesterday we went on a Vegan Pot Luck Picnic to Princes Park, just a short tram ride from our house. There were lots of Melbourne vegans in attendance, and this resulted in lots of yummy vegan food.

In an amazing turn of events for any picnic, most everyone arrived at or close to the start time. This was because Cindy had let us know that she would be bringing savoury ice cream, and as it was a picnic the ice cream would simply have to be eaten first, before it melted!

This was a lie. Although the weather was warm, it took the ice cream a good half hour to soften sufficiently for serving!



Opinions were divided on this new treat. Cindy provided us with two savoury ice creams to sample, one avocado and one tomato. The avocado was likened to eating frozen guacamole; the tomato, to frozen tomato soup. Cindy has blogged the recipe and process here.

In the meantime, as we waited for the ice cream to melt, we started in on the ample savoury goods.



It was awesome to meet Carla for the first time. She brought along a delicious roast carrot dip, and a great basil pesto. Both of these were amazing deliciousness.



Vicki brought along a muffaletta. I was really excited about this because I haven't had one in ages! It was really dense, and filled with pesto, sun-dried tomato, capsicum, olives, and artichokes, and I think perhaps some other things I have forgotten.



Tahn brought some wraps filled with hommous, avocado, carrot, lettuce and some other delicious things. They were tightly wrapped and soft and squidgy, which made them lots of fun to eat (and dare I say it, even more delicious than usual?). She also brought three children, Popeye, and a whole lot of fruit and some chocolate banana bread (which I didn't get to try! sadface). She's already blogged about the picnic here.

Other raw and refreshing foods were provided by Craigiepants (has a blog, refuses to use it), who brought along some rice paper rolls. He claimed that these were poorly rolled, but he lies, because these were well rolled and very delicious.



Bec made vol au vonts, and these were GIANT. Fortunately they were delicious (so delicious that Toby refused to share them). The pastries for these were store bought, so they do exist!



Kristy and Toby rocked in with a basket full of delights, starting with this vegan pate. Being a pate disliker from way back, I ended up passing on this veganised version, so I can't tell you what it tasted like! For the very first time EVER, Toby tried his hand at sushi. He used the recipe from Tempting Tempeh for the tempeh and avocado rolls, and then made a sushi version of a classic sandwich, cucumber and (tofutti) cream cheese. These were great, I love the idea! (also sushi)



I brought along some gado gado. I love making gado gado and lontong! It's all cold and squishy and delicious. I use the same recipe every time, which I've previously blogged here. Plus it gave me the opportunity to use up the yao chao guai that had been languishing in the freezer for two months.



For drinking, we had an assortment of picnic delights. Kristy made up some raspberry lemonade (with actual raspberries lurking in the pitcher) (recipe here), and then we ventured into alcoholic territory with some gin and tonics, and a whole lot of beers. I wished desperately that I had brought some pimms, but our picnic basket was just too heavy!



Utilising the recipes of others, Lisa brought some chocolate hedgehog slice (based on my recipe); and D made some oreo truffles, based on sj's recipe.



Continuing with the truffles, Kristy made some cheesecake truffles, recipe inspired by Tahn. Vicki made her own jam, and then made jam thumbprint cookies! This was inspired and excellent. More people should make jam! (and then give it to meeee)



Johanna made some more truffle-y things (awesome), and something sweet and fruity that I didn't get to try, I was so stuffed!

Did I miss anything? I'm not sure, there was so much food and it was so incredible. This was an amazingly delicious picnic, and I was so delightfully full at the end of it. There should be more awesome vegan picnics!