Another long time between posts!

OK so yet again I have been busy as all hell! I started 2 new jobs in as many days and LOVE them both! I am SOO much happier than I was when I was working at the shelter. I have now returned to veterinary nursing and also started teaching animal studies at TAFE. Both of these jobs keep me really, really busy and I have been putting in A LOT of long hours at nights and on my days off to keep up with my workloads. Seriously not at all complaining, I never thought you could really be truly happy at work, but now I know you can! (:
AND a week ago my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew moved down to Tassie as well, they join my folks in muscling in my mine and hubby's "territory", at least the live like 40 minutes away!!!

So with all of this wonderful craziness going on I have really not had time to cook, let alone blog! Thankfully though hubby has kept my belly full as until last week he has been unemployed since Christmas, just one of may casualties from the Tasmanian state government not being able to budget properly. Luckily he now has a part-time job at one of the local collages, which is awesome because it it super close to our house and he's only entering his 3rd teaching year and and we expected about another 7-17 years before he got such a position. So, yay for us, we both have income, something really handy when you have a mortgage! And him only being part-time (at this stage) means I still get a house-hubby for half the week, SCORE!! :-p

We were, however, able to take a mid-week weekend recently to Melbourne. It was awesome, I had never been before and really I had never before had any desire to go to Melbourne, why would I when I had previously lived 1-3 hours south of Sydney? Plus Canberra, believe it or not, had plenty of advantages, and after they got a DFO there was even less reason for me to care about Melbourne!
So what was the reason for this life-changing (stay tuned) trip?

SYSTEM OF A MOTHER EFFING DOWN!!!!!!
At Rod Laver Arena

Oh man I loved this gig, I was head banging like I was a good 10-12 years younger than I am, and even though I'm only 28, I found out the next day that I was WAY out of practice for such activities! I didn't care though, I also didn't care that I screamed and threw my right arm around so much that I was barely audible and my shoulder was competing with my neck for sympathy! 

Now it wasn't just  SOAD that had me all excited, since going vegan I have wanted to visit Melbourne, and in the end I was actually getting more excited about food than I was the band! This was actually the 2nd time I saw SOAD, but only the first time that I had gone to Melbourne, and as a vegan at that!
A couple of days before I left I asked "the Facebook vegans" where I should go for meals and to stock up on vegan junk food to bring back.

I was directed to some great places, THANK YOU to everyone who made suggestions for me, including one of my fave places in Melbs: 

The Radical Grocery Store

I spent $100 here on junk such as Dandies, various Bonbarr chocolate bars, jelly, toffee, coconut ice, tofutti cuties, AND:

Mister Nice Guy Cupcakes
This was a Peanut Butter Cup and it was SOOO moist and chocolatey
and peanut buttery!!

I also ate at Enlightened Cuisine where we had:

Crispy Duck with Plum Sauce.

And

Kung Po Lamb.

AND on my way back to my plane I made my way to Chan House where I had:

"Honey" "Chicken" with Steamed Rice and Veggies.

We also visited the Australian Centre for the Moving Image which was really great AND FREE! Well worth a look if your hanging out around Federation Square.

But I think the place that got me more excited than ANYTHING else was visiting Lord of the Fries my new favourite place on earth, SERIOUSLY, I'm even spearheading a campaign to bring them down to Tasmania, not just for me, but we NEED more veggie choice down here!
LOTFs was my first stop on my whirlwind trip and then I had breakfast there the next day for breakfast as well. 

This was my breakfast meal, a big original burger and fries with vegan cheese and gravy
I have recreated these fries a few times over the past few weeks with
Redwood's cheezly and Redwood's vegetarian gravy, YUM!!!

Nuggets, onion rings and fries munch box with BBQ sauce .

Mini original burger

The best OJ I have ever had!

Now I can't wait until the next time I get to go to Melbourne, and I plan on spending more than 36 hours there!

Stay well,
Love SJ (:

Hobart Trip.

Lately I have been craving such naughty, horrible things as KFC, eating real animals! Of course I have NOT wavered and given in to such a deplorable temptation, even though I have been particularly lazy and uninspired lately and it would have been easy, I just knew it wasn't worth it!
Well this weekend just gone I went down to Hobart to visit with my friend that I mentioned in my previous post. Well the beautiful Tahlia lives nice and close to an Asian grocer, and even though I have the same one here in Launceston, I very rarely get time to go there. So I figured I would stop in and stock up, and that's exactly what I did!

I stocked up on seitan, dumplings (as when I tried making them it was a huge fail after a huge effort!), tofu puffs, panko and some pastes. So happy about this!! My freezer is packed so tightly and I've had to put things in the fridge and try to figure out how to use it all before it goes bad.

Whilst in Hobart I got to try a couple of Asian vego eateries one of which, Mo Mo Bubble Tea and Coffee House, I had been desperate to try, and found it was alright, but not as good I had hoped. The other one Thai Veggie Hut, located in the Bank Arcade off Liverpool Street, but that website shows a whole different building at a different address, but the take away menu was the same as the hole in the wall we visited. Anyway, the food there was GREAT! I had "Triple Delight" which consisted of mock chicken in a clear sauce with snow peas, mock beef with mushrooms in a slightly peppery brown sauce, crispy roast duck slices (my fave!) and steamed white rice. I meant to take a photo of my food, but forgot :( This dish was SOO good and yummy though, and totally helped with all my horrible rotting flesh cravings!

5 Month Vegan Anniversary.

Today is the fifth month of my new vegan lifestyle. :) :) :)

5 months might seem like an odd time to celebrate, but for me it is pretty big as it coincides with the purchase of my first house!!

Another great big milestone for me is the fact that since February 10th (2011), I have now lost 10 kilos!!! Meaning that I have now lost a total of 11.2kg since Christmas. I am one very happy, and much healthier, little vegemite, as proud as proud could be!

So today I am celebrating these milestones by unpacking boxes and cooking some wonderful vegan treats to share with my mother-in-law, who came for a little holiday from Wollongong, only to help us move house and clean, rather than relax!