Happy St. Pat's Day (Kinda).

My contribution to St. Patrick's day was broccoli, broccoli wrapped in pasta (:

Friday was one of those nights that I just hadn't planned anything for dinner, I hadn't been shopping and I didn't know what was in the fridge or pantry! I opened them up and found my ingredients and a meal came to mind.

Now obviously Friday was not St. Pat's day, but I had left overs for Saturday night which I took to my Mum's house. I shared mine with my pasta obsessed niece and nephew whilst everybody else chowed down on stuff you don't want to know about!
(BTW omni hubby liked my meal MUCH better, I love that over time he is starting to see that meat makes you feel heavy, a bit sick and generally gross).
So what was this delectable delight I created? It goes by the "very imaginative" name of:

Broccoli Pasta

Omni hubby said "WOW, that looks so vegan!"
Funny that :-P

Ingredients:Quick note: there are few measurements because I didn't really measure anything, I just chucked it all in!

• Pasta, I used high fibre white pasta, but you can use what ever you like, spinach pasta for that extra St. Patty's day kick or of course wholemeal or GF.
• Garlic, I used granules 
• Salt
• 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• juice of one lemon
• 1 ½-2 heads of broccoli
• Sesame seeds
• Olive oil

Method:

1. Boil water in a large pot.
2. Whilst water is boiling cut broccoli into florets.
3. Add pasta and some salt (if desired) and garlic to water.
4. Juice the lemon and add the juiced halves (NOT the juice, just the left over skins and pulp) to the water.
5. When pasta only has about a minute to go chuck the broccoli and chickpeas in with the pasta.
6. When broccoli is cooked drain the whole lot and put it back in the pan.
7. Drizzle with some olive oil, pour in the lemon juice and toss on some sesame seeds. Give it a good stir and there you have it, broccoli pasta!

The first night we had this with (Woolworths Homebrand) garlic bread, which is my new obsession, but please don't forget about my main obsession to bring Lord of the Fries to Tasmania.

The second night I had 2 Redwood Lincolnshire style meat-free sausages and BBQ sauce with it, both nights it was great!

So go on and enjoy a very tasty and nutritious meal on me (: 

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 (: