Castlemaine and Daylesford Part 1

After reading about Steph's adventures in castlemaine, I bookmarked it and decided that I had to go there. We went away for a weekend and stayed at the incredibly tranquil accommodation just outside of castlemaine. And first stop for food was saffs of course.

We had dinner there on the first night and were pleased to get a table near the fireplace. I ordered the chickpea curry which comes with rice and banana. The curry was nicely spiced and perfect for a nice winter night. I loved the banana, it had a great cooling effect.
Toby had the dhal burger with fries which he said was good but was lacking some sauce because he ordered it without yogurt. So he added in some tomato sauce.

We went back for breakfast and had the vegan and gluten free breakfast, although Toby added some toast to his:
I really liked the crunchy potato rosti and was so pleased to have a vegan and gluten free breakfast option, but Toby wasn't overly impressed with the meals or the coffee, he was particularly annoyed by the lack of protein and I had to remind him that we were in fact in the country and not some hip cafe in fitzroy.

Saff's cafe
43 Mostyn St
Castlemaine

While in castlemaine, I checked out the IGA around the corner from saffs and was super impressed they had an amazing selection of vegan/gluten free things that I hadn't even seen before including soups, dips and even a vegan and gluten free lasagna. I just kept walking around saying 'I love this place', next time we might stock up and have some meals back at our accommodation.

We always seem to go away to daylesford, and while this time we stayed in castlemaine we couldn't resist going to daylesford since it's only about 30 minutes away. I was a little worried about our trip to himalaya bakery since my last trip there was pretty gluten heavy but was relieved to discover that they had gluten free bread and loads of gluten free options including 2 muffins which were both vegan and gluten free. For lunch Toby had the open sandwich with white bean dip, grilled capsicum, lettuce over toast. He was surprised to find the white bean dip was actually cold but thought the flavours were lovely and fresh.


I had the white bean dip with g/f toast and tomato and spinach. I enjoyed the addition of onion and herbs to this dish, it was really was much tastier than it sounds.


We went back for breaky the next day, toby had the mushroom scrambled tofu with extra potatoes. Toby thought it was full of flavour and filling but a little oily.
I had the spanish scrambled tofu with had capsicum, tomato and gluten free toast. I really enjoyed this and was so grateful for finally finding a g/f scrambled tofu dish, toby agreed that it was a tad tastier than his.

Himalaya Bakery
73 Vincent St Daylesford

And of course no trip to the region would be complete without a trip to continental house for the vegan banquet which is on sat evenings.

It started with the nourishing soup which contained pumpkin, seaweed, buckwheat. I'm not normally into healthy soups but I loved it.

For mains there was a selection of raw and cooked dishes, most of which were gluten free. They even had a gluten free lasagna which I think was more like a bake since it contained bread crumbs on top instead of a cheesy sauce but was our favourite dish of the night. I also really enjoyed the raw pad thai, and the tofu dish. Both of us were incredibly full and happy at the end of this meal, so full that I forgot to take a picture of dessert which was a bowl of fruit.


Continental House
9 Lone Pine Ave
Hepburn Springs
www

But that's not it, Toby will wrap up the rest of our eating and drinking adventures away in the next post.

Vietnamese style noodle soup from 1000 vegan recipes

As promised here is the recipe from 1000 vegan recipes, we made quite a few adjustments to make it gluten free:

1 tablespoon canola oil
1 onion, chopped
1 serrano or hot green chilli, seeded and chopped (we used dried chilli flakes)
1 tablespoon of ginger, chopped
3 tablespoons soy sauce (we used tamari)
2 whole star anise (I couldn't find star anise at the supermarket so left it out)
5 cups of vegetable stock
2 tablespoons of barley miso paste (we used white miso paste without barley so it was g/f)
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime
1/2 cup hot water
4 ounces (113 grams) dried rice noodles
6 ounces (170 grams) dried seitan (we used smoked tofu but like Batgirl's idea of using fried tofu)
1/2 cup fresh bean sprouts (we left this out since apparently you used eat bean sprouts when taking traditional Chinese medicine)
3 green onions chopped for garnish
1/4 cup chopped coriander for garnish

1. In a large soup pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion, cover and cook until softened, 5 minutes. Add the chilli and ginger and cook unitl fragrant. Stir in the soy sauce, anise and broth. Simmer, uncovered for 45 minutes to allow flavours to blend. Strain the soup and return it to the pot discarding the solids. (Toby skipped the straining stage)
2. In a small bowl combine miso, hoisin, lime juice and water and add to the soup, stir in the noodles and the seitan. Cook until the noodles are soft about 10 minutes.
3. Ladle the soup into 4 bowls and garnish with bean sprouts, green onions and cilantro.

Enjoy!

A Minor Place II

Once I went gluten free my vegan breakfast options were pretty limited in Melbourne since most of the scrambled tofu options around town contain regular soy sauce. If you do come across any tofu dishes minus wheat based soy sauce please let me know. I was super happy to discover that A Minor Place have g/f toast. Despite my rosemary hatred I love Henry's white beans which consists of white beans, rosemary (I pick out the bigger bits), lemon, dukkah and lots of rocket over toast. Their toast is pretty ace for g/f bread too, it's from the old strathmore bakery. Toby thinks the coffee is pretty good too so it's become a regular breakfast option (every couple of weeks). You can read Toby's post about a minor place here.

A Minor Place
103 Albion St
Brunswick
VIC 3056
9384 3131

1000 vegan recipes

After many glowing reviews from Tahn and the cooking from 1,000 vegan recipes blog. I decided that despite my cookbook bookshelf overflowing with cookbooks I had to add one more.

The first recipe that Toby made was the Vietnamese noodle soup. Batgirl described it as pho and so Toby was disappointed that it was isn't pho like at all. Yes it isn't authentic, but I adored this dish in it's own right, and I normally get bored with soups. This dish was absolutely punching with flavour, with miso paste, hoisin, lime and lots more, perhaps because it takes a lengthy 45 minutes to simmer. We used smoked tofu instead of seitan which I think works well. I do agree with batgirl that this recipe alone makes the price of the cookbook worthwhile. This really is a perfect winter meal.
Next up, we made tofu jerky with the help of Lidia who has a dehydrator, I think we left it too long in the dehydrator like 3 hours too long. The flavours were nice but the texture was just weird and rubbery. But then I've never been a jerky fan. Toby, however, couldn't stop snacking on it.

Toby made country fried tofu with golden gravy, which he served with polenta. We have big issues with frying tofu in any batter because our nonstick frypan has lost its coating and so everything sticks to it and it just isn't the same in a wok. So by the time had tofu finished frying he decided to skip blending the gravy which left the chickpeas intact as you can see in this photo. This didn't really work, so I quickly blended it. This was delicious and filling. Toby liked the dish despite the wok disaster.
Now on to the failed dish- the pomegranate infused lentil and chickpea stew. In fairness, perhaps the pomegranate syrup that we purchased was actually just juice. The bottle said syrup but later when I looked at the ingredients I noticed it just said pomegranates. This dish was so tart that it wasn't edible and we didn't know how to fix and so in the end had to throw it out. I hate waste, so such a shame. I would love to know if others have issues with this dish or with the so called syrup.

I will post one recipe from the cookbook, but you get to choose which one?

White Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant

There are a few Chinese Vegetarian Restaurants in Melbourne. Enlightened Cuisine in the CBD is probably the most popular one. Vegie Hut in Boxhill is the only vegan Yum Cha place in town and their faux meat dishes draw vegans from different suburbs to the De Facto Chinatown of Melbourne. My favourite one, however, is White Lotus.

Their food is more home style, has much less (if any) MSG compared to other mock meat places and I like their friendly but laid back service. I have eaten there for my last few birthdays. I also ate there before my neck surgery in case I couldn't leave the hospital alive.

If the contestants of MasterChef Australia are cooking off with the chef of White Lotus, the signature dish would be:

Tamarind "Fish"!

I love the contrast of the soft rolled bean curd sheets and the crispiness of seaweed. The tamarind sauce is perfect, with the right amount of spiciness and sourness.

The cream corn soup is not bad neither

The gluten free options however are very limited. Kristy had the stir-fried tofu and vegies with satay sauce. It was pretty right-on and refreshing.

They also do really cool "drumsticks", roasted "duck" and lemon "chicken".

Steph went there recently and blogged about it. Cindy and Michael went there back in April, 2007. I don't know why I have never blogged about it.

White Lotus has been opened for four decades. Owner Peter Li is retiring so his children are running it on the weekend. My friend called up to book a table last week and was notified by the answering machine that they are closed till further notice due to family illness.

I wish the Li family well and I look forward to enjoying their awesome food again very soon.

Address: 185 Victoria St, West Melbourne
Ph: 9326 6040

On the walkman:
Live! At Meredith - The Dirty Three

Onion rings, onion rings, onion rings

Yes I finally tried lord of the fries onion rings on sat night from the Northland store.

And they are PERFECT- with a yummy crispy coating, you really can't tell that they are gluten free.

I had mine with tomato sauce:
but was jealous of Ivan's version with vegan mayo. Ivan has also blogged about them here but he doesn't quite share my onion ring obsession.

My only complaint was there not enough- with only about 6 in my bucket, next time I might skip the nuggets and have 2 containers of onion rings. Also please bring back the gluten free buns soon, I would love a gluten free burger!

I think they are available at all Lord of the Fries stores.

*Edited to add: no longer gluten free

Gluten Free Funky Pies

It's only Sunday morning and this has already proven to be a very good weekend of eating new things. First, Radical Grocery got in two types of gluten free funky pies: No Wurry Curry and Mediterranean Veg. I was so excited about this that I literally jumped up and down. I have eaten regular funky pies before and loved them, so rushed out and brought 6 (3 of each flavour). Also I have seen lots of non vegan gluten free pies and have felt like I am missing out.

Toby and I share one of each flavour with some sweet potato fries on friday night, we did make the mistake of not defrosting them properly so they took a while to bake which I think resulted in slightly overcooked and hard crusts as you can kind of see in this pic.

Here is a kind of gross picture of the insides, because we were rushing to eat them. On top is the No Wurry Curry and on the bottom is the Mediterranean veg.

The Mediterranean veg, contains eggplant, silverbeet, spinach, potatoes and carrots. It kind of felt a bit like a healthy pie but tasted great with tomato sauce. We both preferred the No Wurry Curry version with it's mild lentil and chickpea curry in a coconut sauce. The non burnt bits of pastry in the middle were great, unlike some other gluteny pastry that I have tried it didn't have the cardboardy feel. Thanks to Funky Pies for making gluten free versions and to Radical grocery for stocking them, you both made my day and I will be back for more!