Roasted chipotle sprouts

First of all, I would like to apologise to anyone who read this post in it's half completed state. I'm going to blame my error of hitting the "Publish" button rather than "Preview" on post earthquake jitters! Needless to say I was rather embarrassed about releasing an incomplete post. Oh well, it's a reminder that accidents happen and we all make mistakes from time to time. ;-) 

We had a mix match Mexican inspired dinner last Friday night. I wanted to use up the rest of Cadry's black beans in soft tacos but there were only enough beans for a single taco each. I thought about my available ingredients for a while and came up with the following simple solution - spicy roasted vegetables. It had been a while since I made a batch of my Mexe wedges so they were definitely going to be in and I also recalled how delicious the chipotle carrots chips from where's the beef had been when I had tried them recently.

On this night I really felt like eating some greens so instead of carrots I decided to test the recipe out with brussel sprouts. I've enjoyed smoky sprouts before and spicy ones shredded into stir frys although I've never combined these two wonderful flavours with sprouts. Another bonus of using sprouts was the shortened cooking time as they take less time to roast than carrots.


It's a very simple recipe to prepare, after prepping your veggies it's just a matter of mixing through some finely chopped chipotle chillies in adobo sauce along with a bit of oil and salt before roasting in the oven. I used 2 chipotle chillies which gave the sprouts a decent amount of heat and added a bit of lime juice to the mix this time as I had been squeezing limes for guacamole and had a little bit of juice leftover. It's difficult to pick a favourite of these two vegetables roasted in this tasty blend as they are both unique in their own way. This is a different way to prepare roasted vegetables and they pair well with any Mexican themed meal, especially in cold weather when salad items aren't as appetising.

Before I leave you with the recipe, Kari of Bite-sized thoughts kindly nominated me for the Food Stories Award for Excellence in Storytelling. Many thanks Kari! I feel honoured to receive this award and am even more excited to hand it out to others who I believe are better storytellers than myself. The bloggers I would like to nominate are:

• Cadry - Cadry's Kitchen
• Joey - Flicking the Vs
• Johanna - Green Gourmet Giraffe
• Jojo - Vegan in Brighton
• Theresa - The Tropical Vegan 

The Food Stories Award requires the recipient to share a random fact about themselves as well as passing the award onto 5 other bloggers. Here is my fact.

I don't wear any make-up at all and have never used moisturisers, hand lotions, etc. There was a stage in my late teens when I did wear make-up and I have popped a little bit on for an occasion like a wedding but I don't enjoy the heavy fake feel of it. I'm sure my skin is thankful for this and the other bonus was that I didn't need to consider product changes when transitioning to a vegan lifestyle.

Roasted chipotle sprouts (Adapted from where's the beef, originally from Tofu for Two)

500g brussell sprouts
1-2 chipotle chillies in adobo sauce, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼-½ teaspoon salt
1-2 tablespoons lime juice (optional)

Preheat oven to 200C.

Trim the sprouts of their outer leaves and cut into halves. Place the sprouts in a bowl, toss the rest of the ingredients over the top and use your hands to coat the sprouts in the mixture evenly.

Bake in the oven on a roasting tray lined with baking paper for 20 minutes, flipping the sprouts after about 10 minutes.

My first year in review

Many bloggers summarise their year at the end of December or the start of January. My blogoversary falls on the 18th January so I decided to hold out until now to publish some thoughts about my first year of blogging and a few goals for the year ahead. I really wasn't expecting blogging to become a big part of my life, or to have published 142 posts over this time, but it has been a lot of fun and a wonderful experience.

Some of my blogging and cooking highlights throughout the year have been:

• Participating in Vegan MoFo and publishing 27 posts during October.
• Being tagged by Johanna GGG for a Stylish Blogger Award.
• Being tagged by Mandee, coldandsleepy and Zuckerbaby for the Liebster Award.
• Meeting up with several Melbourne veg bloggers at the Planet VeGMeL picnic.
• Upgrading my very old basic camera to a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX9V in July 2011.
• Recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook.

Monty was very interested in this chilli that rolled off the bench

Favourite recipes from my blog still on rotation are:

• Calzones
• Cheezy roast vegetable pot pies
• Pita bread
• Tofu scramble (this has changed a bit over time so watch out for a new post soon)
• Ethiopian inspired soup
• "Butter Chicken"
• Dal Makhani with Punjabi Cabbage
• Chilli sin carne
• Lemony roasted potatoes (aka. Lemony Snickets)
• Mexe Wedges
• Smoky Alfred
• Broccoli and tofu cannelloni
• Choc-mint & Jaffa balls

On a personal note, 2011 started off on a high and went downhill from there. It was exciting to move back into a much larger home with a brand new kitchen after our lengthy renovations were finally completed. It wasn't long after the move back home that we discovered a lump on our dog Jasper's hind leg which was diagnosed as a bone cancer. This turned our world upside down as we were faced with the decision to amputate his leg and hope that no secondary cancers had started to form or to euthanise him in a week's time.

We gave our darling dog a chance and Jasper fully recovered from the amputation in a couple of weeks. His spirit did not change in the slightest, he still loved (and demanded) his daily walks and chased our cat Monty around the house at times. We cherished every day that we were able to spend with Jasper and tried to put in the back of our minds that our time with him could be limited.

Six months after the surgery Jasper's health deteriorated in a matter of days and an X-ray of his lungs confirmed our worst fears. A secondary cancer spread to his lungs and had been growing at an aggressive rate. It was so traumatic to hold him in our arms and watch him go to sleep forever. It was the first time the man and I had ever been in such a position with any of our pets. We were both totally devastated and couldn't function properly for days. He was like our second child, not a dog, which a lot of people wouldn't really understand.

Almost 4 months have passed but we are both still grieving. We miss him dearly and I still cry at times when I think of him. It has taken me until now to be able to write about him which hasn't been an easy task but hopefully it will help somehow. I still love seeing Jasper's cheeky grin every time I leave a comment on someone's blog so I won't be changing my profile picture anytime soon.

We planted a Japanese Maple in Jasper's resting place

Rather than leave you on a sad note, I'll sign off with a few goals for the year, which are:

• Update my blogger template soon. I have been looking into this for what feel likes ages but haven't been able to decide on a layout!
• Experiment with cuisines I haven't cooked with before.
• Take photos when eating out and post about these experiences more often.
• Participate in my 2nd Vegan MoFo.      

I would like to thank everyone that reads this blog and especially those who have left comments throughout the year. I really love hearing from you and appreciate every comment I receive. Hope you stick around for another year! 

Vegan MoFo - Q is for Quinoa Stew (and an award)

This quinoa, lentil and vegetable stew has to be my favourite recipe from the Fat Free Vegan blog as it's the one I have repeated the most. It's from Susan's "Ridiculously Easy" category as she used frozen vegies and tinned lentils for convenience. I have blogged my adaptation of this recipe before which uses fresh vegetables and larger quantities of quinoa and smoked paprika.

It's a great recipe which is simple to prepare and you can throw in whatever vegetables you have around. This time I used pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and added spinach right at the end. The flavours improve over time as it tastes even better the next day. I have also mixed a bit of harissa into the leftovers before and made quinoa stuffed peppers which were fantastic!

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

I was both thrilled and extremely honoured to receive the Liebster award (German for favourite, beloved or dearest) from Mandee at Cupcake Kitteh. Mandee's blog is full of beautiful photos of the many things she has made from Viva Vegan which is what initially attracted me. I also find it inspiring how she manages to cook such amazing food with ease that doesn't contain any soy or gluten. Head over and take a look if you haven't been there already!

My job now is to hand out the Liebster award to 5 bloggers that have less than 200 followers if this can be judged from the site. I decided to give the award to bloggers I have discovered throughout Vegan MoFo 2011 that haven't already received this award to the best of my knowledge.

The bloggers (listed in alphabetical order to keep in line with my MoFo theme) I am awarding are:

• Dawn from Veg-am
• erinwyso from Olives for Dinner
• Jes from Eating Appalachia
• Jes from Your Mom's a Vegan
• Rachel from I Eat Grains

The winners can pass the award on if they feel inclined to by:

• Showing your thanks by linking to the person that gave you the award
• Choosing 5 bloggers to give the award to and leaving a comment on their blog to let them know 
• Post the award on your blog 
• Enjoy spreading the love around

Stylish Blogger Award

A while ago Johanna handed me a stylish blogger award which was a real highlight in my short blogging existence. I was so excited and extremely gracious to receive such an award (of which I had no idea even existed) although a part of me didn't feel like a worthy recipient. There are so many food blogs around with exceptional standards in all areas of cooking, writing and photography. My little blog feels quite the opposite of stylish at times, although it is still early days and there is always room for improvement!

The way the award is supposed to work is for me to pass it onto some other bloggers that I admire (with the exception of the person who presented it to me) as well as posting seven random facts about myself. So without further ado here are the stylish bloggers I am presenting with this award.

Where's the beef?
Cindy and Michael deserve this award based solely on the merits of their awesome vegan sausage rolls which I make on at least a once a month basis. There is way more to these guys than sausage rolls which is shown throughout the diverse array of recipes within their 1000+ post history.Their frequent eating out experiences are always coherently written up so it can be handy to drop by and check out their reviews before settling on a place to dine in Melbourne.    

Holy Cow

Vaishali's blog is full of tasty Indian recipes as well as plenty of other cuisines from around the world. Her writing style, photography and taste in food all resonate with me (as well as her love for dogs, particularly 3 legged ones ;-)). Vaishali posted a recipe for Tofu Pakoras this week which look fantastic and I will definitely be giving them a try soon.  

Eat me delicious
Ashley states that baking is her passion and indeed she does post some delicious looking sweets although I haven't tried any yet. All of the recipes I have enjoyed making from Ashley's blog have been savoury items; most recently was this sensational Curried Chickpea soup - highly recommended.

The Tropical Vegan
Teresa's blog is one that I haven't been following for a long time but have been enjoying immensely. I love reading about her life and eats in Far North Queensland which is one of my favorite regions in Australia. Teresa is also a fellow lover of Ethiopian food judging from one of her recent posts.  

Our Veggie Kitchen
Matt is about the only male vegan blogger that I follow apart from VeganDad (there seems to be a serious lack of male vegan bloggers out there). He predominantly features his own recipes and the ones I have tried have been fantastic. Matt's chipotle ranch dressing was very popular last summer as it is the perfect condiment to spice up a usually boring sandwich.   

And here are seven random facts about me...

1. My omnivorous life was only left behind about three years ago when my husband suggested we try vegetarianism and after quite a long period of transition I decided to go vegan last November. I am planning to write a more detailed post about this soon.
2. I used to find it amusing that when my son turns 21 I will have just turned 40! As he is getting close to turning 18, I'm not sure it’s that funny anymore. So scary how time flies!
3. Although not well-travelled I am a bit of a geography nerd and have always loved maps. My son has followed in my footsteps and we often have capital city quizzes for fun.
4.  I wanted to be a vet throughout my whole childhood and adolescence. Every time we visit our vet these days however, I think about how hard it must be to be for vets to euthanise animals and deal with negligent pet owners and don't think it would have been the right career choice for me after all.
5. Dill is about the only herb that I try to steer clear of in cooking. I have disliked everything I have made whenever I have used fresh or dried dill. Thyme is a conundrum as I love it fresh but find it can be unpleasant and overpowering when dried. I adjust heaps of recipes that use dried thyme by reducing the amount, using fresh thyme or replacing it with another herb.
6. My employer has allowed me to work from home for the last 18 months which has a lot of pros associated with it. After commuting from the SE suburbs into the city for many years, it is a blessing to wake up in the morning, have a shower, make breakfast and a coffee and be at work immediately without wasting time and energy on our overcrowded public transport system. And of course, it leaves a lot more time for cooking!
7. Many years ago, I met Boy George in a hotel lift whilst wagging school with some friends. Don't ask me why we were riding around in hotel elevator, the intent was certainly not to meet Boy George. He was quite a pleasant guy and rather concerned that we would get caught wagging as we were dressed in school uniform. From memory, we got away with it that day...

I would like to wrap this post up by thanking the lovely Johanna for giving me this award. She has been a fantastic supporter and frequently comments on my posts for which I am very grateful. It has been such a rewarding experience to join the blogosphere this year after being a blog reader for some time and I have been overwhelmed with the sense of spirit and support that exists within this community.