Vegan MoFo - Day 30 - Vegan MoFo Wrap up

As much as I love Vegan MoFo, I'm quite relieved it's the final day! Given I haven't been finding as much time for blogging this year, it's been a struggle to keep up with the pace and it really wasn't a wise idea to make a personal commitment to posting daily. Amongst the chaos, it has been yet another enjoyable MoFo following fun themes, connecting with new bloggers and drooling over many wonderful food posts.

I've always followed a theme during Vegan MoFo although this was my first time writing daily theme based posts rather than a single month focussed theme. The best part about these posts was managing to accomplish a few personal goals via some of these daily themes - learning to appreciate tempeh in new ways, clearing out old ingredients from the pantry, cooking bookmarked recipes from past and present Vegan MoFo, baking new sweets and continuing my virtual around the world travels.

Once again my bookmarked recipes have grown considerably and rather than post the full list I've accumulated, here is a condensed version of some of the recipes I'm keen on trying.

Spreads and snacks

Fermented garlic cashew cheese - Veganosaurus
Broad bean pate - Self Sufficient Cafe
Tofu nuggets from a Vegan Dollar Menu - KZ Cakes 
Chickpea nuggets - Vegans Eat Yummy Food Too

Soups, salads and wraps

Mulligatawny soup - Flicking the Vs
Corn chowder with edamame and tofu bacon - Green Gourmet Giraffe
Chipotle tofu tortilla salad -  The Cookbook Aficionado
Injera wraps stuffed with Kik Alicha - A vegan obsession
Spanish rice, buffalo tempeh, kale, bell pepper wraps - Vegan Richa

Main meals

Stewed okra and tempeh - Laughfrodisiac
Chiles en Nogada - Eating Appalachia
Baked eggplant rollantini - Veg-am
Creamy mushroom and eggplant studel - Luminous Vegans

Sweet things

Apple pie pancakes - Cupcake Kitteh
Chocolate chip double doozies - Cadry's Kitchen
Croissants - Culinary Interpretations

I had intended to write more summary posts throughout the month but ended up needing a breather every so often. In these summaries I was planning on sharing some videos of our clever little pup Ollie for all the dog lovers out there. The below video is my favourite which was taken earlier this year whilst on holidays in Perth. The house we rented came with the added bonus of a pool which Ollie enjoyed swimming in every single day. He even learnt how to boogie board...

Thanks everyone for reading along, posting a comment, linking back to a post or bookmarking a recipe throughout the month. Hope you enjoyed the Vegan MoFo too, I'm heading off to catch up on the last of the posts now!

Vegan MoFo Day 8 - Summary Sundays - Week 1

Hey there, hope you have all enjoyed the first week of Vegan MoFo and aren't doing your heads in trying to keep up with the pace! There are heaps of inspiring recipes floating around and once again my bookmarks are getting out of control but rather than share some of them today I'm going to give a shout out to some of the themes I've been enjoying so far.

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe, one of my fellow Melburnian bloggers is baking TV Dinners this month. She has been recreating some lovely looking meals inspired by a range of television shows.  

Seinfeld still remains as one of my favourite shows ever so I'm loving Seinfeld MoFo - A blog about nothing over at Naked Vegan Lunch. Crystal and Trevor have already covered one of my favourite episodes The Soup Nazi, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a calzone will pop up during the month too.

Joey from Flicking the Vs is veganising British meals for the month and has had my mouth watering with her lovely looking Chelsea buns and Mulligatawny soup.

Cadry from Cadry's Kitchen is revisiting favourite foods from her past travelling around in a virtual DeLorean fuelled by a Flax Capacitor. Check out her Back in Thyme posts - her graphic is fantastic! 

Mandee from Cupcake Kitteh's MoFo Mimic is similar to my Monday theme except she is taking inspiration from her favourite bloggers and bookmarked recipes for the entire month. 

Lazy Smurfs month long taco cleanse sounds exactly like the type of cleanse I would like to embrace. These posts stirred up my taco cravings so badly I had to whip up our favourite combination of refried beans, tofu adobe with cashew cream, guacamole and hot sauce on soft corn tortillas for dinner last night.

What are your favourites themes so far? It's easy to miss things with so much going around!

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In my theme intro I mentioned that I was going to have a surprise on Sundays. Well here it is for all you animal lovers - a short video of our 14 year cat Monty showing young Ollie who is the boss of the house. This was taken not that long after we rescued Ollie who has settled down so much in just over a year after having a pretty confusing start to life. It took a little for us to integrate these guys but thankfully they get along quite well these days.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Esperance and the drive home

Norseman marks the start/end point of the Nullarbor crossing, from this town there are two main roads leading to Perth. The first is via the historic mining town of Kalgoorlie which we visited on our way over and the other takes you through the seaside town of Esperance. Before commencing our long drive home we planned to spend two nights in Esperance at a caravan park until I made a last minute discovery of some moderately priced pet-friendly accommodation. After an eight hour drive it was great to be able to check-in to the studio unit and not have to bother about unpacking and setting up camp.

Although the unit was equipped with a kitchenette I was tired from the drive on our first night so once again we ate heat and eat curries. Different varieties of the Tasty Bite curries had been available at the majority of decent sized supermarkets, punjab eggplant had remained one of our favourites throughout the trip. It wasn't until Margaret River that I spotted a different brand called Maharajah's Choice. The range in this brand wasn't as diverse, dhal tadka and saffron rice were the only ones I was able to find that were vegan.

Before leaving Cowaramup I picked some silverbeet/swiss chard and spinach from the garden, cooked them together and sealed them in a snap lock bag. The greens were stirred through the dal to provide some additional goodness. I went slightly overboard with the greens as they dominated the dal slightly too much yet I was still able to determine that this brand had a more interesting blend of spices than the Tasty Bite variety. The saffron rice wasn't terribly exciting, it was nowhere near as good as the basmati rice and peas we ate in the Pattu range.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms set in overnight and the weather was still looking very glum the following morning. We had planned to tour around the Esperance beaches some of which have been voted as Australia's best. As the rain looked like it was going to stick around for a while, instead of checking out the local beaches we took an hour long drive to Wharton Beach in the hope that we would out drive the bad weather.

The rain and heavy clouds followed us the whole way although it started to clear a little when we reached Wharton Beach. We had some fun with Ollie on the pristine, isolated beach with the whitest sand I've even seen before hopping in the car and heading back to Esperance. The weather was clearing when we reached Esperance so we took a shorter drive along the coast to marvel at more stunning beaches (top photo - lookout over Blue Haven beach).

Twilight Beach was named Australia's best beach in 2006. The white sands combined with crystal clear waters and tranquil rock surroundings were simply breathtaking. It was one of the only beaches where dogs were not permitted which didn't matter as the beaches just around the corner were equally gorgeous spots where you could exercise dogs.

The man was exhausted after so much driving and given we had to hit the Nullarbor the next day I suggested that he have an afternoon nap while I did some final bits of food shopping, filled up the car with fuel and took Ollie for a last romp at the beach. This was my best solo decision of the holiday as I spotted a pod of dolphins surfing the waves about 50 metres offshore. I watched them in awe and neglected Ollie's ball game until they eventually disappeared. Even though the sky became full of heavy clouds once again, it was the most perfect ending to the trip!

For dinner we ate a big bowl of spaghetti with a bolognese styled sauce topped with grated Vegusto piquant cheese. I usually make this type of sauce with lentils but couldn't find any dried or tinned lentils at a smallish IGA so I bought a tin of 4 bean mix instead. The sauce also included carrots, mushrooms and zucchini with a touch of chilli. I made a big batch of sauce as I figured it might be an easy meal to eat while travelling home.

After departing Esperance we had three full days of driving to get home which also meant two nights of setting and packing up camp. In the afternoon we started discussing possible stop off points for the night and the man asked how I would feel if he kept on driving. The only concern I voiced was regarding wildlife, night driving in these areas is considered extremely dangerous as it's when the animals are most active. Colliding with kangaroos or wild camels has claimed the lives of many drivers. I probably haven't mentioned before now that the man drove the entire time we were away!

Without going into all of the details, we did continue driving and made it home the following evening. Just under 3000 kms in 36 hours and neither of us had a wink of sleep! It was a crazy thing to do and I wouldn't recommend anyone do the same. The drive had some harrowing moments such as almost running out of fuel because there were no 24 hour service stations on the Eyre Peninsula, passing a huge kangaroo on the opposite side of the highway in the middle of the night, big groups of kangaroos grazing by the side of the road in the night, peak hour traffic in Adelaide, long weekend traffic and road works between Adelaide and Melbourne and more peak hour traffic when we made it back to Melbourne. We did manage to have a lengthy stop in a nice park in Adelaide to stretch Ollie's legs as well as our own.

After such a long drive it was wonderful to be home, especially as we had the young man and our cat Monty waiting for us. The entire trip was such an enjoyable travelling experience which has fuelled my passion for further road trips around this vast country. Over the past month we saw kangaroos, emus, dingos, goannas, lizards, frogs, dolphins, turtles, sting rays, colourful reef fish, water birds, birds of prey, parrots and a beautiful owl in Kalbarri. The total distance we travelled was almost 13,000 kms.

That brings me to the end of my travel posts. The emphasis wasn't solely on food so I apologise for that and thank you all for reading along. More food focussed blogging will be back very soon!

Back through Perth to the Margaret River region

During our time in Perth a family friend kindly offered us accommodation at her property in Cowaramup near Margaret River, about 3 hours south of Perth. This had been playing on our minds during the camper trailer trip and after weighing up the logistics of where to go after Shark Bay we decided to head down south and return the camper trailer early. In order to make it back in time to collect the keys we endured a 10 hour drive which then gave us a rest day in Perth for cleaning up the camper trailer, eating out and enjoying a final swim at the lovely Perth beaches.

After heading back to PAWS for more food shopping and devouring another delicious falafel for lunch we attempted to go for a swim. Stingers (jellyfish with stinging tentacles) were littered across the shoreline of several beaches and clearly visible in the water which was odd as we hadn’t noticed a single one a couple of weeks earlier. As the weather was very warm, we braved the water momentarily to cool off although it wasn’t the relaxing swim we had been hoping for. A bushfire burning in the nearby Swan Valley sent clouds of smoke creeping over the otherwise clear blue sky.

We ordered take-away from Sri Melaka for dinner once again and had an alfresco meal in Kings Park. All of the meals on our first night in Perth were so good we wanted to eat them all again, even though we didn’t have the young man around to help us out this time. We couldn't resist trying some entrees and snacked on crunchy spring rolls and curry puffs. Along with main dishes it was way more food than we needed which didn't matter as the leftovers were devoured the next day. Pictured on my leftovers plate is "beef" rendang, mee goreng noodles and kangkong belacan. 

I’ll never forget our arrival at the Cowaramup property as it was like being in the lovliest dream I never wanted to wake up from. After meeting our friend at the front gate we drove down a long driveway with rows of grape vines on one side and a lake on the other. This wasn’t just any old property we had been invited to stay at, it was a huge vineyard with a tastefully decorated luxurious home overlooking an enormous  lake. Our friend showed us around the house and vegetable garden and then left it in our hands as she was staying elsewhere with family over the long weekend.

Ollie amused himself all afternoon trying to work out how to catch ducks and the hundreds of other resident water birds, thankfully without success. The man and I slowly unpacked and told each other a million times that the change of plans had definitely been our best holiday decision. When it was Ollie's bedtime we realised that his mattress had been left outside on the front verandah and discovered that a large frog had made it a temporary home. Ollie's fur is strewn across the front of it's nose.

Waking up to this view the following morning was rather surreal.

Followed by a leisurely walk around the lake and through the vines to sample some grapes.

It had been leisurely until Ollie spotted a young kangaroo! Ollie was right on the heels of the poor frightened creature at the beginning of the chase. They ran up and down the rows of vines until we lost sight of them for ages, eventually Ollie reappeared looking exhausted but very disappointed his fun game was over.

The walk worked up our appetites and it was inspiring to have an expansive kitchen at my disposal so I made a tofu and mixed veg stir fry for lunch. The sauce was thrown together from items in my portable pantry in addition to items at the house. From memory it contained soy sauce, garlic, sambal oelek, rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. Apart from being slightly too salty from an overload of soy sauce it was a fine meal and one I would like to replicate at home.

Lunch was followed up with a slightly less healthy dinner of pizza! We had been craving pizza ever since our disappointing one at Loving Hut. This was one of the main reasons we stopped off at PAWS, to purchase Cheezly and Redwood cheatin' pepperoni for pizzas. The man always loves a simple margherita and this one was enhanced with some fresh basil from the garden.

The other pizza was Mexican styled. I mashed a tin of Coles Mexican beans with some tomato paste and hot sauce to spread on the base and topped it with red onion, red capsicum/peppers, mushrooms, vegan pepperoni and cheezly. The dried out spinach on top that was procured from the garden was supposed to go on top of the bean layer but it was forgotten until the pizza was fully assembled and about to go in the oven. Regardless of my error, the pizza tasted great and the crunchy spinach provided a interesting texture.

A cooking relic in the house that captured my interest was a bean cutter. I have clear memories of my mum and grandma using these devices throughout my childhoood. Green beans are fed into the holes at the top and then you wind the handle whilst placing pressure on the beans. I don't think I ever ate a whole bean as a child, they were always sliced using one of these machines!

The days dwindled away quickly and we really hadn't seen anything at all in the region as we found it difficult to leave the magical property for long. The man suggested that we visit one of the nearby caves as he had fond memories of seeing them as a child and left it up to me to decide which one. I booked us in for a tour of the Lake Cave which begins with a descent down 300 steps through karri forest into a doline - a hole in the earth's surface.

True to it's name the Lake Cave contains a permanent lake in it's chamber. The main feature of the cave is called the "suspended table", an impressive formation which is the result of the fusion of stalagmites and stalactites and weighs several tonnes.

As we were due to hit the road again, our final meal needed to use up the frozen goods we had remaining. On my plate is a couple of Linda McCartney sausages with fried onions and gravy, mashed potatoes and some mixed frozen vegetables which were sautéed with garlic and a dash of soy sauce. 

Neither of us were ready to say goodbye to this beautiful place. Camping had lost its appeal after this comfortable instalment of our journey, and we weren't looking forward to the long drive across the Nullarbor back home either.  

Kalbarri, Coral Bay and Shark Bay

After farewelling the young man at Perth airport, the man and I picked up our portable accommodation for the next 14 days – a camper trailer. Although we were already equipped with our own small tent, we figured that this style of tent would be easier to assemble and pack up and would also give us more space to organise our belongings. We didn’t have a firm itinerary at this stage, our goal was to travel to Coral Bay (approximately 1100 kms north of Perth) stopping off in places for as long as we felt and being mindful of local weather forecasts due to the cyclone season.

In addition to hiring the camper trailer we also rented a portable fridge/freezer and had been under the impression that it could run off the camper trailer battery or our car battery while we were travelling. I had done a bit of homework and pencilled in many bush camps along the way which sounded like peaceful waterfront locations. After discovering that the fridge/freezer hadn’t been charged and the camper trailer battery would only last for one night without power some quick re-planning was in order.

We resigned to staying in caravan parks for this leg of our trip for the sole purpose of electricity. After a quick overnight stop in Jurien Bay we drove to the town of Kalbarri, right on the edge of Kalbarri National Park. I had previously written off Kalbarri as I didn’t think we would be able to camp here with Ollie but it turned out I was wrong. The small town is located just outside the boundaries of the National Park on the mouth of the Murchison River. Along the coast were several dog friendly beaches we were thankful for as the daytime temperatures were around 40C. We enjoyed several trips to the stunning Red Bluff beach (pictured below) and were usually the only people there.

The caravan park we stayed in was one of the nicest on our trip, our camp site had an outlook to the river and a swimming pool was nestled amongst the gum trees. As I didn’t take any food shots at Kalbarri, I’ve included a photo of this rather cute long nosed dragon who was peacefully enjoying basking in the hot sun.

During our stay at Kalbarri most of our fridge items became frozen and we were informed by the hire people that the configuration was 80% freezer, 20% fridge and not the other way around as we had initially thought. Thankfully we still had our esky/car fridge with us and were able to use that for cooling things without freezing them! On our drive up to Coral Bay we passed through the larger town of Carnarvon and I made use of the freezer by stocking it up with bags of mixed frozen vegetables as it was difficult to keep produce fresh in such hot temperatures for any length of time.

Coral Bay is a tiny tourist town situated on Ningaloo Reef, the largest fringing reef in Australia which is renowned for being a temporary home to the whale sharks during their annual feeding season. Snorkelling is accessible as little as 50 metres offshore which is ideal for beginners and youngsters. Unfortunately for us, an impending cyclone further north by the name of Rusty brought some gusty winds to Coral Bay which made the conditions for snorkelling rather challenging. Even though all of the area surrounding Coral Bay is a marine park there was still one beach where Ollie was allowed to run free and the man and I could alternate snorkelling attempts. We spotted lots of colourful fish of varying shapes and sizes as well as the occasional sting ray.

Every afternoon, there was a fish feeding session in the bay so I went along one day to check it out. A marine biologist spoke to the tourists standing around in knee deep water about the types of fish that usually visit during the feeding times as well as the other species which hide amongst the reefs. The hungry fish were extremely bold and not afraid to brush against your legs, some of the fish were rather large and a number of tourists were afraid of getting too close. Everyone was given a handful of food pellets to drop into the water slowly, if you dropped too many in at once the fish would fight over the food. Hand feeding was strictly prohibited as humans can pass on germs and the fish are likely to bite with their sharp teeth.

Even though the weather wasn't ideal, it was difficult to leave Coral Bay as we had travelled over 4000 kms from home and this was the turn around point of our journey. After starting to drive back towards Perth we made a detour at Shark Bay, a World Heritage Area. The region of Shark Bay is home to Monkey Mia, a popular tourist destination due to the daily feeding program of bottlenose dolphins which have been visiting the shallow waters for over forty years.

The number of dolphins that choose to visit the feeding area varies on a day to day basis. The feeding program is only a supplementary part of the dolphins diets. To ensure that all of the dolphins are still hunting for themselves and not becoming reliant on hand feeding, the number of fish each dolphin is fed on a given day is accounted for and strictly limited. We were fortunate to be there in low season and arrived in time for the last feeding session of the day which the least number of tourists attend. In high season the beach and jetty can be lined with hundreds of people straining to view the dolphins, I counted 25 people attending our session.

It was a beautiful experience watching the dolphins swimming a couple of metres away from you. Small turtles were also clearly visible swimming around in the clear waters, rays and sharks were spotted in the distance jumping into air. The man and I rotated between standing in the shallows with the dolphins and holding Ollie on the beach who was fascinated with the huge dark shapes bobbing about in the sea.

On the road to seeing the dolphins I called out to the man to slow down when I spotted a couple of emus further ahead on the road. By the time we reached them one had disappeared into the bushes while this bold one was happy to stick around for a few photos. He wasn't afraid of us and would have stuck his head inside the car if the man hadn't quickly wound up the window.

Although the dolphins are the main attraction, there are plenty of other interesting areas to see in Shark Bay, being a World Heritage Area most of them weren't dog friendly so we stuck with the places we were allowed to visit. Our favourite spot was called Little Lagoon which really wasn't so little. Shallow - yes, little - not really. It's a serene location with a few picnic tables and free BBQs sparsely located around the perimeter of the lagoon. After an initial visit we decided to return for a sunset BBQ and enjoyed a Fry's hamburger there (pictured below with Ollie blissfully chasing seagulls in the background).

I do apologise for the lack of food shots in this post, be assured that I’ll make up for it in the next couple of posts. Sunsets before 7pm meant that we were rarely eating dinner in decent light which wasn’t ideal for taking photos of meals. The few food photos I have included are the only ones I took during this part of our trip even though we did eat more a lot more than burgers. Once again, we relied on Indian heat and eat curry packets after long days of travelling and setting up camp as they were quick and easy to prepare. Some of the other meals I cooked on the camper stove were Thai red curries with tofu and vegetables and Linda McCartney veggie sausages and onions with vegetables. We ate baked beans on toast a few times, sandwiches were our standard lunches and there was plenty of snacking on nuts and fresh fruit in between meals.

We ended up cutting our camper trailer trip short but this was for a good reason. I’ll fill you in on the details in the next post!

Food shopping and sights around Perth

Before we headed off on our next stage of travelling which involved more road tripping throughout remote areas, I needed to stock up on foods. As well as general supermarket shopping we made a trip into the PAWS (People and Animal Welfare Society) vegan store and cafe which is centrally located in Beaufort Street in the city. PAWS stock a wide variety of vegan goodies - personal care and household products, pantry items, confectionery, pet care products, clothing, books, non-dairy alternatives and a freezer full of a variety of mock meats and ice-cream.

It was nearing lunchtime and the huge selection of meals at the cafe beckoned to us to give them a try. Amongst the choices were mock meat burgers and hot dogs, nachos, pies, aromatic curries from the bain marie, raw food and falafels. I choose the latter, the young man was sold on nachos and after a lot of indecision the man ordered a Cajun chicken burger.

I didn’t capture photos of the others meals and allowed their hungry bellies to tuck in straight away. The young man’s nachos didn’t look particularly appealing – corn chips topped with a salsa, sour cream and what appeared to be melted Toffuti cheese slices. The omission of guacamole didn't bother him as he isn’t a fan of avocado and he mentioned that the nachos were slightly better than the ones he used to get from his school canteen. The man loved the spicy kick in his Cajun burger although he would have enjoyed it more if it included a larger quantity of salad.

The falafel pockets (available in small and large sizes) differed from a falafel wrap you would typically find in a kebab shop as it contained a heap of additional condiments. Fresh jalapenos, olives, grated carrot, shredded cabbage, spring onions and coriander chutney were some of the items that made this unique. My photo doesn’t show the falafels hiding underneath the mass of salad but be assured that they were present and very tasty. Although it was a challenge to eat this without making a mess, it was totally worth the effort. The man had a serious case of food envy over my meal. The small size was perfect for my appetite that day, I recommend ordering the large if you are particularly hungry.

All of the staff at PAWS were extremely friendly, some went out of their way offering Ollie bowls of water while we ate at their outdoor tables. There was also plenty of indoor seating available on small tables, communal benches and lounges. The store and cafe were constantly busy throughout our visit and I noted that the curries, falafels and raw plates seemed to be rather popular with the regulars.

The Herdsman was another interesting store we visited. They stock a range of chilli sauces the man’s family have been particularly fond of for years, so anyone who visits Perth is requested to stock up on “Hogans”. When we pulled into the parking bay, The Herdsman was a familiar sight to the man and I. His first casual (under age) job had been there squeezing oranges although it was called Herdsman Market years ago. I also recognised the store's signage from one of Kari’s recent posts about her shopping experience there.

It is basically a gourmet type of supermarket reminiscent of the Thomas Dux grocers around Melbourne. They stock many expensive boutique brands in the pantry aisles you don’t see at regular supermarkets. As well as the requisite Hogans sauces, we also purchased a lovely tomato relish and some Sheese smoked cheddar. Cheezly was also available in the refrigerated section.

The majority of our time in Perth was spent catching up with people, at the beach, by the pool and taking nostalgic tours around the man’s primary and secondary schools and houses that he grew up in. It wasn’t until our last afternoon that we made it to Kings Park and we regretted not spending more time there as the beautifully laid out gardens are enormous and it boasts stunning views over the city and gorgeous Swan river.

For many years I haven’t been very enthusiastic about travelling to Perth as I’m not really much of a city person. As it's so far from Melbourne I always insisted that this trip needed to be paired with further travels throughout Western Australia. Clear blue skies and warm weather every day combined with a rental house (including a pool) being a 5 minute stroll away from a gorgeous dog beach turned out to be difficult to leave. I could have happily kept on reliving more of those lazy repetitive days for a lot longer than we did.

Melbourne to Perth road trip

Hello dear readers, apologies once again for the lengthy break between posts. I’ve just returned from my longest holiday ever (as well as the biggest break I've had from full-time work) travelling around Western Australia. Previous vacations of around two weeks have always gone by too quickly so the man and I have been saving up our dollars and annual leave for a while so we could enjoy a month long holiday. After we adopted Ollie our travel plans developed into an Australian based road trip and dog friendly vacation as we didn’t feel it would be fair to leave our new family member in a boarding kennel for such a long period.

Map of our road trip including nightly stops

For those who are unfamiliar with where I live and/or with the geography of Australia, the distance from Melbourne in Victoria to Perth in Western Australia is approximately 3500 km by road. Most of the drive is through incredibly isolated terrain and includes crossing the Nullarbor Plain which runs across the Great Australian Bight. In the most remote areas, roadhouses (service stations selling fuel, snacks and souvenirs) are up to 200 km apart, often without a single residence in between.

A giant galah stands outside a shop in Kimba - "Half way across Australia"

Travelling from Melbourne to Perth with a dog meant that we were limited to camping along the way as the motel style accommodation at roadhouses don’t allow you to stay with pets. Knowing that it would be virtually impossible to find suitable food for us on the road trip, I planned ahead and prepared tofu bacon, chickpea eggs (adapted from Vegan Eats World) and delicious seitan pastrami from Vegan Diner. These items were kept cold in our Esky (Aussie brand of cooler/car fridge) along with dairy-free margarine, vegan cheeses, Fry’s chicken-style burgers, Linda McCartney sausages and salad items.

Cooking up breakfast on our little camping stove 

A portable pantry in the form of a large plastic tub accompanied us on our month long journey which was depleted and restocked several times. Its contents included tinned baked beans, kidney beans, chickpeas and tomatoes, olive oil, bread, rice, Vegemite (yeast extract), ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, Tapatio hot sauce, curry powder, cayenne pepper, mango chutney and snacks such as BBQ shapes, potato chips, nuts and dried fruit amongst other things.

Vegemite on toast (plus avocado for me) is what the man and I eat for breakfast on a regular basis and we continued this tradition throughout our travels. It was a challenge to perfect cooking toast over a naked flame on our gas cooking stove so we did have to suffice with the odd burnt section every so often. We enjoyed a big brekky on one occasion which was simply a matter of heating up precooked tofu bacon, chickpea eggs, baked beans and frying some tomatoes.

The spectacular Bunda cliffs 

Packing up campsites, driving long distances and setting up a new campsite at the end of each day meant that we didn’t have much time to stop and look at a lot of the sights along the way. Apart from roadhouse rests for fuel and toilets the only unscheduled stop I insisted on making was to one of the Bunda Cliffs lookouts close to the SA/WA border. This breathtaking spectacle of 120m high limestone cliffs above the crashing brilliant blue ocean was definitely worth a 10 minute break. Heaps of other photos on our 5 day trip across were taken from a moving vehicle which is not ideal although it did allow me to capture the ever changing landscapes along our hasty travels.

As we were spending somewhere between 7 to 10 hours on the road every day, a pre-made sandwich was usually on the lunch menu. Seitan pastrami, Vegusto vegan cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato and cucumber with the man’s favourite combination of vegan mayonnaise, American mustard and hot sauce kept us satisfied until we crossed the border from South Australia into Western Australia. There are restrictions about bringing fresh fruit and vegetables into Western Australia which meant that we had to ditch our remaining salad items, scoff down the last of our fresh fruit and rely on packaged foods until we reached Kalgoorlie.

Whilst I’m on the topic of packaged foods, our saving grace over the month eventuated from a trip to a local Indian grocer just before our departure. I had been on the lookout for easy, nutritious meals and found some heat and eat curries on their shelves. There only appeared to be 3 vegan meals out of around 15 varieties of vegetable curries as most of the others contained butter or cream. If you do come across the Pattu range, the Baignan Bharta (eggplant curry), Bhindi Masala (okra curry) and Peas Pulav (basmati rice with green peas and cashews) are all vegan. I wasn’t convinced they would be the most authentic tasting meals or spicy enough for our tastes and planned to perk them up with additional spices but it didn't turn out to be necessary. These meals were such a pleasant surprise so we continued to try out other brands of Indian convenience foods from standard supermarkets during the rest our trip.

The sachets are placed into boiling water for 5 minutes or microwaved if you happen to have one handy. Even though some of the curries are rather oily, they aren't particularly high in calories and fat and are free of any preservatives and artificial colours and flavours. The Tasty Bite range are not as flavoursome as the Pattu curries but they are available at most large Australian supermarkets with the Indian foods and are clearly labelled as vegan or vegetarian meals. We particularly enjoyed Punjab Eggplant and Mumbai Mushrooms from the Tasty Bite range. Some nights we scooped the curries up with chappatis rather than bothering to serve them with rice.

Sunrise over wetlands at Port Wakefield

So that's pretty much how we ate whilst travelling remotely for 5 days. Burgers and a few other meals were consumed along the way which I didn't remember to take photos of. There will be more posts to follow about Perth eats and the rest of the food on our trip over the the next few weeks. For now I'll leave you with a recipe which the man fondly refers to as "eggies". I've been making this since testing Ethiopian But'echa (Fluffy scrambled chickpea eggs) for Terry Hope Romero's cookbook Vegan Eats World. My adaptation omits the chillies, includes some black salt and cuts down on a couple of steps and dishes.  

Sand dunes at Port Augusta with the Flinders Ranges in the background

Scrambled chickpea eggs aka. eggies (Adapted from Vegan Eats World)

1 cup besan/chickpea flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 2/3 cups warm water
3 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon black salt
¼ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
pepper, to taste

Cook the besan in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly for 2 minutes or until the flour darkens slightly and smells toasty. Transfer the besan to a bowl. Pour in the olive oil and fry the onions for about 5 minutes or until they soften. Transfer the onions to a plate or small bowl.

Pour the water, lemon juice, black salt and sea salt into the saucepan. Start adding the besan into the saucepan a few tablespoons at a time, whisking all the time. After all of the besan has been added, use a spatula and continue stirring until the mixture becomes very thick and begins to pull away from the sides. Fold through the onions, turn off the heat and allow it to cool down for 10 minutes.

Drag a fork through the mixture to break it up into small lumps resembling scrambled eggs. Season with additional salt if required and black pepper, to taste.

This may be eaten warm or cold and it can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least a week. Adding curry powder and mayonnaise at the end is on my to-do list to create curried "eggs" for sandwiches.