Vanilla and Rose Porridge.

Porridge is a staple breakfast in many homes across the world, but alas not mine. Don't ask me why, because there is genuinely no proper reason to explain this, but I was at least 22 years old before I ate my first bowl of porridge (that I can remember at least). Safe to say that having now having discovered the wonders of porridge for breakfast, I AM FEELING CHEATED! I want to time travel, go back to the days of 'yo, what in the heck should I eat for breakfast because there are. no. good. BREAKFAST FOODS' and rain down the enlightenment of porridge all over my breakfast-needing soul. Like, we've never talked about this before because it's a deep dark secret from the depths of my past life, but there was a time I hated breakfast. I'd skip it and say mean things about breakfast and let's just say, breakfast and I were not friends, not at all.

I now know why - I had no porridge!

Fast forward to today and my life is a much happier place, mostly because I am now friends with breakfast. The sun shines a little brighter, the birds are chirping, et al, and I am feeling well and proper nourished because I just ate a giant bowl of this very porridge for breakfast and you damn well bet I feel like health and wellness and every ounce of wholesome living that exists on this earth is radiating out of every fibre of my being. This porridge is full of all that quality long-lasting energy courtesy of the oats, is flavoured to perfection with vanilla and rose and is topped off with juicy stewed blueberries and long story short, through this bowl, I have reached peak breakfast goals. It's everything you want to wake up to in the morning and more. Make it for your breakfast now, revolutionise your life and, most importantly, though we may be new friends, I think you're the bomb.com porridge!!!

Ingredients;

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 cup rose tea*
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup blueberries
Dried rose petals (entirely optional and very bougie) and a few squares of dairy free chocolate (I used caramel) to serve

1. Take a medium saucepan on medium heat and add the rolled oats, almond milk, rose tea and vanilla bean paste to it. Stir through well and allow to heat up, stirring consistently till all the liquid is absorbed into the oats and it reaches your desired consistency.
2. While the porridge is cooking, in a small saucepan add in the blueberries plus a tiny splash of water and heat them up - they'll taste divine on the top of your delicious rose flavoured porridge!!!
3. When your porridge is cooked, scoop it out into a bowl, top with the stewed blueberries, add on some dried rose petals for extra pizzaz plus some vegan chocolate for good measure and hot diddly DAMN have you got yourself a WICKED breakfast!!

*You could use any tea you like, but I strongly suggest rose because of the beautiful floral flavour it gives this porridge! Dried rose buds are available in most tea shops and health food stores, simply brew in hot water for a few minutes then add to the porridge mix

Blueberry Cheesecake Popsicles.

We've been having a VERY hot summer in Australia, which is kinda nice to be honest because hot weather is also ice cream/popsicle weather, and lemme tell you - I LOVE ICE CREAM!

A few weeks ago I made my first proper cheesecake - one that has vegan cream cheese as the base ingredient and as it so turns out, that cheesecake was/is/will always be the BOMB.COM because hot damn does it taste good. I must confess however, that until fairly recently, I didn't realise that the crucial ingredient to that magical cheesecake, vegan cream cheese, was a thing. Delightfully, it is most definitely a thing and it's every bit as creamy and delicious as you might imagine. The best news though, is that it's available across Australia in most regular supermarkets. It's super satisfying/great/WOW to see veganism and vegan products become more widely available and not just some random weird diet and lifestyle that people choose to follow. It's even better however, that I myself can now easily obtain such vegan products because it means I get to make things like actual cheesecake and have really yum things in my life!

While inspired by the cheesecake I created a few weeks back these Blueberry Cheesecake Popsicles are also distinctly unique courtesy of the blueberries. Aside from making them a decadent purple colour, the blueberries add a really fun berry flavour to the magical cheesecake mixture and long story short, you end up with some major deliciousness! Sprinkled with some granola, these popsicles have quickly become my summertime go-to dessert and yeah look I guess you probably could say that you need some in your life too!

Ingredients;
225gm vegan cream cheese (I used 'Sheese' Cream Cheese, Tofutti would also work well!)
1 cup raw cashews
1 cup coconut cream
2 tsp vanilla essence
4 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup coconut yoghurt
1/2 cup granola

1. Take a small bowl and put your cashews in there. Cover them with boiling water and allow to soak for an hour or two. Afterwards, drain them and rinse with cold water.
2. Place the cream cheese, soaked cashews, coconut cream, vanilla, maple syrup and blueberries in a blender. Blend on medium-high speed until you have a completely smooth mixture (no grittiness from the cashews is the key thing to look out for!).
3. Split half the blueberry mixture into a small bowl and add in the coconut yoghurt. Swirl them through gently, not quite fulling mixing them together - they'll look particularly cool if they are two-toned when you pull them out of the moulds.
4. Take some popsicle moulds and scoop some of the plain blueberry mixture in, the some of the mixture with the coconut yoghurt, plus a little granola. Repeat until you've filled up all the moulds.
5. Before putting them in the freezer, sprinkle some granola over the bottoms and put in a popsicle stick.
6. Place in the freezer overnight and the following day, enjoy the fruits of your handiwork!!!

Strawberry and Lemon Muffins.

I'm really into muffins right now. They're fun to bake, they're even more fun to eat and they're also really good (as in like, REALLY LEGIT, hit the spot kinda good) for a mid-morning pick me up!

The story of how these particular muffins came to be goes like this; I had some strawberries sitting in the fridge that needed to be used and I had the weird desire to make something with lemon zest in it. While I briefly entertained the idea of making a cake, I decided that I also wanted to make something I could keep in the freezer for a later day. Enter the muffin. Conveniently single serve sized, freezer friendly and open to endless flavour combinations! Then it occurred to me what a flipping fabulous flavour combination strawberries and lemon zest would make and voila - these muffins were birthed into the culinary world!

I often talk about the dilemma that eggless baking creates for vegans. In baked goods, eggs act as a binding agent, so you can't just take them out and expect things to work perfectly. The good news is that there are a myriad of options available for vegans to replace eggs in baking, the bad news is that they all kind of work a bit differently and you sort of have to pick the right one for whatever it is that you're baking. For these muffins I used a rather unconventional combination of two things to act as a binder - aquafaba and banana. Put together in a sentence like that makes things sound, quite frankly, a bit ew, but trust me, IT WORKS, and it works damn well! The aquafaba, which is the liquid part of canned beans/chickpeas (hear me out!!!), is literally undetectable taste wise and the banana is subtle, so it's truly the strawberries and the lemon zest that take centre stage here!

These muffins are perfect for a mid-morning snack (as tested by your's truly, xoxo) and would make the PERFECT addition to your next afternoon tea with friends (assuming that's a thing we still do/isn't just a grandma thing....). Put one in your lunchbox, eat one as a sneaky pre-breakfast snack - I can guarantee that whichever way you have these muffins, they'll be mighty tasty, super fluffy and basically the best thing ever. (Big call, but nonetheless v true). Happy days!!

Ingredients;

250gm strawberries, cut into quarters
2 tbsp strawberry jam
125gm vegan butter (I use Nuttelex)
1/2 cup castor sugar
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
3 tbsp aquafaba*
1 ripe banana
3 tbsp maple syrup
Rind from 1 lemon
2 cups self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup plant milk (I used soy)

1. Preheat a fan-forced oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a muffin tray with patty pans (aesthetic suggestion - use pink ones! They work SO WELL with the strawberries and we all know that eating with your eyes is a thing okay!).
2. In a small saucepan over low-medium heat, combine the quartered strawberries and the strawberry jam. Stir continuously until the jam starts to become more liquid-like and the strawberries stew a little. This should take approx. 10 minutes. When the strawberries are cooked, remove from the heat and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the vegan butter, sugar, vanilla bean paste and aquafaba using an electric mixer until they're all creamed together and light and fluffy - you'll want to mix them for around 5 minutes to put enough air in the mix to make the aquafaba do it's thing properly (it's baking chemistry, just go with it!).
4. Add in the banana, maple syrup and lemon rind, mixing through well.
5. Add in the flour, baking powder and plant milk, manually folding them through the mix a little first and then mix through with the electric mixer until you have a thick and smooth mixture.
6. Take your lined muffin tray and scoop approx. 1 tbsp muffin mixture into the bottom of each patty pan. Then scoop in a spoonful of your stewed strawberry mixture, gently swirling the strawberries through a little. Add in another tbsp muffin mixture, then another spoonful strawberries on top, again swirling the strawberry mix through a little to create a kind of marbled effect. Repeat till you've used up all your mixture.
7. Place in the oven and bake for approx. 25 minutes or until the tops of the muffins are golden brown. They should be relatively firm to the touch and they'll smell ridiculously good!
8. Allow to cool slightly then serve. I think these are best served warm, so if not eating immediately, I suggest a quick zap in the microwave before eating, purely because warm muffin feels kinda like giving yourself a giant hug, culinary style, and that's really underrated if you ask me!


*aquafaba is the liquid from a can of beans/chickpeas - I know that sounds kinda whacky but trust me, it's a vegan baker's secret ingredient!!!