Paleo Chocolate and Salted Caramel Muffins/Doughnuts

I'm calling these doughnuts because I'm jealous of everyone with doughnut pans right now. So I made little cakes in my cupcake pan and used my apple corer to put holes in the middle. Whatever. It totally makes a difference.  Don't cut out the middle and they are muffins. You could call them cupcakes, but say it quietly out of Dessertstalker's hearing.

Also I'm in love with Lindt's Dark Chocolate with A Touch of Sea Salt. The stuff is amazing. After experimenting with a paleo caramel slice recipe, and eating the fore mentioned chocolate, I was inspired to make my doughnuts salted, caramel and of course, chocolate. The actual cake recipe is just something I completely made up on the spot. I was pretty surprised to have them turn out perfectly the first time. Things don't always do that for me.

Paleo Chocolate and Salted Caramel Muffins/Doughnuts

Makes 6 and a good lick of the bowl

For the cake mix:
1 cup almonds
1 cup dates
30g grass-fed butter
1 tbs coconut cream
1/2 cup water
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp bicarb soda
2 free range eggs
3 tbs cocoa
pinch salt

Pre heat oven to 200c.
Process almonds until starts to clump together, transfer to bowl. Process dates with cream and melted butter until smooth, blend in water. Transfer date mix to saucepan and simmer, stirring occasionally until mix darkens slightly. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
In the mean time, whisk eggs, then whisk in vinegar. Stir the bicarb, cocoa and salt into the almond meal.
Whisk date caramel into the egg mix, then mix in the dry ingredients.
Bake in a greased pan for ~23 mins (Remember I have a doggy oven, they are ready when toothpick comes out clean). Let cool in pan.

For the frosting:
 140g can coconut cream, from the fridge (if you live in Aus, I can't recommend Woolworths select coconut cream highly enough. I've tried so so so many brands and that is the best, plus there's no water)
1/2 cup dates
1 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup water
20g butter

Once again, make the caramel from dates as in previous instructions, using 1 tbs cream from the coconut cream measurement. Once your caramel is cool, stir in the salt. Then whip your coconut cream, and whip in the cooled caramel.

Assemble your chosen cake form by spreading the frosting over the top and finishing with a sprinkle of sea salt.

Paleo Nutella Tart (Gluten Free, Sugar free, Dairy Free Option)

I can't believe I've given up Peanut Butter. I've tried for so many months without success, but as soon as I decided to eat paleo, BAM. No more peanut butter craziness. And yes, I was peanut butter crazy, as it can pretty much make everything good. Sweet, savoury, you name it, you can put peanut butter with it. I would go through a jar in two days. TWO. DAYS.

What's a paleo peanut butter loving girl to do for all these PB recipes floating around? HELLO? EVER HEARD OF NUTELLA? Yeah, I thought so. Nutella is the shiz. Move over peanuts. I'm replacing you with hazelnuts and chocolate.

Let's get down to the part where you get to eat yummy healthy things.
I call this a tart, because in my springform pan it's quite thin. But you could double this and get away with calling it something else. Pie. Cheesecake even.  The name doesn't matter. My brother even suggested he would like a double base to top ration so it's more like a slice. Anyway, what does matter it that this is made of Good For You Ingredients. It's gluten free, grain free, egg free, full of good fats, proteins, friendly bacteria, and it can also be vegan.

Paleo Nutella Tart

Base
150g Nut of choice (Walnuts/Pecans/Almonds)
3/4 C dates
3/4 C desiccated/shredded coconut
1/8 C Grass-fed organic butter (or vegan sub such as coconut oil)
1 tsp vanilla

Crumb nuts in processor. Add dates and process until and even crumb forms. Add coconut, vanilla, and melted butter, process until combined.
Press base into base of a spring form pan.

Filling
250 g hazelnuts (makes 1 C butter)
1 Heaped C dates
1/3 C coconut oil
1 scant C yoghurt* (I used coconut yoghurt, you can use organic dairy OR Coconut cream OR 2-3 Bananas)
1/4 C cocoa
1 tbs vanilla
pinch salt
Optional : 1 tbs Frangelico

Roast hazelnuts until...roasted, plop them on a tea towl and rub off the skins. Shake off the tea towel immediately after otherwise someone will ALWAYS come around and pick it up and get angry at you for them covering the kitchen in hazelnut skins.
Put your still hot nuts in the processor and make into nut butter. (That is, process the hell out of them). Add the dates and process very well, until mix is pretty smooth. Add the coconut oil, process; yoghurt, process; cocoa and vanilla and frangelico and salt, process. EASY.
Plop mix on top of base. Now you can either keep it in the freezer, then bring it out to room temp and wait about 1/2 hour before eating, or just keep it in the fridge. Keeping it just in the fridge will keep a softer, fudge-y texture.

* I have tried this with banana, which gives the same result but a very banana-y taste. Some people liked this, others liked the non banana version. Up to you.
I haven't tried it with coconut cream but I'm pretty sure it will work.

Grain Free Banana Bread

First, if you're a woman, and you haven't read this.... well, read it. Explains why you can have a flat tummy but still no ass like Anne Hathaway in the Dark Knight rises (*Drools*)  

Yep. If the world was thrown into turmoil and you didn't have steady access to food 'cos the zombies were camped in the supermarket or something, you could still support two people. Man can just selfishly look after himself and lift something heavy. But your booty has TWO FLIPPING HUMAN BEING'S NUTRITIONAL NEEDS COVERED. YEAH.

Also I'm working on creating a perfect paleo-ish cookie. If you try and tell me paleo cookie is a little bit of an oxymoron, click here.

Cookies are awesome. 

My goal is to make a cookie that both the dough and the baked cookie taste like the flour/sugar/butter thing other cookies have going on. No ridiculously expensive blanched almond flour I NEED COOKIES BEFORE I'M A MILLIONAIRE. No "stir in some cacao nibs into cashew butter". I'MA SORRY THAT'S JUST NOT COOKIE DOUGH.

Achem. Sorry. I feel passionately about my cookie dough.

Oh yeah here's the banana bread recipe. I do not exaggerate: this is the best banana bread I have ever had. The same day I made this, I also made a "normal" highly-rated recipe from the internets... and it sucked. This didn't. Enough said.

Oh yeah and I updated my grain free coconut bread to include an almond option. 

Grain-Free Banana Bread

250g Coconut

2 eggs

1/4 C milk + (1/2 tbs flax + 1/2 tbs chia bran) or (1 Tbs either flax or chia bran) or 1 extra egg

1 tbs Organic pastured butter

1/8 C honey

1/4 C dates

1/2 tbs baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tbs apple cider vinegar

Ground Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves

~ 2 large bananas

Process coconut to butter. Take it easy on your processor (I killed one doing two batches of this)

Add dates, process well.

Add eggs, milk, honey and butter, process well

Add bananas, process

Add spices and raising agents, process.

{Optional: drizzle with honey and cinnamon before baking}

Bake at around 200c for about 1 hour (Like I've mentioned before, I have a silly oven.)

Sorry about the shizzy photos; I was too lazy to charge my camera and had to take this on my phone. The loaf didn't last long enough to wait for the said-charging (-_^)

Choc-Blueberry Crumble *Breakfast Soft Serve*

First let's just put this put there: Soft serve with no frozen bananas in sight. The world does not need another banana soft serve variation. 

I just read an article about Marilyn Monroe diet. Why am I telling you this? Well for an evening snack 
she would have hot fudge sundae, and she said: "I'm sure that I couldn't allow myself this indulgence were it not that my normal diet is composed almost totally of protein foods." By" protein foods" she means raw eggs whipped in milk for breakfast and broiled liver with a few carrots for dinner. No lunch. Errrghh.


If only Marilyn had this recipe, she could have a protein AND ice cream. In a delicious form. That's totally healthy. Actually I guess by her justifications she could then have two a day; this healthy protein ice cream for breakfast and ice cream sundae in the evening.

Now I like the sound of that!


By the way, the creation of this ice cream was completely by mistake. I've killed yet another blending device so I couldn't make a morning breakfast smoothie. (That's 1 blender, 3 stick blenders, a coffee grinder and a mini food processor so far). So I just chucked some frozen blueberries and protein powder in my food processor with the plan of adding minimal liquid instead. The thing that makes this recipe though, is that coconut cream- not milk- was chilling in my fridge after I made curry last night. What resulted tasted like a mixture between frosting and soft serve. 

FROSTING AND SOFT SERVE. 

FOR BREAKFAST.

To make this more fancy, I turned this into my second favourite gelato flavour: Choc-Blueberry Crumble. All while keeping it breakfast worthy. 
Yes I'll have both a trophy and medal, please.


I personally think this taste better when just made. More like frosting. But you can freeze this too, and you don't even need an ice cream maker, just give it a whip about 5 hours after you put it in.

Choc-Blueberry Crumble Breakfast Ice cream

No added sugar, Dairy Free Option, Egg free, Grain free (gluten free), Nut free option**.

High protein, Low carb, Lotsa good fats

For 3 serves:

3/4 C protein powder *

1/4 Cup cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 Cup coconut cream, or more as needed (only the cream part)

1/2 C frozen blueberries 

Process everything until combined. Start with the minimum of coconut cream. If your mixture just goes crumbly, add more cream by the tablespoon.
  That's it for the ice cream. You can eat it as is or continue on for more yummy-ness

For the blueberry sauce:

1/4 C frozen blueberries

Microwave blueberries for about 20 secs, until just defrosted, mash with a fork to release some juices.

For the Crumble

1/2 Tbs coconut oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp coconut cream

2 tbs almond meal

Mix together all ingredients (melt coconut oil first if not already runny)

Microwave for about 1 min - 1.30. Then mash with fork. This should form a buttery crumb easily.

Top your protein ice cream with crumbles and blueberry sauce and dig in! 
I reccommend making the sauce at the time you're going to eat it as it will make your ice cream icy if you mix them together and freeze. The crumble is cool though, you can chuck that in the freezer.

(I ran out of crumble for this photo and tried using breadcrumbs to give the same look....Silly me)

*Note on Protein Powders: For this, I used a mildly chocolate-flavoured whey protein. I've also made it with Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer, which is denser so it tasted less like frosting. You can use any neutral-ish flavour cos the cocoa should cover it. 
Use your dairy free protein powder to make this dairy free...Oh and pleassseee make sure you're using a healthy protein powder. No crazy artificial stuff.  Mine has like 4 ingredients and I just grabbed it from Woolworth's, so they're not that hard to find!

** leave out the crumble to make this nut free. Or invent your own healthy crumble.

Grain Free Coconut or Almond Bread

Why would you want to got to the effort of making grain free bread? Well, grains tend to make my glands puff up so my face looks freaky, and after eating them I often just want to nap.
 There's also a lot of other reasons people avoid grains. I still haven't made up my mind if I should eliminate them completely. But that's not for a particular reason. I'm often like that.

Yeah that's Vegemite. I'm Australian. I like beer and Vegemite. 

Also this recipe isn't vegan. You just can't have everything in life. Anyway, I've got you guys covered in a previous bread recipe. Here's a link so you don't have to search for it, you lazy vegan bread eaters (Love you).


If you like your bread made of ....bread...stuff.... (wheat, rye, spelt, rice... IDK) don' stop reading! You could add a sweetener and others stuff (banana, apple and cinnamon, chocolate....) to this and make it cake!
Coconut cake! YUM.
*Update* Sub in 2 bananas for 2 of the eggs, add a touch of honey and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves etc) and you have the best banana bread I have ever tasted. I swear on my cat I am not exaggerating. I'll post a separate recipe soon! { here it is! }

Wow!
I've got everyone covered.

Except if you don't like coconut. {Wait, now I have you covered too. I made an almond version which I think I may even like better }

Also, don't ask me how much coconut butter this uses. I don't know. The last jar of coconut butter I saw cost about $27. The packet of coconut I bought cost about $1.80. If you really want to know, send me a jar and I'll test it out for you. Win-win.

One last thing. I used lots of raiser-ers. Raiseners. Raising Agents. I wanted the damn thing to rise. You could just use one type. I give you permission.

Coconut/Almond bread

250g Desiccated coconut {OR 3 Cups Almond meal}
3 eggs
1/4 C milk + {1/2 tbs flax +1/2 tbs chia bran or a tbs of just one of these} ( or skip all this and use another egg)
1/2 tbs baking powder
1/2 tbs bicarb
1/2 tbs apple cider vinegar.

First, whizz the coconut in your processor until a butter forms (it takes about 10 mins on and off in my Oskar)
{If you're using almonds, whizz until the meal starts to clump together}
add the eggs  and extra "egg" one by one, processing in between.
Add the raising stuff. Process.

Done! No wait, you have to bake it too. You might want to grease your tin. Bake for about 45 mins at 200c.

I say "about" because my oven is crazy stupid. It's an all in one sort of thing. Seems to cook cupcakes perfectly in the right amount of time but everything else takes about double. Go figure.
But I digress.

Take you bread out of the oven (when it's cooked). Be sure to use something to not burn your hands. You may have left the tea towel on your desk. Tea towels like to travel.

Cool on a rack.

Next: I have a brownie batter ice cream recipe on the way. Or should I share my favourite chickpea chocolate cake recipe? Either way, they both involve chocolate. Guess you can't lose.

Brown Rice Cookie Dough Dip

My cupboard is pretty empty at the moment. My fridge is pretty empty at the moment. But I had a big container of cooked brown rice, and a craving for cookie dough.
A basic google search found no other recipes similar, so don't ask me how I thought of this.

This is as good as the chickpea cookie dough you may have seen floating around the internet. It sure beats anything I've tried making from anything else (almonds, cashews, coconut). I think I may even like it more than the chickpea version, 'cos that tends to give me a massive tummy ache from eating too much. And let's be honest, I'm always going to eat too much cookie dough.

The first time I made this, it was near perfect. The second time I tried putting protein powder in and it ruined it. Third time, well, I think I may still have a tummy ache.

The type of sugar you use is important here- you can't use stevia, honey, agave etc and expect the right consistency. Adding brown sugar brings about a crazy different change, you can see in the photo below the two different consistencies; the top has honey, the bottom has brown sugar.  The only way I have found to make this healthier and still get the right consistency is by using soaked dates.
Simply soak dates in some water for a few hours, then puree them with some of the water into a paste. Use this in place of the sugar.

Brown Rice Cookie Dough Dip

Gluten Free, dairy free, vegan *sugar free option*

1 1/2 Cup Cooked brown rice

Pinch of salt

2 tsp vanilla

1/3 Cup Nut butter ( I used peanut butter of course)

Sweetener , about 1/2 Cup (brown sugar or date paste to taste; see note above)

1/3 Cup choc chips

Blend everything except choc-chips in a food processor very well until smooth, tasting for amount of sweetness. Add choc-chips.

I made some of this into cookie dough cups- yummmm.

A lot of it didn't make it to the cups....

Double Choc Peanut Butter ANZACs

Yesterday I made 3 batches of Anzac bikkies for Anzac day.

Two batches were my ever popular traditional recipe

And the other....?

Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Anzacs! What doesn't a bit of chocolate and PB make better? Best idea ever right? Well to be fair, a few people still preferred the traditional version. But that's probably cos they're damn good too.

Okay, this isn't exactly one of my most healthy recipes, but you can definitely adapt it using my healthy version in the above link, using dates and coconut oil.

Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Anzacs

Vegan

1)
1 Cup rolled Oats
1 Cup Coconut
1/3 Cup Cocoa
3/4 Cup flour
1/2 C brown sugar

2)
125g Peanut butter
2 TBS syrup of your choice
30g vegan butter
2 TBS water (or more as need*)

1 tsp Bi-carb

1/3 C choc chips

Mix together first lot of ingredients in a large bowl.
Melt second lot of ingredients (PB to water) in a saucepan. Take off heat once melted and stir in bicarb.
Add wet to the dry mix, stir well.
Stir in choc chips.

Bake in 160c oven for around 10 mins or until just lightly browned. Cool on rack, store in airtight container.

*your dough wetness will vary on the type of peanut butter that you use as some are more oily than others. Basically you want your dough to just come together.

Yum!
I love messing around with recipes, seeing how I can make them my own. I don't think I've made a recipe to the letter for a long time.
How about everyone else? Do you prefer to stick to the recipe to ensure success or like to mix it up a bit and risk failure?

Eats ~ Possible Recipes

I haven't made any "recipes" for quite some time; I'm having too much fun playing around with new food combinations and trying recipes from "Thrive" (Brendan Brazier- Basically the best book ever written)

A thrive style pizza made with popped quinoa and lentils

Vegie Scaps Dinner: Cauliflower, apple and raisin rice with mixed veggies on a roast mushie

Thrive Inspired Curried Carrot  and Oat Balls With Salad, Dressed with avocado mashed with soy milk and nooch

Thrive Burger in roast big mushies

Praties Kale Sweet Potato with Avocado Sauce

Resulting soup from farmer's market veggies- simply and tasty

Lovin' the Farmer's market finds 

Experiments with Agar: Peanut Butter Pie

Experiments with Agar: Lemon Slice

Raspberry Silken Tofu Parfait

Chocolate Silken Tofu Parfait

Healthy "Rocky Road" Raw Energy Bars

I've been trying to focus on cutting out sugars entirely, as well each and  component in each recipe having a positive health value. I'm still making breakfast cookies nearly every second day!

I have kept basic outlines of most of these so if anyone's interested, I'll work on making the recipe perfect enough to post :)

Breakfast Cookie

This has to be THE BEST way to eat a completely healthy breakfast!

I'm having so much fun living by myself.
Last week I had Raspberry pancakes for breakfast, Carrot Cake pancakes for lunch and polenta pancakes with spinach, lemon and capers for dinner. Just because I can!

A few days later, I had 2 cookies for breakfast.
And then another for lunch.
And different variety every day for breakfast since.
Breakfast Cookies. Completely healthy Breakfast Cookies!

I've been wanting to make this post for ages. But I haven't been able to get any photos that I'm happy with. Healthy, Delish.... Not photogenic!

Start with your base, then choose the liquid/binder flavour!

Breakfast Cookie Base
1/4 C Oats
2 Tbs (I used Quiona) Flour
1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
pinch salt
1/2 Tsp Vanilla
1 Tbs Choc Chips (not optional!!!)

1/2 Packet Stevia (optional*)
1 Tsp Agave (optional*)

+ Add ins: 3x Tbs each of your favourites (nuts, coconut, goji, raisins seeds, sprinkles... go crazy!


The Variety Is Endless! Some of my favourites: 

Original Breakfast Cookie
3 Tbs (soy) Yoghurt (or 2 Tbs Soy Milk)
1 Tbs Flax

Banana Breakfast Cookie

1 medium banana, well mashed
1 Tsp Flax

Peanut Butter and Jelly Breakfast Cookie (personal fav: made the best cookie!)
1 Tbs natural peanut butter
1 Tbs Jam (I used Naturally sweetened raspberry Jam by Dick Smith)
2 Tsp soy milk

Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookie
1/2 Carrot finely grated
squeeze the juice of the carrot in the same bowl
2 Tbs soy milk
1 tbs flax
optional: add a pinch of ginger, cloves, cardamon and nutmeg

Choc-Coconut Breakfast Cookie
Take out a tsp of flour and add a tsp of cocoa
Take out a tsp of milk and add a tsp of coconut oil (melted)
add 2 Tbs of shredded or desiccated coconut

Got your flavour? NOW DOWN TO BUSINESS (or breakfast)

Stir until all combined, dough should stick together. Use your spoon to shape into a ball and spoon onto plate. Flatten out to about 1.5 cm thick. Buzz in microwave for about a min, or until middle is cooked.
Wait for it to cool a bit! It's really hard but much worth it!



*I don't add a sweetener when using Jam or  Banana as a binding base!

Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cheesecake (V, GF)

I'm sorry. I went there.

Brownie Base. Peanut Choc-Chip Cheesecake. Peanut Butter Ice Cream. Chocolate Ganache.

I got a text (from one of my most favourite people to cook for) 

"Omg I just had the best dessert ever! It was peanut butter ice cream pie!"

Well. That was in Hobart and I'm not. I wanna eat peanut butter ice cream pie!  

Oh...and make my own recipe so when I was at home next, I could make her a better version.

I sorta wrongly interpreted "It had a base like a cheesecake"

as "It had a base that was like a cheesecake"

So I made this... (My first attempt)

This one had the same brownie base, cheesecake layer with crushed peanuts, and banana softserve pb icecream. Needed lots of tweaking.

I then discovered the one she had was just pb ice cream in a biscuit crust.

Ooooooooooh.

I could make that I guess.....But I like my idea better!

Vegan Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cheesecake With Brownie Base. Single Lady Sized.

Vegan, GF, Low Sugar. Flipping Awesome.

For an 11cm springform tin. 

It looks like a lot of work but each part comes together really quickly!

For the Brownie Base:

50g Dark Chocolate

1Tbs Veg Margarine

1/8 C Sugar or I used 1 Pkt Stevia

2 Tbs Almond Milk

1/2 Tsp Vanilla

1/3 C (GF) Flour (I use Organs)

1 Tbs Cocoa

1/8 Tsp baking powder

Pinch salt.

Carefully melt chocolate in microwave, then stir in marg, then the sugar, milk and vanilla. Fold in everything else.

Spread into the bottom of your cutie little tin, and bake at 180 for about 5 mins, or until puffed a bit.

For the Cheesecake

1/4 C and 1Tbs Super-Soaked Cashews

150g Silken Tofu

1/3 Cup Sugar (or I used 1 pkt stevia and 1/4 C Agave)

1Tbs Coconut Oil

2 Tsp Cornflour

2 Tsp lemon juice

1 Tsp Vanilla

pinch salt

1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

1/4 Cup choc chips (optional?)

Blend everything except the peanuts and choc chips really really well. Until silky silky smooth! Blend Blend Blend!

Pour half into prepared brownie base, then sprinkle with peanuts and choc-chips. Pour other half on top.

Bake at 160 for about 20 mins, or until the the middle is just jiggly, it doesn't matter if looks a little un set! Careful not to overbake this one! You may like to put another tin with water in the oven with it.

Chill in fridge overnight.

For the Peanut Butter Ice Cream

1 little can (~~~165mL) of coconut milk

70g silken tofu

1/4 C sugar or agave

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 C Peanut butter

1/4 C roasted unsalted peanuts

Blend blend blend. If you don't have a fancy ice cream maker (hello!) Pour into little container, freeze. Every hour, scrap around the edges and then stir really well. Do this until it's set.

To Assemble!

Get the ice cream from the tub by briefly running the container under hot water. Blend with 1/4 C Peanut butter until smooth and creamy.

Spread ice cream in thick layer on top of cheesecake. 

Drizzle with Chocolate Ganache (25g Melted chocolate with enough milk to make it drizzly) and sprinkle with peanuts.

Devour.

Veg Out at Kabuki By The Sea ~ Swansea, Tas

Kabuki By the Sea
Tasman Highway Swansea (10 mins drive from Swansea)
Phone (03) 62578588


www.kabukibythesea.com


Veg Rating:
Vegetarian/ Vegan Friendly. Small dedicated Vego menu.

I finally got around to going to Kabuki. Being a Japanese restaurant, it was a major thing I wanted to do before I left Hobart. Oh and that's my big news, I'm now studying at the Australian National University in Canberra!

Back to Kabuki. The view is worth the trip alone. Sitting at on of the window seats, it is truly stunning.

You can also get sake (Or Tassie beer of course!)

As far as the menu goes, it's fairly vego friendly.That said, there really is only one "main" meal option, the bento.  I started with vego gyoza, which was pretty tasty but a little over priced at $13.90 for what you see in the picture. I then had the bento, which also has gyoza, so I don't recommend doing what I did, unless you really, really like gyoza!

Overall, the bento was good, although I can't help compare everyone now to Chado's. There was the gyoza, lottas sushi, agadashi tofu, and some sort of noodle thing, which was really good despite it's plain looks.

My only complaint would be that all the sushi was the same flavour. After 7 pieces, it can get a bit same-same.

Overall, Kabuki is worth it for the experience (the VIEW!), and as a vego polishing off the bento, you 

defiantly won't leave hungry!

Note: You can view the whole menu on their website, see top of post.

Anzac Biscults

First things first, for all you non-aussies out there:

The army biscuit, also known as an ANZAC wafer or ANZAC tile, is essentially a long shelf-life, hard tack biscuit, eaten as a substitute for bread. Unlike bread, though, the biscuits are very, very hard. Some soldiers preferred to grind them up and eat as porridge.

-Encyclopedia, Australian War Memorial

(If you need to start at the very very start: ANZAC = Australian and New Zealand Army Corps)

Okay, Got your history down pat? Lets move on to yummy bikkies.



Anzacs are actually pretty easy to vegan-ise, the recipe doens't traditionally have milk or eggs. My original version is the perfect balence between chewy and crispy, and probably the best to take to "normal" people, they will love them. I've also included my healthy version of the delish Aussie favourite. 

Out of all the cookies I've ever made, these ones always go the fastest.

ANZAC Biscuits

Vegan, GF Options, Sugar Free Option

Original:

1 C Plain (GF) Flour

1 C Rolled Oats

1 Cup Desiccated Coconut (or give shredded a quick whizz in the food processor)

1/2 Cup brown sugar

4 Tsp Golden Syrup

125g Vegan Margarine (I use nutellex)

2 Tbs Water

1 Tsp Bi Carb Soda

Chuck the flour, oats, coconut and brown sugar in a bowl, stir together.

Melt together the golden syrup, margarine and water either in the microwave or in a small saucepan, stiring until the mix is homogenous. Stir in the Bi Carb.

Pour this mix into the flour mix and stir until just combined. Roll balls just bigger than golf balls, slighlty flatten then place on a lined tray. Flatten more with a fork. These guys don't tend to spread or rise. The mix tend to be fairly crumbly and a bit annoying to work with. This is a good sign of an awesome anzac though. Work through the pain.

Bake at 155C for about 9 mins, until lightly browned. Cool on tray for 5 mins, then move to a rack, or eat them all.


Healthy Version!
Note: As your dates are going to be different to my dates, only try to make this after you have made normal anzacs, just so you know what consistency you're after, and can adjusted the wetness by adding more oil, or oats and coconut.
Dates work perfectly to replace caramel taste of the brown sugar and golden syrup, and coconut butter sneaks in as the oil as they already have coconut! Simply whizz 3/4C of soaked dates until a thick paste forms, then pour in 125g of melted coconut butter. Add this with the bicarb to the flour mix. I've also mixed in hemp protein and LSA instead of some flour, which works perfectly, but will make them a bit more cakey.






Yum! Need an excuse to whip up a batch? Definitely make them on ANZAC day, the 25th of April.

Veg Out at Chado ~ Hobart City

Chado: The Way Of Tea
134 Elizabeth Street, Hobart
Phone 62 31 64 11


Go for? Lunch and Tea (The drink, not the meal)
Tues to Sat: 11am - 4pm

Chado's Facebook page

Veg Rating:
Veg/Vegan friendly. Best Vegetarian Japanese food going around.

Elizabeth street opposite the Melville street carpark

I always find myself saying the standard "Let's meet for Coffee", when really, I don't drink coffee that much. I'ld much prefer a hot chocolate, or better, a good cuppa tea. 

Tea drinkers rejoice! "Let's meet for tea" won't sound so strange when you follow it with "At Chado"!

(According to their facebook page) They have over 80 teas from China, Taiwan, Japan, Sri Lanka, India, South Africa, Egypt, South America and Australia. I sort of got overwhelmed by the fact that they have a whole tea menu and didn't count or take note of all the different types and countries, so I'll believe that. There were a lot of teas!

It has everything good. Ever.

There's basically two food options: A bento box or donburi. You then choose what "protein" you want with this, one of the options being Organic tofu. I had the bento with the tofu (above) but it was so exciting and delish that I tucked in before remembering to take a photo! I have been to most of the Japanese restaurants around Tassie now, and I have to say, this is the best bento I have had.

Even more exciting, they have Natto! If you don't know, Natto is fermented soy bean, and Natto is to Japanese like Vegemite is to Australians. Let's just say, most foreigners don't like it. I do, and if you haven't tried it before, I would highly recommend trying Chado's. I've had some pretty nasty Natto before (in Japan), and this was good. 

Although I would highly rate this as a great veg out spot, there is only on veg option in each of the Bento and donburi menu. However, there is only 4-5 options in each of these sections anyway. It's a small menu.

The tea is brewed how it is meant to be ( the right temperature and seep time), and you get an extra jug of hot water so you get a few pots out of your order. Just as things should be yes?

To top it all off...Best chai milkshake, hands down. And I drink a lot of chai things. They also do a matcha one, and apparently? make their own soy milk.

Speaking of matcha, you can also get your own mini tea ceremony at your table. I know right!?