My sister and I came up with this one evening for a dinner party. My signature dish tends to be a pasta dish, with something really odd yet homely about it. Through my best friend’s recommendation, I’ve recently fallen in love with Paul Newman’s tomato sauces. And the addition of the Vegetarian Roasted Salt Chicken or similar vegetarian meats are a great touch.

Ingredients:

• 500 grams of chosen pasta
• Paul Newman’s Classic Tomato Sauce.
• Cubed green capsicum
• Cubed zucchini
• Cubed Vegetarian Roasted Salt Chicken (or your choice of vegetarian/vegan meat)
• Dry roasted pine nuts
• Puff pastry (approx 4 sheets)
• 2 tsp Corn Starch (or Flour) diluted in 1/8 cup cold water.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Line a baking dish with puff pastry, poke holes using a fork in the pastry to prevent it from rising too much.
3. Boil pasta, removing from heat and strain just before fully cooked.
4. Lightly fry zucchini, green capsicum and vegetarian meat in newly emptied pasta pot.
5. Add pasta sauce to pot, and heat.
6. Return pasta to pot and stir to combine with sauce and vegetables.
7. Stir in corn starch and pine nuts.
8. Pour pasta into lined baking dish. Level pasta filling and cover with puff pastry.
9. Ensure that the edges of the pastry are firmly closed.
10. Poke holes into puff pastry.
11. Place baking dish in preheated oven for 50-60 minutes.
12. Remove from oven when pastry is golden brown.

When I spent my seven or so months in Armenia, my favourite drink concoction was a mixture of apple juice and indian tonic water. It becomes a self-made sparkling apple juice, but the brilliance is that you can put the sugar in the right place.

And aside from my love affair, I still find that this hits the spot. Sometimes you need something carbonated yet original to drink. I make mine with

• 2/3 Apple Juice (not the cloudy stuff)
• 1/3 Indian Tonic Water (Schweppes makes them in either cans or plastic bottles)

I just came up with it today, so I’m working on the world-famous part. I know it’s simple, and one would have to try really hard to make this non-vegan, but here it is. I really like the taste of the orange in the lemon water, cause it adds a touch of natural sweetness. Even though the sugar kinda does the trick, too.

Try this out when you’re bored and tell us what you think.

On Sunday, after meditation, we were invited out to Colour of Love, a Vegetarian Restaurant in Cabramatta. The food was absolutely gorgeous, and wonderful. However, we had no time to truly peruse the menu; we were totally overwhelmed. So, to celebrate a recent success with an interview, we decided to hit up Colour of Love again, to fully understand it.

It’s no secret that we love the place, but what I found out this time is how inexpensive the place is. I was amazed. We completely rocked the place for around $56. So here is the list of what we had this evening, and how much we enjoyed it.

In one of my runs of checking random products in stores to check ingredients, I came across this. Bought from Woolworths, Select Woolworths Belgian Dark Chocolate Spread 225 g for around $5-6.

There is something so delicious about these rice paper rolls that has me buying them every time I walk past the QVB. They have a delicious blend of avocado, rice noodles, lettuce, carrots and beetroot. And the best thing about the rice paper rolls as opposed to sushi rolls, is that they never use mayo, so no threat of accidentally eating egg.
I dare you to try one, I really do.

I found this place when I first moved to Parramatta. It was difficult enough to find all new places to eat in Parramatta. Turning vegan, though, I was glad to realise that it was completely vegan. Though with any Thai food, be sure to ask that they don’t use any oyster sauce.
This peanut satay sauce totally blew my mind. The texture was completely gorgeous, it was chewy and delicious. Try it out!
Also, note that they make good use of tofu.

The other day I bought all three flavours of the Sanitarium So Good Bliss flavoured soymilk. Tonight I finally opened the Strawberry flavour. It’s delicious! But one has to ask why it’s not even pink.

Still delicious, though.

I was surprised to first hear of this place. The second time around, I investigated to make sure that it was all vegetarian, and was happy to find out that the vegan options are clearly marked on the menu. I completely loved my visit there, as I felt completely safe in ordering the food, and the apple cider is simply beautiful.

I must warn you that the little room in the back is considered “outside”, so people will blow smoke in your face. And there’s spider webs in the cacti.