Harvest Espresso, Victoria Park

Today was the second time that I rocked up to Crumpet along Albany Highway in East Vic Park only to discover that it was closed. I think the Heavens are trying to tell me not to eat there :P But they do vegan breakfast! I have to eat there!

Even though the original plan didn't happen, we Googled some other vegan friendly places near by and settled on eating at Harvest Espresso. I'm actually really glad we ended up dining here because I thoroughly enjoyed my vegan breakfast. I asked the staff what was available for vegans, and they gave me three delightful options which were variations of some meals already on the menu. I had the choice of the roast vegetable toasted sandwich, mushroom ragu with polenta and toasted ciabatta or tomato, wilted spinach and mushrooms on toast.

I don't know about you, but that mushroom ragu was calling my name! 

I'm quite happy with that choice because it was delicious. So flavoursome and hearty. Even though it is summer and the weather is warmer, this pot of hot ragu was so very enjoyable. The ragu had about four different types of mushrooms as well as lentils. These were cooked in vegetable stock and served over polenta. It was one of the best breakfasts I've had in a while; in terms of eating out. 

I also had the red iced tea with coconut water and pach puree. The red tea is rooibos tea. Love rooibos. It has a lovely subtle floral taste and is 100% naturally caffeine free. The iced tea was lovely and refreshing. The peach puree was delicious, and the coconut water added a nice little twist. A very interesting drink.

I really enjoyed my first experience at Harvest Espresso. I will be back again for sure. I need to try the other two vegan options on the menu :)

The 'Pear'fect Pantry

I took my sister and brother out to brunch at a lovely little place called The 'Pear'fect Pantry in Wembley. It's another cafe that does vegan food! You can't even begin to understand how happy I am about that. 

I had a look at the weekend breakfast menu a while back and was totally sold by their vegan pancakes. It's vegan white choc chip pancakes with rhubarb compote, maple syrup and soy cream. Feel free to read that last sentence again. It sounds like an amazing breakfast right? Well, I will tell you now that I was not at all disappointed. In fact, it was better that I could have thought. They had run out of the soy cream so they gave me vegan ice cream instead. I really enjoyed the ice cream, but will come back and try the soy cream another day. The pancakes were unbelievably light and fluffy! Pillows of sweet goodness I tells ya. There just isn't anything I could fault with this meal. I cleaned the plate without any trouble :)

The siblings got the breakfast burger which had a fried egg, bacon, a hash brown, spinach, relish and mushroom. It looked amazing and they both thoroughly enjoyed it. The serving sizes were decent, and in the car ride home my brother literally went into a food coma and slept haha. 

The cafe is such a lovely little place. There is indoor and outdoor seating and a cute little fruit and veggie patch out the front. 

There were also lots of vegan cakes and cupcakes for sale that looked absolutely delicious. I loved this place so much that I will bring anyone and everyone I know for breakfast, lunch or a coffee date. Any reason will do.

We're so mean for taking photos of Peter sleeping :P

Vegan crumpets with berry compote, peanut gravel and vegan yoghurt

I came across an Instagram photo of a scrumptious looking breakfast at the South Perth cafe Gusto Food. It was homemade crumpets with berry compote, peanut gravel and yoghurt. Wow wow wow how delicious does that sound?!

This is the non-vegan version from Gusto Food (photo from here)

I love peanut anything, so this was something I really wanted to try. But I knew that it would not be the same without the yoghurt, and I was sure the homemade crumpets wouldn't be vegan friendly either. So in the end I just accepted the fact that I'd probably never get to taste this plate of breakfast goodness. 

That is until I came home yesterday and saw a packet of wholemeal crumpets that mum had bought from the grocery store. I also had some blueberries and vegan yoghurt left over from the vegan fruit pizza my friends and I made the other night. I also had peanuts left over from the bun thit nuong cha gio that I made too. It was like all the stars had aligned so that I could make my own vegan replica of Gusto Food's crumpet breakfast. I felt like a winner :P

My version didn't turn out as pretty as what Gusto Food plates up, but I know that if I ever make this again, I will know what to do right, and I guaruntee you that this is probably just as delicious as anything from the cafe. 

My vegan version

 
For my berry compote, I just cooked some berries, apple and kiwi with a bit of water and let that simmer until it had a thick consistency. 

For the peanut gravel I roasted some skinned peanuts in the oven until they browned and then processed them in the food processor once they had cooled completely. If you're roasting your own peanuts, then let them cool overnight because the peanut oil that is released during the roasting causes the gravel to clump up. You want your gravel to look more like powder. 

For the yoghurt, I added 2 tablespoons of Tofutti to a tub of vegan vanilla yoghurt to give it that thick white consistency. 

And I just got the crumpets from the packet. Yeah I cheated...but it was because I was short on time and had to go to work. 

This is one seriously great breakfast meal. Make your own, or go to Gusto Food cafe. Either way, you won't be disappointed.

Vegan Hazelnut Pancakes

I still have some hazelnut meal in my pantry that I've been meaning to use, and when I saw The Lush Scoop post up on Instagram that they used hazelnuts to make pancakes, it inspired me to do the same. 

I found a recipe from Veggies on the Counter for Buckwheat and Hazelnut Pancakes which sounded nice and healthy. 

I made a few other additions to the recipe and came up with my own vegan hazelnut pancakes. I did not feel the least bit guilty eating these. They went went great with roasted hazelnuts and raspberry preserves. It was a great start to the day :)

Vegan Hazelnut Pancakes

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup hazelnut meal
• 1/2 spelt flour (can be substituted for any other flour or buckwheat)
• 1/4 rolled oats
• 1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
• 1 teaspoon chia seeds
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup soy milk (or any other non-dairy milk)

Directions

1. Add all the ingredients (except the oat milk) to a bowl and mix well. Slowly pour in the oat milk and whisk to combine. You’ll get a fairly thick batter, which is what you’re looking for.
2. Grease a large non-stick skillet with oil. Turn the heat to medium and, when the pan is hot, drop for each pancake 3 to 4 tablespoons of the batter. Cook the pancake for 2 to 3 minutes or until its top has just started to set. With a spatula, turn it over and cook for one additional minute.
3. Repeat the process with the remaining batter. Make sure you grease the pan with additional oil each time you drop the batter into the skillet. Serve the pancakes with agave nectar, maple syrup or raspberry preserves.

 

Food For Me, East Victoria Park

My friend and I planned to meet up at a breakfast/brunch place called Crumpet on Albany highway in East Victoria Park, but when we rocked up today it was closed. Turns out they're closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

Luckily for us we didn't have to walk far to find another place to have breakfast. 

We popped into a place called Food For Me. It was a very family friendly place to dine. There was plenty of space and there were large storage containers full of toys for children to play with. I've never seen that in a restaurant/cafe before!

The service was great. The nice who served me helped to make the vegetarian full breakfast that I ordered vegan friendly. She told me that the bread wasn't vegan, so she swapped it for turkish bread and added extra mushrooms too.

The serving size of the Vego Full Belly did not disappoint. There was so much food and it was served on a massive plate. The highlight for me was the mushrooms. They were so good. Some places cook their mushrooms in a lot of oil, but these ones were roasted and so the flavours came out well and weren't overpowered by oil. 

Even though it was a rainy and gloomy day outside, breakfast with my friend was perfect. 

Vegan healthy Blogilates banana, apple, berry crepes

I've been following the Blogilates cheap clean eats recipes on Instagram, and the other week a recipe was posted up for healthy banana berry crepes. 

We're currently in winter over here in Perth and so strawberries are a bit hard to find because they're not in season, but someone had given my mum a whole bunch the other week. I don't know why, but I was the only one eating them in my family. They tasted fine to me. How could anyone not want to eat them?

I wanted to quickly finish them off because they were getting mushy so I decided to make my dad and I a healthy breakfast using Cassey Ho's crepe recipe and the soon to be old strawberries in my fridge. 

The recipe on the Blogilates website is not vegan so I substituted egg-replacer for the eggs. I doubled the recipe, and in doing so, I ended up adding 2 teaspoons to the crepe batter. This made them very brown and so when I cooked them they looked like chocolate pancakes. Not very pretty. And these crepes were quite fragile and so when I flipped them they didn't hold their shape all that well either. Again, not very pretty. 

I was so very tempted to just make the crepes again so I could have a half decent photo to post up, but I decided to just stick with my original batch. Besides, my dad said they looked OK. That's good enough for me. 

Vegan banana, apple and berry crepes

Serves 2

Ingredients

• Egg replacer for 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (if you really like cinnamon, then sprinkle some into the sauteed apples)
• 2 bananas
• 2/3 oats
• 1/2 almond or any non-dairy milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 servings Stevia (I used vanilla soy-milk above so I didn't end up using any Stevia)
• Strawberries
• 1 apple, peeled and sliced
• Agave or maple syrup

Directions

1. Mix your dry ingredients together (oats, cinnamon, Stevia) and blend into a fine powder in a Magic Bullet or regular blender.
2. Combine egg replacer powder with water as per instructions on the packet (for me it was 1 teaspoon + 2 tablespoons was the equivalent of 1 egg)
3. Then add a ripe banana, egg replacer and milk. Blend!
4. If the batter is too thick, slowly add the water until it  reaches the consistency you desire
5. Take your batter and pour into a pan on low-medium heat. Just a thin layer!
6. After you see mini bubbles form on top, flip it! 
7. This batter was a bit thick and it made 4 large crepes
8. Heat a pan with spray oil and sauteed apple slices until soft.
9. Now fill up your crepe with the other banana, strawberries and the sauteed apples. 
10. Drizzle with agave or maple syrup

Little Willy's, Northbridge

I caught up with a friend today at a place I urbanspooned called Little Willy's. I've seen a few photos of the food they serve there on Instagram and so I was a bit curious to try it myself. 

The place was nice and cosy. I got there pretty early and managed to grab a table for two but the place filled up pretty quickly. While I was waiting for my friend to come I saw some people lining up outside waiting for a table to free-up. I think that when people are willing to wait then it is a sure sign that the place is worth eating at.

Whenever I try new places I usually look up the menu on the Internet before going in, just to make sure there's something vegan friendly; but for this place I couldn't find one anywhere. It was a total stab in the dark with Little Willy's, but it's pretty easy to find something vegan friendly for breakfast so it didn't bother me too much not knowing what food was on the menu.

The food was really nice. I asked for tomato and avocado on rye bread with fresh spinach on the side. What I really liked about this place was the variety of condiments on the shelves. You had everything you needed to add that extra bit of flavour to your meal. I went for the Vegemite to put on my rye and Tabasco sauce to add a bit of bite. It might seem like a weird combination to you, but Vegemite on toast with avocado and tomato is quite nice. 

I also ordered an english breakfast with soy milk. It came is a gorgeous iron tea pot which looked like something out of an old-school Chinese movie. It was very heavy but it looked just lovely. The tea itself was one of the best I've tasted. 

The place was quite quirky. I thought the place was called Little Willy's because it is located on William St, but I some of the paintings on the wall looked like...little willies (for want of better words). 

All in all, my favourite part of the whole morning was catching up with my friend. When we sat down at got talking, we realised that it had been nearly a year since we last saw each other. At first I felt so guilty for not putting more of an effort into arranging a time to catch up, but after we got lost in conversation my train of thought was redirected into being pleased at the fact that after so long we were able to still just text each other and organise a time to meet up. Talking to my friend again was like no time had passed. That to me is a sign of a great friendship.

Vegan oat pancakes with apple and raisins

I woke up this morning with the plan to make apple and raisin oatmeal but somehow I turned the ingredients into oatmeal pancakes with apple and raisins. 

The original recipe calls for coconut milk but I'm not a huge fan of using it in my cooking because it's usually quite high in saturated fats, so unless it's necessary I will sustitute it if I can. I used soy milk instead but this made the pancake batter more runny so I had to up the measurements of the dry ingredients. 

After making the fluffy pillow pancakes from the Post Punk Kitchen website, I haven't wanted to try any other recipe because I have serious doubts that they could be as fluffy and thick as the PPK recipe. These pancakes however turned out pretty good. I added both baking soda and baking powder so I'm not sure if that's what did it, but they were thick none the less so I was happy :)

I was even more happy when my brother told me that he liked them too. In the past I have made healthy vegan pancakes which was wasn't so keen on, but he really liked these; and for a boy who's not really into fruit, he ate the pancakes with the sauteed apples too. 

Vegan Oat Pancakes with Apple and Raisins

(Makes 6 large pancakes)

Ingredients

• 2 cup Whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• ½ tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp ground Flax Seeds (mixed with 2 tbsp Almond (any non dairy milk)
• 1 cup of non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened soy milk)
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup of water
• 1 tsp vanilla

To Garnish

• 2 tbsp sultanas
• 1/2 apple, thinly sliced
• 1-2 tsp sesame seeds
• Handful of chopped hazelnuts
• 1-2 tsp pepita seeds
• Maple Syrup or agave to drizzle

Method

1. Make your flax “egg” first by mixing 2 tbs ground flax with the 2 tbsp milk and set aside.
2. Whisk together the soy milk and apple cider vinegar and set aside for a few minutes
3. In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda & the oats, then add the soy milk, water, flax mixture and vanilla and use a whisk to combine all together. Let the mixture stand for 3 – 4 minutes then whisk again adding more milk if needed.
4. Heat a non stick pan (I greased my pan with some spray soya oil) and spoon a ladle full of mixture into the frying pan, it will fill out naturally into the correct pancake shape, cook for 2 minutes each side on a medium heat.
5. In the same pan, saute the apples until soft. You can use some coconut oil or vegan margarine if you like. 
6. Fill with your favourite fillings, mine being apple, raisins, sesame seeds, hazelnuts and pepita seeds and sometimes a dash of cinnamon and a drizzle of maple syrup.

The Attic, Fremantle

My friend and I made our way out to Fremantle today for some business and we decided to stay out there for breakfast. I had read about a place called Run Amuk Hotdogs Unleashed on the website Urbanspoon and I thought that today would be a perfect opportunity to check the place out.

My friend Naomi was more than happy to have hot dogs for breakfast but when we got there we found out that it wasn't open until 11.30am. I guess not everyone is keen on hot dogs for breakfast. Alas, I will go back there during opening hours and help myself to a nice vegan hot dog. Yeah, they do vegan hotdogs!

So our problem was that we were two hungry girls with no where to go. The answer of course, was to hop onto Urbanspoon and just find somewhere else to eat. This time we refined our search to breakfast/brunch places in Fremantle. 

We found a place close by called The Attic which was said to be vegan friendly. The place was a very cosy little cafe with the kitchen and counter downstairs and a dining area upstairs...in what felt like an attic.

I enjoyed the cosy vibe that this place had. It wasn't over crowded so the noise level was low (but then Naomi and I start talking and the noise level increases ten-fold) and the lighting was nice and dim. There were suitcases on display to give it that attic kind of feel. All the furniture was wooden and there were some couches up there too. 

What we really liked was the screen that was hanging from the wall. Projected onto the screen was an old-school black and white film. I've never seen anything like it and so it was quite refreshing to see something so unique. 

The staff were very helpful in pointing out what dishes on the menu could be made vegan and the food itself was quite tasty. The tea here was really good too. I had the rooibos chai which was brewed with soy milk and served in a little pot with a strainer. Chai tea always tastes better when it's brewed in the milk as opposed to water and then having the milk on the side. 

Fremantle has yet to disappoint me, and today was definitely no different. This place is a really great spot to go if you want to have a nice close catch up with someone. 

Coming here would be a great way to start your morning. 

Photo taken by Naomi

Photo taken and Instagrammed by Naomi