Anyway, I was eating watermelon the other day and after I’d removed all the lovely pink flesh of the melon, I was left with the rind, and I remembered reading about a Southern (as in the South, in the USA) snack – pickled watermelon rind. I don’t mind regular pickles, but I’m not as in love with them as my Polish-American partner, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat the pickled rind of quarter of a watermelon… but I figured I might as well give it a try at least once. Everyone raved about them, so why not?

Well, I gotta tell you, pickled watermelon rind is yummy! It’s crunchy and cool and refreshing – a perfect snack for hot weather, and it’s not super sweet. Most cold foods are sweet. This one is vinegary,  but a little sweet from the sugar. It’s nice for a change. And I really like the crunch!

I chose the absolutely easiest watermelon pickle recipe I could find. Others call for certain herbs, or soaking the rind overnight – stuff like that. Since I wasn’t even sure I would like them, I was going for minimum effort. I think this actually was a great idea. The simplicity of the flavours is part of what I really like about these pickles. Plus they’re quick and easy, and they use up something I’d normally discard. I just changed the vinegar to apple cider vinegar cos that’s what I had in the cupboard.

So now that I’ve raved… here’s the recipe.

Pickled Watermelon Rind

Ingredients

• Watermelon rind (from a quarter of a big melon)
• 1 very scant cup of water
• 1 very scant up of apple cider vinegar
• 2/3 to 3/4 cup caster sugar

Method:

1. Cut the watermelon rind into small chunks, about 1 to 2 inches in size. Make sure you remove the green skin.
2. Stir the water, vinegar and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.
3. Add the watermelon rind and stir.
4. Turn off the stove, but leave the saucepan on the hotplate. Let the rind sit until it reaches room temperature.
5. Place rind and as much brine as you can fit in a jar(s) and put them in the fridge.
6. Eat them right away or save them for a bit in the fridge. Remember, these haven’t been properly sterilised and sealed, so they’re not shelf-safe. You should eat them within a few weeks at most and keep them in the fridge.

Note: swish your mouth with water after eating, because it’s not good for your teeth to let acidic foods like vinegar sit on the enamel.

Anyway, regardless of whether or not they turned out how they were supposed to, they taste good. Just call ‘em muffin tops and eat ‘em all up!

This recipe makes about 36 cookies.

Pumpkin Pie Spice Muffin Tops

Ingredients:

• 2-¼ cups plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsps pumpkin pie spice
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup vegan margarine, softened
• 1 cup white/raw sugar (we used low GI cane sugar, which is similar to raw sugar)
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (I made my own from a grey pumpkin)
• egg replacer for a whole egg (we used Orgran’s No Egg)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (imitation is fine)
• 1 cup vegan white chocolate chips (or chunks, in our case – we cut up some vegan white chocolate)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
3. Cream the margarine and sugars.
4. Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla to the wet ingredients and combine thoroughly.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
6. When all ingredients are combined, stir in the chocolate chips.
7. Drop small spoonfuls (slightly heaped teaspoonfuls) of dough on a non-stick cookie sheet, then place in the fridge for 5 to 10 mins before baking.
8. Place in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
9. Cool for a couple minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

We made two types: chewy chocolate chip and pumpkin pie spice with white chocolate chips. The latter turned out too cakey. The flavour is great, but the texture is not right. However, if you think of them as something other than cookies (such as muffin tops), then they are super yummy. As for the former – the chocolate chip cookies – well, they’re only the most super awesome vegan cookies I’ve ever tasted.

So, here’s the recipe. We didn’t really change it much; but we did reduce the number of chocolate chips. Admittedly, this was only because we didn’t have enough chocolate chips… We actually changed the method more than the ingredients. Clearly we made smaller cookies, cos we ended up with 48 rather than the 25-30 the recipe said it would make. Also, to get a great texture and shape, Yankee Elv puts the tray full of unbaked cookies in the fridge for 5-10 minutes before placing it in the oven. This really helps for some reason and is not a trick I’ve ever used before. This may be why I’m typically bad at baking cookies. But these ones turned out great (thanks YE).

Chewy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of softened vegan margarine
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white/raw sugar (we used low GI cane sugar, which is kinda like raw sugar)
• 1/4 cup non-dairy milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (imitation is fine)
• 2 1/4 cups plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 300g vegan chocolate chips (the original recipe called for 12oz)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. In a large bowl, cream the margarine, sugar and brown sugar.
3. Slowly stir in the non-dairy milk.
4. Add the vanilla essence.
5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda.
6. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir well.
7. Fold in the chocolate chips.
8. Drop small spoonfuls (slightly heaped teaspoonfuls) onto non-stick cookie sheets and refrigerate each tray for 5 to 10 minutes before placing them in the oven.
9. Bake for 10 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly, until you can lift them off the tray with a spatula. Then place them on a cooling rack until they’re cool. Make sure you eat some while they’re warm though!

When I made it, I let it simmer on the stove for about an hour while I was cooking something different for Mr Teeny-bop’s dinner and baking dessert. The long simmering time really made a difference – the curry would have been quite watery otherwise. If you want to make this with less cooking time, I’d reduce the coconut milk and chopped tomatoes – possibly using as little as half as much.

Chickpeas would also go well in this – in fact, that’s what I was originally going to use, but we didn’t have any! Kidney beans (rajmah) tasted great instead.

Rajmah Gobi Curry

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cauliflower
• 1/2 red capsicum
• 1/2 green capsicum
• 1/2 cup peas
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 400mL can coconut milk
• 400g can kidney beans
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tab lemon juice
• black pepper to taste
• 1 tab vegan margarine
• 2 tab curry powder
• oil

Method:

1. Heat oil in large pan over medium-high heat and fry onions until slightly brown.
2. Reduce heat to medium and add garlic, curry powder and tomatoes. Combine and simmer for 2 minutes.
3. Add cauliflower, beans, lemon juice, salt, pepper and half of the coconut milk. Simmer for 6 to 8 minutes.
4. Add capsicum, margarine and the other half of the coconut milk. Simmer for as long as you want – up to an hour – until the curry reaches a consistency you like. The chickpeas should be soft and the cauliflower tender.
5. At the end, add the peas for just long enough to cook through. (If you leave them in there too long, they’ll get mushy and gross.)
6. Serve with rice or flat bread. Yum!

So usually I make my own fast food.

This is what I had for lunch the other day:

• Roasted sweet potato (I had two in the basket in the pantry starting to get a bit old, so I roasted them up to eat as I pleased)
• Refried beans with jalapenos (thanks Old El Paso!)
• Mexi-beans (thanks again Old El Paso!)
• Mexican style express rice (this time, Uncle Ben’s was my friend)
• Roasted capsicum salsa (I’m taking out shares in Old El Paso).

So these aren’t the most eco-friendly items I’ve ever eaten… two things from cans, one in a plastic packet and one from a jar… but aside from the rice packet, it’s all recyclable and/or reusable, which is more than you can say for the paper/cardboard/plastic/styrofoam packaging you get from places like Macca’s.

It’s also loads healthier.

And it was fast! It took me less than 5 mins to make. Sometimes that’s what you want. Plus, there’s leftovers!!

But best of all, it was tasty. Nommmmm….

I’ve known this for a while. I’ve been eating their plain and nutty chocolates for a while (peanut slab OMG!). Recently I discovered the one with little pieces of orange zest. But nothing prepared me for finding gooey peppermint chocolate the other day in Big W.

Whittaker's Ghana Peppermint family chocolate block (250g).

I love gooey peppermint chocolate! Always have!

It tastes like peppermint patties.

It tastes like the Cadbury’s family chocolate block I used to choose when it was my week to pick which chocolate we bought for the family. (Dad didn’t like my weeks, because he dislikes peppermint. Everyone else loved my week. More chocolate for them!)

It tastes like yumminess.

Thank you Whittaker’s!!!

Princess.

Guess who left little purple paw prints all over the tiles?

Princess.

Guess who was highly unimpressed I was taking her photo while she had a purple-stained foot?

Princess.

Yeah. Diva Princess. That’s who.

Just to show she’s not always messy and disgruntled…

Princess is very sweet to little Fruity.

Awwwww.

Now if only the possums would hurry up and eat all the mulberries on the ground under the tree. We were just lucky this time that we didn’t end up with purple stains on the carpet. Fortunately only the bedrooms are carpeted. Phew! Now, keep up, possums!

P.S. My eco-friendly cat toy tip of the day? A twig from a poinciana tree. I was using one to encourage Fruity to follow me back inside and she loved it. I forgot though, that I used to play with Princess in the same way… she had to come join in! They took turns to bat the twig. So cute. Pou was very confused as to what they were doing. An ex-stray, Pou doesn’t really understand the concept of playing like that. But my point is – who said cat toys have to be expensive and made of plastic? These two get more fun out of a bendy twig than they ever have out of some weird plastic ball with a bell inside. Yay nature!