Vegan Bento #53

Welcome to the latest lunch post!

Top Left: homemade half-raw hommus with carrot cutout.

Top Right: carrot sticks and flowers, tomato from dad’s garden.

Bottom Left: Pigs in mud! Homemade iced brownie surrounded by sultanas, dried pineapple, apple rings and blueberries (yellow cup).

Bottom Right: Seaweed rice crackers with Sheese chunks, dry roasted garlic chickpeas (yellow cup), pistachios (pink cup).

I was very pleased with my pigs in mud, pigs being one of the most beautiful species on the planet. And they’re such cuties!

Pictures of My Cat: “This is How I Sleep”

Welcome to the new section of this blog, Pictures of My Cat! I take many, many photographs of Gambit, due to his overwhelming cuteness at all times. Here are some of them;

These are all taken on different days, he just sleeps like this most of the time!

Lookit that fluffy white belly, begging to be rubbed! Which he absolutely loooooves…

He also loves sleeping with his tongue poking out. Maybe just to be even more adorable.

“What are you doing, human?”

Photo round-up: Rural Ruins

A few weeks back, my dad and I did some exploring of an abandoned mid-19th-C building complex, and it had some awesome photo opportunities; not to mention being a really cool place to have a look around. Here are some of my favourites:

1. A Lonely Life

2. Threshold (my personal favourite)

3. Sun in the Sty

4. Glacial (the geology in the Cooma-Monaro area is endlessly fascinating!)

5. Stay Awhile

6. Domestic Debris

That’s it for today! Stay tuned for pictures of my cat.

Vegan Bento #52

That’s right, the vegan bento blogger is back! I’ve been working mostly full time for a few weeks, and now I’m used to it I’m more inclined to pack a proper bento.

That being said, this is more of a snack bento, as I had my lunch separately.

Top tier L-R: “Freedom Foods” muesli bar, sultanas, golden sultanas, pistachios and dry-roasted garlic chickpeas (in pink cup).

Bottom tier L-R: seaweed rice crackers, spicy Indian potato snacks, raw cashews (in yellow cup), raw sunflower seedss (in blue cup).

The little cupcake container hold a mixture of nutritional yeast, veggie salt and cracker pepper, for seasoning the 5 bean mix that was my lunch. And a Clif bar because I am freaking addicted to them!

Stay tuned for the next post, which will probably include photos of my cat. Heheheeh.

Photo round-up: Mechanics 101

Here is a somewhat disparate collection of photographs of various disused mechanical objects, taken in a variety of locations.

1. Dried Out and Used Up (Taken at an abandoned retirement village)

2. Pressure Valve (Taken at the White Bay Power Station)

3. Experiments in Hue (Taken at above; as the title suggests, this one was largely an experiment in hues and tones)

Any comments and questions are more than welcome! Stay tuned for an update, and more pictures of my cat.

Samhain 2013 Altar

An overview:

Close up:

Lit by candlelight:

Bonus pretty candlelight shot:

Anyone curious about what’s actually on the altar, let me know!

I’m Back! And with a cat…

Hello all, it’s been quite a while since I had time/motivation to update this blog – sorry about that. IRL I’ve been working and studying through TAFE, as well as having become the mum to a beautiful little cat; between these and sleeping, I haven’t had much energy for blogging.

Now that I’ve mostly settled into a routine, I’ll do my best to update more frequently. I’ve plenty of material, having been cooking, baking, reading and film-watching an awful lot; and thinking, of course. Always thinking!

So I’m a parent now… the good kind, involving a kitty, not a squalling snotty human spawn. His name is Remy Le Beau, AKA Gambit, AKA Captain Snugglepants. He looooooves belly rubs, sticking his head in my shoes, cuddling and generally being adorable.

Here are some pictures of him:

He really loves my shoes, and dirty socks – see below.

“What? I’m a normal cat! Totally!”

On my bed.

On his bed, with his snuggly blanket (he LOVES being tucked in).

In his bed, using my dirty sock as a pillow (he dragged it in himself, hilarious).

I have so very, very many more photographs of him. But stay tuned for my Samhain 2013 altar – it’s pretty damn awesome.

Sacred Art: The Sabbats (Series), Part 2

Welcome to the second installment of pretty watercolour pictures of the Wiccan Sabbats (see part one here)! Sorry for the delay, I’ve been rather busy ‘IRL’, dealing with the horrific administrative clusterfuck that is tertiary education in this state/country.

1. Lughnasadh

2. Ostara

3. Samhain – one of my personal favourites, I’m very pleased with the skull!

4. Yule

I’ve already started another mini-series of watercolours, revolving around mandala designs and the meditative chant Om ma ni padme hum. Stay tuned!

Sacred Art: The Sabbats (series)

I’ve completed another ‘series’ of watercolour paintings, this time depicting each of the Sabbats. They’re roughly based on the Sabbat cards from my oracle card deck, although rather more detailed!

Here are the first 4, plus the Wheel of the Year poster I also did;

1. Wheel of the Year

2. Beltaine

3. Imbolg

4. Litha

5. Mabon

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post!

Raw Food Roundup; Snacks and Desserts

I’ve been experimenting a lot with raw foodism of late, though I’ve been rather slack in regards to taking photographs. Blame the consistently poor lighting in my kitchen/flat! So here’s a brief overview of some of my experiments.

1. Raw Cacao Crunch Cookies

These were an original recipe; I basically mixed puffed buckwheat (soak raw buckwheat then dehydrate until crispy), hazelnut and almond meals, cacao powder, and agave nectar. Then shaped into balls and dehydrated for about 12-24 hours, depending on how dry you want your cookies.

2. Dehydrator load ready to go

Back two mats; raw cacao crunch cookies. Middle row; cacao crunch cookies on left, and lemon/almond/coconut cookies (just mix almond meal, shredded coconut, and fresh squeezed lemon juice and zest) on the right. Front row; kale chips (basically capsicum, cashews, nutritional/savoury yeast).

3. Cashew ice-cream bars

The easy and delicious way to make ice cream! These bars are cashew/date/banana on the left, and cashew/date/banana on the bottom with chocolate banana on top. Chop dates and soak overnight. Put cashews in the blender and reduce to a meal; add a very ripe banana (chopped), the drained dates, vanilla essence/bean, a little agave nectar, and blend. Use the date soaking water as needed to make a thick cream. Pour into moulds or a freezer-safe container and freeze. For chocolate, just add cacao powder; mint chocolate and orange chocolate are also excellent flavours.