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This week’s blog comes with quite a story. I hope you love stories. I love stories, my grandmother always told us stories and I would relish in every word. Its book review week and I am reviewing a very special book this week that unfortunately isn’t for sale. It’s a family cookbook of my best friend from school’s grandmother. Penny Curtis and I have been friends since we were eleven. We both grew up in the Northern Territory. We loved our grandmothers and talked of them fondly. They both lived elsewhere mine in New York state and Penny’s in Herberton, Queensland.

It hadn’t dawned on me what was really missing for me personally during the COVID 19 lockdown and restrictions until last week when a friend sent a really cute video. The thing missing for me during the COVID lockdown was ……….. tahini. Yep you read right, tahini. Somewhere in the whole upheaval I forgot to use this in my meals.

It’s seasonal produce week so here I am with something that is in season, right in my garden, right now. We have three prolific guava trees growing in our garden. The majority of the fruit is feeding the bats, which I am so happy about as the bats had a tough time through the drought and fires. We love that we can share the fruit with them. Yesterday we picked 10 lovely ripe guavas that the bats hadn’t touched and we made the best jam I think I have ever tasted.

It’s kids recipe week and I am excited to tell you we have a guest blogger this week. Paula from Eat Cook Love who is half way through the Vegan Chef Training. One of our trainees in waiting has developed a scrumptious recipe that you children may love. The recipe does contain nuts so for any of you with nut allergies this recipe can easily be adapted. Instead of the cashews use sunflower seeds instead and if you don’t like sunflower seeds then use one cup of cooked potatoes and 1 cup of cooked cauliflower instead. All recipes in this blog are versatile to suit your dietary needs. So its over to Paula now.

After the naughty but decadent recipe I shared with you last week I thought a healthy recipe was in store for this week. It’s week one in my schedule of blog posts which means book review week and while this warm winter salad doesn’t feature in any particular book (my own creation) I feel I was inspired by Hetty Mckinnon’s book Family. It is not a vegan cook book but well worth a mention.

It’s celebration week this week for Veet’s Vegan Cooking School. On the 19th May 2008 I first started my business. Wow that feels so long ago, much longer than twelve years. It was huge for me to go out on my own and create a business as I had always been in paid employment and came from a family who were in paid employment.

How are you? Did you miss me? I took a two week break from writing blogs to try and catch up and have plenty of recipes for you in the upcoming weeks. Hope you didn’t miss the recipes too much. This week I am showcasing Bok Choy as the seasonal vegetable for the month. Right now where I live Bok Choy is in season and the bunches are beautiful. While the protein content of Bok Choy is actually very low it does contain a wonderful amount of other nutrients making it a super healthy vegetable to add to your diet.

It’s children’s recipe week this week and this is a good one to make with the whole family. Put aside 1½ hours so that you can make it with ease and fun. Put on some fun music and get into the swing of cooking as a family. Go to my facebook page to see the video I did on how to make the tortilla. If you don’t have a tortilla press you can roll out the flour with a rolling pin (dusted with corn flour) and cut out round shapes with a wide glass or biscuit cutter.

Hope you are all having a good week despite all the uncertainty in the world right now. Also hope you are having more time to cook. Let me know what’s cooking at your house. Isn’t it time for a sweet recipe? It’s been a while since I last posted a sweet recipe so here I am with a delectable treat. It is also book review week again. Wow the months go fast yet when I think about what has happened in this last month it feels like a year ago.

How are you? How have you been this week? Thank you to all of you who wrote to let me know how you are going and to also thank Melanie and I for keeping these weekly recipes going. It means a lot to me that you are enjoying the recipes at this time.