Music for your Mouth: Cream (with Ginger Baker)

See what I did there? Yeahhhh!

Cream are awesome. I like listening to them in the car, where I can groove along by myself and remain calm in traffic. They are good for that. Also check out young Eric Clapton, isn’t he funky?

Ice cream is also good! It is delicious and I love it. Not to toot my own horn but this ice cream is PARTICULARLY tasty. I don’t know that I’ve had ginger ice cream before but it definitely won’t be the last time I have it.

The addition of crystallised ginger is really great here, and I suspect some crumbled up gingernut cookies would also be delicious. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!

Ginger Ice Cream with Caramel Sauce

Ice cream:
400ml coconut cream
400ml coconut milk
1/2 cup rice malt syrup
1/4 cup minced fresh ginger
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup crystallised ginger, chopped into small pieces
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 Tbsp arrowroot
1 Tbsp vodka

Caramel sauce
400ml coconut cream
1/3 cup brown sugar
Pinch of salt

For the ice cream – Put 1/4 cup of coconut milk in a small bowl and set aside. Place remaining coconut cream, coconut milk and ginger in a pot and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Turn of heat and steep for 15 minutes.

Pour milk through a strainer and return to pot.  Add rice malt syrup and vanilla and return to heat.

Add arrowroot, nutmeg and cinnamon to the 1/4 cup of coconut milk and whisk with a fork. Pour into pot and whisk well. Cook over medium heat while whisking continuously until mixture begins to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in vodka.

Pour mix into a bowl and allow to cool completely. When cooled, transfer to ice cream maker and let it do its magic. If you don’t have a maker, pour into a tray and place in the freezer. Every half an hour return to the freezer to whisk the mix until it has set completely.

Once ice cream maker has done it’s thing, stir through crystallised ginger. Now you can eat it as soft serve or place into the freezer until set!

For the caramel sauce, bring coconut cream, sugar and salt to a boil in a small pot, then turn down to a simmer. Allow to simmer, stirring every now and then, until the sauce reduces and thickens.

Now I am off to watch the Bear play his first gig in a new band. I hope they are as rocking as this:

Music for your Mouth: Vanilla Ice

Oh Vanilla Ice. How your song always used to get me excited, thinking I was about to hear Queen and David Bowie sing Under Pressure. The disappointment every time…

Still, there’s no denying that the song has entertainment value, especially with the 80’s film clip. Ha ha ha. Oh lordy.

I originally made this ice cream with coconut milk but found that the coconut was a little too overpowering, outshining the vanilla beans. I decided to give it a go with cashew milk, as I thought the flavour might be a bit more neutral and the consistency creamier. I think it worked out really well, and I enjoy the subtle hint of cashew.

Vanilla Bean Cashew Ice Cream

400ml cashew milk
400ml coconut cream
1/3 cup agave nectar
2 vanilla beans
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp sea salt
1 Tbsp arrowroot
1 Tbsp vodka

Heat cashew milk, coconut cream, agave and salt in a pot over medium-low heat. Scrape vanilla bean out and add to pot, chucking the pods in as well to cook out all the flavour.

Remove a small amount of liquid from the pot and whisk arrowroot into it, before returning it to the pot.

Turn off heat and stir through vodka. The vodka helps by acting as an ‘anti-freeze’, which means your ice cream will stay creamy rather than going as hard as a rock. Cool trick huh?

Transfer to a bowl and place in the fridge until mixture is completely cool. Remove vanilla bean pods and pour mix into ice cream maker to do its magic! Once complete, eat straight away for a soft serve style ice cream, or transfer to the freezer to firm up.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, do not fear, you can still make ice cream! You will just need to pour the mix into a dish of some sort and place it in the freezer, and check in on it every half an hour or so to whisk it up until it freezes. This is important to ensure you get the creamiest ice cream possible!

I served this with some pureed strawberries on top and a shaving of chocolate and/or a sprig of mint. Deeelicious.

Pizza and Gelato

This is the week. After experiencing some technical issues that led me to believe I’d lost a whole bunch of photos, and the subsequent joy of finding said photos, I’m doing it! I’m getting rid of the backlog!

And first on the list, a trip to Eat Pizza in the city.

I’m not sure just how long Eat Pizza have had inner city locations – there is one in North Melbourne and one in the CBD – but I do recall believing that they were only in Footscray and Maribyrnong. Now looking at their website, I’m not even sure the Maribyrnong one still exists.

Regardless of when they arrived, they are definitely there.

While Eat Pizza are not an exclusively vegan or even vegetarian pizza shop, they do offer vegan cheese, ham and salami at an extra cost. We headed in to the Flinders St location to check it out one evening on our way to a gig in the city.

We went with a classic vegetarian with pineapple, vegan cheese and vegan salami (and a sprinkle of chili flakes). The first thing I noticed was how generous Eat Pizza are with their toppings! Every single slice had a large circle of vegan salami and there was plenty of cheese. The base was beautifully soft and doughy, and overall, the pizza was excellent.

A slight structural issue – as the salami took up almost the whole slice, and everything else was stacked on top of that, we had a few problems with topping sliding every which way. And personal choice – I would have chucked a bit more tomato on the base, and a bit more chili on top – but that’s just me.

I’m pretty psyched to have another vegan pizza option so close by, though it doesn’t seem like they do delivery which means you have to put in a bit of effort to get your pizza.

On another occasion, the bear and I went for a bit walk around the city, out to Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond. It’s only natural that we would need an ice cream pitstop during this adventure.

Luckily, Casa Del Gelato was there to service our needs. Casa Del Gelato has been selling gelato from their Lygon st location since 1980 – holy moly! They have a huge range of vegan sorbets, but also a selection of six or so soya gelatos, which include creamy flavours like chocolate, hazelnut, pistachio and coffee.

The bear ended up going for some dairy flavours, while I matched the bacio and coffee flavours. What can I say? I love ice cream, and I especially love being able to choose flavours that aren’t usually on offer (read: something other than sorbet). Creamy and delicious. I don’t care if it’s winter, ice cream rules! Thank you Casa Del Gelato, I love you!

Eat Pizza
1c/557 Flinders St, Melbourne
(See website for Nth Melbourne, Footscray and Glenroy locations)
Mon – Thurs – 10.30am – 10.30pm
Fri – 10.30am – 11.30pm
Sat – 12pm – 11.30pm
Sun – 12pm – 10.30pm

Casa Del Gelato
163 Lygon St, Carlton
Open 7 days, 12pm – 12am

Cape Tribulation

Well! I’ve been kind of absent for the past little while, I even missed the end of MoFo, though I predicted that might happen. I loved participating in MoFo but it got a bit difficult while travelling. It was my first time though, and no doubt I’ll be back.

Since my last post we have come a loooong long way. After Kuranda, we travelled up the coast towards Port Douglas, where we stopped to pick up some groceries. It wasn’t really our kind of town – very ritzy and touristy. I had also heard that on the whole the town has a very ‘anti-backpackers’ attitude. My dislike for the town was sealed when we came back to the van to find half a meat pie smashed across our windscreen.  Another campervan parked nearby also looked like it had been sprayed with soft drink or something. Charming.

We stayed the night in Mt Molloy, before visiting Daintree and then crossing the river by ferry (and spotting a crocodile on the way) to reach beautiful Cape Tribulation.

Cape Trib is really a magical place. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to spot fairies nestled under the fronds in the rainforest. The place is filled with lush green rainforests that make up the Daintree National Park, as well as tropical white sanded beaches, lined with coconut trees. It is really out of this world.

We only had two and a half days there, so we packed in as many things as we could. The first thing we did upon arrival was take a dip at Thornton Beach. The water was CRYSTAL clear and so warm, it was unbelievable. Although I was still on edge about being eaten by crocodiles, I felt a bit more at ease being able to see to the bottom. Also, I made sure we positioned ourselves between other groups of swimmers, so that we would at least get some warning should one swim in from the side. Ha.

We took a minute to enjoy one of our black sapotes, which had finally ripened. Bear’s new favourite fruit…chocolate pudding fruit. You can eat it straight out of the skin with a spoon!

While in Cape Trib, we stayed with a lovely friend from Melbourne and her partner, who have been living there for a year. They have been working and living at the campground there, and invited us to stay with them. The campground is amazing – definitely on the luxury side of camping. Not only are the grounds RIGHT on the beach, they also have a woodfire pizza place on site called Sand Bar, meaning you can enjoy a delicious fresh pizza and a glass of wine while looking out from your campsite. They even do an awesome vegan pizza with basil oil, artichoke, red onion, olives, mushroom, etc. SO GOOD. As it was school holidays, they also had fire twirling shows for the kids (and the bigger kids). It was just perfect!

On our second day, we headed out to Cow Bay early and walked along the beach there, collecting rocks. We then visited the nearby Floravilla Ice Cream, which offered two or three different vegan water based ice creams. We shared the coconut lime one, which was sooo yummy. Sometimes I am a bit iffy with coconut flavoured things, but this was so zesty with the lime juice, and was creamy (despite being a ‘water ice’) due to the coconut. A-mazing.

Next we missioned into a lovely spot called the Blue Hole. We didn’t swim here, rather, we just sat in awe of the beauty of this place. Apparently it is a sacred place for Aboriginal women, as the water holes were birthing and menstrual pools. The colour of the water was incredible, and there were fish swimming left right and centre. We even saw a little turtle jump off a log into the water.

In the afternoon we went on a guided boat trip, in search of the elusive crocodiles. We saw one little guy sunning himself on the banks, but no big whoppers (though I am sort of glad about that).

We topped off our day with a walk through the forest, before returning to the campgrounds to hang with Jess and Chris after their shifts finished.

The next day we sadly had to leave, but not before popping up to Emmagen Creek for a morning swim. This place was sooo pretty! We went for a short trek through the forest to find it, and what a reward it was when we got there.

I wish we could have stayed forever…we had the most wonderful time here. But the trip must go on! I’ll get to our next adventures soon, so stay tuned…

Sand Bar
Cape Trib Camping
Lot 11 Cape Tribulation Rd
Cape Tribulation
Mon-Sun 6-9pm

Floravilla Ice Cream Factory and Art Gallery
Corner of Cape Tribulation and Cow Bay Rd
Mon-Sun 8.30am-5.30pm