Marble Loaf Cake + Ku Chai Dumplings!

Last night my husband and I went to Baja Fresh for dinner. After dinner which was really good and filling by the way (I had a burrito mexicano bowl), my husband wanted to go to Best Buy which was next door. I hate Best Buy so I ducked into nearby Ralph's supermarket while he shopped. I wandered the bakery section drooling over the cookies, cakes, turnovers and pies. I was mad that I couldn't have any as they all contained dairy and eggs. One that caught my eye especially was a marble loaf cake. I used to make marble cakes as a kid with prepared cake mixes. They were lovely. I was determined to make one this weekend, vegan style. I used kittee's vanilla cake recipe again (I used rice milk for the liquid), portioned out 1/4 of the batter and mixed in some cocoa powder to get the chocolate part of the cake. I poured the vanilla batter into the loaf tin and poured big dollops of chocolate batter in random areas on top of the vanilla batter, then took a butter knife and swirled it through cake a couple of times. About 50 minutes later, I had my very own marble loaf cake!


Moist and delicious. And you can bet that I'll be having this with tea later on. Next time I will use a higher proportion of chocolate to vanilla in the batter.


Went to Bangkok Market in Hollywood yesterday and picked up these babies. They are located in the freezers. You only need to defrost them and either pan fry or steam them. Ingredients: Chinese leek leaf, tapioca flour, salt, sugar, palm oil.


Served with low sodium soy sauce mixed with Sriracha hot sauce.


All together with tea and dessert!

Edited to add: Just found this recipe online to make these dumplings at home:
http://www.thaitable.com/Thai/recipes/Chinese_Chive_Dumplings.htm

Chickpea and Vegetable Korma

As some of my readers already know, I love a good curry. Thai, Indian, whatever, I'm all over it. It's one of the easiest things to make. I like plopping everything in a pot and letting it simmer away while my rice cooker cooks the rice for me. All I had to do was sit back in front of the fan with the ball game on. Super easy, no fuss! You'll find the recipe here. I added a few things to my curry: 1 TB tomato paste, 2 tsp. unrefined sugar and low sodium soy sauce to taste. I also used 1 can coconut milk instead of the creamed coconut/water mixture. I've never had korma before, vegetarian or not so I can't say how authentic it is. But one thing I can say, this is delicious.

Dinner in Bed.

After having breakfast in bed, then lunch I thought, why not dinner? So here it is. After a nice productive day at work I came home to this. Baked mac n "cheese", cucumber salad and a side of sweet melon. It was perfect.

Lunch in Bed.

I made "lunch in bed" today instead of breakfast. I kept it simple with a toasted pita spread with walnut paté, salad (cucumbers, onions, greek olives, tomato, sumac, lemon juice, olive oil) with a dollop of Vegenaise and half a banana. All with a cup of tea. I really like eating meals in bed. There's something very relaxing and leisurely about it. It makes me slow down and enjoy my food rather than wolf it all down before I head out the door. It also makes me more mindful about my food. So here's to more meals in bed! I'm not planning on anything fancy for dinner tonight. I've got homemade broth bubbling away right now for the ramen noodles that I will have when I get home from work. Noodles have just been hitting the spot lately. This is a short work week for me (I've got Thurs. and Fri. off) so on Thursday I'll go grocery shopping and make something nice. I've been leafing through my Iraqi cookbook and want to make so many things out of it. So we'll see...

Edited to add a picture of my ramen:

This was sooooo filling! That red stuff is Sriracha hot chili sauce.

Breakfast in Bed + Ready Made Curry

This was my breakfast this morning, in bed while reading my Agatha Christie. I had a whole grain english muffin spread with Earth Balance margarine, a piece of orange blossom cake and hot ceylon tea (with a dash of soymilk and agave). I enjoyed this very very much. Only thing missing was fresh fruit which I didn't have today.


A close up of the cake. It was supposed to be sour cherry/orange blossom but the sour cherry flavor never came through. I used a half recipe of kittee's vanilla cake and used a mixture of water/sour cherry syrup for the liquid portion but I think I should have added more sour cherry, less water. Oh well. I will try to tweak it next time. But even so, this cake was delicious. Orange blossom is wonderful in desserts.


Sorry about the bad lighting but by the time I got around to eating this, it was late and the light was terrible. This is Trader Joe's Choley curry with toasted and "buttered" rolls. I served it with a side of cucumber salad. Yummy.

Stuffed Peppers with Lima Beans, Rice and Dill

This recipe was pretty much thrown together with what I had in the fridge that needed to be used up. I had two red peppers, a cup of frozen lima beans, half a zucchini, a handful of grape tomatoes, cold jasmine rice from the day before and some fresh dill. I sauteed some garlic and onions in olive oil and threw in the defrosted lima beans, chopped zucchini, halved grape tomatoes and dill and seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked everything until the tomatoes and zucchini were soft. I added this mixture to a few cups of rice and seasoned it with more salt and pepper and a pinch of cinnamon. I then cut the peppers in half, stuffed them with the rice mixture and put them in a baking dish with a little water at the bottom. I drizzled a little watered down ketchup and soy sauce over the tops of the peppers, covered them with foil and baked for 30 minutes at about 350 degrees F. I removed the foil and baked for another 10 minutes. They look and smell really good. This is dinner tonight after I get home. I like to cook my dinners in the morning and reheat them later to save myself time. The last thing I want to do at 6pm is cook a meal. Tonight all I have to do is reheat the peppers and serve them with a side of the Uzbek potato salad that I made yesterday. Can't wait!

Uzbek Potato Salad

I have this beautiful new cookbook called Silk Road Cooking and it's full of gorgeous photos and recipes that are inspired by cuisine found along the Silk Road, the exotic spice and trade route from China, through the Middle East to Italy . I veganized this Uzbek potato salad by using vegan mayo and omitting the hard boiled egg that the recipe called for. It's got potatoes, carrots, peas, apples, raisins, scallions, celery and flavored with a curry infused sauce. It's really yummy. Can't wait to try more recipes from this book.