Stir fry!

Yumcious stir fry with broccoli, eggplant, orange peppers, bokchoy in a garlic, soy sauce plum glaze. Had it with white rice.

Asian Deliciousness.

A few asian meals that I've been craving. The first is a simple tofu and vegetable stir fry, the second is a plum sauce and sesame glazed tofu served with steamed broccoli and edamame. All served on a bed of rice with a healthy squirt of Sriracha sauce!

Tacomiendo burrito, fried rice and CAKE!

A gigantic veggie burrito from Tacomiendo. It was filled with loads of grilled veggies, black beans, rice and avocado. I order it without cheese and sour cream. I enjoyed this the other night while watching a few episodes of Ozzie and Harriet on dvd.

So I was in the mood for fried rice the other day. I sauteed some veggies and tofu in peanut oil.

Added cooked rice, soy sauce, ketchup and black pepper.

And made a scrummy bowl of fried rice that I like to top with Sriracha, scallions and a squeeze of lime juice. I made this two days in a row.

Cake craving! I used the two ingredient method: 1 can pure pumpkin + 1 box cake mix. I used yellow cake mix today. Caramelized apples made it all even more delicious.

Spicy Stir Fry.

Nothing too fancy today, just a quick stir fry with tofu, cabbage, green beans, zucchini, onions and orange peppers. I flavored it with garlic, ginger, sweet chili sauce, thai red curry paste, soy sauce and a veggie stock cube.

Spicy Noodles with Tofu and Veggies

I really loves these noodles which I based off of a "Szechuan Noodles" recipe I found on about.com. My recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:
canola or peanut oil to cook tofu and vegetables
chopped garlic, ginger and onion (for vegetables)
1 box of fettucine
1 14oz container of firm tofu drained and cubed
1 red bell pepper and 1 small head of broccoli, chopped
Sauce ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/3 cup soy sauce (I used low sodium)
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 TB Sriracha hot sauce
2 TB ketchup
1 TB Sweet Chili Sauce (Mae Ploy brand), optional
1 tsp. sugar
1 TB vinegar
1 tsp. cornstarch
cilantro and sesame seeds for garnish

Method:
Boil water and cook pasta. In the meantime while pasta is cooking: Stir fry cubes of tofu in oil over high heat in a NON-STICK pan along with 1-2 TB of soy sauce, garlic powder and black pepper for seasoning. When tofu is browned remove from pan and set aside. In same pan, stir fry the vegetables along with chopped onion, garlic and ginger until tender. Remove from pan and set aside. To make sauce: Stir together in the same pan the vegetable broth, soy sauce, sesame oil, Sriracha, ketchup, sweet chili sauce, sugar, vinegar and cornstarch. Turn on heat and let it simmer while stirring. It will get bubbly and thick. Turn off heat. When pasta is done, drain it and return to the pot. Add the veggies, tofu and sauce and toss together. Stir in chopped cilantro and sesame seeds.

Good stuff to eat.

Sorry, been so lazy with the blogging lately! I've had several meals that I forgot to blog about and here's one of them. It's fried tofu with a tamarind/hoisin glaze. That's coleslaw on top.


Kidney bean curry when I was craving indian food.


Deeelicious flaky and tender biscuits! They are great on their own and perfect with margarine and jam. Me+tea+biscuits=happiness.

I got this recipe from bazu over at the ppk forums. Here it is veganized:

Recipe James McNair's Buttermilk biscuits:


1/2 c. solid vegetable shortening (I used Earth Balance stick)

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. soymilk whisked together with 1 tsp. vinegar

Position rack in middle, preheat oven to 400
spray baking sheet with oil or line with parchment, set aside
in a bowl or food processor, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. cut in the shortening with your fingertips or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. (I used a fork) Add soymilk/vinegar and stir just until the mixture sticks together.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly and quickly, about 30 seconds. using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out about 1/2 inch thick. using a floured 2 1/2 inch round biscuit cutter, cut out circles. Place onto the prepped baking sheet.

Bake until lightly browned, 10-12 minutes. Serve piping hot.

I got about 10 biscuits out of this, plus a bunch of loose ends that I'm saving in the freezer to use as dumplings.

Chili Dogs and Chinese Chicken Salad with No Chicken.

Yesterday's chili made fantastic meaty chili dogs! YUM! Veggie dogs are Lightlife Smart Dog brand which I found at Albertson's.


Didn't really go with my chili theme but I've been craving a good asian slaw with a spicy peanut sauce which had peanut butter, cayenne pepper, sesame oil, rice vinegar, cider vinegar, agave and soy sauce. I made the salad with napa cabbage, green cabbage, carrots, cilantro, cashews, mandarin oranges and fried chow mein noodles. It was so fresh and tasty.

Asian Persuasion.

I wasn't initially in the mood for asian food but when faced with a block of tofu and a bag of green beans, this was the only thing I could come up with. I sauteed the tofu in olive oil, regular soy sauce, mushroom soy sauce, plum sauce, a splash of rice vinegar, garlic, sansho pepper and crushed chili flakes. Served with steamed green beans and rice with a healthy squirt of Sriracha. Pretty tasty if I do say so myself.

Szechuan Noodles with Tempeh

This comes together quickly if you have instant ramen noodles. Just cook them up, drain them and set aside. Meanwhile, steam broccoli and carrots and stir fry onions, cubed tempeh and spinach. Heat up sauce until bubbly, turn off heat and toss noodles and all veggies and tempeh together. Very yummy with extra sriracha chili sauce on top!
Recipe here.

Steamed Dumplings.

Steamed dumpling for dinner tonight! Filled with tofu, kale, cabbage, carrots, spinach and garlic. Yummy!


For dipping sauces we used:
mushroom soy sauce + dark sweet soy + scallions
sweet chili sauce
chinese mustard + soy sauce

Chinese-ish.

Was in the mood for salty and sweet Chinese food today and came home to make the following:


Vegan Dad's recipe for Pan Fried Tofu in Plum Sauce. Absolutely delicious.


Veggie chow mein based of this recipe from the MediterrAsian website. I substituted vegetarian mushroom "oyster" sauce for oyster sauce and added Thai dark sweet soy sauce.

Szechuan Style Noodles.

Yummy salty, spicy szechuan noodles for dinner tonight. This comes together in under 30 minutes. Here's the link to the recipe which I adapted:
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianchineserecipes/r/szechuannoodles.htm

Spicy Szechuan Style Noodles

I've made this recipe lots of times. It's quick and easy and gets dinner on the table in less than an hour. My friend gave me a packet of indonesian ramen that I used for this. Came out delicious! Recipe is here.

Veggie Stirfry

Simple veggie stirfry with broccoli, red peppers, gai-lan, napa cabbage, carrots and baby corns. The stirfry sauce was a mixture of water, vegetarian mushroom stirfry sauce, korean bbq sauce, rice vinegar and a bit of cornstarch and sugar.

Oriental Salad, Split Pea Soup and Daiya Quesadilla

This was dinner:


Oriental salad with romaine, pea shoots, mandarins, carrots and a sesame dressing.


Curried split pea soup (recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance) and Daiya vegan cheese quesadilla.

Orange-Ginger Hoisin Tofu

This is a take on Vegan Dad's Pan Fried Tofu with Plum Glaze. I didn't have any plum sauce and I was trying to figure out what to use instead when I remembered a neglected jar of orange-ginger jam that I had in the fridge. The jam's awful on toast but perfect for a sauce like this. It came out really great: crisp pieces of tofu covered in a sweet gingery sauce served with rice and steamed broccoli.

Yum Yum Tofu.

This has got to be the yummiest way to eat tofu. Pan fried and smothered in a sweet plum-hoisin glaze. I got this recipe from Vegan Dad's blog and I've made it a bajillion times, it's so good! It's the only time I feel like it's ok to fry. I served it with jasmine rice and coleslaw. Deliciousness.

Just a heads up...
Tomorrow is the first day of VEGANMOFO (Vegan Month of Food). Me and a bunch of other bloggers will be busy cooking and eating and writing about vegan food for the whole month of October. The goal is to blog every single day or at least as much as possible. I will do my best and I know it will be great because I always have a list of delectable dishes in my mind that are just waiting to be made. The list is long!

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.

Tofu Noodle Soup

Mmm, noodles! I sometimes get major cravings for a bowl of Thai noodle soup, especially when I see my omni family enjoying theirs with the traditional beef broth. Today my mom made this special for me. It hit the spot and was very easy to prepare. There really is no recipe involved. You just need a small pot filled with water where you will add a quartered onion, a clove or two of smashed garlic, a few baby carrots, a celery stalk cut into pieces, a 1/2" piece of peeled ginger and a tomato cut into wedges. Bring to a boil and add mushroom soy sauce, a teaspoon of sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about half an hour. Add tofu cubes at the end before you serve. You may also prepare some boiled or steamed broccoli to add to your noodle bowl. Prepare your noodles of choice according to package directions (today we had flat rice noodles), put them into a large bowl, pour broth over noodles making sure to include a nice selection of veggies, add a tiny spoonful of chili paste or Sriracha hot sauce and stir it up. Then grab your chopsticks and slurp it all up!