Ramen Noodles

I've always been intrigued by Japanese food. The emphasis on quality, details and aesthetics is rather amazing for me.  The simplicity of Japanese cuisine which allows the food to speak for itself is yet another reason why I like Japanese food very much. So, when I chanced upon fresh ramen noodles when on a grocery trip, I naturally purchased it. After doing a search online, I came to realise that ramen noodles is actually the Japanese version of instant noodles and it is mainly made with chicken, seafood or meat based broth. Luckily, miso is also used for the broth. 

So, I made a simple noodle base with miso and grilled some tempeh which was marinated in hoisin sauce and chilli powder. I also pan fried some dried red chillis and crushed it on top of the noodles as a garnish...

Vegan Mee Rebus

I'm quite ashamed of myself for not updating the blog regularly. My parents have returned from India which means, my mum cooks most of my meals now :) I've also started on my classes, so that means I have little time outside work to actually do the things that I like.... I know these are excuses, but I will get down to more blogging soon ;) 

This is a vegan mee rebus that I did for my hubby one day when I was running out of ideas on what to cook. I didn't want to make the same old stir fried noodles and hubby just didn't want rice. So I settled for mee rebus. This is a traditional noodle dish of Malay/Indian origin, consisting of yellow noodles in a stock made from mashed sweet potatoes, shrimps and mutton/beef. For my vegan version, I took inspiration from Crystal's recipe and this. Unfortunately, I can't remember how I did it now, I just added a handful of this and that, but I do know that I added some vegetarian sambal belachan, curry powder, a piece of galangal, vegetarian salted fish (soaked and ground) and about 300g of japanese sweet potato (as suggested by crystal) among other things.

To increase the nutritional value, I topped with some beans sprout and bean curd puffs. Traditionally it comes topped with an egg. My hubby liked it but he did say that it does not taste like the 'real deal'. I've never been a fan of mee rebus so I suppose I have not registered the exact taste of it!

The marriage of two rice noodles..

After I made the Hor Fun, I still had a little bit of the noodles left. It was impossible to cook a meal for two with that. After rummaging through my kitchen cabinet, I came across some glass noodles. Its called Tang Hoon (as pointed out by Gina - she has a great website - kitchen capers). It was just two tiny bundles but I thought by incorporating both together and adding some veges with it, it will be good for the two of us.

So as usual, it was another stir fry dish, but instead of the usual, I decided to grind up some dried chilli and use it in the dish. It gave it a nice spiciness and also an earthy red to the noodles. If you notice, I 'recycled' the remaining vegetables into this dish - some corn, green vege, carrots and cabbage. It was good but I think the noodles absorbed a lot of the flavour, so it tasted a tiny bit bland. I ate it with some vegetarian belachan chilli, so that helped to offset the lack of flavour.

The Hor Fun Temptation....

I have always loved Hor Fun... The texture of the slippery soft rice noodles is somewhat hard to resist. Sometimes when I follow my colleagues out for lunch, they have seafood Hor Fun and I've been craving to recreate it in the vegetarian way. I made a trip to 'Shop N Save' and picked up a few vegetables including some oyster mushrooms to enhance the flavour of the noodles.

I was thinking that it will be a chore to cook, but it was one of the easiest noodle dishes I have ever made because there's not much stir frying involved! I made a simple stock of onions and garlics sautéed in sesame oil added perhaps 1/2 cup of water and used a vegetable stock cube to add to the flavour and to have a 'street food' taste aka MSG taste. I  also threw in some seaweed for the 'fishy' taste. Once I was satisfied with the boiling and steeping of the seaweed, I added the hard vegetables, like carrots, baby corns and the stems of the green vege. I also added the oyster mushrooms so that it will release its earthy aroma to the stock. After a quick boil, I dropped in the Hor Fun (washed please to remove the oil in it) with the remaining leafy vege and some shredded cabbage, let it boil and thickened it with some corn flour. Adjust the taste with some soya sauce and pepper and you are done! The key is to use vegetables that impart lots of flavour like corn, mushroom, carrots and cabbage. Vegan and tasty!

One for my mum.....

Last weekend (the day of the elusive dragon-horse adventure), my mother made some idlli with sambar and chutney for dinner. Idlli is a South Indian dish made from cooked rice which is left to ferment and then steamed. It's soft, fluffy and delicately flavored with curry leaves, mustard seeds, dried chilli and onions all sauteed in gingelly oil (Indian sesame oil). This is poured into the batter and then steamed. The sambar is just dahl boiled with some tumeric, green chilli, shallots, garlic and a pinch of asofedita until well cooked. Vegetables are then added to it - usually carrots, potatoes, brinjal. 

I started of this blog only wanting to post pictures of what I make, but then since the camera was out, I decided to take a pic of my dinner too... Please don't ask me for the recipe because I sure do not know how to make the idlli. I do make sambar but its instinctive so it will be hard to provide a quantity. 

However, my husband can't stomach fermented food, so as a dutiful wife (yeah rite!) I made him his standard fare of noodles. However, I didn't have much vegetables, so I actually used cauliflower with some yellow bell peppers to make the dish. Surprisingly, it was quite good, which made me come to the conclusion that you can use whatever vegetables you want to make noodles :) It's all a matter of creativity (or desperation!)

Oodles of Noodles...

Gosh! I love blogging and exhibiting my photos but I just haven't seem to have the time to seat down and do some decent posting of pictures. One reason is of course, work, and I'm also doing volunteer work two nights a week. And tutoring on Sundays! Another reason is that my parents are back from their long holiday, so my mum is cooking our vege meals.... so I never get around to taking pics of our delicious (but usually rice) meals!

So the dishes have mainly been kept simple on the occasions that I have cooked... So its just different types of noodles or wraps (unfortunately no pics of those!)

Noodle Soup with Lots of Vegetables and 'Fish'balls

Hokkien Style Noodles

Yellow Noodles with Tempeh ~ Delicious!

My first Vegetarian Lasagna and.... another noodle dish

I have always loved lasagna even though I have never eaten any at a restaurant. I've always made my own since my uni days and I guess my hubby is the main culprit for it. Since he does not take beef, finding non-beef lasagna was extremely difficult. So I used to make it for him using minced mutton. But what a chore it was, I made the whole thing from scratch - from the sauce to browning the meat. And added to that, the cost of doing lasagna was so expensive ( it is still cheaper than buying it out, but at about $20-$25 for a pan when we can just make noodles or rice, that's expensive) So, I rarely made it, the last being a good five to six years ago or so. 

However, I had some yummy spinach seating at home and I know that a delicious vegetarian lasagna can be made from it. I also had some tomato puree seating around, from doing the vegetarian pizza, so I decided that it would be a good opportunity to use it up. So, I conjured up some sauce with carrots, mushrooms and bell peppers. I wanted to use the spinach... but I realised I had one last yellowing broccoli left. So, I sliced it up nicely and added to the sauce. After some assembling, I finally baked the lasagna and (shamefully) hubby and I demolished the whole pan between us! It was good, but I think there is still room for improvement...

So with the left over spinach, I decided to make noodles with it. I used a ginger and garlic base to make the noodles and all the while I kept thinking of chicken rice. The ginger added such a wonderful flavour to the noodles and reminded me of the fragrant chicken rice which is made with ginger. When I was a non-vegetarian, that one of my fav dishes, so now I have to find a way to recreate it!

Recipe for Vegetarian Lasagna (See notes)

1 bottle of spaghetti sauce 

1 carrot diced

1 can of mushrooms, sliced

1 bell pepper, diced

1 tomato, diced

1 onion, diced

2-3 garlic, chopped

1 small head of broccoli, sliced

some dried oregano to taste

some dried basil to taste

some salt to taste

some pepper to taste

some olive oil

1/4 tsp of brown sugar (optional)

Enough Mozzarella cheese to top surface and for layers (about 150g)

Instant lasagna sheets (1 box)

Method:

1) In a pot saute diced onions in olive oil. Once brown, add the garlic and brown. Add tomatoes and cook until reduced to puree.

2) Add the vegetables (except broccoli) and saute for a couple of minutes until cooked and soft. Add the spaghetti sauce into the pan. Dilute with a little water if you are using instant sheets. If not don't add water. 

3) Add the broccoli last and add seasoning to taste. You might not have to use much depending on the flavouring already present in the sauce. 

4) Add a layer of sauce on 9'' by 11'' baking dish. Top it with the instant sheets. Top with another layer of sauce and add some mozzarella cheese. Add another layer of instant sheets. Continue until the sheets are used up.

5) Pour remaining sauce on top and layer generously with Mozzarella cheese. 

6) Cover the lasagna with aluminum foil and bake at about 190 degree Celsius for 1/2 hour and remove aluminum foil and bake for another 20 to 30 mins. 

Notes:

1) This is my 1st attempt at vegetarian lasagna. It was okie but is not the best. Please use this as a base recipe and modify from here.

2) I  also added mashed firm tofu to mimick egg but I found that it did not taste as well. If you can consume eggs, I suggest adding a mixture of ricotta cheese and egg as as added layer.

3) I used tomato puree instead of spaghetti sauce because that's what I had at home. However, tomato puree has a slightly bitter aftertaste that needs a lot of flavoring to mask it and also needs to seat for about 1/2 hr after cooking to absorb the flavors. So go with the spaghetti sauce. 

Vegetarian Hokkien Mee

Yesterday's lunch. A mixture of bee hoon and yellow noodles. Very yummy with crispy broccoli and carrots! Dinner was a simple dish of steamed kailan with an instant Thai basil and garlic paste with a drop of oyster sauce. 

Noodles and More noodles...

Just our meal two days ago... 

Pretty Vegan Cuppies... and more noodles...

I finally made vanilla cupcakes with real vanilla beans... and errmm... I don't get what the excitement is all about actually.... for one... I don't quite like the real vanilla bean smell.. it smells kinda intoxicating and gives me a headache! And in terms of the flavour in the cake... I couldn't smell it at all! So, I really don't know if I'm doing it all wrong or what the hoohaa is all about... The ones above were frosted with non-diary whipping cream... not vegan at all... (I have the recipe for vegan buttercream but have been procrastinating.. in case it fails)

So finally today, I decided to bake a batch of choc cupcakes and do some cookies n cream frosting... The texture of the frosting is good but I found it a little sweet for my liking... G thinks it me... but I think the flavour should stand out more than the sweetness... hrmm.. needs a little tweaking... I also feel that my piping skills need a lot of work to reach the more commercial standards... now... it looks rather amateurish. However, the real icing on the cake for me was when I gave some of these cuppies to my tuition kid. His mum was puzzled and wondered why I bought them some cupcakes.. I told her I made them myself and she was very surprised because she said they looked really nice! Yeah!

 

                                  

Lately, my posts have been quite vegan oriented.... G and I are now moving towards vegetarianism. I think for me it is really for ethical reasons... I don't want to support industries that farm animals in poor and abusive conditions just so that we can consume them. I also feel that I have little control over what goes into my meat, i.e., all the hormones, antibodies and crap that they feed animals... So, we are going vege-friendly.... So, I made some vegetarian beehon last night.... very yummy and super easy... no more pesky waiting for meat to cook... heck... if these dishes are undercooked.. you get more nutrition!

I'm Commitment free... but...

I handed up my last assignment for the semester yesterday and I'm finally free! I've been wanting to do so many thing BUT, now that I am free..... I don't know what to do... I just feel so aimless! Hahahaha!

Since, hubby and I pigged out yesterday at NIE (you can't blame us... where else can you find $2 chicken rice and $2.80 chicken chop?) Add to that mum made some delicious food, so dinner was rice... So to balance it off... I was thinking of getting some canned soup and making some toasted bread to go with it for lunch... But at Shop 'n' Save... it hit me that this is crap that I'm gonna make for lunch... And so I decided to pick some nice green veggie and fishcake and made a simple noodle stir-fry... It was quite delicious with oyster, light and dark soya sauce...

Of cos' I was still itching to bake and I just could not find any inspiration.. Somehow I hit on a good recipe for Wacky Jaffa Cake... turned out that it was vegan which was even more fantastic... So, I decided to try it because the reviews were good... and I must say that it turned out really good... it is still a little sticky on the mouth (I don't know why but most vegan cakes tend to be like that) but it was really tasty.. unfortunately, I could not really taste the orange in it... maybe I overdid the cocoa powder but since I added some orange zest there were bursts of orange in the cake.. So it was quite tasty... Hubby and I polished off about a quarter pan.... Of course, it helped that I made a chocolate sauce to go with it... Actually, the intention was to make chocolate mousse... something I saw in Kitchen Chemistry but it didn't turn out right... So, it became a sauce instead but it was still really delicious!

When you don't have anything at home....

My hubby asked me to make stir-fried instant noodles for dinner tonight and I have not done my grocery shopping in a very very long time. 

So, I scavenged around and found an onion, a packet of hot dogs, two tomatoes, half a carrot and a head of cabbage.

So, I made a very simple stir fry of it with some soya sauce, oyster sauce and freshly ground pepper.

I also had a never before craving to have bulls-eye with it (for the uninitiated it is fried egg with watery yolk) so I made that in my cute egg pan.

I don't even think this dish is worthy of a post much less a recipe. It is just a case of dumping everything together. My only lazy man tip is to add hot water to the stir fry and add the noodles together. Let the noodles soften in the wok together with the seasoning and vegetables. Usually, I know most people will boil the noodles separately... Like I said.. I'm lazy and hungry so didn't have time to take a good pic.

H