Mad About Udon

I made lunch for a omnivorous friend yesterday who was curious about the sorts of things I can eat with my allergies. I was quite nervous about this at first as I always want to leave my friends with a good impression of vegan fare! I ended up preparing roasted brussel sprouts, a salad and a pasta and mushroom combination:

It is going to be difficult, but not impossible, to get school stuff in to my photos now that the semester is over ;)!

I used the FFVK’s fantastically simple and delicious roasted Brussels sprout recipe. The blob of hummus in the salad was also inspired by various FFVK posts. The pasta dish was a mixture of Eddie’s vegetable confetti pasta, shiitake mushrooms, fresh oregano, onion and various herbs and spices. It turned out pretty well!

On a distantly related note, I had the pleasure of going to a vegan brunch today (I wish I had had my camera!) where I was introduced to Yoso, a tasty soy yogurt which was definitely more palatable than any other soy yogurt that I have tried!

- Aly

Whoo! I just finished my last undergrad exam EVER. I’m celebrating by not working on my thesis and posting on Mad About Udon. Go team procrastination!

I made Indonesian Satay last week for a birthday dinner. It was easy and delicious, mostly because I bought the sauce pre-made from a company called Sharwood’s. The sauce wasn’t labelled as vegan but a quick survey of ingredients showed that it is.

I boiled Shanghai noodles from Chinatown for about 5 mins, and rinsed and drained them.

I chopped up one red bell pepper, de-stringed two cups of snowpeas, and defrosted about 2 cups of frozen vegetable. The snowpeas and pepper were microwaved for 2 mins each first. This mixture was sauteed in the Satay sauce until the veggies were tender, about 15-20 mins.

I boiled some TVP chunks and then microwaved them in Satay sauce. Ordinarily I would cook the TVP with the veggies but as my dinner date was omni, we cooked our TVP and chicken separately.

Et voila! Yes, that’s a huge portion and I didn’t eat it all, but I was going for the best picture. It was delish.

-Maureen

Aly asked what other people use as a mayo substitute. I like to mix BBQ sauce and mustard to give a tangy punch that every sandwich begs for. Truth is, I’d never tasted mustard once in my life until it was accidentally given to me at Subway with BBQ sauce, and I was hooked.

I also love hummus as a condiment so I’ll share my favourite recipe for this garbanzo goodness.

Chunky Olive Hummus:

• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 15-oz cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• 2/3 cup tahini
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped, pitted black olives
• 1/4 cup olives (any form, but pitted, to blend)

Crush garlic. Mix garlic, chickpeas, lemon juice, water, oil, salt, pepper, and non-chopped olives, and blend in a blender or food processor until desired consistency (I like chunky). You may have to add more liquid. Don’t worry about adding too much, because runny hummus can be dried out by leaving it uncovered in the fridge overnight.

Stir in tahini and chopped olives.

Hummus is expensive in stores, and people are generally too busy or lazy to make it themselves… so this makes a great gift! Nothing says “I appreciate your existence” like a homemade batch of creamy, delicious hummus. (For variety, substitute pesto, sundried tomatoes, or roasted red peppers for olives).

This hummus tastes great on whole wheat bread with baked tofu, sprouts, BBQ sauce, and mustard.

-Maureen

Here is my first attempt at a tempeh, lettuce and tomato (TLT) sandwich:

My TLT was based on the FFVK’s TLT Sandwich. I did not use the liquid smoke, as I had none, included caramelized onions and used 1 T of hummus instead of vegan mayo. (I recently purchased some vegan mayo, but have been hesitant to use it due to a few unpleasant encounters with it in the past. What is your favourite vegan mayo substitute? The Vegan Feast Kitchen has a recipe for a vegan BLT with homemade mayo.) My tempeh did not mimic the taste of bacon, but was pretty dang good nonetheless!

- Aly

PS I am so excited for the Ottawa Farmer’s Market!

Today Mad About Udon cracked it’s 2000th visitor. Yay! Alison and I are so proud of our little blog. That’s more visitors than I thought we’d ever get. I hope that means that people are enjoying our posts and passing on the link; if you haven’t done so, please do! We love visitors and commenters. I don’t know about Alison, but with this school year tying up very soon, I’m sooo ready to start experimenting in the kitchen and posting all of the results!

Here is a recipe for Vegetable-Fried Quinoa that I modified from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well
2 cups water
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger root, minced
1/2 cup vegetable broth
12 ounces bok choy — about 6 stalks or 5-6 cups chopped
2.5 cups diced carrot
1 block firm tofu
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon white vinegar

Bring water to a boil. Add quinoa, water, salt, and 1 clove chopped garlic into a medium-sized pot. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until water is absorbed and quinoa is tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Wash each stalk of bok choy, and chop or rip the green parts into bite-size pieces.

Heat a frying pan on the stove and add the ginger root, garlic, and carrots and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add about 1 tablespoon of the broth and continue to cook and stir for another 10 minutes, adding another splash of broth if the garlic starts to stick or dry out. Add the bok choy and 2 tablespoons of broth, stir, and cover. Cook until the bok choy is tender but still bright green, about 10 minutes

Crumble the tofu into the vegetable mixture. Mix the soy sauce and vinegar with the remaining broth and pour it over the tofu. Stir and cook for 10 minutes. Fluff the cooked quinoa and add it to the vegetables. Mix well, and cook until heated through.

(The FFVK original recipe calls for a LOT less cooking time at each step… I found everything took a lot longer to cook.)

This is everything but the quinoa

The finished product.

I liked how it turned out but as you can see, the prep was a lot longer that I had expected, so I’m not sure I’ll be repeating this anytime soon.

This post has been brought to you by this fellow:

- Maureen

Aly mentioned The Table in her last post so I thought it would be good timing to plug this awesome place!

The Table is a pay-by-weight vegetarian restaurant that promotes healthy, fresh, organic eating. It’s located in Ottawa at 1230 Wellington St near Holland Ave. Most of the food is vegan (they maintain scrupulously precise labels) and offer plentiful gluten-free and macrobiotic options.

I went there with a friend for my birthday last month and here’s what my plate looked like:

Clockwise from carrots: Steamed carrots + kale, curry, a grainy thing (sorry, this was a month ago), red quinoa with beans, tempeh squares (yum!), a chickpea-tofu patty in mango chutney, and “zesty bulghur”.

Other vegetarian restaurants in Ottawa that I like include Perfection Satisfaction Promise (right on the U of O campus), Govinda’s, and the Green Door.

So if you ever lose your mind and decide to move to Ottawa or, you know, are just visiting, be sure to check these places out!

-Maureen

I had Maureen and Karina over for supper earlier this week to test out my first shot at bean balls.

The bean balls, which contained mung beans, onion and short-grained brown rice, were based on the curried variation of the Beany Ball recipe from Fat Free Vegan Recipes. These are best prepared ahead of time!

I topped off the pasta and bean balls with a store-bought tomato sauce. I personalized the sauce by adding grated zucchini, onions, garlic, avocado, capers and a variety of herbs and spices. A serving with approximately four bean balls, half a cup of spiral pasta, and half a cup of tomato sauce is around 335 calories. The final product was quite tasty and elicited a comparison to the delicious fare at The Table from Maureen <3.

- Aly

In case our readers haven’t caught on, Alison is more of a make-it-from-scratch kind of eater than me. I don’t mind using vegan pre-made sauces in my recipes. In fact, my bottom line is not creativity and taste, but mostly economics. I love to spend $5-10 on ingredients and cook 12-15 portions. In fact I feel like I’m channelling my Eastern European grandmother circa WWII. Time is also a major prohibitive factor, since I have none. So I have to mention Glico Curry, a product which actually has honey so not all vegans may be able to eat this.

Glico is a Japanese curry. I buy it in Chinatown for $2.29/110g or $4.09/220 g. It comes as a clay block which you melt in water, et voila–curry sauce. I melt the 220g block, pour it over a large mixing bowl full of veggies, and portion this out into dishes of half curry mixture, half brown rice. At those proportions, it’s about 50 cents a meal, but a bit more if you add tofu which I usually don’t. It also freezes well. The perfect recipe for exam period!

Don’t be fooled my the murky brownness. It’s supremely delicious. Looking at these pics, I see that the missing ingredient is BEANS. I’ll be sure to add a can or two of black or kidney beans next time.

-Maureen

My desktop computer has been ressurected by Aly’s friend Frank and now we’re back in business!

Being as I’m juggling my honours thesis and four chemistry exams at the moment, I’m basically living off of toast and Diet Coke. So I’m going to slowly post all my backed up pics over the next two weeks to give the illusion that I’m not eating as crappy as I currently am.

First up is Carrot Raisin Celery salad. The ingredients are… um, everything in the title, plus a bit of sunflower seeds and of course salad dressing. It’s not very quantitative, but for you math geeks out there, let’s say 1 cup shredded carrots, 1 cup chopped celery, 1/4 cup raisins, 2 tbsp seeds, and dressing to taste. I enjoyed it with Low-Fat Honey Dijon one day and Low-Fat Sundried Tomato the next. A very simple recipe but drop dead delicious:

-Maureen

My mom recently returned from a trip to visit family in Trinidad. She brought back quite a few interesting foods and spices to give me a taste of her home. Here is a curry I made with a few of the things she gave me:

Saim curry

½ onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ medium potato, cubed
½ c pigeon peas (from my aunt)
¼ c saim (broad beans also from Trinidad), cut in half
¼ c purple cabbage, coarsely chopped
1 c water
1 T curry powder
½ T garlic powder
1 t salt
1 tortilla

Heat a large skillet and add the onions with a small amount of water. Once the onions have become translucent, proceed to add the other vegetables and curry powder. Fry on medium-low heat for 25 minutes and add the rest of the water as necessary. I didn’t feel like making rice so I heaped the curry on to a crispy tortilla instead. With the tortilla, this meal was about 350 calories.

For dessert, I had sapodilla:

This fruit is as tasty as the Wikipedia article claims it is!

- Aly