Mad About Udon

Yes, I cooked a lot this weekend!

This recipe came to me from Romina over at Vegan For One, but the original is from the Happy Herbivore. The recipe calls for 1 tbsp coriander… which I’m pretty sure is the same thing as cilantro, and I LOVE fresh cilantro, so I put in 4 or 5 tbsp. I also cooked up a pot of Thai Glutinous Rice (for lack of other options), but unfortunately this rice so so sticky that it’s hard to mix with the dal. Still, the recipe made a TON of lunches for O.B. and I. I’m looking for some vegan naan to go with it, but no dice so far.

-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

This is another post based on a recipe from The Ayurvedic Cookbook by Amadea Morningstar and Urmila Desai. I was inspired by the curried carrot and parsnip recipe on page 78 in particular as I had quite a bit of parsnip if the fridge and I was not sure what to do with it! The original recipe called for yogurt, but the idea of curried soy yogurt simply did not appeal to me today.

Here is my version of carrot and parsnip curry:

½ t sunflower oil
½ t black mustard seeds
½ t cumin seeds
½ t tumeric
½ t coriander powder
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion salt
½ T mystery curry powder
¼ c water
½ c coarsely chopped onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
½ c cubed carrot
¼ c cubed parsnip
¼ c water
1 c baby spinach
⅛ c frozen green peas

Heat the oil slowly and add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds once the pan is sufficiently heated. When the mustard seeds have begun to pop, add the onion and garlic and cook on medium until the onions are translucent. Watch the onions carefully to avoid burning them, and add water as necessary. Add the carrots and parsnips with the rest of the spices and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the spinach and some more water, and simmer for another 10 minutes. Finally, add the peas and remove from heat when the peas have defrosted.

I served the vegetables with ¼ c of Lundberg short grain brown rice boiled with curry powder and shaped in to flowers.

Unfortunately, the final product was not photo-worthy, but it sure did taste great! This recipe makes one serving and is approximately 300 calories.

- Aly

It’s always good to keep a couple bags of frozen vegetables in the freezer for a busy weekend. This past weekend, I only managed to pick up a jar of pasta sauce (I was at Shoppers…weird how they sell food now, eh?) and so using that, my FroVeg supply, and some crafty scavenging, I threw together 2 enormous pots of food.

One thing first. I just want to get it out there that I do not recognize cauliflower as a legitimate entity. I don’t see the point of its consumption. It’s flavourless, colourless, nutritionally void, and makes a gross squooshing noise when you eat it. Yuck. I advocate full avoidance…. unless it ends up in your FroVeg mix.

Jasmine scented rice with black beans and FroVeg

Indredients: Jasmine rice, TVP chunks boiled in veg stock, 1 bag of FroVeg, and a can of black beans.

TVP chunks, sometimes marketed as Soya Slices, are a delicious foodstuff–chewy and nutty, and heavily absorbent. This is what they look like while cooking:

Add the rest of the ingredients….

Yum! In total I made about 15 meals, and I only spent $3!

This post has been approved by a cat in a bag:

-Maureen

I prepared this meal tonight to counteract my unpleasant experiences with too much psyllium. It is quite flavourful and filling with approximately 305 calories.

Rice
¼ c Lundberg Wehani rice
½ c water
¼ low sodium vegetable bouillon cube

Bring water to a boil with rice and bouillon cube. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes.

Tofu
⅛ tofu block
2 T soy sauce
1 t garlic powder
1 t rosemary

Preheat oven to 400 F. Press the tofu between a cloth for about ten minutes and then marinate in soy sauce and spices for fifteen minutes. Bake for ten minutes, flip and then bake for another ten minutes.

Spinach
¼ c water
½ small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
⅛ c green onion
1 c baby spinach
1 t onion salt

Heat water in a frying pan at medium heat. Throw in the onion and garlic. Add the spinach once the onion pieces begin to turn translucent. Once the spinach has shrivelled, add the vegetable mixture to the rice and stir with onion salt. Place tofu on top and dig in. This was my first time trying Lundberg Wehani rice, a variant of basmati rice. It does indeed have a “nutty” taste and also has an pleasantly chewy texture. I definitely recommend it!

- Aly