Mad About Udon

This past weekend I travelled to New England to hike the Presidential Range of mountains in New Hampshire. This was my first trip into the States this hiking season. Usually I go to Adirondacks in New York but something drew me to New Hampshire. I went with 8 other hikers from the Alpine Club of Canada. The drive through Vermont was lovely, tarnished only by the uproarious admission by my car-mates that they had (all!) smuggled fruits and veggies across the border. What. The. Hell.

Hiking burns about 500 cal/hour, and for long stretches on the trail, it’s important to pack lots of food and pack it well. I made a dozen sandwiches consising of baked tofu (marinated in soy & ginger salad dressing), soy cheese, and sweet thai chilli sauce on a bun.

I also packed 12 granola bars (seen above) and 8 apples (which I legitimately purchased in Vermont, unlike my obnoxiously felonious comrades).

Aside from tofu sandwiches, apples, and granola bars, there is a lot that the active vegan can pack for a hike. Unless you’re trying to create a calorie deficit (which is often the case), you may need to pack up to 5,000 calories/day. Packable fruits and veggies include oranges, carrots, peppers, avocados, broccoli, cauliflower, and potatoes. For long hikes, you can dehydrate certain fruits like pineapple, bananas, mangoes, apples, strawberries, and kiwis.

Additionally, Luna Bars, some Clif Bars, and random brands of granola bars are vegan, so check the labels. I find it’s easier to pack a dozen identical sandwiches because it saves money and stress, and packs well, but other ideas include: peanut butter or hummus on a pita, crackers, dry cereal, trail mix (although I personally think that hikers eat waaaay to much trail mix), raisins, wild rice, vegan cookies, fruit leather, or just any type of homemade sandwich using your favourite vegan protein.

Our group dinner the first night was fortuitously vegan—pasta and sauce. I co-ordinated dinner the second night, which was 6 different kinds of store bought curry (all vegetarian, two vegan), brown basmati rice, and naan. Unfortch I forgot to take a pic but here is a salad that another hiker made that night for the group:

The hikes were great—the storms lifted just in time on Saturday morning for us to scale Mt Madison and Mt Adams, and hike along the rocky ridge of Mt Jefferson. On Sunday we hiked a small mountain just to stretch our muscles back into shape. It was very challenging overall (I’m still sore!) but good practice for my Rockies trip in August. The views were incredible.

Happy Hiking!

-Maureen

Good news–I got my degree on the mail (having skipped convocation). So I officially have my Bachelor of Science in Biopharmaceutical Sciences (concentration Medicinal Chemistry). Whoo whoo!!

*crushes beer can on head*

Okay, so onto the food, I have so much to post. I’ve been re-making a couple recipes just for convenience. The other day I made falafels again from The Garden of Vegan. Let me tell you, that book is on fire! No seriously, it’s on fire, I turned the wrong element on (like I do every time!!) and it caught fire. Now my book is charred but my favourite recipes are intact so it’s all good.

Other foodz:

Banana Bread. I’ve made this before but with vanilla icing. Chocolate is equally good.

Grilled melons and pineapple with So Good soy vanilla ice cream

Not-yet-barbecued kebabs. I used PC Blue Menu Marinated Tofu and red and yellow peppers drizzed with oil and sprinkled with various herbs. Loblaws has been out of zucchini for like, a week (!!), and so peppers were the only vegetable I could come up with. Unfortunately, the BBQ was out of propane so I just baked these instead (didn’t get a picture, oops)… we’ll try again with the BBQ next week I think.

Another batch of Thai red curry, this time with little grilled tofu squares and served over brown rice vermicelli (upper left).

My friend “T” and I were wandering around the city last weekend, on a sweltering summer’s day, looking for a place to eat. We ended up at Sushi Go, right in the Byward Market. The prices were decent (also since I make sushi at home, no price for take-out sushi is every really satisfactory) and the sushi was excellent. We were, however, a little disturbed at the “Doors-Wide-Open-and-Air-Conditioner-Blaring” policy that Sushi Go and every other restaurant/cafe/business in the Market seemed to operate. Is it even remotely ethical or responsible—in this current age of environmental concern and reform—to engage in such a business practice?

TGIF!

-Maureen

This post has been brought to you by Jake, my catsitting charge last week, seen here crunching data and compressing files.

Mmmm… falafel. I once penned an editorial for the campus newspaper that began “I nearly choked on my falafel when…”, seriously. And did you know that Pythagoras urged his followers not to eat falafel? I learned this in Intermediary Metabolism last semester. It’s because because traditional recipes contained fava beans, which contains divicine, which catalyse the transformation of oxygen to superoxide radical (bad!!) which are normally detoxified by glutathione peroxidase. People with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (essential to make glutathione peroxidase) deficiencies (~25% of the population) are unable to undergo this metabolic detoxification reaction and so face kidney failure, especially if they consume lots of fava beans!

That would be one of the 3,000,000 annoyingly meaningless facts I “learned” in university.

So… what were we talking about again? Oh yeah… falafels!

Falafels

2 cups canned chickpeas
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp fresh cilantro
1 tsp dried mint
1/2 tsp cumin
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup medium-firm tofu
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

The recipe indicates that all of these ingredients are to be blended until well-mixed. Unfortunatly, in addition to not having a tea strainer, my new apartment doesn’t have a blender. I did my best (somewhat pathetically) using an electric mixer, and it actually did mix pretty well… eventually.

Roll by hand into balls…..

…and then “saute balls in oil until browned on all sides”. Now, may I asked the question, how does one brown a sphere on all sides? If one browns a sphere on all sides in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it makes a sound? What is the sound of one falafel frying?

Anyway, so fry on medium high heat, in whatever way you are able, to get all sides brown. I went for Falafel Rectangular Cylinders:

I enjoyed these falafels all week in whole wheat pitas with lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, hummus, bean sprouts, BBQ sauce, and mustard.

Finally I’d just like to share the lovely breakfast I had this morning: baked marinated tofu, alfalfa sprouts and cilantro on dill-potato bread.

-Maureen

Today I felt like giving another go at a vegan bacon substitute. There are quite a few recipes available on the internet for this, such as this one and this one. My variation is most similar to the former link.

¼ c water
1 T soy sauce
5 drops liquid smoke (I purchased this from the Superstore)
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion salt
1 portion of firm tofu (I used a Miso tofu patty from the H&S), crumbled in to bits

Heat the liquids at a low temperature in a frying pan, and add the crumbled tofu pieces and spices once the liquids have begun to bubble. Heat the mixture until the liquid has evaporated and the tofu has become brown and crispy. This took me about 25 minutes as I had the stove on a very low setting.

The final result tasted fantastic, and was not too far off the last store-bought stuff I tried.

- Aly

Mmmm. White potatoes. So cheap and easy, but a rare occurence on my menu. I often microwave sweet potatoes (yams) and add brown sugar for a 5-minute, vitamin-packed dinner. But being as I’m a university graduate and all… well, it’s time for a bit of a classier recipe.

Adapted from The Garden of Vegan:

10 small red potatoes, quartered
5 cloves garlic, halved
1 small onion, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dried dill
2 tsp fresh rosemary
1/8 tsp each salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 C. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and toss well until potatoes are well covered. Spread out on a 9X13 baking pan. Roast for 35-45 min (actually mine took 60 min). Stir occasionally to prevent burning. Enjoy with ketchup like I’m doing right now. MMMMMM.

-Maureen

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Okay, this baked tofu has nothing to do with Mother’s Day. In fact I made it yesterday.

Now, onto the evolution of baked tofu! I’ve been trying out different ways of avoiding Herb And Spice’s delicious yet expensive baked tofu slices.

Experiment 1: Canola oil and Montreal Steak Spice

Experiment 2 (left): Marinade in half soy sauce, half water, plus a liberal splash of lemon juice, garlic powder, and Montreal Steak Spice.
Experiment 3 (right): Marinade in the new PC Blue Menu Soy and Ginger light salad dressing.

My favourite was Experiment 2.

Directions: Drain tofu. Marinade overnight. Bake at 350 for 20 mins.

-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

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

Today is the last day of classes at the U of O and hopefully also the beginning of a more active blog :). Here are a few of the meals that I have been consuming over the last month.

I <3 bean burritos

I last mentioned these tasty burritos in my guacamole post. The “recipe” has not changed significantly since then! All it requires is frying up some onions, mushrooms and black beans with a little soy sauce and whatever spices and herbs are within reach.

More sushi?

Yes, here is yet another post about sushi! This batch contained baked tofu, boiled sweet potato, avocado and a mixture of fried onions, mushrooms and soy sauce (mmmmm).

Vegan pizza

I am not sure if this can really be called a pizza since the dough was really a tortilla, and I used roasted red pepper curry instead of tomato sauce. It also had sliced tomato and green onion, strips of red pepper, rosemary, capers and vegan cheese.

- 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