leftover sushi plus vegie box resolutions

So, as you may have gathered, we get a weekly vegie box full of lovely organic vegies & fruits. When we started getting it I was always very enthused about thinking up what to cook, but lately it's been slipping a bit, and last week there was a sad incident involving a bunch of spinach, half a bunch of silverbeet and the compost bin.

So, I used up all the leftovers (plus some tempeh) and made sushi, and vowed to have all future vegies end up in my (and Chris's) tummy and not the compost. So, I finished up all our old vegies in sushi form! So we could begin vegie box resolutions afresh.

Sushi type A contains tempeh fried with carrot & lots of fresh chilli, with teriyaki sauce.
Sushi type B contains silverbeet & onion with soy sauce.

The next morning I bought tempeh! At the St Kilda Farmers Market!
And this is our new vegie box.

I know this is all getting a little confusing, I really need to do posts the day I take the photos!

New posts this week featuring celery, capsicum, beans, carrot, zucchini, onions, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, banana, apple & pear! Mmm.


And finally. This is embarrassing. Chris and I tried to go dumpster diving because I have never been before and really wanted to go - we went to 3 places and their dumpsters were all locked away! Better luck next time.

pickled ginger (beni shoga)

I put this ginger on top of most things - noodle dishes, soup, stir fries... I used to buy the bright pink ginger from the grocery store, but I like making it myself because I know exactly what's in it.

I pretty much followed these instructions, with some editing (and way less sugar)...

I did 100g of ginger, which is a nice amount. I also use a lot less sugar than most recipes state - I guess this means it won't keep for as long in the fridge, but should last at least 3 or so months.

Ingredients:
100g ginger
1 tbspn sugar
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/2 tspn salt

First comes the fun part - chopping the ginger! Okay, when I say fun I mean not-so-fun... Peel the ginger and break off the knobbly bits, so you have nice easy pieces to slice. For the small pieces just use a little knife and slice finely, for the bigger pieces try a grated or something like that.

Next, sprinkle the salt on and rub it through the ginger with your fingers. Sit for 1 hour.

After an hour, the ginger should be turning slightly pink and will be a lot more limp. Pick it up in your hands and squeeze so lots of the juice comes out. If you prefer you can pat dry with paper towel.

Finally, put the sugar and vinegar in a saucepan and heat on low until the sugar has melted. Pour over the ginger and push the ginger down - you may want to add a tiny bit more vinegar so that the ginger is covered.

That's it! Enjoy!

Vegan Bento 5

Another Vegan Bento! Sometimes I find it relaxing to plan what to have in a Bento Box... Takes my mind off work!

This one contains:
Onion and silverbeet/rainbow chard lightly braised with soy sauce & sesame,
Short grain rice with nori stars,
Apple & tomato (the tomato is hiding at the bottom),
Pumpkin and puffy tofu in teriyaki sauce.

So good! I find the trick with Bento is to balance everything - fresh & cooked, salty & sweet, colours, textures etc.

Action photo! (Chris took the photo, I'm not that skilled at one handed photography.)

yakisoba!

I love yakisoba, but I've never cooked it that successfully before. But, I was determined - I googled and settled on this recipe. I substituted the capsicum and bean shoots with puffy tofu and carrots, and I didn't add the lemongrass paste (I've never heard of that in yakisoba before??). I also subbed fried onion flakes for sesame seeds. But other than that I followed the recipe faithfully, and it was delicious!!!

I mentioned a few posts back about not overcooking the soba noodles, and defo keep that in mind. I cooked them until they had just started to go floppy, but so they were still very firm - they absorbed the sauce and the dish was quite dry and delicious.

So good!

miso noodle soup

Pretty much all I have been eating this week is miso noodle soup & rice paper rolls. I really am not a great candidate for having a food blog, usually I eat the same thing for a week or so at a time then switch. Chris is not such a fan, but I really enjoy it!

This week is miso noodle soup, so easy!

Boil:
1 cup water
sliced onion
pumpkin chunks
puffy tofu
Simmer until the vegies are tender

Add:
handful of soba noodles,
little bit of soy sauce
a bit more mirin
Cook for about 3 mins, until the noodles are still a bit hard

Add:
Some miso paste that you've thinned in some water
Simmer for 30 secs

That's it!
Put in a bowl with cherry tomatoes & spring onions, and some shichimi togarishi.

Obviously you can use whatever vegies you like, but it's important to not cook the noodles for too long, as they will turn soggy in your bowl.

Do you like my new bowl? My grandma gave it to me!

Wood Spoon Kitchen - Collingwood

I was totally inspired by this amazing review of Wood Spoon Kitchen by Ms Fat Feminist Foodie, so Chris & I went there for my birthday. It was great! Hooray! I'm going to start by saying what she said - go there and have the tofu!!!

We went for drinks around the corner at Birdman Eating first, hooray! Then at Wood Spoon Kitchen I started with Umeshu (plum wine). Delicious.

Next up, Okonomiyaki (this isn't vegan, so try not to get too hopeful). It was a lot denser and less full of vegies than most okonomiyake I've had, but despite being dense it wasn't too heavy or doughy. It was like eating a really amazing pizza dough, and realising that all the pizza doughs you've had until now have been terrible excuses for pizza dough. So, it was good.

This is the tofu! Excuse my awful photo, clearly in my excitement I forgot to take my finger off the lens... but this Agedashi Tofu was so very good! The sauce was thicker than you'd usually have on agedashi tofu, it was like a sweet chilli / teriyaki combo. The tofu was so lovely & fresh, and all crunchy on the outside. And the beans & eggplant were great! The tofu wasn't that oily, so the eggplant was super welcome, and the beans were nice and fresh.

Go there and eat this!

They don't look it, but the onigiri in the Onigiri Set were massive. They come with edamame (yum!!) and pickles (meh). We got the three vegan onigiri - Sweet Potato, Seaweed & Sansai (mountain veg). They were each about the size of my fist - big onigiri. The sweet potato one was great! The sweet potato tasted almost candied, and the onigiri was studded with toasted black sesame, mmm.

The other two I found a little average - the seaweed one was rice & the standard seaweed salad mix, and the Sansai was a little bland. Basically this was a nice, comforting, filling (very filling) dish, but it wasn't spectactularly tasty.

Finally, we ordered two small miso soups. Yum. The broth was full & flavoursome, and didn't taste too seaweedy (or suspiciously fishy). I loved all the vegies that were in the soup - there were also big pillowy chunks of soft tofu, and little pieces of fried tofu. The soup was quite thick, but wasn't overly salty. Whenever I've made miso soup (I make it a lot) I have never managed to achieve this consistency - go there for the miso soup too!


You can see all the prices etc on their website - it's all very reasonably priced! We were too full for dessert, I guess that means another visit is in order.

The staff were all super lovely, great decor, and we had a good time. You'd better make a booking though - it's pretty small :)


Wood Spoon Kitchen
88 Smith St,
Collingwood
03) 9416 0588

Vegan Bento 4

Last night's bento was a bit of a mish-mash of some random veggies. This week in our Vegie Box from The Green Line we had (amongst the usual amazing organic fruit & veg) some rather sad looking & very tough green beans. I did a Google search to see what to make with tough green beans - the first result came back with roasting, which according to the website (will try and find the link) would take the green beans back to their fresh & young, pre-tough state. And... it kind of did?

In my bento:
Inari, salad with lemon & spring onion dressing, roasted potato, roasted green beans, sushi & onigiri.



I watched this super cute video on Youtube before making the onigiri - it was sort of helpful and very fun to watch!

Vegan Bento 3

Another day, another Bento box. This one is quite similar to the last...

In my bento:
Lentil beanballs with tomato/red pepper paste sauce, steamed cauliflower, apple & rocket salad, sliced tomato, silverbeet sushi (yum!), carrot/cucumber/pickle sushi, more inari.

I've found it's easier to do everything in batches, which lasts a few days... the rice I cook fresh every day, but the bean ball mix I made a big batch of. I have more beanball recipes coming!

The mix contains:
Whole red lentils,
Ground hazelnut,
Polenta,
Celery,
Potato,
Spring onions,
Salt & pepper

Basically I just soaked the lentils for a few hours, then boiled them with the potato & celery. Then chucked it in a food processor with some hazelnut, polenta, chopped spring onions, salt & pepper and whizzed until mushy.

Vegan Bento

This week I've been totally inspired by the vegetarian Bento on We're Rabbits - they always look so delicious! I usually cook the same sort of things for a week at a time - this week is officially Bento week at my house.

I noticed that the We're Rabbits bentos often had yummy looking hazelnut & lentil balls, so I cooked a loose interpretation of this recipe.

In my bento:
Lentil bean balls, sliced tomato, inari with cucumber loveheart, cucumber & pickles sushi, apple/dijon salad. And on the side is a yummy okonomiyake Chris made.

Gyoza Noodle Soup

I was totally won over by this post on the Fairest Feed by lovely Philippa, and decided to take my own crack at making a Japanese noodley soup with gyoza.

Mine's not quite as pretty, but was super delicious!

To make:
About 1 cup vegetable stock per person (make sure it's nice & garlicky & gingery),
Soy sauce, orange juice, kumquat marmalade, mirin, etc,
Some vegies, including asparagus, spring onion and cabbage / wombok,
Some tofu puffs
Soba / ramen noodles (precooked to al dente),
Gyoza! (You can buy dumplings at the shop, or make your own).

Okay.

Put the stock in a pot, and add juice of 1 orange, 1 tbspn light soy sauce, some mirin / ketchap manis / sugar / kumquat marmalade (just make your favourite Asian-y broth),
Add some finely sliced tofu puffs (about 1.5 per person), and the long cooking vegies (like asparagus stalks, cabbage, cauliflower etc.
When that's cooked, add asparagus spears, spring onion, other quick cooking vegies, and the noodles.

At this point, start frying your pre-steamed gyoza.

Then, when the gyoza are fried, the noodles will be done. Serve! Mmm! So good.

Gyoza (Mmm, Oishii!)

Who doesn't like Gyoza? I don't know, but if you don't then maybe these will change your mind.
The Filling.
4 Wombok leaves, sliced into really small pieces (about 5mm squared)
4 Spring onions, sliced bery thinly
1 garlic clove, grated finely
2 teaspoons soy sauce
3 teaspoons cornflour
Salt

Put the wombok & spring onion in a bowl with the salt (mix it all up).
Let sit for about 10 mins.
Handful by handful, squeeze the juice out of the wombok & spring onion mix (just pick it up in your hands and SQUEEZE over a sink.
Put it all in a bowl with the soy sauce, garlic & cornflour. Mix well (basically it should look like a bowl of wilted wombok thinly coated in white cornflour-y goop. Good.)

Next, grab your packet of gyoza wrappers (see photo one for the type I used).
Get a bowl of warm water - wipe a ring of water around the edge of each wrapper, put a small blob of mix in the middle, and get crimping!

Cook.

This is contentious.

Sorry for the traditionalists.

Mine are fried then steamed,
But, if you want them fried, steam them first and then fry them for a couple of minutes on a flat pan. Mmm.

I make them by putting a little oil in the bottom of a pan (sesame or olive usually). Then I put my gyoza in the pan, and heat on medium-high heat until the bottoms of the gyoza are fried and a light brown colour.

Then I ADD:

1 cup of water, with:

1 tspn soy sauce

1 tspn kecap manis

1 sliced spring onion

1 thumb sized knob of grated ginger

So you mix it all into the water first, then quickly tip this into the gyoza (there'll be a very loud SIZZLE) and quickly put the lid on.

Turn the gyoza down to a medium-low heat and cook about 10 mins until the gyoza look cooked (the wrappers should have a sheen and be very slightly translucent). If you have too much liquid, leave the lid off and cook for another minute or so.

That's it!

Yum!

Bento Boxes

Tonights dinner was yummy Bento boxes! Chris's parents gave me these boxes, and I love them as I've always wanted bento boxes of my own.

In these we had

Okonomiyake,

Radish pickles with sesame seeds,

Salad of lettuce, tomato & pear, and

Rice with a leek & garlic sauce.

Leek & Garlic Sauce Recipe (too easy...)

Thumb sized lump of ginger (about 3cm x 1cm x 1cm)

1/3 of a leek

Oil - 1 teaspoon

Mirin - 1 tablespoon

Soy Sauce - 1 tablespoon

Slice the ginger and leek into very fine matchstick sized pieces. Stirfry the ginger in the oil for about 1 min, then add the leek. When they've both cooked and become a bit browned & softer, add the mirin & soy sauce and cook until the sauce has thickened. Serve on rice for a nice, special touch!