Vegan creamy mushroom soup and Warm Stewed Veggies Rice

How's your Christmas Eve???

I'm having a good one since I made a delicious and simple vegan meal for my fiance and I~!!! 

You cannot imagine how happy I am. I really miss eating vegetables. I've been eating oatmeal these days out of plain laziness. 

Sharing my recipes with you~~ ^^ It's quite a last minute kind of meal. I just added all the vegetables I was craving for for the rice. You can just use any vegetables you like. Yum~! 

Vegan Creamy Mushroom Soup

Ingredients (serves 2):

- 2 teaspoons oil
- 1/2 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small potato, diced
- 1 celery stalk, diced
- 250ml vegetable stock
- dried basil, to taste
- 1 teaspoon vegan butter/margarine
- 6 pieces of 2 different kinds of mushrooms (any kind of mushroom you want. I used shiitake and crimini.), cleaned and diced
- 120g canned cannellini white beans, drained and rinsed
- salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
- nutritional yeast, to taste (optional)
- chopped fresh parsley for garnish

1. In a small soup pot, heat oil. Over medium heat, add in onions and garlic. Saute until golden.

2. Add potato, celery, vegetable stock and dried basil. Bring to a gentle boil. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

3. Add the white beans to the soup. Puree the soup in a food processor till smooth.

4. In a small frying pan, heat up oil and stir-fry mushrooms for about 8 minutes till fragrant.

5. Add mushrooms into soup.

6. Add salt, black pepper and nutritional yeast into soup to taste.

7. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Warm Stewed Veggies Rice

Ingredients (serves 2~3):

- 1 cup of rice with water
- 1 piece of small ginger, peeled and sliced into half
- 2 teaspoons of oil
- 1/2 onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 50g cabbage, shredded
- 1/2 carrot, diced
- 1/2 zucchini, sliced
- 1/2 green bell pepper, diced
- water, if needed
- salt, to taste
- red pepper flakes, to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

- golden raisins and fresh parsley, for garnish

1. In rice cooker, cook rice with ginger.

2. In a small soup pot, heat oil over medium flame. Add onions and garlic and saute until golden.

3. Stir in vegetables in this order: cabbage, carrot, zucchini, and green pepper. Bring vegetables to a simmer and cover with a lid. Stir occasionally, adding in water, a teaspoon at a time if they turn too dry or look like they will burn. The vegetables should be crisp, not soggy.

4. Add in the cooked rice. Season with salt, turmeric powder, red pepper flakes, ground cumin, ground coriander. Stir evenly.

5. Serve and garnish with raisins and minced fresh parsley.

Omelette in Apple Vinegar Sauce

I made dinner a few months ago, and the omelette was the nicest!!! 

The takikomi gohan was very nice too. I will share some recipes of takikomi gohan soon! 

Meanwhile, here's the recipe for the omelette! ^^ Please try! It's very versatile and easy. :)

Ingredients (for 2 pax):

- oil

- dou miao / prawn / crab meat / carrot / minced pork / minced chicken / beansprouts / anything you like 

- salt and pepper to taste

- 3 eggs

Sauce
- 100ml kombu soup / vegetable stock / chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons Soysauce
- 2 tablespoons Mirin
- 1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Sugar
- 2 teaspoons Cornflour

1. In a small frying pan, using medium flame, heat up oil. Fry the ingredient you are using for the omelette first. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put cooked ingredients aside on a plate.

2. Beat eggs in a bowl. In the same frying pan, heat up oil. Pour in egg mixture. Use chopsticks to constantly beat it in the pan till it's cooked, but still a little watery. About 2~3 minutes. Pour cooked omelette in a serving plate. The heat in the omelette will continue 'cooking the omelette'.

3. In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients for the sauce. Rinse the frying pan. Dry with a cloth or with paper towels.

4. Heat frying pan over small-medium flame. Pour sauce mixture in and wait for sauce to thicken. Once sauce is thickened, pour it over the omelette in the serving plate.

5. You can garnish it with chopped spring onions or coriander if you like.

Hope you will like it! 

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Colourful Raw Cold Noodles with Dipping Sauce!

I have other recipes awaiting but I can't wait to share this really simple dish with you.

By the way, I realised pictures in my older entries are all gone. My pictures all link to the Facebook page, and it's a glitch or something. I don't think they will ever come back on ever. Facebook never replies, ever. I'm still linking my pictures from Facebook though just because it's convenient. Sigh! 

Ok let's hope some miracle happens.

Yesterday was a blistering hot day and my body was craving for something cool and filling. I brought out all the vegetables and fruits I could find in my fridge and made this dish. Really, there aren't any specifics about the quantity of the vegetables you can top the noodles with. Here are what I used though:

Main noodle dish:

- Konnyaku noodles (you don't have to cook them!)

- Corn (Just cut them out with a knife from the cob)

- Japanese zucchini (julienne it. I used about 1/3 of a whole piece)

- Carrot (I peeled the skin and julienned it. About 1/2 a carrot)

- Strawberries (I just chopped 3 berries up)

- Dou Miao (I just grabbed a handful)

I used organic veggies and strawberries for this dish. They just happened to be organic as I went to an organic supermarket just the day before and bought all the organic stuff they had that were on sale! Such a great steal! I have no idea why they were on sale as they all looked fresh and great! 

The critical ingredient for this dish is the dipping sauce, so here I'll share the recipe for my dipping sauce! ^^

Dipping sauce:

- 225ml of Tamari Sauce/ Soy Sauce/ Soba Sauce / Kombu Dashi Stock* (recommended!!! ^^)

- 25ml of Apple Cider Vinegar

- drizzle of Sesame Oil

- some Brown Sugar to taste 

I made some kombu dashi stock during the weekend and it can be stored in the fridge for about 3 days. There are lots of ways to make dashi stock. I will just post some links here. 

To make Kombu Dashi:

From Lettuce Cook.

From Savory Japan.

Very easy to make and it gives your food a Japanese taste. ^^

I hope you like this dish!

Hearty Shiromiso Soup

I bought some good white miso in the weekend. White miso is sweet and very versatile. You can make sauces or soups with it. You can also smear it on vegetables or meat and grill it. You can also fry it with rice. I recommend you to buy and try! ^^

This was last night's dinner as I was suddenly craving for lots of vegetables and hot soup. 

This is not vegan or vegetarian though it can be easily changed by using vegetable/konbu stock instead of using fish stock. You can also omit salmon meat inside. :)

Ingredients (Makes 2~3 servings):

- 1/2 piece Japanese Sweet Potato

- 100g Salmon chunks / Pork slices

- 2cm Daikon, chopped

- 1/3 piece of Carrot, chopped

- 1/4 piece of Lotus Root, chopped into tiny pieces

- 2 pieces Shiitake Mushrooms, sliced

- 1 piece Spring Onion, chopped 

- dash of Sesame Oil, to fry ingredients

- 600ml Soup made with vegetable/konbu/fish stock

- 2 tablespoons White Miso

1. In a soup pot over a high heat, fry all the vegetables and meat with sesame oil.

2. Pour in soup and boil the vegetables till they are soft. Cover with lid. Turn to small flame.

3. When ingredients are soft, mix in white miso. Use a pair of chopsticks over the spoon of miso to stir and dissolve miso into the soup.

It's really very easy and a comforting food. You can have it with rice for a simple meal.

Recipe is what I would have ideally put into my soup. But yesterday I could only find spinach, carrots, cabbage, salmon and onions in my pantry. So I put those in. Very versatile soup. Please try it! :)

* I added soymilk powder (about 50g) when I made this again and it was so creamy and delicious! You can try it! I also added rolled oats. hahaha! You can try~ ^^

Where to Buy:

My delicious white miso that is still fermenting! I bought it from Isetan Supermarket, $12.80.

Mushroom Aglio Olio

Aglio Olio.

It sounds so fancy and impressive, is delicious, and the best of all, it's extremely easy and fast to make.

So, if you're thinking of whipping up a quick dinner for your friends or your family, or your boyfriend's family (haha!), why don't you try this easy recipe?

There are so many kinds of aglio olio you can make. The name literally means 'garlic and oil' in Italian. So to keep it authentic, I guess you just need to flavour your olive oil with garlic by some light stir-frying in the pan for a few minutes before adding whatever you want to your pasta dish. ^^

The family was really hungry when I got home from work. It was a lazy rainy evening. My mum was really tired and had no inspiration to cook that night. My brother was hungry but did not feel like eating out. I was actually feeling a little lazy, but I had this urge to cook for my family. It was getting really late though, so I wanted to make something quick yet something different and special for a change. So, mushroom aglio olio it was~! ^^ Here are the ingredients!

Ingredients (Makes 3~4 servings):

- 232g elbow macaroni
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
- 100g mushrooms, washed and sliced (I used shiitake because those were the only shrooms I could find in my fridge. Feel free to use any other mushrooms you like. ^^)
- 3 dried chillies, milled coarsely, or 1tbsp of chilli flakes (optional)
- 40g fresh parsley, milled coarsely, or 1 tbsp of parsley flakes (optional)
- sea salt, to taste
- black pepper, to taste
- juice of 1/2 a lemon (optional)

1. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to instructions on package. Drain and set aside pasta in a large pot/bowl. Reserve a small cup of pasta water.

2. In a medium-sized saucepan over a medium flame, heat olive oil. Add garlic and chilli flakes. Saute for about 3 minutes until garlic turns a light golden brown. Add mushrooms. Saute for about 6~8minutes.

3. When there is a lovely fragrance, turn off the stove. Be careful not to burn your garlic~

4. Pour all ingredients in the pan to the pot/bowl of pasta. Toss pasta in this oily mixture. Add parsley flakes. Toss some more. Add sea salt and pepper to taste. Toss some more. Drizzle more olive oil if you find your pasta too dry.

5. Garnish with a fresh stalk of parsley. Beautiful! You may drizzle some lemon juice over your pasta too just to give it an extra oomph. :)

Easy isn't it? My family polished everything off and raved about it. Totally worth it~! ^^

Enjoy~!!

Shepherd's Pie in a Jar! (and bonus lava cake in a jar recipe!)

My boyfriend made my dream come true by purchasing tickets to Universal Studios for not only me and him, but my favourite nephew!

It was a really special day for me (he even got us express passes!) and I was really happy, so I made all of us shepherd pies...in jars for easy carrying! ^^ 

This recipe is all-vegan, and I was actually a little bit nervous if my 7-year-old nephew would even eat it because the whole jar is basically filled with vegetables! I know some children hate vegetables. However, my favourite nephew finished it all! He also said it was very very delicious. He really gobbled it up. I was so happy!!! Hahahaha! 

The boyfriend finished it up too. I'm still so happy when I think about this. I want to get married soon and become a mother! Haha!

My mashed potato for the shepherd's pie has cauliflowers mixed in, and so, isn't too carbohydrates-dense! You can't taste the cauliflowers at all. They didn't even know there was cauliflower inside. Haha!

As like all savoury food dishes, it's very easy to modify this recipe. If you love vegetables, just put in any kind of vegetable you like. If you absolutely have to eat meat, you can put in some seafood or any meat you fancy. You can make your fillings spicier or non-spicy or maybe with cream sauce. It's really all up to you. Mine isn't a very traditional shepherd's pie... I didn't even bake it them actually...but oh well, it's delicious and cute!!!! Everything in a jar is cute! I've been making lava cakes in a jar too! No pictures, but if you need the recipe...oh ok! I will just do a quick one at the end of this post! ^^

Ingredients (Makes 4 small jars):

- 2 russet potatoes
- 1/3 cup cauliflower florets
- freshly ground pepper
- 3 teaspoons salt
- nutritional yeast (optional)

- 1/2 tbsp of olive or vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup finely chopped yellow onion
- 1 cup of frozen mixed vegetables

- 1 celery stalk, finely chopped

- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 6 pieces of shiitake mushrooms, washed and sliced/chopped
- 2 teaspoons tomato paste
- freshly ground pepper

1. In a pot of heavily salted water, boil cauliflower till they are soft (about 15 minutes). Remove with a sieve and drain. Break cauliflower into smaller pieces. Pour 50ml of this water into a seperate bowl/cup and put it aside.

2. Using the same pot of water (you may have to add in more water now), boil potatoes until they are tender when pierced with a fork (about 20 to 30 minutes). Remove from pot, run them under cold water, peel the potatoes with your hand, and dry the peeled potatoes with a paper towel. Break them into pieces.

3. In a mixing bowl, throw in the cauliflower and potatoes and beat it with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy. You can also mash it with a fork/potato masher manually. Season with pepper, salt and nutritional yeast.

4. In a medium-sized pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, and frozen vegetables and cook, stirring constantly, until softened (about 5 minutes).

5. Add the garlic and stir for 1 minute.

6. Add the mushrooms and cook until they are slightly browned.

7. Stir in the 50ml of water you have used to cook the cauliflower earlier, tomato paste, and cook, stirring, until the liquid has almost evaporated, about 3 minutes.

8. Season with salt and pepper.

9. Divide the vegetable mixture into 4 empty jars. Each jar should be 3/4 full. Spoon the mashed potato-and-cauliflower into each jar on top of the vegetable mixture.

10. You can bake them if you want at 180℃ for 10 minutes. Be careful of the hot jars when taking out from the oven!

BONUS RECIPE!

Picture not mine. This is microwave chocolate lava cakes from another blog. Check out its recipe here! The jars that I used are about this size too though! ^^

VEGAN LAVA CAKE (Makes 2 small jars):

Dry ingredients:
- 65g all-purpose flour
- 65g sugar
- 15g unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2g baking soda
- pinch of salt

Wet ingredients:
- 115g soymilk
- 55g canola oil
- 10g white or apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract/ paste

Other ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons vegan semisweet chocolate chips 
- powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 200℃. Lightly grease your jars.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients.

4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and mix until just combined. Do not overmix.

5. Fill each jar 1/4 full. Place 1 heaping tablespoon of chocolate chips of the batter in the center. Fill the jars with more batter until 3/4 full or slightly less than that.

6. Place the open jars on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 12~15 minutes.

7. Remove the whole tray for oven. Wait for jars to cool down before handling them. Be careful they'll be really hot! Dust powdered sugar over your lava cake if you want to. Screw on the cap and they're ready to be given away as gifts for your loved ones! ^^

Sea Salt and Vinegar Double Potato French Fries

Hi!!!!

I spotted delicious-looking russet potatoes in the supermarket the other day, so I bought 5 home, wanting to make delicious food using potatoes! I've never made fries before can you believe it?? But when I saw the oven-baked fries in Chef Chloe's cookbook, I really wanted to try them!

I also spotted some purple sweet potatoes in the kitchen, so I tried to make fries with them too! They were so delicious!!!! They have this naturally sweet taste! So awesome!


Ingredients (serves 2):

- 1 large russet potato, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch fries

- 2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch fries

- 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil

- sea salt

- malt vinegar for drizzling (I actually used my trusty Apple Cider Vinegar for this though! Haha!)

- tomato ketchup (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 200℃. Lay a baking tray with parchment paper.

2. Submerge potato sticks in cold water and let soak for 15 minutes.

3. Drain potato sticks and pat dry thoroughly with a paper towel.

4. Transfer potato sticks to the prepared parchment paper-covered tray and drizzle with enough oil to lightly coat each stick. Season with salt and bake for 30 minutes, or until evenly browned with crispy edges. Turn potato sticks with spatula/chopsticks at the 15 minute mark. 

5. Remove from oven and lightly drizzle the vinegar over the fries to taste. Season with more salt to taste and serve with tomato ketchup.

I did this 2 times, once with oil and once without oil.

The one with oil turned out crispier and browner and really fragrant. They were gobbled up by greedy boyfriend and I instantly!

These pictures you see are the 2nd batch without oil. They taste more like baked potatoes. Haha! I think they still taste nice though, but not really like the french fries that we are more familiar with in the fast-food restaurants. 

It was a really delicious and satisfying hot snack on a rainy afternoon! The sweet potatoes were so sweet and delicious! I think it's a great idea to make them into easy-to-eat fries! ^^

I really want you to try them! They are insanely good! My boyfriend couldn't stop complimenting them and wanted more! ^^

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Easy Delicious Potato Gnocchi

I was attracted to make these foreign objects when I saw them described as 'soft little pillows of potato heaven'. Haha!

I had no idea what gnocchi was beforehand.

In Chef Chloe's cookbook, she uses sweet potatoes. Since I had no sweet potatoes, I used a regular potato. It was delicious!

There are many ways to eat gnocchi, as my friend, Sedonia, has shared with me.

- with creamy tomato sauce and basil

- with gorgonzola cheese sauce

- with olive oil

- with butter (which is what I did. ^^)

- with garlic

- with sage

When I tried a done gnocchi, I really wanted it paired with tomato sauce as a first instinct! I may make it again with a great tomato sauce next time! ^^

Ingredients (Makes 1 serving):

- 1 potato

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

- a splash of ground black pepper

- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

- 1 tsp olive oil/margarine/butter for cooking

1. Boil potato in water until soft. Pat dry with paper towel.

2. Mash the potatoes. Add salt, nutmeg, black pepper and stir well.

3. Add flour, a spoonful at a time, mixing well with a spoon to combine. Once a soft, slightly sticky dough has formed, divide it into 3 portions.

4. Roll each portion into a rope and cut them into little pillow pieces.

5. Fill a medium pot with heavily salted water and bring it to a boil. When water is boiling, bring the heat down to a gentle simmer and gently drop in the gnocchi. When the gnocchi floats to the surface, they are cooked. Let them cook a little bit more for about 30 seconds.

6. In a medium saucepan, heat oil/margarine/butter, and transfer the gnocchi from the pot into the heated pan. Let them cook, turning frequently, for 1~2 minutes.

7. Serve immediately with freshly ground black pepper.

Cooking these are really fun. I like the 'cutting the rope into little pillow pieces' part and throwing them in boiling water, to see them floating on the surface a few minutes later. I love things like that. Haha! I hope you will try making these delicious things!!! ^^