[vegan mofo day 9] spicy kale soup, steamed bun and cucumber salad

 

Due to husband's tooth emergency, I had to whip up something soft and small. I figured soup with chopped up vegetables would do so made this spicy soup with kale, cabbage and edamame. Kale and cabbage become flavorful after simmering for a while, which makes a great soup.

This steamed bun was something I found at an Asian grocery store. It says a vegetarian bun but looks like vegan too, including vegetables and soy meat. 

 

Pork buns ("Nikuman") was something I used to enjoy in a chilly winter day ages ago, picking one up at a convenience store on the way home from school or after a girls' night out, not because of what was inside (I actually didn't like the pork inside very much) but because of its softness, squishy texture, and warmth. So I'm happy to find a vegan version of this. I found that the taste of this bun was a bit bland, though, so made a soy sauce and sriracha dipping sauce.

There's one with adzuki bean paste too, which I really like. Makes a great snack or a dessert.

Other things on the plate was pickled cucumber salad and grits. Baby had daikon soup that was stored in the freezer over rice, mashed edamame and steamed carrots.

[vegan mofo day 8] homemade no-knead bread and Mochi's Sunday

 

After a successful introduction of wheat into baby's diet in the form of pasta, the next logical step would be to introduce bread. I, however, am a bit reluctant to give store-bought bread at this stage because of all the ingredients and additives that I often don't even know how to pronounce. So I decided to bake one.

I may not be great at cooking but I think I can say that I'm a pretty decent baker. Or at least that's what my husband told me ;-) But something weird happened during pregnancy (as in many aspects of life in those 9 months), and I couldn't stand the smell of baked goods. After the delivery, I was too exhausted to tackle baking projects, barely having energy even to cook everyday meals. So I'd been away from the oven for quite some time. Well, I guess it's time to get back to baking then!

The above is a no-knead bread my MIL taught me how to bake, who in turn was taught by her friend. So I cannot post its recipe, but it's really easy to make and delicious. I used to bake this every week. I usually sprinkle sesame seeds, poppy seeds or oatmeal on top of the bread but unfortunately I didn't have any of those at hand this time.

With simple ingredients like flour, water, salt, yeast, and flax seeds, homemade bread is more natural, tasty and inexpensive (unless you can find a 99c loaf of bread that tastes ok like I sometimes find at a local grocery store. I don't think I can beat that price by making at home). And you know for sure that it's vegan. No nasty egg or milk or gelatin (or high fructus corn syrup if you're avoiding those).

There's also something about the process of baking. I find it relaxing and rewarding.

And the baby loved it! What's more rewarding than your own child devouring the bread you baked for him?

Well, maybe looking at this cute face can be pretty rewarding too :)

 

 

Happy Sunday! 

[vegan mofo day 7] leftover night - roasted vegetable pasta

 

I don't know what happened, but the post I wrote and published disappeared :( ugh. Just to let you know that I had roasted vegetable pasta using the roasted vegetables on Thursday and the arrabiatta sauce on Wednesday.

Baby had ratatouille (I made a while ago and was stocked the freezer) on pasta, steamed carrots and apple sauce.

[vegan mofo day 6] Agedashi Tofu

 

Some of you may already know, I grew up in Japan. So our dinner table includes a fair amount of Japanese meals, or something akin to those (due to the limited access to Asian ingredients). Or they may be roughly called Asian style dishes.

Agedashi Tofu, which is fried tofu served in dashi-based broth, is one of my favorite Japanese foods. For this time, however, I made an, um, terrible broth, which kind of ruined the crispy fried tofu. ugh. Should've just dipped it in soy sauce. 

You can make the crispy tofu in agedashi tofu by, first, wrapping the tofu in paper towel and letting it sit for a few hours to get rid of the water in the tofu. Then dust the tofu with cornstarch, and fry them up. You can use either silken, firm or even extra firm tofu but firmer tofu may be easier to cook. I used silken for this, though.

The broth is another story. The main sauce usually used in the broth contains fish so either I have to find one without fish, or I have to be creative. My attempt at the latter was a .... well, unsuccessful one :(

Other foods on the plate: corn on the cob flavored with liquid smoke and soy sauce, and stir fried veggies on rice. Of course a few drops of sriracha sauce are a must.

Baby had diced tofu, kale rice and some steamed zucchini. Yes. My baby loves kale and tofu :)

[vegan mofo day 5] roasted veggies and black bean patties

Roasted veggies: cabbage, carrots and turnip. Simply with olive oil and salt.

Black bean patties were a bit too dry, although the taste was pretty good. Maybe I'll add cooked rice next time. Seasoned with nutritional yeast, soy sauce, fennel seeds, sage, salt and pepper. I might make a sandwich with the leftover patties for lunch today. Yum.

Baby had pasta in carrot and tomato soup (which was stocked in the freezer), steamed turnip and black bean spread.

[vegan mofo day 4] baby's first pasta night

Now that Baby can eat several kinds of vegetables & fruits and protein sources (like tofu, beans, edamame) I try to put the same (or similar) food items as we eat on baby's plate. I'm not really a fan of "kid's meal", and this is my attempt to get him used to the taste of the foods we eat (fingers crossed!). I also want him to get used to the Japanese(-esque) food I make and I grew up with, despite the fact that Japan is thousands of miles away.

I usually decide what we will eat for dinner first, then pick a couple of the ingredients from what eat and prepare them differently. This time, however, I wanted to introduce pasta into his diet, so we went along and had a pasta dish also. His pasta is with tomato and eggplant. Ours is arrabiatta with artichoke and broccoli. He seemed to have enjoyed it a lot :)

[vegan mofo day 3] quinoa salad

Here's the vegan food items I got from this week's grocery shopping trip. Kale was a dollar for two bunches and corn was 19c each. Great deal! The total of the items in this photo was probably around $35? Yes. I do some couponing. And I mainly go after sale items to save money.

And luckily my husband got these fresh vegetables from his co-worker's veggie garden. yay. So these and the stuff in the pantry are the ingredients I'll be dealing with this week.

Looking at lots of vegetables inspired me to make some quinoa salad, including lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots and capers. I whipped up some dressing using olive oil, dried italian herbs, white vinegar, garlic powder*, salt and pepper. I usually just make up dressing from whatever I feel like adding for a particular occasion. I don't buy dressing anymore. It's not just for saving money. Homemade dressing tastes more fresh and better. I like an impromptu process.

And quinoa! Don't you just love it? I can't believe even the sight of it made me sick when I was pregnant. I really wanted to eat quinoa because it's packed with protein but I couldn't. Not until a couple of months postpartum. But fortunately my taste buds returned to normal and I've been happily enjoying this nutritious gem.

Baby had two of the vegetables that were used in the salad: carrots and eggplant. the carrots were cut into smaller pieces at the table. And some mashed edamame. In retrospect, I should've put edamame in our salad too.

Did you acquire weird dislikes for any food that you used to love during pregnancy?

* no garlic powder for hubby's dressing. He hates garlic! :(

[vegan mofo day 2] pancakes!

A must for a long weekend. Topped with chcolate sauce and strawberry jam. mmmm.

I melted baking chocolate chips with almond milk in a microwave for about a minute and a half. And drizzled it over the pancakes.

Too bad I haven't introduced wheat to baby's diet yet. Otherwise I would've made a sugar free version and we could enjoy vegan pancakes together.

The recipe is from Vegan Brunch. I finally bought the book (or more accurately hubby got it for me ^^) and am very excited to try the recipes from the book. These pancakes are by far the fluffiest pancakes I've ever made.

[Vegan MoFo] being vegan on a budget

Welcome fellow vegan mofo-ers as well as regular readers! This is my second year of participating this exciting, sometimes overwhelming, vegan blogging event, though it'd be the first from this blog. I wanted to do last year also but I was heavily pregnant back then and didn't have much energy left to keep up blogging every day. I'm happy to say that this year I'm joining in the fun with the cutest boy in the world (I know every parent says that. Bear with me), and the cutest cat named Mochi :)

this was when he was about 4 months old
(no. he didn't start solid yet. it's a Japanese custom of "pretend eating"
to wish for the abundance of food for the rest of his life)

With the cost that associated with pregnancy and the new expenses, we've decided it's time to tighten our wallet and be strict with our budget. We'd love to give him the best education possible (as well as the deepest love from us) after all, and for that we don't mind giving up one day of dining out or a few (or many).

According to the budgeting website the Fun, Cheap or Free Queen, 100 dollars per month per person for groceries is their benchmark for budgeting, so that's what we've been aiming at, which comes to 75 dollars per week for three of us and a cat. The grocery budget includes, not only food, but anything and everything else that you buy from a grocery store.

I don't know how 75 dollars per week for groceries sounds to you, but I know that this is not enough to frequent Whole Foods and buy vegan goodies often.

Not that we have Whole Foods or Trader Joe's in our vicinity anyways :(

I do purchase vegan specialty items once in a while though, using the money set aside for other uses like craft supplies, entertainment etc. After all, food can be an entertainment, right? :)

So this is what I'm going to write about for this year's vegan MoFo: everyday vegan meals on a budget. We'll see what vegan meals I can come up with within this budget, including baby food (although I'd like him to be, he's not a vegan baby however. sorry). The meals I'll be making won't be grand and scrumptious as most of the vegan recipe bloggers make. My hope is, however, to show that vegan meals don't have to be "special". Vegan meals can be accessible to anybody (vegan or otherwise), quick to make and tasty. I'm not even a great cook.

OK. This post won't end without a picture of food. hehe.

This is vegan chili with black beans topped with avocado. The baby had black bean spread and avocado on rice. yum!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy my vegan mofo posts (and beyond!) 

Mochi in a box

Mochi loves going inside a box as much as the cat next door. And I like watching her in a box as much as any other cat mamas :)