Lunar Festival= Mooncakes! (Recipe Part I)

This past Sunday was the actual day of celebration for the Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival, but our town had a major power outage due to the hurricane or something, so celebration was postponed partly because of no light and partly because you simply couldn't see the moon (which is pretty much the whole point of the Moon Festival)!

Anyways, I had the honor of going to our local public school to teach the Chinese Club how to make mooncakes! Of course, I made some at home beforehand so that I would get to eat some before all of the ravaging teenagers finished them off haha.

Here are some of the ones made at the high school:

These are the molds I used for making the mooncakes. Flour them lightly, fill them with your dough-filling package and tap twice on the side and once on the front.

Here's a peek inside of mine (pineapple and sweetened mung bean fillings)!

Now, recipe time!

Vegan Mooncakes
12 1/2 - 13 T EB (in stick form, slightly softened)
2/3 C vegan powdered sugar (sifted)
2 C unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 c plus 1 T Vanilla pudding powder (such as Simply Organics)
1 T Soymilk powder, plain (if you have the sweetened variety, sift out the sugar)
1 Ener-g egg or 3-4 T soy yogurt

1. Cream the EB and sugar until light and (surprise!) creamy, 2-3 minutes.
2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, pudding powder, and soymilk powder.
3. Gradually beat the flour mixture into the EB mixture in several additions. (It won't be completely compact; don't worry; it's normal for the dough to look crumbly)
   
4. Stir in your egg replacer of choice.
   
5. Knead it lightly until it comes together.
6. Flour lightly, wrap and refrigerate for 3-4 hours or overnight.
   

TO BE CONTINUED.........

My Vegan Lunch Box: Stephanie's Sweet and Savory Sandwiches!

In light of the new vegan lunch box book coming out, I decided to make a special lunch post! Here is my lunch box:

Heart shaped PB&J!! It doesn't get any simpler or better than this! Ezekiel bread, peanut butter, and homemade blueberry cinnamon agave preserves!

Star sandwich!! Brown rice "buns" with a filling of chinese vegetarian protein otherwise known in Chinese as "su song (with a long o)" and vegenaise wrapped in the sesame soy wrapper.

Mexi-rolls! Whole wheat tortilla encasing roasted butternut squash, avocado, roasted red peppers, homemade cashew chipotle cheddar cheese, and pureed black beans.

Sushi! This was a brown rice, tempura tempeh, roasted butternut squash, and avocado wrapped in nori type of maki. yummy :)

What's a meal without dessert? This is an American take on Dorayaki which is sort of like whoopie pies. Here I have whole wheat chocolate chip cakes with raspberry coconut creme. yummy!

Here's everybody all together!

Can you say YUM!?!

Veg Hawaii: Part I of III: Tofufreak eats the Big Island

Because my family went to three islands, I will do 3 separate posts on our travels/eats. Hope you guys enjoy!

Here is a picture depicting the pre-trip excitement that my brother and I both shared! haha. This was taken on the airplane on the way to Honolulu.

Au Bon Pain Mediterranean wrap, (I believe) no feta, please! Oh, and a bag of potato chips too. Nummy. There was some kind of hummus and sundried tomato spread or maybe it was a roasted red pepper spread or something. I don't know. At any rate, it was pretty good! (Dallas/FW Airport)
Lookie what I found at the airport store! ABC Company's Vegan cookies! I was super excited and wanted to buy one of each flavor, but I restrained myself and limited my selection down to this lemon poppyseed cookie. It was really really good! Too bad I can't seem to find them anywhere else other than the Health Food Store.

Pickup dinner that I ate around 10 PM upon arrival in Hawaii. Cold noodles and veggies with sauce. Good portions, good price, can't recall the place.

This is my first lunch on the Big Island. Pretty boring. Inari sushi with a seaweed salad. We bought this from a Foodland or something like that.

For our official dinner on the Big Island, we went to Huggo's. I can't remember what this was called, but it was just ok. It consisted of grilled onions, portobello mushroon, asparagus, a black bean and corn salsa stuffed tomato, and a wild rice pilaf with a balsamic reduction. Meh-ish. The view was really lovely though.

Since we lived in a condo, we were able to store things in the fridge and cook! We took advantage of that on several occasions for breakfast. Here are examples of what I had for brekky:

This was basically my breakfast most mornings on the Big Island. Plain, but good. Plus, it was lower in calories so that I could indulge later in the day!

Apparently my uncle rarely cooks, so this noodle soup was an extra special soup! My relatives brought Ramen-type noodles from Taiwan. They are completely vegan, not fried, contain no MSG, and are perfectly delicious! We added tofu blocks and bean sprouts. Mmmm!

One thing that I loved about Hawaii was the fresh fruit. It was all so good! This is (very) fresh papaya. SO DELISH(with lemon squeezed on top)!

After going hiking (I think) we stopped by Hilo to find lunch. I can't believe we came across this place by chance! This is probably the best place on the Big Island. I loved and will love Abundant Life Natural Foods for the rest of my life.

This cookie that you see here is undeniably one of the best cookies in the world! I kid you not! I literally would go back to the Big Island just to get this cookie! It was soft, moist, nutty, oaty, chewy, wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free, sugar free, and YUMMY! yea. sigh... Oh yeah, the shake in the back is a carob shake. (I though of VeggieGirl when ordering) :)

This is the grilled tofu salad of some sort. I believe my uncle got it? I don't know. At any rate, it was good.

My parents ordered this East Meets West Sandwich, which consisted of tofu, sprouts, vegenaise, and some other stuff. My mom liked the tofu lots. :)

I ordered the ginger tempeh burger. This, to date, is probably THE best burger I have ever had. Really good.

On our last night, we went to Sansei Sushi. They have some veggie options, as well as karaoke, if you're interested in such things. Here's what I had:

Blah. Miso soup. Pretty Average.

HAHAHA! This cracked me up so much! My relatives are Buddhist vegetarian, so they don't eat onions/garlic/green onions. Apparently that's all this dish had on top, so they brought out a block of pure, unadulterated, naked tofu!

I finally had a chance to try natto! I thought of Kamutflake girl when I was ordering this natto maki. :) I forget what the other roll was. In the back is some veggie tempura.

This is the grilled veggie roll with grilled squash, carrots, zucchini, and shiitake mushrooms.

These were the cups that they used for tea. The same advice was printed on the back in Kanji Japanese/Chinese. Clever, no?

And here I shall leave you with these words of wisdom. Tune in next time for eats on Oahu!

Beans, beans. Not really magical. Not really a fruit. But tasty, nonetheless.

I confess. I have a slight obsession with sweetened beans.

Mung beans are closely related to adzuki beans, I think. If not, they taste like it. They also resemble each other, so yea, I think they're probably related.

Here, I used mung beans to make a cold mung bean soup. It sounds incredibly odd, but it is a traditional dessert typically made and eaten during the summer months due to its refreshing qualities. It is also said to heal acne and bring down fevers and such.

Here are the beans before cooking.

After cooking and such, here is your final product! Simple and divine.

So go try it! Now!

3 cups mung beans
3 cups water

1 3/4-2 cups water
1 cup sugar (brown is preferred)

Cover the mung beans with water (at least one inch above) and soak overnight. Pour off the soaking water and add 3 cups of new water. Cook over med-high heat until the beans are tender.

In a separate pot, combine the water and sugar over med-low heat, stirring until dissolved. Once it has dissolved, set it aside.

Combine the sugar water and the beans and stir until homogeneous. Refrigerate and serve when icy cold. yum!

Method to the Madness: How to make Taiwanese Bread, part one

*I must say something about the filling of this bread. Though it may sound slightly repulsive, it really is quite sumptuous. If you can find a high quality brand at your local asian grocery, it will be well worth it. The taste? Sweet, smooth, and delectable; and if you're making it yourself (using brown sugar), there are caramel-y undertones. yum! Anyways, onto the directions.

While I haven't quite perfected the dough recipe to my liking, I thought that I would post pictures of several of the steps. Sorry about some missing pictures; my friend was helping me with the shots and several were too blurry to be used. Now, without further ado (please excuse the name; it really is much better than it sounds).....

Taiwanese Red Bean Bread
What you need:
vegan sweet yeast dough
preferred filling of choice (sweetened adzuki bean paste)
sesame seeds

Roll out a slightly-smaller-than-a-tennis-ball size of dough into a circle. Dollop on about 1-2 tablespoons of your preferred filling. (Traditionally, this is filled with sweet red bean[adzuki] paste which can be found at an asian grocery. If you either don't like it or can't find it, you could also try some not-ella or something like that.)

Enclose the filling in the dough and then form it into a ball.

Roll each dough "ball" into an oval shape.

Run a pizza cutter or sharp knife through the dough, making 3 slashes. Don't cut through the ends; the dough should still be connected.

Twist with your fingers and sort of tuck it in a coil shape. Sprinkle with sesame and let rise. After letting it rise for an hour, bake in a 375 oven for about 15-20 minutes.

..... and voila! Here is your finished product!

Lions-Head Cabbage Rolls. Really. They. Are. Good. RAWR! haha

Tonight, I felt like splurging. I typically try to avoid processed, prepared foods, but today was a binge day. woohoo! so yea. I decided to go with Gimme Lean! ground round (beef style). At first, my dad was like, "Hmm.... will you make me my own with real meat?" Fortunately, I couldn't have anyways, seeing as how we were short on cabbage.

So where did I get this wacky idea? Mi Abuelo. Wo de Ah Gong. My Grandpa. You see, this used to be one of those foods that he would always make when we visited him. They are typically superhuge meat balls, hence the name "lions head" or "se tze to." So I did my own take on this traditional family classic and voila! here we are.....

Here we have our ingredients: napa cabbage, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, garlic, ginger, green onions, water chestnuts and Gimme Lean! beef style ground round. Not pictured: soy sauce, sesame oil, white pepper. Those little "meat" balls were made out of leftover roll filling.

Add the lion's heads and lion head rolls into the veggie stock/soy sauce/mirin/sesame oil mixture and cover.

Here we are, simmering for about 20 ish minutes.

TaDa! the final product. (i know, i said better pictures, but i was hungry!)

So on an unrelated note, I am still testing the recipe for the Taiwanese bread in case you were wondering about that. I'll get around to posting sometime in the near future. So stay tuned!

My Resolutions....

Okay. I have some new half-year resolutions. (i know, the second half of this year has already started, but oh well. better late than never!)

1. i resolve to take better pictures!
2. i resolve not to blog so infrequently!
3. yea, that's about it.....

so here we go! onto the food......







.......not bad ehh?

1. almond raspberry tarts
2. raspberry pecan rugelach
3. taiwanese bread (hong do mien bao)
4. chocolate cheEZcakes hehe

so what do YOU think?

Finally! A recipe!

I love summer! any guesses why? Well, i get to sleep in till 630, eat gimme lean hot dogs, bake me some fries, and NOT GO TO SCHOOL! haha. yep, i loves summer.
Here we have some of the ingredients for a Chinese sticky rice dish. On the far left are rehydrated shittake mushrooms. In the middle bowl is a pile of fried onion and garlic. Underneath it is some sliced ginger. To the far right, we have some TVP strips that we bought at a Buddhist vegetarian store in Taiwan. I tell you, that place has SO MUCH STUFF!!!!! It really is a vegan's paradise.
Alright, anyways, here is the finished product. Yummy, no? this is topped with a sweet chili sauce and a couple of fresh sprigs of cilantro. Sometimes, it is also eaten with chopped peanuts. Whatever floats your boat, i guess.

I'm actually going to post a recipe!

Taiwanese Sticky Rice:

4 cups brown sweet rice
4 dried shittake mushrooms, rehydrated and sliced
1 Tbsp. Fried onion and garlic (optional; this can be found at asian groceries)
1/2- 3/4 c TVP strips, soy curls, or chik'n strips
1 t-T thinly sliced ginger
soy sauce
sesame oil
salt (can be omitted if you are watching your sodium intake)
1/2-1 tsp. sucanat or rock sugar
white pepper
Store bought Chili Sauce
cilantro

What to do:
1. At least 5 hours prior to mealtime, start soaking the rice. Simply place the sweet rice in a rice cooker and cover with water. At this point, the amount of water is not important, so long as the rice is covered.

2. Rehydrate the mushrooms by microwaving them in hot water for about 2-4 minutes. The water will be extremely hot, so be careful when removing the mushrooms from the water to slice thinly. Rehydrate the TVP strips by placing them in the leftover mushroom water (no need to microwave). They should be done in about 1-2 minutes.

3. Marinate the TVP strips in a simple 1:1 ratio of soy sauce and sesame oil. (2 T of each should suffice.)

4. After your rice has soaked, dump out the soaking water and replace with 4 cups of fresh water. Cook in your rice cooker.

5. When the above 4 steps are completed, and your rice is cooked, prepare your pan by pouring in about 1 T of sesame oil over med-high heat.

6. When the oil is hot, add in the ginger, garlic, and onion, being careful not to burn any of the aromatics. Add in the mushrooms and TVP strips, stirring constantly. Add in the rice at this point, making sure that the other ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the rice.

7. The rice is basically done now; add more soy sauce or salt to taste if desired. If you find that it is too salty, sprinkle on the sucanat. Sprinkle on the white pepper at the last moment.

8. In Taiwan, this dish is traditionally plated by packing cylindrical bamboo or metal containers with the rice mixture and then dumping them out on plates, as i have done above. If, however, you do not possess these containers, feel free to eat this "free form." Either way, it's delicious!

Veganized fruit tarts, Vegan baby shower, Vegan Cupcakes take over my Classmates!!

Here is my fruit tart before veganism:

Here they are after! they are every bit as delicious, if not better.

Vegan rubber ducky cake for the baby shower! I used the basic vanilla cupcake recipe from VCTOTW.

My Vegan potato bread!!

These are vegan bao tze that i made. basically a steamed bun with a filling of shiitake mushrooms, rice vermicelli, green onions, bamboo, and sesame oil.

This was a really yummy salad made by the hostess. Salad greens with assorted fruits (strawberries, mandarin oranges, blackberries, etc) dressed in a light, tangy balsamic vinaigrette.

These were vegan sugar cookies, made in the form of treble clefs and eighth notes because the mommy-to-be is very musically talented (she plays harp for the local orchestra)

This is a confection made from sweet rice flour combined with sweet potato and powdered sugar, rolled into little balls, and fried. they kinda remind me of mochi.

This is the inside of a mantou that i made with the leftover bao dough. i used white whole wheat to make these.

These are mini cupcakes that i made with the leftover cake batter. my friends were like "Oh, they are sooooo gooood!! u have to make these again!! they are my favorite!!! etc." haha. then i let one of my vegetarian friends try one. she instinctively asked me "and these are vegan? wow." haha...

So i'm glad that i have one non-ignorant friend. yesterday in history class, my other friends were like "don't you need milk to survive?" or like "you're vegan?? what do you eat?" "Oh yeah, i've heard of veganism; it's really dangerous" "yea, i went vegan for a day. (what did u have?) i just had fruit and vegetables. i think i would die if i went vegan!" ARGHHHH!!!! o well. i guess i must still love them. they are my friends after all.

Oh yeah, at the baby shower, no one had negative comments about the food. in fact, i got marriage proposals! haha. only one was actually from a guy; the rest were from their parents or what have you. one lady, who has a son that is 3 years younger than me was like, "oh if only my son were older i would tell him to go after you" (creepy much?) and then this other lady, who has a son roughly 10 years older than me was like, "oh if only you were a bit older, i would tell my son to go after you. but it doesn't matter because in 10 years, age won't make a difference" (hmmmmm.. i don't even know this guy!!! T_T ) and then another lady was like "if only i had a son...... (you finish the sentence)" so yea . and then later, after i told him, my longtime friend was like "will u marry me?" so yea. all in all an interesting experience to say the least :)