Vegan MoFo 2015 - Day 6

Today's prompt is 'Recreate a Restaurant Meal'. So today, I'm veganising Wagamama’s Cha Han.

OK so technically, Wagamama will do this for you anyway, just ask for the Yasai Cha Han Donburi without egg and you’re good to go. However, it’s more fun to make your own at home and also, it’s really piss easy to recreate.

Here’s the pic of Wagga’s version 

(not sure if miso soup still comes with it as standard, I don't like it anyway but if it does, double check it's vegan as I heard rumours it might not be!)

 And here’s my attempt:

My recipe is, as usual, rough amounts mostly, because I was just throwing stuff in till it looked right.

To make enough for 2 servings, you’ll need:

Firm tofu (I used half a block of Cauldron’s plain tofu*)

Olive oil or cooking oil of choice

3 good sized spring onions, sliced thickly

150g (ish) of mushrooms, sliced (about a cup of slices)

100g (ish) of mange tout, cut into 2 or 3 pieces each

¼ cup of sweetcorn (add more if you like)

250g of cooked brown rice (I used a pack of Tilda brown basmati for ease, but feel free to cook your own)

2 tablespoons of Yakitori sauce** plus a bit extra for the tofu

And here’s what I did:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Slice the tofu into squares and press it quickly with your hands and a piece of kitchen towel, just to get rid of some of the excess water. Then, dry fry in a hot pan for about 4 or 5 minutes on each side, pressing down well with a spatula to remove excess water.

Once they are bit browned, tip them into a bowl and toss them with a couple of teaspoons of yakitori sauce. Then tip onto a baking tray and pop in the oven while you prepare the rest. (You don’t have to do this, but I did as it was on anyway for the non-vegan part of Mr A’s tea!)

Then heat a teaspoon or so of oil, you can use the same pan, and stir fry the spring onions for a few minutes. Add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt and cook for a few mins until both sides are starting to colour and cook. Add the mange tout and cook for a few more minutes (add more oil as and when needed, I just used an olive oil spray to add a bit more).  Then add the cooked rice and sweetcorn and keep stir frying until everything is heated through.

Add the yakitori sauce and cook for a couple of minutes, until the sauce is absorbed.

Toss the tofu through and serve in a rad noodle bowl - or if you don't have one, a bowl with animal from the muppets on instead :)

*Some PPKers mentioned that Cauldron had changed their recipe again and that it’s now more like the old recipe, much firmer! I was super pleased to find that agree with this review and the texture is now much better and doesn’t need anywhere near as much pressing as the softer version needed.

**I used store-bought yakitori sauce, which makes this recipe so easy, as I found it in Waitrose when I was looking for the ingredients to make my own (which they actually didn’t have). If you can’t find that though, it’s basically soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar. Here a recipe from Wagga’s NZ site that includes ingredients and directions for yakitori sauce, but it seems to make a lot, so you could always scale it back if you don’t think you’ll use it all: http://www.wagamama.co.nz/at-home/recipes/negima-yakitori

Laterz

xXx

 

Vegan MoFo Day 5 - Hot Stuff

Morning all. Well, TGIF - that's all I can say!

 

So I went out for dinner last night with two of my besties.  I am not fortunate to live in a town that has great veggie places, it's mainly chain restaurants and pubs.  Pubs are pretty much a no-go but most of the chain restaurants in town have options. Wagamamas is the most vegan friendly so that's where we went.

 

I pretty much always have the same thing at Waggas (Saien Soba) and so I decided to go for something else and I picked the Yasai Chilli Men.  It is basically a stir fry of tofu, onions, mange tout, mushrooms & courgettes in a spicy chilli sauce, served over noodles.  It wasn't as hot as I was expecting it to be but it was a nice change to my usual.

 

I also went for my usual side dish of edamame with chilli & garlic salt.  I love these things.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: Wagamamas

This weekend I stayed at my parents' house. After a cold trip out looking at a potential new car for my dad, we went for lunch at Wagamama's. I've been really excited about the fact that one has opened up in my town and couldn't wait to go.

Normally I have the Saien Soba, which is noodles in a vegetable soup with tofu and just swap the egg noodles for rice noodles or udon. But I decided to try something new this time, so I got the Cha Han, minus the egg.

Fried rice, tofu and sweetcorn, with a side of miso soup. I really liked that miso soup.

Up close!

You also get a side of pickles - which are really unusual and tasty.

The three of us shared a side of edamame beans, with chilli & garlic salt - my favourite side!

Overall, I prefer the Saien Soba, but as I'm going back on Weds for dinner and will be having it then, I'm glad I picked something different to try and it was really good!

I made it to 20 MoFo posts! Woot!

Laterz
xXx

Guess who's back ... back again...

....Shady's back, tell a friend...... hee hee

HELLOOOOOOO! It's been ages hasn't it, I'm bad! Honestly I just haven't felt like blogging lately, a few crap things happened at the beginning of the month but I won't bore you with that because life is starting to look a bit better now. So managed to finally kick myself into blogging mode! Which means I got a lot a pics for you!

Starting with a dinner this week - roasted veg an polenta. I think this is my new favourite thing to do with veg - hit them with balsamic vinegar after they've roasted. Last night I made more and they were even better but I didn't take a pic. Last night I mixed courgettes, sweet potato, mushrooms, butternut squash, red peppers and red onions with a little bit of olive oil, some dried herbs and chopped garlic. Then roasted them at 180C/350F for about 45 mins. Once done, I poured over 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and a handful of chopped parsley and mixed. They were awesome!




Cookies! I know I know, I've blogged these before, but they are so damn delicious. They are the rocky roads from Vegan Cookies.... These were a present for a friend's birthday.



Pacakes!! Chocolate blueberry pancakes, they weren't great but they hit the spot with a good glug of golden syrup on (maple syrup is about £5 a bottle at the moment, so I had to cheap it!!)

This was a cake I made my friends and I for dessert a few weekends ago, it had big chunks of raspberry and mango in and a sugary, crunchy coconut crumb topping. It was lovely and I'm going to work on the recipe a bit before I post it.

Dinner that day was pie! I made a simple pie crust from 1.5 cups of flour, 3 tbsp of vitalite and 3 tbsp of shortening, a bit of salt and then cold water until it came together. The filling was linda mccartney mince, mushrooms, peas, onions, a bit of red wine and some stock with some bisto powder added. Delish! I just did some plain new potatoes and sugar snaps to go with. It was such a nice day that we ate this on the balcony in the sun! Where oh where did that sun go??

This was inspired by the news that my town is getting a wagamamas soon! YAY! I had a go at making something like one of their soups that i love - the name of it escapes me. But it has fried mushrooms, tofu, pak choi, beansprouts (which I didn't have) and other veg in a lovely broth with noodles. Mine wasn't as good as theirs but it was pretty freakin delicious.

Last month I went to the Sonisphere festival and we had quite a lot of tent-side barbecues. Most of the food was not really blog-worthy but there was a veggie food stand that did the best burgers ever..... In the words of Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction "MMMM HMMM, that's a tasty burger!"

Here's some muffins I made. This pic is so old, I can't even remember what flavour they were, but I have a sneaking suspicion they had spices and walnuts in.

Man, this pic is OLD! I made a lasagne, using Linda Mc mince and lovely white sauce. I topped it with a bit of nooch. The dough balls were awesome, I was winging it but I really wish I'd written down the recipe!! Next time I will I promise.

Close of the dough balls after baking and brushing with melted vitalite.

I tried making the crash hot potatoes that were all the rage on blogs a while ago. They were good but....

I dropped them getting them out the oven and lost a couple! :-(

And here is pics from a PPK meet up back in early July - look at all that food, it was awesome. There were sausage rolls, calzones, pasta salads, falafels, cheezly straws, cupcakes, cookies ..... and a baby! We didn't eat him though - he was too cute!

My contribution was the east coast coffee cake from vegan brunch - the jam swirl variation. I also made carrot falafels again, but didn't take a pic. They are in my last post though if you want to see them.

That's about it for now.

Laterz
xXx

What goes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! ??

.....A sheep with no lips!

Crap joke yes? Well that's about as entertaining as this post gets I'm afraid. I haven't blogged in over a week because I really haven't cooked anything pic worthy. I have mostly been coming home from work and just throwing some salad or similar along with whatever veggies mum & dad have had for dinner.

And what I do have is not great quality as I took them on my camera phone. I suck, I know. But on the plus side - I move in 4 days and once I'm in my own kitchen, my blogging should get back to being more regular and hopefully more intersting.

This was lunch last week at Wagamamas (again). This time I had the salad instead of my usual and it was spankingly awesome. The picture sucks but it had roasted onions, asparagus, aubergine, sweet potato, squash, radish, mushrooms and leaves with a great dressing.



We shared my usual side of edamame with chilli, garlic and salt. MMMM!



And roasted asparagus. This was my favourite thing, it was amazing. The sauce was soooo good and the sesame seeds. MMMM. This is my new favourite side dish, edamame - you're outta here!!

I haven't hung up my apron completely though, this was a lasagna I made us for dinner last week. It had spinach, butterbeans, mushrooms, onions and VCON Cashew Tofu Ricotta. That stuff seriously rocks socks. My dad made an 'ergh' face when I said tofu, but he loved it and had leftovers the next day.

My only complaint was that it needed more sauce. I like saucy lasagne. This pic is actually cold leftovers for lunch at work (hence cameraphone pic!!)

That's it until next week when I've moved in!! YAY!!

Handbags & Gladrags

I haven't been taking that many pics lately, mainly because I been eating a lot of meals that look like this and they tasty but they pretty boring! But this one was really good. It was just some baked tofu, with salad and a dressing made of tahini and miso and chilli sauce. I forget what else went in but it was good.


Last saturday, we went out to celebrate one of my best friend's 30th birthdays (the one I was dogsitting for last month!) We went for an Italian meal and I didn't fancy any of the vegan options on the menu. Actually I'm lying, there weren't any vegan options, but there were the usual things you can just ask them to take the cheese off. But as I said, didn't fancy those so I asked them to do me a salad and this is what they came up with and I have to say, I was REALLY impressed. It had roasted onions, peppers and courgettes, potatoes, rocket and a great dressing with chilli oil and balsamic vinegar.



I really wish I'd asked them how they did those potatoes, as I couldn't work it out but they were amazing. Seriously.

Birthday cake was my mango & coconut cake - which seems to be my friends' favourite as it's the one they always ask for. But when I was reading the recipe I realised it had a shit-tonne of oil in. So I cut it back to 1/4 cup and increased the soymilk to 1 cup, plus I used 1/4 cup of the mango syrup to make up the liquid content. I used tinned mango as I couldn't find a ripe enough fresh one (about half a tin / 1/2 cup finely chopped) and it was just as good. This mixture made for 15 cupcakes!

This was lunch the next day (when I was hungover from way too much Prosecco!!). I bought some falafel and made a tahini sauce and then served it with some tomato, grated carrot and a wholemeal pitta. Super yum!

Inside Shot!

I had some falafel left over and I made some bulgar wheat that I added a tin of tomatoes and some spices to. It was really good, but I didn't quite get the spcies right, so I'm gonna work on that one!

Like I said, I been eating a lot of salads for lunch lately and this was one I had at work last week. Really good! Rocket salad, sun dried tomatoes, chick peas, raw broccoli, carrots, cucumber.... with balsamic dressing and mixedseeds. Sorry for the crap pic, I took it on my phone, which doesn't seem to have any flash options.

During the week I really fancied some chocolate soymilk, but when I picked up the packets of Alpro I saw that one 250ml carton weighed in at over 700 calories! I thought that was unbelievable. So when I went home I made my own with light soy milk, a spoonful of cocoa, a dash of vanilla and a squeeze of agave nectar. Tasty, chocolatey and less than 100 cals! Which meant I could have an oreo. YAY to my friend for bringing me back oreos from Las Vegas - UK ones are not vegan.

Yesterday me, mum & dad hopped on the train to reading to do some shopping and have lunch. We were wondering around the oracle trying to find a veg-friendly restaurant when my dad spied a Wagamamas! HURRAH. I had my usual yasai itame (gorgeous spicy coconutty soup with loads of veggies, noodles and herbs - sooooo good) and a side of chilli/garlic/salt edamame. I snapped a pic of the soup on my camera phone! I've tried so many times to recreate this and I NEVER get anywhere near close!

Another bonus of going shopping with the parents (aside from them paying for lunch) - accessories!! Mum was buying a new bag and so was I and Debenhams were having a sale but you had to spend £50! Mum's bag was £49 and mine was £25 so she bought it for me! YAY. I really love Julien Macdonald's Star range. His bags are leather free - yay! And he does some awesomely trashy, sparkly shit that I just love. This pic doesn't begine to capture the gorgeous pretty blue/green of this bag. It's lovely. Mum thought I was mad and kind of turned her nose up!! haha

Lastly, today's dinner. I bought all the stuff to made lasagna but none of us could be bothered to wait for it. So I made a quick veggie casserole cuz mum fancied potatoes and something in gravy. But as I was cooking she knew it would have to be vegan, but they still really enjoyed it so I'm happy. It had fennel, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, red pepper, red onion and cauliflower. The sauce was just veggie stock, red wine, dried thyme & oregano and a good splash of vegan worcester sauce. Really good and lots of gravy to soak up with bread.

Oh and I know I promised a tattoo photo, but I'm very sad to say that the guy did such a shit job that I've had to book in with the place that did my first one so they can fix it! I wish I'd listened to my gut and gone there in the first place. However, I think it should be fairly simple to fix, so pics when it's all done next month!