Veggie Tempura

Day 333

Wednesday, September 16

Veggie Tempura

Uhhhhh.

We forgot to take pics of this. We did use mostly stuff from the garden, including sweet potatoes, broccoli, onions and zucchini, but also bought some mushrooms to fry up.

Can't give you the tempura batter recipe because I didn't blog it and Laura didn't memorize it, but she does remember the sauce she made.

Laura's Sauce
1/4 soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
Pinch of chili flakes
2 cloves garlic

Reviews/Comments

It was pretty good. I gave it an 8 and Missy gave it a 9.5. Laura gave it a 9 too, but added it was mostly because of the sauce.

Vegetarian Egg Rolls, Vegetarian Spring Rolls & Mushroom Fried Rice

Day 317

Monday, August 31

Tran's Palace: 

Vegetarian Egg Rolls, Vegetarian Spring Rolls & Mushroom Fried Rice

Egg Rolls, Spring Rolls & Mushroom Fried Rice

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Day 278

I took a week off from blogging. Let's call it my summer vacation. We didn't have anything fancy or new, so it's all good. :)

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Filling
Original recipe
2 leaves lettuce
3 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint leaves
3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
4 teaspoons finely chopped Thai basil
12 - 15 snap peas
2 radishes
4 small carrots
3 green onions
52 grams Vermicelli noodles

Veggies for spring rolls filling

Brown rice vermicelli for spring rolls filling

Peanut Sauce
Original recipe
(Substituted 3 TBSPs General Tso's sauce for Hoisin and omitted sugar)

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp General Tso sauce
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
4 1/2 tsp soy sauce
2 1/4 teaspoons chile-garlic paste
1 medium garlic clove, mashed to a paste
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Peanut sauce for Vietnamese spring rolls

Wrap in rice paper.

Vietnamese spring rolls unwrapped

Wrapping Vietnamese spring rolls

Serve with sauce. Make extra for lunch.

Store in a container on a damp paper towel so they are not touching each other.

Reviews/Comments

OMG. I can die happy now.

Chinese Stir-fry & Cheese Rangoons

Day 270

Leftovers rock.

Chinese Stir-fry & Cheese Rangoons

Chinese Stir-fry

We added more veggies to this to freshen it up and also because there was too much sauce. I ran out and picked more snow peas, then chopped more carrots and another onion. I also threw in some garlic scapes and spinach that was in the fridge.

More fresh veggies for yesterday's stir-fry

Before & After

In the before and after pics below, you can see in the first pic that there is a lot of sauce for the amount of veggies in the top pic. 

Before

After

Cheese Rangoons

We had more wonton wrappers left so I picked up a new package of cream cheese and Laura grabbed more green onions outside and I made 15 cheese rangoons to have with the stir-fry tonight. Because we ate all the ones I made last night, since we had this meal for lunch today, too.

Cheese rangoons & veggie stir-fry

Reviews/Comments

The rangoons weren't as good as last night's bok choi rangoons, but the stir-fry was even better. Gets a 10 from me again.

Chinese Stir-fry & Vegetable Rangoons

Day 269

Chinese Stir-fry & Vegetable Rangoons

Chinese Stir-fry

Fresh, homegrown snow peas were the inspiration for this whole meal. The more you pick the more they grow so we're trying to use them as much as possible.

Snow peas & green onions

Stir-fry Ingredients

1/3 lb snow peas

4 carrots

1 lb mushrooms

2 onions

1 red pepper

1/2 lb bean sprouts

1/2 lb fresh pasta, cooked

Stir-fry ingredients

Stirfry Sauce

Original recipe (the Basic Stir-Fry Sauce one)

2/3 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup veggie broth

1/3 cup rice vinegar

3 1/2 tbsp white sugar

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp minced ginger

Directions

This dish requires a bit of prep and a few steps. All veggies need to be washed and chopped. The pasta has to be cooked then set aside and the sauce needs to be made. The veggies need to be stir-fried, then mixed with the sauce and noodles.

Chinese Stir-fry

Vegetable Rangoons

I've posted a rangoon recipe before but this one is slightly different. In addition to the cream cheese, green onions and soy sauce, I also added minced snow peas, diced red pepper and finely chopped bok choi, which changed the flavor and texture. 

Ingredients

1 package cream cheese

2 tsp soy sauce

5 green onion stalks, chopped

1 bunch of baby bok choi, chopped fine

6 snow peas, finely diced

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh red pepper

1 package wonton wrappers

Water for sealing

Rangoon ingredients

Directions

Clean your counter-top really well. Mix first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl. Arrange wonton wraps on the counter in a grid and wet 2 adjacent edges on each. Drop 1 tsp filling in the center of each wrap and fold opposite edges together to seal.

Making rangoons

Fry in 1" sunflower oil and drain on paper towels. Serve with Compliments Sweet Chili Heat sauce.

Vegetable Rangoons

Reviews/Comments

This was amazing and gets a 10 from me.

Laura thought the bok choi rangoons were perfect and delicious and she loved them. Gets a 10 from her too.

Corn Fritters with Herb & Scape Fried Potatoes

Day 259

Corn Fritters with Herb & Scape Fried Potatoes

Corn Fritters!

We love them so. They are simple to make and very cheap. 'Cept for the maple syrup, but some things are just worth it. We make a good homemade pancake syrup with butter, sugar and maple flavoring but, naturally, it's not as yummy as the real maple tree by-product.

Some corn fritter recipes are pretty fancy, but I'm not about fancy cooking, and besides, we've tried one of those fancy corn fritter recipes before and it was no better than this one. Here's how I make mine:

Ingredients
2 cups pancake mix (just add water kind)
1 can cream corn
1/2 can kernel corn
1/2 cup water
Oil for frying
Paper towel for draining

The pic below shows my corn fritter ingredients with the exception of the butter. Not sure what the butter is doing there. I used it for the potatoes, not the fritters.

Corn fritter ingredients 

Directions
Mix the pancake mix, corn and water to make a batter. Adjust as necessary, it should not be runny or doughy enough to form in a ball, but enough to drop in thick spoonfuls into the oil. Thicker than muffin batter. Thinner than cookie dough.

Corn fritter batter

Drop into the oil and cook 3 or 4 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels.

Corn fritters

Herb & Scape Fried Potatoes

These were sooo good. If you haven't had scapes but would like to give them a try, let us know and we'll try to save you a few. Locals only, of course, for fresh sake.

Scapes & scallions

Thyme, rosemary, oregano, & parsley

I fried these in butter which was a naughty thing to do, but then I threw in some garlic scapes, scallions and fresh herbs and redeemed myself by adding nutrients and antioxidants. hehe

Herb & Scape Fried Potatoes

Reviews/Comments

Laura loved the fritters. She didn't eat all her potatoes. I loved them both. I let Laura rate separately.
Fritters 10
Potatoes 10 (says she was full)

Beer-Battered Fiddleheads

Day 223

Well, we actually had Greek food for supper but we also made some of these, which were pretty yum. They were inspired by our friends in Fredericton, who had them a couple weeks ago. You know...Mollie, Wendy, Debbie and Julie...those friends.

Beer-Battered Fiddleheads

Fiddleheads

On my way home from Fredericton I stopped at a roadside produce market and got a couple pounds of fiddleheads. 

Produce stand sign

Well, I paid for 2 lbs ($4.00/lb), but when I got the bag home, there were a lot of stems in with the fiddleheads (not attached) and by the time I picked those out, it weighed only 1 lb, 10 1/2 oz. Robbed!

1 2/3 lbs fiddleheads

To prepare, I cleaned them and snipped any brown ends, then blanched them for 2 1/2 minutes. Which is 1/2 a minute longer than Wendy Narvey advised.

Beer Batter Recipe

I didn't actually use beer, I used Perrier. Same thing. haha

Ingredients

1 cup pancake batter

Carbonated beverage to achieve desired batter consistency

2 tbsp Sriracha sauce

Directions

Mix. Stir fiddeheads in. Deep fry.

Fiddleheads in batter

Deep-fried fiddleheads

Cajun Mayo

I made this recipe up because I couldn't find "Cajun seasoning from Clubhouse" which is what my friend Wendy told me they used.

Cajun mayo

Ingredients

1/2 cup Compliments salad dressing

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp chipotle powder

Directions

Mix.

Voila! Beer-Battered Fiddleheads

Beer-battered fiddleheads & cajun mayo

Reviews/Comments

I thought these were good, but not as good as some other fried food. I prefer fried zucchini or mushrooms. Or potatoes, mmmm. But it was okay and my cajun mayo was really good.

Laura found the fiddleheads weren't soft enough for her. The had a little crunch, so if we make these again, I'll know to blanch them a little longer.

I rate them a 7 1/2. 

Laura gave them a 7, preferring to have them boiled with butter.

Greek Feast

Day 222

I did skip a few days there; sorry about that...let's catch up.

Friday, May 29
We didn't really have a formal meal. I grabbed a BK veggie burger while running errands and later we shared the rest of a George's mushroom pizza that Laura had gotten for lunch.

Saturday, May 30
We went to Mike's Bar and got a pile of naughty fried food with their Build Your Own Basket. We got the jalapeno poppers, mozza sticks, sweet potato fries, onion rings, mac n cheese bites and deep fried mushrooms.

Sunday, May 31
This was last night, the night Laura slaved over the Greek feast, so we had some of it last night, but some of it wasn't done until it was too late to eat. I also went out and got a BK veggie burger because I was too hungry to wait. I should have just waited, because it wasn't long after I ate that we fried the falafel and pitas, so we sampled most of the Greek stuff.

Monday, June 1
Greek food all day! I had spanikopita for breakfast, and this plate you see in the pics below for lunch and supper. And there is plenty left for tomorrow. WOOT!

Moussaka, falafel, spanikopita, pita, hummus & olives

Moussaka, falafel sandwich, spanikopita & olives

Veggie Moussaka

Recipe here

This is amazingly good. It was the dish that took so long to make, because there were a lot of steps. I can't see us making this often, for that reason, but someday again. Thank you Sia Koulis, for the recipe. We may have gone our whole lives never having tried moussaka. 

So many ingredients in this. Eggplant was the one I was excited about. Oh, and potatoes.

Eggplant

Missy was interested in the process. She was probably hoping for a taste but it wasn't done until very late. These things take time!

Laura slaving over moussaka

It wasn't done until bedtime so we didn't try it until today. It's super yummy and a shame it's such a process to make.

Moussaka

Spanikopita

Recipe here
Greek spinach pie..soooo good. Laura used frozen spinach instead of fresh, but otherwise followed the recipe.

Spanikopita

Falafel

Recipe here
Laura makes awesome falafel. I've only had falafel at three other places before (Boyce Farmers Market, Pita Pit and Calactus), and all falafel is pretty good, but Laura's is the best. There are only a few pieces on a plate in the pic below, but believe me, there is an enormous bowl of falafel dough in the fridge to make more. More! MORE!!!!!!

Falafel

We have the falafel with a delicious tahini sauce that Laura always makes. We usually have this with falafel on pita bread with tomatoes and Romaine lettuce.

Laura's Tahini Sauce

About 1/3 cup tahini
Lemon juice to taste

Add water or until desired consistency

2 cloves garlic

Hummus

Laura also makes the best hummus. We like ours super garlicky so it has a bit of kick to it. Here is the recipe from another blog. It's a keeper.

Hummus

Homemade Pita Bread

Recipe here
Laura has been making her own pita bread for years, and it's so much better than that dry old store-bought kind.

Homemade pita bread

Greek fare

Reviews/Comments

Took a long time to make. Do not attempt this unless you have 5 or 6 hours to kill. But, soooo worth it!!

Missy was here Sunday night while Laura was making it. She enjoyed the falafel and hummus but wasn't a fan of spanikopita. It was still warm, so that could have been why.

Peanut Satay Stir-fry with Whole Grains & Crab Rangoons

Day 215

Criteria for tonight's meal:

1. It had to be cheap
2. It had to be quick
3. It had to be vegetarian
4. It had to contain adequate protein

Peanut Satay Stir-fry with Whole Grains & Crab Rangoons

Do you know how many choices that eliminates? Vegetarians can find plenty of delicious meals, but the cheap ones don't tend to be quick and the quick ones don't tend to be cheap. Cheap and quick often means processed food or sacrificing nutrition in favor of flavor. Not all processed food is garbage though. I was lucky tonight and found some sales, too. Not that everything on our plates was the epitome of health food, but we got some nutrition at least. And flavor. For cheap. Fast.

Crab Rangoons

I was not in the mood to cook at all. I had some errands to run after work and came home feeling hungry so I was in no mood to shop or cook.

We needed to use some things that have been in the fridge awhile, like wonton wrappers and cream cheese, plus we already had peanut oil, so I knew I would be making cheese rangoons, which was about the extent of the effort I felt like putting in. All I needed was a bunch of scallions, which I found for $1.49.

Rangoon filling

Raw & fried ragoons

Cheese rangoons

Peanut Satay Stir-fry with Whole Grains

As for the rest of the meal, the sales at Sobeys dictated what it would be. They had mixed veggies on sale for $1.49. Best deal ever. And they had this Seeds of Change organic Seven Whole Grains stuff for $2.99. I grabbed a bottle of peanut satay ($2.99) and that was it. What's better than that?

The Seeds of Change organic Seven Whole Grains include:

• Whole grain brown rice
• Rye
• Barley
• Millet
• Red wheat
• Red quinoa
• Wild rice

Seven Whole Grains packet

The veggies were your basic Compliments bag of mixed fresh vegetables. I also tossed in the rest of the scallions left over from making the rangoons. Sautéed on fairly high heat in peanut oil until tender enough to fork through them. Then I added the sauce, but forgot to take a pic. Except for the final plated meal pic.

Stir-fried vegetables

Peanut satay stir-fry with whole grains & crab rangoons

Reviews/Comments

I got lots of favorable comments from Laura as we were eating, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember them specifically. But, she gave the meal a 9 as a whole and so did I.

The organic whole grains were pre-cooked and had a creamy texture and sort of a nutty flavor. Laura thought they were bland as hell and used it as a base for her stir-fry. She did like it, but thought it lacked flavor. It was supposed to have a tamari flavor, but that's basically just soy, isn't it? Anyway, it had a mildly nutty and grainy flavor - go figure, eh? I loved it. Since it's on sale from like 5 bucks to 2, Imma go back and get some more.