Posts filed under 'chinese'
Creaky Chicken
Ever since becoming a board member of Re’s preschool I decided that after each board meeting I’m going to treat myself some Veggie Heaven takeout. It’s late by the time I get out, i’m ravenously hungry, I drive right past it to get home…really any excuse I can think of is fine with me. One thing about taking out from this vegan chinese eatery (really any eatery) is that you need to know what will “keep” until you get home. There are just some dishes on the menu that by the time you get home and it’s been steaming away in the back seat they just don’t taste good anymore or at least they just aren’t the same as they would be if you ate it at the actual restaurant.
One dish that travels well in my opinion is the Creaky Chicken. I have no idea what’s so “creaky” about this faux chicken but I don’t care it’s delicious. Its thin pieces of faux chicken and a few mushrooms breaded in something delicious, fried until crispy and topped with a sweetened brown sauce. My husband orders it all the time and I’m always stealing from his plate throughout our meal. I’ve never stolen one of the fried mushrooms though. So ordering this for myself and trying the mushrooms for the first time it’s safe to say that I will indeed be stealing them from his plate from now on.
BBQ Ribs and Spring Rolls
Two of my three favorite appetizers that are great for takeout! I ALWAYS order the BBQ Ribs on my board meeting nights. I wish I had a constant supple of these BBQ Ribs in my fridge. I believe I was told that they are made with a combination of soy and gluten. Whatever. All that matters is that I LOVE these things. They are so tasty and chewy that I would slowly chew on them all day long. So many times when I’m driving Re home from school I’m tempted to stop in and order a few of these to go for lunch. Hell I’m craving these little suckers right now! They come with this sweet and spicy sauce to dip them in. Sometimes I dip. Sometimes I don’t. They are amazing either way.
October 12th, 2011
Cashew Vegetable Stir Fry
Vegetable stir frys are a beautiful thing. I love the green of the string beans, scallions and broccoli, the red of the pepper and the orange of carrots (not pictured). I like to keep my veggies crisp when cooking them so I don’t cook them for a very long time. Something about the crunch makes me a happy girl. My absolute favorite part of the stir fry are the cashews. I love em’. All time favorite nut. I add them to everything I possibly can. They are added towards the end of the cooking process. I’d say when there is about 5 minutes of cooking time left is a good time to add them. It warms them up and toast’s them a bit.
For years I would just splash some tamari or shoyu into the pan at the end and call it a day. Then I got to wondering how chinese restaurants alway’s have a thickened sauce on their veggie dishes and thought to one day add some arrowroot powder (you can also use cornstarch). I pour whatever soy type of sauce i’m using into a measuring cup, i’d say about 1/3-1/2 a cup depending on the amount of veggies I’m using and then stir in about 2 heaping teaspoons of arrowroot (or cornstarch). I raise the heat of the pan to High and then pour in it and stir the hell out of the veggies and cashews. If the pan is hot enough the sauce will thicken almost immediately. I stir until everything is coated and then serve immediately over jasmine rice with some scallions sprinkled on top.
This was a big deal dinner for us the other night. You might be thinking what’s the big deal about a stir fry but when you are us and you ate this 2-3 times a week for years, then had kids and stopped eating it because they won’t eat it and you refuse to cook separate meals for them all the time……it’s just a big deal. I don’t like making Reno a separate meal from us. I want her to eat what we eat but every once in awhile I just want to eat what I want to eat so the night we ate this she had a PB&J and I took a few pieces of broccoli out before adding the shoyu/tamari sauce to the pan. Interestingly enough she ate all the broccoli before eating the sandwich. Perhaps one day I’ll get her to eat this stir fry.
October 6th, 2011
Chickpea-Almond Brown Rice Stir Fry with Tamari-Peanut Sauce
This was the very first meal I cooked for us since we brought Miles home from the hospital. Up until then we have been well taken care of food wise from friends and family. My non-cooking husband even cooked a meal for us one night. Of course when the time came for me to have to start making dinners again we pretty much had nothing in the fridge/pantry. After standing in the middle of the kitchen wondering what the hell I was going to make for dinner I all of a sudden remembered that I had a whole container of brown rice from some Veggie Heaven take out a few nights before, then I saw a can of chickpeas in the pantry and found some broccoli in the fridge. The rest of the dish just kept evolving while I was cooking.
I first sauteed some onions and garlic in oil then added the broccoli and chickpeas. While rooting around the fridge I found a bag of almonds so I chopped them up and tossed them into the pan along with the leftover take out brown rice. While this was all “stir frying” together I was trying to think of way to get Reno to eat this meal. I knew by the looks of it she wouldn’t eat it at all. I have in the past gotten her to eat similar dishes, usually with noodles instead of rice, if I put peanut sauce on it. We were running low on peanut butter, thanks to all the smoothies I’ve been making, so it was heavier on the tamari then on the peanut butter. Which is better for a stir fry anyway. The sauce was made with: tamari, peanut butter, water, orange juice and ginger powder. I added it to the stir fry right towards the end of cooking it and cooked it for a minute more just till it was heated through.
By then…Reno had emerged from her bath and declared that she would NOT be eating this dinner. I informed her that she WOULD be eating it and if she didn’t want to eat it then she was welcome to go straight to bed. If I know that she’s not going to like something I’ve made I’ll always give her another option but I knew she would like this. She complained through the whole thing. First that it was made with rice and not noodles and I always make peanut sauce with noodles. Then she was fine just eating the rice but that there was all “this stuff” in the way of her doing that…that “stuff” was the chickpeas. Oh and she also wasn’t going to be eating the broccoli which is actually a vegetable that she likes. After she had basically eaten 1/2 of her bowl she claims that her belly is full. Which was too bad because that’s when I decided to announce to Peter that there was some ice cream in the freezer for me and him when we were done with our bowls. Well wouldn’t you know it…Reno wanted some ice cream…she quickly ate the rest of her meal. 
The meal was delicious and I can’t wait to make it again. I hope to have the time and mental capability to write the measurements down so I can post the recipe for you all.
June 17th, 2011
Island Teriyaki Tofu
A few weeks ago there was this amazing smell coming into our apartment from my parents apartment below us. I couldn’t get enough of it and finally had to go downstairs to see what the hell she was making. It was of course some sorta meat, maybe pork?, I don’t remember but that’s not what was causing this glorious smell. It was the marinade she was baking it in and I NEEDED to know what it was. She said it was an Island Teriyaki marinade that she bought at Trader Joes. As soon as she showed me the bottle I knew exactly what company made it even though Trader Joes just slaps their own label on it: Soy Vay. I immediately scooped up a bottle at Whole Foods a day later. While checking out the ingredients I noticed that it contained pineapple. I have sadly developed a sensitivity to pineapple that gets worse every time I try to eat it. I basically said “Screw you sensitivity! I NEED TO EAT THIS!” I figured I could deal with itchy ears and mouth and throat for a hour or two or three.
When I got home from the store I pressed a block of tofu in my TofuXpress, which if you don’t have one I highly recommend getting one. I then cut the tofu up into triangles and marinated it for an hour or so. I heated up a pan until really hot and then added a tablespoon or two of olive oil and then seared the pieces of tofu until they were nice a brown on each side. While that was happening I boiled some bean thread noodles and sauteed some broccoli and string beans with a touch of the teriyaki sauce. Once everything was done cooking I added the noodles to the pan with the veg and touch more of the teriyaki sauce to give it some more color and heated it through. Then I scooped it into a bowl and placed the seared tofu on top and dug in. It was so delicious. My apartment smelled like it did the day my Maa was using the marinade in her house below us. It was just wonderful. Reno even liked the tofu and might have even eaten a piece of broccoli.
My pineapple sensitivity did rear it’s ugly self and I had some itchy ears for a bit but it wasn’t so bad which means that I will definitely be using this marinade again!
November 3rd, 2010
Carrot-Spinach Potstickers
This recipe has a special place in my heart because it was one of the first recipes I’ve ever created. Its probably at least 10 years old and was created long before I went to culinary school. I use to eat these spinach dumplings at a local chinese restaurant and wanted to try to make myself. In the end I came up with something not even resembling the dumplings I was trying to recreate. I came up with something so much better. When making the recipe don’t go crazy chopping up all the onions, carrots, etc..it’s all going into a food processor. The rough chopping just helps to get them going in the processor. This also makes a ton of them. You will no doubt be snacking on them as the next batch of them are cooking up over the stove. They are also fantastic cold out of the fridge the next day and the day after that.
Carrot-Spinach Potstickers
1 small onion, roughly chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and again roughly chopped
1 10 oz box chopped frozen spinach, thawed and drained of any liquid
2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon low sodium tamari
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 packages of wonton/dumpling skins, usually 50 come in a package, vegan ones can be found in asian markets (completely defrosted if frozen)
olive oil and water for cooking method explained below
*pulse onion, garlic and ginger in a food processor until chopped into smallish bits
*add carrots and pulse until they are in nice smallish bits
*add spinach, tamari and blend until all the ingredients are combined, stop and scrape the bowl with a spatula a few times. Everything should be very finely cut up.
*on a very clean and dry countertop of large cutting board lay out a few rows of wonton skins. (if they are square shaped wrappers lay them so one of the corners is facing you like a diamond) Add a heaping teaspoon of the carrot-spinach mixture in the middle of each wrapper. Dip one of your fingers or a pastry brush in a bowl of water and brush the edges of each wraper and fold in half from top to bottom pressing on the edges to seal them. Wet you fingers and grab the top corners and fold them up so they are touching each other and press to seal them together. It should remind you of a tortellini shape pasta. I like them this shape because you can fit more in a pan and I think they look prettier. You could totally just fold them in half if you want to skip that extra step.
*continue filling the rest of the potstickers.
*Coat the bottom of a large non-stick saute pan with a thin layer of olive oil and place on a medium-high flame. Place as many potstickers as will fit in the pan as long as they aren’t touching each other. Fry for about 1-2 minutes to develop a crispy bottom then add 1/2 of cup of water to the pan and cover immediately with a tight fitting lid. Lower heat and steam approx. 5-8 minutes or until most of the water has evaporated. Take the lid off the pan and let the rest of the water evaporate. Remove the potstickers and start cooking process again from the beginning with the rest of the potstickers, adding a bit more oil to the bottom of the pan. Each batch you’ll find you need less and less oil especially if you non stick pan is still nonstick. Mine isn’t.
*serve with some tamari or you favorite dipping sauce.
This potsticker was true to it’s name and stuck to the bottom of the pan.
Happy VeganMoFo!
October 2nd, 2009
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