My eye has been on Steph's Char Kueh Teow from Vegan About Town for quite some time after having success with her Mee Goreng recipe ages ago. For several years, our household take-away favourite has been Malaysian food and noodles normally make up at least one of the meals ordered. The man has always preferred Mee Goreng and the son Char Kueh Teow, I quite like both of them in different ways and Singapore Noodles can be pretty tasty too.
Tonight was an exciting night of firsts for me. I mentioned cutting down our orange tree to make way for our house extension in this post which turned out to be an extremely drawn out painful project. I could write a lengthy essay about this but this is a food blog not a renovation nightmare blog! Only yesterday we were given the green light to use our rangehood for cooking after a final inspection from an electrician. This was very exciting news for me!
Last weekend, the man and I went wok shopping. He had surprised me by taking it upon himself to do some research into the best types of woks to buy and how to season them properly. Prior to breaking it in with food, I had been instructed to go through the seasoning process of applying a thin coating of oil to the wok, heating it on a low flame until the oil started to smoke, waiting for it to cool and wiping it down with paper towels. This process had to be repeated several times.
Then it was time to cook some noodles. I went against Steph's advice a little and changed a few of the ingredients around but I did take on board not to overload the dish with veggies and let the noodles be the star. Beanshoots don't really do it for me so these were omitted instead I added in some shiitake mushrooms, and pak choy instead of kai lan as that's what needed to be used up in the fridge.
My plan was to either fry up some tofu cubes or crumble the tofu in like Steph, however I remembered that there were a few Vegan Brunch mini tofu omlettes in the fridge so these were sliced up and added to the noodles towards the end of the cooking time. The omlettes were a great vegan stand-in for eggs in this dish and would also work well in a Nasi Goreng, so if you are interested in the recipe I have previously posted it here.
I am very pleased to say that I loved this recipe as did the others, the chillies used were quite spicy which didn't bother me at all but I may have to use one instead of two in the future. My new wok worked extremely well, this is the first real wok I have owned and it will be treasured and used very often.
Planet VeGMeL week is over the half way mark now and there are only 3 days remaining...
This morning when I set out to cook brunch there was plenty of time up my sleeve as hubby was out for a couple of hours so I decided to make it a big one - and it was! It was made up as I went along, a couple of things were already in my mind when I started however many more elements were added along the way.
I began by marinating some thinly sliced tofu strips in soy sauce, nutritional yeast and liquid smoke to make tofu "bacon", then proceeded to make a vegan pesto as there was a surplus of basil waiting to be used. The pesto was made by blending a bunch of fresh basil, 1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts, 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast, 1 clove of crushed garlic, olive oil (not sure of quantity) and a pinch of salt.
After the tofu strips had marinated for 30 minutes, they were cooked on each side in a frying pan until nice and crispy.
Tofu omlettes from Vegan Brunch were a roaring success last week so I made another batch and decided to fill them with mushrooms, spinach and spring onions. The mushrooms were cooked with a bit of Nuttelex, a pinch of dried tarragon and salt and pepper. The spinach had a quick burst in the microwave and then a bit of pesto stirred through.
Only one piece of toast was required to accompany the omlette and this was topped with the remaining mushrooms, spring onions and tofu "bacon". Half a grilled tomato topped with pesto was also served on the side. This was an amazing brunch and the home-made pesto made it extra special...
It kept us satisfied until dinner and there was left-over tofu "bacon", mini omlettes (which are great in sandwiches) and pesto for this weeks lunches!!!
There's nothing like waking up on the weekend and spending some leisurely time in the kitchen cooking up a yummy brunch. I try to make something special at least once a week, sometimes this can be a tofu scramble or as my crew are rather fond of english muffins they also feature regularly...
There has been a teeny bit of a obsession at our house with the awesome chorizo sausage recipe from Viva Vegan, one of the first things to be trialled from the book. Vegan sausages have never worked for us until now, whether they have been the dreadful tasteless store bought ones or even home made varieties. I would have made at least 4 batches of chorizo in the past month and depleted my supply of gluten flour in the process. We love to have them in bread with some fried onions, tomato or BBQ sauce and another special sauce that has been a recent find from the blogosphere - Chipotle Ranch Dressing. I discovered this when looking for a vegan alternative to Subway's southwest sauce for my husband, he absolutely loves this and so do the rest of us - Thanks Matt!!!
Onto the muffins... This week I decided to combine chorizo with mini omlettes based on the Tofu Omlette recipe from Vegan Brunch which worked a treat. The end result of the muffins were a slice of Toffuti, some baby spinach leaves, a mini-omlette, sliced chorizo sausage, topped with some chipotle ranch dressing. These were delicious and I will definitely make weekend muffins this way again.
Served with a mixed berry smoothie.
Mini tofu omlettes (Adapted from Vegan Brunch)
Makes about 12
2 minced garlic cloves
500g silken tofu, lightly drained
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon fine black salt
1/2 cup chickpea (besan) flour
1 tablespoon cornflour
Extra olive oil for frying
Place garlic, tofu, nutritional yeast, olive oil and black salt in a food processor and pulse until a smooth texture is formed. Add the chickpea flour and cornflour to the food processor and process until combined. You may need to scrape down the sides with a spatula a couple of times to ensure that all ingredients are combined into the mixture.
Heat a small amount of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Pour a little less than a muffin size (as the mixture will spread) into the frying pan and allow to cook for about 3-5 minutes, until it is appearing to become dry and changing colour. Flip with a spatula and cook for a minute or two on the other side. Transfer to a plate and keep warm in a low oven while the other omlettes are cooking.
Depending on the size of your frying pan you may be able to cook several omlettes at a time. I was able to fit 3 at a time in my frying pan.
