My boy friend bought me a surprise cake at serious healthy organic shop on Oxford st in Bondi Junction. The shop also sells serious healthy stuff, herbs, salt, skin products and food like sprouted bread and more…They make everything at their place. kind of scary place. Door is always closed, so you won’t know what is there until you open.  The owner was actually arrested to sell raw milk before. ( raw milk is actually much healthier but illegal to sell. some place actually sell raw milk as ” milk for massage”  ) He believes in health very deeply. 

Anyway….this cake is vegan, gluten, dairy and sugar free cake, oh, it is organic. 

Lots of nuts, dried fruits including goji …so healthy

I must say it is not best looking cake…. have you noticed it has  ♥ ♥  shape? 

I can tell it uses raw cocoa and lots of coconuts oil…very rich!  I wonder it is actually raw cake or not….

Thanks honey for healthy cake xxx I was very surprised and  look younger now  :) 

My Kale week is still going on :)

Today, I cooked Japchae, the Korean noodle. 

Japchae is a popular Korean noodle dish made from sweet potato. Yes, it is GLUTEN FREE noodle :) stir fried with thinly sliced carrot, onion, spinach and mushroom seasoned with sesame oil, soy sauce, salt and sugar. Pretty simple! 

Dried Korean sweet potato noodle - boil for 10 mins before frying

Today’s Japchae

Kale, carrot and enoki mushroom

Kale is like spinach so no problem at all! 

Normally sugar is used for seasoning  but I used ” agave syrup” today for healthy option. 

Lower GI than sugar and contains full of nutrients unlike white refined sugar! 

Japchae is tasty either hot or cold. It is great to bring to office for lunch :) 

Another lovely kale cooking :)))))

Broccoli is soo cheap now! Let’s have plenty of broccoli, the super food!! 

I made very simple broccoli soup :)  

Super simple broccoli soup

Serves 4

1kg Broccoli, cut into florets

Sea salt and pepper 

100g walnuts

some extra virgin olive oil to drizzle

some vegan cheese ( optional ) 

Method

Bring 800ml salted water to the boil in a pot, add the broccoli and simmer for 4min or until tender. Make sure the broccolis are still bright green. Drain, keep the liquid. 

Blend the broccoli in a blender, with enough of the liquid to half-fill the goblet, to give a velvety texture. 

Pour the mixture into a pan. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Serve with the nuts, pepper, (vegan) cheese and drizzle with olive oil 

When I went to buy a coffee at cafe, the cafe was offering tomato quinoa soup, so I decided to cook one as well but I knew I had a cauliflower ( It’s so cheap at the moment!!!! ) at home so feel like creamy but not so creamy then decided to have creamy tomato soup! It went very well.

I recently bought quinoa flakes at Coles so wanted to try as well!

Quinoa flakes are steamed and rolled which means less cooking time compare to quinoa. 

Ingredients

Serves 4

1 cup quinoa flakes ( if you would like to enjoy risotto style add another half cup )

1 onion, chopped finely

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

half cauliflower, chopped into bite size

2 stalks celery, chopped into small pieces

1 red capsicum, chopped into small pieces

250 g mushroom cut into half

1 tinned chopped tomato 

3 cup water

3 cup rice ilk

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp sea salt

3 tes vegetable stock powder

1. Heat frying pan with oil and fry onion and garlic.
2. Add mushroom and  fry then add tinned tomato, water, rice milk, stock powder and salt and bring to boil. 
3. Then add all veggies. ( you could put with mushrooms but I prefer less cooking ) and simmer until just cooked. ( if you use whole quinoa you can add it with veggies )
4. Then add quinoa flakes and simmer one to two minutes.
5. Serve with shredded celery leaves

I actually had parsley but decided to use celery leaves. They are great! 

I used whatever veggie I had in my fridge so you can use your favourite veggies such as fennel, carrot, broccoli …..

Also soy milk is great instead of rice milk, actually soy milk is better I mean creamier …but I had soy latte so decided to use rice milk instead.

Since I learn how cow milk is not great for our body at school I start to cut down cow milk. 

Only using soy milk can be over consuming so I start to use rice milk extensively in my cooking. I tried at least four brand but this is the best

I actually had beef stew and cheese cake that contains butter, cream cheese and sour cream ( yes, it is full of dairy ! ) , which I did not need to eat full portion since it was just tasting at work but I ate them all… greedy me! then I felt sick after this and constipated. After having this soup, gosh, I feel myself again. Thanks to high dietary fibre in quinoa with full of veggies!!! also it was really yummy. 

I finally went to ” Wafu” restaurant in Surry Hills.

I heard about the restaurant soo many times! Then I tried to go, then once, I was told that restaurant is too busy so we can’t give enough service so we are not taking any more customers today…I thought, wow, it is professional! 

Then I tried to go Sunday then the restaurant start to close every Sunday. 

So this was my third try!  Thank god that I could finally get in! 

This is inside of restaurant. Nice and cosy

When I came into restaurant, the owner Yukako san ( In Japanese, we put “san” in the end of name to show the person respect )  talked to me ” Are you Yoshiko san?” 

She actually knew me from my website. I wanted to talk to her so I am very happy that she talked to me :)  She is very energetic and passionate person, I could tell after 5 minutes talk! 

We order seaweed salad for antree

Seaweed Salad $11.40-salad of 3 types of seaweed

• Spicy wakame : wakame with mixed chilli and soy tamari dressing
• Wakame-su : wakame with white miso dressing
• Arame salad: can’t remember but arame with tamari dressing

Before we order, we read the restaurant policy.

Yukako san cares about environment, she does not like wasting food and using plastic containers so if we finish meal completely we’ll get 30% off. 

If you want to take food home, the restaurant does not provide with take away container so you have to bring your own. 

Well, I heard about this from a girl who came to my cooking class and big fan of wafu restaurant so I was not surprised to read this. I think this policy is fantastic! She chose to challenge difficult but great thing not convenient one.Yukako san told me that it was in a newspaper! Some disagree with her but I am totally with her side! 

 We made sure we finish food…

as main

Macrobiotic plate 

choice of three kobachi ( little dishes ) , ohitashi ( blanched seasonal green with tofu & sesame soy-tamari sauce) , brown rice and miso soup. 

There were 17 choices of Kobachi! They are all home style simple Japanese. 14 out of 17 dishes are vegetarian so it is great vegetarian choices! 

Kobachi menu is on black board. I took photo! 

I chosse

Kiriboshi radish : dried daikon, carrot, shiitake cooked in light soy tamari sauce

Gohei mochi: grilled brown rice with s

Horofuki daikon: Steamed daikon with sweet miso sauce

I loved everything!!!!! Normally these kind of simple Japanese can be very boring but yukako san make them tasty. Especially ohitashi is soooo good. Ohitashi is not my favourite dish cos it is boring and quite often veggies are too soft but this one is crunchy texture and great sauce. Yum!!!!!

miso soup and brown rice

Gluten free kishimen udon noodle with vegetable tempura

All food was so clean and nice. Definitely guilt free! 

After eating all food, we were very full so got little worried if we could finish but we did! 

I now totally understand why everybody recommended this restaurant!  

Wafu

460 Cleveland St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 9319 1880

Open Mon to Sat

* Monday is vegetarian dish only

This bechamel sauce is great! 

NO  BUTTER AND MILK  

AND 

NO GLUTEN

but taste fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!! seriously!!!!!!!

How good is that??????

Ingredients

400ml soymilk

40g glutenous rice floour ( sweet rice flour )

1/2 tsp vegetable stock powder

1 tsp sea salt

1. Put glutenous rice flour into a bowl and add 1/3 of soy milk slowly and mix very well
2. Add rest of soy milk and mix
3. Strain the mixture into pot
4. Heat the pot over medium heat and stir occasionally with a whisk 
5. When sauce get thick, turn off the heat

You won’t fail to make this one since it is so easy!!!!!! 

The reason you have to strain the mixture is to avoid lumps

****you can freeze this sauce *****

Of course, I used Bonsoy!

Yes, it’s a new blend!!!!!

I love miso mayo! Great with raw or steamed veggie.

I am not big fun of eating raw or steamed veggie but with miso mayo, I can eat them.

It is great cos you need only two ingredients! 

 you can easily imagine what the ingredients are… yes, miso and mayo

just mix together. half and half, I would say but all miso taste different so just adjust amount of miso

I love Japanese mayo.

Kewpie is popular one but unfortunately we can’t get real ” made in Japan” Kewpie anymore because of high percentage of egg contents!!!!

so all Kewpie in Australia is made in Thailand now…

Taste? not too bad so I use made in Thailand one now

I must say I HATE sweet mayo!! Some of mayo in Australia are sweet so be careful to make miso mayo with these sweet mayo. It won’t work!!!

This one is good

This miso mayo goes with raw cabbage, carrots, celery, cucumber…and more!

Today, I had with steamed broccoli

Since I talked how great celery ( if you have not read one, please check http://healthysoycooking.tumblr.com/post/540369783),

I would like to share easy celery recipe :)

yaki udon means stir fried udon. It is quite popular in Japan.  Japanese BBQ sauce is commonly used for yaki udon but I use soy sauce for this recipe.

Celery & Tofu yaki udon

serves 2

ingredients

three stalks of celery ( with leaf! )

two bundle of udon

1 packet of tofu 

2 Tbsp oil ( any kind! )

1 tsp konbu & mushroom dashi powder

1 Tbsp soy sauce ( syoyu )

some sea salt

 2 Tbsp sesame ground

1. Slice the celery thinly and chop the leaf roughly

2.Boil the udon noodle as instructed. Cool down with running water and set aside.

3.Heat the frying pan and add oil, then break the tofu into small pieces and cook until golden.

4.Add celery,sea salt and dashi powder  and cook for a few minutes. 
5.Add udon and stir well then add soy sauce to taste. Serve with ground sesame on top

* Gluten free option

use tamari instead of soy sauce

use rice noodle instead of udon

In Japan, roasted ground sesame is widely available but most sesame in Australia is raw. So please roast and grind otherwise it won’t be taste good and does not digest.

This sesame is already roasted and ground. So handy!!!! 

.

You must be thinking what the hell I am talking about..

Of course, wasabi is gluten free! that is what I thought, too but some wasabi is not! 

Since many gluten intolerance people come to my class, I start to be more careful what I use for my cooking class.

Yes, this is typical tube wasabi and it is not gluten free!

ingredients are

water, sorbitol, glucose, rapeseed oil, salt, horseradish, cornstarch, mastard, wheat, spice extract( mustard ) xanthangum, food color

11 ingredients!!!! 

This wasabi is not only non gluten free but also contains sooo much ingredients. 

On the other hand…

This wasabi is fantastic! 

Ingredients are only three! 

horseradish, spirulina, turmeric

Well, still not pure horseradish but I can understand why.

Real fresh wasabi is actually not green. It is very subtle green and almost white but everyone include Japanese are so used to see processed green wasabi because fresh wasabi is very short life therefore hard to store for shops and consumers.

So I totally understand this company has to put some colour but not too much colour

Kind of whitish isn’t it?

Please check the colour difference. Very green one is tube wasabi

For powder wasabi, turmeric and spirulina are used for colour.  The great thing is they are both natural and even use as medicine or supplement not like chemical food colouring! 

So this wasabi got additional healthy value! Isn’t it fantastic?!?!?

Especially Spirulina is sold as a kind of expensive supplement. I am very very impressed when I found out the ingredients. 

Well, to be honest with you, I do have a tube wasabi paste in my fridge..because it is sooo handy!!! It is for when I feel lazy or in a hurry or too hungry. 

Well, most important thing is

I use only  healthy powder wasabi for my cooking class !!!!!