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 :)))))

This week is the kale week! 

Yuko told me her favourite kale dish is saute kale with lots of garlic in my Facebook page. 

so why not garlic rice with kale! 

Quite simple..

Kale, olive oil, sea salt and pepper  …and rice! of course! I used brown rice. 

I chopped kale stalk finely. I quite like Kale stalks. very crunchy! 

The key to this is fry the garlic very slowly to infuse the flavour into oil! gotta be patient! 

Then add rice and fry well then add sliced kale leaves and stalks.  Season with salt and pepper. 

Sprinkle extra raw kale stalks on top! Easy and healthy :) 

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 

In winter, I make porridge quite often because it is great way to get lots of nutrition and also very easy to digest which means more energy for yourself. 

 Traditional porridge ingredients are oats, milk and honey but my version is much more healthy! 

No cow milk to start with. I use half alkaline water and half non - dairy milk ( soy, rice or almond milk ). 

I won’t put honey to cook with because honey become harmful when cooked over 70C. It is add honey after cooking porridge but not to cook with.

I use un- refined sugar such as rapadura, beets, panela sugar or agave syrup. I use whatever I feel like…

I use not only oats but also add quinoa flakes or spelt flakes for more variety.  Also add lots of nuts and seeds for protein and dried fruits. 

Today’s porridge

oats and spelt flake porridge cooked with rice milk and alkaline water

Add pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds and sulpher free currants and sultana. 

sprinkle flaxseed meal on top! 

Please make sure you eat “ sulpher free” dried fruits. 

Many dried fruits use sulpher to dry but it is quite harmful to your body! 

Let’s eat extraordinary porridge to keep warm and fabulous health during winter :) 

I love soup. I have soup or soup noodle at least a few times a week, in winter. 

I love making vegetarian minestrone ( No more bacon!!! )  Just putting whatever veggies I have in fridge. 

I have lots of silver beet stem left so decided to make minestrone! 

Many people eat just silver beet leaf but please remember to eat stem! 

silver beet

stem! what a waste you throw these! 

Typical way of cooking stems is braise and bake in a gratin dish with parmesan cheese but I often put them in my stew or soup or make kinpira ( Japanese style stir fry ) 

So today’s minestrone ingredients are 

 silver beet stem, celery, eggplant, tomato, zucchini and soup mix beans! 

AND!!!!!!! 

secret spice…CURRY POWDER! 

Andrew, who came to my Tofusion class, told me that his spaghetti Bolognese was absolutely fabulous, many people claimed that that was the best Bolognese they had.

Okaaayyyy…he told me the secret of his Bolognese , basically put EVERYTHING in his pantry. like soy sauce ( I actually put soy sauce quite often so I am not surprised ) , mayonnaise (!) but he never ever forget to put one ingredient…. CURRY POWDER! 

His Bolognese sauce also got lots of veggies like celery, carrot..so I thought, bolognese is tomato based with veggies , so why not try with minestrone! 

Then…worked out VERY WELL :)))))  Curry powder helps to get rid of sourness of tomato. I can still taste tomato but not sour, maybe that is why the soup taste great! make it milder and give rich subtle flavour of all spices..cumin, turmeric..and more in the curry powder. Also turmeric gave a nice colour as well 

I love new tip for my minestrone, thanks Andrew !!!!!!!

I was making raisin oat cookies then realized Anzac day is coming so I put desiccated coconuts instead of raisin and adjust the amount of flour and oats.  It turned out good.

Typical Anzac biscuit ingredients are rolled oats, sugar, plain flour, coconut, butter, golden syrup or treacle, bi-carbonate of soda.

Why called Anzac biscuit? 

During the war, the wives, mothers and girlfriends in Australia were worried about the nutritional value of the food being supplied to their men then come out with solution- a biscuit with all the nutritional values possible! Interesting point is that during the war, eggs were precious so they used golden syrup to bind the mixture.

That is why this biscuits used to be called “soldiers biscuits” then after the landing on Gallipoli, they were renamed ANZAC Biscuits.

Well, my version is no butter for vegan which means cholesterol free. Many people think cholesterol come from oil but cholesterol come from animal meat or products, such as dairy. Vegan does not use any animal products so cholesterol free! 

Also use no refined sugar or flour! More nutritious and healthy! 

For binding the mixture, I used flaxseed. Rich in Omega 3!!! nnnn….nutritious! 

Vegan Anzac biscuits

Makes: 3.5 dozen biscuits

Ingredients

30g ground flaxseed

90ml water

200g non-hydrogenated, non dairy butter*

200g   rapadura sugar (you can use brown sugar but brown sugar in supermarket is as bad as white sugar ! )

200g whole meal flour

200g rolled oats

50g oats bran

100g desiccated coconuts

2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Method

Pre heat the oven to 180C

Line the baking paper on three baking trays

In a small food processor, whip together the flaxseed and water until thick and creamy.

Place the butter, sugar, vanilla and flaxseed mixture in a bowl and mix with hand mixer until well blended.

In a separate bowl, thoroughly combine the flour, oat bran, desiccated coconuts, baking soda and salt. Add to the butter mixture and mix until well blended and smooth. Stir in the rolled oats until thoroughly combined.

Use a tablespoon to scoop up some dough and form around 1.3 to 1.5cm thick round with lightly greased hands.

Bake for 12 to 15mins or until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

 * This is the only non-hydrogenated and non dairy butter I can find in Sydney. 

Most of margarine contains trans fat….because they are hydrogenated. Trans fat is very bad fat that damage your body. You can’t digest trans fat and stay in your body as toxic forever. Watch out for trans fat!!!!!!! margarine with trans fat is worse than butter for your body!!!!!!!

This is a grate snack when you are little hungry. They are very filling!  There are millions of crispy chick pea recipes in internet but all of them use oil. Mostly mix with chickpea or spray oil onto baking sheet. I tried with oil but I didn’t like it. Oil looks rancid or oxidised next day..and I lost my appetite. Then I tried without oil, it actually turned great!

What a bargen, no oil and better taste! Good for waste line and health! 

Ingredients

250g dried chickpea

1.5 TBSP Cajun or Moroccan spice

1 TBSP sea salt

method

cook chick pea until soft, drain. 

Pre heat oven to 200℃ convention 180℃fan force

Place cooked chick pea, spice and salt in a bowl and mix well

Place spiced chick pea onto lined baking tray and bake for one hour or until crispy.  

Mix every 15 minutes, that is the key for evenly crisp chick pea! 

* open the oven every 15 mins is a hustle. I know, if you don’t mind crispy outside and soft inside chick pea then you don’t need to mix every 15 mins. They are also nice but  not so nice after few days. ( feel like eating stale snack )  If you patiently mix every 15mins and bake until every single chick peas are crispy inside which is  little closed to burning  ( actually, few might get burned  ) then, the chick pea is nice and crunchy for over a week! 

* Some pre made spice contains salt even chicken salt so please adjust salt amount. I also like to bake with curry powder or cumin. you can make whatever flavour you like. Even just sea salt is great! 

Yummy yummy…

I am not big fun of legume but I really love this! Problem is I can’t stop eating sometime…

You can take this to gym, office and at home, of course. Much better than eating chips! 

I don’t know what’s the name of this recipe. It’s potato dish. 

This is super healthy potato dish since it is NO GLUTEN, NO DAIRY 

and it is VEGAN …sounds too healthy to you?  It is great if you are doing detox or liver cleansing after all the food and drink you had during the holiday. 

My boy friend ( Irish and love potato ) loves this dish very much and request me to cook quite often. 

Also my friend who has been complaining how boring and health geek I became since I start to cook only vegetarian & healthy dishes and also has very honest opinions of my cooking admitted that this dish is quite good. Well, he is Polish and loves potato, maybe that is why….

Basically this is potato baked with vegetarian Bolognese sauce and gluten and dairy free béchamel sauce. 

1. cook potatoes

2. Place the vegetarian Bolognese sauce on top of the potato

here is the recipe for this sauce 

3.Pour gluten and dairy free béchamel sauce over

Here is the recipe for gluten and dairy free béchamel sauce

4. Sprinkle quinoa flakes ( if you don’t mind dairy, you could put cheese on top instead, or if you don’t mind gluten, put bread crumb on top, cheese or bread crumb makes the surface  nice golden colour after baking )

5. Bake for 20 mins or until warm. 

Well, I must say this dish is time consuming…so I normally don’t cook often even though my boy friend asks for it…but 

I decided to cook this because we were invited for breakfast today at Joanne and Sean.

Joanne cooked us beautiful vegetarian fritter and healthy non sugar muesli square and Sean baked fresh whole grain bread and made great coffee :)

Joanne is Irish and hard core potato lover.  I heard that she cooked three!!  potato dishes for Christmas, so I thought it would be great to make this dish for her since she just had her birthday. 

Also my boy friend helped me cooking. He did lots of chopping, cooking and cleaning…

I wrapped for her :) I know, I don’t have much talent for wrapping…

Also I recently bought lots of potato at Robertoson where most of potatoes in NSW are grown. 

See…this is a big potato statue..

I hope Joanne and Sean like this dish….

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. 

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 am so in love with this recipe!!! 

For me, this is much better than beef bolognese! ( maybe I should stop praising myself..)

It’s a sweet potato bolognese! In macrobiotics, we are supposed to eat vegetables with less water such as sweet potato, pumpkin etc in fall or winter. so it is great recipe for this season

Vegetarian Bolognese

Looks beef bolognese, doesn’t it???

half purple sweet potato ( about 300g ) chopped small pieces

100g mushroom, chopped finely

60g walnuts, chopped finely

1/2 onion, chopped finely

1 garlic clove, chopped finely

 * sauce mixture

• 150g tomato paste
• 2TBSP red wine
• 1TBSP miso
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1tsp soysauce

1TBSP olive oil

200ml water

200g pasta or gluten free pasta

parsely, chopped finely

method

1. Fry chopped onion and garlic over medium low heat until soft and brown
2. Add chopped sweet potato and with low heat until cooked.
3. Add mushroom and walnuts and cook until mushroom is cooked then add water then cook over high heat.
4. Add sauce mixture and cook over  medium heat until sauce get thicken
5. Serve with cooked pasta. Topped with chopped parsley

slow cook is the key to bring the sweetness of veggies. 

Also little ” Jap seasonings” bring richness of sauce. 

You could use Kumara but it looks like bolognese with lots of carrot so won’t be good for kids….I much prefer purple one.  Kumara does not exist in Japan. For me, Kumara tastes too carroty! but love Kumara mushed potato though.. ( have to be oven-baked not boiled potato! )

This taste great but only thing I don’t like is lots of chopping….

this is the size of sweet potato! then it looks like mince…

Well, I did enjoy chopping today. It is like meditation for me but don’t wanna chop everyday though.

You can make big batch and freeze. 

Enjoy cooking :)

Ten years ago, there were a few ramen restaurants in Sydney and quality was awful.

Now there are so many ramen restaurants in Sydney and quality is much much better than before but still can’t beat taste of ramen shop in Japan.

BUT…I am now shifting to vegetarian so I better keep away from ramen…because I don’t know where to eat vegetarian ramen …

Well, you might say, there are ” vegetarian ramen” or ” tofu ramen” available most ramen shop but the stock is made from either chicken or pork bone. So not totally vegetarian.

I am ( better say was?! ) crazy about tonkotsu the pork bone soup base….very fatty thick soup but actually good for skin because of high contents of collagen…Well, forget about that! ramen is not healthy meal anyway! so it is great to keep away from it.

Ramen is full of carb and very small or almost none veggie with lots of refined salt and MSG!

NOT GOOD!!!!!!

Well, I said to give up going to ramen restaurant but have not given up eating ramen.

This is actually very tasty! only problem is ”  I have to cook it!  ”

syoyu ( means soysauce ) ramen

serves2

2 fresh ramen noodle ( boil just before soup is done )

half onion, sliced thinly

10g ginger, chop finely

800ml water

2 TBSP sesame oil

2 tsp konbu dashi powder ( I used konbu & shiitake dashi powder )

2 TBSP soy sauce

1/2 tsp sea salt

Asian veggie ( I use 2 bunches of bak choy and 2 bunches of choi sum today )

some tofu ( deep- fry with potato starch )

1. To make soup, place sesame oil, ginger and onion in a pan and fry at very low heat and cook slowly until onion is cooked ( VERY important! )
2. Add water, dashi powder and salt.
3. When boiled, add Asian green. 
4. When Asian green is cooked add soy sauce
5. Pour onto cooked ramen.

Today, I add deep-fried tofu but you can use bamboo shoot, tofu skin or mushroom instead. 

Please adjust soy amount. If you like to put lots of veggies like me, you need good amount of soy sauce but if not, reduce a little.

Also if you use soy sauce from Spiral, you can reduce as well since Spiral soy is stronger than any other soy sayyce. Spiral soy is more expensive than others but actually last long since you don’t need to use much.

Very important thing to make good soup is cook onion and ginger slowly to infuse flavour and boil the dashi powder to enhance more flavour.  This little thing make a big different. 

Enjoy cooking :)

This is the laziest miso soup! 

When I am hungry at night, I make this since I don’t want to eat something naughty or carb after 8pm.  It is great since I don’t need to use any pot, knife and chopping board. 

It is surely better than eating naughty chips or toast. 

This miso soup is especially great for vegetarian or vegan people. The little packet of instant miso contains bonito which is fish. Some vegetarian people don’t know that. So be aware for the instant miso which got fish and quite often MSG…

I had dinner with Hiromi san last Wed. She always has some interesting ideas to try. 

This time is ” aloe rice “ 

She told me about a documentary about Okinawan ( southern part of Japan ) lady who refuse to use chemical products. No medicine, processed food and cleaning substance etc.. She wash her hair wiith pounded hibiscus and wash in the river…very friendly to earth! 

She showed her favourite breakfast..that is ” Aloe rice “

Ingredients

Brown rice

Aloe

soy sauce

bonito flakes 

very simple!!!

She is not vegetarian since she uses bonito flakes. 

Bonito is a type of fish, it is dried then shred to make flakes. 

Bonito flakes is used quite often in Japanese cuisine since Japanese basic stock is made from bonito flakes and konbu ( kelp)

This is bonito flakes

I was really scared to eat aloe even though I had aloe yogurt ( very popular in Japan )

and aloe drink but I am not sure which kind of aloe they are using.

Hiromi san told me the lady was using aloe has not spikes…my aloe has spikes…

oh, well, I have eaten many wired staff  so now I can use my courage to eat unknown plant, what is the big deal? 

First, wash and get rid of  ” spiky ” part

Then take skin out. This curved knife is perfect for this! I felt like I am filleting fish …

Slimy fresh!  I licked the flesh gingerly…bit bitter…

Then put the flesh on top of the brown rice and pour good soy sauce which is very important!!!

Yamasa soy sauce is one of my favourite soy sauce. Yamasa is one of the oldest soy sauce company in Japan. It is nearly 400 years old! Good chefs in Sydney use yamasa not Kixxman …..

Taste????

Surprisingly, great! I really like it. Great texture! 

I think most Japanese would like it because we are used to have ” slimy” thing like okura, natto and ginenjyo on top of rice. I am not sure other nationality though…

Just in case…

Vegetarian option :

Omit bonito flakes and have with wasabi 

Maybe put aloe and wasabi on side and melt wasabi with soy first and marinade. Then put on top of rice…In this way, you won’t need to eat chunk of wasabi which can be dangerous..

I use only three stalks for one but I will put more next time. It is yummy!!! 

I am sure that aloe has great nutrition value..I will check out soon.

If anybody try, please let me know :)))

Thank you Hiromi san for great info!