Soba salad is one of my favorite kinds of salad.
I love noodles, but I make sure there are lots of veggies mixed with them.
You can really use any veggies you like, but this time I used green peppers, carrots, cauliflower, edamame, and radish.
Peanut dressing is so good.
It’s rich, creamy, and tangy.
Doesn’t this look good?
I initially thought I made too much, but it was gone in no time.
It makes a perfect lunch.
Here the salad was served with scrambled tofu and fresh arugula-spinach mix.
When we spent two months in Okinawa Japan last winter, we found a small Taiwanese restaurant in the city of Naha.
They served simple yet tasty vegan breakfast buffet, but locals all knew that their zongzi was what you have to get if you visit this small restaurant.
Apparently, they sell out often, and we were lucky to be able to buy a couple when we went there for breakfast.
We brought them home (our airbnb) and tried them for lunch that day, and they were absolutely delicious!
I’ve never thought of making zongzi at home, but my craving was so strong that I decided to give it a try.
I found these bamboo leaves online.
I did some research, and this seemed like the best quality I could get in the U.S.
I looked for Japanese sweet rice (just because I’m familiar with it), but I could only find this Thai one.
It worked just fine.
Zongzi typically contains pork, but mine was of course made meatless.
Instead, you’ll find lots of veggies, mushrooms, and chestnuts in mine.
My craving was completely satisfied!
The Asian grocery store I go to every week (usually Thursday or Friday, trying to avoid a crowd) has mung bean sprouts.
Sometimes they look super fresh and other times not so much.
Whenever I find super fresh looking ones, I buy a big bag.
Last time I was there it was my lucky day, and I also found beautiful baby bok choy.
That’s why I wanted to make a Korean flavor inspired bowl by showcasing them.
Kuruma-fu steak.
This is my favorite.
So sad this was my last few pieces I brought from Japan.
With lots of veggies.
I recently figured out a better way to cook brown rice.
Now I soak rice in water for about 30 minutes before cooking, which makes a huge difference!
I had strong craving for eggplant, and after contemplating Chinese take-out for a week, I decided to make an eggplant dish myself.
It’s not always easy to find fresh eggplant, but I was lucky as I was able to find a beautiful plump smooth-skinned one.
I would typically pair eggplant with ground meat for a dish like this.
I thought about using seitan ground “meat” but at the last minute I thought it would be fun to use walnuts instead.
It turned out great!
Eggplant goes well with tomatoes, but it’s also great with miso, especially when miso is slightly (or a lot, which I prefer personally) sweetened.
You can use any type of miso, but I like to use Haccho (very dark one) miso which is the local popular type in the region where I’m from.
Justice for George Floyd.
It took me a long time to decide to purchase this tiered tray.
But when I made the decision, I told myself to use it.
To use it often, not once a year.
Here, https://sideb.culinarytribune.com/2020/05/09/vegan-afternoon-teaヴィーガンアフタヌーンティー/ was my first homemade afternoon tea.
Since my first one was quite traditional, this weekend I wanted to make something a bit different, with an Asian flair.
On the bottom tray you’ll find red and green sushi rolls and smoked V-salmon Temari sushi balls.
On the second tray are mango, red cabbage, v-bacon spring rolls and rice paper egg rolls.
The top tray is a dessert tray, of course!
Strawberry mochi daifuku.
Butter and red bean mini pancake sandwiches.
This is what an individual plate looks like.
Yes, I eat dessert first sometimes.
Since it’s called afternoon tea, I have to have tea (well, I have green tea for almost every meal).
I know some people like breakfast food for breakfast, but I don’t mind eating food that istypically not categorized as a breakfast food for breakfast.
When I was still a meat-eater, I was happy to eat food like steak, sushi, and curry in the morning.
So why not having spring rolls, one of my favorite things to eat at Vietnamese restaurants, for breakfast?
Inside the rolls you’ll find romaine lettuce, cucumber, carrots, glass noodles, cilantro, mint, and scrambled tofu.
I need to practice to be able to roll them a little more tightly.
But I think they turned out great for the first try.
The flavors are explosive.
So good!
I love any types of noodles, but glass noodle is one of my favorite.
Particularly when I want a light noodle salad, this is the perfect choice.
This is what it looked like before I dug inside.
Noodles were covered with romaine lettuce, cucumber, carrots, sauerkraut, cooked tofu/mushroom/veggie, and cilantro.
Served with garlic soy dressing.
You find interesting things on Instagram.
When I was casually looking at pictures, something like this caught my eye.
I did some research and found out that this is a Vietnamese dish called “Banh Trang Lui” (I’m missing commas here and there), and I loved how they look.
This was my first time using rice paper.
I eat them all the time.
I was always intimidated by the delicate look.
Well, I don’t know why I waited so long.
Rice paper is so much easier to handle than I anticipated.
And these were fun to make.
I couldn’t find an English recipe, but I did find a recipe written in Vietnamese with pictures.
I got a rough idea from the pictures, but I basically did my own thing.
Inside are garlic, onion, orange peppers, mushrooms, and tofu, all cooked.
These were served with sweet and spicy garlic chili sauce.
YUM!!
These were so good!!
I could have eaten a dozen more skewers.
By the way this is what the rice paper looks like before soaked in water and softened.
I wonder why they put this design on.
It’s been a while since I posted a meal like this, because I’ve been baking so much.
But this is the kind of food I make when I cook just for myself.
Sauteed Udon noodles.
Kimchi, cabbage, scallion, scrambled turmeric tofu, and homemade vegan bacon.
The kimchi adds a big flavor, so I just used a little soy sauce and sugar to create umami.
It was topped off with Aosa, Japanese dried seaweed, and chili pepper.
Yum!!
I’m thinking about making kimchi myself.
Recently I’ve been tackling a lot of things that have been on my list, and I feel I’m finally ready to make my own kimchi at this point.
The only thing that makes me hesitant is that my husband is not a fan of kimchi.
But he has eaten some kimchi dishes lately, so I may seriously think about it.
Should I make Mapo Tofu?
Or Mapo Eggplant?
Since I couldn’t decide, I made Mapo Eggplant Tofu.
This was spicy and tasty.
Did I say spicy? (lol)
Don’t get me wrong.
I say it in a good way!
All I needed as a side dish was this.
I like mini-sized vegetables, and whenever I find fresh baby bok choy, I have to bring them home.
They are delicious fresh, and they are delicious sautéed.
I usually like Mapo with rice, but this time I enjoyed this over noodles.
By the way, for Mapo I like soft tofu, although I prefer firm one for many dishes.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that I used tempeh in place of ground “meat”.
