I eat soba noodles all year round.
But this time of the year I like them in hot soup.
This mushroom soba soup was fantastic.
It’s not only tasty but also warms my body (and soul!) so well.
I’m the only one who does this around here, but it’s a habit.
This is the Japanese way to start a meal.
Put the hands together like this and say “Itadaki-masu.”
I love mushrooms, and I always buy some kinds of mushrooms every week.
This time I used Maitake and Enoki.
Have a great week everyone!
A hamburger with blue cheese was always my husband’s favorite.
Since I recently made a fresh batch of vegan blue cheese, I thought it was time to make a burger for him.
A homemade bun, homemade vegan mayo, Dijon mustard, arugula, soy burger from Aldi, Japanese Worcestershire sauce, fried onion, and blue cheese.
A lot of blue cheese!
And this one was for me.
Double portabella steaks in place of a soy burger.
The homemade buns were made with fresh rosemary.
I hope everyone had a great start of the week!
There are various vendors at the local farmers market.
I’ve been interested in this particular vendor, R & R Cultivation, who sells locally grown mushrooms.
Today I decided to finally try some.
Chestnut.
Blue Oyster.
Lion’s Mane.
They are all so fresh and beautiful!
I also came home with these mini tomatoes on vine.
These are so sweet, and each one is small but packed with a big flavor.
I wanted to make lunch that would really showcase the beautiful mushrooms, and I decided to make a pasta dish.
So why not making home-made pasta to make it even more special, right?
Homemade pasta, olive oil, garlic, sautéed mushrooms, crunchy garlic-panko mixture, parsley, red pepper flakes, and lemon zest.
This turned out delicious!!
I love it when all the local foods come together and result in a flavorful dish like this.
Last time when I made homemade pasta, it turned out so great that now I want all my pasta to be homemade.
I was going to say I’m spoiled, but since I’m the one that makes it, I’m not sure if “spoiled” is the right word (lol).
This time I added one of my favorite dried herbs, Kasuri Methi.
Again this pasta dough is so easy to handle, and I really enjoy the process.
I decided to cut it into wider strips to make “fettucine” this time.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
Freshly cooked pasta was added to the pan of sautéed garlic, onion, and Bunapi and enoki mushrooms.
Freshly ground black pepper and crushed red pepper were sprinkled.
Yes, I use chopsticks for everything!
It’s a simple yet lovely dish.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Basic Homemade Pasta – makes about 4 servings
-1.5 cup all purpose flour
-1/2 cup chickpea flour
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/2 cup warm water, plus more if needed
Before I switched to the 100% plant-based diet, seafood was one of my favorite things to eat.
But now I don’t eat seafood, but I can create dishes that bring “ocean” flavors, which I enjoy doing very much.
Plant-based “squid” ink pasta was one of the dishes I’ve wanted to try for a long time.
The main ingredients of the “ink” are several different types of seaweed.
A generous amount of ink was added to freshly cooked pasta, and then combined well.
It was served with V-“scallops (king mushrooms)” and fresh tomato.
I don’t know why, but I love “black” dishes.
They are so sexy.
A perfect lunch!
I had Portobello mushrooms to make steak, fresh arugula, homemade vegan gorgonzola, and homemade crusty bread.
You can also see some tomato slices on the bread as well.
They were served with balsamic reduction glaze.
Super yum!
Plant-based comfort food at its best!
I often use firm tofu and crumble it to make “sausage” with it.
Extra Firm Tofu sold at Trader Joe’s is extremely firm and provides a great texture.
I would particularly recommend this to first-time tofu eaters, as the texture is similar to that of chicken.
The cream sauce was accented with fresh thyme and sage.
Love the combination of these herbs.
They never fail to help create tasty sauce.
I like any kinds of pasta, but if I have a choice, I almost always choose long pasta.
On the other hand, my husband prefers short past.
So I usually cook both, which is really not a big deal, because I cook them in the same pot together.
We’ve become quite skilled at picking up our own pasta.
The pasta was served with this simple salad and sauteed zucchini (no photo).
Have a great week everyone!
Okonomi-Yaki is a popular savory pancake in Japan.
The most used ingredient is cabbage.
Other than that you can basically add anything, but the popular ones are pork and squid.
This time king mushroom (cooked with garlic), purple cabbage, and chive went into my Okonomi-Yaki batter.
You mix them well.
Typically you can start cooking it into pancakes at this point.
But you know me, I like to give a little twist.
Since I was making this for breakfast (Okonomi-Yaki is usually NOT a breakfast food, but it doesn’t mean you can’t eat it in the morning!), I thought “why not adding some hashbrown potatoes?”
Since I live in the Midwest, Idaho potatoes seem like a great candidate for a partner of my Okonomi-Yaki.
I cooked the potatoes until browned and crispy.
Doesn’t it look yummy?
The idea is that you don’t add the potatoes to the batter, but you place the potatoes at the bottom, and pour the batter over the potatoes.
So you cannot really see the potatoes well in the picture, but they are there, at the bottom.
The pancakes were served with two types of Japanese Sauce (one is Japanese style worcestershire sauce and the other is a little sweeter and thicker sauce specifically made for Okonomi-Yaki), homemade vegan mayo, dried seaweed called Ao-nori, and chopped fresh chive.
This was so tasty!
I love king mushrooms in my Okonomi-Yaki.
My husband says it tastes like octopus.
I do agree.
It has the seafood-like texture and taste.
Here is a close-up picture.
You can see the potatoes.
When I think of it, I do make “east meet west” kind of dishes often.
It’s usually not so much of an effort or a project, but many dishes naturally turn out to be that way (lol).
I’d like to think this is a good reflection of our happy East-meet-Midwest marriage!
Doesn’t my King (mushroom) Roll look good?
I really love everything about king mushrooms.
Its firm texture is so unique and substantial that it can easily take the leading role.
I’ve never tried king mushrooms with mayo together, but it was so good.
Homemade vegan mayo is really a game changer.
First I cut the mushrooms into bite size pieces and sauteed them with a lot of garlic.
Then they were dressed with a mixture of vegan mayo, lemon juice, hot sauce, salt, and pepper.
But before I go on, I should talk about my beautiful buns.
I bought these hot dog pans many years ago.
Actually I quickly regretted because I’m not a big fan of hot dogs, and I didn’t think I would ever make buns for hot dogs.
I’m so glad I kept them.
So excited that I got to use these pans for the first time.
The buns turned out great!
Homemade buns are really the best.
They were light, soft, slightly chewy, slightly sweet, and super tasty.
I think a big part of my not liking hot dogs (even when I was eating meat) was that I didn’t like how those store-bought buns tasted.
The King (mushroom) salad was generously placed on the lightly toasted bun.
Yum!
I grew up eating ramen a lot.
It’s so popular in Japan, and when I found out that a lot of Japanese people post ONLY ramen pictures on their Instagram page, I was not surprised.
Some of them go out to eat ramen every day, and they don’t run out of new ramen shops to try!
Anyway, I’ve become a little more serious about ramen myself recently.
When I found this dried ramen noodles at Amazon which had great reviews, I had to order a package.
I also got myself a new bowl.
I always wanted to have a traditional ramen bowl.
I typically like a lot of toppings on most dishes, but when it comes to ramen, I’m probably a bit more traditional and stick with a few.
The most popular ramen topping is probably “Char Siu” or barbecued pork slices.
Instead of pork, I prepared yummy portabella mushroom slices.
The mushrooms were so delicious; a bit sweet and a bit spicy from these Japanese “shichimi” spices.
The noodles were cooked perfectly.
Ramen looked so good in my new bowl!
Made me feel like I was back in Japan.
I really liked these noodles as they are so authentic.
They have the right chewiness, flavors, and look.
The soup turned out to be super tasty too.
Tonkotsu ramen is known for its rich flavored soup.
“Tonkotsu” ramen became quite popular in the U.S., but I’m not sure if people really know what that means.
Tonkotsu literally means “pig/pork bones”, and you make your soup from them.
(My vegan version contains no pork or any type of meat, but it does have a similar rich flavors that are very satisfying.)
“Tonkatsu” is another popular Japanese dish in the U.S., and I sometimes hear people say “Tonkatsu” ramen, but that’s incorrect, unless the ramen is served with “tonkatsu” as a topping.
Tonkatsu is “pig/pork cutlet”.
Just a little not-so-necessary piece of information (lol).
But if you say “Tonkotsu ramen” correctly, you will certainly look like someone who knows your ramen (lol).
The soup was delicious as it was, but a little splash of this Yuzu hot sauce I found at Trader Joe’s brightened up the flavors.
I always wanted to take a picture like this.
If you eat good ramen, I think it’s obligatory.
And this is an acceptable way in Japan to finish your soup.
I do not recommend doing this in the western countries though.
Tonkotsu-Style ramen soup: onion and garlic sauteed in canola oil, water, kiridashi-kombu, tahini, soy milk, mirin, sugar, soy sauce, salt, pepper
