I haven’t gone back to the Korean grocery store I recently discovered, but I’ still enjoying making Korean black bean sauce.
It goes with everything, and I usually make a big batch to keep in the fridge.
You can add anything to black bean noodles, but this time I went with tofu steak, garlic chives, and walnuts.
When I want something protein and crunchy, I like to use walnuts.
It works well not only in baked goods, but also in savory dishes.
It turned out to be such a tasty meal.
Kara-age is a Japanese style fried food, usually made with chicken.
Chicken is cut into bite sized pieces, marinated, coated with some coating flour (many have their own special coating mix), and fried.
This was one of my favorite chicken dishes my mother would make when I was a kid.
This turned out perfect!
Look how crispy outside.
Scrumptious!
My husband and I devoured all in no time.
This is how I made it…
Friday Tacos!
Loaded with all my favorite breakfast items.
Scrambled tofu, vegan bacon, cheddar cheese, mayo, and scallion.
Served with spinach salad, dressed with apricot vinaigrette, which was sitting in our pantry forever and recently re-discovered.
We really need to learn not to tuck things away when we buy new things.
This was also sitting in the back of our pantry…
I’ll start using this too.
This was the smallest package I could find.
That’s a lot of tortillas for our household of two!
I like to keep Koya Dofu, freeze-dried tofu, in my pantry because it doesn’t go bad for a long time, and it can be used to make many “meat” dishes as it has the right texture.
Katsu, or dee-fried meat, is a popular dish in Japan, and my husband and I both like it too.
Doesn’t this look great?
I use Panko for the crunch.
You can use any type of sauce, but this time I decided to go with sweet dark miso glaze.
This is popular in the Nagoya region, where I grew up.
This sauce goes so well not only with the Katsu but also with the shredded cabbage (and rice).
I’m so glad that now a few local Asian grocery stores carry the type of dark miso from the Nagoya Region, “Haccho”.
I made extra, because I knew we would enjoy this on other things as well.
I was in a mood for Chinese food.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a go-to Chinese restaurant to get takeout from.
(I really need to get serious about finding one soon!)
So I decided to make Chinese “takeout” myself.
It took me 10 minutes, but I found these takeout boxes I had bought a long time ago and almost forgotten about.
So I was all set.
Lucky me. I happened to have homemade vegan chicken in the freezer.
So I made General Tso’s Chicken as a main dish.
Steamed and sautéed baby bok choy.
Salt and Pepper Crispy Tofu.
And fried rice.
Super happy with my plate!
No you don’t need to put the food in the container, but eating out of the container is a big fun part of eating Chinese takeout.
Who is with me?!
It’s usually known as Sundubu Jigae, spicy Korean tofu soup.
But since this is Halloween, I asked my husband to give this a fun name, and Devil Spit was what he came up with.
Yes, it’s spicy, but it’s delicious at the same time.
We used to go to a Korean restaurant by the University of Minnesota campus that served this soup, but since theirs is not vegan, now I make my own at home.
And you know what?
Homemade one is as good as the restaurant’s, if not better!
Who like Teriyaki?
Well, I do, and I know there are a lot of people who like this sweet sauce.
No wonder it’s a popular Asian flavor in the U.S.
This dish may be a good one to introduce people who are not familiar with Asian food to.
Homemade tofu nuggets.
I made quite a bit and froze them.
They are so easy to use because they can be easily thawed and warmed in a microwave while keeping the right texture and moistness inside.
White rice.
Tofu nuggets.
A vegan egg.
Ginger teriyaki glaze.
Delicious!!
I always liked bolognese when I was a meat eater.
It’s been a while since I had bolognese, and it was time to make vegan bolognese.
Really good one.
And of course I had to have homemade pasta.
My vegan bolognese was made with lentils and ground freeze-dry tofu, mixed with a lot of veggies.
Delicious!!
Completely satisfied my craving.
I was never a big fan of chicken nuggets, but I do like tofu nuggets.
I didn’t want to deep-fry them, so I made them flatter so that they were easier to cook with not too much oil.
Crispy outside.
The inside was moist, but has a nice firm texture.
It’s a great snack, but once you start eating, it’s hard to stop.
Yangnyeom is Korean spicy and sweet sauce, and I had craving for something like this today.
So I made sure to buy gochujang when I was at the Asian grocery store today.
But when I was there I found beautiful garlic chives sold as “garlic I decided to somehow incorporate in the dish.
Very happy with the result.
The vibrant color combination was very appetizing too.
