Vegan MoFo VI, Day 22 - Mike Makes Monday Meals - Tofu Noodles

First of all, sorry for slacking yesterday.  I didn't have as much alone time as I'd hoped, and the kitchen wasn't clean (and I couldn't bear to clean it again), so I had cereal for dinner and didn't bake anything.  But I posted something, so there's that.

I went to an event tonight - a book launch for Voicing Scotland:  Folk, Culture, Nation by Gary West, who was one of my lecturers at uni (and the piper at my wedding!) - so I didn't get home until nearly 9pm.  I picked the perfect dinner for Mike to cook tonight - soba noodles with smoked tofu and spinach.  I based the technique on a recipe from Get It Ripe - I think that one is noodles and kale, no tofu - but did my own thing with not measuring and using different stuff.

It's super easy - cube a block of smoked tofu and fry it while waiting for your water to boil, then add soba noodles to the water.  Add spinach to the tofu pan and wilt the spinach while the noodles cook for 5 minutes.  While the noodles and spinach cook, make a sauce with soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sriracha, and garlic (I used 2 cloves, but could've used more).  Once the noodles are done, drain and add to the pan with the tofu and spinach, then pour over the sauce.  It takes about 10 minutes to come together, which is brilliant when you want a filling and (relatively) healthy meal but can't be arsed/don't have time to wait for something more complicated.  It's even faster than cooking up chips and a Fry's chicken burger!

I also finally, finally found Rekorderlig Winter Cider - it's now being sold in Sainsbury's! 

From their Facebook page

Rekorderlig is my favourite cider, possibly because it's one of the few vegan-friendly brands that are available both in stores and in pubs.  Also, their flavours are amazing.  I imagine most people wouldn't be super keen if they were dry cider fans because they tend to be quite sweet, but they're exactly the way I like them.  I've never had a flavour I didn't like, but then again I've never tried the orange ginger (which I've been told tastes like duck's ass).

We tried the winter cider warm.  It's alright, but I think I prefer my alcoholic cider cold and my non-alcoholic cider warm.  But I have another bottle in the fridge to drink cold another night!

Bonus Zebby picture - it'll get me hits!

 D'aww.  BTW, the cat bed is from Luna's Apawthecary.

I love soy curls.

One of the great things about the PPK is that there are people from all over the world on the boards. Every once in a while, we do a swap, where PPKers exchange food and other items with people in other states or countries. I love the swaps because I can get stuff I miss from the US, as well as things I've never tried.

This year I swapped with Luciana, aka designedtobekind, and this is what she sent me:



We've already finished off most of the junk food (natch), and still have most of the non-junk! I have to say, though, I am in love with the soy curls!

So far, I've only used them in pastas. Yesterday I used one of the chicken-style bouillon cubes to add them to Get It Ripe sesame kale soba (in place of the smoked tofu I usually use). Tonight I made my standard quick pasta and threw in some soy curls soaked in the beef-style bouillon. So good!

What I really want to do, and will hopefully do soon, is make General Desdemona's Sesame Orange Soy Curls. Desdemona is one of my favourite PPKers and also one of my favourite bloggers (seriously, check out the rest of her blog). I've had my eye on this one for ages. It looks like something I might have gotten at Veggie Garden in Dallas (well, Richardson). I can't wait to try it.

Speaking of recipes from other MoFo'ers / PPKers, I am totally making the pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Katie at Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. I've been wanting to stuff my face with these since the first time I heard of them. This is my plan for tomorrow - I hope I see it through, because I want them in my belleh.

Full-time job = half-assed dinners

I started working full time (like, proper full time, with a contract and everything, not just temp stuff that could end with only a couple days' notice) about a month ago. I love what I do, and once my contract is up, I should have no problem getting another job because I'm getting crazy-good experience (I'm like a PA and an office manager in one, and it's in the charity sector). The problem is that it's pretty demanding, and even though I've pretty much got the hang of it, little things crop up on the daily, so I'm working pretty hard. And the consequence of that is that I'm super tired, and I end up making pretty crap dinners. There have been weeks when we've basically alternated between pasta and tofu scramble every day. I also end up giving Mike some pretty substandard lunches (if I even have time to make his lunch) and often end up eating canned soup for my lunch.

This week, I attempted to break that streak by planning out my menu and being prepared for most of what I was gonna make (obviously, space constraints kept me from buying everything ahead). And what happened? I had a really demanding week and made pasta twice and tofu scramble once. OK, I made pasta thrice if you count tonight - it was a variation on Sesame Kale Soba in Get It Ripe (green beans instead of kale - pretty damn good). And as far as lunches - Mike had hummus and chips at least once this week, and I not only had canned soup one day but also ended up getting a pasty from Real Foods while running office errands and having my 'lunch' while I worked yesterday. It's been a bad ... well, month for food around here.

We're going to Aberdeen next week, so we'll have at least 2 days of eating somewhere else. Oh, and I'm sure I'll blog about it, because we're going to a non-vegan wedding and staying in a hotel with 'full Scottish breakfast'!

Cookbook challenge, week 10, day 6 - Get It Ripe

Yesterday, Mike came home from work and almost immediately asked me to make him some shortbread. My last attempt at shortbread was a bit of a failure. I tried to make millionaire shortbread, which has a layer of caramel, then a layer of chocolate, topping the shortbread layer. My shortbread was really crumbly, and I burned my caramel, which ended up tasting more like burnt toffee. It was kinda sad, yet still delicious. But this time, Mike just wanted straight-up shortbread - no frills.

So, as promised, I made the Shortbread Cookies from Get It Ripe.


I subbed margarine for coconut oil because I didn't have the patience to liquidize, measure, refrigerate, and then dice my coconut oil. I also threw some chocolate chips into half the batch. The flavour and texture of the shortbread is really nice.

I had a couple of problems with this recipe. First of all, the directions tell you to use a food processor, but my food processor is really only an attachment to my immersion blender, and it wasn't big enough to fit all the ingredients. So I bunged everything in a bowl and used the dough hooks on my hand mixer. The directions then tell you to turn out the mixture onto a clean surface and knead into a ball. The dough was so sticky that it stuck to the countertop. Once I got around to the rolling stage, it stuck to the rolling pin and the countertop, and it didn't want to come off the counter after I'd cut the cookies. I ended up having to roll and press each one by hand, which was annoying because I really wanted to use my forest animal cookie cutters.

Because I have a small oven and only one cookie sheet (right now), I had to do these in batches. I ended up making the first batch far too big, as you can see from the picture, but I still had to do 3 batches, so these took a really long time. I really don't know if I'd make these again, given all the problems I had and the time it took, even though they are really tasty.

I've finally uploaded pictures from the last couple of days, so I'll go back and add those to previous posts.

Cookbook challenge, week 10, day 5 - Get It Ripe

Tonight I made Pinto's Refried Bean Burritos from Get It Ripe (pictures to be added later).


I didn't mash the beans because I just couldn't be bothered (and Mike has issues with mashed things, I think). I had a layer of brown rice, a layer of beans, some shredded lettuce, and a few spoons of Alpro Soya plain yogurt. They were tasty enough, but just kinda meh. I dunno. My typical burrito usually has some kind of 'meat' (usually mince cooked with taco seasoning), but I didn't bother with that this time because, really, the beans and rice are enough protein. But it was just missing...something. I do have to say, though, that the beans took almost no time to make (well, if you're starting with cooked beans) - no more than 15 minutes. If you're in a huge hurry, you could do quinoa instead of rice and have a pretty decent meal in less than 20 minutes.

Mike came home and requested shortbread, so I think I'll be making the shortbread cookies from GIR tomorrow.

Cookbook challenge, week 10, day 4 - Get It Ripe

I made two things from Get It Ripe today. There's no photo for the first, and I haven't uploaded the photo for the second.

I made the Carob Chai cake this morning. I didn't have enough time to make the cardamom icing, but it turned out more than fine without it. Also, I subbed out some of the oil with applesauce, and I replaced about 1/3 of the maple syrup with golden syrup because I couldn't justify using an ENTIRE CUP OF MAPLE SYRUP for one single-layer cake. Anyway, this cake was really, really nice. It was kinda like a mild gingerbread (minus the molasses), moister and fluffier and a little milder in flavour. It was actually perfect without frosting. The only thing keeping me from making this again is that massive amount of maple syrup. Maple syrup is pretty damn expensive, and 1 cup is nearly an entire bottle. I might try some other sweeteners to see if it works with something cheaper.

The other thing I made today, which I've actually made quite a few times but haven't made in at least 6 months, if not longer (I haven't made it once since we've been in this flat), was Andrew's Butternut Risotto.


I love this stuff. It takes quite a while, especially if you do what I did and use pearl barley because you can't be arsed to find short grain brown rice for one recipe. But it's worth the time spent, especially because you end up with a shit ton of leftovers. We had plenty with our dinner, and there's enough left over for several more meals.

We had the risotto with the Swiss Chard frittata from Vegan Brunch. I made two changes to the way I usually make it, and it made all the difference in the world. First, because I was roasting garlic for the risotto, I roasted an extra bulb and used that instead of the sliced garlic called for in the frittata recipe. Second, I cooked the frittata in the cast iron skillet that I used for cooking the chard. This was the best frittata I've ever eaten. Absolutely freaking delicious. From now on, I'll be throwing some roasted garlic in my frittatas as much as possible.

Cookbook challenge, week 10, day 3 - Get It Ripe

This week's cookbook challenge is Get It Ripe by jae steele, who I linked to in my last post (I think). I picked out far too many recipes to try, since I actually only have room in my menu plan for one or two more recipes from this book (apart from desserts). But I'll see how much I can get done. I meant to do this one yesterday, but I forgot to marinate my tofu in time, and I didn't want to wait an hour for it. Also, I don't think I had all the ingredients for it anyway.

So, tonight's dinner was Sesame Kale Soba with Asian Marinated Tofu (from V'con)

It was a bit wiggly getting it into the bowl, which is why it looks untidy.

I used a combination of green and purple kale, and I shallow fried the tofu in sesame oil because I felt that just kale and noodles wouldn't be substantial enough. Other than that, leaving off 1 tbsp of sesame oil, and forgetting the sesame seeds, I didn't make any alterations. This was really, really good and quite filling. And so quick! Ignoring the tofu (technically you could buy marinated tofu), this took about 15 minutes, maybe 20 with the kale cleaning. This is a great recipe for busy evenings, as long as you have all the ingredients (which is actually not as easy as it sounds, since I can usually only find kale once a week, at the Farmers' Market). And there were enough leftovers to have something for Mike to take for his lunch tomorrow.

I'll definitely keep this in mind the next time I need a quick meal and have kale that needs to be used up. But I think I'll try to remember the sesame seeds next time.