Cookie Parties! And other fun this week.

Welcome back!
Schools opened again on Wednesday and everything seemed mostly normal except a lot of schools held their own Hari Raya parties. One in particular (I attended) had all of their students dress in their finest (and brand new) Hari Raya clothes as well as each student brought a box of cookies to share with their school. The teachers also know how to get down with their bad selves and brought food to share as well. I only ate a few things (that were vegan of course). None of the cookies I could trust and even some of the curries. I ate a peanut curry (which is pretty yummy and popular here in Malaysia) with some sticky rice and a veggie curry another teacher made which I discovered wasn't all vegan--no biggie. There was one dessert that was a gluten green jell (looked like tadpoles) swimming in coconut milk. That stuff was yummy!

two tables full of cookies

adult food and durian-blah >o<

Oh how cute!

As for food this week I had a bit of a sweet tooth attack and made a few vegan desserts. Granted all those cookies and cakes I was surrounded by I didn't get an opportunity to consume. I tended to eat a few of the same things this week with the occasional exceptions below. However, I sometimes ate them for both lunch/dinner or breakfast/lunch etc.  So, I won't divide them up today.

My Usual Quiche plus Greenery
I took my quiche that I make weekly (cause it's delectable) and added a salad to it. This week's quiche that's currently in the oven is entirely comprised of spinach, mushrooms, onions, and potatoes. I limited the amount to just four veggies. The one here has everything that was in my fridge (broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, garden veggies, onions, and who knows what). It wasn't even flat when I placed it in the oven, it was gigantic and bulging! So, this weeks quiche will be slimmer looking. I actually was listening to an article from one of my new favorite YouTube channels NutritionFacts.org about how spinach and garlic are pretty powerful foods. I suggest looking at his stuff online.







Japanese Nom Nom!
We visited our local Japanese spot and I noticed something on the menu that caught my eye! They had a green symbol like this veg 斋 (though there are a variety of versions of this symbol) right next to a dish. This means vegetarian. The symbol so happened to be on a curry item! Woohoooo! It came with a potato salad I gave to Frank and got a few seaweed/nori rolls for some added a nutrition (nori/seaweed is full of vitamins and stuff and stuff). Sooooo yummy and diverse from my usual order--however I think I'll switch back to my other items next time. But it's nice to try something new.

Thrown Together Dinner
I didn't feel like eating but decided I should have something. Knowing I had some salad that needed to be eaten, I placed that in a bowl with some beans, tomatoes, and onions. Mixed a garlicky vinaigrette together, toasted my last flaxseed bun, and there it was: A thrown together dinner. My vinaigrette was overwhelmingly vinegary, however all and all it was a fine dinner.

Zucchini Noodles in Cauliflower Curry
I wanted to make a curry with cauliflower and peas that I've seen in Indian restaurants, so I did. I also added the rest of Haza's curry I had in the fridge to the pot. This particular time I added some zucchini noodles I had leftover in the fridge. The noodles made things a bit bland. In general though the curry wasn't very strong but still good. There's a lot of recipes online on how to make this particular curry, but I just did what I wanted because I used to make curry often and felt confident in my curry making ability.

Coconut Chai Ice Cream

This wasn't horrible (because my ice creams of the past have been). This was a light flavor, not too sweet, and I am hopeful not too full of fat because I used the light canned of coconut milk stuff. However, the recipe that I got from Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. called for seeped chai tea. When you add water to a cream to make ice cream unfortunately ice crystals will form. This was the only disappointment I had. No matter what, you tend to crunch into them. In the future I will heat the coconut cream with the chai tea (no water) directly to absorb the flavor so I can avoid water in the mixture.
Chickpea Blondies
I found a recipe a while ago on how to make Chickpea Blondies and a ton of other chickpea recipes. This was totally yummy mostly because I melted a dark chocolate bar on top of it as it came out of the oven and sprinkled some sea salt on top of that! (sorry I don't have the link to this recipe). It's a bit healthy because I didn't make it too sweet and added flaxseed to it-of course.

Chocolate Nibs Cookies
That's right... NIBBBS....! Why? Because I wanted to try them out. The recipe I got from Mary's Test Kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK3-w5CGVEU whom she subsequently got from another person. I like her version of the cookie because she adds less sugar to it then whats called for. I also added flaxseeds to mine... because. These weren't bad cookies at all! Perfect texture actually except the chocolate nibs were pretty strong. I had put a tiny bit of chocolate in it, but apparently not enough. I used them to make an ice cream sandwich below.
Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
This recipe was all over my Facebook. So I had to try it out! Granted I made two chocolate cakes in the last week I couldn't eat so I had to go for it. The frosting in the recipe I may have messed up on because it's grainy.... so powdered sugar instead of regular sugar. The cake is also yummy though some ended up cooked and other ended up a bit fudgy (no harm there right). It's a good recipe I highly suggest it. Make sure you cook them for 25-30 minutes, as recommended (I didn't because that was for the cake and mine were cupcakes--I'd say just keep an eye out for them). http://www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/

And now for a taste of things to come: Vegan Kombat!!
My seitan and spinach quiche are done! This week is looking nom noms!

This week weight loss was nothing, I guess this month is slow. However, I've gotten back into running and ran about 22 minutes this week with 3 hours of home zumba and an hour walk. Not a lot but hopefully next week it'll pick up.

Thanks again see you next week!

Hari Raya Celebration Time! And carrots don't make good hot dogs!

Hello! It's taken me about two weeks to put up a blog. Understandable because I was recovering from my unexplained-out-of-no-where back issues. Anyways, I'm doing better and Happy Hari Raya or the Eid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Fitr In Malaysia and a few other countries it's called Hari Raya. To make this very complicated celebration into a very short explanation it's when the Ramadan fasting stops and everyone celebrates by visiting relatives, friends, and neighbors houses with treats and food. Last year Frank and I visited almost 10 houses with our friends Hazza and Halim. The food usually consists of noodles, curries, veggies, meats, cookies, and cakes-mostly traditional Malay food. Every house is different though and last year we ate a lot of everything, especially fruit. This year was only two houses and one of them was Hazza's house. She cooked some amazing dishes. I had a vegan curry made just for me and she sent me home with a vegan sambal (tomato/pepper sauce) dish I cooked up with tofu.
 

Vegan Sambal

Hari Raya

I know, you're thinking about those cookies I was telling you about, aren't you? Well, there are literally dozens of various flavor cookies that come out for Hari Raya. However, none of them would be familiar to foreigners unless they grew up in an area that sold cookies maybe from Europe. These are super small and dry. I have a feeling their shelf life is as long as a mission to Pluto. However, last year I wanted to get in on the action and made my teachers GIANT American cookies (chocolate chip, oatmeal, etc). This year I kept the theme American flavored alive (gingerbread, eggnog, and biscotti's-though that's not a flavor....) but much smaller. I received a standing ovation once again. I also made a chocolate cake from scratch for Hazza's house. Unfortunately, these cookies/cakes were not vegan--so I have no idea how they tasted and I don't feel right to post their recipes--seems anti-this-type-of-blog-and-stuff. They were vegetarian though.

Now onto food for the last two weeks. I've had some repeats of food and I've also forgotten to take a few pictures of other foods. However, I think I have enough for this blog to recommend a few things. 

First, iherbs.com delivers things of amazingness! There are so many YouTube videos out there about vegan seitan, tahini, margarine, etc..... So I ordered a few things. In the picture above you can see buckwheat (which are seeds and apparently- to my surprise- not the flour version), tahini, vegan margarine (made by milking coconuts and then churning the coconut milk), vegan bullion, vegan marshmallows, chocolate nibs, and vital wheat gluten for making seitan! 

Breakfast:

Buckwheat aka groats! I am groats!!

Okay, so I didn't get the buckwheat flour I was anticipating for but instead I got the entire buckwheat seed. That's okay!! That's what YouTube is about. I was searching for a good recipe and ended up coming to a lot of the hippie-esk raw vegans who make all of their recipes utterly complicated videos=blah! Snore! However, I found a new and wonderful vlog to follow. Laura Miller is one of those hilarious humans that make food not seem horrid. Her show is called Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. and she had a nice recipe for buckwheat that involved a bit of soaking, a bit of roasting, and a bit of flavor. It's actually a lot of fun and easy to make. So many people are concerned now with what's in their cereal in the mornings. For me I stopped eating cereal decades ago (originally due to the high amount of sugar and carbs). However, with this recipe I've been eating "cereal" more often. I looked up buckwheat/groats. It has a lot of nutrition and other good stuff in it, so something natural and healthy for breakfast= thumbs up! Here's the link to make some groats for breakfast:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNcfhR9SZew

Lunch

Fried (I mean baked) Zucchini!

Man, I have a lot of pictures to go through. Okay, I made some more zucchini noodles but decided to take the middles and make something scandalous! Here's a similar recipe I used from the Sweetest Vegan Tasha Edwards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX3gmV-LINo I had a tomato and added tahini, onions, garlic, and tomato paste to a pan and hoped for the best for the sauce... it was fine. Phew!

Zucchini Noodles
Like last week I made some zucchini noodles, I think I added tofu this time.
Vegan burgers
Just like last week I made a ton of vegan burgers. Half I put in the freezer for later use.
Out to lunch
Vegetarian restaurant, Secret Recipes Cashew Salad, and Blackwood I ordered Portabello Mushroom Steak and fries. Good stuff!

The Not-Yummy Carrot Dog
I should have known. The Edgy Veg put a video up on how to make a veggie dog out of carrot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3xb6_7s92g Maybe my ingredients were off or not right but it tasted icky and I made a heck of a lot! So I forced myself to eat them because I hate to waste food.

Dinner

Homemade Pickles!

I used to make pickles all the time in Guangzhou. I actually got really good at it. I made them spicy, sweet, and salty. I was inspired by Elton Brown in his Good Eats Episodes. It's incredibly easy to make and takes about a day or two for them to be ready. I've used cucumbers, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, onions, and even boiled eggs at one time (which Frank surprisingly likes). I made cucumber pickles to go with my burgers this time though. They turned out awesome and it was a way to get rid of the giant cucumber in my fridge that I would have otherwise not eaten. I don't really like them unless they're cooked or pickled. 

Chickpea Curry Cause!
I wanted curry, I had chickpeas, so I made chickpea curry.... cause I wanted to! Tomatoes, a can of chickpeas, onion, garlic, and a packet of pre-mix curry powder. Done! Oh,  had leftovers which was why the picture says both dinner and breakfast. Breakfast of champions!















Seitan!
Pronounced sa-tan! Yes, like that guy. This however is something more of a miracle! Seitan is a miracle yet a ninja like kind of food. It can be disguised to be so many delicious things! If anyone has ever eaten "fake" meat, there are a few kinds out there. Some are made from soy, other kinds of bean, or vital wheat gluten. This is obviously not a gluten free product and the gluten itself is what makes seitan's texture so unique and desirable. Once made (which is really like science fun) it can be molded into meat shaped products: buffalo wings, chic nuggets, meat-loaf, etc. The texture is chewy and the flavor can be manipulated. I only wanted to make this because it was sooooo cool and science-ish!!! I like how things become other things once science comes into play. The Edgy Veg had a turkey version you can watch to see how she took the vital wheat gluten and made it into an edible turkey-like thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJO71ZRNOBU However, the recipe I followed most closely came from Mary's Test Kitchen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlODaKhgla8 She steamed her seitan (most recipes call to boil it for hours in a broth) so it looked like the easiest and less wasteful way of making it. After I made it and chopped it up and pan fried it for a few minutes with my zucchini noodles it was rather tasty. The next day however I REALLY pan fried it and put it on a salad-holy crap- was that tasty!

Snacks

The Usual Suspects

So I made some fruit smoothies again with some added chia seeds and anything else around I threw it in (bricks, dishes, jewelry-whatever was laying around). I also had lots and lots of nuts. 

Vegan Marshmallows and Chocolate Nibs

Lastly, chocolate nibs and vegan marshmallows. Whatever I thought chocolate nibs were weren't what I thought they were..... were. They are like little pieces of bitter. That's all. Crunchy chunks of bitter. So, I YouTubed. I come to find they are the essence of chocolate before sugar basically. So, I had an epiphany. Marshmallows are sugary pillows of magic. So I opened a marshmallow and put some of the nibs on the sticky portion and consumed. I have found my new favorite snack of 2015! I have also thrown said nibs into my groats. Tasty stuff man. If you find these, get these, they are packed with nutrients and can be added to anything really... except maybe apple sauce, quiche's... okay anything related to baking or chocolate. 

Due to my back being out last week I wasn't able to run or go to Zumba. Now that I'm feeling better but exceptionally cautious I've gotten in a few hours of Zumba at home and some walking. Zumba is closed due to Hari Raya, but as soon as it opens I think I'll be ready to go at it again. I'm overly cautious because this particular portion of my back I've hurt severely before where I couldn't even walk without immense pain. This time it went away within a week (rather than almost a year). So, I'm optimistic and cautious. Granted, the lack of exercise did inhibit some weight loss. Only about a pound was lost these last two weeks. Hoping to catch up. So I guess within a month of this vegan diet thing I've lost about 5lbs. No calorie counting, no sugar, a lot less oil, and just a ton of veggies and new varieties of food. However, I think it's also opened up even more social and environmental issues to me. I was always vegetarian for ethical reasons, now I wish I was just always vegan. The vegan community is exceptionally vocal about the ethics of animals and I'm proud of them no matter how quirky, rude, or compassionate they are. There's a lot of strangeness on YouTube with vegans and vegan haters and vegans being haters. However, the bottom line is compassion not selective compassion, health v. industry, sustainability over greed, and kindness over evil. Always strive to be a better being and be there for others, especially the ones that cannot defend themselves. 

So far, one month in, all is good. See ya next time! 

The 4th Buns and Burgs- Vegan Style

Well, this ends the 3rd week being vegan. It's been pretty good, like last week and the week prior. Friday I hit a bit of a snag--- I somehow magically pulled my back out... Yay! Well, maybe it was the one hour Zumba this week haha, or I've been kicking up the running, but I've only done about 35 minutes this week. In any event I'm hoping for this to be just a minor setback in the exercise area.

As for food, things have been good. I've been watching and taking notes on a lot of various types of vegan cooking channels on YouTube. I ended up finding a cool one called the EdgyVeg. She's a bit of a goofball but she reminds me of me. Her channel is basically vegan junk food and boy does it look good. I've invested in a few things to try to make some of her stuff. For example, to make the "fried Popeyes chicken" I need seitan (pronounced Satan...yes like my former boss).  You can make it at home IF you had something called vital wheat gluten. Like yeah, let me march to my local Whole Foods and find that one.... NOPE!!!! However, I did find iHerbs.com. Not only did I buy my vital super saiyan gluten wheat thing, but I bought a ton of other stuff I keep seeing vegans use. Like a coconut margarine, buckwheat, vegan marshmallows, tahini, and someone threw in some cocoa nibs... because nibs.

Oh, even though my exercise routine was chopped a bit short, I've still lost 2lbs this week. Even though I totally consumed a ton of stuff. I just avoided rice as much as possible and my usual avoidings of sugar.... is this a complete sentence? Who cares.

Pics of the week!

Breakfast!

Pancakes!!! 

So, as many of you recall I made pancakes last week for breakfast. They turned out bizarrly chewy (is bizarrly a word?) because I used 150g of bran instead of something more yummy. This week I modified with 100g of ground oats and 50g of ground bran. I also made my own "nutella" or "not" tella to go on it instead of the peanut butter I was using. I won't be posting my recipe because I made mine too grainy for human consumption. But here's one you can follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ38EBeeJGQ warning this video is devilishly inappropriate hahah! 

Soy milk for my coffee!

As you know I make my own soy milk. With the soy milk this week I made a chai latte and mayo. I've posted the mayo recipe before but with the chai latte I heated up the rest of the soy milk that didn't fit into my canister and proceeded to add one of my chai tea bags to the pot with some stevia. The stevia is like waaaay to strong with the tiniest amount so be careful with that stuff. I sprinkled cinnamon on top for dramatics...... however, sometimes the natural soy milk will created a film on top. Guess who surprisingly chewed the very cinnamony top portion of her chai latte? Is cinnamony a word?

Lunch!
Out to eat! Nom Noms!
At Blackwood (which is like a cafe with food) I had their veggie cheese burger without the cheese. It's mostly mashed potatoes molded and fried into a pattie. It's not horrible. We also again ventured to our Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant where Frank was delighted to find out his green fried rice: Xiang Chun Chao Fan, was available. I avoided rice this week though I usually don't get rice anyways. There's such a selection of food there I feel rice would take away from my consumption of deliciousness.

Homemade Buns and Burgs!

I'm beyond proud of myself!!! Making bread isn't my strong point. I always try to make things healthier and end up messing up the original recipe. However, the bun recipe I got from Mary's Test Kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP51YYygd5g ended up working out well even though I still modified it! Her recipe calls for 3 cups of flour for her flax seed buns. I instead used 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of a mixture of my bean flours (that I totally love). The bean flours do make for some tough dough. I definitely have a few new arm muscles from kneading it. They came out tasting a lot like pretzels. Which was amazing! However, I'll make 8 next time instead of 6. Less bread for me. 

As for the veggie burger, I'm a champ at this stuff. I used a can of chickpeas, two cans of red beans, leftover okara (the bean remains that you get after straining your soy milk), mushrooms, carrots, and other spices. I put four patties in the oven and fried them ever slightly on a pan just before they were added to my burger and BAM!!!! Threw some mustard, hot sauce, homemade mayo, and lettuce!!! Bam!!!!! All I needed was some sweet potato fries and tomato slices. But you use whatever you got! 

I pat myself on the back for this recipe! 

veggie burger in lettuce wrap

Dinner!

Zucchini Noodles!

I did well this time. These noodles were the best! I shredded a zucchini or two, salted them (to drain the water from them for a few hours), and then boiled them down (3 minutes at the most maybe). At the same time I sauteed mushrooms, onions, and chives. Then threw the noodles in with some tapioca starch (helps to thicken), seasonings, and vegan mozzarella cheese. After it was cooked I topped it with my version of sprinkle cheese (ground walnuts, cashews, nutritional yeast, salt, and other seasonings). It was to die for!!!!!  I new favorite dish!!! Dang Malaysia though, finding zucchini is exceptionally difficult.  It's like trying to find the Dragon Balls without the radar. 

Tofu Quiche!

kai lan and chives

So, this will actually be my breakfast for the next few days, however it was dinner last night. I got this recipe from Ryoya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUiieXmDr0w and as I usually do, totally modified it. Some of his ingredients call for things like olives and tomatoes I think. I didn't have tomatoes or proper spinach so I used what I had lying around. In our garden we were growing a Chinese green called kai lan which I steamed and used as "spinach." It's flavor is sweeter and worked well in this dish. We also were growing some chives and I threw that in as well. For crust or dough, I of course modified and used some of my bean flour instead. It turned out awesome. The squishy part of the quiche (does that part have a name?) I sauteed mushrooms, onions, spices, and so forth. The tofu portion I basically followed what the video stated, however in the very end when I added the sauteed veggies I threw in a pre-curry powder mix for the heck of it. Boy did this turn out awesome! I think all of the veggies and seasoning really made the quiche have a nice flavor. The tofu was creamy so it felt like a cheese almost. I usually didn't like quiches, unless I made them with a ton of spices. This however is my new favorite dish (it seems like a lot of them are becoming that). Very happy!

Other!

Snacks

Well this week I've had a bit of a limited snack selection. I've either had my usual nuts or I've made popcorn that I added my vegan "cheeze" powder to (that's the one with the walnuts and so forth). I also made Imo Yokan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHTphalMuk which was a sweet potato dessert. I think his came out better than mine but mine taste like the sweetest sweet potato block on earth! Lastly, one of my teachers gave me a Chinese dessert shown below. No idea the name but it's made from glutinous rice flour and a coconut center. It was just okay, not my favorite. I tend to not like anything drenched in coconut oil. There something familiar about it though. When I lived in Hunan there was this dessert called Ai Ba BA (love daddy) made from grass and sugar. I'm not sure what kind of grass, but it was exceptionally green and sweet. I actually liked it. I always asked the kids where the Ai Ma Ma was? And they were like "don't say that" which meant I said a bad word or something. So I said it anyways. 

Chinese Dessert

Vegan Meringue with AquaFaba!

The most amazing thing just happened! I made meringues (granted I actually never liked them) but these were vegan and full of science! Aquafaba is the liquid you find in a can of beans, the off colored remains after you drain them. This magic, if whipped enough, turns into a whipped egg-white like structure. I followed this recipe from Mary's Test Kitchen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kExpx2BzIOQ I followed the recipe exactly. It totally tasted like marshmallows! Some cookies were meringue like (dry and crunchy- the kind of texture that bothers my teeth) others were more chewy and got stuck in my teeth (like a bubble gum like consistency). I however, am excited about this egg-white structure. Not only could I make macaroons, but other egg-white cakes and cookies as well!!!

 I hope you enjoyed this week's update. And maybe some of the recipes you find on here you'd like to try. Let me know if you find any of them any good and have any recommendations for me. 

Take it easy!