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!