Month: May 2017

Oreo Tofu Mini pies!!

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Okay so the title doesn’t sound all that appetizing but it is actually an amazing recipe that I’m sure you folks will love and its surprisingly very simple!

These were so Delicious so I will get straight to the point!

Prep & Cook time: Varies on your speed.

Makes about 16 mini pies depending on the size you plan to make them

Ingredients:

  • 1 pkg of 16 oz SOFT tofu
  • 1 cup melted vegan chocolate of your choice
  • 1/2 cup almond milk or non dairy milk of your choice

Directions:

First line your cupcake pans with those paper cupcake cups.
Then put one oreo cookie in each cup. ( It doesn’t need to be separated you can be creative)
I prepped 16 parchment papers about an 1 1/2 -2 inches in height to surround the cookie. (It all depends on how high you are planning on making your mini pie.) If you want your pies too look like mini Recess peanut butter cups then you can skip this step.

Next melt your chocolate in the microwave in 45 sec intervals and mix. Use what ever type of chocolate as long as it is 1 cup. I used 2 4oz bars of chocolate and that came out perfect.
Then quickly put 1/2 cup (non dairy milk of your choice), soft tofu, and your chocolate into the blender. The longer you wait the harder the chocolate is going to get and you want the chocolate to be well melted so that it blends ALOT easier.
Puree it for about 1 min. or until it is silky smooth with no lumps ( you can stop and scrape the sides so you make sure you get everything blended) and spoon the batter into each cup. As soon as you are done you can either refrigerate it or put it in the freezer.
Freezer will take about 2 hours Refrigeration will take about 4 hours if you want it perfectly firm.
If you freeze it there will be some icicles in it but refrigeration will give you a more smooth texture. I tried it both ways and found that refrigeration was much more satisfying. But then again it is to your preference.

Then you can top it off with crumbled oreos or a fruit or chocolate topping of your choice. There is always no harm in being creative. I hope you folks will enjoy this amazing and simple recipe. Its great for parties and finger desserts and it looks very fancy too.

Love you all for always staying tuned and Stay happy everyone!!

Japanese Korokke VEGAN STYLE!

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So today I have a very simple and quick recipe that of course is 100% Vegan and on a budget.

quick story short because like I said I just like to get to the recipe and nobody wants to read a novel before a recipe.

In my family I am known as the Cheapskate Vegan because of course now these days we all want to save money and/or alot of us cannot afford all those expensive nuts and oils and condiments. To be honest being vegan is very EXPENSIVE! So I actually really try to find cheaper alternatives to everything/anything vegan also recipes that I can shorten in time because lets face it or even admit it when we are hungry we want food ASAP right?

So without any further ado…

Yesterday I had no Idea what to make. Then I remembered one of my favorite foods my grandmother made when my family and I used to visit her in japan. Korokke!! (as from a previous blog you know that I am part Korean.. SURPRISE! I’m Japanese too) ok to continue. So I looked through my whole pantry and fridge hoping to find the ingredients I needed and There they were!

 

Prep time: Depends on your speed
Cook time: Depends on your speed and how fast your stove heats up

Ingredients: 

  •  2 peeled potatoes
  • 6 baby carrots
  • 1 Tsp Salt (divided)
  • 1/2 cup of flour
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup Panko
  • 3/4 cup Oil of your choice

Sauce ingredients:

  • Ketchup
  • Soy sauce

Directions:

Boil a pot of water and sprinkle 1/2 tsp salt into the water.
Cut the peeled potatoes into cubes and put them into the pot of water along with the baby carrots and boil for about 10 min.
When the potatoes and carrots are nice and soft take them out. Let the carrots cool on the side.

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Hand mash the potatoes into a potato salad consistency. (Hand mash the potatoes because you don’t want to have smooth mashed potatoes like thanksgiving day you want a well textured potato mix but DO NOT leave huge chunks of potatoes in there keep your chunks as tiny as possible) Keep in mind later they will be molded into patties.

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After you finish getting the texture you like cut the carrots into tiny cubes and mix that in with the potatoes.

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Take your 1/2 cup of flour and put the other 1/2 tsp of salt and mix it in.
Next take a handful of the potato mix and mold them into your desired size of patties. I actually just molded them into the size of my palm and made them about 1/2 an inch to 1 inch thick.
Then dip it in the flour mix, dip your hand or fingers into the water and wet the patty so that the flour will be a little sticky
Dunk the patty into the panko and be very generous in coating it. (Repeat until all of the mixture is gone)

Depending on the speed of your stove heat up a pan with your 3/4 cup oil. the amount of oil you use varies on the size of your pan. I have a very small pan so 3/4 was just enough. So I would say fill it so that half of your patty will be submerged in the oil.
Fry it until the patties are golden brown and crisp. ( I will be honest some of your patties will break because they usually use egg to hold it together you just have to be very patient and delicate when flipping it.)

To prepare your sauce all you need is Ketchup and Soy sauce. mix those two together to your taste. I usually use 1/4 cup ketchup and 1 tbsp of soy sauce. You can always add more if it doesn’t taste right and double the amount if you are making a big batch of Korokke.

and that’s it!

Keep an eye out for the next Korokke recipe. I will be making Curry Korokke!

Enjoy and stay happy!

Vegan Muddy Buddies (Puppy chow)

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A couple days ago I wanted something sweet but didn’t want to eat anymore Oreos because being a beginner vegan that’s pretty much all I knew about “Vegan OKd” treats. So I went to my pantry and looked and noticed I had stacks of unopened Chex mix cereal. I guess my son and I weren’t eating it fast enough I didn’t notice it was building up in my pantry. Anyway Instantly I thought OH COOL I CAN MAKE MUDDY BUDDIES/PUPPYCHOW (however you want to call it)

The recipe I found was only in bulk which was good since I had so many boxes of Chex mix Cereal in my pantry. I had Corn and Rice chex so I decided to be spontaneous and put both into the mix. So HERE WE GO!

You are going to need a BIG BOWL for this one and I would recommend a rice scooper or wooden spatula/spoon to mix everything together. I used a wooden rice scooper. Only because as much as possible you don’t want to crush the cereal into crumbs when you mix.

Ingredients:

  • 9 cups of Rice or Corn Chex mix
  • 2 cups dairy free chocolate chips of your choice ( I used 4 boxes of 4oz dairy free chocolate) Side note if you are not vegan feel free to use whatever chocolate you wish.
  • 2/3 cup peanut butter ( I used all natural peanut butter. But you can use any peanut butter of your choice)
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil of your choice ( Room temp. )
  • 4 cups powdered sugar ( Now this is optional but actually necessary. If you’ve eaten this before it keeps the mix from sticking to each other especially if you are going to store it in the fridge. Unless you like block chocolate with chex mix which actually wasn’t really bad it actually tasted really good. To be honest though I did not use 4 cups of powdered sugar I just poured some and mixed some until everything looked like it was moderately covered. )

Directions:

  • Put the 9 cups of chex mix into the big bowl.
  • In a separate “microwavable” bowl put the chocolate, Peanut butter, and coconut oil.
  • I microwaved it for about 4 min. and stirred everything together with the wooden rice scooper. But you can do this process how ever you see fit. Or what works best for you. As long as all of those ingredients are nicely stirred together you’re good to go.
  • After everything is well stirred and the mix looks smooth pour the mixture onto the Chex and very delicately fold the cereal into the mix until everything is covered with the tasty chocolate mixture. Make sure you do it delicately unless you want alot of crumbs in there. We don’t want them to turn into those nestles mini crunch snacks. We want to have the full cereal in there.
  • When everything is mixed into your liking start pouring the powdered sugar into the bowl. DON’T DOUSE THE MIX just sprinkle and mix sprinkle and mix until its nicely covered to how you like it.

And that is the end to the directions. When you are all well and satisfied with what you have infront of you go ahead and put them into tupperwares save them for later put them into the fridge or just enjoy the whole thing in one sitting like I almost did. Makes good gifts and party snacks.

I hope you guys enjoyed this recipe as much as I did and I also hope to be able to share more recipes with you folks later on. Have a good week everyone and stay happy.

Japanese Pancakes… Vegan Style!

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I have been off base lately because I’m normally into making Asian recipes and I’ve been doing other ones but now I’m back on track!

There is a pancake in Japan called Okonomiyaki. But in America they call it Japanese pancakes or Japanese pizza.

Everytime I went to Japan this was one of my favorite must have dishes. Of course being Japanese I LOVE Japanese foods and Okonomiyaki was one of them. Unfortunately there were no Vegan recipes for this dish and if there were it was super complicated. So I came up with my own and it came out AMAZING!

I like to keep my recipes as simple as possible.

Prep time & Cook time: Depends on your speed.

Ingredients: 

  • 1 cup Okonomiyaki Flour

  • (in case you are very strict and want to know what is in the flour I also took a picture of its ingredients)

  • 3/4 cup of water
  • half a head of shredded cabbage
  • 2 pc green onion (optional)
  • for egg substitution 6 Tbsp “Aquafaba” (chickpea water from the can)
  • (recipe calls for 2 eggs and 3 Tbsp of Aquafaba equals 1 egg)

    Okonomiyaki Sauce & Topping:

  • 4 Tbsp Ketchup
  • 2 Tbsp Soy sauce of your choice
  • Vegan Mayo
  • Furikake (optional)

Instructions:
First take 1 cup of the Okonomiyaki flour and pour it into a bowl.
Next strain the Chickpea water from the can and put 6 Tbsp of that into the bowl along with the flour.
Dump your 3/4 cup of water into the bowl and start mixing. DO NOT mix it until the batter is creamy mix it so that there are still some lumps in there but not powder.
Then cut your head cabbage into halves and shred one of the halves.
This is optional and I didn’t do it but you can take your green onion chop that and stick it into the batter along with the cabbage. Mix it well into the batter so that all of the cabbage has been submerged into the batter. (small tip.. too much cabbage in the batter will ruin the pancake when you cook it)

Heat your pan up and put 3 Tbsp oil of your choice. (Remember the amount of oil depends on how big your pan is) My pan is very small so 3 Tbsp works.Then cook it as you would if you were making regular pancakes. Cook until the edges are crispy and both sides are golden brown and the inside is well done.

Now for the Sauce
It’s sauce so its pretty much explanatory.
Take a small bowl and mix 4 tbsp of Ketchup and 2 Tbsp Soy Sauce of your choice. Mix it so that it is well blended and to your taste.

Now that all of that is done put your Pancakes on a plate and season as you desire. As you can see in the picture I was a little creative but It goes very good with the Vegan Mayo on top and I sprinkled a little bit of Furikake on there as well. (Furikake is a nori seasoning) (Another tip DO NOT mix the Vegan mayo into your sauce mix… yuck)

I hope that you guys enjoy this vegan recipe of Japanese pancakes. it wasn’t easy to figure out but it tasted just like the one from home “Japan”.