Noodles

Asian Food, Bowls, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, Vegan

Ginger Broccoli & Vegan Beef Noodle Recipe

Posted on April. 2023April. 2023 by writinstuff

Just in case you guys thought I was joking about my noodle addiction, here is another example of one of my favorite go-to vegan lunch recipes.

I don’t post them often because they don’t photograph well, or maybe I’m still just a very average photographer, either way that’s why you hear about them more than you see them.

I use TVP, rehydrated, seasoned and cooked to mimic traditional beef and broccoli. To accomplish that I used regular soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, wok sauce and sesame oil. The sauce is the key here, but it’s worth the time and the effort.

At least my belly thinks so!

What is your go-to lazy vegan meal? One that you make often instead of eating out or ordering in?

Make Every Bite Count & Count Every Bite

Asian Food, Bowls, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, Plant Based, Vegan

Loaded Vegan Ramen Salad Recipe

Posted on April. 2023April. 2023 by writinstuff

Is there anything better than a noodle salad? I mean, it feeds my body’s need to have lots of fresh, raw veggies in a variety of colors while also feeding my belly’s desire for Asian noodles. To me, it is the perfect healthy splurge salad.

Healthy splurge. It’s kind of an oxymoron isn’t it? Yes and no.

A healthy splurge meal is when you’re doing your best to eat healthy and feed your body the fuel it needs to get through each day without malfunctioning or succumbing to exhaustion or other crap diet related feelings. But you get to have a bit of a splurge in something you love, like Ramen noodles. And to be fair, ramen are fairly calorie friendly depending on which ones you use. For example, the ones I have are 60 calories per 100 grams of cooked noodles. And since I toss the seasoning packets I don’t have to worry about what’s in there.

But I’m not deluding myself that these noodles are actually ‘healthy’ but you could do a lot worse.

Still this is one of my favorite ways to have a salad and I have salads a lot. So let’s get into what ‘s in this baby and how to assemble it.

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Asian Food, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, oil free vegan recipes, Soup, Vegan

Cauliflower & Hokkaido Squash Ramen Stew

Posted on March. 2023March. 2023 by writinstuff

Happy Friday & DOUBLE Happy St. Patrick’s Day, folks!

Today’s post isn’t so much a recipe just me sharing a delicious recipe I made recently and I wanted to share. This was one of those off the cuff recipes that could have gone either way and though it might not look great, it was hearty and delicious and oh so satisfying.

I love to experiment with soups and this one turned out better than I expected which means we can ALL expect a repeat recipe sometime soon.

If you’re curious about how to make this soup, think of it like this: hokkaido squash soup with Ramen noodles and oven roasted curry cauliflower.

This week has been crazy hectic for me and I hope my weekend includes writing and relaxing, and of course a delicious celebratory St. Patrick’s day vegan feast!

Asian Food, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, Plant Based, Salads, Vegan

New Vegan Product + Vegan Fish Filets & Noodle Salad Recipe

Posted on November. 2022November. 2022 by writinstuff

Hello folks out there in vegan recipe land! How are you?

Today I’m doing a combo post featuring a new vegan food product find and a recipe with said food. Usually my new products are vegan snacks or random vegan ingredients, but today we’ve got the best of both worlds.

As you might recall, I’ve used the vegan brand Unfished a few times here and there, in my Vegan Tuna Orecchiette with Lemon & Capers recipe or my Mediterranean Vegan Tuna & Potato Cakes w/ Oven Roasted Asparagus. You can find more tuna recipes here on the blog. So, imagine my surprise when I’m pushing my cart through my local Kaufland and I spot a refrigerated shelf featuring non-canned Unfished vegan products. If ever given the choice between vegan fish filets and vegan fish fingers/sticks, I will never choose vegan fish sticks.

Not ever.

Never!

So what’s a vegan girl to do when she’s got a package of vegan fish steaks and no idea what to do with them?

Something? Anything?

I decided to do something off the beaten path but it turned out super delicious and healthy-ish, so let’s see what we can do with vegan fish filets!

What is your favorite vegan fish alternative?

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Noodles, oil free vegan recipes, Plant Based, Soup, Vegan

Easy Vegan Soups ~ Turnip Greens & Veggie Noodle Soup

Posted on October. 2022October. 2022 by writinstuff

It’s that time of year again when every home cook, recipe blogger and pretty much everyone else you know is touting their favorite soup recipe. Right?

If you’re sick of it, I’m sorry, because I am now that cook, that blogger and even that friend. It’s soup season y’all and you know that means I have another vegan soup recipe for you today.

Why?

Because soup is good for your body and your mind. The right soup (ahem, a vegan soup) is packed with colorful vegetables that are rich in necessary vitamins and minerals. Deficient on a particular nutrients? Add a handful of a particular vegetable to the pot. And you don’t have to get fancy about it, start with your basics: onion, garlic and celery. Build from there.

This recipe came about because I had a couple handfuls of turnip greens, three small turnips and I really wanted a hot bowl of soup. So instead of making regular turnip greens, (check out my other greens recipes here, here and here), I decided to drop them into a soup. With noodles, because of course with noodles.

So, let’s gather our kitchen tools, our vegetables and make some vegan autumn soup.

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Asian Food, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, Vegan

Vegan Takeout at Home ~ Dandan Noodles

Posted on October. 2022October. 2022 by writinstuff

A few years ago I first tried my hand at making a vegan Dandan noodles recipe. Even before I went vegan, I loved this dish so recreating it has been a fun process.

Last time I used the wrong noodles–in my opinion–and the tofu wasn’t quite the right fit for Dandan noodles. I’ve made it here and there over the years since the first recipe but none of them have been share worthy. Until now.

Today’s vegan Dandan noodles recipe is definitely worth a share, and since things in my world are quite crazy now, I’ll keep this short and simple.

Promise.

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Asian Food, Bowls, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, oil free vegan recipes, Salads, Sides, Vegan

Vegan Banana Blossom “Meat” & Hong Kong Style Noodles w/ Crunchy Vegan Side Salad

Posted on October. 2022October. 2022 by writinstuff

Yep, here we are again back in my vegan kitchen with noodles on the menu. I know what you’re thinking, does this chick eat anything other than noodles? The answer is yes, I do eat plenty of other grains but Asian cuisine is my favorite and I love to experiment with it.

And I love to eat noodles.

It’s somewhat of a comfort food for me in that it is the perfect backup when I’m testing out a new recipe because noodles make everything better. If I screw it up, at least we’re having noodles, right?

So there are noodles but there are also banana blossoms. Don’t judge because I know what you’re thinking, here we go with another of those specialty ingredients that are impossible for normal vegans to find. I would have said the same thing, except I was just browsing the Asian section of Kaufland and happened up these canned banana blossoms in water. Of course I grabbed them, because all these vegan chefs have been making everything out of it from vegan fish to vegan chicken and I was curious to try it out.

But deep frying? Not for me, please and thank you. I decided to keep it simple and go with a sauteed version that does still serve as a vegan meat alternative, but subtly so.

And this dish is the end result.

Delicious vegan noodles with banana blossoms

This vegan dish is easy to make and it feels as if it takes a lot more time than it does, which means its a great way to impress vegans and non-vegans alike!

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Asian Food, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, oil free vegan recipes, one pot recipes, Plant Based, Soup, Vegan

Vegan Hot & Sour Soup Recipe

Posted on October. 2022October. 2022 by writinstuff

With fall upon us and autumn weather barreling in like she owns the place, our house become a soup kitchen, quite literally. Just this month alone, we’ve probably had soup about 7 out of 10 days because yeah, we love soup that much.

But cooking–and eating–so much soup means you have to keep it fresh or else someone (by someone, I mean me) will start complaining about having repeat dishes. That means scouring vegan blogs, recipes that can be veganized, making fusion soup recipes and tweaking old favorites. It can become a lot if you let it.

I refused to let it because soup is just a warm cold weather salad, right?

All right, maybe that’s a poor comparison but they are both low in calories, high in nutrients and full of vegetables, which is basically a bowl full of goodness.

I don’t always post a lot of vegan soup recipes because the photos hardly ever (cough, cough, never) turn out great. But soup, at least my soup recipes, would be perfectly categorized in my ugly but delicious category.

Anyway this vegan soup recipe isn’t my own, it’s from Will Yeung who had some really great Asian style vegan recipes. I follow him on YouTube and this Hot & Sour Soup recipe has become a favorite since he posted it.

The list of ingredients, at first glance, may seem overwhelming but once it’s all chopped up, I promise you it’s easy peasy…ish.

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Asian Food, Bowls, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, Plant Based, Vegan

Vegan Cafe Treats

Posted on September. 2022September. 2022 by writinstuff

Since yesterday was a holiday in the United States I decided to hold off on posting a vegan recipe until Wednesday but I wouldn’t leave you hanging so I thought I’d share some more goodies from a local vegan cafe.

This is kind of a big deal since there are just about NO vegan places to eat in Ploiesti. There are a few places that have a couple vegan items but most of them are the same vegan meat alternatives we have in our fridge or freezer so why pay the markup, right?

Exactly.

But this place, Cafeneaua Nației, has a few completely vegan dishes made from scratch. They have a few of the well-known vegan meat alternatives like Mici and Schnitzel but they have quite a few surprises like the chickpea pancakes we had last time, which you can read here.

This time around we chose a few different dishes and one that’s already become an old faithful dish, the pureed lentils and rice dish with caramelized onions served on top.

To start we tried something other than beer and water. I chose a ginger lemonade with fresh ginger which was very delicious and refreshing, which was much appreciated on one of the last days of this European heatwave. He ordered a green smoothie that came with kale and apple and carrot and a bunch of other stuff that was…okay for me but he loved it.

It was another nice day out and we decided to eat outside this time, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.

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Asian Food, Bowls, International vegan cuisine, Noodles, Vegan

Asian BBQ Cauliflower Noodles

Posted on July. 2022July. 2022 by writinstuff

Some of the people I know who skirt with going vegan for many of the reasons the rest of have already adopted the lifestyle, ask me how I come up with recipes. They have all settled into the meat and potato version of meals with the occasional vegetable added in, so I get their confusion.

The thing they don’t understand is that before going vegan, I was a huge vegetable eater. They were a part of every meal so in those early days all I did was remove the animal products and replace it with non-animal protein, usually beans. And then slowly, but surely, I learned more. I discovered more.

The vegan food industry became more.

Still, it does get difficult to come up with new ideas when you have to cook often due to a lack of vegan restaurant food options. But we find a way, don’t we?

So for today’s vegan recipe, I had a few different ideas in mind. I wanted to take buffalo cauliflower (Buffalo Cauliflower recipe) and make it Asian style, but I also wanted Asian noodles and from there, the Asian BBQ Cauliflower Noodle dish was born.