Creamy Vegan Tofu Noodles

The idea of a creamy Chinese noodle dish with a tofu sauce sounded intriguing. And the picture in the New York Times looked tasty. I liked the idea of getting my protein in a noodle dish via the sauce. Since silken tofu isn’t low fodmap, I was excited to try making a sauce with firm tofu, which the recipe calls for. Only after I made the dish did I realize that this isn’t an authentic Chinese noodle dish, but an essentially vegan invention with Chinese flavors. By then it was too late.

The dish was edible, but just barely. I had to force myself to eat it, and about halfway through the week my will gave out. The flavors of the dish, 5 spice and creamed firm tofu, were strange and unappetizing. The texture of the sauce was much to heavy for the noodles. The best part of the dish was the topping, but it was much too spicy for me. I used 2/3 of the chili oil called for, which was a mistake. I should have used 1/4. I had to add a bunch more of the other ingredients to balance it out.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021508-creamy-vegan-tofu-noodles?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=creamy&rank=1

Advertisement

Potatoes and Carrots in Coconut Curry

On my quest to start eating Indian food again, I was very excited to make this recipe for potato carrot curry in a coconut sauce. The recipe was pretty easy. It called for 2 tbsp cumin seeds and 2 tbsp curry powder. That seemed high so I used 1 tbsp of each. I also left out the onion and garlic and used onion/garlic oil instead. Since I’m still trying to avoid spicy foods, I left out the serrano chilies as well.

This was super tasty and very little work to make. Definitely something I’d make again when I don’t feel like making something too complicated.

Low Fodmap Curried Chickpeas with Fresh Ginger and Cilantro

I’ve been very excited to start eating Indian food again. I got some canned chickpeas and decided to make Chana Masala. I’ve made this recipe from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker a number of times, though it’s been a while. But I’ve never made the recipe with canned chickpeas before and it required a bit of experimentation. The original recipe says to cook dry chickpeas in the slow cooker for 6-8 hours before adding the rest of the ingredients and cooking for another hours. I skipped the pre-cooking and just added all the ingredients together and cooked them for an hour. I also had to guess a bit with the water. The recipe calls for 6 cups of water with the dry beans. I added 2 cups to the canned beans, which turned out to be too much. Next time I’d only add 1 cup. Since I haven’t made the recipe in a while, I can’t remember if I followed the ingredients completely before. The cumin seeds called for seemed high to me. Instead of the tablespoon of cumin seeds called for, I used 2 tsp. I definitely think that was enough. The flavor of the final dish was good.

Spinach Raita

Raita is one of my all time favorite foods. As a kid my parents used to take me to an Indian buffet, where I would proceed to only eat raita and naan. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the other dishes, but why eat other things when that would just take up precious raita storage space. As an adult I rarely (but not never) eat raita only meals. But adulthood hasn’t dampened my love of the dish at all. Sadly, eating seasonally means no cucumber raita in the winter. So I was intrigued when I found this recipe for spinach raita in Indian Vegetarian Cooking at Your House.

The recipe is described as a seasoned salad with yogurt and spinach, which is accurate. The veggie to yogurt ratio is much heavier on the veggie side than traditional raita. This recipe has about 3/4 cup of liquid to 1 cup of spinach plus extra veggies. I looked up other Palak Raita recipes and found they usually had a one to one ratio of raita to spinach with no extra veggies.

I really enjoyed the spices and the spinach went well with the yogurt. However, I thought the chopped carrots took away from the blended flavor of the dish. Next time I’d leave them out. I might also add an extra 2-3 tbsp of yogurt. Not as good as cucumber raita, but intriguing, healthy, and easy to make. I might make this again with a few tweaks. I’d like to try a different Palak Raita recipe first though.

Rice Cakes with Peanut Sauce and Hoison

I bought a large bag of Asian rice cakes for another recipe, but I only ended up using a third of the bag. While looking for something to do with the remainder, I found this New York times recipe for pan fried rice cakes and bok choy. The recipe is written for cylindrical rice sticks, but says you can slide rice cakes instead. Slicing these rice cakes was awful and took forever. I ended up resorting to a pizza roller after trying a few different knives.

I’m not sure if the rice cake/rice stick swap was the problem, but my dish did not look like the one in the picture. Instead of nicely browned individual rice sticks, the rice sticks kind of merged together and stuck both to each other and the pan. A cast iron pan or nonstick pan is a must for this dish. Instead of making the peanut sauce in the recipe, I just used leftover peanut sauce from gado gado that I had in the freezer.

The recipe had a great flavor and even though the rice cakes turned into a rice cake clump, I enjoyed their chewy texture. I thought the bok choy needed to be cooked for a minute or two longer. I also found the recipe really benefited from chopped peanuts on top to add a bit of crunch. This was unusual, but oddly good. And it seemed to get better with time. I’d make it again, but would try the rice sticks next time.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1022726-rice-cakes-with-peanut-sauce-and-hoisin

Butternut Congee

I’ve been wanting to try making congee for a while now. Simple and soothing, sounds good to me. I was intrigued by this recipe in the New York times for butternut squash congee with chile oil. I couldn’t use butternut squash since it’s high fodmap, so I used acorn squash instead. Maybe acorn squash is way more watery than butternut? Because the congee came out super watery. I’ve never had it before, but I can’t imagine that was the intended consistency. This wasn’t bad, but I do think the butternut would have made for a richer, sweeter porridge. I also didn’t add the chile oil because I’m avoiding spicy foods. I’m sure that would have made it more flavorful as well. This was alright, but I wasn’t jumping to eat the leftovers. Not sure if I’ll try making congee again. Time will tell.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023629-butternut-squash-congee-with-chile-oil?action=click&module=Collection%20Page%20Recipe%20Card&region=Vegetarian%20Comfort%20Food%20Recipes&pgType=collection&rank=3

Green Okonomiyaki

My sister has been raving for years about her okonomiyaki recipe as an easy tasty weeknight dinner. Apparently okonomyaki is a Japanese cabbage pancake. It really never sounded that good to me. But I recently found myself with a bunch of Chinese cabbage so I decided to try making it. Instead of my sister’s recipe, which has high fodmap leeks, I found a New York Times recipe. It was super easy to make, but I didn’t like it. When I made it the way instructed, half the recipe cooked on medium-low for 8 minutes on each side, it came out mushy and uncooked. I added another egg to the second half and cooked a quarter of the recipe at a time. With the extra egg and the thinner pancake, I was able to get it to cook through. But it was way oversalted and basically about as tasty as I thought a cabbage pancake would be. I think I’ll go back to not making okonomiyaki. This one isn’t for me.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020099-green-okonomiyaki

Rice Cake Soup with Bok Choy and Edamame

I’ve recently started getting the courage to experiment a bit with eating low fodmap beans, after avoiding them for the past 6 months. According to Monash University, people eating low fodmap can actually handle a small serving of edamame. This recipe for rice cake soup with bok choy and edamame was my first foray into eating edamame again. The recipe calls for asian rice cakes, which are squishy and can be found in the refrigerator aisle of Asian grocery stores. Very different than the crunchy American rice cake. I’d never heard of these before, but found them easily enough at my Asian market.

The recipe says that the boiled cakes will make the broth creamy. My broth was a little creamy, but not as much as shown in the picture on the New York times site. I cooked the leek whites in the oil and tossed them out, then used the greens in the soup.

One thing I learned is that these cakes don’t really work if you cook like I do, cook once and eat leftovers all week. The cakes absorbed most of the broth and the next day I no longer had soup. I wasn’t crazy about the flavors in this recipe. Still, this recipe might be a lot better if you use leek whites instead of leek greens, so I’ll reserve judgement. I did like the texture of the cakes. I enjoy gummy foods. If you don’t, these aren’t for you. I’m going to tr yto find another recipe to use the rest of the cakes left in my fridge.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020854-rice-cake-soup-with-bok-choy-and-edamame?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=recently-viewed&rank=6

Soy-Braised Tofu with Bok Choy

I had a bunch of bok choy left over from another recipe and was looking for something fast to make for dinner. I found this recipe for soy-braised tofu with bok choy. The recipe says it takes 20 minutes to make. On a hungry weeknight, that sounded perfect to me! I adapted the recipe to make it low fodmap by cooking the garlic and scallion whites first separately in oil and then tossing them out. Because I added this step, the recipe took my closer to 30 minutes, but was still relatively fast and easy. Also, since spicy foods make me sick, I used only 1/4 tsp of doubanjiang (reluctantly since I love doubanjiang). Since doubanjiang is very spicy, the dish still had a bit of a kick to it. If you don’t like spicy foods, but want a little sizzle, definitely cut the doubanjiang in half.

This was very tasty and as easy as billed. The tofu was so good! My main objection was that there wasn’t enough veggies. I’d double the bok choy next time. I might also add some baby corn, since that makes everything better.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023301-soy-braised-tofu-with-bok-choy?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=all&rank=21

Rice Noodles with Egg Drop Gravy

A few weeks ago I was prescribed an antibiotic. I react really badly to antibiotics; I usually get nauseous and lose my appetite while I’m on them. While I was taking the medicine, I could only get myself to eat pasta and oatmeal. The week after, I started to regain my appetite, but was still only eating light soups etc. I found this recipe on New York Times when I was looking for something soothing to help me transition back to regular food. It was pretty easy. I think it would make a great weeknight recipe.

I added about 1.5 cups of broccoli along with the other veggies in the recipe, which seemed like the exact right amount. Because the noodles and gravy are made separately, you can keep them separate in the fridge and eat this as leftovers without the noodles going mushy. I used the wrong type of noodles though. The recipe calls for thick rice noodles. I used medium rice sticks. (the kind used for pad thai) They formed a mass when fried and were hard to pull apart immediately after cooking. As leftovers they were impossible to pull apart and I just had to chop them up. Next time I’d use a much wider noodle like shahe fen, chow fun, hor fun, or sen yai. You have to do a lot of stirring and scraping while frying the noodles to prevent them from sticking to the pan, but the flavor is great. I really liked the flavor of this dish. I thought it was just a tad too sweet. Next time I’d use 3/4 tsp sugar instead of 1 tsp. Make sure to be very careful to pour the egg very slowly. It’s easy to mess that part up. As you can see in the photo, I didn’t pour slowly enough and ended up with clumps of egg instead of strands.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1022985-rice-noodles-with-egg-drop-gravy?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=recently-viewed&rank=6