Homemade udon
Last week found me daytripping to Toronto, with the promise of a potluck at a friend’s house to round out the day. I wanted to make something fun and different, and that’s when I remembered Cookbook Catchall’s post last month about udon.
I looooove udon. Noodles in general, but udon in specific. They’re chewy and tasty and full of yum. And also, it turns out, just about the most fun thing ever to make. Why? Because you get to dance on your food!
Seriously! I used this version of the recipe, because after mixing and kneading your dough you wrap it up well in plastic and a towel, drop it on the floor, and start dancing on it. You use your entire body weight to knead it. It sounded a little complicated at first, but proved to be a super-easy recipe. I made them the day before the potluck, boiled them, then tossed them with a little sesame oil to keep them from sticking. The next day I used them in a random stirfry of beet greens, ‘frenched’ yellow and green beans, green onions, and sesame seeds, all tossed with a sauce made up of garlic, ginger, tamari, sesame oil, and vegan oyster sauce. Everybody loved it. I’ll be making these again…a lot.
Homemade udon
Recipe notes: Half the recipe fed five people handily as a side dish. The only alteration I made was in the amount of water, because my dough needed twice the amount of recommended water to shape up.
Happy trails
Wow, it’s been a quiet few weeks. It’s my own fault really — I managed to bruise the tendons in my wrist while canoe camping, and it’s only just getting solid enough to type with. Trust me — bruised tendons are a pain in more than just the hand.
Hopefully it’ll recover quickly, because with any luck August will be all about camping. I have tentative plans for no less than three trips of varying lengths, including a solo trip in just a couple weeks time. In anticipation I’ve started looking at lightweight vegan camp foods — the kind of thing you can carry for a week without throwing out your back, and still find tasty and filling after a long day.
There are lots of backpacker meals on the market, but not all that many good vegan ones. They also tend to be pricey. Last year I invested in a Harmony House Backpacker Kit, which is basically a collection of dried beans and vegetables. These proved useful for an extended multi-person trip — we could pretend we had a fridge full of veggies at our disposal, reduced to a dozen or so little packages of the dried stuff. For solo tripping, though, where I’m carrying everything myself, I decided this wasn’t the way to go. Premade meals are more efficient — I only want to carry what I need.
So back to those prepackaged meals. A couple years ago I tried some Mary Janes Farm meals for bike camping trips. They were decent, with the exception of their instant salsa, which was exceptional. (Sadly they seem to no longer seem to sell this.) The serving sizes are not huge, but you can buy individual servings (which is great for solo trippers). The pasta dishes they offer are veg but not vegan, but the couscous dishes are a major score — all are vegan except the Northwest Garden Couscous. Similarly we can satisfy ourselves with all their ‘ethnic ‘dishes (those seem everyday to me!) except the polenta, which puts falafel and hummus and suchlike on the menu. That’s by no means all, there are soups and rice dishes and more too. Compared to other instant meal manufacturers, MJF offers quite a lot of vegan options.
This week I discovered that Harvest Foodworks also offers quite a few vegan entrees — over a half dozen, with additional variations on things like their veggie burgers. (Though why on earth do they list beef burgers on their vegetarian entree page?!) Whether you can find them in a local store is another question. Mine only had one, the Cajun Beans & Rice. A taste test surprised me. I’m used to bland meals, but these were quite tasty (if a bit salty). It was good straight out of the pan, and downright satisfying after stirring in a small packet of hot sauce scavenged from a local fast food restaurant. My only complaint is that the smallest packages contain enough for two very hearty servings, which means solo trippers will need to carefully measure and split the contents to create individual servings. Also, even after allowing the full recommended cooking and sitting time, the rice and beans were more stew-like than I’d expected. They made a yummy stew, but didn’t soak up all the extra moisture for a good hour or more (the leftovers were perfect in the morning). All told I’d certainly give them another try, especially their more unique offerings like insta-bannock, as well as powdered shortening and apple sauce. (Nifty!)
Not all the options out there are good though. Scavenging for options last fall, I found Hothuck’s Bombay Curry. Admittedly it’s meant to be ‘enhanced’ by adding some veggies or rice, but it was still a huge disappointment — tasteless, with an unpleasant texture. I actually threw mine out.
So what am I planning to pack for upcoming trips? Probably none of the above, because last night I found an even better resource — Bulk Barn. This is a Canadian chain, concentrated mostly in Ontario and along the east coast. I’m sure there are equivalents elsewhere though. Basically it’s a bulk food store, with bins and bins of baking supplies and dried fruit and nuts and beans and the like. I gave myself five minutes there last night, and walked out with pea soup, thai soup, chili, tabbouleh, and mixed grain mix. All vegan, all of the just-add-water variety. For around $10 I emerged with around 10 individual servings — definitely the cheapest option. They may not be as well-rounded nutritionally as dedicated backpacker meals, but I suspect they’ll do very well indeed after adding some dried veggies and seasonings, and maybe instant rice or quinoa. Certainly the pea soup was tasty and filling. I just combined 1/2 cup of the mix with 3T quinoa flakes, 1/2T dried chives, 1T fake bacon bits, and 1/4 tsp smoked paprika.
Camp mix: Instant pea soup
Also on the list of things to try and come up with in the next couple weeks: Instant salsa, instant congee, good granola bars, and tasty ‘energy balls’ (a yummy raw treat). Life won’t be dull. 
Wandering Stratford
I have a fridge full of veggies, and no time to cook*. The weekend saw me skivving off to Stratford (the Canadian spin-off, not the UK original) with one of m’darlings for a couple days of pre-birthday fun. It was nicely uncrowded and even fairly un-touristy at this time of year, particularly considering that it was Mother’s Day weekend. We stayed at the lovely Glenwood B&B, saw The Music Man at the Stratford Festival, and had a wonderful time browsing some of the interesting shops around town. If you ever make it there, check out Quark Soup and the amazing toy store, Family & Company! They’re well worth a romp or two, and it doesn’t matter how old you are.
The chocolate shops proved a tasty diversion too. The first (Rheo Thompson) was not terribly vegan-friendly, but the second (Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory) offered one of those happy vegan experiences that make time away special. We showed up, made our usual “do you have anything without eggs or dairy” request, and promptly got a personal, friendly tour of the half dozen options available to us. The Power Hounds (dark chocolate coconut clusters) were soooooo good. I’m not sure it’s a good thing that I just discovered they have a shop in nearby Kitchener, and another in downtown Toronto, and yet another in the very airport I’ll be passing through on Wednesday…
But really, the culinary highlight of Stratford? VegOut. It’s a little vegan cafe just off the main strip. Great location, even better food. If we’d been Good And Responsible Food CriticsTM, we’d have ordered a few different dishes to share, so that we could report back on the full range of offerings. We didn’t. In place of long excuses, I’ll give you three words:
Fish. And. Chips.
Okay, let’s make that four: Vegan. Fish. And. Chips.
Yes, you read that right. They offered battered fake fish, complete with vegan tartar sauce. It mimicked real fish and chips well enough to suit my rusty memory. In fact I liked these far better than I ever liked the real thing — most F&C always seemed to be made with either low-quality fish, or come over-battered or over-greasy. These were crispy, well-filled, fried but not greasy, and very tasty. The fries were equally good. We both ordered the same thing without even hesitating. Then we went back later for dessert. The apple-raspberry pie was wonderful — nice tart apples, a good crust, and I even got to enjoy that crust since it was heated in an oven rather than a microwave, and thus wasn’t soggy and gross. The soy hot chocolate was the most chocolatey I’ve had outside my own kitchen. M’darling found his chocolate-peanut butter ‘cheesecake’ less rich than the versions we’ve had at Vegetarian Haven in Toronto, but enjoyed the couple bites he managed to steal of my pie.
I took no camera and thus took no photos. Just take my word for it — the food was fabulous and you too should go there if you ever have the chance. We found the place through HappyCow. Travelling? Need to find a vegan or vegetarian restaurant? You should check out HappyCow, and add reviews of any new places you find too!
So those were the highlights of the weekend. Tomorrow I’m off to Toronto, and Wednesday I’m off to Boston. At this point I’m not even sure when I’m back, but certainly by this time next week. Cookery, photos, and assorted blathering to resume then, or sometime near then. =)
* Which is killing me, because our eagerly-awaited grill just arrived. Literally. It’s still in a big box in front of me, and all I want to do now is grill and eat everything in the house. *g*
Feeling blue
Saturday morning saw me awake at around 5am, and up by 5:30. Ug. Have I mentioned that I’m so not a morning person? But there are advantages to seeing the sun come up — like realizing there’s time to make fresh muffins for everyone, to start a crazy-busy day. And lo, there were fresh, warm blueberry muffins for breakfast, and they disappeared so fast I didn’t get a single picture. But that’s okay, that just gave me an excuse to make more today.
Today’s version was, if anything, even better than Saturday’s. These muffins are surprisingly light and fluffy — so much so that my gf thought I’d adapted a cupcake recipe!
I love the fruitiness of these, particularly with today’s cranberry-blueberry mix. They’re not nearly as full of fat as everyone thinks either. For Saturday’s version I used Earth Balance, and they had a definite buttery taste. For today’s version I switched to oil, which gives a more neutral flavour that lets the fruit really come through. Mmmmm, fruit. Can’t wait for berry season!
Toronto eats
Home again after an eventful weekend. (Though not as eventful as planned, thanks to a decidedly unplanned migraine 
.) I love Toronto, and miss living there. There’s always so much going on. And the food — yum! Anyway, since I haven’t cooked for myself in a few days I thought I’d post a few reviews of some old and new favourite haunts in TO. Places like…
A day in the life of a guinea pig
Yesterday and today I took part in a study run by the local university, evaluating Eatracker.ca. It was pretty interesting. Yesterday I had to create a special account on the site, and use it to track everything I consumed throughout the day (including food, vitamins and supplements, drinks, etc.). This morning I met with a dietitian, and she collected much the same information via conversation. Naturally the two approaches had a lot of overlap, but they differed in the details they collected. For example I missed some things in the interview, because it was morning and my memory doesn’t kick in before the afternoon. On the other hand I’m sure that the dietitian managed a better overall assessment, because Eatracker’s database didn’t include a lot of the foods I eat (things like bulgur, kiwi, dried cranberries, etc.), which meant my online food list wasn’t 100% complete.
She also took general feedback on the system — which I can summarize as “easy enough to use and nice assessments, but the food database is sadly lacking.” My site of choice remains NutritionData.com, though admittedly the focus is different — more concerned with nutrition information, less with daily tracking. I use it mostly for analyzing recipes and individual foods; it has the best food database I’ve found, and offers tremendous detail. Eatracker may be better for tracking nutritional info over time though. I used it intermittently even before this study, and so learned that I’m consistently coming up a bit short on potassium, but have absolutely no worries re: the usual vegan ‘deficits’ — protein, iron, B12, or calcium.
Anyway, that was the study and the site. While I was participating I jotted down some notes for my own amusement. The highlight?…
“4:17pm…*bite head off of chocolate Easter bunny*…Uh oh…*eyes laptop*…How many grams of chocolate in a Botticelli bunny head? Nope, forget it, I’m not logging this. Never happened. Move along now.”
Sprouts
My sprouts are sprouting, hurray!
The mung beans have actually been very sprouty for a while — I’ve been nibbling them already, and threw a good half cup into last night’s vegan Kung Pao Chik’n. The broccoli sprouts were proving more reticent, but today they seemed to hit critical mass and I can really see them bursting out of their seeds. Very cool.
On the sprouters themselves, I can see why stacked multi-tiered sprouters are popular. They let you sprout different kinds of seeds simultaneously, and/or stagger your sprouting to get a more regular ‘crop.’ With my two sprouters I can’t start any new seeds until the current ones are ready. Or until I get more mason jars.
The one specially-made sprouter I’m using is a “Tony Hornick’s sprouter.” It’s basically a metal sieve that sits on top of a plastic dish, with a plastic dome to go overtop. You put your seeds into the sieve, and put water in the dish below. Rinse the seeds/sprouts twice daily, and in a few days you get sprouts. This works well for big seeds like my mungs, but the sieve would never work for the broccoli — the seeds are too small and would fall through. Also, a couple spots on the sieve are already starting to rust from the constant moisture! So while I was originally impressed by its ease of use, I don’t think it’ll be an ideal solution in the long run.
Hawt!
Okay, first off? Raw parsnips really do taste like particularly awesome little carrots. I don’t know why I never tried eating them raw before. It seems likely that the big ones are less sweet and tasty than the little carrot-sized ones I had lying around, but still — why did nobody tell me I could eat them this way?Anyway, tonight I made my own horseradish, and then used that to make Roasted Parsnips with Horseradish (as lusted after earlier this week, and easily veganized). I’d never had horseradish before, and was surprised by the tasty heat of it. I have Sooper Sekret plans for the remainder, involving lots of garlic and a fresh baguette. Stay tuned.
Speaking of garlic, Lee Valley’s nifty-looking ‘garlic twist‘ isn’t as easy to use as a garlic press. I was kind of disappointed. Their kitchen calculator, however, makes me very happy indeed.
I digress — back to those parsnips. They were fantastically easy to make (even allowing for the unexpected DIY horseradish necessity), and even my housemate R liked them. They were kind of spicy and sweet and savoury at the same time, but the flavours were very well balanced. They’re hard to describe — go make’em for yourself and see. The only change I’d make is to use a little less Earth Balance next time. And I’d make more, because there are none left.
Along with these I made the baked potato chips I mentioned in my last post. Thank goodness for my cheapo plastic mandoline — slicing the potatoes was surprisingly easy. My only problem was that they cooked unevenly, so that I wound up with many overdone and a few underdone. They were tasty, though not that much better than good store bought chips. If I make these again, I’ll use small yams instead of regular potatoes, and maybe some other tubers. Also I think they’d be fabulous tossed with wasabi salt. See? Each kitchen experiment spawns a half dozen others!
Last on the dinner plate were a couple slices of faux tuna, sauteed in sesame oil. I’m a sucker for new ‘fakes’ — I love taste-testing them, seeing how well they hold up in a range of dishes. This particular faux tuna (by Kuan Yin Hsiang Vegetarian Diet Co, in Taiwan) didn’t taste much like fish, but there was a slight sweetness that did kinda, sorta remind me of tuna. Overall the flavour was very nice, and completely without the strong gluten aftertaste that puts me off of many fake meats. So yes, while it didn’t make me scream “tuna!”, it was much better than many others I’ve tried. I devoured most of it in yummy wraps over the past two days (‘tuna’, tabbouleh, red pepper, shallots, and baby spinach). It held up well in ’steak’ form too. I’ll definitely be picking up more the next time I’m in Toronto. (It’s available from the little store in King’s Cafe restaurant, in Kensington Market.)
