Posts tagged ‘vegetarian’

Jul 2

Vegetarian Sushi

It would be safe to say that my all-time favorite food is sushi. Well, everyone knows that pregnant women shouldn’t eat sushi because of 1) bacteria from being stored improperly and 2) mercury levels in fish. So you can probably imagine how much I have missed sushi during all three of my pregnancies. I’m almost done with my third one (about 8 weeks to go!) but I decided I just couldn’t wait any longer – I was going to make my own sushi!

Because I’m pregnant, I wanted to stay away from raw fish, so I made vegetarian sushi. I was really surprised at how easy it was to make the sushi. I’m definitely going to be making my own again, and soon!

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To help guide me, I had this 5-star recipe from Recipezaar and this beginner sushi tutorial from And Then I Do The Dishes printed out.

So basically what I have done with my sushi is thinly slice seedless cucumbers and carrots, which was actually the hardest part of making my sushi! To make it easier, see if you can find matchstick carrots in the produce section of your store, or maybe even grated carrots. The cucumbers weren’t so difficult. I also sliced the avocado and extra firm tofu a bit thicker.

Rolling the sushi took a little practice – my first roll didn’t turn out so well, but the second looked better. I think I overstuffed my sushi a bit, because the seaweed started to rip in some places! I don’t have a bamboo sushi mat, but I do have silicone pot holders/hot plates, so I used one of those. It’s about a 6-inch square mat, and it worked really well.

I spread about 1 cup of sushi rice on top of a sheet of nori. You’ll need to have a bowl of water right next to you to dip your fingers into as you spread the rice evenly on top of the nori, otherwise you’ll end up with the rice stuck to you instead of the nori! After spreading the rice, I placed the tofu, cucumbers, carrots and avocado in a line down the center of the rice. Then I started rolling. Like I said, that takes a little bit of practice, but after the first roll I pretty much got the hang of it.

If you are interested in making your own sushi, I highly recommend doing so. It’s really not as difficult as you might think. The post at And Then I Do The Dishes really helped me out with this, so have a read over that, print it out and get to work! :)

Jun 2

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Snow Pea And Tofu Stir Fry

Believe it or not, my husband and I used to be vegetarians. I had a nice cookbook published by Australian Women’s Weekly called Great Vegetarian Food that I used quite often while living in Sydney. Right now that book is in storage in Sydney and we’re no longer vegetarian!

One of the stand-out recipes for me in that book was a stir fry recipe with snow peas and tofu flavored with ginger and chili sauce. One of the other ingredients, I believe, was peanuts but I always left them out. I really loved this particular stir fry and made it a handful of times.

I’ve had a craving for it lately but can’t remember how to make it, though! I remember the main ingredients but I can’t remember the amounts of each. I’ve tried to recreate it as best as I could from memory and this is what I came up with.

It’s good, but not flavorful enough. The tofu really soaked up the flavor, but it was just lacking something. If anyone reading this has the Great Vegetarian Food cookbook, I would be so thankful if you could type up the recipe and email it to me!

For now though, this is the recipe I came up with. Just remember that if you make this, it needs work, so don’t expect perfection unless you want to tinker with ingredients and amounts yourself.

Snow Pea And Tofu Stir Fry
Adapted from Great Vegetarian Food by Australian’s Women Weekly
Serves 3-4

Ingredients
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
450g pound fresh snow peas, trimmed
350g extra firm tofu, cubed
1 tablespoon fresh red chilies, chopped finely
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup sweet chili sauce

Method
Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a medium frying pan over medium-high heat. Add cubed tofu and lightly brown. Remove tofu from pan and set aside.

Heat remaining 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in same frying pan. Cook chilies, ginger and garlic until fragrant. Add snow peas and stir to evenly coat with spices. Cook for about 3 minutes.

Return tofu to pan. Pour sweet chili sauce over the snow peas and tofu in the pan and stir to evently coat. Heat through and serve with rice.

May 11

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Panko-Encrusted Tofu With Fried Rice

I went grocery shopping yesterday and had on my list the ingredients to make vegetarian sushi. I’m not a vegetarian, but since I am pregnant I want to avoid raw fish and also ready-made sushi due to the risk of listeria. So I set out to make my own. However, my store didn’t have nori (I know I’ve seen it there before!)! I kept all the fresh ingredients already in my cart anyway and decided to do something else with them.

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I made up this recipe completely on my own, and while it could probably use a few tweaks, I thought it was quite nice! What I came up with were tofu “fingers” (fingers, meaning that I cut the tofu into long slices) marinated in soy sauce, ginger and garlic, then coated in panko bread crumbs and baked in the oven. The fried rice is long grain white rice (of the instant variety!), garlic, onion, fried egg, carrots, peas, broccoli, cauliflower and green onion.

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I’ll go ahead and post the recipe, but I don’t have exact amounts. This is pretty much close to how I made it, though.

Panko-Encrusted Tofu With Fried Rice
Serves approximately 3

Ingredients

Tofu:
1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
7 ounces extra firm tofu, drained and cut into 6 fingers
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Fried Rice:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1/3 cup frozen peas and carrots (purchased in the same bag)
1/3 cup frozen chopped broccoli and cauliflower (purchased in the same bag)
1 scrambled egg
2 green onions, sliced
dash reduced-sodium soy sauce

Method
For marinade, mix soy sauce, ginger and garlic in a ziploc bag and gently toss in the tofu fingers to coat. Let sit in the bag in refrigerator at least 30 minutes.

Using a clean ziploc bag, pour in panko bread crumbs. Remove tofu fingers from marinade and gently toss them in the bread crumbs to evenly coat.

Place tofu fingers on a baking sheet and bake at 400F for 20 minutes or until crunchy and golden brown.

For fried rice, heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat; add onion. Cook until onion turns transparent. Add garlic and cook one minute longer.

Add cooked rice, scrambled egg, peas and carrots, and broccoli and cauliflower. Heat through – I think I cooked this about 10 minutes.

Pour in a tiny dash of soy sauce and stir to evenly distribute. Add green onions. Serve with tofu fingers.