Roasted Vege Satay

Ingredients (Serve 2):
- 7 oz firm tofu (aka taokua)
- 1 small-medium sized bell pepper
- 1 small zucchini
- 5 oz fresh button mushroom (about 10-15 mushrooms)
- 1 tbs soya sauce
- dash of white pepper
- dash of sesame oil
- 6-8 satay sticks

Preparation of "satay":

1. Drain water from tofu. In order to "squeeze" water out of tofu, wrap tofu in paper towel, place on plate, and put a heavy object on top of the tofu (e.g. bowl) and wait for at least 30mins for extra water to be drained.
2. Cut tofu into cubes of approx. 1" x 1"
3. Cut bell pepper, zucchini and mushroom into similar size as well.
4. Place above ingredients in a big bowl, add soya sauce, pepper and sesame oil to marinate for at least 3omins.
5. Use satay sticks and assemble the ingredients.
6. Preheat oven toaster (or oven) at 400F (205C).
7. Place sticks on wire rack, with a drip plate at the bottom.
8. Roast for 30-40mins, or until you observe browning.

Ingredients for sauce:

- 3/8 cup coconut milk
- 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
- 3/4 tsp curry powder
- 3/4 tsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tbs lemon juice
- 1/2 tbs vegetable oil
- 3/4 tbs soya sauce

Preparation for sauce:

1. Mix above ingredients by hand in a bowl or blender.
2. You're done! ;)
3. Tip: If you are using the oven toaster, you can place the sauce bowl on top of the toaster to make hot, while you're roasting the satay...saves energy!

Basically for the sauce, you can also use ready-made satay sauce..can save a bit of time. And as usual, you can roast any kinds of vege you like.

Tofu Burger

This is one recipe I am quite proud of..;) Of course, i did not "create" it from scratch, but I modified it, and i thot the "final product" was quite tasty!

Ingredients for tofu patty (makes 4-5):
- 7 oz mashed firm tofu (basically it's taokua 豆干)
- 1 shredded medium carrot
- 1 tsp black sesame seeds
- 2 large sheets of nori seaweed (roasted Japanese seaweed) cut into small thin slices
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
- 1.5 tbs soya sauce
- dash of white pepper
- dash of sesame oil

Preparation:

1. Mix all ingredients above in a bowl.
2. Preheat oven (or oven toaster) at 350F (approx. 180C).
3. Lightly grease the baking sheet or Al-foil (which I prefer) with vegetable oil.
4. On the sheet, scope out the mixed ingredients and form 4 patties (using a spoon will do).
5. Bake for 20-25mins, until you observe browning of the patties.
   

Ingredients for burger:

- 4 burger buns (100% whole wheat)

- Mayo (or butter/ magarine)

- Lettuce

- 4 slices tomato

Preparation:

1. Spread Mayo on one side of buns.
2. Place lettuce, a slice of tomato and top it with tofu patty to make a tofu burger.
   
   

Depressing Day...

Sigh, it was a depressing day for me and hubby yesterday.

Hubby's conference paper did not get a good review, and he was rather upset about it. He had put in quite a bit of effort into it, and I could attest to it. But he was rather unlucky, as his reviewers were not really into his field of work, and thus could not really understand the impact of his work fully. And in this HARSH academic life, as what my hubby said, "it is publish or perish loh".

Sometimes I wonder...frankly, what's all the hype about getting your work published?? How many people actually read them? And many professors in universities are all stressed up about being able to publish as many papers as they can, in order to secure their place in the academic world. So, there are many stories in which professors treat their students as "publishing slaves"; students helping profs to do research, and the profs put their names on the papers, which they contribute little! Some profs even intentionally hold students back, and not allowing them to graduate, so that they can "squeeze" more out from them!

Luckily, and hopefully this is not going to happen to us...my hubby has a dynamic supervisor..and i hope all goes well for him!

Hubby, dun be depressed ok!

Why go Vegetarian?

Of course eveyone knows that eating more vegetables is healthier for you...this has been shown again and again by different scientific health studies. However, besides just being healthy, your action of being a vegetarian not only prevents cruelty of animals, but has a much larger impact on the health of the Earth.

Read this article: http://www.vegsoc.org/info/why%20its%20green%20final%20small.pdf
to understand and act now!

For your well-being, for others, for mother Earth, and for your future children.

Tortilla Wrap

Again, for lazy people like me...Easy to make, and you can make it 1-nite before, and put in the fridge. I do that typically for my hubby to bring it to school the next day for lunch, without having me to wake up early to prepare lunch for him! ;)

Ingredients (Servings 3 wraps)
- 3 x tortillas (if you're staying in Pittsburgh, you can buy them from Giant Eagle)
- 1/2 cup shredded cheese
- 8 oz ready-to-serve black beans (canned)
- shredded lettuce (optional)
- small cubes avocado (optional)
- dash of salt
- dash of black pepper




Preparation:

1. On the tortilla, spread shredded cheese, followed by shredded lettuce.
2. Top it with about 2oz black beans, add salt and pepper.
3. Wrap it up (like a spring roll; except leave one end open).
4. Place in Al-foil (prevent charring) and make hot in toaster; or place in microwave (without Al-foil of course!)
5. Follow above steps to make another 2 more.

And, just like making sandwiches, you can be as creative as you like in terms of the ingredients. I am not a big fan of black beans, but i think black beans goes well in this...so, give it a try!

Hawaiian & Mushroom Pizza

This is for lazy people like me...who basically use ready-made pizza base, and just top ingredients on it..and whola..in 10mins, you get a delicious pizza!

Ingredients (Makes 2 personal pizza):

- 2 x 8" pizza base

- 2 tbs tomato paste

- 2 cup shredded cheese

- handful of pineapple tibits (canned)

- 1 sliced vegetarian ham/ hotdog

- 4-5 sliced fresh button mushroom

- 1/4 cup sliced bell peppers (red, yellow or orange)

Preparation:

1. Apply tomato paste on pizza base, and then spread 1/4 cup shredded cheese.
2. Place pineapple tibits and sliced ham/ hotdog.
3. Spread another 1/4 cup shredded cheese on top.
4. Send into oven toaster and toast for 7-8mins (or follow instructions of the pizza base product).
5. Follow step1, 3 and 4 to make another pizza using mushrooms and bell peppers.

For the pizza base, if you have Indian store nearby, and can buy ready-made nuns, they make excellent base. Below is the one I use, which I bought in the nearby indian store in Pittsburgh. I believe Giant (in Singapore) sells the same brand..but unfortunately it's rather expensive, as it's imported from the US...quite an irony, isn't it?

And as for the toppings, you can be as creative as you like!

Black Sauce Taokua (黑酱油豆干）

I am a taokua lover! I've been eating taokua since I was able to...eat! haha....

In fact, I remember, nearly every meal with my family had taokua, and my favorite is deep-fried. Now a days, too lazy to deep-fry on my own...creates a mess in the kitchen, and I don't know what to do with so much oil left-over?

Anyway, the taokua can be cooked in variety of ways, and i still love to eat. So here is the typical black sauce taokua (again...without the pork, of course!)

Ingredients (Serves 3-4)

- 14 oz (about 400g) fresh taokua

- 9-11 dried shitake mushroom (small-medium size)

- 1 cup raw peanuts (w skin)

- 1/2 tsp five spice powder (五香粉)

- 1 tbp black sauce (黑酱油)

- 1/2 tbp brown sugar

- 6-8 small pieces of taopok (豆卜) - optional

Preparation:

1. Soak peanuts in hot water till water becomes room temperature (this soften the peanuts and can reduce cooking time)
2. Soak dried shitake mushroom for at least 30min. Cut bigger mushrooms into smaller pieces for softer texture.
3. Cut taokua into small pieces of about 1" x 1" x 0.5" (can be square, rectangular or triangluar shapes)
4. Boil 2 rice bowls of water (you can add the water used to soak mushrm for richer flavor).
5. Add peanuts, mushroom, five spice powder, black sauce and brown sugar.
6. Add taokua, and when it boils again, turn to small-medium fire and cook for 1 hour.
7. Add taopok 20mins before fire is turned off (or you can add together with the taokua if you like them very soft)