Meatless meatballs & mung bean sprouts and pickled red ginger salad

Photo by bodhilens

This meatless meatball is made of a mixture of mushrooms and walnuts with seasonings. I think this mixture is one of the most delicious vegetarian alternatives to ground beef. I am always amazed by how meaty it tastes. According to raw foodists on YouTube, you can dehydrate the meatballs in a dehydrator or in an oven at 115°F for several hours (to preserve the nutrients and enzymes in raw food), but I usually pan-fry them with 1 TBSP of oil to save time and electricity. This "moyashi" (mung bean sprouts) and "beni shoga" (pickled red ginger) salad is a tasty and nutritious side dish that is super-easy to make. I found the original recipe at the largest Japanese recipe site called "Cookpad" when looking for ways to eat home-grown mung bean sprouts.You can find pickled red ginger and Japanese mayonnaise at most East Asian grocery stores. I know that mayonnaise is not the healthiest thing, but I cannot resist using a small amount of Japanese mayonnaise occasionally because it does some magic for many dishes.

Meatless meatballs (for 4 servings)

Ingredients:

1 pack of mushrooms (portabella or white)
2 cups of walnuts
1 tsp of soy sauce, 1 tsp of olive oil, and 1 clove of garlic (for marinating mushrooms)
1 tsp of thyme
1 tsp of oregano
1 TBSP of fresh parsley (or 1 tsp of dry parsley)
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp of natural salt
2 small pieces of "taka no tsume" (or any other kinds of red hot chili peppers)
1-2 TBSP of olive oil (for consistency)
1 TBSP of canola oil (or any other kinds of oil of your choice for pan-frying)

Need a food processor and your favorite meatball sauce (e.g., sweet and sour sauce, BBQ sauce, soy sauce with "mirin" [rice wine sweetener], and tomato sauce).

Directions:

1. Soak walnuts in water for 1 hour or longer.

2. Marinate mushrooms in soy sauce, grated garlic, and olive oil for 1 hour or longer.

3. Put #1 and #2 in a food processor. Add all the seasonings and 1 TBSP of olive oil in. Run the food processor until the mixture turns into the right consistency for meatballs. Add another TBSP of olive oil if necessary.

4. Take 1 tsp of the mixture and make a small piece of meatball. (The mixture is softer and looser than regular meatballs, so a large piece tends to crumble. )

5. Pan-fry the meatballs with 1 TBSP of oil of your choice until they are brown.

6. Pour a sauce of your choice over the meatballs.

Mung bean sprouts and pickled red ginger salad (for 4 servings)

Mung bean sprouts (4 TBSP of mung beans sprouted to almost fill a quart jar. See the directions here.)
1 TBSP of "beni shoga" (pickled red ginger)
1 TBSP of Japanese mayonnaise

Need a large bowl.

Directions:

1. Put the sprouts in boiling water for 30 seconds and drain.

2. In a large bowl, mix the blanched sprouts with pickled red ginger and Japanese mayonnaise.

Cauliflower and potato sabzi and germinated brown rice with azuki beans

Photo by bodhilens

I used to know only one way to eat cauliflower: baked cauliflower with cheesy white sauce. I did not like it very much, so I rarely ate cauliflower. However, since I learned about the high nutritional value of cauliflower, I have been trying out different recipes. This cauliflower and potato stir-fly is called "aloo gobhi sabzi" by Indian people. It is simple but flavorful with spices. 

When brown rice is germinated (called "hatsuga genmai" in Japanese), it is tastier (because starch and protein are converted into sugar and "umami"), easier for our bodies to digest (because the hard cell gets broken, and phytic acid is reduced), and more nutritious (because some nutrients, including GABA, increase in amount or become more readily available to our bodies, and additional nutrients are developed). Azuki beans help to activate even more enzymes in this rice dish called "hatsuga koso genmai (germinated enzyme-enriched brown rice)," one of the nutritionally near-perfect foods about which Japanese people rave.

Cauliflower and potato sabzi

Ingredient (for 6 servings):

1 head of cauliflower

2 medium-size or 3 small-size potatoes

1 small-size onion

1 TBSP of coconut oil (ghee, butter, or olive oil)*

2 TBSP of fresh ginger

2 cloves of garlic

1 tsp of tarmelic

1 tsp of cumin

1 tsp of natural salt

1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper

Directions: 

1. Grate ginger and garlic and chop onion finely.

2. Heat oil in a frying pan and stir-fry #1 until onion looks transparent. 

3. Wash and cut potatoes and cauliflower into small cubes/florets. 

4. Add potato cubes in the pan and stir-fry and steam-cook them with a lid until they are almost fully cooked.

5. Add cauliflower florets in the pan and stir-fry and steam-cook them with a lid until they are almost fully cooked. (By this time, potatoes should be golden brown and soft.)

6. Add all seasonings in the pan, mix everything well, and continue to cook until cauliflower is done. 

*Ghee is tasty and is often used for Indian dishes, but coconut oil (organic, extra virgin, and cold-pressed) is the healthiest when being cooked in high heat. Olive oil (organic, extra virgin, and cold-pressed) loses its health benefits when being cooked in high heat, so it is better saved for salad dressing, drizzling over pasta, or dipping bread in. Here is a great fat debate online, if you are interested. 

Germinated brown rice with azuki beans

Ingredients (for 6 servings):

3 cups of brown rice (preferably organic)

1/2 cup of azuki beans (preferably organic)

1/2 tsp of natural salt

Filtered water

Need a strainer, a large bowl, a whisk, and a rice cooker.

Directions (to serve for supper next day):

1. On the previous night, quickly rinse brown rice and azuki beans in running water (If not organic, wash them more thoroughly). 

2. Put the rice and beans in a large bowl, and add filtered water until the rice and beans are submerged in water. 

3. With a whisk, beat the rice and beans slowly for several minutes until the water gets cloudy.

4. Boil a cup of filtered water and add it slowly to the bowl until the water in the bowl gets lukewarm. Soak the rice and beans in lukewarm filtered water for 24 hours (Lukewarm water accelerates their germination processes). 

5. Drain and air-dry the rice and beans for a while. (Just leave them wet in bowl for several hours, which further facilitates their germination processes. You do not see them sprouting, but the germ of brown rice may look more plump and white, and azuki beans should also look more plump and lighter in color.)

6. Put the germinated rice and azuki beans in a rice cooker, pour filtered water up to the water measurement line for 4 cups of rice, and start cooking. 

7. After the cooking time is up, keep the lid on for 15 more minutes for some steaming effect. After 15 minutes, open the lid and stir up the cooked germinated brown rice with azuki beans well, and put the lid back and keep it warm until it is served.*

*Some people suggest that the longer you let this germinated brown rice with azuki beans rest in a keep-warm setting, the more enzymes it develops (because it begins to ferment) and the tastier it gets. I am not sure about the biochemistry of enzymes, but in my experience, it tasted best after being kept warm no longer than an hour or so. 

Tiramisu with cream cheese and custard sweetened by stevia

Tiramisu is probably one of my favorite desserts for a special occasion. Hope this recipe won’t offend Italian people. It’s difficult to find mascarpone cheese at local grocery stores in Kentucky (or anywhere in Japan), and if they sell one, it’s kind of pricey. So I searched alternative recipes online and learned that some people used cream cheese instead. I tweaked this Japanese recipe by replacing fresh egg yokes with custard (well, because I’ve been advised not to eat raw eggs in the United States), and as usual, almost all sugar with pure stevia powder. If I could not find ladyfingers at local grocery stores, I would use Marie biscuits as they were called for in the original recipe. (They are usually sold in Indian grocery stores in the U.S.) Graham crackers might work, too. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients (for one 8 inch x 8 inch x 2 inch Pyrex square baking dish):

Custard (100 ml or about a half cup of milk, 1 TBSP of flour or cornstarch, 2 egg yolks, and 1 tsp of rum or vanilla essence, sweetened by 3 smidgens of stevia)

1 pack of cream cheese (200-250g)

200-250 ml (about a half pint) of heavy cream, sweetened by 3 smidgens of stevia

24 pieces (or more) of ladyfingers

2 TBSP of instant coffee dissolved in 7 TBSP of hot water (or espresso) sweetened by 1 TBSP of sucanat (or sugar) and 3 smidgens of stevia

1 TBSP of unsweetened cocoa powder sweetened by 1 TBSP of sucanat (or sugar) and 1 smidgen of stevia

Directions:

1. Make custard. If you go for a conventional way, put flour in a sauce pan, turn on low heat, slowly pour milk and whisk until flour is completely dissolved in milk, slowly pour beaten egg yolks while whisking the mixture, and continue to whisk the mixture until it thickens. (If you go for a convenient way, dissolve flour in milk and beaten egg yolks in a microwave safe bowl, heat the mixture in a microwave for a minute, take it out and whisk it, heat it again for another minute, and continue the procedure until the mixture thickens.) Add rum or vanilla essence and stevia. Let custard cool.

2. Make coffee. Add sucanat and stevia.

3. Whip cream cheese in a bowl.

4. Whip heavy cream in another bowl. Add stevia.

5. Make cream mixture. Add #1 to #2 and whip a bit. Add #3 to the mixture and whip a bit again.

6. Place a half of lady fingers in a baking dish. Pour a half of #2 sweetened coffee over.

7. Spread a half of #5 cream mixture on the layer of lady fingers soaked in sweetened coffee.

8. Place the rest of lady fingers on the layer of cream mixture. Pour the rest of sweetened coffee over.

9. Spread the rest of cream mixture on top.

10. Cool tiramisu in a fridge for an hour or longer. (In the meantime, you can wash a pile of dishes in your sink.)

11. Mix cocoa powder, sucanat, and stevia. Sprinkle the mixture over tiramisu with a strainer. Let tiramisu rest in the fridge for a while. It tastes even better next day.

Quinoa tabouli (with Japanese red perilla and watermelon rinds)

I sowed seeds of Italian parsley in a terracotta pot this spring, and they are growing so well. I thinned the seedlings at least three times, transplanting some in the ground and giving some away, but the pot soon returned to be full. I decided to harvest a bunch of parsley leaves and make tabouli. Tabouli is usually made of bulgur wheat, but I used quinoa this time. Quinoa is one of those super-nutritious ancient grains, and I often substitute it for couscous, too. I experimented with tossing in some spearmint and "akajiso" (Japanese red perilla) that I also harvested from my garden and watermelon rinds that I was saving in my fridge for additional flavors, textures, and colors. Red perilla is often described as having an anise- or licorice-like flavor. Believe or not, watermelon rinds are actually nutritious and taste like slightly sweet cucumbers. They both were perfect for this dish. Also, this dish goes very well with humus. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients (for 6 or more servings):

1 cup of dry quinoa (makes about 3 cups of cooked quinoa)

2 handfuls of fresh parsley
1 handful of fresh spearmint
2 cloves of garlic (or 1/4 onion)
1 handful of fresh red perilla
1-2 cups of watermelon rinds (or a cucumber)
1 can of tomato (or 2 fresh ripe tomatoes)
2 fresh lemons
2-3 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt (optional)

Directions:

1. Cook quinoa and let it cool. (Boil it in 3 cups or more hot water for 5 minutes, turn off heat, keep a lid on the cooking pot, and steam it for 10-15 minutes until it’s tender. Or cook it in a rice cooker, just like white rice.)

2. Chop all herbs and vegetables finely. Grate garlic. (If you use a can of tomato, drain juice and save it for another dish.* I often use a can of tomato with Italian seasonings for additional flavors.)

3. Zest and juice lemons. (Use 1 TBSP of zest for this dish and save the rest for another dish.*)

4. Mix 1, 2, and 3 with extra virgin olive oil. Add sea salt if you like.

5. Let the mixture rest in a fridge for half an hour or longer.

 *Tomato (canned or fresh) and lemon zest are freezable.

Italian parsley (Photo by gardenfairy)

Young "akajiso" (Japanese red perilla) (Photo by bodhilens)

Humus with the x factor

I have tried a few different recipes for humus, but this Japanese recipe turned out to be the best. The x factor is almond poudre (i.e., powder). (Japanese adopted the French word instead of the English word.) No, you don’t have to go get expensive almond poudre. I usually buy whole almonds on sale, stock them in my pantry, and grind them into powder when I need almond poudre. I tweaked the recipe a bit to make the humus creamier. I also used sea salt instead of table salt. All the trace minerals in more wholesome forms of salt do enhance the flavor of any dish, which helps me to use less salt. When I use this humus as a sandwich spread, I don’t need mayo or cheese. That’s important for me because I tend to use a little too much Japanese mayo not only for dressing but also in cooking. (It’s addictive.) You can replace chickpeas with black beans, and a pinch of black pepper with 1 tsp of cumin, 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper, and 1/4  tsp of paprika. The black bean version is tasty, too.

I’ll share recipes for the other items on the plate (quinoa tabouli, curry flavored falafel, and naan bread) sometime. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients:

400g (apx. a regular American size can) of cooked chickpeas

2 TBSP of lemon juice
2 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil
2 TBSP of tahini (roasted sesame paste)
2 TBSP of almond poudre
1 clove of garlic (grated)
1/2 tsp of sea salt
1 pinch of black pepper
4 TBSP (or more) of bean stock*, soy milk, or cow milk

*Remember to keep the stock when you drain cooked beans.

Directions:

1. Put all ingredients in a food processor and run it until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

2. Adjust the consistency and saltiness by adding more liquid and/or salt as you like.

Citrus flavored olive oil biscotti

I had never thought of myself becoming a baker while growing up in Japan. We only had a toaster oven in our kitchen and kept a small container of margarine in our fridge. Several pieces of cookies were all I could bake at home, and my mother would be upset if I used up all margarine for cookies. So you can imagine how excited I was when I seized my first opportunity to bake cake in an American-standard size (= gigantic) oven in my apartment in Kentucky. I had fun trying out a few boxes of cake mix with different flavors, but soon I realized that they were too sweet and heavy for me. Now whenever I find intriguing recipes for sweets, I almost always tweak them. I first see if I can reduce the amount of sugar and butter. Then, I experiment with replacing white wheat flour with whole wheat flour, white refined sugar with sucanat, raw unfiltered honey, and/or pure stevia powder, and butter with extra virgin olive oil.

Here's an example of my tweaking and experimentation. This recipe is based on “Gigi’s olive oil biscotti” that I found in the DHC magazine. (DHC is a Japanese company that is famous for olive oil-based skincare products, and they recently sell fancy olive oil, too.) Although the biscotti were delicious as they were (see the original recipe here) and already healthier than buttery biscotti, I wanted to make them even healthier. You can use any citrus peals/juice/extracts (e.g., lemon, orange, yuzu) for flavor or citrus conserves/spreads to take care of both sweetness and flavor. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients (for about 40 small pieces):

2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 pinch of sea salt
Any combination of sweeteners that is as sweet as 10 TBSP of sugar*
1 TBSP of citrus peels and 1 tsp of juice/extract*
2 eggs
3 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil
40 roasted whole almonds (or any other large nuts)

*I have tried the following combinations of sweeteners and flavors: (a) 4 TBSP of yuzu marmalade, 1 TBSP of orange spread, and 5 pinches of stevia; and (b) 1 TBSP of lemon zest, 1 tsp of lemon juice, 5 TBSP of sucanat, and 5 pinches of stevia. Both delicious.

Directions:

1. Mix all wet ingredients (i.e., citrus peels and juice, and olive oil) and sweeteners in one bowl .
2. Add eggs in the bowl and beat the wet mixture.
3. Mix all dry ingredients in another bowl (i.e., whole wheat flour, baking powder, and salt).
4. Gradually add the dry mixture into the wet mixture to make dough. (You don't have to knead the dough, just mix all ingredients well.)
5. You can either knead nuts into the dough or half-bury them on top of the dough after Step 6**
6. Divide the dough into 4 parts and form them into 5 cm x 20 cm (apx. 2 inch x 8 inch) flat squares on a parchment paper.
7. Bake at 360 degrees F (apx. 180 degrees C) for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.
8. Remove the baked squares from oven, let them cool a bit, and slice each square diagonally into 10 pieces.
9. Return the sliced pieces to oven and bake them for about 10 minutes or until they are crispy.

**In the former, nuts are likely to stay inside but may be placed very unevenly across biscotti; in the latter, they can be placed very evenly but may fall off from the top of biscotti. Your choice J

Virginia's favorite tofu and vegetable chili beans (garnished with low fat yogurt and Mexican-style shredded cheese, served with soft corn tortilla and blueberry tea)

Virginia is my beloved mother-in-law and an artist who inspired me to create this blog. She liked this dish so much that it earned the honor of being named after her. I share with you a trick to make tofu ground-beefy and a few ingredients that you may not find in other recipes for chili beans. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients (for 7-8 servings):

For Step 1:
4 cups (or 2 cans) of cooked red kidney beans or chili beans (aka pink beans)

For Step 2:
1 pack of firm tofu

For Step 3:
1 tsp of olive oil
1 medium size onion (chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (grated)
1 stalk of celery (chopped)
1/2 large green pepper* (chopped)
1/2 large sweet red pepper* (chopped)
2 broccoli stems* (chopped)

*You can use any cut vegetables (e.g., 1/2 green pepper and 1/2 sweet red pepper) or vegetable scraps (e.g., broccoli stems) left in your fridge.

For Step 4:
3 TBSP of chili powder
1 TBSP of paprika powder
1 TBSP of oregano
1 tsp of chipotle powder
1 tsp of cumin powder
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of nutmeg
2 bay leaves
2 bouillon cubes (or add anything that contains "umami")

For Step 5:
1 can of diced tomato (I sometimes use a can of tomato in juice with Italian seasonings, like basil, to further enrich the flavor.)
1/2 cup of red cooking wine
2 TBSP of Worcestershire sauce** (include 1 TBSP of Japanese "tonkatsu" sauce** if you have it)
1 TBSP of ketchup

**Japanese brands of Worcestershire sauce may be sweeter than American brands, and tonkatsu sauce is definately sweeter than Worcestershire sauce. So if you don't use either, you may want to add more ketchup to adjust the sweetness of this dish.

For Step 6:
1-2 cups of water
1 pinch or two of salt and pepper

Directions:

Step 1. Soak beans in water overnight, cook them for several hours in a crock pot at a high temparature setting until they are tender, and drain. (Or open cans of beans and drain.)

Step 2. Here's the trick to make tofu ground-beefy. You need firm tofu for this. Crush tofu, squeeze excess water out of it, put it in a freezer bag, and freeze it overnight. Then, thaw it, squeeze excess water out of it again, and pan-fry it without oil to dehydrate it further. This treatment gives tofu a ground-beefy texture that is ready to absorb all the flavors from the other ingredients.

Step 3. Sautee garlic and onion with olive oil in a cooking pot. Add vegetables, dehydrated tofu, and 1/2 of cooked beans in the pot.

Step 4. Add the listed dry herbs and consomme cubes in the pot.

Step 5: Pour the listed wet ingredients in the pot.

Step 6: Add water to adjust the thickness of the mixture as you like. Cook it at low heat for an hour or so (or in a crock pot at a high temparature setting for several hours) . Add the rest of cooked beans 30 minutes before you serve. Add salt and pepper if you like.

I garnished this dish with low fat yogurt (instead of sour cream) and Mexican-style shredded cheese (including monterey jack, mild cheddar, queso quesadilla, and asadero) that I found in my fridge.

I also made soft corn tortilla to serve with this dish. I'll share the recipe for the tortilla sometime.

Many herbal/floral teas (e.g., red zinger [hibiscus + rosehip], any mints, and jasmine) can be cold-brewed, and they are as tasty as hot-brewed. I put 4 bags of blueberry tea in a 1+1/2 quart pitcher filled with filtered water and left it in my fridge overnight to serve with this dish.

Tofu, tomato, and broccoli salad with sweet and sour garlic soy sauce dressing (garnished with sweet corn kernels and nasturtium leaves and flowers)

This is one of my favorite salads as a main dish. Tofu can be substituted by avocado or cooked meat (e.g., thinly sliced beef or shredded chicken breast). Today I pan-fried firm tofu dusted with "katakuriko"/potato starch, but it was not as good as fresh soft tofu. Meaty and sweet kinds of tomatoes, like cherokee purple, work best for this salad. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients (for 3-4 servings):

1 pack of tofu (14 oz)
2 crowns of broccoli
2 large ripe tomatoes

For dressing:

2 TBSP of soy sauce
2 TBSP of sesame oil
1 TBSP of rice vinegar
2 cloves of garlic (grated)
1/2 smidgen (i.e., a tip of a flat toothpick amount) of stevia powder* (or any other sweetener)

For garnishing (optional):
1 cup of cooked sweet corn kernels
A few fresh nasturtium leaves and flowers

Directions:

1. Mix the ingredients for dressing and let it sit for a while (so that garlic blends in and gets milder).
2. Chop broccoli into chunks and cook them as you like (e.g., microwaving, boiling, or steaming for a few minutes).
(3. Cook sweet corn kernels as you like [e.g., microwaving or sauteing with a bit of butter].)
4. Cut tofu into small square pieces.
5. Slice tomatoes.
6. Place 2, 4, & 5 on a plate and drizzle the dressing over.
(7. Garnish with 3 and a few fresh nasturtium leaves and flowers if you like.)

*I have tried a few different brands of stevia powder and found Simply Stevia by Stevia Co., Inc. the sweetest and the most economical. I often replace 1 TBSP of sugar called for in any recipe with 1 smidgen of this stevia powder.