Quick Cooking With Mushrooms and Pasta

#11. This kitty needs to keep cooking. QUICK!

Okay, okay, I haven't starved myself since I last cleaned the floor. I just haven't documented my cooking in this blog. Plus the fact that it was our summer show and I have been quite busy with things. Finally, I told myself, I need to keep this blog moving and document some cooking.

And speaking of busy schedules, I thought of doing another quick recipe. I'm trying to avoid fast food as much as possible. Since our work's crew meals often are fast food (chicken and rice or burger meals, non-vego obviously), I have resulted to just bringing my own food so the coordinator or crew wouldn't worry where to hunt my meal. For busy seasons, cooking my own prepacked lunch or meal can be a chore especially when I get home late and tired. So, the solution is trying to look for quick and light meals that are 1. easy to do 2. do not require so much ingredients 3. easy cleanup so I don't end up running late.

I always have a stock of pasta because it's easy to cook and I can just like make an easy shala meal worthy of Instagram posts in a flash, no culinary degree required. It's also quick to make and easy to share. Here's a heartier take to pasta aglio olio (quite simple, but still one of my favorite pasta variations). I added fresh mushrooms to this dish for one.  It's easy, quick, and warning, can be a bit spicy. The best part is that this is no production number to do.

 That's all the chopping and slicing you need. Yay!

Garlic Mushroom Pasta

• half a cup of dried twisty pasta (or ribbon, just enough for one)
• 5 cloves pounded garlic because I like things garlicky
• 2 fresh button mushrooms sliced
• Extra virgin olive oil
• to taste: salt, chili flakes (the ones from the pizza containers), Italian seasoning.

Note on fresh mushrooms: Never wash them like veggies. They tend to soak up water. Just wipe them with a damp paper towel.

1. Cook and drain pasta according to manufacturer's instructions. 
2. Heat a small pan in low heat. Add and heat olive oil.
3. When oil is hot (but not super hot it will burn the garlic), add in the garlic and cook until soft. Add some salt and a teensy bit of chili to bring all the flavors out. 
4. Add mushrooms and continue stirring and cooking until mushrooms are cooked.
5. Season as desired.
6. Toss in pasta. Adjust flavors if you want. 
7. For cheesiness, toss in some nutritional yeast (Nutritional yeast may be purchased at Healthy Options. Its packaging and contents are similar to grated Parmesan cheese) 
8. Serve. For more color and flavor, you may tear up some fresh basil leaves and toss them in as well. 

This is also great for dorm-style cooking since it doesn't need like a lot of equipment to use. When you got more time and ingredients, you can toss in sun dried tomatoes, olives, capers, and bell peppers. But this one's for those who need more time in their hands. 

Hazelnut Banana Smoothie

#6: Quick Recipe for A Banana Smoothie

As promised, I'm sharing my recipe for the hazelnut banana smoothie I made earlier for lunch. It's pretty good, it's yummy, and creamy! It can be vegan too, if you skip the honey or use coconut sugar instead.

HAZELNUT BANANA SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe bananas, sliced (slice them, and your blender will not be put to stress)
• 1/2 cup cold hazelnut milk, chocolate flavor  (I used Pacific brand, purchased at Healthy Options. You can use plain if you wish, or almond. I've taken a photo of my nut milks below, so you know how they look like the next time you go shopping

• honey or coco sugar, if you're strict vegan
• dash of cinnamon
• dash of cayenne pepper (optional)

Procedure:
Blend everything in a blender and serve. Serves 1-2.

The measurements really vary, I didn't use measuring cups here and just dunked the blended and pressed puree then whip. The cinnamon is an added flavor, I just want a bit of warmth and spice to it. The cayenne pepper I got from an idea from another smoothie recipe I got. It gives a nice kick to the smoothie so there's a bit of spice. I've heard it's also got health benefits aside from that zing to things and life. Anyway, the spice in cayenne pepper kinda sneaks up to you, so use this sparingly, especially if you're making the smoothie. It's optional anyway, so those who are traditional and want the sweet, mellow taste of the smoothie without the kick, then go ahead and stop at cinnamon. Ice can be added if you want it really cold, but it kinda dilutes the milk and the flavor so I prefer having my smoothies pure or with just water/fruit juice/vego-milks just served cold.

Tomorrow, I'll be dealing with mangoes. :)

Vegan Sinigang Recipe

#3 Turning one old favorite comfort food that I thought I would say goodbye to into one vegan dish to last me for days

One of the things I thought I would miss once I started going veg is sinigang. This sour soup with meat and vegetables in a tamarind base is one of my favorite comfort foods and since it needed meat to make the broth (or so I thought) I thought I'd be saying goodbye to it forever. Sure, there are fish alternatives like fish (bangus or salmon) or shrimp, but I'm not very good at advanced level seafood in the kitchen, and we're doing this DIY. In DIY cooking though, because I'm a cheapo, I was able to google a lot of blog posts like this, this, and this and found a lot of vegetarian sinigang versions, some even vegan. Some had a lot of ingredients, others had few. Some were strict up to using the tamarind from scratch while others allowed the tamarind soup base. Anyway, what I did was base my DIY recipe from my past knowledge on how to cook it as well the ingredients the recipes I searched for into this vegan dish. The result? It practically tastes the same.

VEGAN SINIGANG

Ingredients:

• 6 tomatoes, sliced
• 2 pcs gabi (taro corm), peeled and diced
• 3 small onions, quartered
• one pack fresh button mushrooms (they're better fresh, I tell you)
• 2 pcs. eggplant, quartered
• one long radish, peeled and sliced diagonally
• 1 small bunch string beans cut into 1-1/2 inch length
• 1 cup spinach or kangkong
• 1/2 cup broccoli florets
• 1 pack sinigang soup mix (if you're very strict, check the ingredients if they still have essence of pork or beef. if none, then you're good. the one I had didn't. Yay!)
• to season: rock salt, ground pepper, vegan patis or liquid aminos

Procedure
1. Place the tomatoes, gabi, and onions in a mixing bowl with some salt. Mash them together until well-blended. You might experience some itching from the gabi. Just wash your hands with soap and water after. Place them in a soup pot and fill with water until the veggies are covered. Allow to boil.
2. When the mixture boils, add in button mushrooms and radish and boil some more.

3. Mix in the tamarind soup base.
4. Add radish, broccoli, eggplants, and string beans. season to taste with salt, ground pepper, and a bit of liquid aminos. If the flavor of the soup is too strong, you can add some water.
5. If you want, you can add long green peppers too.
6. Lastly, add the spinach, press them a bit down. wait for a few seconds, and turn off the fire.
7. Serve with hot and steamy plain  rice.

For those wondering, it's quite hard to describe but the taste is just the same. For those who cook sinigang the omnivore way with pork or beef, you guys remember that we have to skim out the white scum that floats at the surface as the broth boils? None of that. It has a much "cleaner" taste though. One recipe I think is good for 5-6 people.

Lentil Lunch

#2: Tackling the Lentils, Getting Used To Alternative Protein Source And All That Jazz

One of the challenges in going veggie is finding protein sources. Meat, as we all know is one good source of protein. Thankfully, athletic vegans and vegetarians have proven that there are plant-based protein sources, and these, in fact are healthy and lean proteins. Some of them are beans, tofu, legumes, mushrooms, and even vegetables like broccoli.

I love vegetables but I admit, I have a hate relationship with beans and legumes. I don't like monggo or all permutations of it, as some people love it. It's scratchy, grainy, and starchy, and has no taste at all. Lentils are something similar though to monggo. They look alike, and sort of taste alike. I just had to give this legume a chance because, according to Wikipedia, it has the third-highest level of protein, by weight, of any legume or nut. I want to build muscle and still live. So here I go give this baby a try.

I found a lentil soup recipe from the Facebook page Going Vegan By Dirdy Birdy. Dirdy Birdy (that's her screen name!) is an awesome pole dancer based in Australia. She's also an animal lover, owning three adorable cats: Billie, Stewie, and Minty, two of them rescues. She turned vegan just recently and does awesomely at it. Her vegan Facebook page features a lot of easy and tasty vegan recipes to try at home as well as her daily vegan meals whether she's at home, touring the world, or just walking the streets looking for something to eat.

I wanted to give her lentil soup a try. It uses a lot of rich spices like paprika, cumin seed, and cayenne pepper, which means it would be richer in taste than monggo soup, I would guess. So on a grocery trip, I packed the grocery cart with a whole lot of veggies and gave it a go. I actually thought I'd be making an extra trip to Healthy Options to get them lentils but thankfully, SM had a bag for like 53 pesos. Thank you SM, you are awesome and you do have it all, even for vegos like us!

Lentils, are you ready for me? Or should I say, am I ready for you?

 Chopped fresh veggies - onions, carrots, and fresh mushrooms, just added the mushrooms from the original recipe

My very high-tech and environment-friendly guide. No printouts here.

Lentils take quite a long time to cook, especially for those that aren't canned, since I want them tender. I had to season a bit extra more since I wanted it really flavorful.

Tadaaa!!!! Yeah, you really look like monggo, with carrots, peas, and mushrooms.

Somewhat, the texture is almost the same, except that there's more tasty, spicy thingies. The recipe suggests to serve with toasted bread, but I'd probably go with this: Fried spinach with garlic and soy sauce.

Not to mention, spinach is a good source of iron, which I need.

 Hello lunch! You're filling, you're tasty, and you didn't make me burst. The house smelled like cumin even up to like 8 pm. So aerate is the bird's word. And odor absorber.

More soups and recipes up! But I think I'd need a bit of getting used to with lentils, which I'm having for lunch again today.