I’ve never been a fan of too many grains in my food and I snubbed them just like most beans and pulses. Over the last years I got a grip on my bean and pulses aversion and lately I also seem to be managing better with grains.

I still had some pearled spelt in my cupboard and decided to make a different version of my Tiger bean salad. I simply replaced the beans with said pearled spelt and also a tin of chickpeas. This also gave me good opportunity to test out homemade Tagine paste and I can say that we were happy with the result. So much so, that I decided to save this as a different recipe.

Recipes used:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/mr57to6iw1/pearled-spelt-and-chickpea-salad-with-ta/
https://www.copymethat.com/r/uddztm5dad/tagine-spice-paste/

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What do we have here? More May turnip! 😁

I gently fried the May turnip and carrot sticks in butter, added a little sugar, pepper and salt, but left out the parsley:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/lt2dzwih4f/may-turnip-sauteed-in-butter/

The mushrooms were combined with the ribboned May turnip leaves using this recipe as an inspiration:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/warm-mushroom-salad-sesame-dressing/

The tofu was braised Korean style, so easy:
https://messyvegancook.com/korean-braised-tofu-dubu-jorim/

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

I was adventurous with today’s pasta meal. I wanted to make Japanese style garlic shichimi pasta, meaning spaghetti with garlic and a Japanese chilli spice blend - but with vegetables.

I’ve played with this one before by adding spinach and this time I went a little further by adding cubed May turnip and its leaves cut into long ribbons. When I looked for Konbu Cha (a broth made from kelp) I found one with added plum taste and thought why not 😅 I also added a tiny amount of Japanese mushroom broth, that one is magical and makes everything taste better.

The May turnip cubes were sautéed with the garlic until they had softened a little, all the seasonings were added, then the (slightly undercooked for better results) pasta and pasta water. This was stirred to release the starch and create a thicker sauce that coats the pasta well. At the very end the May turnip leaves and parsley went in to soften them up somewhat.

It was so simple but my guys loved it! 😊

Recipe used for basic steps:
https://kokorocares.com/blogs/recipes/recipe-marc-matsumotos-garlic-shichimi-pasta

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

It’s October and decidedly autumnal. The heating is still mostly off in our apartment despite it just being a measly 19°C in the living room. I’ll probably draw the line at 18°C. I don’t like stuffy heated rooms and want to open windows for fresh air regularly, so the cold (and rainy and dark) season is definitely not my favourite time of the year. 🤷🏽

Indian style food works well for me on days like this. I had a container with mixed roasted vegetables in the freezer. I served those with a tin of curried mustard leaves (Sarson Ka Saag), fried firm tofu (covered in cornstarch and an Indian masala mix), and basmati rice.

I was wondering for a moment whether I needed to prepare a sauce but then I remembered that we still have a good selection of my friend’s homemade hot sauces in the fridge, and voilà, all my questions were perfectly answered 🤩 The great thing is they keep for a long time in the cupboard (and once opened in the fridge), so I like to have a good selection of them in the house. They don’t always feature here but my family loves them and applies them to a lot of their food, be it a warm meal, a salad, or a type of sandwich.

#Mastonom #HomeCooking #Cooking #MainMeal #MyDinner #IndianFood #FusionKitchen #Food #MeatlessMonday #VegetarianFood #VeganFood #30PlantsAWeek #CallalooCorner #SylkewebFood #SylkewebFood202510 #Sylkeweb202510
@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

Update: this post was meant to go on my home cooking related account at https://pixelfed.eu/sylkeweb and if I had noticed early enough I would have deleted it from here. Since it racked up some likes and even a repost (thank you all) in the meantime I’ll leave it here.

====

It’s October and decidedly autumnal. The heating is still mostly off in our apartment despite it just being a measly 19°C in the living room. I’ll probably draw the line at 18°C. I don’t like stuffy heated rooms and want to open windows for fresh air regularly, so the cold (and rainy and dark) season is definitely not my favourite time of the year. 🤷🏽

Indian style food works well for me on days like this. I had a container with mixed roasted vegetables in the freezer. I served those with a tin of curried mustard leaves (Sarson Ka Saag), fried firm tofu (covered in cornstarch and an Indian masala mix), and basmati rice.

I was wondering for a moment whether I needed to prepare a sauce but then I remembered that we still have a good selection of my friend’s homemade hot sauces in the fridge, and voilà, all my questions were perfectly answered 🤩 The great thing is they keep for a long time in the cupboard (and once opened in the fridge), so I like to have a good selection of them in the house. They don’t always feature here but my family loves them and applies them to a lot of their food, be it a warm meal, a salad, or a type of sandwich.

#Mastonom #HomeCooking #Cooking #MainMeal #MyDinner #IndianFood #FusionKitchen #Food #MeatlessMonday #VegetarianFood #VeganFood #30PlantsAWeek #CallalooCorner #SylkewebFood #SylkewebFood202510 #Sylkeweb202510
@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

For today’s dish I picked our last balcony kohlrabi. I have to say they were all amazing, the last one just as tender as the ones that came before. I will miss them but hopefully I can grow more next year.

I wanted to use this last one for something special, so I made kohlrabi chips (or fries) seasoned with garlic, smoked paprika and cumin according to a recipe I had found online. They were not as crispy as potato chips but still very edible and we enjoyed them with mango mustard. I added seasoned rice and salad to make it a proper meal.

Recipe used:
https://karalydon.com/recipes/kohlrabi-fries/

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

A simple dish in essence and I was surprised that my guys liked it as much as they professed. A closer look at the pack of Japanese rice seasoning (mazegohan) that I used explains everything, there is E621 in it, also known as MSG or flavour enhancer. I usually don’t use any, not because I don’t want to, but simply because I usually already use a lot of seasonings and foods that naturally contain MSG.

We had:
🥢 A ready made tofu product that came pre-seasoned which I enhanced by cutting it into small cubes and then quickly frying it and adding a mix of Natto Koji and soy sauce.
🥢 Julienned cucumber.
🥢 Carrot, julienned and fried in oil to crisp them up.
🥢 Kimchi from a tin.
🥢 Japanese rice with said rice seasoning.
🥢 Miso soup.

Maybe I should invest in some MSG for those days when I find my food boring… 😆

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

What a busy day today! My son and I did a little refreshment of the apartment, meaning mostly painting over scuff marks on the white walls, but also filling some holes and putting a new shelf on a wall.

For lunch we made a type of vegan Lahmacun, as I liked the meaty ones from my friend’s Kurdish friend that we had the other day so much that I wanted to try this out for myself. I figured that the minced meat could be easily replaced with tofu and yes, it worked perfectly.

I was lazy and didn’t make the dough, we simply used small soft tortilla wraps. For the sauce I used the linked recipe as an inspiration and added copious amounts of Harissa spice blend and crumbled smoked tofu instead of minced meat, all of that went into the blender. Since I didn’t have any raw meat, we could have eaten the sauce and tortillas uncooked but I decided to bring out the aromas more and to cook it somewhat in a frying pan and then put it on tortillas in another frying pan and fry those for a little while. Some of them got a little crispy like tacos, and indeed we added some fresh pepper and lettuce pieces and the taste was just wonderful. Maybe I could have added a little chilli powder but really it was great.

The method with fresh dough is different: you put it into your frying pan (like a pancake ) and then the filling on top and close everything with a lid so that the meat cooks through. Seems worth trying but I’m always worried when making dough 😅

Recipe used:
https://emaninthekitchen.com/object/hdi-kurdish-lahmacun

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

After a very busy weekend which involved a train trip to a birthday party located close to the border with Luxembourg I’m easing myself into my cooking week with meals that are easy to prepare. So here we have two meatless meals.

Yesterday we had Chickpea Curry (or Chana Masala) from frozen. I topped this with blanched julienned Kohlrabi leaves and added some Kurdish Yaprak Sarma (grape leaves usually stuffed with rice and herbs) that I had brought back from the party. Very satisfying.

https://www.copymethat.com/r/wWgpZXt0E/chickpea-curry-chana-masala/

Today we had Japanese Curry with added Kohlrabi cubes and freshly grated apple. One quarter was left over so I used it to decorate my dish ☺️ I’m usually lazy and use ready made curry cubes. If you want to make sure your meal is 100% meat free, you can buy a vegan version of those or even make the sauce yourself, it’s absolutely worth it.

https://www.copymethat.com/r/ojoJAHMsB/japanese-curry-from-a-roux/

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

A day in photos.
I went to a sewing fair (though there is almost as much yarn as there is fabric) today with my best friend. Didn't buy any fabric or yarn, but I did get some nice stuff for me, and a few christmas presents for others.
I had to bike there, because the public transit to that place sucks.
Picture 1: a silver coloured hair stick with a crescent moon stuck in my bun.
Picture 2. Gold coloured flower charms or pendants with white enamel. White five petaled flowers is part of my SCA heraldry.
Picture 3: A string of red glass beads, around my neck.
Picture 4: Tonight's dinner: black beans, fried onion, garlic and bell pepper, corn, lettuce and tomato, on wheat tortillas.
Picture 5: I disassembled a broken book case and carried it to the garbage room this evening. #vegetarianfood #hairstick

We ate something new today, Japanese style Daikon Fritters. I saw this the other day and wanted to try because the insides looked so much like mochi. They were indeed very mochi-ish and moreish! Mind you, we used up a whole 750 g Daikon radish and only got 9 tiny fritters 🤣

With those we had, have a quick guess, yes, more of the homegrown kohlrabi, and of course rice and miso soup. I totally forgot about including a pickled food item as my son who created the raw fritters complained about a burning skin sensation after handling them. I made sure he took an antihistamine tablet and everything is fine now. I read up about possible allergies caused by radishes (daikon) and also potatoes and it seems that there is some potential with the raw items but once you’ve cooked them, the risk is minimal. We’ll have to watch this space. I think next time I will try to make the fritters of kohlrabi, that should also taste really nice. 😊

Recipe used:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/qyk3x8goea/daikon-fritters/

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

I wanted to go out for lunch with a friend today but unfortunately she is poorly so I was at home pondering what to cook, something fast preferably. Considering that it’s Friday (usually Japanese food day here) I settled on Japanese rice with scrambled eggs and stir fried vegetables. For days like this there is always a bottle of Tonkatsu sauce in the fridge (even though homemade is infinitely better), so I didn’t have to think about sauce.

I cut up a carrot, spring onion, Napa cabbage and Kohlrabi leaves, stir fried and seasoned them lightly with just a little soy sauce and sesame oil. Then I scrambled the eggs and added the vegetables back in before the eggs had set so that everything would stick together a little. I fried a little more to make sure there was no more uncooked egg and then served all of this on top of the rice in a bowl. I also added some toasted sesame seeds and a few leftover pieces of spring onion and Napa cabbage.

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This Indian Lucknowi Biryani from Vegan Richa is a great rice bake. It takes some time but is essentially easy to make. It’s full of flavour and enough as it is. I was wondering originally whether we need anything to eat with it but simply forgot. I think a tomato salad would have worked well but as I said, a side dish wasn’t really necessary.

https://www.veganricha.com/lucknowi-biryani/

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

Meatless Monday was quite easy. A while ago I received an interesting Indian spice blend which of course is long gone but I did write down the contents and the steps. Today I used a different Indian spice blend that needs to go (because it’s not as fragrant any more as it should be) and just looked at the ingredients of that one and decided to simply add whatever was missing from the first one. Then I followed the steps I had noted down to make the masala (spice bland in oil), added my basmati rice (mixed again), then water, topped this up with vegetables (carrot and yes, kohlrabi and julienned kohlrabi leaves 😅) and cooked it like simple steamed rice (plus 5 minutes). At the same time I fried a paneer like cheese in a frying pan. I got out our jars with chutneys and bingo, a very nice pilau rice was created.

Recipe used: https://www.copymethat.com/r/v5F2IakIu/pilau-rice-with-biryani-pulav-masala-spi/

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@foodiverse@a.gup.pe

From what I’ve gathered over the years from making traditional style Japanese home cooked meals with many dishes: they look grander than they are 😅 There is a method to this with a lot of leftovers and overlap from day to day that makes it easy to have this many different things in front of you. The secret is big portions and fridge space.

You can make this way of eating easy by preparing bigger amounts of every side dish every time and then eating them up over several days. When one is used up you make a new one, again to use for several days. Many of the typical Japanese side dishes are pickled or fermented items, no need to warm them up. So you might end up with having to make rice, possibly a fresh protein dish, and another side dish on any single day. If you are lucky it’s only rice. Then you add the leftovers and voilà, there is a full spread.

Today was a day on which I started with the rice in the rice cooker, then I opened the fridge, got out two containers, one with cabbage salad (I added more seasonings yesterday evening, much better today), the other with marinated mushrooms (yes… 🤪). I have a stack of tins with Korean kimchi so I got one of those out too. I opened all of the containers so that the food had a chance to warm up a little. Over night I had marinated pork fillets in Shio Koji, ginger and garlic, they went into the oven. The fillets came out looking very pale, so I put them in the frying pan for a couple of minutes but even that didn’t change anything. Despite that they were very juicy and tasted nice. In the meantime I blanched fresh okra and put them in a mix of soy sauce and ginger. Minimal cooking.

Alas that was it again, all Japanese side dishes produced by me this week have now been consumed.

#Mastonom #HomeCooking #Cooking #MainMeal #MyDinner #JapaneseFood #FusionKitchen #Food #Flexitarian #30PlantsAWeek #SylkewebFood #SylkewebFood202508 #Sylkeweb202508 @foodiverse@a.gup.pe