Vegan Recipes

 

Mushrooms are my favourite vegetables, except that they are not vegetables... they are fungi, and I like all fungi (as long as they are edible). For this dish I used a mixture of dried and fresh mushrooms. The dried mushrooms are an Asian mix of different mushrooms, which I soaked in water for an hour or so. The fresh one are oyster mushrooms and common button mushrooms. I cleaned them and then sliced the button ones, while I left the oyster mushrooms whole (a pity to cut them!).

In a large skillet I heated a little vegetable oil with a few drops of sesame oil, then added all the mushrooms (I drained the dried mushrooms, but kept the water) and cooked them turning often until they stopped trowing out water. At this point I added the tofu puffs (fried tofu pieces, available in most tofu shops and Asian stores) the mushrooms water and Japanese soy sauce (not too much). After all the liquid was gone I added a little lemon juice, tasted to see if more soy sauce was needed (for salt) and finished with chopped coriander. Golly they were delicious, and so simple too! Serve with rice.

I love to eat flowers, and if you have a banana plant in the garden you can eat the blossoms!  First you need to remove the pink/mauve petals (and small banana florets under each petal) from the blossom until you get to the pale centre. Keep the petals though, they are good as food containers or decorations. You can find the step by step photos on how to peel and cut a banana blossom here, where there is also a delicious banana flower (blossom) recipe. Then cut the centre and mix immediately with lemon juice. Put into a bowl and add more lemon juice and a couple of tbsp of Japanese soy sauce. Put another bowl on top (inside the first one to press down the content) and fill the second bowl with something heavy (a rock, for example). Keep the cut blossom pressed in this marinade overnight, in the fridge. This is necessary or the banana blossom will taste too astringent.

The day after, cook the noodles and drain. Rinse under cold water, and place into a bowl. Cut the tofu into squares and fry in a mixture of sesame oil and vegetable oil until golden, then add a tbsp of lemon juice and 2 tbsp of Japanese soy sauce, sizzle quickly and toss with the noodles. Squeeze the banana blossom from excess liquid and add to the noodles. Mix well and serve at room temperature, decorated with some Thai mint or coriander. This noodle salad was delicious and I will make it again, in fact so far this has been my favourite recipe with banana blossoms.

Easy recipe: place the oyster mushrooms in a skillet with a little oil or vegan butter and sauté them on both sides. To make mushrooms easy to digest you need to cook them in a way that they 'loose' water, this is important with foraged mushrooms, if there is a toxic one in you mix making it 'loose water' made it edible (or lowered the risks of tommy ache). Button mushrooms and other varieties can be eaten raw, but personally I prefer them cooked. Of course if a mushrooms is deadly this cooking tip is useless, no matter how much you cook it, but this is not a problem we are facing with commercial varieties!

So, but back to cooking edible mushrooms: let them loose water, yes, but remember that generally mushrooms should not be cooked for too long or they will lose flavour too. So as soon as these oyster mushrooms looked ready to me (a few minutes) I added a drizzle of Japanese soy sauce and some lemon juice. Add more vegan butter too if you like, for a bit more fat, juice and taste. Serve piping hot on a bowl of plain short grain rice, drizzling the juices on top. 

This is a lovely salad and also a light main, filling, nutritious and full of different textures and flavors!

Bottle and use as a cordial (it is very thirst-quenching), or to flavour desserts (like panna cottaor blamanche), ice cream, fruit salads and berries.


I am drying the remaining flowers for tea. Dry them in the shade and keep them for winter: the tea is traditionally used to relieve cold and flu, cough and sore tummy.

Just a quick idea for a vitamin C boosting salad: slice strawberries and kiwis, add a bit of lemon juice and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Stir and let the fruit marinate for a couple of hours at room temperature, the place in the fridge and serve cold. Super yummy! Otherwise, to maximize the vitamins, just skip the marination bit and eat straight away!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

This is a sweet smelling mountain pawpaw. Apparently you can eat the seeds like for passion fruit, but I planted mine (unfortunately it has been really dry and I think that they didn't survive!). For the flesh I just added a few drops of lemon juice and a tiny bit of sugar, and then I let the fruit marinate for a few hours. Very nice for dessert, snack or breakfast (with your cereals).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©