Vegetable Okonomiyaki (Japanese Vegetable Pizza)

To celebrate my mom's birthday, my family and I went to Benii Restaurant, which is a Japanese restaurant located at the Star Building across from St. John's School.  I go there often since I have a weakness for Japanese food and it's close to my work.  My normal order consists of edamame, a side salad, and miso soup, but since it was my mom's birthday, I ordered something different.  It took me awhile to decide what to get since they have many options to choose from, but I finally went with the Vegetable Okonomiyaki, which is the Japanese version of vegetable pizza.
If you've never tried okonomiyaki, it's a thick and delicious grilled pancake that can have pretty much anything mixed with its batter.  I'm not sure what vegetables are in Benii's version of okonomiyaki, but I think there's carrots, mushrooms and scallions.  They're pretty generous with the vegetable servings, but they were also very generous with the Japanese mayonnaise on top of the pizza.  So, although this dish is vegetarian, it's not vegan.  Benii served this dish on a hot plate and each bite of the pizza was nice and warm.  The slices were so thick and huge that I couldn't eat more than 2 slices!  I packed the rest of the pizza and had it for lunch the following day since I'm one of those people who don't mind eating left-overs.

Vegan Black Pepper Steaks

This month was the month of already made meals because most of my time was spent Christmas shopping, baking, and wrapping gifts.  Luckily for me, I was able to find some easy to prep meals over at Simply Food.  One of them was Vegetarian Plus' Vegan Black Pepper Steaks.  Cooking it was super easy since the instructions were on the back of the box.  I just heated the food in a pan on low heat with 2 teaspoons of olive oil.  I really liked how it was just enough for 2 people so that no food was wasted.
The pepper steaks were full of flavor and tasted fantastic.  I could really taste the black pepper on the saucy steaks.  When I used to eat steak, I would have to eat it with a side of soy sauce or finadene, but when I ate these pepper steaks, I didn't need any sauce on the side because the dish itself was saucy enough.  Although the texture isn't the same as real steak, it could still pass as beef.  It was perfect to eat with a bowl of hot rice.  In fact, I think I spent more time prepping the food than actually eating it.  

Breakfast of Champions

My department at work decided to have a breakfast party to celebrate the birthdays of 2 of my co-workers.  I decided to make vegan chocolate chip pancakes because everyone loves pancakes and how can I go wrong with adding some chocolate chips to it?  Luckily for me, I was able to find a pancake mix that was dairy-free.

Cherrybrook Kitchen Original Pancake mix was the only pancake mix that I could find that was vegan.  This brand was created by a woman who had to learn how to make allergen-free food because she's allergic to so many types of food.  I was excited to find this because I wasn't sure if there really was such thing as vegan pancakes, especially since all I saw at first glance were boxes of buttermilk pancake mix.  I'm not sure if Simply Food has this, but I did find this particular brand in Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket.  For vegan chocolate chips, I used Sunspire vegan carob chips, which I also found at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket.  I've baked with these chips before, so I know they'd be the perfect compliment to my pancakes.

Making these pancakes made me realize how long it's been since I've actually eaten pancakes at all.  I think the last time I ate them was at Denny's when I ordered the Grand Slam.  I'm so happy to find a healthier alternative to Denny's pancakes.  I actually think these pancakes taste better and are fluffier than Denny's pancakes.  

 In order to make these, just follow the instructions on the back of the box.  I followed the instructions to make 7 pancakes.  After making the batter, I added 1/4 cup of vegan carob chips and slowly stirred it in.  Then, I poured the pancake batter on a hot pan, 1/4 cup at a time.  Honestly, I didn't think these pancakes were actually going to make it to my work's breakfast party since my family was eyeing them while I was cooking.  Luckily, I made a second batch for my family (and myself) to enjoy  and my first batch safely made it to the party.  

        

Baked and Breaded Vegetarian Chicken

As Christmas Day is fast approaching, I've been scrambling to get all my Christmas shopping and errands done.  This means quick meals are a must for me, especially during the weekend.  This morning, we decided to have an early lunch so my boyfriend and I can start crossing off our Christmas to-do list as soon as possible.

I thought it would be the perfect time to break out my can of Worthington's FriChik, which is a fried chicken substitute.  However, instead of frying it, I wanted to bake it.  I decided to bread it too just for kicks.  I found a really easy recipe online to follow for baked breaded chicken and since I was pressed for time, I thought I'd give it a try.  I breaded it with FryStar bread crumbs, which is a brand my sister-in-law always uses when she makes her breaded concoctions.  I'm pretty sure you can buy this at any grocery store that sells Asian products on Guam.

"These are easy to prep" is a complete understatement.  What I did was dip and coat each FriChik in Italian dressing and then covered it with bread crumbs.  I then baked them for 30 minutes on top of foil sprayed lightly with Pam.  As you can see, I only baked 5 pieces because that's all that came in the can I purchased.  This isn't enough for just my boyfriend and I, so I also baked some garlic bread, which I placed right next to the FriChik in the oven.

Our meal turned out just the right portion and taste - not too heavy but enough to last us a couple of hours until our next meal.  The baked and breaded FriChik came out juicy, but not as crunchy as I would have liked it to have been.  When I used to eat fried chicken, I ate it with ketchup, and I was happy to find that the FriChik also paired well with it.  Everything was devoured in 15 minutes tops, and then we were off to brave the crowds.  

Can't Get Enough of Burgers

I grew up wishing everyday I could go McDonalds after-school and order my favorite, a plain double-cheeseburger.  So, it's no surprise that even though I'm older now and (hopefully) wiser about my health, I still want to eat burgers.  Thank goodness there are so many varieties of veggie burgers available for my taste-buds!
This time, I tried out Gardenburger's "The Original" Veggie Burgers, which I bought at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket.  What I did was add 1 teaspoon of olive oil on a pan and sautéed each side of the burger patty for a couple minutes on medium heat.  I'm not an onion hater, so I also sautéed a slice of onion to add to my burger.  I cooked the onion slice much longer than a couple minutes so its sweet flavor could come out.  I completed the burger masterpiece with Vegenaise (vegan mayonnaise), ketchup, and mustard.  I didn't have any wheat burger buns on me so I just slapped everything between 2 slices of regular wheat bread.  What I ate was a messy, sauce-dripping, delicious burger.  I'm sorry I don't have a picture of it to upload, but this just means I get to make another burger, which, I think, isn't a bad idea at all.        
 

Vegan Nilaga

I've been craving nilaga (literally means "boiled") since I turned vegetarian.  It's a soup dish that my mom makes on days where she needed to cook something quick and easy.  I love this dish because of the vegetables used - potatoes, cabbage, and bok choy.  I just needed to find a good substitute for the cubes of beef my mom normally uses in her dish.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find beef substitutes that weren't in the form of ground beef or burger patties.  The best thing I could find was meatless meatballs.

Nate's Zesty Italian Meatless Meatballs worked pretty well with this recipe.  I ended up boiling the meatballs a little longer than I should so I changed the recipe to shorten the amount of boiling time.  I bought the meatballs over at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket, but I do want to check out Simply Food to see what beef substitutes they have available over there. 

When I was first reading an original beef nilaga recipe, I realized that it called for fish sauce.  I was a little disheartened at first because I was stumped on how to replace fish sauce.  However, several food forums recommended using 2 parts soy sauce and 1 part lime juice as a substitute so I gave that a try for this dish. 

The end results?  Delicious nilaga.  I think I should actually call this dish nilagang meatballs (boiled meatballs) since that's the meat I used.  My family (including my mom!) thought that the dish tasted just like beef nilaga, so I considered this recipe a success.         

Chick'n and Tofu Adobo

I am on a mini-mission to vegan-ize (or vegetarian-ize) as much Filipino dishes as I can.  For those of you that are not familiar with Filipino cuisine, a staple ingredient in main course dishes is meat.  In fact, our culture revolves around meat so much that being a non-meat eater can result in shocked and maybe disappointed looks from a Filipino family.  My reason for this mini-mission is an obvious one: I want to eat the food I grew up with.  

So it's only appropriate the first main course dish I try to vegan-ize is the Philippines national dish: adobo.  There are so many ways to cook adobo.  In fact, I think there's as much adobo recipe varieties as there are Filipinos in the world.  I went with what I know tastes best, which is my mom's version.  My mom would normally use chicken or pork for her version of adobo, but I decided to use Quorn's Naked Chick'n Cutlets and Firm Tofu as my meat substitutes.  I purchased both at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket.  

The last time I used Quorn's Naked Chick'n Cutlets was when I had sautéed them by themselves.  This made them taste a little dry.  However, for this recipe, the cutlets were perfect because they soaked up the adobo sauce so well.  I really think they make really good chicken substitutes for stew/soup recipes.  

The first time I tried making this dish, I had accidentally stirred the vinegar right after I added it into the pot.  The end result received mixed reviews from my family, with some of them liking the vinegar taste of the adobo while the others didn't.  If you grew up with adobo having a vinegar taste, then I recommend stirring the vinegar.  If not, then make sure to let the vinegar simmer and settle for 15 - 20 minutes after adding to the pot.  This is how I prefer to make my adobo.