What veg*ns eat
So, either this will be the beginning of an inundation of those posts or else it will taper off again.
I have a bunch of recipes that I photocopied, years ago now, out of a recipe book owned by my godmother, Rowena. The pages are getting old, tattered and ugly, there's never a good place to keep them and I hadn't, until this week, tried a single one of the recipes.
I also have a new, lined, "recipe book" book for handwriting recipes in, which was given me for Christmas (basically a pretty lined notebook with "recipe book" written on the outside cover). I decided to try out the photocopied recipes one by one and get rid of them: for each one, if it's good I'll recopy it in my new recipe book, if not, simply recycle the photocopied page and be done with it.
So, yesterday I premiered the first of these recipes. And liked it so much that, there being enough leftover ingredients to do so, I promptly made another batch tonight, even though there were leftovers of the dish from last night, so I now have more for tomorrow's... lunch, maybe.
Mushroom and ginger soup
• 15g/½ oz dried Chinese mushrooms or 125g/4½oz field or chestnut mushrooms(1)
• 1 litre/1¼ pints hot vegetable stock
• 125g/4½oz thread rice noodles
• 2 tsp sunflower oil
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed(2)
• 2.5cm/1 inch piece fresh root ginger, finely shredded
• ½tsp mushroom ketchup
• 1 tsp light soy sauce(3)
• 125g/4½oz bean sprouts
• Fresh coriander(4) sprigs to garnish
Soak the dried Chinese mushrooms (if using) in 300ml of the hot stock for at least 30 minutes. Drain the mushrooms and reserve the stock. Remove the stalks of the mushrooms and discard(5). Slice the caps and reserve. Cook the noodles for 2-3 minutes in boiling water, then drain and rinse. Reserve until required(6).
Heat the sunflower oil in a preheated wok or large, heavy-based frying pan over a high heat. Add the garlic and ginger, stir and add the mushrooms. Stir over a high heat(7) for 2 minutes.
Add the remaining vegetable stock with the reserved stock and bring to the boil. Add the mushroom ketchup and soy sauce. Stir in the beansprouts and cook until tender. Place some noodles in each soup bowl and ladle the soup on top.(8) Garnish with fresh coriander sprigs and serve immediately.
Cook’s notes
1. I used dried shitake mushrooms, worked great.
2. It’s garlic. I always read in the words “at least” before whatever quantity the recipe says.
3. I use this whenever soy sauce is called for - don’t even have soy sauce in the house anymore.
4. That’s cilantro for you Americans/Canadians.
5. I didn’t fuss too much about this, I just pulled off any bits that were still tough and sliced up what was left.
6. I used straight-to-wok noodles so I didn’t have to do this.
7. I found the garlic started to brown/burn over high heat so I reduced to medium-high the second time I made it.
8. I just put the noodles in the soup at the end but I’m sure this way would work fine too.
Tomorrow, some sort of roasted vegetable pasta dish. If I get home from my 3 o'clock listing in Staines at a decent enough hour.
The cough flourishes. Last night, out of Lemsip sachets, I popped two of the tablets with my evening camomile tea. MISTAKE MISTAKE MISTAKE. They were the "day-time" ones and contained caffeine. I don't know how long I wasn't even sleepy for, despite being oh, so tired. All I know is that even after the caffeine apparently wore off and I felt like sleeping, I couldn't for any decent period of time because I kept waking myself up coughing. When proper lying down, it felt like a hollow bomb going off in my chest, with this dry, raspy barking noise. When propped up on four pillows it abated somewhat but not completely and became more mucusy. Towards morning I was bracing myself into a half-sitting position with my feet, knees bent. Leo decided this would be an appropriate time to scale my chest and settle down, purring, under my chin. Quite sweet but not terribly helpful. Toby just did his standard Oooooh look there are bare arms sticking out of the covers! ATTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! trick, which was neither sweet nor helpful and just inspired me to viciously tug the duvet up half a foot further in order to tuck it under my chin in my half-seated position and hide my poor, vulnerable flabby chicken wings from Toby's inquisitive claws.
Have obtained behind-the-counter will-make-you-drowsy-and-hopefully-also-WORK cough syrup from Boots. Fingers crossed, making that camomile tea soon now.
I have a bunch of recipes that I photocopied, years ago now, out of a recipe book owned by my godmother, Rowena. The pages are getting old, tattered and ugly, there's never a good place to keep them and I hadn't, until this week, tried a single one of the recipes.
I also have a new, lined, "recipe book" book for handwriting recipes in, which was given me for Christmas (basically a pretty lined notebook with "recipe book" written on the outside cover). I decided to try out the photocopied recipes one by one and get rid of them: for each one, if it's good I'll recopy it in my new recipe book, if not, simply recycle the photocopied page and be done with it.
So, yesterday I premiered the first of these recipes. And liked it so much that, there being enough leftover ingredients to do so, I promptly made another batch tonight, even though there were leftovers of the dish from last night, so I now have more for tomorrow's... lunch, maybe.
Mushroom and ginger soup
• 15g/½ oz dried Chinese mushrooms or 125g/4½oz field or chestnut mushrooms(1)
• 1 litre/1¼ pints hot vegetable stock
• 125g/4½oz thread rice noodles
• 2 tsp sunflower oil
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed(2)
• 2.5cm/1 inch piece fresh root ginger, finely shredded
• ½tsp mushroom ketchup
• 1 tsp light soy sauce(3)
• 125g/4½oz bean sprouts
• Fresh coriander(4) sprigs to garnish
Soak the dried Chinese mushrooms (if using) in 300ml of the hot stock for at least 30 minutes. Drain the mushrooms and reserve the stock. Remove the stalks of the mushrooms and discard(5). Slice the caps and reserve. Cook the noodles for 2-3 minutes in boiling water, then drain and rinse. Reserve until required(6).
Heat the sunflower oil in a preheated wok or large, heavy-based frying pan over a high heat. Add the garlic and ginger, stir and add the mushrooms. Stir over a high heat(7) for 2 minutes.
Add the remaining vegetable stock with the reserved stock and bring to the boil. Add the mushroom ketchup and soy sauce. Stir in the beansprouts and cook until tender. Place some noodles in each soup bowl and ladle the soup on top.(8) Garnish with fresh coriander sprigs and serve immediately.
Cook’s notes
1. I used dried shitake mushrooms, worked great.
2. It’s garlic. I always read in the words “at least” before whatever quantity the recipe says.
3. I use this whenever soy sauce is called for - don’t even have soy sauce in the house anymore.
4. That’s cilantro for you Americans/Canadians.
5. I didn’t fuss too much about this, I just pulled off any bits that were still tough and sliced up what was left.
6. I used straight-to-wok noodles so I didn’t have to do this.
7. I found the garlic started to brown/burn over high heat so I reduced to medium-high the second time I made it.
8. I just put the noodles in the soup at the end but I’m sure this way would work fine too.
Tomorrow, some sort of roasted vegetable pasta dish. If I get home from my 3 o'clock listing in Staines at a decent enough hour.
The cough flourishes. Last night, out of Lemsip sachets, I popped two of the tablets with my evening camomile tea. MISTAKE MISTAKE MISTAKE. They were the "day-time" ones and contained caffeine. I don't know how long I wasn't even sleepy for, despite being oh, so tired. All I know is that even after the caffeine apparently wore off and I felt like sleeping, I couldn't for any decent period of time because I kept waking myself up coughing. When proper lying down, it felt like a hollow bomb going off in my chest, with this dry, raspy barking noise. When propped up on four pillows it abated somewhat but not completely and became more mucusy. Towards morning I was bracing myself into a half-sitting position with my feet, knees bent. Leo decided this would be an appropriate time to scale my chest and settle down, purring, under my chin. Quite sweet but not terribly helpful. Toby just did his standard Oooooh look there are bare arms sticking out of the covers! ATTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! trick, which was neither sweet nor helpful and just inspired me to viciously tug the duvet up half a foot further in order to tuck it under my chin in my half-seated position and hide my poor, vulnerable flabby chicken wings from Toby's inquisitive claws.
Have obtained behind-the-counter will-make-you-drowsy-and-hopefully-also-WORK cough syrup from Boots. Fingers crossed, making that camomile tea soon now.