Baby Got Bok

Choy, that is.

A few days ago I plunged myself into an Asian style extravaganza.

All the recipes came from Veganomicon so if you have this recipe book (you should get it if you don't), this is what a couple of the awesome dishes look like.



Left to Right: Baby bok choy with crispy shallots and sesame seeds (pg. 105), creamy asian pear and tempeh salad with wasabi dressing (pg. 90), butternut squash and pumpkin seed rice paper rolls (pg. 50).

None of these dishes were difficult, although I imagine the only issue anyone would run into would be with the rice paper rolls if you've never worked with them. They were easy for me since I've made spring rolls before and knew what I was getting into.

A few alterations I made... we couldn't find pumpkin seeds anywhere so I toasted and salted some sunflower seeds instead. They worked just fine. My cilantro already went to seed and I didn't want to go buy some at the store, so I just used a couple sprigs of baby spinach instead for color. The dipping sauce was awesome, but too watery and oily for me. I wanted it thicker so I added peanut butter. It was tangy and awesome.

If you are having trouble finding some of the ingredients... the best place around here that I know of to get obscure asian cuisine ingredients is Seoul Oriental Market on Corunna Road. It's a dusty little mom and pop shop, and a lot of their stuff is expired and kinda gross looking, but as long as you check dates and are careful about what you buy, it's a really fun place to explore. That's where I got my rice paper rolls, rice noodles, sesame seeds and asian hot chile oil.

The rest of the ingredients, for the most part, are from the Farmer's Market, although we had to get the bok choy from Meijer (wah wah wah).

Everything was incredibly delicious! The bok choy was probably my favorite. It reminded me of a dish you would find at a Chinese buffet, except free of hand germs, msg, and heat lamps. The tempeh salad wasn't really my thing. Mayo grosses me out whether it's vegan or not. Cameron loved it though. And of course it's hard to mess up spring rolls as long as you have a good dipping sauce.



I found some more pictures on my camera of a few other things I've made the past few months and never blogged about...

Blurry tempeh sushi (thanks Chris and Lisa for the sushi kit wedding gift!)

Vegan breakfast in disguise: "sausage," homemade biscuits and gravy, potato hash, homemade almond anise biscotti.