One Night Stanzas

You remember that one of the things in my 30 before 30 post was learning to cook things? Because as awesome as having a great cook for a boyfriend really is (and it really, really is), sometimes, you know, he goes out… and I end up eating a veggie burger from the back of the freezer. I’m not saying women ought to be 1950s-style domestic goddesses or anything, but I really don’t think Carrie Bradshaw’s whole “I keep sweaters in my stove” [read: and only ever eat take-out] thing is very adult. I need to be able to fend for myself, dammit!

So, I asked my aforementioned unpaid personal chef Lovely Boyfriend to teach me one of his classics: Thai tofu peanut satay and noodles. Turns out, it’s relatively straightforward… and extremely delicious! Here’s a rough idea of how to do it:

So, Lovely Boyfriend’s holy trinity of flavours is garlic, ginger and chilli — which is what this is, with some lemongrass and lime zest to make it extra Thai-ish. In the mug is some tamarind, softening in water. Apparently this is optional.

Next step: soften all those things, finely chopped or grated, in a small saucepan. (When it comes to amounts, it’s all down to your taste. This is 5 small garlic cloves, one stick of lemongrass, about a thumb-sized blob of ginger, one small chilli and the zest of one lime.) Once the tamarind has broken up in the water, seive the fluid into the saucepan too, and ditch the pulp.

Now for the veg! We did red bell pepper, carrot, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms and white onion — we also added deep-fried tofu (which is amazing and can be bought from Asian supermarkets) and cashews for protein, ’cause we’re vegan. You could put in chicken or some other dead creature if you’re that way inclined. But I do encourage you to try the tofu!

(While the veg chopping is going on, your garlic, ginger etc will have softened and the fluid from the tamarind will have reduced. Once that happens, add one can of tinned coconut milk to your wee saucepan, along with as much smooth peanut butter as you fancy — we put in about four tablespoons full. Stir til the peanut butter softens and mixes in, then leave to simmer.)

Here’s Lovely Boyfriend showing me how to wok out. Chuck all the veggies etc into your pre-heated and greased wok. You’ll see there’s also some water boiling, ready for the noodles to start cooking! With Thai noodles, you only need to put them on as things start to come together, ’cause they cook pretty fast.

Last part: final flavours! As your veggies start to look done, splash some sesame oil (not too much!) and soy sauce into the mix, and tear a bit of coriander into your now-smooth and simmering sauce! You can also add some extra lime to the sauce if you like.

Wok action shot! Once our noodles were cooked, we added them into the wok with the veggies and chucked the sauce over everything, and wok-ed it all for a short while to mix everything into the sauce. If you want, you can just add the sauce to the veggies alone and serve over virgin noodles.

Serve in a noodle-bowl with a wedge of lime for squeezing! Are my noodle-bowls not lovely? They were handmade by Caractacus Pots of Etsyville. All her stuff is handmade, OOAK, reasonably priced and lovely! I’m keeping an eye on her yarn bowl section for my next purchase!

Needless to say, the satay was freaking delicious, and provided 6 of our 7-a-day portions of veg. (You can substitute the coconut milk for water or some other kind of unsweetened plant milk to cut down on the fat content, too, health lovers.) Next challenge: to make it without Lovely Boyfriend’s help!

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

I’ve posted a few recipes for vegan desserts here now, and hopefully you’ve tried your hand at making some of them! Since becoming vegan just over a year ago, I’ve been thrilled (REALLY) to discover just how many dessert options are still open to me and my chronic sweet tooth! However, we vegans do sometimes lose out when it comes to tasty dessert accompaniments. I miss very few foodstuffs, but one of the things I do miss is, weirdly, custard. For a good while I was desperately seeking a tasty, cruelty-free custard substitute… and then I discovered cashew cream.

The revelation happened at the wonderful Zeffirelli’s, where I ordered a vegan summer pudding (OMG) and it came with lashings of what I can only describe as “freakin’ delicious cashew goo” on the side. I have since learned that cashew cream is basically the best thing ever to go with any kind of fruity dessert — especially a good old fashioned apple pie.

So if you have vegan guests coming over and you want to make sure they don’t just have to look sad while everyone else tops their tasty dessert with ice cream or custard, TRY THIS. It is so, so easy.

Ingredients

200g of cashews (pro tip: buy cashew pieces from your local healthfood store. Cheapness!)
A 200g block of creamed coconut
400ml water
1/2 cup of agave nectar
Vanilla extract

First, roughly chop your cashews. They don’t have to be evenly sized, or cut too small. Basically just make sure there are no whole cashews left.

Soak ‘em in cold water for a little while. I did mine for about two hours and that was plenty. Once they’re good n’ soaked, put them into the blender or food processor, along with the creamed coconut, which you should break into small chunks. Pour in the 400ml of warm water, and whizz for a good while.

You’ll end up with a mix that looks a bit like this. ^ (Warning: you will not get it to go totally smooth, ’cause yaknow, nuts. It’ll still be a little gritty. To reduce the grittiness, soak your cashews for longer.) At this stage, you can stir in your agave nectar and add vanilla extract to taste. That is LITERALLY IT.

NB: your ‘cream’ may seem a bit watery. If you want to eat it right away (as I did, obv), you can seive off some of the liquid (useful for vegan milkshake?). However, know this: the cream will firm up quite a bit in the fridge, so maybe prepare it a little ahead of time so it has a while to chill out.

Best served with pie, if you ask me! Enjoy!

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!