VeganMoFo 2019 #18: P is for Plant Crush (Blog)

Today I have another round up of some blog food to share with you. I love the recipes on Plant Crush - beautiful photos, lovely food, and a heft dose of five spice (my favourite spice blend). I've already posted a couple of recipes from this blog in some of my Midweek Munchies posts, and you can see those posts here, but for MoFo I made three all new to me recipes. I have a bunch more saved that I want to make as well, so be sure to look for them in the future! In the meantime, let's get hungry thinking about these recipes I already made.

Vegan Chinese Five Spice Beef Stir-Fry: This caught my eye because... five spice! Also because Ann uses dried TVP beef slices in the recipe, and I love them. They are my favourite to use for any sort of beefy stir-fry recipe. I was just serving two people, so I halved the recipe, but in retrospect you want leftovers because it is delicious. I marinated my strips (using boiling water for the stock) for about four hours, to let lots of flavour sink in. Once marinated, you just tip them into a pan to simmer off the extra liquid. I needed to vigorously simmer for about ten minutes before all of mine had soaked in. I served this as suggested, with some steamed rice and some fresh cucumber. It was amazing. My omni dad loved it too.



Shredded Tofu and Mushroom Banh Mi: I was late to the banh mi game, but I have since come to love them a lot. This is a fantastic one! It is pretty simple to make, the main component being the shredded mushrooms for the filling. I used portobello mushrooms, and tried shredding them with a fork but immediately stabbed myself so just shredded them with my hands. The tofu is dry fried, and Ann gives a simple guideline for making a fabulous paprika mayo (just mayo, smoked paprika, and garlic powder). I made some pickled carrots quickly using this recipe (from the Viet Vegan blog, and leaving out the daikon because I didn't have any). I made a half recipe of filling because I was serving two, and served it on the crusty Vietnamese rolls you can get fresh from Coles.



Bulgogi Fusion Tacos: This was the perfect chance to use up the rest of my packed of TVP beef slices. I only had enough of them left to make 1/4 of the recipe, which was the perfect amount for two of us. I soaked my TVP strips in some beef-style stock for added flavour. For the marinade, instead of using actual onion and garlic I used powdered, and added a few TBS of the leftover beef stock soaking water for liquid. I chopped up the beef strips a bit to be smaller to fit in my little tortillas better (I used mini ones). The filling also has onion and mushrooms in it, as well as the beef strips and marinade/ The recipe also includes some quick pickled radishes and cabbage, which were amazing. Once everything was ready to go, I served it with some baby spinach leaves, filling, and pickles, and they were wonderful. I had some leftover filling, which I took to work for leftovers with some rice and spinach for a quick bowl.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



At the end of last year we got a new sofa, and where was a while where we were all sitting on camping chairs between the old sofa going and the new one coming. Because the camping chairs were really saggy, I put Dim Sim's bed on one of the chairs to provide some support for me to sit on. Of course, she hadn't even looked at this bed in ages, but as soon as I was using it she had to perch awkwardly on it for a little while to remind us that it is hers even if she doesn't want to use it. She is glad we have the new sofa now!