VeganMoFo 2019 #28: Z is for Zsu Dever

The final letter of the alphabet! But not the final day of MoFo. For z (which I pronounce zed, being Australian), I had to go with cookbook author and blogger Zsu Dever. Zsu has authored three cookbooks, of which I have two. The one I don't have is Aquafaba, because I think I am the only vegan left who hasn't done stuff with aquafaba. I mean to, but it just isn't high on my priority list. One day! Zsu also has a lovely blog (though it hasn't been update for a while), with lots of recipes available there as well. I'm posting one recipe from each of the two books I have, as well as from her blog!

Mushroom Strogranoff from Everyday Vegan Eats: I made this to use up some sour cream kicking around, so stroganoff always sounds like a good idea! I just used regular white mushrooms for this, though it would be fun to use some more exciting varieties. I did find that the sauce needed a bit more flavour, perhaps some extra tomato paste and a bit of broth or mushroom powder would have been good. I made this with 8 oz (rather than 12 oz) of linguine, and added some peas as well, and I got three serves over baby spinach. I've only posted one other recipe from this book so far, which you can see here.
Rating: :)



Lentil Picadillo Bowl from Vegan Bowls: Vegan Bowls is one of my favourite cookbooks, I've used it a lot. You can see other recipes I have posted from this book here. This bowl has a few steps. I didn't read it through thoroughly enough, so learn from my mistake and even though it is the third step, make the spice mix first! You need to add it to the lentils while they are cooking. I had made my lentils earlier in the day, for quicker dinner time prep, so I missed this (but I just added it to the final mix). The recipe calls for a mix of brown and green lentils, but I just used all green. I also left out the capsicum, and I had to use kalamata olives because I realised that I didn't have any green or black regular ones. I like the salty sweet combination of picadillo, and this certainly hit that brief. I also did not have any farro, the cooked grain of choice, and while you can sub barley, I just used some white rice I had leftover from something else.
Rating: :)



Japanese Caramelised Noodles: Finally, a recipe from the blog. There are a lot of great recipes on there (some are from her books as well), but this one spoke to me. Udon noodles are cooked, then pan-fried to get golden (I did have trouble with this step, they just caught on the bottom of my pan a lot, use lots of oil!), then have vegetables and tofu (my addition) and sauce added to them. The vegetables are stir-fried initially while the noodles are boiling, then returned once the noodles have been pan fried. I added some snow peas to the vegetable mix. The sauce is easy to make, I used the vegetarian stir-fry sauce and water option. It is obviously on the sweet side, with all that brown sugar, but it is not overpoweringly sweet. Highly recommend.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



One of the nice things about a kitty of the post photo is that it lets me trawl through old photos of my girls, and sometimes I find absolute delights that I had forgotten about. Like this photo of Gizmo, trying out Sahara's basket! She looks a little awkward, but the important thing is that she is trying. She was comfortable no matter what, a champion snoozer.