Vegetarian Snack Time!

Vegetarian Supplies just at the small shop beside left of Toa Payoh MRT entrance!

I was amazed when I pass by the little shop on left side of Toa Payoh MRT station, before the escalator to HDB Hub. I had noticed it started selling a small variety of Vegetarian pastries months ago and now even Vegetarian Supplies! Though it is not a full pledged vegetarian shop, impressive enough. It now has bread & pastries from Yes Natural & Su Ya (the vegetarian bakeries), vegetarian tidbits, dry supplies like instant noodles, chilli sauce, etc. & frozen products (though not well arranged in the freezer) as well!

Must support it & hopefully it can survive well.
Ya, ya, that's the glutton me having a soft spot for tidbits:P,
I bought the HAW YUANG Seaweed cracker which is a product of Taiwan that boasts of using Japan Sea salt & technology to process the crackers.
Well, worth the price, as it is crispy without the fishy seaweed smell that some other brands had.:-)

Ingredients; Flour, Starch, Veg oil, Rice, Soy Sauce, Salt, seaweed, Sesame
Imported by Friendly Vegetarian Food Supplier

Vegetarian Snack Time!!

New tidbits produced in Indonesia discovered at a Vegetarian outlet visited.
Mini Conz - Mini Corn Sticks that came in 3 flavours: Roasted Corn, Chocolate & Cheese. On one munch, one may thought it does contain MSG but its Package had specifically indicated as no MSG added. Personally I prefer the Roasted Corn flavour.
On its package, it had indicated as Suitable for Vegetarians with ingredients of :
Corn, Vegetable Oil, Sugar, Corn Powder, Milk Powder, Salt, Roasted Corn Flavour, Permitted Food Colouring, Tartrazine CI 19140 (E102).

Instant Funori Jelly

It's quite a tedious process to make Funori dessert the traditional way but with the popularity of Funori as a good supplement for Collagen & being inexpensive, it had caught the attention of merchants to come up with different brands & ways to let people enjoy it. The most popular form is the jelly style which is often being served in those organic cafe. I would thought it difficult to home-made to the softness & smoothness of cafe standard (tasted like the ice jelly found at dessert stalls) but no longer a trouble after the invention of such rock sugar cube type of instant funori dessert.

(dissolving the cube in hot water)

This was bought outside the promotion stall set up for CNY goodies outside the Fortune Centre Vegetarian supply shop near the escalator. (However, I found out that there is another new vegetarian supply shop: "Tian Yuan Healthy Vegetarian Food Paradise" which just opened at #02-23 Fortune Centre & is retailing this product)

The product from Taiwan has 2 version. This brown version that I bought was pre-added with brown sugar, red-dates and dried longan, there's also the plain version which you could add lime or passion fruit syrup or any creation yourself.

Method:
Add 500ml (5 cups) of hot water to cube & stir til dissolved.
If you find it still too sweet, which I do, simply add more water till to your taste.
Cool it & put in fridge (non-chiller section), within hrs, you could enjoy one whole big bowl of Funori jelly with a family of 6 at the price of 1.5 cup at cafe. Really refreshing on a hot day!

Crystal had a good post on her blog on the after-product of the jelly. Pls click here:
http://crystalbyblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/funori-jelly-aka-algae-essence-jelly.html

For convenience, these instant products are great, however, to really feel the collagen presence, I would prefer the conventional way of processing it, as maybe psychologically, you know through the process that there is really rich collagen content in the funori you are having. :-)

Lazy Way of Enjoying Avocado

Yes, it's me on instant food series again.

So simple,

choose a ripen, soft avocado,

just cut the fruit into half without hurting the seed,

and use the half with the hollow space (without the seed) as a saucer for chilli,

use a small spoon and scoop the fruit like ice-cream & dip with the chilli sauce.

Heinz chilli sauce is currently my favourite dip as it is sweet & a good complement to the avocado which is quite bland in taste. :-)

Or for those who likes some thrill, use wasabi as the complement dip. :-)
For those who really like sweetness, try Molasses, healthy & nutritious!

What do you do with the seed?

Wash it with running water, dry it, then plant it with 1/3 of the tip popping out of the soil.

Water it daily, and in a few weeks, if you are one with green fingers, a stalky green plant would grow.

Yes, it grows in Spore weather... But it may take long before you can enjoy the fruit. :-)

Burdock Mock Meat Floss

In the recent tour to India and Sri Lanka, in order to avoid possibilities of being unused to the local Indian food, we usually enjoyed some additional side-dishes shared by our tour-mates. Amongst the list are the Pickled Cai-Xin, Olive vegetables, Belajan chilli and quite a number of own-made vegetarian delicacies such as above, a delicacy of mushroom stalk fried with ginger (must recall the recipe given by the vegetarian auntie:P) which finished within one round of sharing.

Another recommendable instant product is this Burdock Fragrant Fibrous Shredded brought by our Malaysian tour-mates. It is also a product of Taiwan and I believe should be available in Spore too. How good is it? It received quite a good comment from those non-vegetarians too.

Along the journey, on the coach, we also shared our own favourite tibits like the ginger slices, Ba Xian Guo, lemon slices, of different varieties from different countries (now I know what's good other than my HK Plum Ginger or HouBao which they also like:-) ) and it is great to exchange pointers where we could get them. It is also like a cultural exchange on food for the trip. :-)

Korean Noodles plus Korean HoT Pepper Paste

Having watched too much Korean drama which featured their delicious-looking instant noodles in their drama, I was in a Korean mood to cook Korean instant noodles for lunch.

Using the Korean instant noodles bought from supermart, discarding their not so healthy seasoning packages which also contained onion & garlic powder, I added my own favourite mock ingredients, vegetables, beancurb and the vegetarian-friendly no onion & no garlic Korean Hot Pepper Paste (bought from the Korean shop at Bencoolen St, which was kept too long in my fridge), with some light soy sauce, I dished up a pot of delicious Korean Soup noodles. :-)

Organic Sunflower Mayonnaise

It's hard to find a nice pure vegetarian version of salad cream (without onion, garlic & egg) off the shelves of normal supermarts.
The version sold at vegetarian supermart is generally small packet of white cream with a bland taste & I have to add lemon or apple cider vinegar to make it taste better but no longer the hassle ever since I found this melrose brand of vegetarian mayonnaise with the perfect blend of sourness to my taste that makes wonder with salad and sandwiches.
It was found on the shelves opposite the cashier of New Green Pasture Cafe.:-)
You could also use some of it to mix with plain white rice and it becomes an appetising specialty rice.

Made in Australia, ingredients on label:

Organic Sunflower Oil, Purified water, Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, Organic Sugar, Organic Mustard, Lemon oil, Salt, Soy Protein, Xanthan Gum, Citric Acid, Rosemary extract, Vitamin E,

Egg & Cholesterol Free

Gluten Free Vegan :-)