This cucumber kimchi recipe was so easy to make especially since I already had the Korean brand red chili flakes (handy in cooking in general). We had a bunch of cucumbers from Farm Fresh Delivery that were starting to go bad. I was thinking I wanted to make dill pickles out of them, but then kimchi popped into my head instead. The thing about kimchi versus dill pickles, for me at least, is kimchi almost always sounds good, but dill pickles I need to be in the mood for. I swear I should’ve been born Korean 
My mp3 player thinks I was!
So first step was googling since I was at work, I also checked one of my Korean cookbooks when I got home, but I ended up sticking with the one I found online for a reason i have since forgotten. I have made a cabbage kimchi before and this was a lot easier in my opinion.
Cucumber Kimchi recipe
What I did differently
- used non-Asian cucumbers
- Let them sit out with salt longer just because I didn’t get back around to them when they specified
- cut the green onion up thinly instead of big pieces like the recipe photos show
- I missed the part about letting the jar sit out 24 hours before refrigerating until I reread it as I made this post. oops! still yummy!
If you make some please share! I plan to make more tomorrow!
One of my tweethearts @mgonyeo retweeted a link to the blog post of reasons to stop eating meat. I thought I’d share it here!
1. To save the lives and well-being of animals. Our animal friends are treated like pieces of meat in most slaughterhouses. Animals have souls. There were over 9 BILLION chickens slaughtered in the US in 2008. Along with over 35 million cattle, 116 million pigs and over 270 million turkey. source
2. Lower your risk for cancers. It is widely accepted in the scientific community that a diet high in meat consumption helps develop certain cancers. On the flip side, if you do not eat meat, you automatically reduce your risk by 64% of developing stomach cancer and lower your risk by 53% for bladder cancer. source
Please visit the original post for the rest of the reasons, but feel free to comment here about the nice changes you’ve experienced since cutting out meat.
I’ve refrained from cooking with eggplants because I’ve heard that if you screw it up they’re really bad. I just need to throw that idea out the window because they’re so yummy and cool looking! Last night we made Eggplant Paprikash from FatFreeVegan.com.
The only real changes we made were maybe not using enough eggplant or peppers (we had a green pepper) and using store bought Tofutti sour cream. As we made it I worried it wasn’t going to turn out right, but in the end it was really delicious!
I have leftovers for lunch and I can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No really, I mean that!
Her recipe can be found at the above link with a yummy looking photo, but this is what she has (please still see her site, lots of great recipes!)
Eggplant Paprikash by fatfreevegan.com
1 large onion, halved and cut into thin wedges
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. red pepper (optional)
1 tsp. salt (optional)
1 1/2 – 2 lbs. eggplant (about 2 medium) cut into 1-inch cubes
2 bell peppers, any color, sliced (I used red and yellow)
1 cup vegetable broth
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes (I used Muir Glen Fire Roasted)
1/8 tsp. Liquid Smoke flavoring
1/2 cup tofu sour cream (see below)
Tofu Sour Cream:
1/2 package (about 6 ounces) lite silken tofu
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tbsp. cashew butter or tahini
1/4 tsp. salt (optional)
Blend all the ingredients for the tofu sour cream until completely smooth, and set aside in the refrigerator until needed.
In a large, non-stick saucepan, sauté the onion in a small amount of water until it begins to brown, about 5-8 minutes. Add the garlic, paprika, and red pepper (optional), and stir for one minute. Add the salt, eggplant, peppers, vegetable broth, and tomatoes. Cover and simmer until the eggplant is tender, about 15-20 minutes.
When the eggplant is done, check the seasonings and add more salt if necessary. Stir in the Liquid Smoke (optional) and the sour cream, and cook for another minute, until warmed through. Serve over pasta (I used Tinkyada Pasta Joy brown rice noodles) or rice. Serves 4.
Since the weather started getting warmer many things have been just wrong. I’m not sleeping well and I wake tired regardless of what time I go to bed. Doing my morning work out is so hard and I gave up on the extra running routine I was working on. Lately I’ve been over eating which on top of being more lazy has caused me to gain some weight back I’d been keeping off for months. Jeans are tighter again and I feel terrible about it. On Friday I caved and got cookies I used to love that I knew had egg & butter in them, which just gave me a stomach ache in the end. *sigh*
I started taking alavert over the counter allergy meds that dissolve in your mouth. It helped my allergies, but I was starting to feel like they had altered my mood so I stopped taking them. For a few days there I was a bitchy mess when I woke up, which is so not like me. I was always the type that wakes with the alarm, alert and ready to go. I don’t know where that person has gone. Being tired every morning has taken that away, but the bitchy me is gone at least. My doctor has thought that allergies making it difficult to breathe at night have kept me from a deep sleep. I would have thought this would pass after taking the alavert a week or so, but nothing changed.
This tiredness makes cooking a chore sometimes. I’m uninspired and thus don’t want to post about what we have been making. Sometimes we post photos on twitter or here at least. I don’t recall this happening last summer, this is a drag.
In other news:
we’re getting our second Farm Fresh Delivery this Wednesday! I customized the order this time, so we’ll see how that goes.
We’ve used the vitamix in lots of useful ways so far. We made our own peanut butter with just roasted peanuts. We ground our own coffee beans, made a salad dressing (see previous post), smoothies, pancake batter (just mixed, but mixed nicely), chopped onions and more. I thought I bought veggies to make a soup, but we never made one, so maybe we didn’t.
We signed up for Farm fresh Delivery due to a coupon offer and got our first delivery Weds 05/26. I had missed the customizing option so we got what they sent me and I’m totally happy with that. We got stuff we wouldn’t have picked and because of that we’re learning new stuff! Tonight I’m going to attempt this recipe for Radish Curry with some modifications so we don’t have to buy some of the spices.
Ok well that wasn’t what this post was going to be about, but I got distracted. I brought up Farm Fresh delivery because we got a bunch of fruit so I made a smoothie yesterday and today for breakfast. I just threw stuff in and blended and luckily they were both great! Yesterday was strawberries, blueberries, ice and agave nectar. Today I did and orange, strawberries, blueberries, ice, flax seed, and honey.
It turned out pretty good, but how wrong can you go with blended juice drink?
As a vegan, it’s a given that pizza will never be the same again. Pizza without actual cheese is just another entity, which I’m ok getting to know and love. Yes I miss a pizza with a ton of cheese, it was my drug of choice. One thing that has changed for me personally with pizza eating is that eating vegan/vegan-ized pizzas, I want more veggies on it than I used to tolerate. Pizza is a new creature for me without cheese impeding my taste buds.
We have attempted pizzas at home with vegan cheese, but failed because we didn’t change our cooking methods. Next attempt we will cook the pizza without the cheese a majority of the time, then add the cheese and broil it enough to melt a little. Normal method resulted in a soupy mess. It still tasted pretty good, but the mess of it made it hard to eat and left us not feeling so well.
We went to Mac’s Pizza Pub to try their vegan pizza, which was pretty good, but not like a real cheese pizza. It was a bigger bummer when the first pizza they gave us they had accidentally prepared with real cheese. We were eating it thinking “wow, this stuff tastes real…hey wait a minute!” Either way the vegan pizza is a nice option to have in town.
Next try was a Larosa’s pizza without cheese, with the idea that their sauce has an interesting and sweet taste that might carry it. It was good, but needed more taste to it. Next time we will try double sauce. A better selection of vegetables may have helped too. We got onions, roma tomatoes, green peppers and spinach on a thin crust. Here’s the Larosa’s ingredients list in pdf form in case you’re are interested. The thin and hand tossed crusts both do not have dairy/egg, but the pan crust does.
Next I think I will look up Dewey’s pizza ingredients. Their sauce can be a little spicier, which may do well vegan-ized.
We’re going back to Disney World for…drumroll…our HONEYMOON! Yes, yes, we are finally going to do it, but in the quickest and cheapest way possible.
You may recall our first trip there was January 2009 when we had been vegetarian about 7 or so months. Shawn was having his first diverticulitis flare up and was in a lot of pain. This trip we will be vegan about 4 months (by then) and Shawn’s diverticulitis is mostly under control. So now the food research begins! If anyone has tips let me know, but for others, let me post a bunch of links that I will be taking notes from soon.
Tips from AllEars.net -
A Bashful Vegan – Day 1 of 9 at WDW as a vegan
I will try to post here as we find interesting looking options. If anyone has tips, please comment!
I went to Amma’s Kitchen again for vegan buffet day (every Wednesday!). Getting the buffet carry out works really well for me because I get full quickly so buffet is not a good deal for the money. This way, I can eat this for days! They even gave me a dosa (thing on foil) which normally is only for dining in!
I realized I had yet to post officially that Shawn and I have gone vegan. We didn’t quite go cold turkey since we had baked goods gifts from the holidays and other food still in the fridge. I believe Shawn is still finishing up some frozen lunches at work that aren’t vegan too, so we’re almost there. I haven’t knowingly had anything non-vegan in around a week or maybe more.
Last weekend we went to Whole Foods on our first vegan buying trip. We had some recipes in mind and were paying even closer attention to labels. It reminded us both of when we became vegetarian in June 2008. I feel mentally good about it all. Guilt about taking part in any animals suffering for my food has lifted. We unfortunately have not gone vegan in non-food ways yet, but we’re still working on it. Vegan items tend to be more expensive than some non-vegan items, but we can do this.
The latest thing is looking at foods and restaurants that were options as vegetarians and finding out whether or not they still are. Olive Garden is totally out I read recently, they have egg in all their pasta. I need to look up Panera, but I did find out that Taco Bell has options and so does Chipotle. We are lucky to have vegan friendly restaurants both near my work and not too far from home The Loving Cafe (all vegan), Melt (very veg/vegan friendly), Amma’s Kitchen (Vegetarian with vegan options) & Ko Sho (vegan friendly). We’re going to Ko Sho for dinner tomorrow night if possible.
It’s very exciting and hopefully we will have lots of tips to post. If you have any to share, please comment and let me know!
This cucumber kimchi recipe was so easy to make especially since I already had the Korean brand red chili flakes (handy in cooking in general). We had a bunch of cucumbers from Farm Fresh Delivery that were starting to go bad. I was thinking I wanted to make dill pickles out of them, but then kimchi popped into my head instead. The thing about kimchi versus dill pickles, for me at least, is kimchi almost always sounds good, but dill pickles I need to be in the mood for. I swear I should’ve been born Korean 
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