Vegetarian Mushroom Ramen Soup Noodles 素食蘑菇湯拉麵

Savory, rich, filled to the brim with lip-smacking, noodle slurping, umami yummy-liciousness!  Dearest noodle lovers, we're making a bowl of veggie ramen noodles today for all those plant lovers out there!  A bowl of chewy but firm ramen noodles topped with meaty aromatic shrooms and just cooked tender veggies, nestled in a hot and savory umami packed veggie soup.  M oh man, we love us our noodles!

Mala Spicy Chilled King Oyster Mushroom Salad 麻辣涼拌杏鮑菇

Hey hobbits out there, doncha just love, love, love mushrooms?  Then this is the dish for you!  Meaty mushrooms marinated in spicy mala sauce and a splash of numbing sichuan pepper oil, sprinkled with aromatics and then chilled to perfection.  This Mala Spicy Chilled King Oyster Mushroom Salad 麻辣涼拌杏鮑菇 is super easy to make and absolutely shroomy-licious!

Chinese Steamed Egg with Mushroom 香菇蒸蛋

There's absolutely nothing better than a silky smooth Chinese egg custard as we've shown our dear readers how to achieve successfully in our post on Chinese steamed eggs 蒸蛋 (click the link!).  Today we'te going to talk about a twist on the classic steamed egg that had my hubby and little girl asking for seconds and thirds and finally demanding why I hadn't made more!

The twist?  We infuse the intense and fragrant flavors of dried shitake mushroom into our silky smooth egg custard.  Wow oh whoppity wow, why haven't I made this before?  Chinese Steamed Egg with Mushroom 香菇蒸蛋 is so yummilicious:  delicate slippery bites of tender egg custard with delectably flavorful chewy bites of mushroomy mushroom.  YUM!  And we'll show you how to make it to perfection!

Vegetable & Mushroom Dumpling 蔬菜蘑菇餃

Hope that all our dear readers have had a most auspicious Chinese New Year!  We've been pretty quiet, just resting after the fierce study schedule we've been on to support my little girl's long and hard preparation for mid year exams.  It's crazy that the schools in HK have so many exams!  😵‍💫

So better late than never, here's our vegetarian offering for the Chinese New Year: a simple but really yummy vegetable dumpling!  It's a tradition to eat vegetarian on the first day of the new year to cleanse the body and spirit as well as to cleanse out the energy of the old year.

We like vegetable dumplings but have found that it's hard to find a really good one.  Recently, however, we tried a mushroom and vegetable dumpling at one of our local dumpling shops that was simple and yet so memorable and tasty.  I kept wanting to go back for more.  This is our version of that same yummilicious Vegetable and Mushroom Dumpling 蔬菜蘑菇餃.

Braised Cabbage w/ Dried Shrimp & Mushroom 白菜燜香菇蝦米

Ummm...yum, yum, ummmm!  This is one of the best, most satisfying Chinese vegetable dishes to cook and eat on chilly wind swept autumn's day.  Tasty, gorgeously saucy, simple yet richly layered with flavors, tenderly melting in your mouth and warming to the depths of your toes!  Best of all the star of the show, the humble looking Napa Cabbage, is very cheap.  

One finds mounds of this veg stacked up in tall piles at the wet market, although here in Hong Kong it is usually neglected for other more favored southern vegetables such as the Choi Sum 菜心 or Gai Lan 芥蘭.  But don't miss out, pick up a handsome head of cabbage and make this simple classic Northern Chinese comfort dish, Braised Cabbage with Dried Shrimp and Mushroom, or 白菜燉香菇蝦米, perfect for these cool autumn days!

Stir Fry Bamboo and Mushrooms | 炒二冬 | 冬筍炒冬菇

Well, here is something that I have in common with the Chinese panda.  (Besides the both of us being fluffy and adorable that is.)  It turns out that we both love to eat bamboo!  

I recently happened upon this photo of Wang Wang the panda, contentedly chewing on his lovely sprig of bamboo and thought: Wow, I'm hungry!  That's when I knew it was time to make this lovely dish for our dinner: Stir Fry Bamboo and Mushrooms (冬筍炒冬菇), also sometimes called Stir Fry Two Winters (炒二冬).  (This is due to the Chinese character for winter (冬) which you can see shows up twice in the name!)  

This traditional Hangzhou 杭州 vegetarian dish is made with tender winter bamboo shoots and the delicious shitake mushroom.  Easy peasy and yummy too!  I bet Wang Wang the panda would like it as much as we do!