Recipes of Mandy Hsieh
Eldest son Pang Yong Wei, 8 years old
Second son Pan Yong Xin, 4 years old
Many people asked me: “What can vegetarian children eat?” Yet this question is seldom asked by mothers of vegetarian babies; and most of these vegetarian babies have hearty appetites. I feel that this is due to the fact that these mothers try to use as much fresh organic vegetables as they can, employ simple cooking method, preserve the original taste of the food, avoid feeding the children food which consist of artificial colourings and artificial flavourings. The taste buds of these vegetarian babies are taught to eat simply; so whatever they eat, it becomes scrumptious. I have invited these mothers to share their best recipes with all of you. Hopefully the recipes of these creative mothers can give you some inspiration and let your daily cooking of love become a gift to the family. The quantity of ingredients for the following recipes can be increased or decreased according to each family preference. All these recipes are favoured not only by the vegetarian babies but are also appreciated by grown-ups.
Pumpkin Soup
Cut to 1 pumpkin into chunks (with or without skin). Place in pot and add sufficient water to cover the pumpkin. Add a handful of cashews, 3 slices of ginger and cook pumpkin until soft. Place into food processor and puree. Add a little salt if the taste is bland. I like to put aside some cashews when blending as this will result in having some texture when eating. Those who do not like ginger need not add ginger when blending.
In autumn when pumpkins are harvested, this is a regular dish in my home. In America, there is a great variety of pumpkin. When I use Butternut pumpkin for soup, I like to use the food processor to make it into a creamy soup. When I use Kambocha pumpkin (i.e., pumpkin grown in Taiwan) for soup, I do not put it into the food processor. The chunks of pumpkin in the soup give a textured feeling. As acorn squash is very sweet, I usually avoid making soup with it. After washing the pumpkin, the pumpkin is pierced with holes and put into the oven to bake at 400oF for 1 to 1 ½ hour (baked until soft). When eating, cut the pumpkin, remove the seeds, and eat it plain or add a little cream to it.
Pesto Sauce
2 cups of basil (packed tightly), washed and slightly dried
2/3 cups of pine nuts or walnuts
1 cup of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of salt
Place all the ingredients into food processor and puree until it becomes smooth and evenly green in colour. Place in refrigerator and the sauce can be kept for 2 weeks.
In summer when basil grows bountifully, there is always pesto sauce in my refrigerator. It can be used to spread on bread, mixed with noodles or with salad.
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Recipes of Rachel Tseng’s Daughter Liu Pei Yun, 4 years old
Spring Rolls
Mushrooms – cut into strips,
Carrots – shredded, sauté with some oil, add some soya sauce and cook until soft.
Red cabbage – cut into strips, cooked with water until soft. Sieve dry.
Coriander – cut finely.
Any sprouts, Red Moss Seaweed 红毛苔 finely ground peanut.
Place the above ingredients in layers in the middle of a spring roll skin. Then apply tomato sauce on the four sides of the skin (use as paste). Wrap it up and it is ready to be eaten (there is no need to fry or deep-fry).
This dish is colourful, it has salty, sweet and sour taste and appeals to many people. For those who like it spicy, chili sauce can be added to the tomato sauce. Among the ingredients, carrot, coriander and ground peanut are the main component. Cabbage can be substituted with other vegetables. By adding sprout, it increases the opportunity to eat more raw vegetables. Red Moss Seaweed 红毛苔 can be substituted by seaweed or be eliminated. Nuts can be toasted and ground finely to replace ground peanut or mixed into brown sugar. Molasses can be added directly into the spring roll to make it easier.
Monica’s Salad Dressing
Peanut butter, tahini, cashew spread, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, liquid amino, orange juice or grapefruit juice, water, miso.
Except for miso, all other ingredients are to be in equal portion. Only a little miso is needed to enhance the taste.
At home, we did not eat a lot of salad, but after Monica gave us this salad dressing recipe, we use nori to wrap the raw vegetables and dip into the dressing. Henceforth, eating raw vegetables become very yummy.
Mashed Potato and Mushroom Sauce
- Boil 4 potatoes (medium size) until soft. Remove potatoes and mash. Add 1 cup of soya bean water or boiled potato water and teaspoon salt. Mixed thoroughly.
- Wash 6 button mushrooms and cut into slices. Place mushrooms in a non-stick frying pan and sauté until cooked.
- Puree cup of cashew with two cups of hot water in food processor, add two teaspoons of cornflour, 2 tablespoons of soya sauce, 1 tablespoon of brewer’s yeast and teaspoon of salt. Blend thoroughly. Cook the blended ingredients over a medium heat and bring to a boil. Stir continuously while cooking.
- Lastly pour mushroom sauce over mashed potato.
- Serve
Add water to unfinished potatoes and mushrooms and cook to make a soup. Add some cut vegetables into soup and it is very delicious and pleasing to the palates. Researching Li Mei Ling’s Recipes, she often uses cashews with great result. For example, cook one potato (add corn or green peas and some green vegetables according to preference) until soft. Add a handful of cashews and blend in food processor until smooth. This is the favourite of my kids.
For breakfast or in the lunch box, drink is served in the form of molasses water (1-2 tablespoons of organic molasses mixed with 1 cup of water). Molasses is very nutritious; it contains high quantity of trace minerals, iron and calcium and frequent intake of this drink can boost the immune system, and it is easy and convenient to prepare. If you asked me why does my kid like this drink, maybe it is because she has been drinking this since conception and thus cultivate this tastebud; or maybe when a story is told and a black drink is involved, I will tell her that it is a molasses drink (if the drink if white, I will tell her that it is almond etc.) Beside these, she is not polluted by television, and this teaching has been effectively instill in her.
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Recipes of Diana King
Son Jin He Qing 3 years old
He Qing favourite dish is very simple: Organic noodles mixed with olive oil and flaxseed oil and a lot of dulse powder. Usually, I will add a little blanched broccoli and a little liquid amino.
Below are two recipes which He Qing frequently ate when he was little:
Lentil Soup
Onion cut into small chunks (according to your preference)
4ozs carrot, cut into small chunks
1oz celery, cut into small chunks
1 tablespoon olive oil
2ozs of lentils
4ozs of potatoes – skinned and cut into small chunks
12oz of stock or water
- Sauté onion, carrot and celery with olive oil until fragrant – about 10 minutes.
- Stir in lentils, potatoes. Add stock or water and bring to a boil.
- After water is boiling, simmer for 25-30 minutes.
- Place ingredients in food processor and puree.
- Serve.
Zucchini and Green Peas Soup
Onion, cut into small chunks (according to your own preference)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2ozs zucchini, cut into slices
1 medium potato – skinned and cut into small chunks
4ozs of water
1oz of green peas (frozen or fresh)
- Sauté onion with olive oil until soft.
- Add zucchini, potato and water. Bring to a boil.
- After water is boiling, cover and cook for another 12 minutes.
- Add green peas, bring water to a boil again, lower heat and simmer for another 5 minutes.
- Place in food processor and puree.
- Serve.
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Recipes of Lai Li
Son Shen Shu Yang 2 years old
Shu Yang has a very good appetite. In order for Shu Yang to eat freshly cooked food every meal, I try to simplify the recipes. For example, after blanching celery, add it to cooked noodles and mix with a little raw almond butter. “Oil” is a very important component in the growing up process of a kid; I pay special attention in using good quality oil in Shu Yang’s diet. A frequent treasure I use is mixing flaxseed oil or olive oil to miso to make into a paste and add onto cooked greens.
Broccoli Soup
2-3 stalks of broccoli, cut into small chunks
2 medium potatoes, cut into small chunks
5-6 stalks of American celery, cut into small chunks
1 onion (optional – according to preference)
1 teaspoon of oil
2-4 cups of water
2-3 teaspoons of almond butter salt, pepper
Coriander
- In a wok, fry oil, onion, salt and coriander until fragrant.
- Cover wok and cook onion until soft.
- Add broccoli, American celery, potato, and water.
- Cover wok and cook until potato is soft.
- Pour ingredient into food processor, add almond butter and blend until creamy. Then filter.
- Chop broccoli flowerets into small pieces and blanch it.
- Add to soup.
- Serve with pepper to taste.
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Recipes of Madame Ye
Daughter Annabelle, 3 years old
My daughter does not like to eat rice, therefore when I cook, I like to use different kinds of grains and mix to change the taste. I frequently use barley, wild rice, black glutinous rice, red glutinous rice, and millet. The normal ration used is 1 cup of white rice, 2 cups of brown rice and 1 cup of other grains.
Broccoli Fried Rice
Carrot – chop into pieces
Broccoli – chop into pieces (use only the flowerets, when frying rice, [a little green] could be seen)
Vegetarian meat – chop into pieces
Onion – chop into pieces (optional – according to preference)
Any other greens – chop into pieces
- Fry all ingredients with oil.
- Season with soya sauce, salt, curry, tomato sauce. (according to preferred flavour)
Tomato Basil Tofu
Tofu, cut into chunks
Tomato, cut into chunks
Basil, black bean paste, onion – chop into pieces
- Fry all ingredients with oil.
- Add soya sauce and seasoning.
- Soya sauce and black bean paste can be substituted by miso or peanut butter or almond butter. This gives a different flavour. Miso and peanut butter can be added to the dish at the last part of cooking.
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Recipes of Chen Nian Ci
Son Cheng De Shan, 2 year and 4 month
Sandwiches
Toast bread slightly. Spread blueberry jam on one slice and almond butter on another slice. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of spirulina on bread. Put two slices of bread together and serve.
Vegetable Bread
1/3 cup of sugar
¼ cup of vegetable oil
3 cups shredded or chopped zucchini
Carrot, apple or banana (mashed) or choice of any one item
1 cup of wholewheat flour, cup of flax meal,
Black sesame powder & wheatgerm – mixed according to preference but totalling not more than cup
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup crushed walnut
½ cup raisins
- Mix dry ingredients (flour, flax meal, black sesame powder, wheatgerm, salt and baking soda.)
- Mix sugar oil, vegetables, fruits and vanilla essence in a food processor. Add into dry ingredients.
- Add walnut and raisins.
- Grease two rectangular baking tins. Divide mixture into two portions and pour into baking tins. Bake in oven for 1 hour at 375oC, or test with chopstick (poke chopstick into bread and it is ready when the chopstick comes out clean).
Notes
Any leftover vegetables and fruits can be added into this recipe, a mixture of flavour is even better. But care must be taken in controlling sweetness and liquid content. For example, bananas can increase sweetness, apples increase moisture content. Adjust quantity of sugar and flour accordingly.
This recipe can easily contain the important flaxmeal, black sesame power and wheatgerm, and yet not cause any different in taste and texture. Kids especially love to eat this bread.
Full-time mother can halve this recipe, this way the child gets to eat fresh bread. Each time, I make two loaves, one to be frozen and one to be eaten fresh, it is very tasty.
Carrot Cake
2 cups wholemeal flour
2 cups carrot – shredded
¾ cups of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cornflour
3 tablespoon crushed walnuts
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon brewer’s yeast
1 teaspoon ginger – minced
8-10 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
Mix all ingredients, pour into baking tin and bake for 25 minutes at 350oC, or test with a knife, knife should come out clean when done.
Sunflower seeds or raisins can be added. Quantity of carrot can be increased. This will result in the cake being moister, but the taste of carrot is stronger.
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