Chicken and Corn Soup via The Dumpling Sisters!

I was browsing Food Tube the other day. If you haven't heard of it it's a youtube channel run by Jamie Oliver and his friends who post super cool recipes every week! It's amazing. Anyways, there was a mini competition to find Jamie's next Food Tube star and that's where I found: The Dumpling Sisters!

These girls are sisters who cook together (just like us!), they are from New Zealand and cook traditional and not-so-traditional Chinese food, everything they make looks so good! I always had this close-minded view of Chinese food as only consisting of: Chicken Balls, fried rice, and lots of MSG. But these sisters cook food that is easy, accessible and healthy, I'm totally on board!
If you're curious about Chinese food and want to try out a few recipes, take a look at their blog.

I've wanted to make this soup for a while and finally got around to it! It's probably the easiest soup I've ever made and it takes maybe half an hour.

For the corn, you can use canned, frozen, or fresh!

640g corn
5 cups of chicken stock
1 chicken breast, cut into small pieces
1 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp tapioca flour (combined with 1/2 cup cold water)
2 eggs
3 chopped spring onions
1 tbsp chopped cilantro (optional)

First take half of your corn and blend with 1 cup hot chicken stock. Combine blended corn, whole corn kernels and 4 cups of chicken stock in a pot and bring to a boil. Marinade chicken with soy sauce and a pinch of salt. Turn down heat and add chicken, give it a few stirs. Bring soup back up to a boil. Take off of heat and slowly stir in the tapioca flour/water slurry. Put back on heat and stir until thickened, make sure it comes back up to a boil because tapioca flour must be coked through. Crack two eggs and whisk in a bowl (original recipe called for 3 but I only had 2, add 1 more if you want!). Season soup with salt and pepper, chop up spring onions and stir into soup, I added 1 tbsp chopped cilantro because I'm obsessed with cilantro and it goes well with corn. I also added some chili spice and black sesame seeds as well as a sprig of cilantro for garnish.

And that's it! Soo easy! It's like chicken noodle soup, so comforting!

You can use tapioca, corn starch or even arrowroot flour would work too!

yum yum yums

sunny days

Here is the video of the original recipe by the Dumpling Sisters:

Grapefruit Mango Smoothie

Hey everyone! We have a fantastic smoothie to share with all of you!

It started out with this HINT of inspiration:

0 sugar!

I've never come across a mango and grapefruit combo, but oh my! It's so good!

Grapefruits are one of our favourites because it's low in sugar but still has such a unique and fresh flavour.

Mango has that same fresh taste, which is why they are a perfect combo!

Onto smoothie making!...

Grab 1 1/2 cups of frozen mango (or one happy mug full!)

mug full of mango

Pour in 1 cup of grapefruit juice (we used not from concentrate which tends to be pretty strong so we subbed 1/4 cup of it for water)

fresh juice

Add 3 heaping tablespoons of plain yogurt (we used Liberte Organic Yogurt). Blend until this sunny colour happens.

kickin' back on the sunshine coast

And you've got a bright mango and grapefruit smoothie! Since we used stronger juice, we didn't have to use any sweetener, feel free to add a squirt of honey or even half a banana!

Add caption

Summer Fun! Cherry-Vanilla Milkshake + Ginger Peach Iced Tea + Toast

Summer is officially here! And that usually means, less cooking, more blending (smoothies that is). There were frozen cherries on sale (such a rarity), so I thought a cherry milkshake was in order. To make this vegan, replace the yogurt with more almond milk (or add some chia seeds to thicken it). This wasn't quite milkshake material (ice cream would have put it over the edge) But I'd say it's in between a smoothie and a milkshake. Yum!

Frothy nums

1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 cup frozen cherries
1/2 small banana
1 tsp vanilla extract
Stevia, to taste
Almond milk (to blend)
2-3 Ice cubes (optional)

Combine all ingredients into a blender, blend on high for 1 minute. Makes 2 servings.

Avocado, olive oil, salt, pepper and tomato slices on toasted spelt bread

Toast has made frequent appearances this past week, the toppings are endless (like fresh avocado puree and tomato slices). You could also spread it with hummus and top with sprouts and cucumber, yum!

Jenn has been experimenting with homemade iced tea, each recipe is different, so we have yet to discover the magic formula. But this Ginger-Peach Iced tea really hit the spot.

2 tea bags (ginger-peach)
4-5 slices of lemon (important! tastes so much better with lemon)
Honey, to taste (you could also use agave)
Optional, add peach slices and shreds of ginger

Brew tea, add honey and lemon. Pour into glass bottle (or jar), Chill in fridge overnight, add peach and ginger once cooled. Add ice, enjoy on a hot summer's day.

We're back...again + Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies

Hey everyone, so we're back...again...haha this time for good, we hope our work/projects won't completely swamp us this time around.

I was on a mission this morning to make gluten-free brownies, we've made brownies before (The Sweetest Potato Brownies - GF Vegan). But we wanted to try something different.

I went to the store to seek out some ingredients, I filled the basket with everything you would need for a GF brownie recipe but I realized...this wasn't going to fit my student budget. I spotted Bob's Red Mill GF Brownie Mix, and instead of paying 20+ dollars for cocoa, GF flour, and sugar, it was only 6 this way, yay!

For the icing instead of making it, I picked up a jar of Nutella. Normally we don't eat Nutella but it was on sale, and let's face it, it's the best thing ever, especially on brownies.

1 pkg Bob's Red Mill Brownie Mix
3/4 cup unsalted butter (we used cultured butter)
1 egg
3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp vanilla (it called for 2 but I thought 1 would be enough)
Dash of salt

Topping:
Nutella (or other chocolate hazelnut spread)
Toasted hazelnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 13x9 pan with butter. Set aside. Combine in a large mixing bowl, brownie mix, softened butter, egg, water, vanilla and salt. Beat with a whisk or electric mixer. Pour into pan and bake for 25-30 min (the package says 20-25 but I had to bake mine way longer). Roughly chop hazelnuts and toast in a frying pan on medium heat until they smell really toasty or turn golden brown. Once brownies are done (stick a fork in the center, if it comes out clean they're done!) let cool, once cooled start spreading the nutella onto brownies and finish of with chopped hazelnuts. Voila!

Toasting hazelnuts

If you don't have a cooling rack, flip over your brownie slab onto the other side of another pan.

These were so dense and chewy, definitely making again!

Just a reminder to our readers: We are no longer making only vegan recipes. This blog is now omnivorous! (If you'd like advice on how to make our recipes vegan just email us @ sketchfreevegan@gmail.com and we'll answer any questions you may have!