It’s been months since I posted and now September is done.

I lost my creative cooking mojo the past couple of months, especially the sharing part. I always knew that there were people in my community that didn’t have enough to eat and that I lived a pretty affluent, foodie lifestyle. As a personal chef, I was also serving very privileged families. This aspect of my service sometimes bothered me and I looked for opportunities to volunteer my time.

These feelings were even more heightened during the initial COVID lockdown and the months that followed. I just didn’t feel like talking about or discussing delicious food.
But that didn’t mean I stopped cooking! Just like you, my family is still hungry and needs to eat. I also know that these problems of food inequity, food deserts, environmental racism, and climate change are still happening along with COVID-19.

In some ways, my cooking was more simple. There was a time where there were no processed vegan foods because we couldn’t get them. We ate a lot of homemade tempeh.
My husband promised to make a tempeh blog post but now he’s just too busy. We ate what we had in the pantry and sometimes were eating the same meals over and over.

MEMORABLE FOODS OF THE PANDEMIC.

And I realize it’s not over but here are some favorites.
1. Chinese Corn Soup (see recipe below!)
2. Chickpea Salad Sandwiches
3. Ancient Grain Cereal with Trail Mix
4. Homemade Soy Milk
5. Black Bean Tempeh & Black Bean Brownies
6. Tacos
7. Kitchari
8. Air Fried Tofu – see my Air Fryer recommendation here
9. Sprouts
10. Nutritional Yeast on subscription (paid link)

You’ll see #1 is Chinese Corn Soup. I’m sure I’ve made this over 15 times since March. It has flavors I enjoyed as a child and I find it very comforting.
It’s traditionally made with egg whites dropped in hot broth, but I recreate that silky texture with yuba. Yuba is the skin that forms when heating soy milk. You can find it at your local Asian grocer or sometimes online in a dried form. I like the kind that comes in sheets in the freezer section. It’s also possible to make your own from full-fat soymilk, that’s preferably homemade with nothing added.

Let me know if you make it! I’d love to hear from you.
What has been a meal that has become a favorite?

Vegan Chinese Corn Soup

Cantonese Eggdrop soup made with yuba instead of egg as a vegan version

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Chinese

Servings 4 people

Equipment

Soup pot

Ingredients

1 bag corn kernels, frozen
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, sliced You can use 1/2 cup dried and reconstituted in water
1 TBSP toasted sesame oil
1 tsp Better Than Buillion -No Chickn
4 cups filtered water
2 TBSP wakame, dried Cut with kitchen shears to small pieces
1 sheet/fold yuba, cut into 3/4 in strips
2 scallions, sliced
1/4 tsp white pepper

Instructions

Defrost corn. When defrosted, put the entire bag contents into a blender with 3 cups of water and the bullion paste.
Cut up all the veggies (shiitakes, scallions) and cut up your yuba strips.
Put a soup pot on the stove and heat on medium. Add sesame oil.
Add sliced shiitake mushrooms and cook until soft.
Blend the corn until it is a cream corn consistency with some full kernels still visible. This would be 10-20 seconds in a high-powered blender like a Vitamix.
Add this corn mixture to the pot along with 1 additional cup of water and heat on high and bring to a boil.
Lower heat to medium and add wakame pieces and yuba strips. Add white pepper.
Heat through until wakame and yuba are soft.
Serve with sliced scallions as a garnish.

Video

Notes

You can find wakame and yuba at Asian grocery stores or online.
Yuba is also called a bean curd sheet or spring roll skin. If your order it dry, you will need to break it into pieces. If you see spring roll skin, make sure it’s made from soybeans, not flour.
I get my yuba at Hmart in the refrigerated or freezer section. It is fresh packaged so the sheet can be cut with kitchen shears. I like the brand Havista and it is non-GMO.
If you are looking for organic yuba and live on the West coast, you may be able to find yuba made by Hodo Soy. https://www.hodofoods.com/product-details/kumiage-yuba

Keyword Chinese, corn soup, shiitake, vegan, wakame, yuba

Frozen shiitake mushrooms for convenience

I use kitchen shears to cut the sheets into strips. I cut 1/3 (a fold) of the contents and put the rest back in the freezer. Then I cut this fold into strips.

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