So this is a day that commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha, and I have to say, he’s got a pretty good philosophy on living a happy life.  Think our world would be better off if we all heeded his words.

“Radiate boundless love towards the entire world.” 

“As a mother would protect her only child with her life … cultivate a boundless love towards all beings.”

“Celebrating Buddha’s Day also means making special efforts to bring happiness to the unfortunate like the aged, the handicapped and the sick.  Devout Buddhists also vie with one another to provide refreshments and vegetarian food to followers who visit the temple to pay homage to the Enlightened One.” –Wikipedia 

I also see why he’s so fat, what yummy foods!! I ended up making three things.  Initially I was just planning on making fish balls in a sambal stir fry, but then the person who was making the national dish, fried rice, canceled and my perfectionism couldn’t stand it not being on the menu.  So off to my pantry and I had everything I needed for it.  I was gonna throw some green beans in the fried rice when I realized I had everything on hand to make Kacang Panjang Kecap, a spicy green bean dish, so 3 contributions from Yochi this week, and I’m glad I did, we ran out of almost everything! 

..Bakso Ikan..

fish meatballs

Angela  was going to make fish balls a few weeks ago for Iceland, but she couldn’t make it that night.  Maybe it was the craving for the lost ball, but I just had to make this Fish Ball and Vegetable Stir Fry.  I made up the fish balls by reading a few different recipes.  I used a carrot lox recipe I have, and mixed it up with tofu pulverized in the food processor with various spices.  I made a recipe for this, and it is one of those versatile ones that you can use pretty much anything and make yummy tofu balls.  Totally making these again.  The Sambal Stir Fry was really good too.  I got it from Cosmopolitan Curry Mania, and just used a bit less sesame oil than it called for.  

..Bakso Ikan dan Tumis Sayur..

Fish Balls and Stir Fry Vegetables 

So as I mentioned above, I saw this recipe online and felt that I had to make it.  I used frozen stir fry vegetables, I love the mix from Costco, and cut some extra onion in there.  I would totally make this again.  

..Nasi Goreng..

Fried Rice with Chic’n Seitan (National Dish)

I used a base chicken seitan recipe with some Indonesian spices to make the chicken for this simple stir fry.  My seitan recipe calls for 1 1/4 c of broth, so what I do is add my additional liquids to about a cup of broth, then add what’s leftover in broth to make that 1 1/4 cup of liquid action. Some of the spices I used were 2T of dark soy sauce, onion, ginger, garlic, 2t sambal and 1T fish sauce.  I think I looked at a dozen or so Nasi Goreng recipes to see what flavors were used, then found what I had on hand and made it up.  Really I just was tossing things in…garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, ginger, shredded carrot, oyster sauce.  Fried it up with a tsp of so of sesame oil, and some low flavor coconut oil.  

..Kacang Panjang Kecap..

spicy green beans

This one came last minute.  I had some green beans I impulsed bought last time I was at Winn-Dixie, and found this recipe that I had all the ingredients to make.  It was good, very spicy, and strong onion taste from the shallot paste.  

..Sayur Nangka..

vegetable jackfruit curry

Wendy made this curry from What to Cook Today. Here are her notes…

“I used Thai chilies instead of red birds eye, I omitted the shrimp paste and used a bit of golden mountain seasoning sauce, no bay leaves or candlenuts(couldn’t find them), but I used extra lemon grass and turmeric and ginger. Since I doubled the recipe, I used one can reg coco milk and 1 can coco cream…“

This was great.   She said this was her first curry that came from all spices and not a concentrate, came out wonderfully.  Wish I had made some plain rice for this to soak up that yummy juice, and for the….

..Coconut Lentils..

Ann had a failed lentil recipe she couldn’t get over, so she wanted to redeem herself. And she did with these lentils.  When she first brought them over I had a taste and I felt they needed a little something.  Apparently it called for Garam Masala, and since she didn’t have any she left it out.  Well I promptly sprinkled some in, and a little salt and tada! Perfection! 

Here’s what Ann had to say about it just before she made it…

“I already had most of these ingredients at the house. Some of the “harder to find” spices, I found ways to substitute. Also, because I’m not a big fan of the shredded coconut (and a lot of people aren’t), I’ll use up the big of crushed walnuts I have leftover from the cinnamon buns to top off the lentils. I think it sounded yummy!“

Not sure if she ended up using the walnuts or not.  I don’t recall tasting them.

..Gado Gado..

mixed vegetables in a peanut sauce

Last but not least, the salad.  Danielle has been killing it with these salads.  I think she wants to make salad to show off this amazing bowl. The tofu was fried to absolute perfection.  This really tasted like restaurant quality.  No boring vegan salads at my dinner party! Click here for her recipe or scroll on downwards. 

Next week… Turkmenistan! Day of Revival, Unity and the Poetry of Magtymguly Pyragy (1724-1807)