Cheap Vegan Left Over Revival Guide to Last Night´s Chinese Food

Have you ever looked at your left over Chinese and just thought, ¨hmm don´t really want to eat this…¨
You probably eat it anyway, but nothing is as good as the fresh Lo Mein you had the night before. But lucky for us there are ways to revive your left overs to the point that they seem like a brand new meal.

Since we are dealing with vegan Chinese food, it´s safe to say the main ingredients of your meal are vegetables and rice (maybe noodles if they´re egg free). So what you´re looking at for Chinese food on day 2 is a stir fry that can bring some pizazz back to your grease soaked brocoli.

The biggest challenge with these left overs is that Chinese food seems to double in moisture overnight to a point where all of the vegetables have all sort of turned the same color… I´m going to try to help you make this appetizing!

1. Make some extra brown rice. This will help soak up the flavor and give us a base of our meal. You might even have some left over with your main dish.
2. Get a pan hot and throw on some onions, ginger, and garlic. This combo can accomodate sweet, spicy, or soy saucy tastes.
3. Next, add the left overs to your pan. Try to simmer off some of the excess water. 
4. Then we add any fresh veggies that match what was already in the dish. Some staples of most vegan chinese food dishes are cabbage, cashews, brocoli, tofu, carrots, and peas. These are pretty safe places to start.
5. You´ll need to add some flavor so your fresh ingredients match your left overs, so make sure everything is soaked pretty well. To do this, try to mimic whatever sauce was on there before.
   SALTY: Hoisin, Teriaki, Soy, even salt or vegetable broth
   SWEET: Add some fruit like pineapple or orange juice
   SWEET AND SOUR: try a pineapple, soy sauce and vinegar combo* 
   IF YOU LIKE SPICE: Add some red pepper flakes or sriracha 
   **NOTE: Adding a bad sauce to your stir fry is guaranteed to ruin your meal. Make sure that if you´re experimenting do so in a separate bowl. Then, dip a vegetable from the original left over to taste if it compliments your dish the way you intended. Always add sauces slowly, there´s nothing worse than too much of a good thing.
   AFRAID OF SCREWING UP THE FLAVOR?
    If you aren´t a wiz in the kitchen and you really just want to keep this simple, season with the free packets of soy and duck sauce you got with your meal. Maybe add a little red pepper if you´re feeling crazy. 
   If you still seem to have gone a little too far justpour out some of the excess sauce, add some water, and sautee for an extra minute or 2. 
6. Add your Stirfry to the rice and enjoy your Chinese food´s 2nd life.

Bubble and Squeakless Brunch Recipe

While the British aren’t well known for their culinary contributions, they do know how to make some cheap food, and this one is actually pretty good. In the photo above you can see our brunch from today: bubble and squeak with homemade baked beans and a tomato/onion salsa. (the coke in the background is definitely not mine…)
Typically you fry the cabbage and potato cakes in a pan of oil, this makes bubbling and squeaking sounds (where the name comes from), I chose to bake rather than fry for my version of this recipe hence where the cheap vegan name comes from.
This recipe was also traditionally made using the leftovers from a big roast the night before. Feel free to throw in some left overs you have in the fridge. Bubble and Squeak also commonly has peas, carrots, or brussel sprouts in them.

What you need:
Cabbage - $1 a head
Red Potatoes - $2 for bag of about 10
Tomatoes - $1.50 for 4 tomatoes
Red onions - $2 for a bag of about 8
Vegetable Bouillon - $3 for 8 large cubes (optional, you can use salt)
BBQ Sauce - about $2 depending on brand
(cheap trick, as for BBQ sauce at take away restaurants instead of buying your own)
**these prices are an estimated conversion from Euros
The ingredients used in this meal for 2 people only costs about $2 total!

Bubble and Squeakless
for 2 people
4 Red Potatoes (small/medium sized)
1/2 head of cabbage
1/4 large vegetable bouillon cube
1/4 onion (diced)
Splash of oil

1. Bake potatoes in oven until soft (you can also boil but this leeches nutrients out of the potato)
2. Chop 1/2 head lettuce into thin slices, be sure to wash off all the dirt. Put a small splash of oil in a frying pan and add onion and cabbage.
   (If you’re like me and only have 1 smaller sized pan just cabbage slowly, it will cook down)
3. Check on potatoes, when soft, mash and let cool.
4. When cabbage is a little bit softer and coated with a little oil and water from cooking, add 1/4 of bouillon cube, depending on the brand of bouillon you will either need to add water to melt cube or you can just crumble it on top.
5. Mix cabbage and potatoes together, once cool enough to touch, form in to multiple small cakes or 1 large cake about 1 inch thick and put them on greased baking sheet. Bake until brown.

Baked Beans

This isn’t your typical Bush’s baked beans (though you can just use a can if you prefer)

1. Once you have soaked and cooked your beans, just add a little BBQ sauce, a splash of pureed tomato (about 1/2 tomato), and some thyme if you have it, and bake in the oven. Include a some of the bean water for a nice creamy sauce.

Tomato/onion salsa

1. Dice 2 tomatoes and 1/4 of an onion and add them together. Add salt to taste.

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This is a great warm comforting food to make when you’re stuck in the house all day. It’s also made almost entirely whole food ingredients, making this a healthier choice for a big brunch.