Food. #11

I brought these with me to the same party I made the puff pastry sticks for.

It's a very simple recipe to throw together when you're running late.

//DARK CHOCOLATE AND ORANGE MUFFINS//

ingredients:

400g flour

100g caster sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 orange (juice and grated peel)

100g dark vegan chocolate (finely grated)

10ml sunflower oil

soy milk 

Mix together flour, sugar, baking soda and cocoa. Then add orange juice, peel, the chocolate, sunflower oil. 

Mix it all together adding as much soy milk as needed to end up with a rather firm dough. 

Fill 12 lined muffin tins with your mixture and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 200°Celsius. 

Food. #10

Being vegan can be hard. Especially when you're out and about.

 I find it very unpleasant to be the only one at a party 

who is not able to eat from the birthday cake. 

But I also hate it to be complaining and ask if they maybe have something else to eat. 

So I find it the best way to avoid those situations by bringing something to eat myself. 

a) You already have a little present 

b) Others might like it as well and learn something about veganism

c) You don't have to be hungry OR ask unpleasant questions

So as I was invited to a birthday party this weekend I took the chance and made some of these. 

// SAVORY PUFF PASTRY STICKS //

This one is really easy and done in about 10 minutes (+15 minutes baking). 

What many do not know, is that the regular puff pastry you buy in the stores is vegan.

(Most of the time, read the ingredient list to be sure)

For my version I chopped up some fresh sage from our garden. 

Together with sea salt I sprinkled it on the puff pastry 

which I sliced, twisted and brushed some water on.

This is just one idea, you can change the toppings just how you prefer.

If you want to bring a desert, how about baking the pastry without topping and then add some icing?

Food. #9

This post is going to be about appreciation. 

Because I think food, as a vital object, needs all the appreciation there is. 

Without food all the other (material) things in life become worthless, 

so I think we should all cherish food much more. 

For example: I got this tomato from our local market and it looked and tasted amazing. 

I enjoy food much more, when it has something special to it. 

When I know where it comes from and when it looks pretty. 

It also makes you eat more consciously and think about every bite you make,

 because it has a much bigger value than your bug-standard-99pee-supermarket tomato.

Eat more consciously, because food shouldn't be taken for granted.  

Food. #8

In addition to the ajvar recipe, which I showed you in the last food-post, here's one way to prepare a meal with it. 

// VEGAN PIZZA // 

I used this recipe for the pizza dough and it is the best I've tried so far.
Here's a quick translation:

ingredients: 

1 kg flour

1 tablespoon sea salt

2 packages dry yeast 

1 tablespoon sugar 

4 tablespoons olive oil

650 ml lukewarm water

Sift together flour and salt in a big bowl. In a sauce pan mix together yeast, sugar, oil and water and let that sit for a couple of minutes. Then fill the mixture into the bowl with the flour and salt and mix/knead until you have an elastic pizza dough. Put the dough back in the bowl and sprinkle a bit of flour on top, cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and put it in a warm place. Wait for about an hour. 

The dough should double it's size within that time. 

After one hour start to knead the dough again till all the air inside is gone, you might need a little more flour. Form your pizza (that's enough for about 4-6 pizzas), put on the desired toppings and bake for about 15 minutes at 200°C. 

I used only half of that recipe and got one pizza as well as five little pizza buns. 

For my toppings I used the ajvar instead of the traditional tomato, sweet corn and champignons. 

After baking I also added some rucola and seasoned the pizza with a bit of white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.
The pizza absolutely did non need any cheese at all.

Food. #7

My lovely best friend introduced me to this, Ajvar, a bosnian paprika mousse. 

// AJVAR // 

I used this recipe from "Der Bio Koch", which is not 100% traditional, but yummy either way.
Here's the translation:

ingredients: 

500g red pepper

1 onion

3 gloves garlic

1/2 lemon (the juice)

some olive oil

black pepper

salt

chili 

Put the red pepper in the oven (without oil or anything) and bake until the skin comes off easily. 

Apparently it's much easier with those longer thinner peppers (as used by the Bio Koch as well). 

Peel the peppers and finely dice, do the same with onion and garlic. Lightly fry the onion and garlic in a pan with olive oil and add the pepper shortly after.

Season with black pepper, chili and salt and mix in the lemon juice. At a low temperature leave that to boil. The pepper will get softer after a bit. Traditionally you would let it in there at low temperature for a longer time but for this version 15-20 minutes are fine. You then can decide weather to mash everything up for a smoother mousse or leave it as it is with bigger bits and peaces. 

The ajvar is great as a spread on any bread, pasta sauce or even on a pizza (a recipe for that will be up soon). Enjoy! 

Food. #6

BLACK+WHITE SWIRL COOKIES

My Mom actually made these by changing an old recipe she already had. 

They are super tasty and crunchy... could eat the whole lot. 

Especially with a glass of alpro light soy milk (the best tasting one I've tried so far).

ingedrients

375g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

150g sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla sugar

vegan egg replacer (replacing half an egg)

1 tablespoons of water

200g vegan margarine

10g cocoa powder 

10g sugar

1 tablespoon soy milk

Mix together flour and baking powder, then stir in the wet ingredients. Mix well to a smooth batter. 

Part the batter into two and mix cocoa powder, sugar and soy milk into one half.

You might need to place the two portions into the fridge for a while now (do that every time you feel like the batter gets too soft to work with).

Once it cooled down a bit, roll both, black and white, evenly out and place one on top of the other.

Gently roll them up into a roll and then cut about half a centimeter think pieces off. You should be left with nicely swirled, black and white cookies (raw, yet). 

Place the cookies on a lined baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes at about 180°C

_____________________________

(what's on my mind lately:)

It sometimes gets kind of hard to explain it over and over again, but as long as people are tolerant and just want to understand what being vegan actually means and why I am doing it, 

I'm absolutely fine with it. 

Over the last weeks though more and more people come up to me and be like "What about the plants? I heard they have feelings as well!" or "Isn't it a problem for you to drive through the streets knowing that you kill thousands of insects and bacteria?" 

They're being sarcastic and thinking "you're so dumb, there's no sense in what you're doing". 

I'm vegan and that means not eating any animal products...no dairy or eggs. And that's all...vegan doesn't mean not eating anything that has feelings (though I don't think that plants actually have feelings) and it neither means that I can't go out anymore because I fear to kill a living being. 

I just don't get those people...why are they even talking to me about that topic if they're that ignorant?

Anyways... hope you enjoy the recipe! 

Food. #5

I always try to take at-home-pre-made-lunch with me when I'm having a long day of work or school. This recipe is perfect for that. Easy to prepare and to take with you. Super tasty and filling. 

// QUINOA SALAD WITH TOFU AND VEGGIES //

Quinoa has been everywhere lately. Every blogger in every country is raving about it and I finally had to give it a go as well. I chose the tricolored one with red, black and white quinoaseeds. 

For my take on the quinoa salad I just cooked the seeds in lightly salted water. 

While that was boiling away I chopped a vegan tofu sausage that I had left over. The usual tofu would work just the same, but as the sausage is already seasoned it gave a great taste to the whole salad. I gently roasted the sausage pieces and then added red beans and sweet corn, just to heat those up a bit. As the quinoa was ready I also added that into my frying pan as well as some chopped up cocktail tomatoes. After giving everything a good stir I let it cool for a bit and just before eating I seasoned it with a splash of lemon juice and some grounded pepper. 

I ate my first portion warm but it was just as delicious cooled down the next day.

I think there's nothing you could really do wrong with this, throw in any left over vegetables and seasonings you like, it's up to you really. 

I think this first try turned out quite well. I will definitely continue using quinoa in the future. 

Food. #4

VEGAN BANANA BREAD

I absolutely love sweet pastry, but I always feel bad after eating that 

plus it's rare to find something at a bakery that's vegan. 

So I was on the hunt for something that's not quite as sweet and unhealthy. 

Through one of my favorite youtuber and blogger Claire Marshall, i've discovered banana bread. 

The recipe she was using wasn't vegan though, so I had to improvise a bit. 

I ended up with this recipe: 

ingredients: 

- 3 ripe bananas

- 300g flour

- 100g sugar

- 3 tablespoons apple sauce 

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 pck // 5g baking powder

- 1 pck // 5g vanilla sugar

- 4 tablespoons oil (I used sunflower)

- nuts and dried fruit if you'd like

Mash up the banana with a fork and then whisk it together with sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, oil and apple sauce. Add flour and baking soda and stir well. 

Now stir in any nuts or dry fruits that you like. I used almonds and raisins. 

Bake for about 45 min at 180° celsius. 

Quite simple, huh? 

I ended up making two breads, one with almonds and raisins, one just plain. 

They taste so nice! I like to snack on them in the afternoon or eat two slices for breakfast.

The next post will come to you from Berlin, where I stay the weekend (excited!!).

Food #3.

VEGAN BURGER // BARBECUE

Having a barbecue as a vegan is not as hard as it seems. You can find vegan alternatives to your steak and sausage easily! Here's something I made the last time my family had a barbecue. 

It is an Italian bread roll (could use wholemeal to make it even more healthy), some salad, rosted zucchini strips, a vegan spinach burger and tomato. I absolutely didn't need any sauce, because of the juiciness of the vegetables, the only thing I did was to spread a little vegan margarine over the bread. 

It was absolutely fulfilling and I didn't feel guilty. 

Definitely want to try out more vegan barbecue alternatives. 

Maybe also try to make the burgers myself. 

Food. #2

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

I don't usually sleep in too long on sundays, but I like to take my time for breakfast. 

It mostly looks something like this, sometimes there will be some soy-yoghurt as well. 

As you can tell it's very simple, just chop up as many fruits as you can find. 

Put some nuts to it for healthy fats and minerals and some yoghurt for protein. 

banana - mango - strawberries - grapes - almonds

Veganism. // Food.

Since October 2014 I'm vegan. It started out as an experiment of one "vegan-weekend", but I liked it so much that I didn't stop. I've been a vegetarien for years before that, so it wasn't that hard. Also I just felt much more energetic and light, better overall.

The people around me had been quite supportive as well, which made it even easier.

The more I think about being vegan, the more it seems right to me. I think humans nowadays have the choice to eat what they want and decide about that freely. Not like the people of stone-age.

Don't you think it's kind of gross to drink another living creature's mother's milk? We are the only ones doing that.

I have to say that there are "diet"-exeptions. For example when I'm traveling and I can't even read the ingredients. I don't want to spent my holidays running around searching for vegan food. Also on special occasions (such as christmas etc.) I might treat myself with a buttery christmas cookie. But still I would for example never eat meat, fish or drink a glass of milk. There are some things you won't get back to.

I don't want to justify myself, I just wanted to say that.

Anyways enough of that story-telling. With this post I wanted to start a little series to basically show you what I eat.

I don't know If anybody else does that, but I am and always have been curious about other people's eating habits. Maybe to compare myself with them or just to get new ideas...i don't know.

So if there are any of you interested in that kind of stuff stay tuned for more posts to come.

_____________________

SMOKED TOFU//AVOCADO//CUCUMBER SALAD WITH SESAME SEEDS

This would be a typical lunch that I would make if I'm not in a hurry.

To be fair most of the time I eat something light like that I eat another bread with marmalade or something. a) because I might still be hungry b) because I ALWAYS need something sweet after lunch or dinner.

This is just normal smoked tofu and sliced avocado, all I did was to put a bit of balsamic vinegar, oil, salt and pepper on top of it. The cucumber was a left-over from dinner the day before.

And also I ate this light cornflour bread.