Thai a lot

Every now and then, I get my lazy bum to make pad thai. Not that it's really hard to to, but it needs a lot of perfect timing and you can't just throw stuff in a pot. But it's oh-so-good and makes a great bento food!

I also made a thai-style stirfry with tofu, mung bean sprouts, mushrooms and bok choy.


This was today's bento, including leftover pad thai, crushed peanuts in miniature the Hello Kitty box, some sliced kaki fruit and a pb cookie. What a good way to start the week!


Last but not least... ok, I didn't eat the chinchilla, but somehow the pic sneaked itself into my blog file... so here's the oregano-noshing chin:

Eggplant Curry

This simple recipe made me fall in love with the smooth, velvety goodness that stewed eggplants are.

Veggie Tomato Sauce

This is a very basic, but yummy pasta sauce I adapted from a special I once had at Vapiano
some time ago.

I diced a zucchini and an eggplant and sautéed them in some olive oil, then added half a bottle of passata di pomodoro, then some sliced black olives and capers and let the whole thing simmer to reduce for 20 mins. Then I added some minced garlic, salt an pepper and- done already!

Mom's vegetable soup

Ok, I can tell a lot of stories about my mom, but she defininetly cannot cook, although she went to culinary school for a year (I guess she quit because she did so badly).

But what she is good at is making soups and stews. Nothing fancy, but dishes which have the typical "mom" taste to me. Pure comfort food.
Yesterday I managed to recreate her veggie soup. She forms balls of bratwurst meat to simmer in the broth, I took some sosmix (seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika and some tamari), rolled it into balls and sautéed them to add them short before the soup was done.
Use your favourite sort of no-meetballs if you can't get sosmix or just leave it out.

Here is the recipe, though I didn't really measure.

For 4-6 people:

1 leek, chopped into rings
1 cup of cauliflower florets
some halved brussels sprouts
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, chopped
half a celery stalk, chopped
2 cups green beans (I use runner beans), cut in 1 inch-sized strips
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
salt + pepper, maybe 1 tsp vegetable boullion powder

In a huge saucepan, sauté the carrot, leek, and celerey in some oil at medium heat for about 10 minutes (it's ok for the onions and leek to brown a bit, it only gives the soup more flavour).
Add remaining ingredients and about 4 cups of water and let simmer for about half and hour.
When almost done, add meetballs of your choice and spice it up.

It doesn't photograph well, but it freezes amazingly and is even better reheated the next day!

Onigiri

Onigiri, or musubi, are a popular Japanese snack, especially for bento. I like them because they are made even quicker than sushi, you can use even more sorts of fillings for them and they are more transportable (and even stay fresh for up to a week if you wrap them in foil and store them in the fridge). Onigiri are my favourit bento food, especially when it comes to travelling and school when you don't really have the time to sit down and spread all your lunch gear in front of you. And they are really filling. Even I can only eat three small or two huge ones and I'm stuffed. And I tend to cook for 4 people and it it all on my own usually. This is the basic recipe:

1 cup of sushi rice
bean sprouts
cucumber (or whatever vegetable you think might suit)
nori (dried seaweed) as used for sushi if you can get it,
furikake (Japanese rice seasoning)

Cook the rice after directions on the package, let it cool a bit, but not completely (will not stick well anymore then), if you like, mix with furikake. Cut sprouts and vegetables into VERY small pieces. Make sure to always have a bowl of water next to you while forming the onigiri (otherwise the rice will only stick to your hands)- take a handful of rice and make a mould. Put the veggies into it and form balls or (advanced ;-)small triangles. At the end, wrap with a small leaf of nori. Makes about 4 - 5 huge
onigiri.

There's also loads of fancy onigiri stuff around (moulding devices to make them into bear/flower/skull/whatever shape), but I prefer doing them with my own hands (does this sound nasty?). My favourite filling is the green trinity- cucumber, green onion and wasabi, but you really can use any veg and un-veg you like. Even peanut butter (though I'd omit the nori sheet for sweet stuffings).

A VWAV weekend and coconut cakes

Yesterday in Dortmund I bought a package of Kanom Pia, thai coconut dumplings or also called "Chinese cakes". I've had them before and they are heaven. Still, I haven't found a proper recipe (probably it's the kind of food nobody makes themselves in Thailand)...

Apart from that, Azumi had borrowed my cam on Friday, so I had to take another snapshot with my mobile cam... of gorgeous Seitan Portobello Stroganoff from VWAV!

As there are no portobellos in Germany, I used regular mushrooms and canned peas because I had run out of dried ones. The seitan I used was fairly spicy seitan o'greatness. To be honest, it's not really what I cook usually- I don't like too hearty and European-style dishes, but this was great!















Dinner tonight was back to my regular Asian, at the moment especially Indian food. I did a twist on the Almond rice in VWAV... used ground almonds which gave it a nice texture and no raisins because I had run out of.
With the rice, there was -FINALLY!- braised cauliflower in three-seed sauce which was absolutely yum!

A day out

On Monday, I made the bulgur and chickpea patties from here and surprise, containing one of my favourite grains (where I live is a huge Turkish community, so people even grow bulgur trees [img]http://www.cosgan.de/images/kao/froehlich/d015.gif[/img] ) as well as my fave source of protein, I loved them.
The pictures is sort of neat... aftwards, I decided to add a bunch of baby spinach leaves and hummus and mash it all up (didn't take a picture of this). Sometimes I get this anarchic.

Yesterday, Eva and I went to Dortmund to finally visit the Westfalenpark. A friend had recommended it to me for a nice day out and I, being my urban nature-sceptical me, was a bit hesistant to go there.

However, after bought loads at the amazing Asian grocery this city has (you can by spices in bulk, they have a lot of different tofus and a billion funny veggies I haven't seen anywhere else), we took the subway to the park- and it was amazing!
We had a tiny (oh well...) picknick in a hut in the rose garden.

That were the remains... we had onigiri, chocolate muffins, marinated Japanese mushrooms, carrots, dates and thai coconut dumplings.
I was so stuffed, I can't imagine how we managed to walk the park for three hours afterwards!

Another exciting thing in the park was the German Cookbook Museum. They didn't have a lot of vegan-friendly recipes but we learned a lot about the role of women from 1600 to 1960 and saw some fancy gadgets from that time.



AND they had a Japanese garden... as everybody might already know, I'm nuts for Asian culture, especially Japanese. They also had a small shrine, but it was closed due to being heavily vandalized [img]http://www.cosgan.de/images/kao/traurig/a010.gif[/img] .




















They also had a sort of human hamster wheel... kinda hard to do with only two legs, but great fun!

Random pics

Ok, not much time for cooking anything picture-worthy at the beginning of the week, but I found some more pictures sitting in a corner all alone. These are all things I love making when I've got guest because they look amazing but are very simple ^ ^

(mixed veggie sushi, mid-eastern lentil pasta with herbed soy yoghurt, udon with peanut butter and seitan from VWAV and the ultimate vegan trifle)

Chinese in London

I was a bit tired of writing down all the good places in London on loose sheets of paper and searching through them for ages, so I bought Veggie & Organic London.

The chapters are divided into parts of the city, with a small map on the first site each.
Everything was really easy to find. When the book said vegan menu, it was right. When it said cheap, it was. Yay!
Talking about my London trip earlier this week, I have to admit I forgot to take any food pictures, though I've eaten plenty that was snapshot-worth. However, in between having soya cappucinos in various Prêts while it was very rainy and windy outside, I managed to visit two heavens of mock meat:

# 1 is Joi Chinese vegan buffet restaurant in Percy Street, off Tottenham Court Road. It's a super-cheap Thai/Chinese fusion buffet place. We paid 6.50 per person in the evening (they have a special lunch offer, I think it was something about 5 quid). I was a bit dissappointed by their "speciality" : "crispy mock duck" which wasn't crispy at all, but they have a huge selection of salads, cold and warm foods and a lot of sauces to try. We also got some mock duck pancakes and ice cream which weren't on the buffet for free. Yay! The fake beef curry was heaven. I have to find a way to make my TVP taste like that!

# 2 is the Peking Palace near Archway. We went there to celebrate Alex's first day at his new job. They have a huge selection of fake meats and even fish. I had the "special fried rice" with quite scary veggie shrimps and some veggie drumsticks (also a bit creepy, but oh-so-good!).

The quickest Tagine ever

I absolutely love Morrocan food. But sometimes, when I spent 2 hrs chopping veggies and grinding spices, it seems like it doesn't love me back.

Some weeks ago, I bought a huge tin of mixed veggies from the Turkish grocery- basically because it had okra in it (among green beans, eggplant, courgettes and tomatoes). I know most people hate okra because of the slimyness and all (which I don't find that slimy), but they are definitely some of my most favourite veggies.

Another tin I bought there was one with cherry tomatoes (or as the label said "hill tomatoes").

When I didn't have anything fresh in the house last week before going to London, I did this:

* fry a sliced onion and some garlic in a bit of oil
* add the tinned veggies, some cumin, coriander and cinnamon as well as a whole green chili, salt and pepper
* added the cherry tomatoes + juice and let simmer for 20 minutes

And voilà, that was my ready-to-go-on-holiday tagine with some couscous and Spanish mint.

Seitan O'Goulash

Goulash was one of the few dishes my mother used to cook by herself (not with some ready-made spice mix), and she did it quite often so I adapted her recipe.

I've made it with TVP chunks so far, but tried some cubed Seitan O'Greatness with it and alas- it was good!

Seitan Goulash
(for 3-5 people)

1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, mashed
2 red bell peppers, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes
200g meat substitute of your choice

1 tsp vegetable broth
2 tbs tomato paste
1 tsp paprika
a pinch of cumin, salt and pepper
(some chili powder if you dare!)

In a medium saucepan, heat some oil and sauté the onions and garlic until transluscient.
Turn heat down a bit and add peppers, sauté for 5 minutes more, then the seitan (in this case). Add all remaining ingredients and let simmer for about 20 minutes.

I prefer it with pasta, but it's also good with potatoes in any variation and rice.