Exams suck...

I haven't been cooking much lately. In fact, I didn't even make bento a lot for the last two weeks or so.
Only one more week to go until crazy exam time is over!

What I made, however:

Low fat chocolate chip cookies based on the VWAV recipe... and I have to tell you, I actually gave my baby away today. A coworker was looking for "different" cake recipes, so I lent the book two her.
I've never been seperated from my VWAV for longer than three days ever since I got the book two years ago.
Will I survive and will it miss me?


Bento with a mixed salad (baby spinach, tomatoes and mixed seeds) and seitan gyoza that turned out mighty pretty for a change.

Also, the most basic potato bake ever- I sliced some taters, added onion dice, drowned it in a mixture of soy cream, vegetable broth and spices and added chredded Keehse.
Calories, anyone?

10 € worth of groceries...

A couple of days ago, I saw someone blogging about this project at flickr.com where people post what they can get for 10 € or the equivalent in their currency.
As I'm a social studies geek, I was hooked by it.
Unfortunately, I'm unable to find the blog and flickr search didn't yield any proper results (help, anybody?).

Anyhow, today I was reminded of the project when I payed exactly 10.22 € for this:


- 1kg carrots
- loose peppermint tea
- 4 chillis
- 4 apples
- mixed sprouts
- a bag of vegetable broth
- 250g dates
- plain soy yoghurt (2x200ml)
(everything organic)

What can you buy for your 10 €/$ 15/ £ 7.50/whatever other currency (yes, very rough conversion made by me)? Not only groceries are allowed!

V-con dissappointment and treats

The last week was stressful and I basically came home and dropped dead each night without thinking of the possibility of cooking. Fortunately, I had whipped up a batch of broccoli-millet mixture Sunday night, so I came back, popped some croquettes in the oven and done. I tried frying them, but they fell apart :( Still, the croquettes turned out rather bland though I doubled the amount of spices and had an accident with the chili powder shaker. Another V-con meal was the tomato-capers couscous with rusty white beans. This one was rather bland and I smothered the beans in all sorts of sauces to make them edible at all. Verdict: I'm sort of ashamed to say it, but Veganomicon is gradually turning out to be a disappointment to my tastbuds. Recipes are ok to good, but not a single one has had the "wow" effect I know from 90% of the VWAV dishes. The "recipes we wish we would've grown up with" mantra is exactly what I don't get on with. I've never been a fan of Western cuisine, let alone European or American, and the more "exotic" recipes are boring to me because I cook e.g. Asian stuff all the time and I'm tired of trying those westernized, unauthentic versions. Same with the extreme veganizing of everything and amounts of fake meats (be it seitan, tempeh or tofu). I don't mean to say all I make is totally authentic or "V-con sucks", but it's just not my kind of cookbook. However, the "wow" of the week belongs to the Peanut Butter Cinnamon Rolls from the PPK forums. I hadn't made cinnamon rolls for ages and wasn't sure about the PB, but those were heaven! I ate four of them. And another nice thing was the parcel of chocolate I received from lashingfear from the "vegan goodies" swap. Thanks a lot!

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Ok, I know I'm way too addicted to shit like this...

Everybody needs to know...

it's the year of the rat *sings along to Badly Drawn Boy's song* *dances and wiggles arm*

My tiny Chinese NY celebration, well sort of, consisted of making the Mapo Tofu recipe from TheVeganRonin , but less saucy and more crumbly. So I guess it wasn't mapo tofu after all, but anyway- absolutely yum!

Had it with some white rice and carrot-beansprout salad and can't wait to make it again.

Praise the Keehse

Yes, the package of "Keehse" is Veganwonderland's answer to all those yukky vegan cheeses. To be honest, I've never been keen on cheese, so I'm not really dissapointed by processed vegan cheeses.
I like making tofu ricotta, my own nooch sauce and things like that, thoug- because they don't smell like cheese.

Another thing is that stores in Germany don't sell fake cheese any anyway, so if I need some, I have to order online.

And this I sometimes do, but only to get the handmade-stuff from veganwonderland. It's based on soy, yeast and almond and melts fantabalously :)
Plus, it's cheap compared to other cheeses ( 3 € for a substantially big roll).

See yourself:
and another boring, cheeseless one:

Post from Denmark!

Wednesday was quite an annoying day at work, so I was happy when I got a message that a parcel for me had arrived. I'm really astonished that the post only took three days-
I did a swap with Stine from Veganforum and she posted it on Monday.

Usually the German post ist awfully lame about all mail from abroad, but they try to convince me they're not anymore at the moment.

Look what I got:


There are soy cream, spinach noodles, instant mushroom miso soup, a lime wash lotion, 2 sorts of streich, chocolaty rice waffles, licorice and vegan caviar *gasp*

I've seen the caviar before in online shops but admit I was a bit scared to try it. It's seaweed-based, so I guess it can't be too bad. Never tasted real caviar, though.
Stine told me it's good with sushi. Any other suggestions?

Thank you so much, Stine!

Even before I got round to collecting Stine's package, the UPS man arrived at work and brought a gigantic parcel from my favourite online store.
They sell some crack, I can tell you! I always need an excuse to order there, so I decided to order my grains and pulses so I at least seem reasonable:

Here comes a wagonload of TVP crumbles, cubes, steaks and whatnot, two bags of vital wheat gluten (can't buy it in stores here), temphe, a marzipan chocolate bar, pudding mix, white and dark rice milk chocolate, tofu fish fingers, lime shower gel, chickpeas, red lentils, couscous, millet, and Einkorn (there's going to be a post about this sometime later).

And their homemade real crack, guess what it is!

Oh noes! [As if I hadn't known]

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Italian Sausages

At least compared to the amount of fake meats I usually eat.
Today was a sort of boring day... I did a lot of laundry, cleaned the bathroom and caught up with emails.

To make me feel like I've achieved something today, I had to post ^^

I actually got round to making the Italian sausages from Everyday Dish , though I adjusted the seasoning to my taste (and because I don't have anything called chicken seasoning)- more chilli, different herbs and a bit less garlic so it won't kill the coworkers and halved the recipe.

Awesome stuff!

freshly steamed by the rice cooker:

all naked

sliced with spaghetti aglio (ok, burnt aglio because I didn't watch) olio and tomato salad (hidden under the pasta)

It's the weekend!

Yesterday I managed a really pretty bento for a change, but somehow it was reluctant to be photographed properly... Sesame-broccoli noodles from "Quick-fix vegetarian", a sad pear muffin, two cocktail tomatoes and pineapple slices.

No food, but I had to share this one- this morning I cleaned the chinchillas' cage and got this look:

"Stupid human, it's 10 am on a Saturday morning, go back to bed!"