Vegging out...

Now my written exams are over and all I have to do... is hang out for goddamn 6 weeks for 20 mins of oral exam before I can move on in live.

At the moment the "meh" overbalances the "yay" part of the whole situation. I've been eating crap, felt bad as a consequence and yeah... I think I'll soon change the focus of the blog and make it a culture/London/food blog.

Last post's bento swap turned out to be a good idea, today I received a lovely parcel filled with vegan goodness from Margot of the undead vegan. Some of the chocolate stuff and tofu snack wiener got devoured immediately as I had to run a bunch of errands after work.
Thanks a lot Margot!

With it came a bag of kutjera powder... is says it's good sprinkled on almost everything and google doesn't tell me much more, either. Aussies plz? What do you use it for?


I also cooked a little bit:
pasta with Rübstiel (rapini) from the veggie box some time ago. Ok-ish, but nothing exciting, this Rhine area vegetable.



soba with ginger, scallions and cauliflower from vegweb, because you can never have too much soba!

super ugly but extremely tasty stewed potatoes and tofu in miso gravy from VWAV. I can't believe I've never made this before. the dark miso I used was a bit overpowering, but apart from that it was lovely with some good baguette.

Foodie media!

Can't somebody tell stupid Germany that there is weather and temperatures somewhere between 10°C and 30C° ? I know I should be happy, but everything above 25°C makes me feel lethargic. I miss the British Isles' gulf stream influenced weather!

Yesterday I started watching Lunch Queen so I guess pretty soon I'll be all about Japanese food again. Japanese and their obsession with food produces awesome things.
Can you imagine a Western soap opera focusing on food?

A couple of weeks ago I did a swap with Kendra from vf... look what I received from England:
gummi bears, vegan shells and cheese mix, a nakd bar, raspberry licorice, a tangerine chocolate bar, ramen, noochy rice cakes, mandarin sopa and a tea tree facial mask. Thanks a lot!
I was surprised by how good the shells and cheese actually were, for something that came from a box!

Have I already written about how I love Italian Foodies ? It seems like blogland is full of Irish/Italian couples! Not vegan, but oh so nice!
Kittens gone Lentil is another awesome (vegan) blog discovery!

Lately I've been obsessed with rice soup... o-kayu, congee, jook, you name it. And after our trip to Mönchengladbach for the fake meat grocery store, I have vegan Asian meatballs and prawns!
I could eat this every day... and I do, for breakfast!





And well, more media: If you speak/understand either French or German, Arte has got a "good food" theme week at the moment, I guess 3-4 documentaries every day.
I've been enjoying the documentary with Sarah Wiener and a bunch of kids staying and cooking at a farm in Provence... I wish I was in France where nice weather also means nice surroundings!

Happy Easter! You can watch a lot of the videos online at Arte +7 .
Thanks Arte for bringing my French back to life!

The mail, the Japanese, the Irish

It's gotten very cold and wintery here since last week. We had a crazy storm and even snow Friday last week (where I live, if we get snow at all, it's usually only a day or two in early January). So you can tell I felt like some stick-to-your-ribs goodness. A certain Irish girl that's sorta my flatmate at the moment requested stew, so we ended up making Dublin Coddle after Cherry's recipe but with homemade seitan sausages.

Seriously, I don't like European cuisine much usually, and especially not potato-based dishes, but this was the best thing I've eaten in a very long time. I was sceptical at first because the recipe seemed very simple. But all the spice and flavour from the sausages were coddled (=slowly simmered) into the stew... soooo good (and omni Dublin girl approved, what more can you ask for?).

This should probably be served with soda bread, but I didn't have any time for baking so we had it with whole wheat sandwich bread (yes, I was that busy!).






Some lovely things arrived in the mail the last two weeks or so (yay to Christmas bonus!):
This is what I received from the "Savoury Snack Swap"

a) a couple of rice cracker mixes and Mushroom Crisps! My co-workettes went crazy about the rice crackers but I haven't dared to try the shroom chips. Though, it's mushrooms and chips, so how can those possibly be bad?

b) Tapioca sticks and banana chips and from Saudi-Arabia! Haven't tried them yet... I'm scared of getting addicted to banana chips again, like I did when I was 12 or 13.

Even without celebrating Thanksgiving, these are days of friends and family feasts.
Yesterday was my grandmother's 60th birthday and I made the most awesome banana hazelnut muffins... and forgot my camera! They looked and tasted ace, I promise!

But I've got some pictures from last Saturday, when we had a small girly weekend cooking session + wine + British comedy (far too short though!).


Rachel and mystery girl sitting in my kitchen, ready to dig in! We had Japanese curry, teriyaki tempeh and stir-fried bok choy and bean sprouts with garlic (not pictured).
























Another fab Japanese thing is my new Monokuro Boo bento! I love San-x, and Monokuro especially because it's not all pink and girly, but still ridiculously cute. I already have a four container-black/white piggy bento set, and a bag, so this completes the collection:










(bento holds millet risotto with peas, a plum, mixed salad with cucumber, olives and sprouts)

You are what you Eat-Swap @Swapbot

According to what I ate this week, I'm muesli and Japanese and Italian.

This little email swap was about writing down every single thing you have eaten in the past week and sharing a recipe.

Keeping track of what I'm eating was great fun, and I'm quite content because I captured a typical week in food for me.
I simply listed the foods I ate since I don't think of my meals (nor eat) as in the classic "breakfast/lunch/dinner" categories.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just about every Japanese mother has her own Yakisoba recipe- after all "yakisoba" means "fried noodles" and nothing else. What makes it special is the Japanese yakisoba sauce that contains all sorts of nasty things and is mighty expensive, so I make my own. You can add any vegetables you like, but sometimes I just crave this simple version. Yakisoba not only feeds crowds, but makes awesome leftovers and is the best in bento :)

/My Simple Yakisoba - serves four

Break spaghetti into thirds if you can't get fresh yakisoba noodles.
Chop up a package of (veggie) wieners and half an iceberg lettuce.

Boil the spaghetti and sauté the wieners in a large pan. When the sausages are nicely browned, add the lettuce and turn off the heat.
In a seperate bowl, mix 3/4 cup of plain tomato ketchup with 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce. Stir in 2 tbs soy sauce and 1 tbs wasabi powder.

Drain the noodles and add to the pan. Turn on the heat again briefly and sauté everything a little longer. Pour the sauce over it and mix, reserving some extra sauce for serving the noodles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday:

* a bowl of berry muesli with vanilla soy milk
* 2 sesame bread rolls with strawberry jam
* some pineapple chunks
* cherry tomatoes
* white wine
* whole wheat fussili with tempeh cacciatore
* salad with ramson, olives and mushrooms


Sunday:

* a banana
* at vegan brunch: chickpea salad, sauteed mushrooms, a variety of
spreads on bread, phyllo spinach pasties, bulgar pilaf, cherry
streusel cake, tiramisu
* 1/2 grapefruit
* a pizza with asparagus, mushrooms and Keehse (vegan cheese)


Monday:

* 2 slices of sunflower seed bread with alpro "quark" (cream-cheese
like spread) and tomatoes
* 1 banana
* 1/2 grapefruit
* leftover tempeh cacciatore with penne
* some tomato wedges
* cayenne chocolate
* cashew nuts
* small bowl of berry muesli with vanilla soy milk
* Japanese cooking with a friend- yakisoba with iceberg lettuce,
mini wieners and homemade yakisoba sauce, mixed salad with sesame
dressing



Tuesday:

* 3 slices sunflower seed bread with "quark" and tomato slices
* 1 berry soy yoghurt
* 1 raw carrot
* leftover yakisoba
* risotto with ramson and arugula pesto
* 2 glasses of cidre


Wednesday:

* berry muesli with soy milk
* 3 chocolate muffins
* 1 apple
* apple/mango/lime smoothie
* leftover veg stir-fry with rice
* mixed salad and tomato/pea/bean rice from the Turkish take-away


Thursday:

* 1 soy yoghurt berry
* 1 apple
* 2 loquats
* fried rice with carrots and beansprouts, grilled tempeh

* greek salad with tomato, bell pepper, cucumber, olives and some
baguette


Friday:

* berry muesli with soymilk
* a peach
* leftover rice and stir-fry
* some vanilla halva
* pita bread with tomato salad, some olives
* spaghetti with homemade pesto
* 1/2 bottle of red wine and a bit beer on top

50 things I have eaten

This is my contribution to the 50 things you have eaten swap. I listed the 50 most unusual, grossest and yummiest things that came to my mind.
Beware, non-vegan food ahead!

1. homecooked Thai curry by a real weird Thai woman
2. tempeh
3. tofu
4. seitan
5. Horse sausage- yes, as a kid, my mother tricked me into eating it. It's speciality in many parts of Germany.
6. baked seitan
7. durian
8. strange pink Lebanese pickles
9. congee- Chinese rice soup
10. sushi from a Japanese grocery, eaten in a McDonald's
11. Bärlauch
12. many many Indian dahls
13. gluten-free muffins
14. "Traditional" goulash from the Saarland (I thought it was traditional in Hungary?)
15. Streusel buns (yes, bread rolls with crumbles... another specialty, of the Aachen area)
16. Spotted dick. I'm not kidding, it's an English dessert.
17. Himalaya salt
18. "Hill" tomatoes (ask my Italian grocer what's so special about that...)
19. Turkish lentil cake
20. guinea pig crackers, when I was a kid (tastes like cereal)
21. Laddu- chickpea confect
22. Halva
23. Quorn sausages. Mighty good. But alas, not vegan.
24. Takoyaki- Japanese octupus balls (as in whole octopus, not male octopus)
25. real mango from India
26. Königsberger Klopse - the nightmare of my childhood, after horse meat. It's meatballs in a sour cream (not regular sour cream, but normal cream made sour) sauce with capers. Yuk.
27. vegan quiche lorraine
28. homemade kimchee
29. oysters
30. quinoa
31. amaranth
32. black rice
33. red rice
34. furikake-everything
35. vegetarian shrimps
36. okras
37. millet
38. bok choy
39. lots of other "bok" varieties (Asian leafy greens)
40. TVP
41. rice milk chocolate
42. oatmilk
43. vegan cheese
44. curry leaves
45. starfruit
46. manioc
47. Fufu- Ghana's national dish
48. mochi
49. kamaboko- Japanese fish cake. Looks cute, taste like crap.
50. swedish glace with agave nectar
    

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!

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!