Vernal Nosh

Yup, I learned the word "vernal" today. No idea if it's combinable with nosh though :)

Internet-free days in the office make you learn unusual words... work is funny at the moment because our phone and Internet connection is all messed up so we can't email orders, read our mail or look up at Wikipedia who Rostropovich and Skrjabin are or whether Brecht wrote any funny plays at all.

(talking about All Messed Up, Paul, if you're reading this, let me know you're still alive!)

Well, it's spring and my veggie box delivery makes me do a little happy dance in the office every Wednesday.

I didn't take a picture of last week's box but it had wild garlic and green asparagus, so I made wild garlic risotto with roasted asparagus!
An odd thing is that Germans love their white asparagus. It's nearly impossible to buy green asparagus here except for a few weeks in spring. Sadly, I love green and hate the pale fellow.

Saturday was Anne's birthday, and what do you make the co-workette with the bluest eyes in the world for her birthday?
Clafoutis! It was my first time baking with silken tofu and it worked like a charm, so easy and everybody loved it (except for the not-fruit-eating-no-not-even-in-cake-male)!
And it was pretty too... yes I actually baked something that wasn't butt ugly!

pre-baking:

finished:


And this weeks' box, containing apples, oranges, bananas, an avocado, swiss chard, onions, parsley, courgettes, and Rübstiel (similar to turnip tops).
I'm excited about the Rübstiel, I've never had it before but apparently it's a traditional green of the Rhine area.

Purple risotto and mock duck from hell!

It sounds vile, and it was. Anne and I had another geeky computer night planned- with a trip to the local Christmas market with co-workers and then some cooking before.

I found this awesome-looking recipe for purple risotto with red cabbage and oranges at chefkoch.de ( I have to admit, it was the orange monster in the picture that intrigued me) and thought the mock duck fillets I had ordered from veganwonderland would match it perfectly.


Hell, somebody told me to buy them because they were supposed to be awesome. Looking at the package, I was slightly scared because although they were made of seitan, they looked too "real" to me.

Anyway, it had a horrible smell - and taste- like some chemical that shouldn't be in there according to the ingredients list. It turned nice and crispy on the outside, but stayed rubbery and yucky on the inside. Anne only tried a bit, but I was brave and at the whole thing, mainly because I had the price in the back of my mind. Half of the package is left, and I tossed it deep down into our freezer at work...

The risotto has some potential, though, I think I'll toy with the recipe at bit during my Xmas holidays (did I mention? 2 weeks off, including Xmas in Munich and New Year's Eve in London! Please don't tell my ecological footprint *_* ).

But there were tasty things too, this week:

Quick veggie paella that I came up with last Sunday, without a recipe. I've never really made paella before, but I liked how this turned out.

The biggest surprise was when my omni-co-workettes made cookies the weekend before, they whipped up a batch of vegan ones for me! Actually, three different sorts of cookies. Isn't that awesome? Boss liked them, too!

J-Drama and Pasta Cravings

So I'm back to work tomorrow... I've started missing making bentos over the last few days!

Anyway, being the old Japanophile and anime otaku that I am, I spent the last couple of days (rainy weather) watching far too much anime and j-dramas online.

One of them especially caught my eye- "Bambino!" is based on a manga and is about a guy who wants to become a chef in an Italian restaurant. How awesome is that? It's a lovely coming of age drama with a very good cast as well, having Ayaka Komatsu (who also did Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon live action) and Sasaki Kuranosuke (whom I loved as hot engineer guy in Zettai Kareshi!).

The story is realistic, doesn't have any silly romance (yay!), and it's mostly about pasta, so you will feel an urge to cook some after watching. How about that, East Enders/Grey's Anatomy/*insert any other mainstream Western series?

I watched all 11 episodes over the last two days and it was so fun... take that from a TV-hater like me.

I felt like embedding a video, but unfortunately, crunchyroll doesn't have that option yet and lower quality, so watch it with Spanish subtitles on youtube if you can (they have a few episodes in English, too), or pay a visit to crunchyroll, which totally rocks about Asian drama and anime, anyway (there's also a drama about cake that I'll check out next).

It's also peak season for red currants here... seems like those are not popular in other countries, but I remember growing up stealing red currants from the garden in my kindergarten and also my grandma making red currant jam.
I love the tart, sour taste of red currants and don't mind eating them on their own.

So I bought a kilo (for a 1.50 €) at the market the other day and decided to make a red currant cake. Turned out tasty, but the berries sunk to the ground (must flour them next time!) and I made it an improvised upside-down cake which was totally fat-free yet moist and fluffy. I also kept cooking stuff from the awesome Irish foodie magazine, including this not really picture-worthy but delicious miso ramen: Apart from that, it's summer time anyway, so I mostly did Italian cooking (even before Bambino!), as a simple gratin of zucchini and tomatoes with lots of garlic, thyme and olive oil and risotto with loads of arugula. I'm not a summer person, but still don't want it to end, harvest-wise!

More Bento

I bet this is getting boring... here are three bento from last week.

# 1 has brown rice cucumber sushi with pickled ginger, wasabi and soy sauce, apple slices and raisins.

# 2 couscous salad, Turkish pide bread, hummus and tomato wedges and dolmades in the side container.

# 3 tofu tofu and bok choy stir fry, rice, some amaranth olive crackers, an orange and raisins. There is sweet and sour plum sauce for the rice in the bear container.

I've been a good foodie and went out to eat both Friday and Saturday, but a bad blogger because I didn't take any pictures (camera battery had died).

At the moment, it's aparagus season and I'm eating some almost every day... what else does a girl need but roasted asparagus and pesto risotto?