Anthony Bourdain VEGAN VEGAN VEGAN

:) Somebody suggested to post a lot about Bourdain and veganism to boycott google results, so that is my little contribution. see here for more info on the project: http://hezbollahtofu.blogspot.com/ Needless to say I hate Anthony Bourdain (who can't even spell his own name right... he's of French descend and spells it American... is this really common in the US?) and have ordered the only French vegetarian cookbook available on the German market in order to start kicking his ass next week (HOLIDAYS, people!!!) as soon as I have returned from the PPK meetup. For now, all I made is seitan bourgignon , lovely rustic grub! Pre-bake: Post-bake (somehow it was prettier before):

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!

Chickpeas, cherries and some Indian

That's what the post is about. This week I stuck to my plan to spend less on buying groceries. I love to buy whatever looks great and then come home and remember that I'm usually only cooking for myself. So I end up with lots of veggies and fruit to throw aways and a billion opened packages of rice, pasta, quinoa and whatnot.

Last week I only spent about 10 € on groceries, and that's part of what I made of it.

Almond-cherry muffins from VWAV. I had run of plain soymilk, and of course fresh cherries were not an option, so I used part strawberry soymilk and part cherry juice from the jar which gave iit a lovely pink touch.

Second was the Chickpea romesco from V-con. I had expected something good because it uses a lot of my favourite foods- and I even left out the booze and it turned out, um, saucy. Had it with plain couscous.



Yesterday I also made a batch of chickpea noodle soup. This has become such a standard soup in my kitchen- thank you, Isa!


But the winner of the week was an Indian dish- what else?
I slightly modified a recipe from a German forum, and what you get is

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Indian-European cauliflower
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 small head cauliflower, in florets
1 medium-sized onion, sliced
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 red chili, chopped
an inch-sized piece of ginger, minced

1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mustards seeds
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt (or less, if you're a salt hater)

In a wok, heat up some vegetable oil or vegan ghee.
Add the onions and sauté until slightly crispy. Add the ginger, chili and spices except the salt.

After a minute, add the cauliflower and sauté for about three minutes. Turn down the heat, add the tomatoes, salt and let sit for 5-8 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender ( I prefer mine crunchy).

Serve with rice and some chopped curly parsley (yes, it's actually good with it!).

Simple, spicy, satisfying.

Past two weeks' bentos

Nothing special today, but I'm sitting around with 5 days off work in front of me, waiting for fresh money - come on bank, it's payday!

So here's some of the bento I recently made.

# 1 is pasta with thai basil-pesto and the chickpea romesco from V-con. I love the romesco so much; it's got a lot of my favourite foods such as almonds, tomatoes and chickpeas.

# 2 holds a slice of raspberry nougat cake, a clementine and some almonds as well as edamame, homemade gyoza and a slice cherry tomato.

# 3 is a plain veggie sushi bento with some mango pudding, mine lemon-poppyseed muffins and a coconut rice cracker.

# 4 last but not least, leftover Thai tofu curry with rice and ginger sauce plus a container of hummus, one with chocoreale and tomato slices because it was a collegues' birthday on Monday and she brought bread rolls for everyone.
She insisted on paying for my (homemade!) hummus because she pities me as I can never have any of the treats customers bring all the time.

[how do you arrange pictures properly on blogger? Whenever I use more than two pictures in one post, they end up all mixed]

Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans

This is the second soup recipe from Veganomicon, and to be honest, it didn't knock me off my feet. It was a rich, satisfying soup; perfect for a cold and grey night.
Period. Sorry Terry and Isa, but I am the master of rice soup *muhahahahha* !