Vegan "Milk" Chocolate! First attempt!

A while back, I bought (fair trade and organic) cocoa butter and powdered almond milk (well, basically powdered almonds - since it's solely made from almonds). For all of you German speakers: I got the almond milk powder here and the cocoa butter as well.

Today, I felt Christmas-y and ready to try something new, so I tried to make some milk chocolate. I am not 100 % happy with how it turned out, so I won't release the recipe yet, but I promise, I will once it's good enough!

It's not bad... it's just not perfect yet.

It's a wrap!

I love wraps because you can fill them with whatever you like, they are great if you want to bring lunch to work or school and you can also use them to use up leftovers.

Ingredients for six wraps:

most of the ingredients are optional, of course. If you happen to hate red cabbage, I would suggest you don't use it.

Nacho "Cheese" Sauce

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Do you know this sad feeling when you have nachos, but decided to skip the cheese sauce because of the dairy? Oh. The sad feeling. I just found the holy cheese grail for you!

Welcome to a perfect Sunday night! X-Files and nachos <3

So creamy!

Kitchen Basics: Hazelnut Milk

My favorite non-dairy milk is a specific brand of oat milk (Kölln Smelk in case any one is interested). It's more expensive than the average soy milk, but I like it because it tastes great, and the ingredients are not shipped across the world, as the oat is grown (and then also processed) in Germany. I'm absolutely willing to pay that price (usually €1.79 to €2.19 for a liter), but when I saw Jérôme Eckmeier make hazelnut milk, I knew I had to try this myself. It's really easy, too! And cheaper. And tasty!

Ingredients:

• 1l of water
• 2 table spoons of sunflower oil
• 100g of hazelnuts (soaked in cold water over night)
• 1 table spoon of unrefined cane sugar
• a pinch of salt

Our Three-Course Dinner!

We had a lovely time with some of our friends last night! After spending the occasional hour or two eating vegan things together, both in different restaurants and in our friends' private vegan guerilla café, we decided it was time for us to put together a full dinner evening, once at each couples' home. There's a tv show in Germany ("Das perfekte Dinner" - goes by "Come dine with me" in other countries") which inspired us to have a three-course meal, nice decorations and good drinks.

Here's what we did:

Some nice edible decoration, candles, vegan fair trade wine from the local fairtrade shop, friends, a bit of freshly baked bread with herb "butter"...

The simple things in life: Pasta Bolognese

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Party Food or why Silken Tofu is Awesome!

Our friends know that we always serve food when we invite people. Yes, if they spontaneously drop by, I may not have anything prepared, but when actually invite people, they know they shouldn't eat before showing up.

Yesterday, we had some friends over for a whisk(e)y tasting and of course, we needed something to go with that. Sorry for the poor picture quality.

The boyfriend and I made Frikadellen (meat balls), roasted peppers with a herb/dried tomato cream, some small tomato rolls with a herb "butter," and mousse au chocolat.

The Frikadellen recipe originates in Jérôme Eckmeier's blog, but of course, we always make our own little adjustments.

Fried Noodles with Tons of Veggies! (and maybe some mock duck)

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I love to cook for other people... and for myself. But I think eating ought to be a social activity. So today I made some food for the boyfriend and a friend who does not have the time to cook.
And who would say no this:

Celeriac Soup with Herbes de Provence Bread Rolls

As I mentioned in a previous post, I get a box of assorted organic veggies + fruit from a local organic farm once a week. This week, it came with two celeriacs. Since there was so much of it, I decided to make a soup! And because there is nothing better than fresh bread, I decided to make some rolls to go with the soup.

Ingredients:

For the soup:

• 1.5l of veggie stock 
• 1 onion
• 4 smallish potatoes
• 2 celeriacs 
• 250ml of white wine
• 1 leek
• Dried herbes de Provence (thyme, rosemary, oregano) (These herbs were actually picked in southern France by my friend Caro! Thanks again!)
• salt
• 1 pot of soy cream
• a little bit of olive oil
• a little bit of freshly ground black pepper to garnish

I intentionally didn't put any exact gram measurements with the different veggies used. If you happen to have two leeks and one large piece of celeriac that should work just as well as the combination I had. 

Vegan Kitchen Staples

Since my friend Joni (who is new to exclusively plant-based cooking) asked for some explanation of the things that appear to be more exotic to those who cook conventionally, I decided to collect a few things that I find in my pantry to explain them.

Firstly, I would like to mention that you can easily cook awesome vegan food without using soy, seitan, and all these other things. The main ingredient in my kitchen will alwaysdesc be vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, etc. There is nothing wrong with tofu etc., but in my kitchen vegan cooking does not have to mean that I copy conventional recipes and replace meat with tofu. I do that sometimes, because I used to enjoy eating meat. I do not think that there is anything wrong with the taste of it, I just no longer see the necessity to use meat/dairy/eggs in order to get a great meal.

So. The main ingredient that should be available anywhere near you is this:

Chocolate Walnut Cranberry Coffee Cake with Pistachios

Ah, another inspiration from the Vegan Food Magazine. On page 55 of their first issue, they published a lovely recipe ("Chocolate Pecan Cranberry Coffee Cake") by Fran Costigan. I changed it according to my taste, available produce and equipment. It turned out perfect! At least as far as I can tell. This is definitely my favorite fall/winter cake! It's super juicy, but the nuts give it a nice crunch, and the chocolate and maple syrup give it a wonderful rich taste! It is a bit costly because of all the awesome ingredients, but... that's okay.
 

Equipment

• a 28cm/11in springform pan
• a scale
• 2 cooling racks (or one rack and a plate)
• 3 bowls (one small, one medium and one large bowl) 
• an oven
• parchment paper
• a mixer or whisk
• a knife and cutting board
• a juicer (nothing fancy, just the thing that you use with citrus fruits cut in half)
• a fine grater 
• a spoon or two
• a bain-marie and a small pot 

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake (no baking, no refined sugar!)

Last week I was truely excited to find that a free, vegan online magazine had been launched. The Vegan Food Magazine is a truely beautifully designed and interesting read! You can get your copy for free as a pdf on their website.

The pictures in the magazine were so mouth-watering, I had to try out a few recipes. I do wish they would release a paper copy of the magazine, so I could take it on the train, the couch or to bed with me (yes, I'm one of those dinosaurs who does not own a tablet), but also so I could take notes. The recipes I tried were in American cup measurements, which I find incredibly inconvenient. I have cup measures, but I prefer to weigh ingredients on my little scale. I have changed both recipes (the Raw Vegan Carrot Cake and the coffee cake that I will post later... it's still in the oven) a little, and I would have loved to write that down on my recipe copy. Oh well. I'll just keep track of my version in this blog. :) Speaking of recipes and blogs, here is the recipe for the carrot cake!

This looks pretty green, but that's just the light. It's actually a light orange-beige-y color.

Heads up: You will not need an oven, but you will need a food processor and a freezer, as well as a 15cm/6 inch spring-form pan.

Ingredients:

Traditional German Cuisine: Roulades!

Roulades with red cabbage, gravy, and potatoes

Roulades with fried napkin dumplings and "bacon" beans

Conventionally, Roulades in German cuisine are made from thinly sliced beef filled with onions, bacon, and pickles. They were served with potatoes (or mashed potatoes), lots and lots of gravy and usually cooked red cabbage. It's the type of dish that many people of my generation (you know, those millenials, generation Y, people born in the 80s) were fed as a special treat when they visited their grandma. The same was true for me. Roulades are a little like individual little roasts that each diner would cut up themselves on their plate instead of being served a slice of a big roast. 

I like roulades. But obviously I wouldn't want any cow or pig on my plate. The boyfriend likes this type of cooking (you may go as far as calling it comfort food because Rouladen are usually associated with the coziness of your grandma's living room, the woman who spoiled you rotten. Yeah, I know that's not true for everyone. But you get the point.) even more than I do, so he insisted we'd try this recipe by Jérôme Eckmeier, a chef who's made himself quite a name in the vegan scene in Germany. We made some slight changes and are convinced that our instructions will be much better than his. ^_^

Unexpected combinations: Beets + Orange + Chili + Hokkaido Squash

Today is one of those days where I started cooking with a vague idea in mind and it turned out great! I may even have discovered my new favorite salad!

These are the heroes of our dish: Hokkaido squash, oranges, beets!

And this is what our finished dish looks like: Ovenbaked hokkaido squash with a beets and orange salad with a sweet chili dressing.

Ingredients: 

• 1 Hokkaido squash
• 3 oranges
• beets (I had one big one, but just try to match the volume of the oranges)
• a bit of fresh ginger
• two garlic cloves of garlic
• some olive oil
• agave sirup
• sriracha (or sambal oelek or any other chili sauce)
• salt
• pepper

optional: a few pomegranate seeds for decoration

a bit of soy sauce

Himmel un Ääd - Traditional Rhineland Cuisine with Apple Sauce

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Ah, regional cuisine. I come from a place where some roasts are made with horse meat, and most dishes are served with some sort of sausage. Fortunately I have a wonderful man by my side who has mastered the skill of making variations of vegan sausages. He already announced, I'd have to post sausage recipes as well. And I will - eventually. I'd love to include some pictures of how he makes them, so I can post step-by-step instructions.

Today, I am posting a quick recipe that can be mostly prepared in advance. It's very easy, tastes amazing, and may introduce you to food combinations that you may not have experienced unless you live in the Rhineland. We call it "Himmel und Erde" (Heaven/Sky and Earth), but the regional dialect says "Himmel un Ääd." It's called "Heaven/Sky and Earth" because you mix two things that grow in different places: Heaven/Sky stands for the apples, earth for the potatoes.

Himmel un Ääd

Vegan food is boring, doesn't taste good, but that's probably because it's mostly kale.

Ah, I love hearing "But then... what DO you eat?" and "What are you allowed to eat?" Fortunately, I'm allowed to eat anything I want, except I chose not to eat some things.

So, today, I won't give you any recipes, but only things that may illustrate all the things I eat. :)
If you see any thing you like and want the recipe, just let me know and I'll post a blog on that specific dish!

The only thing better than making chocolates is sharing them with awesome people!

Since the roughly 80 to 90 chocolates I made the other day would most certainly ruin any longterm goals of fitting my clothes, I decided to give some to my friends. I will be seeing quite a few of them at my friends' private vegan café (Café Mousebear), I made spent a very relaxed and quiet Sunday morning crafting boxes for the chocolates.

I can't wait to go eat all the awesome cakes and pies and cupcakes that my friends have prepared for their guests. Who can say no to a pumpkin cupcake with a cinnamon/walnut topping? Or homemade thyme raspberry lemonade? 

Delicious, Creamy, Caramel/Nougat Chocolates

One of my favorite chocolates are called Toffifee. They are made of a caramel cup filled with a whole hazelnut and nougat and are topped with a bit of dark chocolate. The best. But they are full of milk products such as skim milk powder, concentrated butter, whey, lactose... Having found a recipe on another blog, I decided to accept the challenge of making my own. Based on the outcome of my own experiment, I made some changes to the recipe.

I am fairly happy with the results - the taste is definitely spot on! But I wish the caramel had gotten a little harder. This is the main reason I am making adjustments to the recipe.

I ended up with ca. 85 chocolates!

Ingredients:

The simple things in life: Bread

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Nothing tastes (or smells) better than freshly baked bread. Baking does not require elaborate tools, machines, molds or ingredients. Bread is awesome.

Having grown up in Germany, I am used to an abundance of different types of bread. Wheat, rye, spelt, oat ... I must have eaten well over 50 types of bread over my life. I'm not too great with sourdough yet, but I'm working on that. Last night, I decided to bake some bread. I don't really eat white flour products, unless we're talking pasta or cupcakes (and other tasty sugar bombs), so of course I opted for whole wheat. As opposed to regular white wheat flour, whole wheat flour is rich in calcium, iron, and fiber. I added flaxseeds (and some sunflower seed oil) for some extra omega 3 fatty acids.

Whole Wheat Bread with Flaxseeds

Ingredients

• 400g of whole wheat flour
• 20g of gluten (if you don't have any, that's fine. Just add a bit more flour. The gluten helps with the fluffiness of the bread)
• 1 pack of dry yeast
• 12g of salt
• 60g of flax seeds (or any other seeds/nuts you like: pumpkin, sunflower, walnut, hazelnut...)
• 3 tablespoons of awesome oil (canola oil is great, so is sunflower, ...)
• warm water

Carrot Ginger Soup

When life gives you carrot, ... make carrot soup.

Preferably yummy soup that doesn't look like baby food. Fresh ginger, coconut milk and a bit of good vinegar should be on the list.

Since the local organic veggie box from my last blog came with a lot of carrots and I still had about 700g left in the fridge, I decided not to give them any chance to spoil and made a big pot of soup. And please notice the incredibly awesome R2D2 soy sauce dispenser the boyfriend got me for our 9-year anniversary. That man knows how to please the ladies! <3

Carrot Ginger Soup

Ingredients:

• 1kg of carrots
• 3 onions
• 2-2.5l of veggie stock
• 3-4 medium sized potatoes
• 1 leek (how do you call pieces of leek? The German word would be "Stange" which would literally translate to "stick" oder "bar") 
• 500ml coconut milk
• 100g tomato paste
• a big chunk of fresh ginger
• more ginger
• some olive oil
• salt
• agave sirup
• 5 table spoons of white wine vinegar

Almost like Christmas!

Word of mouth informed me that there was a small organic farm in the north of our city. Word of mouth continued to inform me that they delivered weekly veggie crates! Being the person that I am I got overly excited about it and ordered the largest version they had available. Today was finally the day of days! The box got delivered! The boyfriend even suggested we'd do an "unboxing" video. I was tempted to do that. Then I was to lazy and only took pictures.

Rain and other yucky October weather didn't keep the driver from bringing this colorful beauty to our place. I truly feel like I am a little too excited about a collapsable plastic box full of vegetables. But that's okay. Other people go crazy over shoes with a red sole. I guess when my braincells were programmed, I got lots of those "books and food" ones and very few from the fashion department. Fine with me.

And here it is in all its glory:

The Perfect (and Healthy) Milk Shake

For some reason I never liked bananas. I have no idea why that was the case, but that's what I had to deal with most of my life.
I recently decided to give bananas another go and it turned out: Bananas are awesome. Maybe the minions (see below) had something to do with my change of mind.

So now, I am starting to discover the beauty of banana based food. My current favorite: Banana Chocolate Milk Shake! It takes a bit of prep time, but the type of prep time, where you do one thing and the let it sit for a while while you do whatever it is you want to do. You also need a blender and a freezer.

The Perfect Banana Chocolate Milk Shake

Ingredients: 

• 2 ripe bananas (even if they're a bit riper than you'd usually like... this is a great way to use up "not so pretty" produce)
• around 200ml of oat milk (we're utterly in love with "Smelk" by Kölln)
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (not the sugary type you'd use for hot chocolate, but the pure, good cocoa) 

Spicy Hokkaido Squash Soup

It's soup season again! Finally!

We were fortunate enough to have the boyfriend's mother grow some fine examples of hokkaido squash for us and I could not wait to turn it into soup. Can you go wrong with hokkaido squash soup with orange juice, ginger, and sambal oelek? Yeah, I didn't think so. 

Where's the difference between a squash and a pumpkin? I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm always excited to learn new things. My mothertongue German only has one word ["Kürbis"] for both types of vegetable, so I never saw a reason to distinguish between the two different vegetables.

So this was lunch for the boyfriend and me and also served as a nice present for my parents when we came to visit them.

The good thing is that soups like these do not rely on exact measures and diligently counted drops of ... something. Here's the rough draft of what I used and how I made it:

Spicy Hokkaido Squash Soup 

Ingredients: 

• 1 hokkaido squash 
• 500ml of veggie stock (we make tons of it and then freeze it)
• 500ml of pureed tomatoes 
• 300ml of orange juice
• 200ml of white wine (optional)
• 3 onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• some oil of your choice 
• a varying amount of sambal oelek, depending on your preferred level of heat)
• 1 can of coconut milk (I think I used around 400ml)
• a chunk of fresh ginger
• salt
• some pumpkin seeds

Welcome to Squirrel of Nom's Tasty Treats!

Ever since I started posting pictures of my food on facebook (yes, I'm one of those people), I have been asked to start a café, a bistro, a restaurant, a lunch service, or... at least (!) a food blog. I am hereby giving in to those demands! Here is Squirrel of Nom's Tasty Treats for you!

I am going to post pictures of food that I've made, and might also include recipes when possible. I'm saying "when possible," because - in my kitchen - cooking and baking always involves a nice dash of throwing random unplanned ingredients into pots and pans to see what happens. If I'm in a rush or don't see the point of explaining how to boil the perfect potato, I may not post a recipe immediately. You are always welcome to ogle the food my friends and me devour. A quick request for a recipe has never hurt either, so if it's not there, just remind me that there is someone who would actually like to know how I made a particular dish.

Since I'm a vegetarian, none of my recipes will involve dead animals. Instead I have opted for mouthwatering plant-based awesomesauce that usually even tends to be on the healthy side. (Let's face it. When it comes to cupcakes, that statement is a stark lie.) The majority of my recipes will be vegan and involve plenty of ingredients from organic farms and fair trade companies.

I am thinking about posting this blog in English and German. Which language would you prefer? If you speak German, would you mind that the recipes were in English?

Give me your feedback and some ideas on what you would like to see!

I am looking forward to reading from you!

- Squirrel* of Nom

*Squirrel because of the color of my hair!