Und zu Weihnachten? | And for Christmas?

English version below (there really is! Keep scrolling.)

Weihnachten steht ja traditionell für gutes Essen. Ich habe hier mal ein paar festliche Vorschläge zusammen getragen, die gut passen, die man mit der Familie teilen kann - und die von mir in höchst wissenschaftlichen menschlichen Experimenten mit Veganern und Nicht-Veganern getestet und für gut befunden wurden:

Antipasti I: Marinated Veggies

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr unter dem englischen Rezept!

We had an Italian themed dinner party last week and made a nice little plate of antipasti as appetizers. It's June, so we wanted to stick to as many cold dishes as possible. Antipasti proved to be easily prepared in advance and a great way to start out the dinner. There are three main components to the dish on the picture above: (1) Marinated veggies, (2) baked bellpeppers with shaved almonds, and (3) the tomato that's filled with pesto cream cheese. I'll explain how they were made in the following blog posts.

So here is how you can make the marinated veggies:

For this starter plate for six people (each person got their own ;) No sharing necessary), I used the following:

Ingredients:

• 1 medium eggplant
• 2 small zucchinis
• 250g of meadow mushrooms 
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 150ml olive oil (plus some for frying)
• 1½ tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• some fresh basil, thyme, and rosemary
• salt

Dinner Party III

Dinner Party No. 3! 

I really love how we have established this little tradition of cooking three-course dinners for each others among us three couples. We started out last fall and have cooked really good stuff for each other since. This week, we started the third round of our "perfect vegan dinner" - and it was Italian themed.

Dinnerparty Nr. 3!

Ich finde es total toll, dass wir diese kleine Tradition füreinander Drei-Gang-Menüs zu kochen unter uns drei Paaren etabliert haben. Wir haben im letzten Herbst damit angefangen und haben seitdem immer nur leckere Sachen für einander kredenzt. Diese Woche haben wir die dritte Runde unseres "perfekten veganen Dinners" gestartet - und das Thema war Italien im Ruhrpott. 

Rosemary Panna Cotta with Strawberry Sauce

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr unter dem englischen Rezept.

The dessert for our latest dinner party was easy to prepare and was also easily prepared in advance.

Ingredients for six portions:

• 200ml soy cream
• 300ml almond milk (I made my own)
• 1 teaspoon of agar agar
• 50g of raw cane sugar for the panna cotta
• 1 vanilla bean or vanilla flavor
• 2 rosemary sprigs
• 600g of fresh strawberries
• 1 tablespoon of raw cane sugar for the sauce

Three-Course Dinner II

We looove having friends over. And feeding them. So this is the second time that we hosted a dinner for our four friends - and a couchsurfer from New Zealand.

Daffodils! <3

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"...