Smoked Tomato Paprika Sauce

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr unter dem englischen Rezept!

Many thanks to Mr. Squirrel at Camslinger.de for the photo 

I started out making a sauce out of things that had to go for whatever reason: Veggies on the verge of looking less Next Veggie Top Model, open packs of pureed tomatoes from yesterday's pizza... that sort of thing. I ended up with the best sauce ever! It will go well with our Tomato Lentil Bites (filled with Cashew Feta) at my work Christmas party tonight!

Green Thai Curry with Rice

Again, as with most more exotic recipes, I am claiming no authenticity for my green Thai curry. I am just claiming that it tastes great! :)

I made a big batch of green curry tonight because I made lunch for myself, a friend, and the boyfriend for tomorrow. And for dinner tonight. And whatever is left over won't survive for too long either. Here is a recipe for a normal batch.

Ingredients:

• 600ml of veggi stock
• 400ml of coconut milk (1 can)
• green curry paste - how much depends on how hot you like your food and on the curry paste itself. Also: Make sure you check your curry paste for non-vegan ingredients. Some are made with shrimp etc.
• 2 small zucchinis
• 1 eggplant
• 1 small broccoli
• 3 lime leaves (optional)
• a little bit of salt
• 1 cup of rice (I used red and white rice)
• 2 cups of water
• 1 tsp of sugar

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