Gebratene Nudeln mit Gemüse | Fried noodles with veggies

English version below

Ich habe schon ein Rezept für gebratene Nudeln, aber letztendlich habe ich noch eine etwas simplere Version, die mit etwas weniger Zutaten auskommt. Da ich unter der Woche ja immer für den Folgetag vorkoche, bin ich dann immer ganz froh, wenn ich meine Einkäufe und die Vorbereitung planen kann. Hier ist also meine "reduzierte" aber nicht minder leckere Variante der gebratenen Nudeln.

Zitronen-Dill-Suppe mit Quinoa | Lemon and Dill Soup with Quinoa | Avgolemono

English version below!

Die Suppe hab ich das erste Mal beim Dinner bei Anja von The Vegan Foodnerd gegessen. Ich mag das ja, wenn man mich zu Essen einlädt. :) Sie hat auch eine Variante von der veganen Avgolemono auf Ihrer Seite, aber ich mach meine etwas anders.

Five ingredient lunch + hot sauce

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Lunches should be quick to prepare and not too heavy, otherwise your productive afternoon turns into a majestic desk nap. Here is what I had today. Fried noodles with lots of veggies and very little other ingredients.

Another Lunch: Green Curry Creamed Potatoes, Beans, Peanuts with Spinach, Peas and Onions

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Would I even consider this a real recipe? No. It's just the panic-y "I don't want to go grocery shopping - what's left in pantry and freezer?" meal. But you never know if anyone can is it as inspiration! After all, it's a quick and easy lunch.

Another Lunch: Mushrooms, Broccoli, and Almonds

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I don’t really have a name for this dish. It’s just one of those “I had mushrooms and wanted to have lunch” type of recipes where you look for things in your kitchen that might work well together. So I made fried onions and cremini mushrooms in an almond butter sauce on garlic mashed potatoes with pan fried almond broccoli.

Healthy Snack: Tandoori Masala Chickpeas

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I am still surfing on the wave of New Year's Resolutions... and needed a quick snack. I have to admit, although I enjoy a bit of cake and desserts every not and then, I am more of a salty snacker. Salted pistachios, potato chips, smoked tofu, ... that sort of thing. And since I love spices and chickpeas, I made a spicy chickpea snack. It's super easy!

Hummus is love!

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I love hummus. You do, too. It goes well with everything and you can season it according to your tastes! And it's cheap and easy to make, too! :)

 

Quinoa Patties

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It's early Janury - New Year's Resolutions are still fresh. I did not really make any specific ones, but the whole "eat clean, work out, be kind, spread happiness" thing is always there. That's always good.I have been told that my junk food is healthier than some people's regular food, but that doesn't mean that I need to lower my standards. :)

The main reason for my not so healthy eating habits can be found in occasional laziness and the "but I'm hungry NOW!" moments. So I made a few things yesterday, tripled the portions and made serving-size containers full of deliciousness that went into the freezer. Among these edibles were these quinoa patties. I froze them in batches of four, so I could combine them with other stuff for varied meals.

Red lentil veggie soup, hummus, quinoa patties, fried eggplants and
zucchini, fresh and sundried tomatoes.
Many thanks to camslinger.de for the picture. <3

<3 and food go out to camslinger.de for
constraining himself long enough to take the picture

Filled curry bell peppers with quinoa

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I had a request for a "not boring" recipe of filled bell peppers on my facebook page a while ago... and here is my take on "not boring filled bell peppers." :)

I was making up the recipe as I cooked, so these ingredients are all in the dish,
but, for example, not the whole cauliflower. 

Thai Pasta Salad

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Mondays are always a bit of a challenge: I always prepare a lunch for work for my colleague and myself... but I want to vary what I bring. So I keep my eyes open for new ideas and suggestions. Today, the Vegan Food Nerd came to my rescue. Their dish inspired me to pick up some of the basic ingredients they used and to come up with something new myself. :)

This is not actually a Thai recipe. But the nice noodles, coconut milk, and red Thai curry paste made me call it that! :D

Ingredients for 6 generous portions:

• 400g of rice noodles (the type that looks like fettuccine, about 4mm, ca. 1/6 in)
• 300g of soy sprouts
• 3 bell peppers (red, yellow, green)
• 1 large zucchini
• 250g of snowpeas
• 1l of coconut milk
• some oil (for example sunflower)
• 2 tablespoons of red Thai curry paste - if you like it hotter, use more (double check the ingredients! Curry pastes are not always vegan/vegetarian!)
• some soy sauce
• some salt
• 2 limes
• 100g of (unsalted) peanuts 
• 400g of tofu (it's the squishy type which I buy at the Asian supermarket, not the firm stuff)

You will also need: A big pot, a deep-fryer. If you don't have a deep-fryer, I suppose you can also fry the tofu in a pan, but it won't be quite as nice.

A Simple + Healthy Breakfast: Overnight Oats

I also puréed a few strawberries and added
this strawberry sauce to the bottom of the jar.

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Calling this a recipe is almost impudent... I saw a lot of overnight oats on the internet recently and decided to give it a go so I'd have a simple and healthy breakfast to make a Monday morning a bit nicer for myself and for people around me (those who got breakfast from me and those who didn't have to deal with a breakfast-free me). :)

Here is what I used for today's overnight oats:

Ingredients (per serving):

• 70g of rolled oats
• 200ml of oat milk (you can use any milk you like!)
• 5 strawberries
• 1 small banana
• a handfull of chopped almonds
• some rhubarb (half a small stick?)
• 1 teaspoon of raw cane sugar

Banana Rhubarb Breakfast Muffins

I'm quite the fan of The Vegan Foodnerd on Facebook. I get tons of great inspiration there and have already tried a recipe or two from their posts. One of them was the ever-awesome (Oreo-free Oreo) Raspberry Cheesecake! Bow down to the makers of these recipes! :)

I have to admit that I had never baked or cooked with rhubarb before. But since I had a bunch of rhubarb in our organic farmer's veggie box last Friday, I had to conquer the art of rhubarb eating! The first piece went into a smoothie (along with bananas, an apple, and turnip tops), but I had to find good use for the rest! And The Vegan Foodnerd's recipe for breakfast muffins looked too good not to try it. I made a couple of changes to the recipe, though. Here is my version!

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Lots of <3 goes to camslinger.de for the picture.

Ingredients for 30 Breakfast Muffins:

• 350g of wholemeal flour (I used half spelt, half wheat)
• 1 1/2 table spoons of baking powder (1 pack)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 140g vegan "butter"
• 300g of unrefined sugar
• a little bit of vanilla (flavor or the real deal)
• 2 bananas
• 3 medium stalks of fresh rhubarb
• 350g of soy yoghurt

Creamy Salsify and Chickpea Salad

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Yet another one of those recipes that originate in the mysteries the veggie box our local organic farmer brings. We had a couple of salsify roots again and I decided not to put them in a stew like I did the last time we got them. So today, they went into a creamy salad along with chickpeas, some lettuce, and a few slices of raw zucchini.

Ingredients:

• 3 large salsify roots
• 100g of precooked chickpeas
• half of a small zucchini, cut in slices with a julienne slicer
• 4 large leafs of lettuce
• 150g of soy yoghurt
• 4 table spoons of white vinegar (make sure you get a nice, yummy vinegar, not just some cheap sour stuff)
• salt
• pepper

Red Lentil Veggie Soup

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Yet another incredibly easy dish! And super tasty, too. If you happen to not have one ingredient or the other in the house, you can always replace things. You can basically swap out any of the veggies as long as you stick to the lentils, water, and seasoning.

Ingredients for six servings:

• 150g red lentils
• 3 large carrots
• 1 leek
• 3 onions
• 3 cloves of garlic
• fresh ginger (about the size of a thumb)
• salt
• 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil, for example, sunflower seed oil.
• 50g tomato paste
• 1l of water
• a handfull of hazelnuts
• half a green bell pepper
• half a red bell pepper
• 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar
• a handfull of fresh herbs, for example, parsley or basil

Summer Rolls with a Sweet and Sour Lime Sauce

Or with sweet and sour sauce

This would have been lunch for my colleage and me, ... if my body hadn't decided to be sick. But I didn't want to let the ingredients go to waste and made the summer rolls. These are Vietname style summer rolls, so they are not fried/deep-fried. They're low in fat and gluten-free (in case anyone suffers from celiac desease) if you substitute the beer that is used to soak the rice paper for water or gluten-free beer. 

The summer rolls are great for buffets, picnics, lunch at work, or long trips. They're also really yummy!

Filled Eggplants

For some reason I used to be intimidated by eggplants, didn't know what exactly to do with them. But that has fortunately changed. This is one of my favorite recipe. Originally by Attila Hildmann from his Vegan for Fit book, it's a nice low carb recipe... unless you eat it with potatoes like I do! I made this as a lunch that I took to work for a friend and me: Tuesday is homecooked work lunch day - although we even have a vegan section in our university canteen! (So progressive!) I made baked potatoes and herb cream cheese/Quark [Recipe!] to go with the egg plant.

Ingredients:

for two meals:

• 2 eggplants
• a few tablespoons of olive oil
• 8 dried tomatoes (in oil)
• 2 onions
• 1 clove of garlic
• 100g of tomato paste
• 180g of precooked kidney beans (canned)
• salt
• 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons of oregano
• 1 tea spoon of agave syrup

For the cream on top:

• 60g of almond butter (almond butter is fairly pricey. Unseasoned cashew or peanut butter works, too!)
• some water
• 50g of tomato paste
• salt

Easy: Winter Stew

As I may have mentioned in earlier blogs, we get a box full of vegetables and fruit from a local organic farmer once a week. This week, one vegetable proved to intimidate me a little bit as I had never worked with it before, the Scorzonera hispanica. In German, it is commonly known by the name "Schwarzwurzel" which literally translates to "black root" - quite fitting. In English, it goes by more impressive names such as black salsify or Spanish salsify, scorzonera, black oyster plant, serpent root, viper's herb, or viper's grass. I like "viper's grass" best! :) It does not necessarily look very edible at first:

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

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)