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"...

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. ^_^