Smoked Tomato Paprika Sauce

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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!

Comfort Food: Mac'n'Cheese

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I grew up with Kässpätzle as my favorite food. Basically, that's homemade (at least where I grew up) egg-based Swabian noodles baked with lots of cheese and caramelized onions. Now, I have not managed to make anything that is quite as good as what my Mom used to make, however, the following recipe is great and super tasty. 

Oh and I recently got a really cool recipe (at a vegan dinner party that was thrown for me in Philadelphia!) for egg-less spätzle that tasted incredibly great! So I may come up with a Kässpätzle recipe some time in the future. 

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

Cajun Spice? Cajun Fries!

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I love Cajun fries, so when we made burgers and fries for a dinner with our friends, I figured a bit more than salt wouldn't hurt.

Cajun spice is easy to make and can be stored in a cleaned jam jar if you wish.

Ingredients:

• 4 teaspoons of sea salt
• 2 teaspoons of Cayenne pepper
• 4 teaspoons of garlic granulate
• 5 teaspoons (sweet) paprika
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons roasted onions (or onion powder)
• 3 teaspoons dried oregano
• 3 teaspoons dried thyme

Instructions:

• Throw everything in a blender and blend. 

• Store in an airtight container and sprinkle it on food (tofu, seitan, potatoes, fries, ... anything!).

Deutsche Übersetzung: 

Cajun Gewürz

Ich liebe Cajun Fries. Als wir für unser Drei-Gang-Dinner für unsere Freunde Burger und Pommes gemacht haben, dachte ich mir, dass die Pommes auch gerne etwas mehr als Salz vertragen könnten.

Cajun Gewürz ist sehr einfach herzustellen und kann wunderbar in einem alten (sauberen) Marmeladenglas aufbewahrt warden.

Zutaten:

• 4 Teelöffel Meersalz
• 2 Teelöffel Cayennepfeffer
• 4 Teelöffel  Knoblauchgranulat
• 5 Teelöffel Paprika edelsüß
• 2 Teelöffel frisch gemahlener schwarzer Pfeffer
• 2 Teelöffel Röstzwiebeln (oder Zwiebelgranulat)
• 3 Teelöffel getrockneter Oregano
• 3 Teelöffel getrockneter Thymian

Zubereitung:

• Alles ab in den Zerkleinerer und schön zerkleinern. 

• In einem luftdichten Container aufbewahren und auf Essen streuen (Tofu, Seitan, Kartoffeln, Pommes, alles!) 

Mediterranean Red Lentil Tomato Frikadellen

English version below!

Ich habe ja eine gewisse Vorliebe für Linsen entwickelt. Wir haben im Moment drei verschiedene Sorten zu hause und ich mache verschiedene Gerichte damit! Ich habe zum Beispiel letztens eine Sorte mit Berglinsen gemacht. Geschmacklich geht des in die gleiche Richtung wie konventionelle Fleischgerichte. Aber die Frikos heute mache ich für eine Freundin die Fleisch noch nie mochte, darum versuche ich keine Geschmäcker oder Gewürze zu verwenden, die man traditionell mit Fleisch assoziiert.

Zutaten:

für 15-18 Minifrikadellen

• 200g rote Linsen
• 50g Paniermehl
• 4 EL Cashew Parmesan  (Supereinfaches Rezept hier)
• 5 getrocknete Tomaten
• 2 Zwiebeln
• eine Hand voll frischer Basilikum
• 100g Tomatenmark
• etwas Olivenöl zum braten
• 3-4 Zehen Knoblauch (optional)
• Salz

Leftover Fried Rice with anything

Okay, this is probably not even a recipe. I just took everything that was left over or needed to be eaten for any other reason.

Ingredients:

Anything that needs to get out of your fridge. In my case:

• (cooked) white and red rice
• Carrots
• Onions
• Savoy Cabbage
• Chick peas
• Leeks
• Mock Duck
• Salt
• a clove of garlic
• a few table spoons of canola oil
• optional: some soy sauce

Veggie Quiche

Quiche? Egg-free? I was not so sure that this was going to work. But it did!

Ingredients for a Chard Quiche:

For the pastry:

• 320g flour (I used wholewheat)
• 150g margarine
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 80-100ml of water (not pictured)

For the filling:

• ca. 600g of chard (before removing inedible parts)
• five small onions
• 2 packs (~350g each) of firm silken tofu
• as much garlic as you like
• 200g of smoked tofu
• 3 tablespoons of soy (or rice, spelt...) cream
• 3 tablespoons of yeast flakes
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil (plus some for frying)
• 4 tablespoons of starch
• 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• a little bit of freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of kala namak salt
• 2 tablespoons of fenugreek
• 2 tablespoons of paprika
• some freshly ground nutmeg

Fried Polenta

I originally got the recipe for fried polenta from my friend Sarah (who is currently doing a crowd funding campaign to open a vegan café in Duisburg, Germany. Check out the campaign website!) - and  hers are still far superior to mine. At least visually. But I'm working on the presentation aspect!

 

Ingredients:

• 800ml of veggie stock (check the polenta packaging in case the suggested amount of liquid differs from this)
• 200g of polenta
• 6 small onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 150g dried tomatoes 
• lots of fresh basil
• salt, black pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper

Veggi Galore: Massaman Curry

Have a few Euros to spare? Help my friends at the Café Mousebear (vegan guerilla living room café) open a real café to spread the vegan love! Check out their crowd funding campaign. Every Euro helps!

How do you put as many different vegetables as possible in one pot? Curry is definitely a good option here!

The last leftovers that I could save for the photo before the
boyfriend devoured it all!

Disclaimer: This is most likely not a traditional Indian curry. That's ok. I just don't know any better. So far everyone who has tried this curry, though, said that it was good. Still - I'm not claiming any sort of authenticity.

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 8 tablespoons of curry paste
• 1 l of veggi stock
• 1 l of tomatoes
• 1 pineapple
• 5-6 small onions
• 250g spinach (I used frozen)
• 300g peas (I used frozen)
• 5 carrots
• 1 eggplant
• 2 large bell peppers
• 1 can of coconut milk

• As much rice as you want - we ended up not making any rice in order to keep this a low carb dish.
• This is also a dish in which you can nicely add a couple of TSP (texturized soy protein) chunks. Cook a handful or two in salt water, press out the excess water and add them to the pot.

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:

Easy: Creamy Potato Salad

If you grew up in Germany, you probably grew up with parties, barbecues and picnics where creamy potato salad was served. Every family has their own recipe (or buys terrible potato salad in big buckets at the supermarket) and the only ingredients that all of them have in common are potatoes and mayonaise. Other ingredients include Fleischwurst (a German type of bologna sausage), pickles, apples, onions, bacon, garlic, scallions, peppers, beef stock, cucumbers, beets, hard boiled eggs, and parsley. Some of these ingredients are excluded in my recipe for obvious reasons. ;)

The boyfriend requested I'd make potato salad for our birthday party - with his mother's recipe. So here is the vegan version of it!

Ingredients:

• 400g of vegan mayonaise [here is my recipe for a quick and easy vegan mayo]
• OR 200g of Mayo and 200g of soy yoghurt!
• 1.5 kg of potatoes (the waxy type)
• 500g of carrots 
• Pickles
• 2 medium sized onions
• salt
• pepper