Tortellini&Broccoli in a Spinach Cream Sauce and Peanut-Coconut-Curry Stir-Fry

Drinking ginger tea while eating ginger chocolate chip cookies, I sense my ginger phase is coming back. Ahh, the joy of relaxing for a couple of minutes... I actually have to study like crazy (which - honestly - I am not really doing so far, being the procastination whore that I am), because my finals are coming sooner than I thought they would and time just fucking flies by way too fast!



Still had time to cook something though (it's so good to actually cook and use an oven again after living off microwaved vegetables and sandwiches for the last 6 months). I made some spelt veggie tortellini with broccoli in a sauce made of cream cheese, some leftover spinach, soy milk, vitam-r, nutritional yeast, bindobin, oregano, pepper, salt, parsley, nutmeg and some curry powder (could've needed some garlic and onions, but I didn't feel like peeling and cutting anything... lazy much?). And I bought these things, because I'm too lazy to make my own. They taste alright, but then again I'd always prefer homemade chickpea cutlets or some other patties.

And from a couple of days ago: Peanut-Coconut-Curry Stir-Fry that was absolutely fabulous! I ate it three days in a row and probably still would be feasting on it if there were more leftovers. A mix of asparagus, bell pepper, ginger, fennel, zucchini, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, soy sprouts, brussels sprouts, snap peas and broccoli in a coconut milk/soy sauce/peanut butter mix. So so so good!



Managed the stir-fry eating with chopsticks quite well, but I always need the smurf kids fork my grandma gave me for the salad ;)

Lemon Lime Corn Waffles & Veggie Ricotta Lasagna

May I present you vegan waffles that were requested by a person who thinks soy milk will kill him.



That's right, my boyfriend asked for his own waffles (Jennifer, you can do the I-told-you-so dance now ;)) when he arrived at my apartment and saw me eating these Lemon Lime Corn Waffles with the most delicious strawberries & blueberries.



He had a few bites and declared he'd go for vegan waffles aswell. I made his with oil instead of apple sauce and white flour so they wouldn't be too healthy and scare him away =p

And here's a picture of the yummy Lasagna my mom & I made when my sister & her boyfriend arrived.



I had my vegan corner and the rest had regular lasagna. We used soy creamer instead of bechamel sauce and nobody noticed. I also crumbled my basil tofu ricotta inbetween the layers and nobody complained. I LOVED my part of the Lasagna, that's for sure!

Yumm yumm... and yes, I eat my Lasagna with applesauce ;)



Last night I made another dinner requested by my boyfriend: Potato Soup!
I had my mom's potato soup in mind which was very creamy and mild in flavor, but of course I improvised (as I pretty much always do) and got out something totally different, yet extremly delicious: Curry-Potato Soup!

I served this to my parents, my sister, her boyfriend and my boyfriend and everybody LOVED it! You know, when I started cooking my sister replied with an "Ew." when I said I'd be making potato soup, my mom said she wasn't hungry yet when dinner was ready everybody raved about it! Seriously, stuff like that makes me so happy, ha ha! I mean how often do you cook something and everybody likes it? I'll post pictures later, because I made a huge pot. Leftovers, hooray!!!

Other than that I want to apply for an internship in Amsterdam. I have found three agencies I'll apply at and I specifically favor one of them. Oi, please cross your fingers, I am so nervous! I really really want to do this, it would be like a dream come true!

I can foresee an addiction to Scones here...

Alter Schwede, have I been missing out!



After putting a scone recipe to my to-try-recipes about 5 months back I never got around to try them. Too busy, not in the mood, out of some required ingredient... yadda yadda!

But yesterday I craved some sweet snack because I resisted and didn't buy my beloved Schoko Haferlinge (Quit Now Challenge).
I rediscovered a cookbook I got back when I was 14. It's called 1001 Keks Rezepte (Cookie Recipes) and I wanted to remake another favorite store bought cookie: Spelt Ginger Cookies with chocolate chips.
The cookbook contains about 8 different ginger cookie recipes, but all of them require cooling the dough for at least 45 minutes and up to 24 hours. It was close to 11 pm already, so this was out of option.

Then I remembered an appetizing recipe at Isa's blog for Ginger Chocolate Chip Scones. My mind was set! I made half a batch and had three straight out of the oven, ha ha! Truth to be told, when it comes to sweets I have no self-control. I could've easily eaten the other three - my head definitely wanted to - but my tummy was full as I had eaten my leftover Equilinia & Veggies not long before.



They were delicious! Only thing I would change next time is add more ginger and make them flatter to get more of the awesome crispyness.

Had another one for breakfast yesterday morning. They taste much better fresh & crispy so next time I'll freeze some unbaked scones so I'll be able to have fresh ones within minutes! Yeeehaaa for Scones =D

[edit] I made them again last night. This time flatter with more ginger and baked them for, oh I don't know maybe 40 minutes!? I lowered the heat at some point and they came out extremly crispy but had lost a lot of the ginger taste.

I also made Lindsay's Carrot Cake Cupcakes. This time with 1/2 cup less applesauce, some ground cloves and an additional 15 minutes in the oven.

I used my new silicon muffin "pan" (after buying a mini version first). They are slightly bigger than the usual muffins and SO EASY TO TAKE OUT! I love how you don't need to grease them and they still come out perfectly easy. Nothing's left in the pan!
My cupcakes often used to stick hardcore to the liners, so much that you were only able to eat about half of the muffin because the rest stuck.
Well, not anymore =D



My best friend will come over later for Coffee & Cupcakes, yay!

Pasta Squares with grilled Asparagus & Zucchini, Basil Mint Cucumber Yogurt Dip & Messy Equilinia with Slow Roasted Veggie

(two posts in a row from various days where I was either at work and forgot my USB-stick at home or I was at home and my internet didn't work)

I purchased these Spinach-Leek Pasta Squares last week and had two left over aswell as half a jar of pasta sauce so I used my leftover veggies and made myself a delicious dinner last night.



Although it was only two pasta squares I felt so stuffed afterwards. One would've been sufficient as they are filled with a mixture of tofu, flour & potatoes all of which fill you up quite well!

The zucchini & asparagus were grilled on my newly purchased 3-in-1 Grill, Sandwich- & Wafflemaker.
I still have a waffle maker at home, but it's my mom's... and I ruined it (whoops) aswell as a sandwich maker that my sister took to Amsterdam with her. Last time I was there I considered taking it back with me, but it didn't look very appealing (she wasn't using it anymore either). So this was a very good purchase =)
The grill works like a charm, it's so fast and easy. I just hope my boyfriend won't get the idea to buy meat and grill it on there... *waggles finger* It was hard enough for me to let him use my non-stick perfect pancake skillet for his burger patties... I always fear my pancakes might taste like meat at parts. Ha ha, das ist Paranoia, mhh hmmm mhhhh!



The Basil-Mint Cucumber Yogurt Dip was great! I think this would go great with some fresh baguette or crackers. Sadly I didn't have any.



Ingredients
1/4 cup soy yogurt
1/3 cup chopped cucumber
~ 10 mint leafs, chopped
~ 10 basil leafs, chopped
dash salt, black pepper & cayenne pepper

The slow roasted vegetables were so good I made them again this week. This time with more red onion and 2 cloves of garlic.
To go with it I made Vcon's Messy Rice (with an addition of cayenne pepper which everyone but me seems to have... now I do, too and I must say 'I liiiiiike'), but with 7 Grain-Equilina (a mixture of brown & wild rice, spelt, oats, barley, rye & wheat, used it here before) instead of white rice. Mainly because I didn't have any.



It was a nice dinner, the perfect balance of grains and vegetables with a hint of spicyness.

While the Equilinia was cooking I realized I didn't know the exact cooking time and when I took the box out of my cupboard to check the quinoa pack fell straight at me, top down and open. And it was a new full pack. Quinoa everywhere, ugh!
That left me cursing and smacking cupboard doors for a while... it was worse than when I dropped the open bag of mustard seeds because it was only a few Tbsp's (annoying nevertheless), but I assume I had about 4 cups of quinoa splattered in my kitchen.

Cookies, Snacks, Lunches, Dinner & Fruit

I've been trying more store bought cookies: the midget one is a gluten-free carob cookie and tastes, well, not very good. The Chocolate Chip ones in plastic taste awesome though!



Such milky chocolate chips and a yummy crumbly chocolate center. These are delicious!!!



Washed them down with hot & foamy cocoa latte. 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder with hot regular soy milk & 1/4 cup soy macchiato milk and foam.
♥ I love drinking cocoa through a straw!



Another lunch/snack from some day.
Seitenbacher chocolate cereals & oats with cocoa soy milk (2 Tbsp. cocoa powder plus soy milk) & strawberries.



Boy, and this was by far the best lunch I've had in a long time!



Pita pocket, grilled in a non-sticking pan with raspberry preserves, banana slices, shredded brazil nuts and pieces of 85% chocolate. With red grapes on the side, of course ;)






Probably not exactly eye candy, but look at the gooey goodness going on there (and on the plate, ha ha)!



On Saturday I finally baked something I had been wanting to make for a long time!



All seemed so well... the top was sticky, the way it's supposed to be.



And it sure did look right!



But it was way too sticky. The piece in the photo remained unfinished, it was just too heavy. Too bad though, I really craved some Ontbijtkoek!
I guess that means you can't replace molasses with the same amount of sugar beet molasses. Oh well, I'll ask my sister to bring some when she comes here.



Yesterday I made slow-roasted veggies (bell pepper, carrots, fennel, asparagus, zucchini) and with quinoa (haven't had it for quite a while) for dinner.



The veggies were sooo delicious! The red onions were caramelized... oh my, so good!



Ingredients
2 bell peppers, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 zucchini, quartered
2 carrots, quartered
1/4 of a big fennel bulb, sliced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
handful of green baby asparagus
rosemary, oregano
salt, pepper

1. preheat the oven to 320° F
2. chop all the vegetables
3. in a baking dish combine the bell peppers, carrots, fennel, onion, garlic and drizzle with olive oil, mix well & sprinkle with herbs and salt & pepper
4. after 30 minutes in the oven add the zucchini and asparagus, stir again and add some more salt & pepper (if needed)
5. another 30 minutes in the oven et voilà, dinner's ready!



"Dessert"... I've discovered red grapes as you can probably tell since they're in almost every picture in this post =p



My fantastic new Magic Bullet made a smoothie: watermelon, banana, raspberries, blueberries, nectarines (all frozen) and a splash of soy milk.



A White Bean Stew (white beans, carrots, zucchini, red & yellow bell pepper, tomato puree, onions, garlic etc.) I made last week. Topped with leftovers from my mom's bulgur salad (bulgur, tomatoes, cucumber, yellow bell pepper, tomato paste, parsley, chili etc.) which went very well together!



I'm looking forward to bake Banana Bread tonight & getting home in general. Work is so boring and I would much rather go home and keep on cleaning my apartment since I had a deep-cleaning phase yesterday... my kitchen almsot sparkles (which it usually never does... erm) and I still have some leftover energy lingering around!

Anyway, enjoy your start into the week! Hope you'll have a great day!!!

Salad, Pasta, another Cake & Curry Cauliflower Carrot Soup

I wonder, why do I always feel like salads are a pain in the ass to make? Am I seriously that slow? And am I the only one? Mhh...
Anyway, the delicious salad I had last night sure did remind me that all the washing and chopping and mixing and roasting is simply worth it!



Roasted zucchini, eggplant & orange bell pepper on a bed of iceberg & lamb's lettuce, some cucumber slices, tomatoes, red onion & avocado chunks (I actually prefer avocados in form of guacamole... oh well, next time), drizzled with a balsamic yogurt dressing. Oh and some Nachos with mexican salsa.



Now onto my dad's cake. He and my mom enjoyed it a lot! Of course so did I ;)
A layer of raspberry perserves, banana slices and chocolate mousse.



I didn't have any fresh berries to add so I simply used pieces of cake crust, spread them with more chocolate mousse and arranged them on top. Some chopped chocolate on the sides & on top and it could've passed as the mouthwatering Starbucks Chocolate Fudge Cake I used to have quite often ♥

A few days ago I wanted something quick, so here goes Kamut pasta in olive tapenade mixed with broccoli & scallions sautéed in garlic. And a few drops of soy yogurt. Yumm!



Last week I made a Curry Cauliflower Carrot Soup with potatoes & red lentils! This was hearty & filling, yet light.
I ate it 3 days in a row yet never managed to take a picture. Even my boyfriend loved this!
I'll have to increase my soup cooking skills and make more of them.

I used about 6 medium potatoes & 2 carrots cut into small chunks and about 1/4 cup red lentils that I cooked in broth.
Midway cooking I added about 8-10 cauliflower florets, cut into smaller pieces, nutritional yeast, curry, ginger, garam masala, nutmeg, chili, paprika, salt and pepper.
I added 1/4 - 1/3 cup soy milk and puréed 2 cups of the solids in my blender and poured it back into the pot.
With a slice of whole wheat toast spread with a layer of olive tapenade, this was a perfect dinner!

Cherry Chocolate Pancakes & Lentil-Veggie Lasagna

Yes, that brownblackish smear on the right one is indeed 85% dark chocolate oozing out of the pancake! And yes, I used cherries from a jar.

While watching France loose against Italy last night (I thought of you Romina and was like "I bet she's totally celebrating right now!" ha ha) I suddelny craved pancakes! I could totally identify myself with Ruby's statement from a while ago, he he!

"I can't stop making them - I'm obsessed. I can't control myself: I just wake up and my hands start making pancakes!!!"

They were delicious! The intense taste of the dark chocolate with the juicy and fruity cherries inbetween was a festival for my tastebuds!
I had them with raspberry jam (pictured) and maple syrup.
If you ever want to try them definitely go with the maple syrup as the tastes fit together perfectly!



I mixed together the following, aiming to get no more than two pancakes out of the batter as I wasn't actually very hungry.

Ingredients
makes 2 pancakes

important: I used a rather small Tbsp. (I used children's silverware, erm...)

3 Tbsp. water
4-5 Tbsp. soy milk (or any other milk)
1/2-1 Tbsp. apple sauce
1-2 Tbsp. agave syrup (sweeten to taste)
a few dashes of cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
5 Tbsp. flour (I used whole meal)
dash baking soda
pinch salt
1/2-1 cup cherries (I'm the kind of person who likes it best if there's more fruit than dough so I went with a cup)
cuple of small chocolate pieces (I used two and broke them into small pieces; chocolate chips would be the easiest way to go I guess but 1/4 cup costs about 1.50 here)


After work I went shopping. Look at how tiny the zucchini is!
Everytime I see something incredibly small version of a usually bigger item I buy it because I'm like "Aww look, it's a Lizzy-Zucchini!" as I'm only 5'2", ha ha!



I also found red lamb's lettuce which I've never heard of before. I'll make it tonight with nectarines and a raspberry-lime dressing I've been wanting to try, hence the raspberry jam and limes.



I didn't like this fruit bar too much as the coffee taste was rather wird... but luckily I had also purchased this fantastic dark chocolate that made my pancakes extra special!

As a snack I made myself a bowl of fruit: golden kiwi, watermelon and honeydew melon!



Later I reheated my last piece of Lasagna.
I had mixed together the leftover sauces from here with tomato purée and seasoned it with oregano, salt & pepper.
I also cooked a cup of red lentils and added them to the sauce. While the lentils were cooking I sautéed an orange bell pepper and 3 carrots cut into chunks. Everything was combined and filled into the Canneloni.
The rest was used as a filling for the Lasagna with additional frozen spinach inbetween the layers which was just perfect!
My mom, dad and boyfriend ate the Canneloni & the rest of the Lasagna as I had topped it with cheese for them (my mom's request). They enjoyed it a lot!
I was fine without it and enjoyed my piece with some soy yogurt sprinkled with a little pepper.

At first I thought I'd miss the white sauce, but turns out that the red lentils give the filling a creamy texture which was completely awesome! Lentils working in Lasagna, who would've thought?

Another quick Tortilla dinner & chinese inspired Veggie Rice Stir-Fry

More groceries! I'm really in the mood for grocery shopping at the moment it seems..

The crunchy amaranth cereal is fantastic in yogurts and the dried mango strips... well, I ate them all yesterday and felt sick because it were too many but they were seriously too good to stop =p



Also, I finally bought Hoisin sauce as you can see in the first picture! After I got back from Amsterdam I ate at this chinese place in Kreuzberg twice. They have all kinds of dishes, sushi, vegetarian dishes and even burgers that can be ordered vegan with tofu instead of fish.

I chose their veggie rice which was so good that I got the same thing twice. The sauce was delicious!! And they topped the whole thing off with pine nuts... yumm!!!

So I recreated the dish with much more veggies of course. I failed to get soy sprouts, but this was a fantastic light and very satisfying dinner nonthless.



I used a handful of baby asparagus and broccoli, 1/4 yellow and red bell pepper, 1/4 cup scallions, 1/2 carrot and pine nuts. I used to be not too fond of pine nuts and their flavor for a very long time and when I tried them this time the taste kind of reminded me of the fake ham flavor potato chips used to have... odd =p



Then on another day I had wanted to make a nice and finally more complete than usual mexican dinner à la me(meaning it's usually just inspired and I always end up making up my own variation to my liking anyway)tonight... with rice, guacamole and whatnot. But plans for tonight changed & I was left with very little time so I just cooked up a quick garlic-onion-black-and-white-bean-peperoni-tomato something and used roasted baby asparagus in it and as "the sprinkle" of my salad. Along with the new balsamico-basil dressing I bought (all the way to the left).

I used to roast it with some olive oil, but now I just wash it and put it right into the oven for about 20 minutes and it turns out perfectly.

PBJ Banana Goodness and an "Asian" Veggie & Rice Stir-Fry

A few days ago I had the grilled Peanut Butter Jelly Banana Sandwich people seem to eat all the time. It was so good! I just couldn't decide how to cut the banana =p



Last night I made a simple, light and satisfying dinner after being inspired by the take-out chinese food I had this weekend that was way too oily in my opinion.
Seriously, why do people think it's neccessary to drown tiny vegetable pieces in cups of oil? Not only am I pretty sure that most people would appreciate low-fat versions (I don't demand them to be no or low fat, but get the amount right damnit), the restaurant itself would probably save quite some money in the long run if they used 4 Tbsp. less oil for each dish.

Oh well, in that case I'll rely on myself and recreate the dish the way I want it to be. And that would be it:



Ingredients
2 bell peppers, chopped (I used 1/2 yellow, 1 red & 1/2 green)
3 cups chinese cabbage, chopped
1/3 bamboo shoots
2 carrots, shredded
3 scallions, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced
soy sauce
salt, a dash pepper

First sautee the bell pepper & celery for 10 minutes, then add the bamboo shoots, carrot and chinese cabbage and under stirring cook for 5 more minutes.

Completely fat free and again, boyfriend and father approved!

I had rice left over and craved something dessert-like, but didn't have anything on hand really so I came up with this. Rice, 3 Tbsp. apple sauce, a squirt agave and a few dashes of cinnamon. And not to forget cashews.

PYROG Salad & Baba Ganoush

What a burst of color and taste!



The name PYROG was put together simply because of the colors. I mixed chopped red cabbage (P=purple), a bell pepper (Y=yellow), cherry tomatoes (R=red), shredded carrot (O=orange), regular and lamb's lettucce and cucumber slices(G=green) and topped it all with roasted sunflower seeds. The dressing pretty much consisted of Balsamico bianco, a little olive oil and 1 tsp. fig mustard.

I don't have salad often enough and I always wonder why. It's not that time consuming and it always tastes good. Plus, the boyfriend loves to eat it. He gets all excited when I make salad (the kind of excitement I get when I see the Lindt commercial and start to believe that I will one day work in that exact same setting =p) - even more reasons to toss together some greens every now and then!



I also made Baba Ganoush for the first time and used this recipe(added some additional fresh parsley). But being the way I am I did not start small and then added more, as suggested by Susan. I used 2 cloves of garlic. BIG cloves! So when I tasted it... woooosh, hardcore garlic infusion! Even for a garlic lover like me.




So I didn't eat much of it and decided not to grill my veggies (I wanted to use my new grill pan to try out Katies recipe using asparagus, zucchini and bell pepper to accompany the Baba Ganoush) and just had some slices of raw bell pepper instead. I don't eat enough raw vegetables... I'll really try to eat a big salad every day(or at least every other day)!