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!!!

Quinoa Pesto-Asparagus -Tomato Salad

I've come up with this idea when my sister had a pesto noodle salad in Amsterdam. As good as my idea was I chose a rather bad day to make the salad — I had too little pine nuts, used too little garlic and the tomatoes tasted like nothing.



But I'll definitely make this again! This time with the perfect pesto and sundried tomatoes! This is exactly the flavor it was lacking.

Bean Quesadillas and the fruitiest Berry Birthday Crisp

For my mom's birthday I made VwaV's Quinoa Mango Black Bean Salad as requested!
Don't the colors of the flowers & salad match perfectly? Ha ha!



I wrapped it up in a Tortilla later: a tasty idea! I really enjoyed it this way.

I usually hate peeling and cutting mango, but the skin was easily removable this time and left the mango flesh looking funny.



Doesn't it totally look like mango sorbet inside of a mango? =p



The Berry Crisp goodness! Frozen blueberries & raspberries and fresh blackberries & blueberries.





Before it went into the oven.



We had so much fun eating this dessert and couldn't stop laughing over each others blue teeth and lips =p

And about dinner two days ago. I must apologize. When I made quesadillas with my leftover salsa I made my boyfriend's first. Took a picture, then made mine. Forgot to take a picture of it, erm... anyway, mine looked basically the same minus the mushrooms and the cheese on top.

As he ate he went "I'm eating so healthy because of you!" "Well, sorry.." "No no, you can be proud!" Ha ha =p
I'll never understand why so many people fear healthy and nutritionous food (such as whole wheat for example)!?



Sorry, you can't even see the filling =( I spread it with salsa that I had mixed with kidney beans before, put bell pepper slices and corn on top and that was it. Very tasty!



This will be my last post for a week as I am going to visit my sister! I'm so excited, my best friend is coming along and I'm sure this will be such a fun week!! With LOTS of pictures!
So have a great week everyone and take care! =)

Asparagus Bell Pepper & Broccoli Stir-Fry

Yesterday I threw together another stir-fry with quinoa on the side because I needed some yummy food fast, I was starving!



I had the following on hand: broccoli, scallions, a red bell pepper and asparagus since I went to the Asian market again. Everything is so cheap there, I love it! But just like last time I went in with nothing more than 2.30 or something, otherwise I would've stocked up on more food. Tofu for 80 cents... seriously, I can't get over it =p

In a different supermarket I found a vegan bell pepper onion dip with mustard and garlic etc. listed as ingredients. I bought it because I thought, thinned out with milk or water, it might make a nice sauce. So I had it with my stir-fry (just a Tbsp. on the side) to try it.
I must say... the taste was in no way to my liking! *shudders* It tasted exactly like eggsalad - a store-bought artifical tasting eggsalad! Yuck!
You could't recognize any of the listed ingredients in the taste of this dip and that really freaked me out. Plus, it tasted very much like mayonnaise and overall just artifical. This was a waste of money. What a disappointment!

I don't know what I'll have for dinner tonight, but a few days ago I had a weird craving. To some people this is probably an odd combination, but I think it may even taste pretty good. I'll try it some time to make sure. The dish I have in mind is: Quinoa with applesauce and red cabbage!

Vcon's Quinoa, Black Bean, Mango Salad

First off I want to thank Ashasarala a thousand times for giving me the recipe for this salad as I am not yet an owner of this apparently amazing cookbook.

It probably tastes even more amazing than it did last night because I had neither red wine vinegar, grape seed oil, nor fresh cilantro. So I used a tsp. olive oil, bianco and balsamic vinegar and about 2 Tbsp. chopped parsley (didn't have any more).
It still tasted awesome!



My parents were still at work so I placed the bowl on the dinner table and when they came home later my mom called "I see there's something on the table. Can we have that?" I was like "Sure, it's all yours. I already had a big bowl!"
Five minutes later I got a text message from my mom saying nothing but "M m m m h"! Ha ha, she's so awesome! When I saw her again she apologized that there weren't any leftovers. She and my dad really enjoyed this. To quote my mother "Not only did it taste fantastic, it looked so pretty and colorful! A joy for the eyes and the tastebuds!"

Yup, I will definitely start making more "real" dishes(less baking as my jeans are getting tight and I can not afford new pants at the moment).
Not only do I get to try various dishes I have always wanted to try, my parents are also open people who will definitely try new things and be honest about how they like it and a big plus - my parents will get to eat healthier!
So I guess I know who I'm going to ask for Vcon ;)

Quinoa with Asparagus, Bell Pepper and Soy Sprouts & Whole Wheat Raspberry Corn Pancakes

Yesterday I rediscovered the Asian Supermarket that's only 2 minutes away from my apartment.
I didn't like to go there(weird sickening smell, rude employees) and hadn't gone inside for at least 4 years.
But last night I needed soy sprouts so I went in.
Surprise: the bad smell is now mostly gone and the employees have become more or less friendly.

I went in with 2 € and came out with a bag of fresh soy sprouts and fresh green asparagus, each for 90 cents. How awesome is that? Everything there is so cheap(Tofu costs 2 € less than the one I used to buy) and fresh. I could slap myself for not going there earlier. Ah well, at least I know where I'll go shopping from now on =)

I made Wok Veggies with peanut butter and coconut sauce with my mom last night and tried quinoa for the first time (yes, I love it, too). Sadly I didn't take a picture. And when I came home at 5 in the morning and wanted to heat up the left overs and then photograph them, I discovered that my dad had already eaten them(this morning he mentioned how much he enjoyed the quinoa). So I cooked myself a quick night snack and went to bed.



And this morning I had Whole Wheat Raspberry Corn Pancakes for breakfast. An adapted version of the recipe found in How it all Vegan!



Looking ugly, but tasting so so so damn good! Cornmeal gives pancakes such a fantastic texture. Yumm!