How I came to be a Vegan

First off, I never planned this. At the time, I was happily unconscious about food, although choosing organic as much as possible. I had been a vegetarian in the past, but had gone back to meat-eating when somebody told me about the 'Eat right for your type' theory, which states that I, as bloodtype O+ positively must eat meat, especially the red kind. I was at a conference, in Portland, OR, and I went right back to the counter for the barbequed chicken. They hadn't really done a good job with the tofu dish I had been picking at. Maybe that's why my energy was so low, I thought. Basically, an excuse as good as any other at the time.

I had often heard that cow's milk wasn't that great for humans, that the molecules are larger, and therefore we can't really digest it. So I tried at numerous times to use less of it, to substitute milk with soy or rice or almond milk, I tried various cheese substitutes. And I could never get used to it. I always had to go back to drinking cow's milk in my coffee. Nothing else tasted right. And I thought I could never live without cheese. I was a bread and cheese kind of woman. So when my doctor suggested I try to lay off all animal products for a while to see if I would feel better, I tried. I tried lactose-free milk and cheese, which didn't work for me. I tried different plant milks, and relapsed back to the cow stuff in no time.

And then, one day in April 2010, I had a very bad day, for numerous reasons, and one thing that stuck out to me was the graincoffee-latte I'd had the night before. That had been a lot of milk. I wondered if there might be a connection to the humongous headache I was having. Next time when I was at the healthfood store, when I was standing in front of the meat-and-dairy isle, I just didn't want to buy any of that stuff. I went home with oatmilk and an assortment of vegan spreads, which turned out to be delicious. And that was it, and I haven't really looked back since. Strangely, I now really like plant milk in coffee, on cereal, everything. Those first few weeks, I baked a batch of cookies with butter, because I still had some, and found the buttery taste gross. 

No chicken were harmed in the production of this lunch

Ovenfries with Sate Sauce and Chickin Fillet. The sauce came from a can, hence a quick heating up was all that was necessary. I added the chickin fillet to the fries in the oven when they were about halfway done, to bake for another 10 minutes.

I used the viana Chickin Fillets, which has a protein content of 22 g in 100 g, the same amount as chicken breast.

Snow Ice Soup Wedding

Went for a walk today with a friend in Jenisch Park. It started to snow, later the sun came out and the light was just beautiful. It did feel a bit early in the season for ice on the walkways.

The cold didn't bother me too much, since I had fortified myself with miso soup for lunch, made with olive oil, garlic, ginger, chard, rice, wakame, and silken tofu marinated in lemon juice, shoyu and ume su.

Here's a picture of my friends' wedding on November 5th. I also meant to post photos of the really good Vegan food I had at the reception (being the only Vegan present they made it especially for me) at the historical wine bar and restaurant "Zur Traube" in Ottensen, but as lovely as it looked on the plate, the pics didn't turn out well at all.

Pasta with Pumpkin-Peanutsauce

Pumpkinny goodness. I used ready-made Sate-sauce, a recent addition at the local healthfood store, added freshly baked pumpkin pieces, seitan sausage, and basil, and served over spaghetti.

Pumpkinbread

Yesterday I tried to bake pumpkin pie for the first time, and I didn't like the result too much, it was fairly bitter. So today I decided to make pumpkinbread instead, also a first.
I based my recipe loosely on this one: http://www.nomeatathlete.com/vegan-pumpkin-bread/, using vaguely half the amount. I was not very precise with the amounts, but the outcome is very good.
TS = Tablespoon. ts = teaspoon.

Ingredients:
about 1 cup baked (hokkaido) pumpkin (1/4 of a 1 kg raw pumpkin)
1 TS soyflour + 2 TS water (substitute for 1 egg)
200 g flour (I used mostly whole spelt, some 550 wheat)
30 ml canola (raps) oil
75 g raw sugar
half a banana
100 g apple-blueberry sauce
30 or 40 g of pecan nuts, chopped or broken into pieces
1 ts Lebkuchengewuerz (allspice?) contains cinnamon, anise, cloves, koriander and cardamom
good extra dash of cinnamon
2 pieces of candied ginger, diced into tiny chunks
1/2 ts baking soda (natron)
1/4 ts baking powder

I had baked the pumpkin the day before, by cutting it into quarters, removing the seeds and strings, and baking it for 30 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius. (350 F)

After removing the skin, puree the pumpkin in a blender along with half a banana and 2 TS water. You can skip the banana, I just happened to have one sitting in the fridge that needed a happy ending. Mix the pumpkin puree with the other ingredients in a bowl.
Put into a baking form, and bake for about 40 minutes at 175 C.
It does make it easier if you add the sugar before putting the form into the oven, by the way. At least I did remember very soon after, so it wasn't a problem to just add the sugar into the mixture in the form.

Miso Soup!

Every time I make this soup, I wonder why I don't make one every day, like I did for a while during the summer.

Here's how I made it today:
Dice a clove of garlic and a piece of ginger, and slightly roast it in a pan with olive oil.
Break some broccoli into smaller pieces and add. Add hot water. Add dashes of salt, nori, tarragon, cilantro, turmeric, chili pepper. Add several spoonfuls of quinoa and lentils from the day before. Mix a teaspoon of miso paste with hot water, add into the soup, let simmer for several minutes.

Easy. Especially when you have precooked grains and pulses in the fridge.

Polenta Stew

I've got to write this recipe down, so I don't forget this great easy dish I came up with today.

I heated some olive oil in a pan, added a small diced onion. Added hot water, a veggie bouillon cube. Added two small red beets, diced. Six heads of brussel sprouts. A sliced carrot. Turmeric, tarragon, koriander, salt, pepper, rosemary. Textured soy protein. A dash of nori. And, towards the end of the cooking time, a healthy dose of polenta meal aka cornmeal. I let it simmer for a while, till the mixture thickened.

This dish turned out delicious, and nice to look at, the beets give it a great color. The polenta gives it an interesting texture. Sorry no pic, I couldn't wait to eat this.