Today's Menu

Breakfast: Porridge with Aroniaberries

Lunch: Lentils, Polenta and Carrots

Coffee: Berrycobbler

Dinner: Homemade Sourdoughbread with Sundried-tomato spread and Sauerkraut

Snack: Speltpretzels with Ricemilk Chocolate

Vegan Pizza

It's really not that hard to make your own pizza, it's just one of those things that I hadn't really considered making before I turned into a Vegan. I've made vegan pizza once since, with a nutrional-yeast-melt topping, which was also very good; it was a bit work-intensive since you have to cook the sauce beforehand. At Yoyo's foodworld in Berlin, they use Cheezly mozzarella, which was surprisingly good, so I decided to try this at home.

For one serving:
Dough:
125 g spelt flour
2 g dried yeast
1/2 ts salt
1/2 ts sugar (for the yeast)
warm water
spoonful of olive oil
Topping:
several spoons of tomato sauce
1 onion cut into rings
Cheezly mozzarella or other vegan cheese-like substance
thyme and oregano

Mix ingredients to a firm dough and work the dough through thoroughly. Shape into a ball, put into a bowl, cover with a kitchen cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Knead the dough through once again and roll out onto baking paper on a baking sheet with a rolling pin.
Spread the tomato sauce onto the dough, top with sliced cheezly and onions and sprinkle with the herbs.
I preheated the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and baked the pizza for 15 minutes. It was very good. The Cheezly melts nicely. This has all the potential of becoming a staple in my kitchen.

Not a side dish

I don't know about you, but there's just nothing like a bowl of spaghetti. Maybe it's hereditary, since I'm half Sicilian. For my Italian relatives, a plate of pasta usually is il primo piatto, the first dish. To be followed by meat and salad or such. For me, like for most folks north of the Alps, it's usually a meal in itself, so I like to add veggies and proteins, to make it nutritionally complete. The possibilities are endless, but this is one of my favorites.

While boiling water for the pasta, crumble tofu into a pan with olive oil, and fry. Add fresh spinach, tomato sauce, tomato paste, some water, salt, chili pepper. Toss sauce with al dente pasta.

Crocheting times

Made this bag and then unraveled it. The form was good, I also like the flap in the front and the strap/bottom/sides. I made the body in one piece and then the strap/side/bottom and sewed it in. The material didn't work that great for this kind of bag, though, it's too soft. I'll make this bag in a different material one of these days. In the meantime, working on a tote kind of bag. For which I've finally figured out how to crochet from the inside out. Which'll come in handy for hats.

Vegan testing in Berlin

When I was in Berlin last week I used the opportunity to do a testrun of several at least partially vegan establishments. The idea of food not made by me has a certain allure. And vegan Pizza was the lure that took me to Friedrichshain, to a vegan restaurant called Yoyo, it's on Gaertnerstr. 27. I had a very good vegan tuna pizza, surprisingly I even liked the fake cheese. One thing I didn't like was the wooden plate it came on. I mean, is that even sanitary? I must have eaten several chunks of wood along with my pizza. Not that that stopped me from wolfing the whole thing down. They use the vantastic foods veggie fishburger for the tuna, and cheezly mozzarella substitute, the dough itself was nice and thin and crusty. Also a nice plus is that they carry vegan snickers-bar-alikes for dessert. When I took a stroll to the Chapati store, I came along an icecream parlor that offers several flavors of vegan icecream. I had a serving of peanut icecream, which was very good, and a taste of hazelnut (even better) and mango (possibly better still). And here I had thought I'd have to miss out on the summery fun of public icecream cone licking.

The next day I had several destinations on my list, the first was Rebellion des Zimtsterns in Kreuzberg, Schlesische Str. 38. I have to say the street numbers in Berlin render me frequently confused. I walked by this place, and only saw the flag with the name on it when I turned back after a while of fruitless searching. It looked closed, even though it was at least half an hour after it's supposed opening time. No lights, no people, no sign. I don't know what made me try the door, which surprisingly opened. This place is mostly vegetarian, and since I didn't want cake for breakfast, it seemed my only choice were the plintzen. I was a bit taken aback when the waitress/owner brought me a plate with 2 tiny rolls of crepe-like pancakes. I mean, tiny. They were gooey inside, and I don't think they had a filling, but, I was hungry, so I ate them anyway. For 3.90 Euro this was not a lot of food. There was also a tiny side of apple slices with two half grapes, which tasted weird. Coffee wasn't really good, either. I wouldn't come here for breakfast again, unless their menu options were to change. They offer ricepudding and grits, but not in vegan versions.

Still hungry I spent at least an hour at the Kreuzberg Chapati store, and, with a large bag of awesome clothing, went to the Veganladen. When I finally found the store (seriously, Berlin, what's wrong with odd numbers on one side of the street and even on the other?), I was surprised how small it is. I'd been looking forward to the vegan shoe selection, which is housed in a tiny corner. But, it turned out I didn't have any energy left for shoe shopping, so I grabbed a few items like Panda raspberry licorice and left. It's a nice touch that they carry flour tortillas for making burritos at home.

My next adventure took me to a place called Yorck 52, on Yorckstr. 52 in Schoeneberg. I went around 5 pm, had a good, if small, coffee. Unfortunately, most things on the menu were not to be had. They were in a meeting all day, so food preparation was neglected. I didn't feel like a brownie, which was the only item sitting in the case, so I opted to go somewhere else for food. When I asked the waitress/owner to confirm their opening time, she told me they're supposed to open at 10, but most of them are always late, so it would be safe to come at 10:30. I was very glad I hadn't stuck with my original plan of going there at 10 for breakfast. It's probably not all that surprising the people running this place all still have dayjobs.

Sourdough Revival

Last year I was successful with starting my own sourdough culture and baking with it. After a while I got lazy and started using the one-step process to make San Francisco sourdough bread, and my culture lost it. Breads didn't turn out that well anymore, and I had some inedible flops, so I stopped making them. Luckily I dried a batch at the height of the culture's activity and stored it; in dried form the culture can survive for a long time.

I soaked the dried sourdough flakes in lukewarm water and let them sit for a couple of hours. I'm using the 3-step-process, which gives the sourdough a chance to be very active, and I've had great results with before. Basically you just feed the starter culture with flour and warm (not hot!) water, and give it a good stirring, then let it rest between 6 and 8 hours, repeat three times. When you see bubbles in the starter, it means it's doing its thing.

I started on this batch Friday midday, after the two-hour soak I fed it with 100 ml of warm water and 100 g of whole rye flour, and gave it a good stirring. It's okay if the flakes haven't completely dissolved yet. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and put somewhere aside. Around bedtime I gave it another feed and a stir, this time remembering to use smaller amounts, since the ratio of the starter to the bread should not be more than half, and I'm baking fairly small breads. Otherwise the bread becomes too sour and soggy. Saturday morning I gave it another feed, and then didn't get to it until fairly late, around 7 pm. Which was fine. Here comes a very crucial step, and part of the reason why it's a good idea to dry a batch of your culture. Before you add the remaining ingredients, remember to put aside at least 50 to 100 g of your starter for your next batch. I usually keep a glass jar for this purpose on the kitchen scale while working on the starter, as a visual reminder. That goes in the fridge, where it survives for a week or two. It's a good idea to bake bread every week or at least every 10 days, so the culture doesn't die.

Now come the remaining ingredients. 1 tablespoon of good quality sea salt. Warm water, good stirring. I used 340 g of whole rye and 160 of spelt meal, mainly because I ran out of rye. With rye you don't have to stir that much, wheat and spelt require a lot more stirring. I then filled the dough into a loaf pan lined with baking paper, and now comes the reason I was baking bread at midnight last night. I'd forgotten about the rising time. You set the loaf pan in the oven and turn it to 50 degrees Celsius, after 20 minutes you can turn that off but leave the oven light on. Give the loaf a good spraying with a water sprayer, and keep spraying it intermittently so the dough doesn't dry out. It usually takes between 2 and 3 hours, but can take longer as well. This time I didn't see much of a rising action, so after 2 and a half hours I did the finger-imprint-test. If the dough barely recovers from the imprint of your finger, it's high time to bake it. Take the pan from the oven, set oven to 200 degrees Celsius. When the temperature is reached, give the loaf another good spraying and put on the middle rack. Baking time depends on the size of the loaf, for this one between 50 and 60 minutes. After 15 minutes set the temperature to 190, a while later to 180. Keep spraying the loaf, I also spray into the lower part of the oven to create steam. The bread is done when it sounds hollow when you flick your nails against the pan bottom. Let cool for 10 minutes and put on wire rack. Cover with a clean towel and let sit for at least 4 hours, or, like me, till breakfast the next morning. Rye bread tastes better the next day, wheat and spelt are good right away.

Spelt-Chufa Cookies with Chocolate Coating

I was wanting to make a cookie that is healthy, and was also looking for a good use for the chufa flour I'd gotten at the healthfood store. Chufa or tigernut (Erdmandel = earth almond in German) is basically a kind of grass, which has a small, nut-like (and nutty tasting) bulb, which is high in protein and fiber as well as in minerals like iron and potassium, and rich in antioxidants. Supposedly chufa contains all nutrients the human body requires, and has beneficial effects on the digestive tract. It is also the original ingredient in Horchata, so much so that in Spain that drink is called Horchata de Chufa.

I came up with these cookies, which are very tasty and satisfying, and today I decided to give them an extra kick by adding chocolate glazing. Now, they're amazing.

Ingredients Cookies:
250 g spelt meal
100 g chufa meal (erdmandelmehl)

75 g alsan (non-hydrogenated organic margarine)

68 g agave nectar

1/2 ts baking soda

dash of salt

soymilk to add liquidity

some acai berries and raisins

Mix ingredients together, form little rolls, place on a baking sheet (on baking paper), and press flat into cookie-shape.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 10 - 12 minutes. 

Chocolate Coating:

I had about a third of the cookies left when I decided to add chocolate, so use more accordingly.

50 g dark baking chocolate

dash of vanilla

dash of cinnamon

Place a small pan in a larger pan filled with water, place ingredients in small pan and let them melt at moderate heat. Or maybe you have a double boiler. Spoon the melted chocolate onto the cookies. Let harden/cool.