Vegan Mofo III - Day 25 - Parmegiana

"This should be the number 1 in your top 10!". That was Matteo told me today about my vegan parmegiana burger. Yes, he loves it. More than I do. But for sure it is in my Top 10. I won't write to much about it because you can find the recipe here and also this recipe will be in the German cookbook Ox #4.

Every time I cook this recipe, I remember about my Brazilian friend Maria Raquel, she made us this parmegiana burger many times and she will be always an inspiration <3.

One more time, I don't have great pics (and I still don't have a good camera), so you have to try this recipe to be sure about how good it is! I will cook this in the next few days too and I am thinking about some variations, so maybe I can write about it again in the near future.



And in this beautiful sunny and cold Sunday, have a cupcake in the afternoon. I made this one this week (I baked so many vegan cupcakes this week!) and I love the colors.

(I also could change the name of this blog to "All about... (vegan) cupcakes!")

Vegan Food Top 10 until now:
1. Cupcakes
2. Mushrooms
3. Pizza
4. Soup
5. Risotto
6. Pancakes
7. Pasta
8. Parmegiana burger

Our 'parmegiana burger' recipe

When I wrote the post about my friend Raquel, I wrote a little bit about the 'parmegiana burger' she uses to cook. I think that the only place in the world we make a 'parmegiana' like this is in Belo Horizonte, but I don't care, it's really amazing.

Last weekend, when my family-in-law was here, I cooked it to them because Matteo was driving me crazy asking for it and they loved it too. And after that, my friend Clarissa asked me the recipe. So here we go:

“Parmegiana Burger” recipe (for 2 people)

- 2 vegan burgers (I use the ones from Fry's Special Vegetarian but you can choose your favourite one or make yourself the burgers or use seitan too)
- smashed potatoes (or potatoes pure): cook the potatoes (I use 5 or 6 small potatoes), crush with a potato masher or with a fork. Return the potatoes to the pan, add salt, vegetable margarine and soy milk and mix to combine.
- tomato sauce
- vegan cream cheese mixed with soy cream

I think this is one of the easiest recipes ever. Put a little bit of tomato sauce at the bottom of a glass pan and add the burgers (. Put the smashed potatoes on top of it and spread well until cover it all. Add the rest of the tomato sauce and then spread the cream cheese over it. If you want you can add small slices of vegan cheese or use vegan parmesan cheese. Put in the oven for more or less 10 minutes (at 180ºC) – just enough to bake the burgers.

About... my best friend

This post should be about the lunch menu of today, but I changed my mind. The food I cooked today is inspired by my best (Brazilian) friend Raquel. We use to call it “parmegiana burger”. It is a different way to cook it because we use potato puree and tomato sauce over. Well, my friend Raquel really knows how to cook the best vegan “parmegiana burger”. Not just that, she is a brilliant cook. In Brazil, we used to go to her house every week (sometimes two or three times a week) to talk or watch a movie and eat. And it was always one of the best things of my days. And last year we did it more often than usual because we knew it would be for just a few months, before we move to Europe.


Today, cooking my vegan “parmegiana burger” I couldn't stop thinking about her, about how she became my friend and about how much fun we had together. 2008 wasn't a good year for her and I feel bad to be so far. I wish that Ireland was closer to Brazil. It would be great to be close to her always. I don't know if she knows how much important she is to me, how much I love and care about her. She is one of the best people I have ever met in my life. She is good, nice, smart and funny. And this kind of friendship is rare nowadays. She is more than 10 years younger than me, but it doesn't matter because we really have a lot in common. And we love to eat, we love to cook and we love to talk about food.


Today she told me she is not inspired to cook good vegan food these days. And she should be! She should cook with pleasure again. She should be happier. She deserves all the best in her life, always.




Raquel, I miss your food. I miss our laughs. I miss you every single day. Be ready, when I go to Belo Horizonte I want many great days of vegan food, laughs and talk!

This is the "parmegiana burger" with the potato puree and tomato sauce (still missing the cream cheese I put after)