Easy like Sunday morning

This title can sound strange in a Tuesday (also for being a Lionel Rich song?!) but I decided to finish my posts about the last travel to Berlin before changing the subject or I would get lost. Usually I feel lazy about cooking on Sunday but since I've not been cooking that much lately cause of my thesis now I'm in the kitchen every day! Good or bad, that's how it is. I am not working so I have a lot of free time to take care of the house.

Last Sunday I went to the basic pasta (spaghetti) cause, yeah, it was still a lazy Sunday. But I decided to do a different sauce using the rest of the coconut milk I had and I remembered one sauce that I used to do a lot in Brazil with tomato sauce, coconut milk and sun-dried tomatoes. In the north-east of Brazil, in a state called Bahia, it's very common to have dishes that have a lot of coconut milk and black pepper (many of these recipes came from Africa). And I really like this mix. I didn't have sun-dried tomatoes at home, so I decided to use cherry tomatoes. It is an easy recipe, perfect for a Sunday meal!

Cherry tomatoes and coconut milk sauce

7 or 8 cherry tomatoes (cut in half)
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup tomato sauce (homemade or canned)
1 chopped onion
1 or 2 chopped gloves
5 or 6 chopped Brazilian nuts
1 vegetable stock cube
salt
black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Fry the onion and the garlic in hot oil for 4 or 5 minutes, until they get a golden color. Add the cherry tomatoes and let them fry for another 3 or 4 minutes. Add the tomato sauce, the stock cube and black pepper. Let it cook until boiling. Add the coconut milk and keep cooking for another 2 or 3 minutes, stirring the sauce from time to time. Add the Brazilian nuts and taste it to see if you want to add salt. Serve it hot with your favourite pasta.

I also had some soy-free vegan cheese on the top of my plate! Delicious and a 100% vegan and soy-free recipe!

All about... Viasko (Berlin)

As I said in my last post, we tried to do our best in the few free hours we had in Berlin (and when I say "do our best" I mean eat as much vegan food as we can). So after going to the Vegan Sommerfest we went to Viasko, a vegan restaurant opened last year.


Viasko looks like an Irish pub cause it was one before the actual owner buy it! And he decided to keep the design and decor the same and I have to say, I loved it. They serve food day and night and also a brunch on Sunday (have to go back to go to this!). I'm not sure if I'll be able to put in words how much me and Matteo enjoyed the place. The owner is really nice, speaks English and made his best to make us feel comfortable there. They have the menu also in English, which helped a lot. We were so excited to try the food that we decided to order (each one of us) starter and main course.

When I saw the starters coming I thought "Oh boy, I'll never be able to eat this and the main course!" but I was there to try. I had a "Überbackene Tomaten-Auberginen-Tofu Canapés", which looked like bruschetta and tasted amazingly and Matteo had an "Auberginen-Kartoffel-Strude" that was composed by some salad (some kind of coleslaw), mayonese garlic sauce and a huge strudel filled with potatoes and aubergine. It was delicious too, I've tried it of course. Our pictures don't look great cause I was using my phone this time and it was dark inside too, but you can have an idea of the awesomeness!



After eating enough for one lunch time, the main courses were still about to come! I have to say I ended up eating more than usual but wasn't able to finish my dish (this is never a problem cause Matteo - almost - always can do it!). Matteo was very Italian with his dish, asking for a gnocchi dish ("Hausgemachte Kartoffelgnocchi") and I tried to be as "local" as possible ordering a "Soja-Schnitzel „Wiener Art" (Soya Schnitzel Vienna Style). Well, it turns out that Schnitzel is an Austrian dish but I still thought it would be closer to some German food than any other Italian dish they had in the menu. Everything was just perfect, from presentation to flavours!




After eating more than we could, the owner suggested us to take one of the cakes of the day. OMG, I could not eat nothing else but we decided to take away a slice (and it was the delicious closing of our Saturday night).

I have to say that Viasko is now one of my favourite vegan places in the world. If you're going to Berlin, please go there and share your thoughts with me after!

PS.: The restaurant is also very pet-friendly, allowing dogs inside :)

Vegan in Berlin - Part ?

(three of a hundred? twenty of a thousand? I don't know how many posts about Berlin I already have and have no clue about how many more can come cause you know how much I love that city!)



Last weekend, after handing my supervisor the last draft of my thesis (and believe me, I delivered the final paper TODAY to College!), me and Matteo went to Berlin for about... 36 hours. Yeah, not a big travel but it's always amazing to go there. We went there to my friend's wedding party and to meet her newborn baby girl (L) and I had some other objectives too: meet Melisser Elliott (from the blog The Urban Housewife and author of the book The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life), go to Veganz, the recently opened vegan supermarket, go to the Vegan-Vegetarisches Sommerfest, go to Yoyo at least once and go to Viasko, a vegan restaurant we've heard about it before but haven't gone there yet. Too much for just a few hours, I know. And it was raining all the time too (where were you, German hot summer?!) But we've managed to do must of the things in that list.

We arrived in Berlin on Friday evening and went to eat at Yoyo Foodworld. I won't write again about one of my favourite places ever but you can see how happy I was there!



On Saturday morning we woke up to go to the Sommerfest and we decided not to go to the supermarket this time (it will always be there - we hope so! - and the festival was just that day). Besides that Veganz would have a stand there too. We arrived there before noon and despite the rain there were already a lot of people there. The festival was hold at Alexanderplatz, a touristic must in Berlin, and it had between twenty and thirty stands, all about vegan stuff, from clothes to food. Melisser arrived after us cause she had an interview to perform in the stage and it was amazing to talk to her and watch the interview. She's absolutely lovely. We also won some good prizes there! One package of vegan pet treats and a €15 voucher to spend at Veganz (and the guys there were nice enough to let us spend in the stand and not in the supermarket), so I ended up buying vegan marshmallows (a dream coming true!), white chocolate chips and a slice of an amazing chocolate pudding cake. Seriously, Berlin is so vegan friendly that it surprises me still.


After that we went to Viasko, but this is a subject for another post. I'll be back soon, I have free time now.

If you want to read all my tips about Berlin (so far!) click here!

Potato-spinach Blintzes

I can't believe it took me so long to buy the vegan bible Veganomicon but I (finally) got it a couple of months ago. But I did it in the middle of my thesis writing so I didn't have time to cook anything from it until a couple of weeks ago. Still in the middle of the craziness I decided to cook potato-spinach Blintzes for lunch during the week. It was a lot of work but the result was worth it. Recipe is not difficult but you end up preparing three dishes to make one (crepes, smashed potato-spinach and the sauce).

I won't post the recipe here cause it's part of the book, but I will share the mushroom sauce recipe I've made cause I didn't use any from the book and did my own sauce.

Mushroom sauce recipe

Ingredients

2 cup sliced mushroom
1/4 cup soya milk
1 tablespoon white flour
1 vegetable stock cube
1 glove
1 shopped onion
1/3 cup Shoyu (soya sauce)
1 tablespoon mustard (ready to eat one such as French's)
black pepper (as you like it)

Mix the milk and the flour in a bowl and separate it. In a hot pan fry the onion and garlic for 3 or 4 minutes and add the mushrooms. Fry it for more 3 or 4 minutes and add the milk and flour mix. Add the stock cube and let it cook for another 2 or 3 minutes, stirring it a few times. Add the black pepper, soya sauce and mustard and cook and cook for another minute. Serve it hot over the Blintzes.

And here's some pictures of the potato-spinach Blintzes cooking process:

Pasta with meatballs

You might don't know that, but spaghetti with meatballs are rare in Italy. They were "created" by Italian immigrants in the US in the early 20th century. In Brazil they are popular too, maybe not that much as they are in the US, but still. But being married with an Italian made me think that eating spaghetti with meatballs is weird so I stayed more than 6 years avoiding trying the vegan version of this dish. But last time we went to Italy, my sister-in-law cooked spaghetti with meatballs so I felt free to try (you know, it was kind of an authentic Italian "bless"!).

A few weeks ago, in the middle of the craziness I was going through to write my thesis, I found time to cook vegan meatballs. I wanted to make them using texturized vegetable protein (TVP) and couldn't find any recipe in my cookbooks (found some great ones with lentils). So I decided to do at my own, remembering what I've used before as ingredients to make TVP burgers.
We didn't have spaghetti at home that day so we ate the meatballs with other pasta, but it was good the same!

TVP meatballs recipe

2 cup small TVP
1 vegetable stock cube
1 shopped onion
1 glove
1 cup white flour
extra flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
salt and pepper (as you like it)
nutritional yeast

Dissolve the stock cube in hot water and put the TVP to hydrogenate (it's is important to do this with hot water). I've learned that dissolving the stock cube in the water and using it to hydrogenate the TVP gives it more flavour. Let it hydrogenate for at least 20 minutes. Dry it and put the TVP in a bawl. Mix the onion and glove with TVP. Add the oil and salt and pepper. Start adding the flour in small amounts and mix everything using your hands. Keep adding flour and mixing until you have a good texture to make the balls with your hands. Instead of covering the meatballs with bread crumbs before frying them I used nutritional yeast and it worked pretty well. Fry in a hot non-stick pan and fry it for 3 or 4 minutes (you shouldn't need more oil to do that). Take the meatballs to the oven for an additional 10 minutes to ensure they're thoroughly cooked. Add the meatballs to your favourite tomato sauce recipe (I just used a ready to go one this time) and serve with pasta (spaghetti would be the right one!)

Cheesy vegan omelette - Pic by pic

I finally sent the first version of my thesis to my supervisor. Now I'm having a two days break until he gets back to me with suggestions and comments. Have to say it again: can't wait to be done with this.

Besides writing, I'm just cooking our daily meals. Nothing special but some good bits. Yesterday I've made a "cheesy" omelette, which was also soy free. We've bought the soy free Cheezly (cheddar style) from Redwood and I've decided to try it on the vegan omelette. It was a really good cheese alternative and for those who lives in Ireland or in the UK Redwood is a great option.

Food is always around

Lunch time at Juice Vegetarian Restaurant

I thought I'd have more time to blog when I was back from Brazil but it didn't happen. I'm so busy with my thesis that it's being hard to find time (and strength) to do more than reading, writing and cooking regular meals for our daily lunch time in the house. So there's still not too much happening in my kitchen for now although I'm always thinking about food cause this is the subject of my dissertation as I've said here before. A few weeks ago I've made pasta with meatball and still have to write about it here cause it was delicious but not today.

I just stopped here on this lovely Sunday to post some pictures. My French friend-sister Aurelia is visiting us for the last time before she leaves to Canada and I'm enjoying every second close to her. Her b-day was in May and the only thing she asked me was a vegan carrot cake or carrot cupcakes and that's what she got:

Vegan carrot cupcake with chocolate frosting

And today she's making us breakfast. A proper French one with toasts and crepes. We already had the French toasts and now we're giving the stomach some time to prepare for the crepes!

Vegan French toast a la mode

Hope everybody is having an amazing Sunday.