Grilled Sandwich with Hummus, Tomatoes, Arugula and sauted onions

Lately I met at work a backery and confiseur - junior-son and after a few times I wanted to give him a hint/idee what he could include for their take-away part to sell - and what could this other be than vegan stuff. 

He said that since 4 weeks they got one vegan sandwich and I was surprised to hear that. At least on sandwich. BUT, what he also said is, that he's open for other ideas and as I'm vegan I now got the oppurtunity to give him some idea. I already successed with the self-made vegan "eggsalad" and with brought vegan cheese-slices. 

Some days later I tried their vegan sandwich I have to say really not bad for their first one. It was filled with  "some" salad, cucumber pickle, vegetable steak and a tasty tomatosauce. The sandwich was HUGE, a little bit too much for me. Anyway.

Back at home I've decided to give him a hint about another sandwich and I searched my mind, cookbooks and web for some ideas, hard to decide, but I wanted to keep it simple for newcomers. 

AND he asked what I like for lunch and this sandwich I would defenetly buy! There is nothing about vegetable......

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Grilled Sandwich with Hummus, Vegetable and onions

2 Persons

Ingredients 

1 medium sized onion, sliced and halved
oliveoil
2 - 3 medium tomatoes, sliced
handful arugula or if too early for it, use Babyspinach
hummus (I used some tomato-spiced-Hummus)
salt and fresh grounded pepper
4 slices bread of your choice

Direction:

In a medium sized pan heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium high heat, add sliced onion and cook about 5-7 min, stirring until translucent and golden around the edges and tender, Beware to burn them on the edges.

Now there are two ways to prepare your sandwich. Eather you grill your bread in grilling pan first and lay it with the ingredients afterwards. 
OR you preheat a grilling-pan, oil it and prepare your sandwich and grill the whole thing together on each side for 2-3 minutes. (This way I would recommend if you desire a whole-warmed-through-sandwich).

Layering:
On both inner side of the bread spread a generous amount of your favorite hummes. Add a layer of sauted onions, then tomato, arugula and at the end sprinkle with some salt and pepper. 

Slice and enjoy already some summer!

Zucchini Noodles with vegan Pesto

Last week my father turned 70 and on this special occasion my parents invited us (myself, sister and brother) to a wellness-weekend across the border in Germany. 

We were all pretty exited - my first time in a four-star-wellness-hotel! Defently not bad!

On Saturday we left all together around lunchtime and after an hour and 45 min we arrived at the hotel. After checking and entering the rooms we met in the Lounge for small snack and drink. (The snack they ordered...... - just meat and cheese -  no comment). It didn't bother for me as I had my sandwich with me and ate it right after entering my room. Afterward each of us enjoyed the wellness till dinner.

As all the special personal massages were overbooked we only enjoyed what ever one of us wanted. 
First I went into the Bio-Sauna - relaxing, drinking water and then to the steam-bath. 

It did so good. I really relaxed. Unfortunatly there were no time left to use the herbal chamber,.. :(

The dinner was exellent and I got a Vegan Meal (Falafel with raw marinated spinach topped with crunchy honey-nuts and hemp-seed-joghurt) 

I really went back to work relaxed. I really needed such a kind of weekend!

For my Monday's lunchbox I prepared a light and fresh dish to extend the wellness-feeling ;)

Simple, easy and so good with selfdried cherry tomatoes!

Enjoy! And hopefully you feel "wellnessed" after this dish.....

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Zucchini Noodles with vegan Pesto

Zucchini Noodles @ vegivegan

Serves 2

 Ingredients:
4- 5 medium zucchinis
2 cups cherry tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons green pesto
2 tablespoons pine nuts (or any other nuts you prefer, or leave them away)
salt and pepper 

Direction: 
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees

Clean and halve the cherry tomatoes and toss in a some oil until everything is well coated. Sprinkle with salt and spread on a baking sheet, seed side up. 

Roast tomatoes for 90 minutes (alternative already dried tomatoes)

With the julienne peeler make the zucchini noodles and give into bowl. Combine noodles with two tablespoons of pesto (more to your preference) and mix well.

To serve: 
divide noodles into two bowls, top with cherry tomatoes, sprinkle with pine nuts and serve.

Enjoy this healthy dish and feel good ;)

Morel & Potato-Hash

A few days ago I came home late in the evening and was so lazy to cook a big dish. Having a glaze in my cupboard and refrigerator I saw some morels. It has been a while since I ate mushrooms the last time and so I grabbed them together with the potato from the refrigerator. 

I wasn't really sure what really I wanted to make with them, but the resultat - again a just trown-together was exellent!! Together with a salad bowl I had a full meal.

Probably the next time I will make a ragout - mushrooms cook in a vegetable and tomato-redwine sauce. Side dish some noodles. Something like a "Zürcher Geschnetzeltes" (Meal with a cream-meat-mushroom-sauce and noodles), a traditional common meal in Switzerland.

Let's experience ;)

Anyway hope you got a idea what to cook if you're in a hurry, tired and lazy to cook. 

Enjoy!

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Morel and Potato-Hash

serves 3

Ingredients:
3 tbl extra virgin olive oil
seitan, medium dice (amount about your choice. I had about 200g) 
2-3 small yellow potatoes, unpeeled, medium dice 
2 cups morels, halved lengthwise
2 cups water 
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tsp dried basil 
1 tsp dried oregano
3/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes 
2 tbl tamari
1 tbl agave syrup
1/2 tsp liquid smoke or some red wine
1 cup thin asian beans, roughly chopped

Direction:
Saute the seitan, potatoes and morels in a large skillet for 5-7 minutes until the potato start to get tender. Add the water and garlic and cook until the water has evaporated. Season with basil, pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes, tamari, agave and liquid smoke. 

Saute 5 minutes more until the potatoes are fully cooked through and most of the sauce from the tamari has been absorbed.

Toss with fresh sea beans and serve.

Zucchini & Noodles in Green Curry Sauce with Thai Basil

Sometimes I really feel lost about the amount of recipes I got in my shelf. Hard to desire what to do, cause everything just sounds so good - mouth watering - but I have to decide. 

And yesterday was a day I really couldn't decide what I shall try out, at the end - still not sure what I'm really up to, I just started with shaving zucchinis, and then having a look into the spice shelf section in the refrigerator, the green curry just caught my eye - and - trara trara- this dish happens to come out.

The zucchini compares well with the green curry and they give almost same color to the pasta. 

If you like to use shaved carrots then I would recomend the red or yellow curry. 

Obvisiouly a very simple dish, but so good and pretty healthy - and if I would have had more zucchinis on hand, I would have made more shaves - I love zucchinis and scallions!

How ever just enjoy this simple, easy and fast done dish, Maybe add some tofu cubes for protein addition. 

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Zucchini & Noodles in Green Curry Sauce with Thai Basil

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 can unsweeted coconut milk
1-2 tbsp. green curry paste
1 lime, peeled with a vegetable peeler, and juiced
1 tbsp. agave nectar
Asian noodles (rice or soba noodles)
2-3 scallions, all of it slivered vertically
1-2 garlic cloves, chopped
Oil
1 green and yellow Zucchini, shredded lenthwise
half cup of Thai basli leaves

Direcetion:
Preheat a saucepan and give in the coconut milk, green curry paste and lime peel and bring to simmer. 

Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring to dissolve the green curry paste. Then remove the lime peel and add the lime juice, agave nectar. Stirr and taste. (Add more curry paste if you like it spicy)

Meanwhile, cook the noodles until al dente, drain and give them to the warm coconut milk sauce. 

Lightly sauté the scallions and garlic and add to the noodle mixture. 

Put some of the raw zucchini apart (Decoration at the end), and give the rest into the coconut sauce, combine and lightly cook the zucchini. Add the Thai basil, wilt and, just before serving, add the reserved shredded zucchini.

Note: If you don't like the green curry you can replace it of course with your favorite, but I choosed the green as it got the same color as the vegetables

Vegan "Eggsalad"

Yesterday I was taking part at two-evening further education. The theme was "Management/Leadership in everyday life" (hopefully correctly translated). 
It was quite interesting and I will defently get some out of the course. 

As the course was taking part after work in the evening I brought my own food with (well they served appetizer), but I couldn't know how much I could eat there. 
It got be something easy to take with and could be prepared ahead. 

As I heard a lot about the eggsalad, but never had it. Vegan or not.  - (I would never!! have eaten a eggsalad if there would be used eggs! Brrr, disgusting.... SORRY!) - I was thinking about making it, well you may think for dinner.........., but hey why not! Together with a salad and some bread - a good meal.

As I lately watched a Youtube video about making a vegan *eggsalad*  I was curious to try, weather I would like it or not. The one Video I saw was made with mayonnaise - but I defently don't like mayo - vegan or not!!! So I changed it with yoghurt (a much lighter version) and I have to say, pretty good! New taste, but good!!

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Vegan "Eggsalad"

2-3 Persons

Ingredients:
100 g eggfree pasta (best are spirelli)
100 g chickpeas
1 onion, chopped
150 g soyjoghurt
200 g vinegar cucumber, chopped
some cucumber water
each on bunch of chives, parsely
1-2 tsp. mustard
1-2  tsp. salt 
1 Tbsp. apple vinegar
grounded pepper

Optional: curcuma for the "egg-color"

Direction:
Add the chickpeas into a blender and pulse very well through, add the soyjoghurt (or cream if you desire)  and stir till smooth. 
Cut the onion and cucumber and add to the chickpea-sauce. Pour in some of the cucumber water and then chop the chives, parsley and add as well. 

Add the mustard, salt, apple vinegar and pepper and mix everything together. 

Then chop the noodles into small pieces and add again to the chickpea and other ingredients. Mix everything well together and for the best taste let the salad sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour

Steamed ricerolls with Leek-vishfilling

Lately I ordered again a package full of vegan food products from abord Germany. I love the shop, sometimes I've got a hard time to choose what I shall buy, so many opurtunities. They sell just everything you need to replace the non-vegan products. So great!

Usually I buy a lot of meat- and fishalternatives, vegan cheese, cream cheese and spreads, and ham and sometimes vegan gnocchis, spices and so on. 

You see a lot. Luckely the send the ordered stuff to switzerland, but since a few years I have a mailing adress in germany. A "only-package"-adresse. They store your package till you get them and it's really a great way to order, and less expensive (no costs for sending abord). And for me - living about 20 min from the border - no long driving to get the stuff.

For my todays recipe I used one of the ordered fishalternatives. 

The rolls tasted really good but maybe the next time I will pre-soak them in spices to get a even better taste of the fish. 

Of couse you can add more vegetables! 

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Leek-vish-ricerolls

30 min
4 persons

Ingredients:
12 round ricepapers (⌀ ca. 22 cm)
2 Leeks
4 Tbsp. vegan butter or oil
250 g vegan fishfilet
lemonjuice
salt, pepper

to garnish:
chilirings

Direction:
Soak the rice paper according to package specification and pat dry. 

Wash, clean and chop the leeks. Put some lof the green aside for garnish. Sauté the sliced ​​leek 2-3 minutes in 1-2 tablespoons butter. Set aside  and let it cool. Take out the fish, pat dry and cut into small cubes. Mix with the leeks and season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. 

Put 1-2 tablespoons of filling in each case on the lower quarter of the rice paper, fold from sides and roll up. Give in the lightly oiled steamer (or pan) with the seamed side down. Close the steamer and cook for about 8 minutes. 

Easily brown the remaining butter. Remove from the heat and season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. 


Arrange the rolls on a plate, drizzle with the butter and serve garnished with chilli rings and the leeks.

Options:
For dinner serve with asian rice or a big saladbowl.