Seitan with swisschard-creamsauce and soupentree

I don't know if I have mentioned it, that my last years-planted swisscard is growing again!! Unbelieble, but defently great. I can harves earlier my own vegetable, than even planted and waiting for it again.

Anyway, today I wasn't really planning about to harvest and prepare it. But so fast things changes. A few days ago I invited a friend of mine. But she canceled and yesterday she called me - days later - and said than she would have time today. 

First I was hesitating, cause I wasn't really feeling well and after doing the groceries I changed my mind, though I wasn't really sure what to serve - do I have enough vegetable or a side enought to serve two. Then suddenly the swisschard in the backgarden - jump into my mind, luckely I bought some potatoes and tomatoes and Seitan I was having on hand. The potatoes I will roast with herbs in the pan. 

Born was the dinner. About the sauce I was still hesitating weather to prepare a homemade whitewinsauce or a mushroomsauce. At the end I desided for the mushroomsauce. 

(Homemade Whitewine-sauce I will post later on)

When my friend arrived we enjoyed a great dinner together, for her it was the first time she ate seitan and she really liked it. 

Now it's your turn to  enjoy an evening or dinner together with your beloved ones with a good dish served ;)

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ENTREE

Liquid spicy Tomato Salad



4 Portions

Ingredients:

400 g beef tomatoes

100-150 g tomatillos

1 small white onion, chopped

1/2 fresh Chili, such as Jalapeño, cut

1 Garlic clove, cut in half

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Sea salt

1 dl mineral water

Olive oil, cold-pressed

Coriander leaves

Direction:

Cut 200 g tomatoes in half, then in quarters. Peal the Tomatillos from the case, cut in half. Puree with onion, chili, garlic, vinegar and salt.

Add mineral water and 1 Tbsp. oil. 

Set aside covered in the refrigerator for 1 hour.  Cut the remaining tomatoes finely and distribute in a bowls. Add tomato liquid, drizzle with oil and garnish with cilantro.

Note:

A great tasting entree soup-salad!

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MAIN DISH

Seitan with swisscard-creamsauce

Time: 50 min

Ingredients:
One swisschard (or more if you like)
200 g seitan 
sesame seeds 
flour 
Egg substitute for about 3 eggs 
breadcrumbs 

Sauce:
1 onion 
250 g mushrooms 
little oil
250 ml soycream
125 ml of water 
3 tablespoons powder for brown sauce 
1 teaspoon soy sauce 

Vegetable:
2 cloves of garlic 
1 (blood) orange 
pepper 
salt 
fresh herbs 
some grated orange peel (optional)

Direction:
Separate the chard leaves from the stems. Bring some water to boil, add salt and blanch the stems for 4-5 minutes. Then add the leaves until they fall apart. Meanwhile ..

Cut the seitan into slices and bread. For this only distribute some sesame seeds and pepper on the seitan, then roll them in flour, then in egg substitute and finally in breadcrumbs.

Cut the onions and the mushrooms into slices. In some oil fry them together until the onion is translucent and the mushrooms have lost some fluid. 

Dissolve brown sauce mix with half of the soy cream as well as the water, and add along with the soy sauce over the steamed mushrooms. Bring to a boil to thicken the sauce. Turn off the heat. 

In another preheated pan add some oil and give in the swisschard. Crush the garlic into the pan, season with salt, pepper and steam, after 10-13 min add the remaining soy cream.

Squeeze half of the orange and stir the juice into the pan. Those who wish can also add some grated orange peel .

Meanwhile, in hot pan with some oil fry the seitan until it is crispy and golden brown on both sides (5-7 minutes).

Serving:
Arrange the swisschard on a plate, top with the seitan and pour over the sauce. 

Dizzle over the sauce some pressed orange juice and garnish with the left orange and fresh herbs.  Finish

Artichoke, red onion & rosmary risotto

Oh how I enjoy having days off from work, especially with the great sunny and warm days we're having since a few days. I feel just like a reborn and awake from winter. I even enjoyed my first breakfast on the sunny balcony - great. Hopefully winter isn't coming back - as it happend years before. But don't scream winter back!

When walking throught the market seeing vegetables coming into season, my mouth started watering AND as every year I have a look at the fresh Artichokes, hesitating to grab some as I never prepared fresh ones and to be true I don't really know how to. I've seen recipes but only for a appetizer and I'm afraid  I might not like it as much as I do the canned ones. So, till I will kick myself into my own ass and make the step I rather stay with the canned ones. BUT there will be a day when I will try them, maybe sooner than I will know. 

For my todays dish I had artichokes in mind, defenetly a italian dish and a risotto first came up. If the risotto is kept on the lighter side I really do like it much. And so will be this dish - with fresh herb and vegetable.

Risotto mainly served without a side but as a salad-lover I needed is a side. Oh so good, the next rice dish I will make is defently going to have fresh aspargus with or a rice-aspargus-ragout...... So many ideas - but only one mouth to feed. 

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Artichoke, red onion and rosmary risotto

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 red onion, sliced into thin wedges
2 red peppers, cut into chunks
2 tbsp. rosmary needles
140 g arborio risotto rice
150 ml vegan white wine
850 ml vegetable stock
400g tin artichoke hearts in water, drained and halved
2 tbsp. grated vegan parmesan or nutrional yeast
2 tbsp. toasted pine nuts

Direction:
Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok. Cook the onions gently for 6-7 mins until softened and browning. Add the peppers and rosemary and cook for a further 5 mins. Add rice and stir well.

Pour in the wine and the stock. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally until almost all the liquid has absorbed.

Stir in another of the stock and simmer again, until it’s all absorbed. Finaly add the artichokes and simmer again until rice is tender. (if not add some more stock or wine)

Season and stir in the Parmesan and ½ the pine nuts. Stir well under and serve on warm plates. 

Serve with a fresh salad 

Zucchini-Spaghetti alla Carbonara and spezial gazpacho salad

FIRST, Let me say sorry for the bad pictures. I can't tell what happend that they didn't came out that great......!

Today where having Good Friday, the beginning of easter time and usually people eat on Good Friday fish and then on Easter Sunday lots of eggs. Both is defenetly not mine. I'm much more in the mood for both - healthy and somehow hearty dishs. Bringing both together is pretty easy. 

Even if the todays weather does not really calls for a spring/summer dish. I wanted to prepare an italian dish. And Entree/Side dish/Salad and of course a main dish. AND all italian. 

Do you know the italian carbonara sauce? In fact most people prepare the sauce with cream, bacon and onion, but the original recipe from italy is made with no cream but with grated cheese, eggs and then served with bacon. But around here we are used the "false version". 

I can't even remember having prepared Spaghetti Carbonara before being vegan. Maybe just too long ago or I never thought of preparing it. Anyway. Instead of real spaghetti I made Zucchini-Spaghetti, but of course - if your really starving you can use the original ones.

As for the entree / salad / side dish - whatever you will call it - I decided for a salad, in fact a gazpacho salad. Usually you know the gazpacho as a soup, but I like the salad version much more. 

Along the salad I served a fresh baguette with selfmade basilbutter. 
All I can say - we loved it, so delicious and fresh, immediatly brought some sun into my appartement. 

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ENTREE / SIDE DISH

Gazpacho Salad

35 minutes + 2 hours marinating
4 Person

Ingredients:
2 large beefsteak tomatoes
1 cucumber
salt and pepper
1 slice of watermelon
1 red pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
3-4 spring onions
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2-3 tbsp vegetable stock
½ -1 tsp Harissa
1 ½ tbsp sherry vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil

Preparation:
Crave the tomato, pour boiling water over, peel and quarter without stalk and seeds. Drain well and cut into 1 -inch cubes. Peel the cucumber, cut in half lengthwise, remove seeds and cut into 0.5 cm small cubes. Season tomatoes and cucumbers with salt and pepper.

Cut watermelon from the shell, half and remove the seeds then dice. Peel the peppers with a vegetable peeler, quarter, decore and dice small. Wash spring onions and cut into thin rings. Now mix the vegetable well.

In a cup mix tomato paste, broth, harissa and vinegar, gradually embezzled the oil season with salt and pepper. Pour over the vegetables and put covered in the refrigerator at least 2 hours with stirring occasionally.

Serving:
Take the salad out of the refrigerator and give into a bowl and decorate with onion rings and some basil leaves or parsely. 

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MAIN DISH

Zucchini-Spaghetti alla Carbonara

2 Person
25 min

Ingredients:
100 g of white almond paste
½ bunch of parsley
160 g smoked tofu 
1 onion 
1 clove of garlic
about 5 tablespoons olive oil
grated rind of ½ organic lemon
1 tsp lemon juice
salt
black pepper from the mill
5 zucchini (about 1 kg)

Preparation:
Using a whisk, mix almond paste and 240 ml of water. Wash the parsley, shake dry and finely chop the leaves.

Cut the smoked tofu into small cubes. Peel the onion and garlic and chop both finely. In a pan heat 2 tbsp olive oil. Sauté the cubed smoked tofu about 3 minutes then add the diced onion and garlic and fry for 3 minutes more. 

Now - using a bowl -  mix almond paste, lemon zest and juice and parsley. Season strong with salt and pepper and give into the pan with the tofu. Shortly boil up the Carbonarasauce and let it thicken.

Wash the zucchinis and with a spiralizer cut into spaghetti. Mix with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and some sea salt, and then carefully mix under the hot sauce and heat all up for 1 minutes.

Serve in pasta dishes, sprinkle with some olive oil and some grinded black pepper. 

Enjoy a vegan italian dish.

Focaccia with king trumpet mushrooms (eryngii)

There goes nothing about a good italian dish..... eaten together with some friends on a sunny, mild evening!

A sunny and warm spring evening sharing with your friends maybe already with grilling summer can come. The weekend seemed to be bright and sunny as the last days and I was invited over to friends for spending a sunny eyevening. 

Coming with empty hands- NO. Italian dishes loves everybody and hesitating weather making a cold or warm dish it ended up to be a warm fingerfood. I was inspired by the last weekend served flamecake on my grandfathers furneral (may he Rest in Peace) sniff....

I wasn't sure if I should make either a flamecake or a focaccia, at the end I decided the focaccia as I knew my friends will turn the grill on with lot of sides bowl to serve yourself on the buffet. A focaccia goes really better with this. But layer with what? There are so many possibilities of vegetables.. Then I went for the great looking king trumpet mushrooms, not a vegetable you mostly get the whole year through. 

I made the dought the day before and saved a lot of time the next day. 

My friend was so happy about the focaccia and it was eaten right away. Special were the dried porcini in the dought. Defenetly great!!!

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Focaccia with trumpet mushrooms

Time: 55 min, including soaking, go - and baketime

Ingredients:
Dough:
20 g dried porcini
500 g flour
1 cube of fresh yeast (about 20g)
100 ml Oliveoil
1 tsp. salt

Toping:
200 g small shallots
350 g king trumpet mushrooms
thyme oil
1 bunch of thyme
100 ml Oliveoil
Fleur de sel
pepper

Direction:
Soak the dried porcini mushrooms for about 30 minutes in hot water. After put the mushrooms in a cloth , squeeze it well and chop finely. 

Give flour into a bowl , press a hole in the middle , into it crumble the yeast and dissolve with 200 ml of lukewarm water. Mix everything from the edge with a fork. Add olive oil , salt and the mushrooms and knead to a smooth dough. Shape the dough into a ball and let it go, covered for 3 hours in a warm place .

For the topping: Cut the shallots in half and lengthwise into thin strips. Cut trumpet mushrooms into thin slices. For the thyme oil, pluck off the thyme leaves and puree in a blender together with the olive oil medium fine. Season with fleur de sel .

Prehat oven at 280 degrees, (gas 6-7, convection not recommended) with the baking sheet on the bottom rack. Knead the dough again and cut into 4 equal pieces. Roll in succession 2 pieces of dough on a floured surface to a thickness of 5 mm oval (approx. 30 x 17 cm). Prick the dough with a fork several times and brush with olive oil. Next to each other, put both doughs on the hot baking sheet and evenly cover with half the shallots and mushrooms. Sprinkle the mushrooms with olive oil puree and sprinkle with fleur de sel and pepper.

Bake the focaccia in the oven on the bottom rack 10 -12 minutes. 
After the time take focaccia from the oven, sprinkle with the remaining thyme and serve drizzled with thyme oil. 

Follow the same process with the remaining two dough halves.

Note:
You can easily prepare the dough the night before, let it go three hours, knead, cover and store in the refrigerator . The next day, let go again 1 hour, cover the toping and bake.

Spaghetti with Barba di fratte

OH, It's again Monkbeard-time! And I'm happy.... ;)

Last year I prepared a simple salad, but this year I wanna prepare it as it is usual served in italy - with Spaghetti as a main dish. For the omnivores it's the Spaghetti vongole (shells) and a similar taste for the Vegans is Spaghetti with monkbeard. The original recipe is hold pretty simple, spiced with garlic, onion and parmesan. I chearded mine up with some peperoncini.

Yesterday when I bought the monkbeard and standing at the cash desk a women behind me asked me what this is and I - of course explained it to here - even the cashier itself had a closer look at it (AND she was a italian).

Back at home I searched the web for a recipe and just veganized it. The preparing is very easy - beside cleaning the monkbeard.

I was curious about the result, as I never ate Spaghetti with shells... But I knew how Monkbeard tastes and it tastes great!

A real great dish I have to say!! 

People who don't know Monkbeard defenetly miss something...... Glad I'm such curious to try unknow and rare vegetables!

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Spaghetti con barba the fratte (monkbeard)

for 2 people

Ingredients:
300g monk beard 
200g spaghetti 
2 tablespoons olive oil 
1 Peperoncino, halved and deseeded
2 red onion, chopped into rings
3 cloves of garlic 
salt 
vegan parmesan 

Direction:
Cook the spaghetti in salted water. Meanwhile, cut off the roots of the red monk Barts and wash the vegetables thoroughly. 5 minutes before the spaghetti are al dente, give the monk beard into the salt water with the spaghetti.

Meanwhile cut peperoncino in rings,  and cut garlic into thin slices and onion into rings. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the garlic, onion and peperoncino into the oil and shortly roast. Immediately turn off the heat and maybe take the frying pan off the plate, so that the garlic won't burn (it would get bitterly). Let garlic, onion and peperoncino in the hot oil 

When the spaghetti are al dente, drain, and give into the pan, lightly mix with garlic, onion and peperoncion, then immediatly arrange on plates, pour over with the remained sauce and rub on some vegan parmesan cheese. You can easly spinkle on some lemonjuice or add some roasted cherry tomatoes.


Buon Appetito!

Colorful Tomatosalad

Today during lunchtime I shortly went to the not ordinary supermarket - a little bit more expensive, but got things a usual supermarket does not sell (or never seen). I walked trought the vegetable lines and there I saw the different and colorful tomatoes - some of them I've never tasted, but beside layed some cutted pieces to try and after it - I had to buy them, they just looked and tasted great!

Hesitating weather to make different colored ketchup I changed to prepare a simple, colorful salad for lunchtime. Ketchup could wait for sure. 

This salad was great when I made it the next day for my lunch and while sitting in the sun on my balcony. 

Of course you can make this salad with any kind of colored tomatoes, but with non-usual- ones it's something different for the regular one. 

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Colorful Tomatosalad

4 Persons
30 min

Ingredients:
1 red chili
juice from one lime
salt
sugar
4 Tbsp. sunflower oil
half tsp. grounded crosscumin
800g fresh mixed tomatoes
1 red onion
half bunch of coriander
100g (one small can) chickpeas

Direction:
Halve the chilli lengthwise, remove seeds and chop finely. Wisk together Lime juice with salt, sugar and oil. Stir under cumin and chopped Chili. Wash the tomatoes, cut into slices and arrange on a plate. 


2 Cut onion into thin rings. Pluck Coriander leaves from the stems.Drain and rinse Chickpeas in a colander. Distribute chickpeas, onions and cilantro onto the tomato. 

Drizzle with dressing and serve immediately.