Cœur de bœuf.

A few weeks ago I found these pretty tomatoes and had to buy them. I know that there are thousands of tomato variations but it's rare to get some which is kind of sad. That's one reason why I'm so excited about my yellow tomatoes growing in a small pot on my window sill.

Unfortunately my two cœur de bœuf  weren't very tasty, more or less quite bland, but they are really great for stuffed tomatoes as they are not as soft as the average tomato which usually finds their way into our kitchens. And of course they're way bigger.
My filling was made of TVP, soaked in veggie broth, mixed with finely cut onions and spices like garam masala, cumin, salt, pepper and fennu greek.
As I had some maccheroni left overs I just baked these together with the stuffed tomatoes for about 25 minutes in the oven.

Steaks with potato salad.

Recently I use a lot of smoked paprika, it's so great. If you open the small bottle it smells totally weird like bacon but if you season your food with it it just adds a rich, hearty, smokey flavour and you don't need very much of it. 
But of course, you could use very much of it if you like your food tasting totally weird like bacon.

Potato-Carrot-Curry w/ Green Tomatoes

- red onions

- garlic

- carrots

- potatoes

- TVP flakes (or big chunks cut into strips)

- apricot-peach jam 

- green tomatoes

- corn starch

- cinnamon, paprika, curry powder, cumin, sugar, salt, pepper, vegetable broth

Like most of the time, I can't give you measurements. I used a big pot and I know that I used 2 litres of water, we had about 4 big portions (with rice).

Fry finely diced onions in 2 tablespoons oil until trunslucent. Add smashed garlic and spices and stir well for about 1 minute, make sure not to burn the spices.

Add a small cup of water and let boil this mixture for 2 minutes, stir occasionally.

Dice carrots and potatoes. Add 2 litres cold water to the onion mixture and immediately add carrots and potatoes, stir well and let cook.

When the water is boiling, add the TVP soy and green tomatoes ( I had quite small ones and just cut them into halfs, if yours are bigger ones cut them into quarters) and let cook for about 20 minutes. Add vegetable broth and maybe a bit more spices, as the TVP soaks a lot of flavour.

Add the apricot-peach jam and stir well. Mix 1 tablespoon corn starch with water and add to the boiling mixture while stirring well. A lot of stirring, hm? The mixture will thicken a bit and gets creamy, lower the heat and stir for another 5 minutes.

If you don't have green tomatoes, leave them. Red tomatoes are much sweeter and would add a totaly other flavour and might be to sweetish. On the picture you see my version without the green tomatoes, was also quite good, but I liked it much better with the green tomatoes. I had a tomato plant and the last fruits wouldn't turn red and as was end of October I thought that I maybe should use them and this curry was the result.

Serve with rice.

Fried potatoes w/ kinda gyros.

Cut some new small potatoes into half (don't peel them) and cook together with some soy steaks (I had stripes, like gyros) till done. Let cool for a few minutes in a sieve so everything can dry a bit. Heat some oil in a skillet and fry potatoes with soy stripes, add mashed garlic and spices like paprika, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, lavender to taste. Fry till crispy and golden brown, serve with a dip of your choice. I had a soy cream dip with lime juice. Easy peasy and so tasty.

Filled bell peppers with cream chard.

Fry one finely chopped red onion with 3 cloves of garlic in a little oil until they're soft and translucent but not brown. Add soaked and seasoned minced TVP and 2 chopped carrots. I seasoned the TVP with salt, pepper, paprika, lime juice, vegetable broth.

Fill the bell peppers and put in a casserole. I mixed the leftover filling with pureed tomato and water and put it around the bell peppers. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes. The bell pepper should be soft but still slightly crispy.

In the meanwhile cut chard into pieces and first fry the white bits, add a little water to steam. Then add soycream and green bits of chard, season with salt, pepper and 1 teaspoon mustard. Cook for about 10 minutes.

Serve bell pepper with the cream chard, it all fits perfectly together and was both beautiful and superdelicious.

Cannelloni.

Recently I had cannelloni in a quite quick version. It took me about 15 minutes to prepare and about 30 minutes to bake it. 

The filling was made of

- TVP

- tomato purée

- red bell pepper pesto

- garlic

- salt, pepper

The tomato sauce was made of

- 1 small can tomatoes

- salt, pepper

The topping was a béchamel sauce

- margarine

- oil

- soya milk

- salt, pepper, vegetable broth

- mustard

- dash of lemon juice

I mixed the TVP with salt and pepper, soaked it in hot water and added the other ingredients. If you don't have a vegan red bell pepper pesto just add a little olive oil and maybe more tomato purée or diced fresh bell peppers. Let sit the mixture for 5 minutes til TVP is more or less soft.

Fill cannelloni with the filling, layer in a casserole dish and pour canned tomatoes over it. More salt and pepper and minced garlic.

Then I made a béchamel sauce for topping and baked it with tin foil for 20 minutes, then another 10 minutes without the tin foil.