Sticky buns w/ hazelnuts.

Sticky buns with hazelnuts and cocoa

The recipe is more or less the one from Minimalist Baker, I made a few changes though.
Instead of instant yeast I used fresh one, soy milk instead of almond milk, hazelnuts and cocoa instead of pecans and cinnamon. 

And I never prepare yeast in a separate bowl. Just fill the required amount of flower in a bowl, make a little dent and fill in warm fluid, yeast and a little sugar. Let sit for a few minutes and the yeast will just turn out fine. Then mix everything together. In this recipe you melt vegan butter in soy milk and use this as the starter for your yeast.

After 10 minutes you can see the yeast's been activated.

Let sit for one hour. You can prepare this even over night. It will rise and be super fluffy dough.

I can't wait to turn them upside down.

We're still crazy when we're sane.

On Saturday Kptn Fuchs called by and we had some delicious things besides a very nice evening, hanging out in the kitchen and chatting all the time.






Tofu, fried with ground hazelnuts. Mashed potatoes (with an apple), gravy and arugula salad. The whole topic was autumn/wintertime, I guess.

Arugula salad with miso-tahin dressing and vegan cheese cats.

get yourself a cat shaped cookie cutter and your favourite kind of vegan cheese slices

Vodka with pear juice fits also into this autumn theme, doesn't it?

For dessert we had wintertime cupcakes. Made the vanilla cupcake from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World but used half a cup soy milk and half a cup apple-cinnamon tea (instead one whole cup soy milk) and added a few chocolate chips. The topping is soy cream with ground hazelnuts, vanilla and cinnamon.

sceptic cat is sceptic

Summer food.

From time to time I cook at punk shows for a bunch of people and I never know what to cook until last minute. I barely can follow a recipe, recipes make me totally confused and so I just think about something that sounds good, make a rough plan and go shopping. If I find everything I planned - yay. If I don't find everything - I make something different. It doesn't matter because I use everything I find in the particular kitchen where I cook and often change the plans during cooking anyway or add something I never thought of beforehand. I improvise and it's always way too much but more or less it's tasty.
Yesterday I got asked: "So you make awesome stuff off the top of your head?" Erm, yes. Kind of.
But then I always forget how I made it, which is irrelevant most of the time, but yesterday I made the best lentil salad ever. I hope, that I can remember everything.

- red lentils
- ground hazelnuts
- garlic
- lemon (juice and zest)
- mint
- salt, pepper, paprika, ginger, soy sauce
- olive oil
- dash of sugar

Heat a little olive oil in a pot, add lentils. Stir and fry for about 5 minutes. Add water until lentils are covered and stir from time to time. Red lentils cook very quickly, from 10-15 minutes. Add salt, pepper, ginger (I didn't have fresh one, I used powder as I found this in the kitchen and thought: oh, ginger!), juice from one lemon, soy sauce, sugar.

In a small pan heat some olive oil and add ground hazelnuts and smashed and chopped garlic, stir well until it smells very, very good and the hazelnuts are getting a bit darker. Turn off the heat and put the pan aside.
Chop a lot of fresh mint. When the lentils are done fold in the mint and the hazelnut-garlic mixture together with the zests of one lemon.

Serve on chicory leaves and enjoy. I might have good ideas for cooking, unfortunately I don't have good ideas for names. So this is just a very good summer lentil salad. Or THE summer lentil salad.

Yesterday I served this salad along with arugula salad with caramelised cherry tomatoes; the dressing was something like balsamic vinegar, oil, tahini, salt, water, mustard. The main dish was tagliatelle with a zucchini-snow peas-sage-cream sauce and roasted walnuts, which were also very good and I was very happy with the result altogether.

In general: just add roasted nuts and as much fresh herbs as you can and everything will be perfect.

summer lentils

arugula with caramelised cherry tomatoes

tagliatelle w/ zucchini, snow peas, oat cream, roasted walnuts

Coriander-Mint-Tofu with Beluga Lentils and Carrot-Hazelnut Salad

100g black beluga lentils

2 big carrots

200g tofu

2 limes

1 tblsp agave syrup

1 tblsp apple cider vinegar

light soy sauce

1-2 tblsp chopped toasted hazelnuts

fresh mint and koriander

Cook the lentils on medium heat for about 20 minutes, add a decent pinch of salt.

Cut tofu in small triangles or any bite-sized shape you prefer and marinate in juice of two limes, soy sauce and some fresh koriander and mint.

10 minutes before lentils are done, grate the carrots, add hazelnuts, agave syrup and some soy sauce. Toss well and set aside. 

Heat 1 tblsp oil in a pan, drain the tofu (keep the marinade for lentils) and fry on medium heat. 

When lentils are done, drain them and rinse with cold water. Mix with the marinade from tofu and the apple cider vinegar. Serve all things together and garnish with some fresh mint. Great combination of flavours! And I bet it's healthy as fuck.