Beans with tahin dressing.

200g green beans
1-2 tbsp tahin
1/2 apple
salt
soy sauce
mint
coriander


Wash the beans and cut off the ends. Cook in salted water for about 10 minutes, until they're done but still crisp.
Mix the tahin with a little water and 1-2 teaspoons soy sauce. Add some leaves of mint and coriander.

When the beans are done strain them and rinse with very cold water. This will keep the beans' pretty lime-green colour and prevent them from getting grey-ish. 
Cut apple into small cubes.
Put the beans and apple cubes in a bowl and toss with dressing.

Baked beetroots and tofu.

3-4 beetroots
200g tofu
garlic
rosemary
mint
sage
matcha
smoked salt
oil 


Peel the beetroots and cut into sticks. Don't be frightened about the beetroot and its colour. Yes, your fingers will get a little pink but hey, I've got news for you: it will wash off.
So just peel them like potatoes, cut into slices and then into sticks.
Put the sticks together with two to three smashed garlic cloves and twigs of rosemary, mint and sage in an oiled casserole. Cover up with a lid or tin foil and bake for 20 minutes in the oven until the beetroot is tender.
Meanwhile cut tofu into cubes and fry in a little olive oil on high heat until it gets golden to dark brown and very crispy. Sprinkle with smoked salt and a pinch of matcha. Stir well and fry for another minute.
The matcha will not only add a touch of mint green colour but a subtle hint of bitterness which fits pretty good the sweetness of the baked beetroots.

Can you smell that?

Coriander

Morning Glory

Tomatoes

Mint

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

Bento.

My bento box is rarely used. Poor thing. 
So I decided to give it some attention and made for tomorrow: fried zucchini with rosemary, a beetroot salad (with soy sauce, lime juice and fresh tarragon as dressing) and cooked millet with lots of fresh parsley and mint. Hope my co-workers don't mind that my vegan stuff is way more pretty and tasty than their boring microwave crap.

Talk is just convention.

Scrambled tofu made from silken tofu. Was very good but I still like it more with firm tofu. 
Together with a cucumber sandwich. 

Hoummous made with lots of wood garlic.

Hoummous with mint and garlic greens on bagel. Orange juice. Cappuccino.

Quite new hair. Carnation pink (mixed with lavender) and tourquois.

The garden sorrel is growing, 3 weeks or so ago it looked like this. 
The tree in the background is full of chirping sparrows. Have I mentioned, that I love sparrows? I love sparrows.

The cat is perfectly alright at the moment. It's sometimes heartbreaking to look at him, though.

A few minutes before our recent radio show in April (DIY OR DIE). Bored and tired and excited, waiting to get into the studio. I like that moment.

Oyster mushrooms in anise sauce.

200g oyster mushrooms

2 onions

2 cloves garlic

some leaves radicchio

rice

soy sauce

anise seed

salt

pepper

corn starch

veggie broth

olive oil

fresh mint

Cook the rice in salted water. Fry oyster mushrooms with one finely cut onion and smashed garlic in 1 tsp olive oil. Cut radicchio in thin stripes and add at the end when the mushrooms start to get darker golden brown.

Bring 200ml water to the boil, add some veggie broth, soy sauce and 1 tsp anise seed.

Mix 2 tsp corn starch with some cold water and stir in the cooking water. Lower the heat and keep stirring until the sauce starts to thicken a bit. Turn off the heat.

Mix cooked rice with the second finely cut onion and some soy sauce.

Serve mushrooms with the sauce and rice and sprinkle with some fresh mint.

Great flavours from hearty (mushrooms) to bitter (radicchio) and this anise thing which fits pretty well. If you're afraid of the anise try a just a few seeds first and not a whole teaspoon. But it's really worth a try!

Bento.

I made a non-fancy but yummy bento for my first day at my new job tomorrow.

Cucumber salad

- diced cucumber

- soy cream 

- salt, mustard

- mint, dill, basil

Baby carrots

Pasta salad

- Rigatoni

- fried red bell pepper and zucchini, glazed with a tsp cider vinegar

- sage, basil, thyme

- salt, pepper, smoked paprika

- soy cream 

Chocolate soy milk


Work sucks. Bentos do not. 

Small nice things.

My freshly made bed.

Flowers on my window sill.

A cucumber salad with fresh mint grown on my window sill.

The dressing was made from soy cream, salt, dill, mint. Bam. So refreshing.

Fried soy steaks with my great cucumber salad I just made.

My avocado.

Jugendhaus Erlangen, nicely hidden, where a bunch of rad people are putting on a lot of shows and other events in a DIY manner.

Creamy 8-minute-pasta.

- 200g pasta 

- 1 big onion

- 200ml coconut milk 

- salt, pepper, veggie broth powder

- fresh herbs e.g. mint, sage, basil

- oil

I came home from a meeting quite late and was totaly hungry but the fridge was quite empty today and I wasnt' really in the mood for cooking. I found the canned coconut milk and thought of a simple pasta dish - in the end it turned out way better than I expected. It's a very good idea to have fresh herbs on your windowsill. Almost everything is 100% better with it.

Heat a pot with enough water for the pasta. Cut the onion finely into small cubes and fry them in a teaspoon oil until they're translucent. Add coconut milk and spices, let simmer on medium heat. 

When the water is boiling, add the pasta and a big dash of salt, let them cook for 8 minutes (or whatever your pasta instructions tell you), stirring from time to time. 

Also stir the sauce from time to time, right before the pasta is done you can turn off the heat. 

Drain your pasta and add to the sauce. Cut your herbs into fine stripes and mix everything very well.

The sauce is not that coconut-ish as it might sound. It's more a very creamy, white sauce with the aroma of the herbs you use and the hearty taste of the veggie broth. Only a slight hint of coconut, but this may depend on your coconut milk brand. Of course you could use soy cream as well, the sauce will be ready in the same time.

The windowsill garden.

These are the herbs for this year: sage, honeydew melon sage, orange mint, rosemary, lemon basil, koriander.

Lemon basil.

Sometimes birds visit this tiny garden, too.

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.

Braised Tomato Tofu w/ Lavender Potatoes.

400g tofu

1/2 chinese cabbage

1 small can tomatoes

2 carrots

red onion

garlic

1 teaspoon olive oil

vegetable broth

a bit orange juice

200g potatoes

1 teaspoon dried lavender

salt, pepper, rosemary, mint, light soy sauce

yoghurt (optional)

Cut the carrot and onion into dices, the cabbage into slices, smash tha garlic (as many cloves as you like, I used three) and put in a casserole with some water and the olive oil.

Cut tofu into slices and drape onto the veggies, sprinkle everything with soy sauce, rosemary, mint (I used fresh herbs) and a bit fresh ground pepper. 

Than pour the can peeled tomatoes over it and spread til everything is covered. Mix some vegetable broth with hot water (I used the empty tomato can, half filled with liquid) and add.

Bake everything in the open casserole for about 20min in the oven, gas mark 4. After 20min add a dash of orange juice and bake for another 15-20 min.

While the tofu braises in the flavoured tomatoes cook the potatoes with some salt and dried lavender. I used red potatoes and left the peel because it's less work and I like unpeeled potatoes a lot. Serve together and add some yoghurt or Tofutti sour surpreme to the potatoes, if you like.