Baked eggplant with red potatoes.

1 eggplant
red potatoes (you can use regular potatoes, too. but these are so pretty.)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
thyme
rosemary
1 tomato 
1 carrot
béchamel sauce (made from vegan butter, flour, soymilk, salt, pepper, nutmeg, squeeze of lemon juice and/or 1 teaspoon mustard)
salt, pepper, bay leave
oil

Cut eggplant in half and scoop out most of each half to make eggplant shells.
Cut onion and garlic finely into small cubes. Fry in 2-3 tablespoons oil together with fresh thyme and rosemary until the onions start to get translucent.  

Cut the scooped out parts of the eggplant and add to onions and garlic, stir well. Add a finely diced tomato. Fry for 3 or 4 minutes, the eggplant hasn't to be done, as it will bake for over 20 minutes.
Cut a carrot into thin stripes. 
Fill a casserole with 1-2 cm cold water. Place eggplant halfs into casserole and fill with the fried eggplant-onion-mix. Put carrot sticks and one or two bay leaves around the eggplants, season with salt and pepper.

Cover the eggplants with a thick batch of béchamel sauce. A part of it will drop into the water during baking time and melt together with the water to a delicious sauce. The rest will remain on top of the eggplants and will build a yummy, thick, golden, slightly crusty béchamel layer.

Cover the casserole with tin foil and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. First 10 minutes on high heat, then reduce to medium heat. Also, after the first 10 minutes you can prepare your potatoes and cook them for about 20 minutes with a little salt.

After the casserole has been in the oven for 20 minutes, remove tin foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the béchamel looks golden, slightly brown and crusty.

Serve with a few potatoes (drizzle a little bit of the sauce over them).

 

The eggplant is so tender, it's unbelievable.

Summer tofu.

200g tofu

1 zucchini

1 peach ( I had one of these flat white peaches, they have a bit more flavour than the round ones)

2 cooked potatoes

oil

salt

pepper

fresh thyme

Cut everything into cubes and start frying the tofu and potatoes, after about 5 minutes add zucchini and peach. Season with salt and pepper. Add splashes of water if it seams to dry and fry for about 10 minutes until everything is golden brown and the peach starts to get a bit mushy. Add lots of fresh thyme. This is pure summer, I promise.

I had this today at work for lunch and was so happy to have so good food. Unfortuately non of the generic "but what can you eat as a vegan?"-people where around...but on the other hand they pretty sure would've been totally scared of fried peach and tofu. Ignorants.

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. 

Raspberry-Thyme-Pancakes.

Mixed frozen raspberries and fresh thyme in my pancake batter - so delicious! I used a bit more sugar than usual in the batter, as the raspberries are a bit sourish. Will definetely do this again, the combination is great and I love raspberries so much.

Fluffy white bean spread.

This fluffy white bean spread is delicious on white bread like baguette or ciabatta (or as a dip for any veggies you can think of, I think).

- small can giant white beans, drained

- fresh thyme twigs

- lime juice from 1/2 lime

- dash of paprika

- pepper

- 2 tsp shiro miso

- 1 tbsp rice oil (any other more neutral oil will do)

Mix together all ingredients and puree with a mixer till it's fluffy and not chunky anymore. Don't use salt, the shiro miso is very salty and if you want to replace the miso with salt it will be quite ok, but won't have the same distinguish umami flavour as with miso.

Scrambled tofu again and again!

This time with dried tomatoes (marinated in oil, herbs and garlic), thyme and chives, a bit of salt and pepper. With a big glass of chilled orange juice for breakfast.