Author Archives: Jasmin

Vegan Crescent Rolls with Sesame Seeds

Don’t you love preparing some nice dish that has an interesting story to it? Well, these little yeast pastry rolls certainly fall under that category, as they are wrapped in quite exciting myths and facts about their origin. Crescent rolls are very popular in all European countries, especially the ones that have been under control of the great Otoman Empire (Turkey). Back in the 16th and 17th Century, the Otoman Empire was one of the most powerful forces in the world, invading most of the Europe, parts of Asia and Africa, while other countries were under constant threat from their great army. One of the cities under the siege of …

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Posted in bread and pastry, breakfast, step by step, vegan dishes. Tagged with , , , , , .

Five o’clock Tea Cookies

It is well known that British people adore tea. By some researches they drink unbelievable 165 million cups of tea each day, so it is not surprise that somewhere in 17th Century they invented five o’clock tea custom. A fascination with this hot drink in United Kingdom started much earlier, with just a few bags of expensive tea leaves imported from China, which only aristocracy and upper class citizens could enjoy. They drank it usually in the coffee houses in the afternoon hours, talking about most important matters of the country. A few decades later citizens could also afford just a tiny amount of the tea leaves and enjoy this …

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Posted in desserts. Tagged with , , , .

Baked Celery Fries

celery root recipe

Celery is an amazing vegetable that is whole eatable. It can be consumed raw, cooked or dried and many wise ancient nations knew that. Ayurwedic medicine recommended celery seeds for colds and indigestion and since ancient times Chinese people took celery as a treatment for high blood pressure. Greeks made celery wine which athletes drank before some important competition; elixir made from celery was considered an aphrodisiac and stalk with leaves represented symbol of fertility. And imagine this – modern scientists found out that celery contains androsterone, a pheromone released by sweat to attract opposite sex. Modern medicine uses celery seeds for its oil powerful effects which fight a number …

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Posted in main course, side dish, vegan dishes. Tagged with , , , , , .

Rice (hi)story

hystory of rice

  Have you ever wondered why people have custom to throw rice at weddings? Well, rice (or seeds of the plant oryza sativa) is one of the oldest grain in the world. These little seeds are intertwined in ancient Pagan legends, myths an folklore of many nations, symbolizing fertility, luck and wealth. So, when someone throw few seeds of rice at the bride and groom, he/she symbolically wishes them a prosperous life. Furthermore, this wonderful plant represents a staple food for many nations in Asia and Latin America. It has been cultivated in many countries throughout the world since ancient times, which resulted in numerous rice subspecies that differ in …

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Posted in nuts & seeds. Tagged with , , , , .

Green Bean Dill Side Dish

green beans dill recipe

Let’s face it, a majority of people – and especially kids, simply do not like green beans. I guess the main reason is their bland sort of humble taste. So, even when various nutritional studies proved that these small green pods with their tender seeds are very healthy, mainly because of its fiber and high dosage of vitamin K, A and C (and so many more good nutrients), people simply do not use them on regular basis in their diet. Well, this wasn’t the case with me. Simply because of one reason – our neighbors (an older couple Jan and Katja) had a garden, and in that garden somehow their …

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Posted in side dish. Tagged with , , , .

Crazy Vintage Cookbook

    Be Bold with Bananas by Crescent Books (1972) One of my passion for the last couple of years is to look for a cute vintage cookbooks with nice drawings and some good, but forgotten recipes. So, when I stumbled on the old cookbook called Be Bold with Bananas, I thought to myself that it might have some nice, healthy or interesting recipe – but, boy was I wrong… This is the weirdest cookbook I ever saw, and if you eat bananas on a daily basis, you should definitely avoid even looking inside of it, or you will have to force yourself to go through these recipes with the craziest combination of ingredients …

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Turkish Bread

If you have ever visited Turkey, you surely noticed a specific sweet aroma in the air during early morning hours, and your nose probably guided you to one of the many small and cozy bakeries in this country, where bakers make many types of perfect Turkish bread and other delicious pastry goodies. With almost each meal in Turkey, there are few slices of fresh bread served, but for the breakfast, bread is the main star on the table, accompanied with just a couple of other things, like olives, feta cheese, sliced tomato and olive oil or butter. And older Greeks told me that this breakfast tradition has been this way …

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Posted in bread and pastry, breakfast. Tagged with , .

Pastry Jagger

If you are one of those persons, who just love to make some unusual, decorative pastry dishes, this amazing kitchen tool is just right for you. Pastry jagger is one simple, but useful kitchen utensil, consisting out of wheel knife attached to a wooden handle. It is used mainly for cutting folded pastry, but that is just the traditional usage of it- it can do much more. Its round disk knife is designed to cut decorative jagged edges. It is very easy to make most various shapes from dough with it, since it produces clean, even edges. You can make festive dishes with it, like lasagne, ravioli, pierogi, crackers, pie …

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Posted in kitchen tools. Tagged with , , .

Mushroom Crust Quiche

Quiche is a great savory dish originated in Germany, and the French cooks were the ones that perfected these types of pies. They also created one of the most popular quiche in the world called the quiche Lorraine. Since then, many new variants of the quiche were invented by the chefs and cooks throughout the world. Many new ingredients were added instead of the ones found in classic or rustic quiches. But all of those creative modifications involved mainly the filling, and the crust had that same nice and familiar, but plain taste. For that reason, many cooks didn’t bother with the crust dough preparation; instead they would buy good …

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Posted in breakfast, cookbooks, movies, books..., main course. Tagged with , , , , .

Walnut Hazelnut Milk

There are so many recipes for the nut milk preparation on the internet and reading them you’ve got the feeling that they are all quite similar, with just a little twist here and there, but those small variations in the recipes are all worth trying out until you find your own favorite non-diary milk recipe. It is not known how it all began and who actually invented non-diary milk, but in a few past years it became favorite beverage to all of us through the raw food principles of life. Many people think that the nuts and seeds milk is some kind of a modern invention, but actually this kind …

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Posted in beverages, vegan dishes. Tagged with , , , , , , .