Category Archives: main course
Baked Sauerkraut with Brown Rice and Prunes
Our life paths and most of our achievements are shaped in early stage of our life, and the country we are born in can ease our progress, or make our life challenging. Growing up in Germany had many advantages and even more peculiarities. My childhood was nice, filled with good people who made me apple pies, nutella bread or my all time favorite Die Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte dessert. I mean, as all other kids in the world, I loved all things sprinkled with sugar or covered with chocolate, so when early winter came, my parents had trouble to make me even sit down at the table when some acidic meal was …
Peanut Sweet Corn Rice Salad
It feels good to wake up in the morning during the spring, summer or autumn, pick up some goodies in your small garden or take a bike ride for a quick stop to your local market and few minutes later, while whistling your favorite song (in my case a few repetitive notes from enchanting My Sister by Tindersticks these days) and make a huge, colorful and refreshing vegan salad, which will substitute your whole meal. During the winter, though, it’s kind of a challenge to come up with a perfect salad recipe. But I love challenges, so a few years back I started to improve my winter salad selection and …
Lemon Balm Zucchini Soup
Creamy zucchini soup is something every household with at least one zucchini plant makes frequently during summer months – or it should be. You don’t even have to own a garden, it is enough to have a friend or neighbor with zucchini craze, and you will have a few zucchinis weekly on your table, I’m sure. This is because one humble plant produces abundance of zucchinis if there are enough sunny days in your part of the world. Italians have great climate for zucchini’s growth and I think they are the ones that invented this type of soup many moons ago ;) I suppose some gardener just looked around his …
Mushroom Goulash
Over the last few years I have tried many mushroom goulash recipes, and to be honest, none of them buzzed my taste buds. Some of them were nice and creamy, but I made it all just once, and didn’t have the urge to make them again. But, one cold, rainy afternoon, I looked into my pantry, took various vegetables, spices and mushrooms with me to the kitchen and managed to combine this dish, which can be categorized as the perfect vegan mushroom recipe for the rainy days. Now, this recipe is a little bit more complicated than usual goulashes, but that’s just because it contains a little bit more ingredients. …
Vegan Potato Macaroni
Although we are living in time of abundance and luxury, simple and time-tested treats are there for us, when we have no inspiration to create something new, or just simply want to enjoy something delicious we know from the childhood – just like this vegan potato macaroni recipe in my case. This humble dish has been in my family for generations. My great grandmother made it, my grandmother and mother made it, and I also love to make it when the cold months settle in. It is really a simple recipe; just a few ingredients combined in a perfect way, so I am pretty sure, you will love to make …
Russian Salad Olivier
I always liked stories about dishes I prepare, because most of them are simple, warm and can lift up the atmosphere at your dining table. However, this Russian salad Olivier is a delicious treat, not only for its ingredients, but also for the affairs and intrigue that follows it. The story has twists and turns, like in some mini crime novel, and it initially took place in the nineteenth century in Russia. Prior to the 19th century, salad was not a common dish in Russia; people ate vegetables in soups and side dishes until few nobles from Moscow began to hire French chefs to cook for them. One of those …
Rhubarb Mushroom Soup
With its big, fluffy leaves tucked in a bush, rhubarb is quite an interesting perennial plant, and in a way it is also a unique plant among all the other plants we use for cooking, because no other plant I can think of has only stalks eatable; some people consider it a vegetable, while in some countries it is classified as a fruit. Rhubarb is also one of those crazy plants that grow better in countries with colder climate, like Germany or Canada, where it is beautifying many garden corners and its distinctive zesty flavor enriches grandmothers’ cakes, muffins, pies and other desserts. Many of us had the privilege to …
Vegan Chickpea Curry
I wish it would snow. This thought slips into my mind often these days, almost every morning, especially when I’m opening my blinds, hoping to see the first snowflakes falling, all fluffy, huge and tender at the same time – just like the first snowflakes should be – making streets beautiful and festive, turning naked trees and bushes into divine ice sculptures, brightening entire town. Since I was a child, the snow meant joy to me – a simple equation. Maybe because I was born on one day in December, or maybe because I had (and have) a snow dog that becomes crazy active with the first cold days, who …
Lentil Celery Cobbler
In my little universe, for the last couple of days a harsh wind fiddled with great joy, leaving the trees almost bare. It finally calmed down yesterday, and the moment I looked outside a window, I knew I will have to take care of a large amount of fallen leaves. And leaves were all kind of weary, faded out of their color – just like the last few November days. It’s not that I don’t like November, but frequently its mornings just don’t have strength to develop fully, and I got the feel that night is lurking from each darker corner, sipping the intensity out of the nature’s bright colors. …
Baked Celery Fries
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 …
