the big cheese

i havent been doing much cooking this week since im on vacation and doing lots of eating out and junk food indulging. last night hendrik, my mom and i went to a very popular south miami pizza joint with a mission: convince them to make us the mother of all vegan cheese pizzas! Miami is fairly progressive and has some raw or vegan restaurants but its no portland, and there isnt vegan junkfood around every corner, so we had to do some creative thinking to get a vegan pizza... so we brought two unopened bags of daiya cheese and the friendly staff there were totally down to slap it on their california vegetarian pizza for us. it was so good and gooey and cheesy, it was my first daiya experience and i loved every bite. weve got two slices in the fridge that im looking forward to heating up later today. yum!

the pizza place is called The Big Cheese, its 'the rock's favorite pizza place in miami, wah wah...

just to make me feel a bit healthier heres a picture of lunch the day before, a yummy healthy raw guacamole and tofu wrap with fresh corn salsa from Books and Books, south beach's most vegan friendly sidewalk cafe.

peppermint melting moments

i was wooed by this cookie recipe cause a: the cookies are green,

and b: they (are supposed to be) little sandwiches, which is cute as hell.

Maybe due to the miami weather or the brand of agave nectar i used, the frosting in the middle turned the melting moments into melting nightmares and i gave up on the sandwich concept.

but the cookies alone are really great, theyre melty and crumbly and very pepperminty.

original recipe here: http://fragrantvanillacake.blogspot.com/2010/12/minty-melting-moments.html

christmas dinner

moms british roasted potatoes

pomegranite balsamic glazed brussel sprouts

accidentally vegan biscuits and rolls

pine nut and olive oil sauteed green beans

roasted root veggies with thyme

Ginger snap and pecan sweet potato

vegan apple walnut stuffing in the making

my plate!

just a quick photographic rundown of my christmas meal. it was so amazing and even though it was a big family event everything but the turkey was vegan! for the non-meat-eaters we had Gardein stuffed 'turkey' which was of course delicious especially when drizzled with my mushroom 'sausage' gravy.

xmas cookies

im home for the holidays and the christmas cookie baking has begun. Today my mom and i made mincemeat pies the easy way...

we bought mincemeat filling (which incase you dont know has nothing to do with meat and is kind of a spiced-mixed-fruit-medley-preserve thats a traditional christmas treat in the UK) and whipped up some simple vegan pie crust. theyre kind of a taste that has to grow on you but i love them and love that instead of dragging some packaged ones back from England we got to bake them fresh.

These smore's cookies have absolutely nothing to do with christmas but i made them anyways. Since im in America, the land of plenty, i kind of went bonkers in whole foods and one thing i splurged on is some vegan marshmallows, which inspired this delicious treat. the original recipe can be found below, and i was totally stoked by the idea of using graham cracker crumbs in a cookie! bummer that they dont really taste like graham cracker at all but they are totally amazing choco chip cookies.

http://littlehouseofveggies.blogspot.com

pumpkin seeds

make use of all you can in the kitchen...
pumpkin seeds removed from tonights pumpkin tossed in oil, sugar and a bit of ginger powder and cinnamon. a perfect little winter snack for my plane ride home tomorrow.

gingerbread

Gingerbread vegans! last week i found a really cute forest animal set of cookie cutters and we made vegan gingerbread cookies with them. our cookie zoo includes snails, squirrels, moose, a bear cub, and foxes. We also did a little freestyling...

all hail the gingerbread manatee.

cranberries

the past few weeks fresh cranberries have been available in select german grocery stores. theyre pretty pricey and are definitely nowhere near local, but this week my friend drea couldnt resist and snapped up a bag. With them we decided to make Pumpkin cranberry muffins, since i just made a fresh batch of pumpkin puree. after the baking and before the eating we did a little foot styling sesh with some of her kitchen goodies...

things got a little cheesy, but we got some nice pics of the muffins sugary crusty tops... mmm...



the original recipe can be found here:
http://www.dreamydish.com/pumpkin-cranberry-vegan-muffins

inedible

vessels are one of my favourite things to collect, since theyre cute as hell and functional. Being in Germany, ive fallen hard for the traditional Weck jar, although i still have allegiance to america and the classic Ball Jar. I only brought one with me to Germany, a vintage blue one, its my favorite jar by far.

The lid of a weck jar, if you look closely you can see the cute strawberry logo

The little guy in the forefront of this picture is a bauhaus egg coddler. Since i dont eat eggs ive found a new use for it, my flax seed meal lives in it. In a perfect world every grain and dry good in my home would be stored in an adorable repurposes or vintage jar, however thatll have to wait till im more settled. for now heres a peak at the few ive held onto.

black radish

This week Hendrik brought home a root veggie i am completely unfamiliar with, Black Radish. After some googling around i found out that they are a great winter source of Vitamin C and they encourage healthy digestion. Once peeled they can be eaten raw like normal red radishes, or cooked like a parsnip.

with my black radishes i made a fresh raw winter salad of curly cabbage, purple carrots, pomegranites and sprouted lentils, with a simple vinaigrette. it was great and the mix of flavours and the spicy radish taste didnt overwhelm the other ingredients.

the black radish salad played a really colorful role in tonights meal which i cooked for some friends. traditional skillet potatoes, simple steamed broccoli, and maple marinated seitan with pinto beans.

serious turkish market bounty

burrito night

burrito night was born out of a desire to use some newly acquired pinto beans. ive never made refried beans and didnt realize it was so easy. theres alot of other yummyness in these puppies... some cashew cheese, guacamole, fake cheesy sauce from pasta we had a few days ago, and freshly made seitan.

Hendrik had three and i came in a close second with two...

last week in food

last tuesday i officially quit my job (i gave three months notice) and made raw brownies using a recipe from viveleveganrecipes, one of my favourite recipe resources. We ate half the batch and froze the rest for future treats.

on tuesday a friend came over for some cooking and gossip girl watching (no shame). we roasted a pumpkin and whole garlic bulbs, and attempted to make a sugary roasted treat out of the pumpkin seeds but we burnt them due to lack of attention.

by thursday it still hadnt stopped snowing so tuesdays leftover roasted pumpkin was thrown in a pot along with curly cabbage, potatoes, seitan, carrots and onions to make a comforting winter veggie stew.

at the last minute Hendrik whipped up some vegan biscuits from a vegan yumyum recipe. It was our first attempt at biscuits and while they definitely couldve been fluffier they were thoroughly enjoyed.

sunday morning before heading to the local flea market i indulged in an american style brunch. Oven roasted skillet potatoes, fried seitan bacon and mushroom gravy (with a bit of leftover kale thrown in to alleviate guilt)

the leftover potatoes looked beautiful in their skillet