Spinach Lasagna

This is my standrt recipe for spinach lasagna.

Spinach Lasagna

Ingredients:

1/2 package dried vegan lasagna pastry (250g) green or plain

a hand full of freozen spinach (defrosted)

for the tvp sauce:

2 onions

1 carrot

2 cloves of garlic

1 hand full of tvp (the kind that looks like ground meat, also called "soya mince" at my local indian grocery store)

3 tbs olive oil

about 6 tbs of tomatopaste

2 cans of chopped tomatoes

a dash of red wine or some water

some basil

salt and pepper for seasoning


for the bechamel sauce:

125 g of magarine or 3/4 cup of canola oil

3/4 cup of nutritional yeast

2 tsp mustard or mustard powder

1/2 cup flour

1/2 litres of soymilk

a pinch of nutmeg

salt and pepper for seasoning


1. Soke the TVP in boiling water for aprox. 5 minutes.

2. Heat a non-stick-pan with the oilive oil an sweat the finely chopped onion, garilc and carrots.

3. Drain the TVP and try to press out as much moisture as you can.

4. Ad the TVp to the pan and roast intil it gets golden brown.

5. At the tomatopaste and fry it for 30 seconds.

6. First at a the wine and allow the alcohol to evaporate then ad the canned tomatoes.

7. Simmer on low heat for 10-20 minutes and ad the basil. Season with salt an pepper.

8. Heat the magarine or oil in a smal pot.

9. Stir in the mustard and the nurtional yeast.

10. Carefully ad the flour until everything looks like a firm dough.

11. Quikly stir in the soymilk.

12. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper and allow it to thicken on low heat, until the sauce has the cosistency of pancake batter, while doing this stir frequently to prevent the sauce from burning at the bottom of the pot.

13. Now start to put one layer of tvp sauce and bechamel sauce at the bottom of a casserol dish. The next step ist one layer of lasagna layer, then one layer of tvp, bechamel and spinach. Repeat until your casserol dish is nearly full. Top with one layer of pastry and the rest of the bechamel sauce.

14. Bake the lasagna at 200 °C until the surface has a nice golden brown colour.

Pav Bahji Springrolls

My idea was to create something between samsosas and springrolls.
But a classical samsosafilling would have been way too boring and a had to get rid of half a hokaido squash. Then a indian dish call "Pav Bahji" came to my mind.
It consists of a puree which ist most commonly based on potatoes with some added vegetables, which you spread between two toasted and buttered buns.
One good thing about this dish is, that you can add nearly every vegetable you have around to the squash puree, so it is very versatible . Instead of the squash you could also use the traditional potatoes, maniok, yams, raw green plantains, taroroot, lotusroot, sweet potatoes or what ever strikes your fancy and ist starchy enough to hold the fillig of the springrolls together. As I said before, the rest of the vegetables you're using is completly optional. This high versability makes this dish perfect to get rid of some leftover squash or potatoes an to clean up your fridge an freezer because you could use all the fresh and even frozen vegetables you have around.


Pav Bahji Springrolls

Ingredients:

1 package of 40 springrollleaves

1/2 hokaido squahs deseeded and cooked until mashy

1 hand of chopped caulyflower fresh or frozen

1 hand of peas fresh or frozen (maybe even canned if you have them laying around)

1 big onion

2 carrots

3-4 cloves of garlic

3 tbs tomatopaste

2 tsp black mustard seeds

2 tsp hing

1 tbs chilipowder (or more or less, depending on your taste)

salt for seasoning

1 tbs Pav Bahji Massala (substitute with garam massala or curry powder)

4 tbs canola oil or vegan gee + some canola oil for deepfrying



1. In a small pot, fry the mustard seed in the caonla oil or gee until they stard to jump around.

2.Finely chop the garilc, the onion and the carrots, and fry them with the mustard seeds and hig until the oinons start to get a bit brown on the edges.

3. Ad the tomato paste an spices and fry for an other 2 minutes.

4. Ad the chopped caulyflower and the peas.

5. Add the squash and lightly mash with a potatomasher.

6.Put two teaspoons of the filling to the middle of the end of a springrollleave ,roll it into the leave, folt the edges over the middle, roll until the end end seal with a bit of water.

7.Deepfry the springrolls and defat them on top of some papertowels.

Juu's White Asparagus-Spinach-Pasta With Smoked Tofu

Juu's White Asparagus-Spinach-Pasta With Smoked Tofu

Ingredients:

250 g dry pasta

ca. 500 g white asparagus (try it with the green one if you can't get the white kind)

1 hand of frozen spinach

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 piece of smoked tofu ca. 250 g

1/2 cup of deepfried onions

ca. 5 tbs of tahina

1 dash of soymilk

1 tsp of mustard or mustard powder

2 tsp of instant vegetable stock powder

1/2 cup of nutritional yeast

2 tsp onionpowder

pepper and salt for seasoning

1 tbs canolaoil for frying

1. Cook the pasta until al dente.
2. Finely chop the onion and the garlic and cube the smoked tofu.
   
3. Sweat the onions and garil with the canolaoil.
   
4. Carefully peel the asparagus, cut into waltnut siced pieces an roast it with the onions and garlic until golden brown.
   
5. Ad the rest of the ingredients along with some water and simmer until it form a nice and creamy sauce.
   
6. Mix with the cooked pasta, season with salt and pepper and enjoy.
   

Vegan Schwerma

This is the veganized version of a classical lebanese Sandwich.
You could you various kinds os saitan. I normaly use the a make the old fashioned way, kneading a flourdough und running water.
You could also substiude an easy tahinbased-sauce for the soy-yogurt-sauce.
The salad would get more authentic if you ad some pickels and mint.

Juu's vegan Schwerma

Ingredients:

4 pieces of pita-bread

Irgendients for the raosted saitan:

ca. 300 g seitan cut into thin strips

1 onion cut into thin rings

3 tbs sesameseeds

2 tbs paprikapowder

1 tsp powdered garlic

1 tbs instant vegetable stock powder

pepper, salt, and chili powder for seasoning

2-3 tbs canolaoil for frying

Irgrdients for the salad:

1 read bell pepper

2 medium siced tomatoes

1/3 cucumber

Ingrients for the soy-yogurt-garlic-sauce:

1 1/2 cup plain soy-yogurt

1/2 cup canoalaoil, flaxseedoil or oliveoil

2-4 big cloves of garlic, or more or less depending on your taste and on you plans for the next day

salt and pepper for seasoning

1. In a non-stick-pan, roast the sesame until it stars to smell nice an gets a golden brwon colour. (Be carefull not to burn it.)
   
2. Ad the canolaoil, saitan and oinions and roast until nice and crispy.
   
3. Add the spices and roast for an other 1-2 minutes. If the saitan seems too dry after yo've added the spices ad a bit oil until it looks nice and shiny.
   
4. For the salad, cube the vegetables and mix well..
5. For the garlic-sauce, finely chop the garlic and ad to a food-processor or blender along with the soy-yogurt, the oil an blend until totaly nice an smooth. Season with salt and pepper
   
6. Wrap your favourite combination of salad, saitan and sauce between a piece of pitabread and enjoy.
   

Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted potatoes and krautsalad

Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted Potatoes and Krautsalat



While don't bein satisfied by the kind of vegan Schnitzel, which you can buy in stores here in Germany, I tried to create my own recipe and succeded after 3 trials.
Inspiration came from this blog entry http://justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/poached-frozen-tofu-fried-frozen-tofu-cutlets .
I changed the recipe a bit and converted the orgininal cutlets into breaded "Schnitzel"



Tofu-Schnitzel with german panroasted potatoes and krautsalad

Tofu Schnitzel


Ingredients:

1 piece firm tofu ca. 400 g freezed and defrosted

for the stock:

2 carrots

2 onions

1 bulb of garlic

1 tbs of olive oil

1 tbs tomatopaste

2 bay leaves

1 glas wine or sherry

some salt an pepper for seasoning

2 tsp of aseofetida, hing or whatever you call it

1 small piece of konbu-seaweed or one small bag of instant, vegan dashi-granulees

for the coatig:

1 cup of breadcrumps

1/2 cup of chickpeaflour

2 tsp tomatopaste

some salt and pepper for seasoning

2 tbs of nutritional yeast

1 package of instant, vegan dashi granulees

2 tsp of mustard or mustard powder

some water

the amount of oil, that you need to fill your pan for deepfrying


1. Cut the tofu into slices. You can decide how thick you want them to be.

2. Roughly chop the vegetables and roast thme until they get some nice bruning-marks.

3. Ad hing, tomatopaste and spcies and roast for one minute. Pour in the wine and half a litre of water.

4. Add konbu or dashi.

5.Cook the mixture for 10 minutes, cur down the heat to very low and ad the frozen tofu slices. Poach the slices for 20 minutes.

6. While the tofu is poaching mix all ingredients for the coated (not the breadcrumbs) with some water until it looks like a thin cakedough.

7. Spread each, the coating mixture and the breadcrum on one plate an spread ist nicely.

8. Take the cliced tofu out of your stockpot an try do dry the surfase with some papertowel.

9.Coat the sliced tofu with the coating and the breadcrumbs.

10.Deepfry the tofu-schnitzel on each side until they turn golden brown.

11. Defat the schitzel with some papertowels and you're done.


Bratkartoffeln (german panfried potatoes)

These poatoes called Bratkartoffeln are a tradional staple all over Germany. Everyone likes them and there are lots of recipes for them. Some traditional recipes call for thick cubes of bacon or want you to fry the potatoes in lard but I think, that even the most die-hard-german-omnivores around here would not use lard for these. If you want them to be a bit smoky you could at a bit of liquid somke oder some smoked paprika to them.

Ingredients:

2 hands of medium siced potatoes

2 medium siced oninions

2 tbs of canola oil

salt, pepper and some caraway seeds for seasoning


1. Boil the potatoes along with some salt for 20 minutes or less.

2. Drain the cooked poatoes thruogh a siff and let them cool down to room temperature. (You may want to cook them in advance of use some leftover potatoes to cook this dish in less time.)

3. Peel the cooked potatoes or leave them unpeeled and cut into medium thin slices ( 1 to 0.5 cm).

5. Peel the onions and cut them into very thin rings.

6. In a non-stick or cast-ironpan heat the oil and and the caraway.

7. Ad the slices potatoes an onionrings.

8. Fry until golden brown and try to turn them around as littel as you can because otherwise they may fall a part and you end op with some oily, crunchy,semyfried mashed potatoes and that's not what you want.

9. Season with salt and pepper and arrange one a plate.