The 100th post screams for CAKE PICTURES!

My best friend loved it!!! (And totally cracked up when I said the word "Seidentofu", ha ha ha! I love you Axl ♥)

She was recommending me to open up a vegan bakery in Prenzlauer Berg (an area where many 'alternative' people live... and therefore the area where most vegan Deli's in Berlin are located already), ha ha!



Next time I'll have to put the cake into a pretty cake box, because she was like "I totally would've believed you had you told me that you bought it somewhere."



I have to admit that this cake seriously was incredible. I'll make another one tonight for my dad because he was in Italy and I still owe him something for Father's Day. This time with chocolate mousse & cherries between the layers.



Yumm, I can't wait!

Cupcake Berlin, Baby Chocolate Cakes, Bulgur dishes & Salads

After days of being absent this is a very random post, just this and that!

First of all: Sunday... what a day!



After wanting to go there for at least three months my buddy & I finally managed to go to Cupcake Berlin.



While my friend chose a Cookies & Cream Cupcake I went with the vegan Raspberry Delight.



I savoured the lonely little raspberry and I could've eaten many more (had it been my call the frosting tops would've been loaded with as many as possible, ha ha)!



I'm not a very big fan of frosting. But that pink buttercream top looked too pretty! I ate half of the frosting because I couldn't stand the taste of margarine anymore at some point which is pretty much all it tasted like.
And Jennifer, look! They have awesome fancy vintage plates like you =D



He got another one with Peanut Butter frosting.



All in all we decided to go there again, soon! The texture of the cupcakes was so light and fluffy!!!

Afterwards we went to Café V, my friend's uncle's restaurant.
I had a mixed salad with grilled veggies (& yogurt-balsamic dressing, not vegan =( but I totally craved this salad... yet I was rather disappointed in myself and felt quite guilty afterwards). I couldn't even come close to finishing it. Doesn't look so big to you?



Well then check out my knees for comparison =p The plate was loaded with lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, grilled zucchini, eggplant & bell pepper, olives, shredded carrots and arugula.



But I have to admit that I ate lots of the incredible tomato-garlic bread they served, because this bread seriously just hits the spot!!



I took the salad leftovers with me, but gave it to a homeless guy on the subway.

Dinner yesterday was delicious - my mom cooked for me! Bulgur cooked in some broth, a tomato-veggie side dish she had left over (this was perfect!) and grilled zucchini, bell pepper and eggplant. I had soy yogurt as a replacement for sour cream and I am honestly still amazed by what a perfect substitute it is (as there is no vegan sour cream to be found around here)!



Iceberg & red lamb's lettuce, scallions, carrot, cucumber, tomatoes and mango.



My best friend came back from Arizona so I baked Vcon's Chocolate Cake again. This time without blueberries, but with raspberry preserves and banana slices between the layers and VCTOTW's chocolate mousse. I'll post pictures some time soon!

I saved about 1 cup of the batter, mixed in maybe 1/4 cup blueberries and tried out my new silicone mini tartlett thingy & made 3 muffin sized ones with the leftover batter.



I'm in love! I'll definitely get a muffin sized version of this, too!



Bananas with leftover chocolate mousse and cashews. Wow, that was delicious!



And another Pancake dinner!
This time I had Cocoa Blueberry Pancakes with maple syrup and bananas because I didn't have anything else.



Dinner a few days ago was bulgur mixed with sauteed onions, garlic, broccoli, orange bell pepper, zucchini and scallions.
Side dishes were baked beans (made them before) and mashed avocado with tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, garlic & lime juice.



We also had a salad of iceberg lettucce, red lamb's lettucce, cucumber, tomato, orange bell pepper, carrot, red onions and sweet corn on the side.



Have a great Thursday everyone! =)
I'll try to catch up with all your posts asap!

La-la-lunch

Boring post, just my lunch from yesterday snapped with my cell phone camera.

I'll post more interesting things after the weekend.
A hint: today's shopping will include getting a mini muffin pan and sunday we'll have a cupcake brunch here! They have vegan cupcakes, too! Weeee =D

Raspberry-Peach Smoothie, I love this one!



Rye bread with mustard, red lamb's lettucce, tomato, cucumber & orange bell pepper.



Yumm! Cheaper & healthier option compared to Subway (I knew I'd be in the mood for a Veggie Delight, but since they got my last two orders wrong - once with yogurt sauce instead of sweet onion & once with cheese - I don't think they deserve my money).



And HOORAYYYYY WE WON !!!!!
I honestly expected Germany to lose as everyone else around here did. So it was quite a nice late-night surprise! And to see them celebrating with their fans and jumping around with such joy (especially Podolski) oddly enough made me feel incredibly happy!

Cherry Chocolate Pancakes & Lentil-Veggie Lasagna

Yes, that brownblackish smear on the right one is indeed 85% dark chocolate oozing out of the pancake! And yes, I used cherries from a jar.

While watching France loose against Italy last night (I thought of you Romina and was like "I bet she's totally celebrating right now!" ha ha) I suddelny craved pancakes! I could totally identify myself with Ruby's statement from a while ago, he he!

"I can't stop making them - I'm obsessed. I can't control myself: I just wake up and my hands start making pancakes!!!"

They were delicious! The intense taste of the dark chocolate with the juicy and fruity cherries inbetween was a festival for my tastebuds!
I had them with raspberry jam (pictured) and maple syrup.
If you ever want to try them definitely go with the maple syrup as the tastes fit together perfectly!



I mixed together the following, aiming to get no more than two pancakes out of the batter as I wasn't actually very hungry.

Ingredients
makes 2 pancakes

important: I used a rather small Tbsp. (I used children's silverware, erm...)

3 Tbsp. water
4-5 Tbsp. soy milk (or any other milk)
1/2-1 Tbsp. apple sauce
1-2 Tbsp. agave syrup (sweeten to taste)
a few dashes of cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
5 Tbsp. flour (I used whole meal)
dash baking soda
pinch salt
1/2-1 cup cherries (I'm the kind of person who likes it best if there's more fruit than dough so I went with a cup)
cuple of small chocolate pieces (I used two and broke them into small pieces; chocolate chips would be the easiest way to go I guess but 1/4 cup costs about 1.50 here)


After work I went shopping. Look at how tiny the zucchini is!
Everytime I see something incredibly small version of a usually bigger item I buy it because I'm like "Aww look, it's a Lizzy-Zucchini!" as I'm only 5'2", ha ha!



I also found red lamb's lettuce which I've never heard of before. I'll make it tonight with nectarines and a raspberry-lime dressing I've been wanting to try, hence the raspberry jam and limes.



I didn't like this fruit bar too much as the coffee taste was rather wird... but luckily I had also purchased this fantastic dark chocolate that made my pancakes extra special!

As a snack I made myself a bowl of fruit: golden kiwi, watermelon and honeydew melon!



Later I reheated my last piece of Lasagna.
I had mixed together the leftover sauces from here with tomato purée and seasoned it with oregano, salt & pepper.
I also cooked a cup of red lentils and added them to the sauce. While the lentils were cooking I sautéed an orange bell pepper and 3 carrots cut into chunks. Everything was combined and filled into the Canneloni.
The rest was used as a filling for the Lasagna with additional frozen spinach inbetween the layers which was just perfect!
My mom, dad and boyfriend ate the Canneloni & the rest of the Lasagna as I had topped it with cheese for them (my mom's request). They enjoyed it a lot!
I was fine without it and enjoyed my piece with some soy yogurt sprinkled with a little pepper.

At first I thought I'd miss the white sauce, but turns out that the red lentils give the filling a creamy texture which was completely awesome! Lentils working in Lasagna, who would've thought?

Weekend Eats!

What do you get when you have no regular soy milk left to make breakfast with? That's right -- Latte Macchiato Oatmeal with Cherries, Banana, Nectarines and maple syrup!

Luckily the macchiato soy milk tasted fantastic in combination with the chosen fruit and syrup!



Raspberry Pancakes... OH SO GOOD! Especially with überdelicious strawberries and banana on the side!
This was quite a pancake weekend. I had these for breakfast on Sunday. Saturday I had carob blueberry pancakes again with lots and lots of honeymelon. They were gone before I could snap a picture!



Bulgur with a zucchini-tomato sauce - my mom cooked this so of course it was delicious (I love the typical mom's-seasoning-taste in her sauces)! This is also the first time I had bulgur and I must agree with everyone else that it tastes great!
I like it better than CousCous (here's an unknown fact about couscous... they didn't add the 2nd -cous until 1979! hahaha I laughed so long about this =p Friends lovers will get it) and will have to pick up a pack tonight.



Then at some point during the weekend I made Gazpacho.



And had it with the last chickpea cutlet, mustard-yogurt dip, red beets & cucumber.



And a Honeymelon-Kiwi Yogurt Smoothie with some flax meal I made - so yummy! I love the thickness of yogurt smoothies... I could've eaten this one with a spoon. I made another shake with honeymelon, kiwi, banana, strawberry and soy milk which was not so good. The soy milk made it taste way too sweet, the banana was pretty overpowering although it was the amount of no more than a Tbsp.! Oh well, I'll keep on experimenting nevertheless.



From my mom's leftover zucchini-tomato sauce & my leftover gazpacho I created the filling for Cannelonis and Lasagna. I forgot to copy the pics onto my USB-stick so I'll post about it tomorrow. Enjoy your day everyone!

Fruit Infusion, Black Bean Burger, Frozen Yogurt & Blueberry Chocolate Cake

Yesterday I enjoyed this colorful fruit medley consisting of strawberries, watermelon, nectarines, kiwis and apples throughout the day.



Started in the morning and put it on top of a delicious berry soy yogurt I recently bought. I also added half a banana... you can see the leftover half crying over the loss of her better half at my photo blog.



For lunch I reheated a black bean burger and had it with cucumber, tomato, avocado and lamb's lettucce drizzled with a mustard-agave-lime dressing and made some more mustard-yogurt dip because it was a rather dry burger. But still a very very satisfying yummy dish!



And for dessert I had fruit salad of course ;)



Oh and the berry soy yogurt I bought - I froze it! I need more of these ice things, IKEA carries them for 2 € so I'll have to make a stop there soon.
Then I'll be able to enjoy individually made frozen yogurts during the hot days, yay!!!



A few days ago I made Vcon's Lower-Fat Chocolate Bundt Cake, but added a cup of blueberries. The cake was extremly delicious. Very chocolatey, yet not at all sweet - just perfect!



I brought a few slices to work and they loved it! I brought more the next day because they kept fighting over the last crumbs, ha ha!

Raw Strawberry Banana Pie and Rosé Champagne

I love it when my dad gets alcohol as thank you gift from his patients, because my parents happily (most of the time) share it with me.
Yesterday I hung out on the balcony and drank this delicious rosé champagne with strawberries (talk about perfection) as my parents shared the raw pie (I've had mine the day before).



The "crust" consisted of ground almonds and agave syrup. I think I put in a little too much agave, but I want to give raw pie making another chance anyway, this time using more nuts and seeds for the crust (I only had ground almonds on hand).
I laid banana slices on top, spread them with a little mashed banana mixed with vanilla extract and topped it off with a layer of strawberry slices.
I've got to say that even though it wasn't mind blowing I'll definitely make more raw pies in the future and hopefully perfect the crust making soon. Nuts, seeds, fruit... what's not to love when all this combines to a delicious dessert?



On Saturday I made Canneloni following this recipe. Except I didn't follow it correctly because I missed something very important: adding 3 cups of water... whoops!
That said they came out a bit dry and very salty. My parents had it with crème fraîche and were totally happy with it (it was really salty so I guess they used quite a lot of crème fraîche to balance it out). I on the other hand poured some tomato puree over mine to reduce the saltiness a little.

And now here comes... the first time I used soy crisp and I have the following to say: it tastes pretty damn real, consistence and taste like wise.
My mom came home "Did you cook...? Nooo it can't be... but it smells like... did you cook meat?" Ha ha! And my boyfriend, a meat lover, also said that it tasted like the real deal, BUT he would've preferred vegetable Cannelonis. In no way did I ever expect to hear that from him, but hooray! Veggie ones it'll be next time. I think I'll use the leftover soy crisp next time I make Chili to give it more texture.

And I am very sorry that I'm totally behind commenting, but I'm so busy at the moment I really don't know where my head stands (German saying "Ich weiß nicht wo mir der Kopf steht"... probably something completely different in English -- just checked, translator says "I don't know whether I'm coming or going." sounds weird to me, but oh well) =p
I'll catch up on commenting as soon as I can!

I wish you all a great start into the new week =)
Don't melt away!!!

Meant to be.

I am convinced that nature's plan was from the beginning on to have people eat peanut butter and bananas together.



A few dashes of cinnamon and I was in snack heaven!
In that particular moment it was seriously better than any chocolate, cookies or cakes - and that's gotta mean something when I say it, ha ha.
So a big Hooray for finding a new favorite snack... I was set on thinking that I didn't like bananas that much and was an apple-girl, but I think this combination will have me buy bananas on a rather regular basis from now on =)

Carob Blueberry Pancakes = sweet & comforting dinner

Yesterday I had planned to roast some asparagus and have it with tzaziki and baked beans.
But the cupboards where the beans usually are were completely empty (seriously, not even a single jar was left) when I went into the store so I went to the other bio market and accidentally got white beans in tomato sauce - only to discover at home that they contain honey. Wtf? Honey in beans?

Anyway, I had the idea of making spring onion pancakes (I still must do this some time!), but I was actually craving something chocolate-y and sweet.
So I whipped up my own carob blueberry pancakes (I don't have ED&BV so I improvised and surprisingly made just enough batter for 3 perfect sized pancakes) and topped them with banana slices and nectarine chunks (it was so perfectly ripe & sweet, yumm!).



The other half banana was mashed (there were a few frozen blueberries left in the bowl hence the color) with a little agave syrup and vanilla extract.

A Crispy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie that deserves its praise!

Celine, you are the best!

For the first time last night I tried a cookie recipe that resulted in a crispy, not chewy, cookie.
I LIVE FOR CRISPY COOKIES =D
Chewy ones are nice, but I remember having my first American chocolate chip cookie and thinking "Are they kidding me? The cookie is almost raw!" German cookies are rock hard, so I was really surprised, ha ha!
Come to think of it, maybe this cookie was supposed to turn out chewy and I simply used too little maple syrup!?



Ruby's picture totally caught my attention and I had been eyeing Celine's cookie recipes for a while now, I just couldn't decide which one to try.
But after I read what Ruby had to say, I knew I had to make it.

[...] the peanut butter cookie from the Chicago Diner. It's one of the most astoundingly tasty cookies/desserts I've ever had, and Celine's cookies taste just like them. Only Celine's version has chocolate chips, which translates to an even better cookie.

Sadly the bottom was burned. I tried scraping it off at first, but then thought screw it and happily gobbled it up. And the recipe results in 2 big cookies which is just perfect - the other one's waiting at home to comfort me after work!

I also had some of my mom's nut muesli and pimped it with chunks of mango, nectarine, kiwi (all covered up sadly) and banana slices. Then I added a few Tbsp. soy yogurt, mixed it with a squirt of agave syrup and topped it off with unsweetened apple sauce, a few raisins, almonds and flaxmeal. Delicious!!!



Work is crazy today, I can't wait to get home, relax and comment on your posts.
Have a nice day everyone!