Sweet Peanut and Coconut Curry

I really love fruits in curries. Especially bananas. I love cooked bananas. And allthough I like hot and savoury curries, sometimes it has to be more sweet for me. Yesterday I combined the fruits and vegetables I had left to one sweet yet savoury dinner with rice.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 can of coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons of peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon of agave nectar (If you don´t like sweeter dishes, skip this part)
• 1 banana
• 1-2 spring onions
• vegetables of your choice. I used two hands of spinach, 1/2 bell pepper and a few cherry tomatos
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon of curry powder or curry paste (if you like it a little spicier.)

Directions:

1. Cut your spring onion in thin rings and put them in a pan, you´ve put on medium to high heat
2. Fry them for around one minute, then add the coconut milk.
3. Put in the peanut butter and the agave nectar and stir it. Turn the heat down, so your sauce is only simmering. 
4. Add all your spices to match your own preferences.
5. Finally add your cut up vegetables banana. Stir it. Turn the heat down and wait for a few minutes, so your vegetables can heat up and everything combines.
6. Serve your curry with some cooked rice. Enjoy it. 

Enjoy your meal.

My dental care

I started my morning today by watching youtube videos (as I do waaay to often). And when I found the new video from Whitney Lauritsen or EcoVeganGal, that was about the products, she uses for dental hygiene, I felt very inspired, to write about this topic myself.

As a matter of fact, I had been going to the dentist yesterday. The doctor was pleased by my hygiene but she recommended me, to take out my wires. I don´t know, whether this technique is used outside of Germany, but when I got my braces out, they glued wires behind my front teeth. One on the top and one of the bottom. It should keep the teeth from moving out of shape again. I wore those wires for around five years, which was kind of annoying and I probably had worn them longer, if my dentist hadn´t told me, that it was probably better to be able to use floss witch my teeth than having just the possibility of slightly moving teeth, so she removed the wires for me. Since then I have a weird feeling on my teeth, I feel like there is a pressure, that they are moving a little, but I don´t think, they will go back into their original place. I also recognized, that the backside of my teeth is now very sensitive for cold water or air and will get painfull very quickly. I hope, that this will stop soon as well...

But enough for my backstory in ... teeth. I want to tell you in this post, what I use, to brush and clean my teeth and mouth area and what products I can recommend you. It´s not going to be a very long list, because I am at most times too lazy to use the products, that are the better option for the environment, because we don´t have that many different products in our stores and if you don´t live near a bigger city, you would have to order it online. But maybe I can inspire you, to use better products, than I do. 

My toothbrush

I use a toothbrush from the brand Hydrophil. You can check out their website here: http://www.hydrophil.biz/ (but it is in German). The toothbrushes are made out of bamboo and nylon. It´s BPA-free and vegan. I like the feeling of this brush a lot and after you have used it for some time, you can bury it in the ground and it will decompose after some time. I also like it, that it is quite cheap. You pay around 4€ for one toothbrush. And I also want to mention, that the brand Hydrophil supports vivaconagua: http://www.vivaconagua.co.uk/

Dentalfloss

This part goes very short, because I don´t frequently use it. Until yesterday, I hadn´t the chance to use it with most of my teeth, but I´m looking for a vegan version. I´m going to update this post, when I find a product, I would recommend.

Toothpaste

For toothpaste I have usually two options. On one hand I regularly buy ordinary toothpaste that has no fluorid in it, because I don´t want this in my mouth. On the other hand, those toothpastes have propably other ingredients I don´t want as well. My other option are LUSHs toothy tabs. They are vegan and come in a paper packaging. They have many different flavors, some I don´t like at all (the rose version for example) but some are really great. And the package lasts quite long, because you don´t need one whole tablet for one brushing session.

Mouthwash

Again for mouthwash, I have no product, I would recommend. Until now, I  would only use mouthwash, when I am ill in the moutharea, whether it is a cold or an inflammation. But as a mouthwater I would always use a strong tea, either peppermint tea or chamomile tea.

Since this post is inspired by a youtube video, I am going to leave the link here. Check it out, if you want to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rmLdAb3iX0

That´s it for me. What products are you using? 

Lots of love!

Spinach and Cheese Sauce

When I was younger and still eating dairy and meat, one of my favourite dinner option was spaghetti with a sauce made of spinach, cream, parmesan cheese and lots of garlic. Lately I wanted to recreate this dish in a way that would use way less fat. Therefore I am not going to use soy cream, but if you want to, you can surely do this.

Ingredients:

• 100g fresh baby spinach leaves
• 200-300ml almond milk
• 3 slices of vegan cheese (you can use shredded cheese, probably one hand full)
• 2-3 gloves of garlic
• 2 teaspoons of corn starch mixed with a few tablespoons of water
• nutmeg
• lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Cut your spinach and finely chop your garlic
2. Heat your almond milk in a pot and melt your cheese in it
3. When the cheese is melted, stir the mixture and thicken it up with the corn starch mixture.
4. Season everything with the garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg, some lemon juice and salt & pepper.
5. Add the spinach and stir everything again,
6. Serve it with some of your favourite pasta

Enjoy your meal.

Mousse au Chocolat

Whenever I need a decadent and impressive dessert, I go for Mousse au Chocolat. Everybody loves chocolate and this version is very tasty. It´s also very easy and quick to prepare.

Ingredients:

• 400g silken tofu
• 200g of your favourite vegan chocolate. I used one with 50% cacao.
• 1 teaspoon  of vanilla extract (optional)

Directions:

1. Heat your chocolate in a bain-marie until it is liquid. Then set it aside to let it cool a little.
2. Use a food processor to blend your silken tofu. Now is the time to add the vanilla. 
3. Add your melted chocolate to the tofu. If you want it to be a smooth mousse, blend it again for a few seconds. If you want little crunchy pieces of chocolate in your mousse, just stir it in with a spatula. (I prefer the second way.)
4. Now fill you mixture into a bowl or in glasses and let everything cool for at least two hours.

Enjoy your meal.

Scrambled Tofu

Although I prefer a sweet breakfast on most mornings, sometimes I am craving for something savory. For a long time, I would make scrambled tofu, that didn´t taste like eggs at all. But then I discovered the awesome salt Kala Namak, which gives everything a very egglike taste. My way of preparing the tofu is inspired by the way shown in a video from The Vegan Zombie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBJY9rs5zWk

If you don´t know this Channel, I highly recommend you, to check it out. They have a ton of amazing vegan recipes online.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 block of tofu, Crumble
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of powdered eggreplacer mixed with water. 
• optional: vegetables like onions, bell peppers or spinach
• spices: kala namak salt, pepper, turmeric, paprika

The vegan eggreplacer I use is MyEy: 

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00JNTRNSG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1638&creative=19454&creativeASIN=B00JNTRNSG&linkCode=as2&tag=aveganmindblo-21&linkId=XTTJC73QZ2X3X2WJ

Directions:

1. Cut half of your tofu in bigger pieces and crumble the rest with your hands or a fork
2. Heat the oliveoil in a pan on high heat and add the bigger slices of your tofu
3. Fry them on both sides, till they are slightly brown. Then add the crumbled tofu.
4. Add your vegetables now, if you want to use them. 
5. Mix your eggreplacer with the right amount of water and add your spices to it. Most important is the Kala Namak salt, because, it gives your "egg" the typical taste.
6. Add the liquid mixture to your tofu, stir it and let everything heat up.
7. Serve it with toast or whatever you prefer.

Enjoy your meal.

Green Asparagus And Mushroom Risotto

Yesterday I had a whole bunch of green asparagus left but I didn´t knew, what to do with it. I was prefering something without pasta, because I already had a lot of it this week, so I was looking for anything different. Google was a friend because after a few clicks and searches, I found the following recipe from one green planet: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-recipe/mushroom-and-asparagus-risotto/

It´s a vegan risotto and after I slightly adapted this recipe to my own preferences, a got a very tasty meal out of it.

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of green asparagus
• 250g of mushrooms, cut into big pieces. I used king oyster mushrooms
• 1 medium onion
• 1 or more gloves of garlic
• 1 cup of round grain rice 
• 2-3 teaspoons of thyme
• the juice of one lemon
• around 4 cups of vegetable broth
• 3 Tablespoons of nutritional yeast
• Salt and pepper to taste
• optional: one hand of shredded vegan cheese and fresh spinach

Directions:

1. Cut off the wooden ends of your asparagus, then cut it into 2 inch pieces.
2. Cut your onion and the garlic into smal dices.
3. Take a big pot and put in on high heat.
4. Add your vegetables and let them roast for around 5 minutes. 
5. (OPTIONAL) Take out your asparagus and leave it on the side, because otherwise you will be left with a very overcooked vegetable in your risotto
6. Add your rice and the thyme, stirr it for a few minutes. Then turn the heat to medium and then add the first bit of your broth.
7. Under frequent stirring, add your broth little by little. Always wait until your rice has soaked the water completely.
8. After around 30 minutes, you can add your final ingredients following your own taste buds. And don´t foreget, to add your asparagus again, if you´d set it aside.
9. I think, the vegan cheese makes the risotto very creamy but you can surely leave it. On this point you can also add some fresh spinach.
10. This risotto works best, when it´s served immediately, so it is still creamy.

Enjoy your meal

Carbonara Sauce

A good vegan carbonara sauce is probably my favourite when it comes to pasta. I love it´s creamyness and the savory crunchy tofu. Sadly it includes quite a bit fat and since I think, that it´s best for me, when I avoid fat as much as I can, I don´t eat it as often, as I wish I could. Nevertheless, it´s very delicious and I highly recommend you, to try it out. As usually, you can easily adapt this recipe, simply by using different spices and herbs. I tried to make this version very light, so that it would match the warm sunny weather.

Ingredients:

• 1 block of smoked tofu -> I prefer one that has a very stong salty and smoky taste
• 1 medium onion
• 1-2 gloves of garlic
• 150 ml of soy cream (or any other vegan cream alternative)
• ~150 ml of vegan milk of your choice. I usually go for almond milk.
• Salt to taste
• freshly ground pepper
• parsley (at least three tablespoons)
• the zest and the juice of one organic lemon, to give everything a fresh taste

Directions:

1. Take your block of tofu and cut it into small cubes.
2. Take your onions and your garlic and cut it into small pieces. 
3. Take a small to medium sized pan and heat it on high heat. If you want to, you can add a little bit of olive oil.
4. Fry your tofu in the pan until it´s brown and slightly crunchy.
5. Add onions and garlic and turn the heat to low heat. Stir it frequently for around two minutes.
6. Now add the lemon juice and the zest, stir it and add the cream and the milk. 
7. Turn off the heat and add the parsley and the salt.
8. Serve the sauce with your favourite pasta (I used angel hair pasta) and add the freshly ground pepper on top. You may decorate your dish with green asparagus, since it goes very great with the taste of it. 

Enjoy your meal and tell me, whether you´d liked it.

German "Matjes"

Today, I want to show you, how to make "fish" out of eggplants. I´m going to show you, how to make a german meal called "Matjes". This is a matie filet marinaded in a cream sauce with onions, apples and pickles. If you use the eggplant the way, I will show you, it will taste almost exactly like the original and very fishy. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a similar recipe out of the cookbook "Vegan. Tut gut - schmeckt gut" made by the german vegan chef Jerome Eckmeier. (If you click on the title, you will be linked to the amazon page.)

Ingredients:

2 eggplants (use longer and thinner ones)
Salt
1 medium onion
1 big apple
pickles (gherkin) out of a glass (you will use the water of it as well)
250g soy yoghurt
100ml soy cream
dill
salt and pepper
1 nori sheet
vinegar
sugar


Directions:

At first, take your eggplants, cut off the top and cut them lengthwise in 5mm thick shives. Salt those to let the water get out. Wait a while and then use paper towels to dry your eggplants, before you cook them in salted water for five minutes. For the marinade, mix the yoghurt with the cream. Add 3 tablespoons of dill. Cut your onion into stripes and crush them a little with your hands to make them a little less harsh in taste. Cut your apple and 3-6 (maybe more) pickles into small pieces and mix everything together with the marinade. Now take your cooked eggplant sheets and dry them well with paper towels. Now cut off the skin of the eggplants, so you are left with a very soft inside piece of the eggplant that already reminds one of fishfilet. Now you need to season your marinade with salt and pepper and sugar, till you reach the point were you like it. Then mix in 1-2 Tablespoons of vinegar and then add the water from the pickles. Be careful, because it is very sour. But I ended up having at least half of the water mixed inside my marinade. Cut your nori sheet into very small pieces and add it to your sauce. It will give it a very fishy taste. Now put in your eggplant fish and cover them in your sauce. Cover everything up and leave it in the fridge for at least 2 hours, best over night. This meal tastes best, when served with potatoes.

Enjoy your meal!

Geeky Food: Game of Thrones inspired Lemon Cakes

I bet, if you had the chance, you´ve watched the season premiere of Game of Thrones. Sadly, I´m in Germany and I didn´t have the possibility. Instead I thought of making the famous lemon cakes to please myself and I hope you like the recipe.

Besides, I decided to make this a series, because if I´m honest, I love recreating food from TV Shows or movies, whether it is this lemon cake or for example the Ratatouille from the Disney movie. I hope, you are interested in this kind of recipes, as well. You´re gonna get them anyway ;)

The cakes turned out not only delicious because of their bitter-sweet lemony flavour but very pretty as well.

Ingredients:

250g flour
150g sugar
150ml soymilk
2 teaspoons baking powder
12g lemon zests
20ml oil
the juice of one lemon
1 pinch of salt
2 tablespoons soyyoghurt
1 whole organic lemon
fat and sugar to grease and cover the form

Directions:

At first you have to take your muffin tray (I used one for 12 muffins) and grease the forms. Than add some sugar and spread it in the forms. Take your organic lemon and cut very thin slices (you have to make the slices as thin as possible, so you can eat them), you put inside the individual muffin forms. Now take a bowl and mix all the dry ingredients together. Take another bowl and mix the wet ingredients excluded the yoghurt. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together and stir it, until you have a batter without lumps. Finally add the soy yoghurt and spread the batter in the muffin forms. Bake everything on 180°C or 360°F for 20-30 minutes.
Let everything cool down completely, till you take it out of the forms. The lemon cakes can be served perfectly with powdered sugar.

Enjoy your meal!

Leftover creations: Hawaiian Quesadillas

This new series, I want to start, will be named leftover creations. On here, I want to share recipes, which aren´t ones that I regularly cook or eat, but things I create mostly by the end of the week, using all the ingredients that have been left. Therefore these creations might seem a little weird from time to time, but be sure, I won´t share a recipe, that I haven´t eaten myself.
This particular recipe is based on a huge craving for hawaii toast (is this a thing outside of Germany? It´s basically a toast with a slice of ham, a slice of pineapple and baked in the oven with cheese). But since I had a lot of unused tortillas left and not so much vegan cheese, the idea of a quesadilla came to me. I hope, you like the recipe.

Ingredients:

2-4  wheat or corn tortillas (you need an even number)

canned or fresh pineapple (leftovers will sure be enough)

smoked tofu
to marinade the tofu, you need:
soysauce
lemonjuice (or lime juice. Almost every sour liquid will do the job)
hoisin sauce -> I love this stuff. I bought it lately on amazon. You can check it out, if you follow this link: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0050O7MAW/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1638&creative=19454&creativeASIN=B0050O7MAW&linkCode=as2&tag=aveganmindblo-21&linkId=UQPABJMZ24TGQO6W (I´m really sure, that this is a vegan one, since the E numbers appear safe, but feel free to correct me)

vegan cheese (I only had one slice left, so I made a sauce out of it)
For the cheese sauce:
200ml of almond milk
1/2 cup of nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon of oregano and 1 tablespoon of parsley
1-2 Tablespoons of cornstarch
Salt and pepper to taste


Directions:

First take a small pot and mix the almond milk with the cornstarch. Turn on the heat to high, add the vegan cheese and let everything first melt and then thicken up. When its done, add the yeast, the oregano and the parsley and set everything aside. Take a pan and turn on the heat. Chop your tofu to flat chunks on a size you prefer. I used 2x3cm pieces (kind of) and added them to the pan. Add all the sauces and fry it in the marinade (not the cheese sauce! I´m talking about hoisin and soy sauce as well as your lemon juice. This process takes only a few minutes. Make sure nothing burns. Then take your tortillas. Spread the cheese sauce on one of them. Add the pineapple chunks and the tofu and top it with another tortilla. Put your Quesadilla in a big pan and fry it on each side for several minutes until it´s crunchy but not burned. You can use a dish, to flip it, without destroying your quesadillas.
It turned out especially tasty, so give it a try and

Enjoy your meal!

All time favourites: Chili

Especially when the days are still a little cold and I am craving a hearty dish, I go for my version of a vegan Chili. Most vegan Chilis go for a meat substitutes, such as tofu. As I like my Chili lighter and a little more fresh, I won´t use any substitutes wheather they are soy- or wheatbased. Instead I go for a variation of beans and different spices. 

Ingredients:

1 can of crushed tomatoes

1-2 cans of different beans (I used kidney beans and black beans, but chickpeas work great as well)

1-2 bell peppers (I usually go for the orange or yellow ones, since I like them more. But you could use, whatever you want)

1 onion

1-2 gloves of garlic

1 lemon

Cumin, Paprika, Thyme and Coriander (I would use a pinch of cumin and at least half a teaspoon of everything else)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 tablespoon oliveoil

Directions:

Add first you have to finely chop your onion and the garlic. Then heat the oliveoil in a pot and fry the onion, until it´s slightly translucent. Next you add the garlic, stir everything for about 30 seconds, and add all the spices. Stir for another few seconds, then put in the beans and the crushed tomatoes. You need to turn down the heat and let everything simmer for at least ten minutes. Use the time, to get the juice and the zest from your lemon and cook yourself some rice, to eat with your chili. When your chili has cooked properly, you can add salt and pepper to taste and finally add the lemon juice and the lemon zest.

With the lemony taste, the chili gets a really fresh flavour, which totally matches with the spring wheather. The chili also tastes great when it´s cooled down or when you heat it up the following day. To give everything an even more special touch, I would try to add some mint.

Enjoy your meal!

Veganize it! Twix

In the series "Veganize it", I plan on making a vegan version of commonly known unvegan foods. This time I tried veganizing the Twix bar. For those, who don´t know this product: it is basically a stripe of light cookie, topped with caramel and covered in chocolate.

Ingedients:

For the dough:
150g flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
50g vegan butter
4-6 tablespoons of water
1 pinch of salt
(I originally added 60g sugar, but it turned out way too sweet. If you love very sweet foods, you could add sugar, but the bar will turn out sweet enough just because of the caramel and the chocolate.)

For the caramel:
8 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of agave nectar (you could add maple syrup instead or just leave it)
6 tablespoons of soy cream
3 tablespoons of vegan butter

finally a lot of chocolate (at least 200g) so you have enough to cover everything.


Directions:

At first you have to mix all the dry ingedients for your cookie part very well, then add the butter and start kneading. Slowly add the water, until you have a perfect dough. Leave it covered in the frigde to rest for at least 30 minutes.
Then you have to put it in a form which must be baking save. It is best, it you get a already rectangular shape and your dough isn´t thicker than 5mm. (mine was way too thick) Bake it in the oven for 20-30 minutes (or until it is done) on 180°C or 360°F. Then leave it to cool completely.

For the caramel, you have to add all the ingredients in a cooking pan and stir it on high heat. After a while, everything starts getting darker and when you have reached a golden brown caramely color, your caramel is done and you can add it on the cooled cookiepart. (don´t forget to stir the caramel the whole time, while heating it!) Leave the caramel topped cookie part cool completely again. Finally cut it into parts (you could use a regular twix, to get the size right). Melt the vegan chocolate and cover your vegan twix in it. Leave it to cool again and it is ready, to be eaten. It is a great gift as well!

I hope, you enjoy making this. Tell me what foods you want to see veganized.


















Me veganizing well known unvegan things like twix

All time favourites: Thai Curry Soup

Today I want to share one of my favourite recipes with you. I like it so much, I could eat it everyday and would never get tired of it. It´s probably not even close to real thai curries, but since one always has the oportunity the increase the spicyness or adapt the recipe otherwise, I will share it anyway.

Ingredients:

150g rice noodles
1 can of coconutmilk
1 can of chickpeas
2 (or more) teaspoons of red thai curry paste
2-3 gloves of garlic
1 small piece of ginger
the juice of 1-2 limes (I like it very... limy?)
about 2 tablespoons of agave nectar (or the sweetener you personally like the best)
Salt and pepper to taste

For the vegetables in it, you´re free to use, what you prefer. I would always go for spinach. In this case, I also used sugar snaps and tofu (which isn´t exactly a vegetable). Other great options are bell peppers or carrots.


Direction:
For this soup I pretty much just throw everything in one pot. The only exception are the rice noodles, which soak in hot water, until they are done. In a large pot, I put the coconutmilk, the chickpeas, the curry paste, the minced garlic and ginger and all the frozen vegetables (if used). Simmer this on medium to low heat, for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables are defrosted. Now throw in the other vegetables and add the lime juice, the agave nectar and salt and pepper. To serve it, use a bowl and add some of the noodles at first. Then top it with the soup. If the soup turns out too thick, add some water. Serve everything hot.

If you try this at home, please tell me, which vegetables you used and whether you liked it. :)

Enjoy your meal!

Milkalternatives - too many options?

Sometimes, as I wandered around at the supermarket shelves, I got quite lost according to the huge offering of milk alternatives. For that reason, I want to use this post, to tell you about my favourite milk alternatives, what I use them for and why I don´t like some of the others.

Nearly every big supermarket has plenty of different options to buy vegan milk. Today I want to talk about the most common ones and my experiences on them.

Soymilk is probably the most known milk alternative and I have used it for a long time. I think concerning the texture of the milk it gets quite close to cow milk. But in most cases it has a very strong soy taste. Because of this I stopped using it. Another reason is, that I usually use soy cheese and soy yoghurt, not to forget tofu but I wanted to decrease my soy intake.

Instead I usually use almondmilk. Almondmilk tastes pretty much like almonds. I prefer it, because I like this taste a lot and I think you can use it for sweet recipes as well as for example the base of pasta sauces. The only disadvantage is the price, because in Germany it costs more than twice as much as regular soy milk.

A milkalternative that I only use on occassion is hazelnutmilk. I would reccomend to only use it for sweet recipes. But for those I like it even more than almond milk. It gives treats like hot chocolate a very special touch. The reason I more likely buy almond milk is, that I can use it for more recipes.

Ricemilk was the first alternative I ever tried. I really didn´t like it at all. This kind of milk tasted very watery and not good at all. In some stores they would sell a mixture of soy- and ricemilk which wasn´t good eather. If you like the taste of ricemilk, it is very good, because you can get it for a pretty low cost.

I like oatmilk a lot. I like the taste and the  texture. The only problem is, that you can´t get it in every supermarket in Germany. But when I can get it, I usually buy it. As almondmilk you can use it for sweet and savory meals. Still I want to warn you because I have heard from other vegans, that some of them think, oatmeal tastes like straw. If you like the taste of oats and oatmeal, you will most likely like it and in my opinion, oatmilk is the easiest milk to make it yourself at home.

Speltmilk doesn´t belong to my favourites, as well. I don´t like the taste and therefore I don´t buy it. 

The last one I want to talk about is coconutmilk. But I don´t mean the fatty canned one (don´t get me wrong, I love this one, but I prefer it in curries and not in my cereal). I am talking about the lower fat ones, like the one you can get from alpro. You can check it out here:

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00KLIIDPA/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1638&creative=19454&creativeASIN=B00KLIIDPA&linkCode=as2&tag=aveganmindblo-21&linkId=WPRVL6L3LLSJ7M52

It is not as aromatic as the canned coconutmilk, but I really like this one. Especially for asian dishes in which I don´t want to use as much fat. But it can also give your breakfast cereal that special touch. But I don´t like it as my everyday milkalternative, because it has quite a strong taste in comparison.

I hope you got an overview on the varieties of vegan milk. Tell me which ones you use and whether you know any other types.

Lots of love!

All time favourites: Bolognese

In this series I am going to show you recipes that I make at least twice a month because I just love them. This version of vegan bolognese is not the most usual one. I like to switch the vegetables once in a while, so you could use onions instead of the bell pepper. To make everything more unique, I used the pine nuts, which gave the meal a special nutty flavor.

Ingredients:

1 block of tofu with nuts (or smoked tofu)
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 red bellpepper
2-3 gloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of Tomatopaste
5 tablespoons of pine nuts
the juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon of oregano and thyme
soy sauce
hoisin sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil






Directions:

Start by preparing your ingredients. At first you need to slice your bell pepper in cubes and mince your garlic. Then you have to use a fork to break the block of tofu. Heat your pan with the olive oil on high heat and fry tofu, bell pepper and garlic. When everything is browned nicely, add the pine nuts. After a while you can add the juice of half a lemon, the hoisin and soy sauces and the tomatopaste. Mix everything well and finally add the crushed tomatoes. Let everything simmer on low heat for about ten minutes. You can use this time to cook your pasta according to the directions on the packaging. If your sauce turns out a little to dry, add some water. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve it hot. The sauce will  last for 2-3 medium portions of pasta. You could also add some nutritional yeast.

Enjoy your meal!

Vegan kickstarter

I want to start a series called "vegan kickstarter". Under this headline, I am going to help all those people who are struggling on the beginning of there vegan journey. For the first post, I am going to tell you my story. See what phases made me struggling myself and what helped me threw it. I am also going to tell you, what made me a vegan in the first place. 

An unexpected journey

When I thought about what to post at first, it soon came to me that I might start at the beginning of my vegan journey. It must have been around the years 2010/2011... I struggled with my weight (as always) and was reading different kinds of weight-loss advising books. One of them was "Skinny Bitch"  and when I bought it, I couldn´t have expected the influence it would have on my life. When I bought it, I didn´t even know it was about veganism but since I read a lot of things and try diffent stuff every once in a while I gave it a try. And it shocked me. I am not going to bore you with the details but I can say, that I had never thougt about the way our food harms not only animals but the environment before. From one day to the other I turned vegan.

Detoxication

For the following days I got very sick. I struggled so hard with headackes and nausea, from sweating and freezing, that I almost gave up after a few days. But when I had reached the climax of this detoxing and my mood started to lighten up, I began to feel the change. I felt not only lighter, but much better. From that day I had never suffered from headaches again, my skin got clearer and I lost a few pounds without eating less. This whole process helped me to continue.

Nothing to eat...

When my sickness had finally passed, it left a very clueless and hungry girl. I knew a lot of things that I wouldn´t eat anymore and nearly nothing I could. Sure there were vegetables and fruits which I loved more every day, but there were so many things that I dearly missed. There was icecream and creamy pasta sauces. I wanted to eat something that I could dip in ketchup! I had no chocolate, no milk, no everything. I would cut out the stuff I didn´t want to eat from the things my mother bought and cooked and eat the things that were left. After a few weeks of this kind of abstinence, it came to me that I probably wasn´t the only vegan in this world and there was other food I could try.

Show me the world

I stumbled across vegan recipe blogs and it left me speechless. The food they were showing wasn´t boring and it was definitely more than my diet of potatos and carrots. On my next food-shopping trip, I saw everything from a different point of view. I found vegan milk, vegan cream, vegan chocolate. I discovered tofu and all the different kinds of meat substitutes. And I finally recognized that many things that I thought weren´t vegan, were vegan all the time. There was fruity icecrem, pasta, bread and the list goes on. 

Watching everything grow

On this day, I am happier to be vegan than ever. The offering of vegan products is bigger than ever and I barely know one market that wouldn´t at least sell soy milk. And in bigger stores the variety is just overwhelming so one can buy nut milks and vegan cheese. We have meat substitutes in every imaginable form and it´s growing every day.

Veganism is not about abandonment, it´s about abundance!

If you have any questions or suggestions for this series, feel free to write them in the comments below.

Lots of love!

Hello world.

Since this is the first post on this blog, I am going to take the chance to introduce myself and tell you something about the future of this blog. My name is Larissa and I`m from Germany. Because English is only my second language, I´m probably going to make a ton of mistakes, so always feel free to correct me. A vegan mind is a project, which I wanted to start for a long time. I wanted to build a site, on which I could share all my collected experiences with the vegan lifestyle and help other people out. This will hopefully be a place to inspire you.

What can you expect from me? I plan to show my favourite recipes and share tipps that help when you are just starting with eating vegan. But I won´t limit the content of this blog to deal simply with veganism. It will always be a huge part of my life but surely not the only one. Lately minimalism and organization are getting more and more important in my life as I have recognized what a big influence some tiny differences have on me. And as a student of arthistory I am very interested in all kinds of arts as well. But this should be enough of my interests for now. 

I think that the main message you should take from these words is, that you can expect diffent kinds of content from me on this site but mainly it will be related to veganism. 

If you want to contact me, feel free to use the comments. If you subscribe on the site you will also get an e-mail reminder if I make a new post, so you won´t miss it. 

If you want to follow me on other social media platforms, feel free to do so.

My instagram account is: 1veganmind

But I plan to start youtube and twitter in the near future so make sure to check out "a vegan mind" on there as well. I will link those accounts as soon as I am frequently using them.

I hope you will accompany me on my journey with this blog and I would love to hear your feedback.

Lots of love!