This recipe was inspired by Susan’s seitan stew. I used her method of cooking the seitan directly in the soup. It saves time and makes the seitan itself very tender. Adding seitan to this dish makes it very filling. Don’t forget to add some lemon, it takes away the sweetness of the pumpkin, if you like your pumpkin savoury like me.

Curried Pumpkin Soup with White Wine and Seitan

For the soup:
1 t oil of your choice
3 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
850 g (~ 7 1/2 cups 1 inch cubes) chopped pumpkin
1 cup white wine (or vegetable broth)
4 cups vegetable broth
1 T curry powder of your choice (I used a mild version)
1 t smoked sweet paprika
freshly ground pepper and additional salt to taste
cook for 15 minutes

For the seitan:

144 g gluten powder (vital wheat gluten)
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t onion powder
1 t salt
1 t smoked sweet paprika
1 t liquid smoke
180 ml (3/4 cup) water
cook for 40 minutes

Additional seasonings for each bowl:
1/2 T fresh lemon juice
1 t liquid smoke or chipotle sauce
fresh basil

To make the soup:

Heat oil in a large pot. Add onion and garlic and cook for five minutes, stirring. Add bell pepper and cook two minutes. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.Cook for 15 minutes until the pumpkin is tender.

While the soup is cooking, prepare the seitan:

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add liquid smoke and water and mix with your hands until a dough forms. Knead for five minutes. Place the dough on a cutting board and cut into 1/2 inch cubes. Set aside.

Purée the soup with a handheld blender until smooth. Add seitan and bring back to boil. Simmer for 30-35 minutes until the seitan is done. Ladle soup into bowls and add 1/2 T fresh lemon juice per bowl and 1 t of liquid smoke or chipotle sauce. Garnish with fresh herbs such as basil and serve immediately.

If you have leftover pumpkin, you can use it to make Nicole’s pumpkin chili:

I added 2 cups of vegetable broth, 1 T of chipotle sauce, 1 T oregano, 1 additional t of cumin, and used kidney beans instead of black beans. What a great autumn coloured stew!

I love gluten. Bread is an important staple in most German households. I grew up eating Brötchen (crispy wheat rolls) for breakfast and a few slices of Mischbrot (a 60 % wheat 40% rye bread found in almost every bakery) for dinner every single day for most of my life. When I moved out of my parent’s place, I substituted whole meal breads for the Brötchen but that was all. When I went vegan, I started eating oatmeal for breakfast and a warm meal for dinner. But we still had bread around to eat on a daily basis.
Since I bake my own bread, I know how important gluten is for giving my bread structure and texture. I have never seen something bad in gluten.
But I know that there are people with gluten intolerance and people who avoid gluten for other reasons. And I am thankful that you still read my blog even though it is overflowing with bread recipes and other things made from ordinary wheat, spelt, and rye flour.

Well, today I have a recipe for you. I had a lot of fun making gluten-free muffins from scratch. I have both a flour mill and a coffee grinder and tons of grains sitting around. I started by milling some amaranth grains in my coffee grinder. Then I started looking for a homemade gluten-free flour mix, which I found here. I made the following changes to it:

2 brown cups rice flour (I made my own from brown rice)
2/3 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup amaranth flour (I made my own, you can substitute quinoa flour, almond flour, or tapioca starch, as Nava Atlas suggests in her original recipe)
1 teaspoon guar gum

After I had my gluten-free flour ready, I chose a muffin recipe from vegalicious as a base and adapted it a bit. When mixing the muffin batter I realized that my gluten-free version was stiffer than regular muffin batter.  So I added some more liquid. I also increased the sugar and the amount of poppy seeds. I was really curious about the outcome of this baking project. After the muffins were cooled down, I couldn’t wait any longer and took a bite. I could taste a bit of the rice flour but that was the only difference from regular muffins I noticed. These were fluffy and delicious and they tasted good even the next day, although they were a bit more dry. They are only slightly sweet and perfect for a gluten-free breakfast.

Gluten-free Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins (adapted from this recipe)
makes 6 muffins

1 cup gluten-free flour mix (see above)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons crushed poppy seed
1 T soy flour [you can use chickpea flour]
7 T soy milk
2 T lemon juice
1/2 t grated lemon zest
2 T coconut oil, melted [you can use margarine]

Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F. Line a muffin pan or grease it.

In a bowl mix flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, poppy seeds, and soy flour. Stir in remaining ingredients. Mix well until no lumps remain. Pur into prepared baking thins. bake for 15 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.

P.S. This was the perfect opportunity to show off my fantastic little coffee maker, which I bought in Portugal at a gorgeous little coffee shop (Casa Pereira, 38 Rua Garrett, Lisboa). It is very handy if you are the only coffee drinker in the family.

October was a busy month for me. I couldn’t spend as much time online reading other people’s fantastic blogs and commenting on their great recipes and pictures as I would have liked. Sometimes I didn’t even get to my google reader. I admit that I had to schedule a large number of my MoFo posts and most of them were shorter than usual. But I made it to ever 20 posts, so mission accomplished!

Whenever I had the time, I browsed my overflowing reader and admired what others came up with during this month of food. I found some great new blogs and my recipe folder is filled with many new amazing recipes I have to try.

And it seems that many new readers found my blog through Vegan MoFo. Thank you everyone who read my posts and everyone who took the time to leave a comment!

I also want to thank a very special person who send me a wonderful package. Meg of  The Sisters Vegan send me a care package full of awesome stuff. We both tested for Terry’s new book and whenever I mentioned that I couldn’t get certain food items necessary for testing, she noticed.

She sent me: aji amarillo salsa (yellow hot pepper sauce), aji panca especial (panca pepper sauce), coconut extract, and beautiful frijoles bola roja (red ball beans). Wow, now I can retest some of Terry’s recipes with original ingredients! I also got two stickers from Herbivore and a cookie cutter (the “C” stands for the first letter of my real name.)

Meg also sent me some mint chocolate and wrote: “I hope the minty chocolate makes up for stupid Rittersport changing their recipe!” Indeed, it totally makes up for Rittersport chocolate! Under the chocolate you can see two Herbivore postcards:

Below you can see stickers from Herbivore [Meg wore Herbivore's Koala T-Shirt when I first met her], the buttons [which I placed right next to my Secret Society of Vegans button on by bag], and a sticker from [the urban housewife] Melisser’s Sugar Beat Sweets bakery [San Francisco's first vegan bakery]:

And I finally have a “praise seitan” sticker! Yay, isn’t such an awesome package the best topic for my last Vegan MoFo post? Thank you so much, Meg!

No, that is not a typo. L.E. stands for Leipzig, which is another large town in Saxony and should totally be the capital of it, if you ask me.

Last weekend there was a birthday and an anniversary to be celebrated. So  P decided to rent a car and drive us to our favourite restaurant which is 1 1/2 hours away by car. (Yes, sometimes we do this.) I have blogged about this mostly vegan (all foods are, drinks are sometimes made with optional milk or honey) and totally fantastic restaurant Zest before. Since then we have been there over ten times already. It is just such an awesome place with a very friendly staff and extraordinary vegan food.

At first we ordered our drinks. P had a hot passion fruit juice with lemon grass and lime and I had my favourite beer: Flensburger.

This was our starter: chives lángos / macadamia roasted garlic mousse / arugula and cherry tomato salad:

If you read the menu at the Zest, you always expect something totally different from what you get. The food is always surprising.  This is what a lángos usually looks like. It is fried yeast dough topped with grated cheese. The bread is soft, greasy, and delicious and you can grab a (not vegan) version at food carts all over Hungary. The lángos we got was very small and crispy, almost like a cracker. The taste was also like a cracker. It was nonetheless delicious. The macadamia cheese was to die for and so were the tomatoes which were marinated in garlic oil.

Ps main course was: Jerusalem artichoke roll with date créme fraiche bell pepper farce / rosemary apple vinegar jelly / soy medallions / quince cream sauerkraut:

Although all these brown colours are not very beautiful, everything was scrumptious! The Jerusalem artichoke rolls may have been made like a latke batter and then steamed in foil or something, but that is just a guess. The soy medallions were awesome and so was the quince sauerkraut. who would have thought that these two match so well?

This was my main course: fried polenta slice with pepper seitan filling / smoked paprika almond sauce / sherry savoy cabbage with grapes, walnuts and fried sage leafs.

Fried sage leafs? Super-delicious! pepper seitan baked into polenta? Genius! Smoked almond gravy? These guys might have a copy of Vegan Brunch. It was the most fantastic almond  sauce ever! And even though I usually run away from sweet-and-savoury, I ate the savoy cabbage with grapes and walnuts because it was the best cabbage I have ever had in my whole life. I was so stuffed after this meal but I still had to eat some dessert. Because everything is vegan, right? And it’s awesome!

So here comes the: espresso muffin with Irish coffee soy ice cream chocolate truffles.

P and I shared this and we both agreed that the muffin (it was more a cupcake) was a bit too greasy. But the ice cream chocolate truffles totally made up for this!

And while I had another beer before we rolled ourselves and our huge bellies out of the restaurant, P ordered a coconut-banana shake with hazelnut syrup:

Even though we usually don’t celebrate Halloween over here, I just thought that this might count as a Halloween post. Just imagine I baked this bread with some blood…

I wanted to bake bread with beets for quite a while now. Last weekend I even managed to roast some beets. I wanted to puree them and them throw them into a loaf of bread to colour it red. But then P and I ended up renting a car, driving to our favourite restaurant in Leipzig (post follows tomorrow) and the next day I found myself snacking on the cold, roasted beets.

When I cam home from work yesterday, I though about beet bread again. Should I buy some beets? But then I would have to roast them or grate them or whatever and I wasn’t in the mood for it. Five minutes later I remembered that our supermarket sells some weird vegetable juices (two flavours: sauerkraut and beets) and so I bought a box of beet juice.

Marbled Beet Bread

This bread looks really beautiful and is easy to make. Take your favourite bread recipe (I used my basic stand by recipe: 500 g flour, 350 g water, 10 g salt, 10 g fresh yeast or 3 g instant) and divide all ingredients in half. Mix 250 g flour with 175 g water, 5 g yeast, and 5 g salt.Knead for 10 minutes and let rest in an oiled bowl, covered with a damp kitchen towel.

Mix the remaining 250 g flour with 175 g beet juice, 5 g yeast, and 5 g salt. Knead for 10 minutes as well and place in a second bowl. Let both bread doughs ferment for 1 hour, until the doughs have doubled in size. Divide each dough in two equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rectangle. All rectangles should have the same size. Place one beet dough rectangle over a regular dough rectangle, top with regular rectangle and then put the second beet coloured rectangle on top. Roll the dough up and place in an oiled loaf pan, seam side down. Ret sit at room temperature for another hour. Meanwhile preheat oven to 250°C. Bake the bread for 40.50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely before slicing. Enjoy!

This entry was submitted to Susan’s YeastSpotting.

Argh, I don’t know how I missed another day in the month that is Vegan MoFo! And now I come back with even more speculoos.  The day before yesterday I managed to squeeze in some baking time to make cupcakes for my colleagues:

[Sorry, a crappy picture. Darkness everywhere]

I made a batch of the perfect speculoos spread.  Then I opened my copy of VCTOTW and whipped up 1 1/2 batches of the Golden Vanilla Cupcakes to which I added 1 1/2 t speculoos spice mix. The next morning, right before work, I filled the cupcakes with spread and decorated them with semisweet chocolate drizzled on top. I placed the cupcakes in a box and we made a little tram ride.

These cupcakes smell like Christmas or more specifically they smell like filled Lebkuchenherzen. These are heart-shaped and chocolate covered Lebkuchen filled with some jam. These are the only Lebkuchen I like, by the way.

My colleagues raved about them and everyone ate two, which means that these are really good. If you don’t have speculoos, or speculoos spices, or  speculoos spread, go ahead and use any spiced cookie you like, I bet these would be great with gingersnaps, gingerbread, or spice cookies as well.

Look, isn’t this beautiful?

It is another test recipe for Terry Hope Romero’s cookbook on vegan Latin American cuisine. I am talking about the whole wheat tortilla that is underneath some tofu Bolognese (store bought stuff), some very tasty refried beans (also Terry’s recipe), and some arugula & tomatoes. You may want to buy this book only because of the recipe for these tortillas. They are easy to make and come out perfect! Tasty, soft, and flexible these could be the base for many awesome Latin American recipes. Really yummy.

We had them yesterday and I stored the leftover tortillas at room temperature: placed them on a plate and covered them with another plate turned upside down. They are still wonderfully fresh today. I definitely could eat these with some refried beans all day long.

Yes, it is that time of the year again where, if you enter a German supermarket, you are bombarded with Christmas specialities. In Germany you can find Pfeffernüsse, Dominosteine, Lebkuchen, and Spekulatius everywhere you go. Usually I refuse to buy these items before December, but I’ve started to make an exception. So from time to time, starting in October, I grab a 600 g (1 1/2 lb!) bag of my favourite Spekulatius brand, which happen to be vegan. Or I make my own version. (Read all about these cookies and my family’s addiction to them here.)

Yes, I know, I should already start calling my blog speculoos is my motor, since I ramble about speculoos and speculoos spread all the time. And today is no exception, because the possibilities are endless. And making anything speculoos related is in fact a science (which makes it more fun, I guess?). These flavourful cookies do not only have different names in different countries (spéculoos in France, speculaas in the Netherlands, speculoos in Belgium, and Spekulatius in Germany). The spice blend, which is a main ingredient in these cookies, is always made differently. I wrote about this in my post about homemade Spekulatius cookies and Bonnie from the wonderful blog Eating with the Rabbits had some  similar thoughts. I bet, if every family would make their own speculoos, there would be a different spice blend version in every family. The spices used are not always the same. Cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom seem to be a “must”, but you can also add spices like anise, ginger, nutmeg, and even pepper. If you compare my recipe with Bonnie’s you can already see a difference. (She uses pepper, I don’t)  As a base for my new spice blend, I used my old recipe but tweaked it again. I could have used an old bag of Spekulatius spice as a base, but it had one ingredients listed which I didn’t have on hand:

Ingredients: cinnamon, anise, coriander, cloves, cardamom, wheat flour.

Instead of using anise, I made my own version from cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger, coriander, and nutmeg and it came out very similar although a bit stronger because I didn’t use the flour.

For the speculoos/Spekulatius spice blend combine:

1 T ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground cardamom
1/8 t ground coriander
1/8 t ground ginger
5-6 scrapes nutmeg

Now that you have your basic speculoos blend, you can use it to make cookies, or granola as Bonnie suggests. And you can make waffles for your Sunday morning breakfast. If you happen to have a box of speculoos cookies, make Celine’s speculoos waffles. Or start from scratch with your new spice blend and start here:

Speculoos Waffles (makes four waffles)

1 1/4 cups soy milk, divided*
2 T ground flax seeds
1 1/2 cups flour
1 T speculoos spice blend (see above)
1/8 t minced orange peel
3 T ground almonds
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
6 T agave syrup (+ 2 T sugar for a sweeter version)
1 T vegetable oil
additional oil for waffle iron.

*Maybe you will need more. My waffle iron works best with a very thick batter. I know that most other waffle irons prefer a thinner batter. If you think your batter is too thick, add more milk or water.

Preheat waffle iron and grease it.
In a small bowl whisk together flax seeds and 1/4 cup soy milk. Set aside. In a large bowl, stir together flour, speculoos spice blend, orange peel, almonds, baking powder and salt. Add remaining cup of soy milk, agave, additional sugar, and vegetable oil. Whisk well until no lumps remain. Add flax mixture and more soy milk if necessary. Pour batter into waffle iron and bake according to manufacturer’s instructions.

We served this waffle with Spanish caramelo líquido (toffee syrup), ground almonds, and speculoos spice sugar (spice blend mixed with sugar). Very delicious!

What do you do if you don’t have much time to cook, don’t have too many ingredients around and feel totally uninspired? Grab your copy of Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian and flip though. I guarantee, you will find something in there. World Vegetarian is one of my favourite cookbooks. It is the most vegan friendly vegetarian cookbook I have ever seen, and is divided into very helpful divisions on beans& legumes, grains, vegetables, [dairy], soups/salads/drinks, and sauces/flavourings. I have the German version, which starts with the vegetables. They are listed in alphabetical order, so if you have a certain ingredient you need to use up, all the recipes for this ingredient are grouped together.

I have some stand-by recipes from this book that I like to make when I don’t have much time for cooking and/or shopping for ingredients. One of these recipes is for Quinoa with Tomatoes (I am translating from the German version). You just need some tomatoes, garlic, cumin, thyme, salt, and quinoa for this recipe and the actual preparation time is 5 minutes. Then you can let the quinoa cook along while, as in my case, you go back to your desk to get some work done. It is a wonderfully quick, tasty and nutritious dish. Usually I  eat this all by itself and look forward to the evening, when I can enjoy the leftovers.

Is eating a spongebob sandwich vegan? Especially if Spongebob smiles at you? I am a very cruel person, I ate Spongebob….

He wasn’t made of sponge though. I made him from the most amazing bread that I have ever baked (recipe to follow soon), Streich (sunflower seed spread), tomatoes, and some alfalfa sprouts. And then I grilled him. Literally.

This week we had our first mac and cheese, by the way. I guess it’s all because we are not American…we grew up with fries but no mac and cheese. We chose the recipe from Veganomicon, where it is called Mac Daddy, added fresh chard and substituted white wine for the oil in the sauce. It was really delicious, comforting and full of B-vitamins (from the nutritional yeast).

Oh and since we are speaking of casseroles…here is another test recipe for Terry Hope Romero’s upcoming book on Latin cuisine:

Fresh corn casserole with quinoa:

The tomatoes and zucchini were optional but delicious. The casserole was a little bit too sweet for me (P. loved it). It definitely wasn’t the recipe’s fault, just my unability to eat savoury and sweet together. For anybody who likes this flavour combination it is perfect, I am sure.