Foods from my new home!

If you’re still reading this, I guess you’ve gotten used to the fact that I seem to be unable to make blog posts regularly. I’ve sort of accepted that fact myself, as well. However, I just noticed the last post I made wasn’t even from this year, and it’s already June 2011! So I guess it’s about time for a little update/catch-up post. Since I last posted here, my boyfriend and I went and found ourselves our own apartment, which means two things for this blog:

1. I now live in a large city with a number of vegetarian restaurants, a vegetarian butcher’s shop, and a bunch of other interesting specialty stores. I used to live in a tiny village, so this is pretty big for me.

2. We now have our own kitchen!

Both of these changes should provide me with plenty of food blogging material! Sadly, however, I haven’t been taking many interesting food shots so far. During the winter I tend to go into slumps where I hardly use my camera at all, mostly because nothing I make ever comes out looking pretty without good natural lighting. Now that summer’s almost here, though, I’m trying to take my camera with me more often. This also made me realise that I probably need a new one, because some of the buttons are broken and it really is kind of old… but I’m cheap, and it’s still working, so it will have to do!

When we’d just moved and didn’t have that many ingredients around in our kitchen, I was really happy to find simple recipes like this Cheater Grilled Cheese from a PPK thread. It’s super easy and flexible, and delicious served with a generous helping of ketchup.

From that same pantry meals thread, I also made these blueberry muffins. Simple and tasty! The recipe isn’t that different from other blueberry muffins, so I guess muffins are just pantry-friendly by nature!

This was one of the first actual meals we made: The Unfried Fried Rice from Appetite for Reduction, a tasty peanut sauce from Vegan with a Vengeance, and a few pieces of grilled tofu made with a marinade from 500 Vegan Recipes (I think it was the recipe for Tofu Satay). I made a few slight changes to each recipe, and they came together wonderfully! We had similar meals a few times after this and they were all equally yummy.

Irish Stew with Potatoes and Seitan from Appetite for Reduction: good solid comfort food. This was the second time I made this recipe and I think I liked it better the first time, but that was mostly due to the type of broth I used. My seitan making skills aren’t perfect yet, either, but I’m getting better! As you can see, I subbed frozen peas for the green beans, which made this dish pretty pantry-friendly as well.

Toast with roasted red pepper hummus and cucumber! Kind of speaks for itself, but I wanted to post the picture ’cause it’s such a tasty combo.

Chickpea Wingz! I might have posted about these before, but they are really great! They’re a wonderful combination of the Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon and the Tempeh Wingz from Don’t Eat Off the Sidewalk, united in one recipe by Celine from Have Cake Will Travel. Both those recipes were already favourites of mine, so the idea of combining them is genius! I think they’ve also finally convinced my boyfriend that chickpea cutlets are actually delicious, versatile, and not scary, so I couldn’t be happier.

While I adore big fluffy pitas stuffed with falafel and veggies and tahina, sometimes a tiny pita just can’t hold all the stuff I want to cram into it! That’s why falafel salads are awesome. And I can just have my bread on the side.

Now, this sandwich was excellent. We got it from De Vegetarische Slager, Den Haag’s vegetarian butcher’s shop that makes delicious (and, apparently, realistic) vegetarian and vegan meat analogues. My lunch (pictured above) consisted of saté and coconut peanut sauce on one of their homemade bread rolls, while my boyfriend went for a meatball sandwich. I think it’s really awesome that these people are able to mimic meat dishes so well! I’ve shared their faux meats with my family a few times and everyone agrees that while the taste is delicious, it’s the texture that makes their products so unique and meat-like. My boyfriend and I would probably buy their stuff a lot if we had more money, but for now I guess it’s just for special occasions. I can’t wait to have lunch there again!

Here’s a yummy pumpkin-topped puff pastry thing from a local restaurant called Baklust. I’ve posted about the place before, and this cute little cafe is still one of my favourites!

And for dessert, a slice of orange coconut cake from that same cafe. It was good, but apparently they now also offer vegan chocolate cake, so I clearly need to go back to taste that one too!

Whew! I think I’ve covered most of what I wanted to share, so hopefully my next posts won’t be as random and picture-heavy!

Lunch at Baklust! and shopping in the Hague

My Friday was pretty awesome. I’d spent all week working on assignments, and when I finally handed them in on Friday morning, I decided to celebrate by visiting a couple of stores in the Hague. I bought a few Christmas presents, shopped at one of my favourite stores (Lush!), and I had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant.

I’ll start with the restaurant. The place is called Baklust, and I actually hadn’t heard of it until recently! They sell vegan cakes, sandwiches, empanadas, fresh juices, hot beverages (with soy milk!) and other delicious meals! Their menu is on their website (only in Dutch, but check out their website, it looks lovely!), but there are also daily and/or weekly specials available at the restaurant itself. I love the atmosphere at this place. Look:

I love the little birds everywhere, and their logo is pretty cute, too (that’s the sticker on the brown bag in the middle). My lunch consisted of a spicy seitan sandwich, a pink grapefruit juice, and a piece of vegan cake to take out. The sandwich was awesome. I would probably choose a different type of juice to go with my lunch next time (I liked it, but I’d prefer something a little sweeter), but otherwise this was great!

The sandwich consisted of two slices of bread, spicy pieces of seitan, romaine lettuce, red cabbage, and cucumber raita. I’m a little disappointed that the picture turned out a bit blurry and dark, but… at least you can see what the dish looks like.

For dessert, I bought a piece of vegan cake and took it home to share with my boyfriend. We loved it! I don’t remember exactly what was in it (apart from coconut, obviously), but it was really, really good. I’d love to go back and try their vegan chocolate walnut banana cake! They also have sandwiches with hummus or lentil paté, a grilled sandwich with peanut butter, garlic, sambal and apple, and more… yum yum. I can’t wait to go back sometime!

Afterwards, I walked to the Lush store to pick up a few Christmas presents. I usually order their stuff online, so it was nice to be able to look at (and smell!) the products before actually buying them. When I was at the store, I started talking to a man who turned out to be one of the founders of the company, and we had a conversation about the different products and how awesome Lush is in general. That was great! They gave me a couple of demonstrations of specific bath products, as well, which is alway fun to see..

Lastly, I really wanted to go to Thomas Green, a British/American food specialty store that carries a couple of vegan products I’m interested in. Unfortunately, they were out of vegetarian haggis when I visited, but I did get my hands on a package of Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages. I haven’t opened the package yet, but I’m excited to try them!

Oh, by the way, I love the snow on WordPress. I first noticed these little snowflakes falling down on Mihl and Hannah‘s websites, and now the snow has spread to my blog, as well. Fun!

One last thing: I plan on baking a bunch of cookies for Christmas this year, but I haven’t decided which recipes to make. I do have a few recipes in mind, but … Any suggestions? I know there are loads of excellent cookie recipes in the cookbooks I mentioned in my previous posts, but I’d really appreciate specific recommendations, too!