A crap tonne of food from Berlin

Errmm it's been a while huh!

So back in February, Mr Alien took me to Berlin for our first Valentines Day together (what, it's only taken 3 months to blog about it!).  There'll be 3 posts because Berlin is freaking epic for vegan food and we went to a couple of places that quite frankly deserved their own post.

So this post is the best of the rest, if you like.

Starting with our first meal. We wanted some fast junk and decided on the Vego Foodworld Cafe for burgers.

We started with almond milk hot chocolates, sooo yummy.

Then we both ordered burgers.  I got the cheeseburger and fries

Mr. A got the Chili cheese burgers.

These burgers were insanely good.  Probably the best vegan burger I've ever had. Mr A isn't vegan and he said that it was in his top 10 burger EVER. So high praise indeed.

Dessert was a vego bar of course; because it would have been rude not to!

Back at the hotel, we grabbed a couple of cocktails in the bar. Mr A went for a breaking bad mojito, which had blue rocks in it, hehehe.

I had a bellini, always a wise choice!

They also gave us fancy bar snacks!

 I also got pretty excited to find Manner Wafers in the vending machine! I freakin love these things.

The next day was V-Day and we went to Veganz supermarket. I was sooo excited to go to this place and it didn't disappoint.  So much awesome stuff, I so wish I had one of these near me.

Mr A queued up at the baker counter to buy us some cakes for valentine's day dessert and he also picked me up this super cute unicorn sugar cookie; he gets me! :)

errrrrm I may have gone a wee bit nuts in Veganz!

We had tried to get into Lucky Leek for vday dinner but it was full so we booked it for Sunday and instead decided to go low-key and grabbed falafels!

It was just a little place round the corner from Chaostheorie, where we had been for cocktails first (look out for my Chaostheorie post later this week).

Then we went back to the hotel and ate the cake we bought at veganz

This chocolate cake was freakin incredible. That frosting was delightful, chocolatey mousse and I was pretty in love with it. I didn't even care that we had no cutlery, I could've just smooshed my face into and been fine. SO. GOOD!

This one was a raspberry cheesecake; I wasn't so into this one but Mr A liked it!

Saturday morning, we busted out the google maps, jumped on the s-bahn and headed to Viasko for brunch.

 

Weekend brunch at Viasko is a buffet and we started with caramel lattes.

 

Here's a pic of the buffet, it's 100% vegan and 100% awesome!

That bread!! OMG, awesome. Like a pretzel. This must be a german thing because all the bakeries have similar bread and holy crapholes it's delicious.

This buffet had sooo much awesome stuff, tofu, spring rolls, salads, fried potatoes, seitan, little fried savoury cake this. It was epic.

There was also cake! This was a fruity little pastry / custard number that both of us enjoyed.

 There was also these super fluffy pancakes with apple in and this fruity / spiced cake. Also amazing!

 

I really really LOVED Viasko, I would've gone back for sure if we'd been there longer than a couple of days.  It was brilliant and definitely worth the trip to find it!

I absolutely loved Berlin and two of my favourite places I've ever eaten were Lucky Leek & Chaostheorie. Please look out for those posts later this week. So for now, here's a dumb selfie of Mr A & I whilst out sightseeing.

Laterz
xXx

Remember remember the 5th of November... Gunpowder, hotdogs and wine!

Hello lovelies. It is Friday again, big fat mega YAY!  I'm excited to finish work for the weekend tonight and then go to the pub! 

This weekend is Daddy Alien's birthday so next time, expect some pics of the cake I'm making tomorrow.  But back to this week and I'll start with last friday's dinner. 

Veganz - we is healthy!!  Fry's burger and smash with nooch. YES!!! Friday trash is awesome.

Onto weeknight dinners when I try to be a bit healthier.  I made Isa's baked falafel from Appetite for Reduction, only I had to make a few substitutions: I had no chickpeas so I used kidney beans. I had no chickpea flour so I used cornmeal. I had no parsley so I used coriander/cilantro.  HAHA so yeah not really falafel then Sal??  Ah well, they were still tasty enough to eat 2 nights in a row.  Here they are with bulgar cooked in veggie stock, salad, a pitta and hummus.

And again with pitta, salad, hummus and brown rice! 

Saturday night was bonfire night.  Mum, Dad and myself stayed home and had a barbecue and fireworks.  Starting as we meant to go on with some sparkly pink wine....

I had Redwoods hot dogs (my fave vegan hotdogs) on buns with ketchup, mayo, homemade garlic bread and potatoes roasted with garlic and rosemary. YUM.

Ugh! Horrid profile shot my mum took! hahaha.

And one of the parents enjoying their hotdogs too. Not vegan, but I thought the pic was cute! hehe

I bought some of those Alpro vanilla puddings and they taste just like the custard to me, so I've been microwaving them for a minute and pouring them over a banana for pudding this week. Really good and easy peasy. Sorry for the blurry pic, it gets dark at like 4 o'clock at the moment so it's not easy to get a great picture! Not that you expect that from me anyway, right? ;-)

Last night I made Susan V's Ridiculously Easy Curried Chickpeas and Quinoa.  They really are ridiculously easy and tasty as well - and I'm not really a lover of quinoa!!  I was going to serve them in taco shells, but when I tasted it, it didn't seem to be something that would go right in a taco, so I just had a pita with them instead.  Also, I split the recipe into 3 not 4 servings, because I was freakin Hank Marvin after my Zumba class.

Lastly, brekkie this morning. Crumpets. YUM!  After I took this pic I poured over a generous blob of golden syrup on each one. Best way to eat crumpers, ever!

Bonus kitty pics!!  This is what most of my photos of Jazzy look like... her running away!  She is super camera shy (either that or the flash scares her!)

Today I got one of her about to eat.  HAHA I turned the camera on and called her name and BAM! photo taken before she had a chance to realise.

"I got laser eyes - and I know what you're thinking!"

Have a spankingly awesome weekend everyone.

Laterz

xXx

Looking back....

.... oooover ma shoulldeerrrr. Oh I'm gonna be singing that song all freakin day!! Ah well. The reason for it is that when I was looking through the pics for today's post, I realised 3 of the items were follow ons from last week's post and one was a recipe from last year.

So remember last time, the tomato soup recipe I posted? Well it makes 2 servings and I had one left in the fridge and I turned it into a couple of pasta dishes instead of just reheating it.

Starting with this one, a simple dish. I just sauteed some mushrooms and added some soya mince and a some gravy granules and half the remaining soup and served it over wholewheat spaghetti with a little sprinkle of nooch and parsley.



This was the winner though. I sauteed some mushrooms and some spring onions, added the other half of the soup and some capers and stirred it into wholewheat penne. Then I made a salad of sweet red and yellow cherry tomatoes, capers and toasted pine nuts with just some salt, pepper and really good olive oil on and put it up on top of the pasta. Simple but delicious!

On saturday night, my friend was down for her first wedding make up trial (wedding in Oct and I'm doing the make up!!) and for dinner I cooked us some of my carrot falafel with tahini sauce, some tabouleh and just a simple salad of rocket with a simple lemon juice and olive oil dressing. I've just put some chickpeas on to cook so I can make these again, I forgot how yummy they are.

And last time I made the vegan brunch omelets. Well I had half the batter left so I made another one. But I made a total mess of it when I flipped it, probably because I put the batter in the pan chilled and it was hard to spread. Next time I'll remember to bring it out before hand.

Still once it had a topping of mushrooms sauteed in soy sauce and herbs and a bit of cheezly mozz on it, all was forgiven!

This soup I made the other day to use up some fresh corn I had. It was pretty crap so I won't bother giving you the recipe.

And today I made mini muffins, I like to have some around for snacks and they are less calories than a full size muffin. Recipe is below pic.


Coconut Choc Chip Mini Muffins
Will make around 16 mini muffins or about 6 regular sized ones.

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup sugar
teeny pinch of cinnamon
6 tbsp desiccated coconut
6 tbsp non-dairy chocolate chips
Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
1/2 tsp cider vinegar or lemon juice
1/3 cup soya yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
a few drops almond extract
2 tbsp rapeseed (canola) oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Line a 12 cavity bun tin (fairy cake tin, not a muffin tin) with baking cases.

Whisk dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together, pour into dry and mix until just combined, a few lumps are ok and will bake out.

Spoon a couple of tbsp (about half way up the case) into each case and then bake for 20 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean. For regular muffins they'll take around 25 mins.

Transfer to wire rack to cool.

That's all for now folks.

Laterz
xXx

Falafel, that's fun to say. Falafel. FAAAA LAAAFEELLL!!

Well howdy there.

This week I have been making up meal plans and sticking to them like a good girl and a couple of ideas I had worked really well. So that means I have 2 recipes to share today.

Firstly - this is one that I've been thinking of for a while. I was in the supermarket a while back on the lookout for some falafel and I saw carrot falafels! Of course they were not vegan, so I thought screw you Waitrose - screw you in the ear! I shall make my own. And I did. And they were rad. I was planning to serve them on pittas with yoghurt sauce, but the supermarket ran out of pittas - seriously, how do you run out of pittas??? So I went with a salad instead which would normally mean I'd be hungry again within an hour, but I wasn't.


Carrot Falafel with Yoghurt & Tahini sauce

Ingredients
Stage 1
1.5 cups / 250g cooked chickpeas
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp ground coriander
¼ cup / 4 tbsp chickpea cooking liquid or water
1 tsp olive oil
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
Stage 2
½ tsp baking powder
1 medium carrot, grated (generous ½ cup)
¼ cup / 4 tbsp yellow cornmeal

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F and spray a baking sheet with a little oil.

Put the first stage ingredients into the food processor and blend until pretty much smooth. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the other ingredients, mixing well to combine. It should be a pretty soft dough.

Take a rounded tbsp or so of the mixture at a time, roll into a ball and flatten slightly. Then place on the baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes. Flip, then cook another 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned. Go careful, they are very soft – not dry like some store bought falafel can be.

Serve in pitas with salad and yoghurt tahini sauce or with whatever ya like. This made about 10 falafel.

Suck it Waitrose!

Yoghurt Tahini Sauce
¼ cup / 4 tbsps soy yoghurt
1 tbsp tahini
Pinch cumin
Pinch salt
Pinch pepper
A couple of dashes of hot sauce (I used Franks), optional
3 tbsp of water (I used chickpea cooking liquid
Tbsp of finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) – use flat parsley if you don’t like coriander. I think some mint and some dill would also be great in this.

Method: Just whisk everything together, it’s that simple.

Secondly, I've been planning to revisit my savoury muffins for ages and change 'em up a bit. I decide to axe the sheese and add some veggies. So I added some sweetcorn and shredded courgette with a bit of jalapeno for a nice kick. They are YUM, perfect for a savoury treat when the need arises!

Spicy Courgette Corn Muffins
I know it sounds like a long ingredients list, but most of the items are store-cupboard stuff! This makes 6 muffins, double it for 12.

Dry Ingredients:
¾ cup / 125g medium yellow cornmeal
¼ cup / 40g wholemeal flour
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
Pinch black pepper
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp onion powder
¼ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp dried sage
Pinch garlic powder
½ cup grated courgette/zucchini (about ½ a medium courgette)
½ cup / 40g sweetcorn (half a small tin)
2 rings of jarred nacho jalapeno chilli (optional for a bit of a kick)
Wet Ingredients
¾ cup / 185ml unsweetened non-dairy milk (I used light soya)
½ tsp white wine or cider vinegar
2 tbsp rapeseed (canola) oil
1 tsp tahini
½ tsp miso (optional)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F and spray a 6 or 12 hole muffin tin with a little oil.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. I put the veggies in with the dry and get them all nice and coated to stop them sinking to the bottom - although I don’t think that would happen anyway in this mixture – it’s pretty thick!

Whisk together the wet ingredients and pour them into the dry. Mix until just combined. Spoon into the muffin tins and press down. These don’t rise much, if at all, so you need to fill them to the top.

Bake for around 25 minutes, until just lightly browned and a knife or skewer comes out clean. Leave them to cool for a good 15 minutes and carefully remove to a wire rack. They’re pretty crumbly – but not dry at all. They are yum.


Cooking to: Eagles of Death Metal - Heart On (I got tickets to see them in June - SQUEEEEE!!)


And a bonus pic of dinner the other day. VCON Chickpea cutlets, couscous with pinenuts and veggies and tahini sauce with lots of paprika in.


Happy Easter to anyone that celebrates it! I don't really but I am a HUGE fan of the 4 day weekend - sandwiched between two 4 day work-weeks! Have a great long weekend off everyone!!