An Eggplant Lentil dish & another bread machine bread

Speaking of great websites, I should have mentioned Susan Voisin's Fat Free Vegan in my previous post!!! Not only does she have the most beautiful food pics out there but her recipes are always a success and sooo delicious!!!

She has a great recipe index too!

Since I had an eggplant in my fridge that needed to be used but not having a recipe from one of my (*cough*, many) books ready to pull out (i.e. not planned :o ), I googled and Susan's Skillet-eggplant-and-lentils-with-almond-parmesan

came up! It was super yummy!

Because I had some carrots on hand, I threw them in as well, but otherwise stuck to the recipe. (The only thing I didn't do, was make the almond 'parmesan' as I was short on time and my family members were complaining of being already! LOL)

~*~*~*~

Now to the bread machine recipe, this one was really easy (aren't they all!?).

I tweaked the recipe for the Super Rapid version (1.5 lbs, ready in ~ 2 hrs)

by using as follows:

~* Wholesome quick bread*~ 

1.5 loaf size

*3/4 c warm water

*1 egg replacer (I used 1 Tbsp flax, 3 Tbsp water instead of Ener-G)

*2 Tbsp vegan butter

*1 c bread flour

*1.5 whole wheat flour

*1/4 c buckwheat flour

*3 Tbsp sugar (will reduce next time to 2 Tbsp)

*1.5 tsp salt

*2 tsp bread machine yeast (or use 2.5 tsp active dry)

Set the cycle on your machine and make sure the flour is all mixed well (I sometimes use a soft plastic spatula in the first mixing cycle to scrape the edges to make sure and add more flour if the dough is too sticky) and do something else in those ~2 hours that the bread is baking.

Once it's done, put on a rack and let it cool down (it's better to cut that way vs. when it's still hot).

Note: If you're not in the mood for a wholesome bread (my kids still don't like 'brown' breads too much LOL), you can simply use the entire amount of bread flour and have a nice soft sandwich style bread! ;)

I had it for lunch today with some baked tofu, lettuce, tomato and some avocado as well as a sice with some coconut oil and jam for breakfast! :D

Great sites and German pancakes

Let's first start off with the cool websites I wanted to share with you!

There's many, many more, of course, but since I've decided to get back into meal planning (slowly.. I'm not 100% there yet again... Babysteps! ;) ), these immediately came to mind:

http://www.vegkitchen.com/recipes-galore/ - Nava Atlas' website

http://justthefood.blogspot.com/p/recipes.html - Joni Marie's website

Another great one is Kathy Hester's site, http://www.healthyslowcooking.com 

If you're a cookbook lover (err.. addict) like me, this one will be quite awesome to use as well: http://vegansprout.com/browse/cookbooks/

And speaking of slow cookers, I absolutely love my pressure cooker!!! I think it's my most-used kitchen item (after the Vitamix ;) ).

So that being said, I came across this website and found it quite helpful! (I have a short list in my Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure -which is an awesome book, by the way! [I should cook more out of it, now that I mention it...]): http://fastcooking.ca/pressure_cookers/cooking_times_pressure_cooker.php#pulses

Now off to talk about my German pancakes! :)

Ironically enough they're also called 'Eierkuchen' in some regions in Germany, which means literally 'egg cakes', so having veganized it seems a bit like a paradox but it works well! (I haven't had German pancakes ever since I've become vegan ~3 years ago and while they lack the eggy taste [naturally], I have to say I really liked them a lot! )

I got inspired to make them the other day after coming across 2 different blog posts about crepes as well as the 'Top 10 Pancakes', one of the latter being described as Swedish pancakes, which are pretty much the same as German if you ask me! ;) [All I did was add 1 tsp of baking powder to the mix..- not sure if it's really necessary or not-.. and increased the flour amount to ~2 cups; 1/2 c chickpea flour and the other 1.5 c white AP and added 2 Tbsp oil and added ~ 2 1/4 c of home made coconut milk until the batter was nice and thin.]

This is how we did it in Germany, spreading some jam on it and having a bit of apple sauce on the side.

You can however make this dish savory too by adding herbs and mushrooms etc. (Just like you would with a French crepe! ;) )

My grandmother used to make a typical southern Germany soup with pancake leftovers, called 'Flaedle Suppe', for which you simply cut the pancakes in small strips and put them in a clear broth kind of soup. Simple but delicious! Unfortunately we didn't have any leftovers from this batch! LOL

You can find the recipe through here:

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/foodandhealth/recipe-swedish-pancakes/ 

but also in Isa's Vegan with a Venegeance (Easy vegan crepes)!

Epic fail!

I think we've all been there..., standing for hours (or at least it seems like that!) in the kitchen, prepping and cooking or baking... only to have a major let-down when the dish, we so lovingly created, ends up being an epic fail!!! :(

 I had this happen yesterday with my German 'Donauwelle', which I've been craving ever since reading about it on Mihl's blog Seitan is my motor .

 I remembered having come across a recipe in Attila Hildmann's book 'Vegan for fun' (available on US Amazon as well -beware of the awkward size of 11.2 x 9.6" though! [I didn't know that when I bought it while visiting in Germany last year and was quite disappointed of that format!] Just as an FYI! The pics look great and recipes sound yummy though!) a while ago as well, so I dug that one out yesterday and gave it a try, thinking it'd be a nice cake to have for an afternoon coffee with my MIL!

Well.... it went from something looking like this...

 (prior to putting in the oven!)

....to this @_@

Nothing nearly as nice looking as Mihl's version or Mr. Hildmann's!

I've had that gut feeling when it took the dish out of the oven yesterday that it looked kinda 'off', but still continued going through the motions, adding the pudding on top, melting the chocolate for the glaze (which was a major PITA on its own if you ask me! -first time I tried it on top of a wobbly pudding layer)... only to realize this morning that it's really not gonna work! :/ The texture of the dough was more dense (can you say play-doh!..) and Hubby, who's usually the brave one and kindly eating everything I put in front of him, admitted that he's really not digging it! *sigh*

Soo... into the trash it went and some (non-vegan) baked treats were bought for MIL, Hubby & the kids! [I just didn't feel the baking vibe after this, I was too bummed!]

Let's hope the next dish will be better again! In the future I'll certainly try my luck again (maybe better follow Mihl's recipe next time? ;) ) but for now I'll stick to quick & easy baking dishes I think! :p