Weekly food-preparation (VeganMoFo #1)

When I decided to go vegan for the first time, I failed miserably. We are three people in our family, my husband and son didn't want to join me, so we always have non-vegan food in our fridge and pantry. So many times I came home from work, hungry and tired and grabbed something to eat, vegan or not. During our summer holidays this year, I decided to give veganism a new start. As a motivation (and to add some kind of pressure...) I decided to join the VeganMoFo, hopefully I will make it this time!
I found out that whenever I have a menu plannned for the week this makes it easier to eat vegan, simply because I can plan after-work snacks and work-lunches. I try to prepare some things on the weekend and keep the fridge stocked with veggies and fruit. (That's why sometimes my teenage son is standing in front of the fridge, shouting:"Mom, we don't have anything yummy!!" Veggies are not his favourite thing...)
Here is what I prepared for the week this Sunday:

Raspberry muffins, picture taken by my son

Food ready for the fridge: Muffins, some fake pulled pork, below that we have "obatzter", a German dip usually made from cheese, here made with tofu and then some Sanctuary dip

I am really fascinated by the way this "pulled not-pork" looks...

More muffins!!

Have a wonderful week!

Eid Mubarak!

So another Ramadan has passed this year. Today, muslims all over the world celebrate Eid ul Fitr, visit relatives and friends and eat as much as they can.
Yesterday, when Algerian TV announced the end of Ramadan, I felt so relieved, like a burden fell of my shoulders. The first cup of tea this morning, drunken by daylight (!) was such a pleasure! It was so wonderful, just to sit in the kitchen with this lovely hot mug of tea in my hands.
Ramadan always reminds me of these simple pleasures, early morning cup of tea, having some ice cream on a hot day or stop for some sushi after a shopping trip. Funny how much I take pleasure in eating or drinking...
So, as usual after this month, I am filled with gratitude for all those things that we take for granted, food on the table, enough money to keep us going, health and my family. And my dishwasher, the old reliable.

Now it's back to cooking-as-usual, goodbye, Shorba and Bourek, Khobz-al-Dar (homemade bread) and bottles of Selecto! I am working on a menu for the next week and then it's time for our summer vacation. Can't wait!!

I'll leave you with some pictures from the last 30 days, enjoy!

Preparing chickpeas in advance

Food ready to go in the freezer

Eggplant slices, ready to be filled with ground meat

Bourek, I must have made about 150 of them altogether

Filling dolma, stuffed vineleaves

Iftar-Table, breaking the fast with shorba, bourek, salad, green beans and chicken skewers. Pure heaven!!

This week in my kitchen

Joining Heather for her weekly series "This week in my kitchen".
It was so much fun last week to take a peek into many other kitchens!

Thai curry with chicken

Early Morning Tea

Baking bread

Cookies from Algeria!

Thai soup in a hurry

This week in my kitchen...

Welcome back! Heather inspired us to post pictures of what happened in our kitchen during the last week. What a  lovely idea to get back into blogging.
Here we go:

Soaking Cashews for a salad dressing

Homemade Pizza, a Friday ritual

Chopping up the ingredients for Eggless Egg Salad

Cashew Cream Cheese with fresh herbs

Preparing tomatoe sauce (with leftover pizza toppings)

Weeknight salad

What have you been cooking? I am so looking forward to peek into everyone elses'  kitchens...

Click here, if you like to join us.

Cookbook-love!

So, apart from zucchini noodles, what does a vegan-in-training eat every day?
I had quite a love/hate relationship with my kitchen lately. My brother-in-law had been staying with us for over a week and with two adult men in the house, this meant: MEAT. Mostly lamb, maybe some chicken. For me, it meant that I made some vegan sides....so boooring! Now it's back to normal here, and that means: Cook mostly vegan meals but don't tell them!
Pasta with vegetables, rice dishes, curries with chickpea and potatoes, stir-fries, pizza (with vegan cheese). Sometimes I served some additional fish or chicken, so Hubby and Son don't get suspicious.

A great help has been my latest cookbook-love, "Isa does it" by the ever-so-wonderful
Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I just love her sense of humour, her writing and -most of all- her recipes.

After trying a few of her recipes, my son decided he would go vegan. I mean, imagine a thirteen-year-old boy who could live on burges and doener going vegan... that is one of the greatest compliments I can imagine for a vegan cookbook! He made it for two weeks, but, alas, he tried. Great work, Isa!
Recipes we have tried so far include:
-Quinoa caesar salad
-Dragon noodle salad
-Creamy sun dried tomatoe penne
-Eggplant & breadcrumb fettucine
-Meaty beany chili (eaten by Hubby and BIL without complaining, I added some TVP)
-and her pancakes
Oh those pancakes...I could make the every day for breakfast, my son would not get enough of them. he loves them.

I highly recommend  this cookbook, if you are following a vegan diet or not. It is full of tasty recipes, always with a weeknight cook in mind, some take a little longer, but you can always prepare something like the sauce for the enchilada casserole, for example.And maybe you'll get inspired to make your own seitan!
I'm in love with all of Isa's books, but this one is by far the best! Also make sure to check out her videos on Youtube, such a funny girl!

Now I'm off to the kitchen, cleaning up the mess from making... pancakes!

Zucchini-Noodles!

I cannot believe that I finally gave in to that hype about spiral-cut vegetables and bought a spiral cutter. Doesn't it look cute? A lovely shade of green...

The Slicer, picture taken by my son

Then I "cut" (do you say "sliced"?) two medium zucchinis... this was kind of fun, the noodles look so  funny!

The raw noodles, so pretty!

Next, I sauteed some garlic in hot olive oil, then tossed the noodles in the oil. Unfortunately, I wanted the dish to be more "saucy", so I added some broth with lemon juice. The noodles kinda shrunk and got all soft, but the taste was still great. Without the broth and juice this will be a great summer side dish!

The final dish, not very pretty, but yummy!

Keeping up with Flylady

So I am trying to FLY again this year. One of my New Years Resolutions has been to do the Zone Missions and the Habit of the Month. In January I tried to keep my sink shiny and clean. I think I did quite well. With some exceptions, the sink has been greating me with a smile every morning. As I am the first one to get up in the morning, this has been so nice! Definitely will keep the sink this way.

The breakfast table , clean and decluttered

This months habit is decluttering, 15 minutes a day. Does not sound that much, but today, after getting home from work, doing the zone mission, which took me longer than expected, putting away the lunchboxes and doing a quick kitchen tidy-up, I ended up with one hour spent in the kitchen! And I haven't even started to cook dinner. Or prepare lunches for tomorrow. Sometimes it feels like I am spending hours and hours in the kitchen, so annoying! If only it would stay clean for a few days in a row!  Maybe we should eat only sandwiches for a few days. But I can mess up the kitchen even when I am only preparing sandwiches...

Decluttered lunchboxes

Do you know ways to keep the kitchen clean or speed up dinner/lunchbox preparation time? Any ideas welcome!!