Becoming Vegan did not let me forget the good taste of pulled pork or Bacon. The most unhealthy things one can possibly eat, yet i have to admit when someone fries Bacon Sunday mornings, my mouth is watering as well. 

Anyhow most important while being on a vegan diet is to take your time and research, to create a good alternative. This is so essential to stick to your decision and avoid cravings. Replace good food with something even better, that is healthy and proper tasty. The best example for this is Pulled Jackfruit. I had never heard of it until i came across some healthy vegan channels and literally i've been running around town for 2 weeks until i finally found it. In Europe you can mostly find Jackfruit canned, be careful not to take the one with sirup. A lot of asian shops offer it.

Level: EASY

What you need:

Time: 2h // Tools: Oven, Pot

280g Jackfruit (canned in Salt water/rinsed)

2 Tsp Maple Sirup

2 Cloves Garlic

1 Tsp BBQ Seasoning 

0,5dl Water

1 piece vegetable stew

1 Tsp Smoked Pepper Powder

2 Tsp Vegetable Oil

2Tsp Tomato Puree (Tube)
 

1. Rinse your Jackfruit and pull apart with your Hands and a Fork, put into a Bowl.

2. Dissolve your vegetable stew in cooking water and add into the Bowl.

3. Add all other ingredients to marinate the Jackfruit. Best press your Garlic fresh.

4. Let the mass rest overnight, so it soaks really up the spices.

5. Add into a cooking pot with 2dl water and cook for 30min

6. Heat up your oven to 170°c and bake in a form for around 1h until the texture gets a bit crispy. 

Serve with Avocado on homebaked Bagels.

I've been searching for a long time to find a satisfying Bagel recipe, ending up with my own, taking the best ingredients out of all. What i could see was, that in every recipe there was added sugar to the dough somehow, whether with honey, sugar or maple sirup. I don't like sweet bread and insisted on having my Bagels as sugarfree as possible. I avoid also using wheat flour, while for many recipes it is indeed neccessary to have some type of white flour. So below alternative Bagels are vegan, refined sugar and wheat-free.

Level: Middle

What you need:

Time: 3h // Tools: Oven, Pot, Bowl

9 Bagels

1 Package dry Yeast (14g)

3 dl warm Water

5 dl Spelt Flour

1,5 dl fullcorn Rye Flour

1,5 dl Buckwheat Flour

1/2 dl Chia Seeds

1/2 dl Flax Seeds

3/4 tsp Salt

Chia/Sunflower/Pumpkin/Flax Seeds for Topping

1. Fill a bowl with the warm water and add your dry Yeast. Let it rest for around 10min so it activates.
2. Meanwhile add your dry ingredients (except for the Topping Seeds) into a big Bowl and mix well.
3. Add your warm water and stirr and knead the dough, until it forms a sticky, but solid mass
4. Cover your Bowl with plastic foil and place it in a warm area. Let the dough rise for at least 1h, best is 2-3h.
5. Heat up Water with a bit of Salt in a big pot.
6. Take your dough and seperate into 9 Balls. Press them flat and add the hole in the middle.
7. When your water is cooking, add the Bagels one by one and cook until they come to the top.
8. Heat up your Oven to 200°c (fan)
9. Take your wet Bagels and place on a Baking sheet on a baking tray.
10. Decorate with Seed and bake in the Oven between 15-20min until they are gold-brown.

Very shortly before my upcoming Trip to Paris, i decided that i need to taste one typical french dish: Crêpes. My mother and brother do really love them. Since i am allergic to milk and egg, i have never had the delight to actually taste them before. Luckily i found a recipe by simplyconny, which i used as inspiration for my coffee-kicking crêpes.

Level: MIDDLE

What you need (4 Crêpes):

Time:45min // Tools: a good (!) Pan

2dl spelt flour

1dl freshly brewed dark coffee

1dl Oat Milk

1 Tsb Coconut Sugar

1 Tbsp Coconut Oil (melted)

1 Tsp Baking Powder

1. Add all dry ingredients in a Bowl and stirr well

2. Melt your coconut oil and add it with your Milk to the mixture. 

3. Stirr the dough well and let it rest for 5min, the texture will be liquid, so easy to pour in the pan.

4. Heat up your pan, with a bit of coconut oil. Test if it's hot by letting a drop of water in. When the water condenses, the pan has a good heat. 

5. Now pour your dough and spread quickly by moving the pan in circles, let bake on one side, until the edge turns crispy and turn over to the other side. 

6. Serve with Soy Joghurt and Frozen Berries. I topped the crêpes with homemade Almond Butter as well.

Most about different Seasons i like the change of fruit and vegetables. Especially autumn has so many nice veggies to offer, i can hardly choose between mushrooms, chestnuts, so many types of pumpkins and roots. 

To finally start into the most colourful season in Sweden, i decided to start with an easy Pumpkin soup, since i have not yet made so great experience with chestnuts.

Level: EASY

What you need:

Time: 2h // Tools: Hand-Blender

1 kg Hokkaido Pumpkin

2x2cm slice Ginger

1 piece vegetable stew

400ml Coconut Milk Light

3dl water

(served with garlic-oil roasted spinach)

1. Wash your pumpkin and remove the top and bottom.

2. Cut your pumpkin including skin/seeds into squares

3. Add your pumpkin pieces andthe ginger with water and vegetable stew in a pot and cook until the pumpkin is soft and falls apart. Let cool down.

4. Use your handblender and blend all ingredients in the pot. Add on Coconut Milk and a pinch of Salt if neccessary.

5. Let the soup rest. It tastes best the next day, when all the ginger has settled. 

#wheninRome, me and my friend visited this fantastic Burger Place called Flower Burger, nearby Vatican City. Honestly their Burger Buns are amazing, coloured in black, pink and blue, one really wants to try all of them. Also they have a huge variation of Burger patties, all plantbased of course.

So to have an amazing throwback to that one time, i decided to make my own Rainbow Burgers.
Well, the buns are the trickiest party and especially it's hard to get them fluffy, if you do neither use egg nor milk. Also i learned, that using spelt flour as a more heathy alternative, always makes the dough a big more dry and hard. Anyway i got inspired by some typical american recipes, tried to veganize them and the first time i actually forgot the yeast. Imagine me, waiting for around 4h and nothing happened to the dough. I thought it might be to cold, so i still put them in the oven and got rewarded with some little rocks. I hate food waste, but these i needed to toss away. The second time it went definitly more smooth, while my patience was gone, i did not let the dough rest long enough, but in the end they were quite ok. So bring a lot of time, if you want to make fluffy Burger Buns.

Level: ADVANCED

What you need:
BURGER BUNS 4PIECES

4dl Spelt Flour

1dl Soy Milk

1/4 dl neutral Oil

1 tsp Salt

1 Package dry active Yeast (14g)

Sesame

COLOURS

Blue: Blue Spirulina powder

Pink: Redbeet Juice

Orange: Kurkuma
QUINOA PATTIES (link)
VEGAN MAYONNAISE (link)

In total the preparation will take around 4h. So if you like the Burgers for lunch, better get up early. While most of the time the dough is resting, you can prepare the patties and other treats.
Start with blending all dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt) in a bowl.
If you colour all your buns the same, you can already add your colouring now. Since i wanted all different, i coloured them afterwards (see below)
Slowly add Oil and Milk, start working the dough. Very important when using spelt flour is to not overdo it.
Now cover the bowl with a plastic wrap. While the dough is resting, it's important that no humity passes out the bowl. You will see small water drops start to develop, when the fermenting process starts.


Place the bowl close to the heating or in a warm place and wait for 2h. The dough should have approximately the double size now.
Now seperate the dough for your buns and form Balls. By now it is not possible anymore to add the colouring within the bun, because kneading the dough now will make it hard and dry.
Instead mix the blue spirulina with a bit of plant milk and paint your bun from the outside. The Kurkuma needs to be dissolved in oil to develop it's full colour. The redbeet juice is easiest to apply.
Let the now coloured Balls rest in small bowls (closed by plastic film) for another hour.
You will see they still grow.
Put the Balls on a Baking Sheet and tap them carefully in the middle, to achieve a bun shape.
Paint them one more time, before putting them in the preheated oven (150°c)
Bake for 10min and paint again. Now add your sesame seeds.
Bake another 10min until they are crispy from the outside.
Let them cool down and TASTE THE RAINBOW
(the blue and red bun almost taste like normal bread, while the orange really has a kurkuma hint)

This is a meatfree alternative for crispy Burger Patties. I am not a big fan of Quinoa, but anyway i bought it a while ago, because it is so healthy. This recipe helped me to like it a bit more.

Whether you form patties or small little meatballs, is up to you. While this mass is a bit lighter than my Blackbean Köttbullar, it is more a chicken alternative. 

Level: EASY

What you need (5 Patties):

TIME: 45min // TOOLS: Blender, Bowl

2dl Oats

1 dl Quinoa mixed (before cooking)

1 piece vegetable stock

1 Tsp Tomato Paste (Tube)

1 Tsp Mustard

1 Tsp Flax Seeds

2 tsp aquafaba (Chickpea Water)

2 tsp corn starch

1 Tsp neutral Oil

1 Tsp Onion Powder

1 Tsp Garlic Powder

Salt / Chili Pepper

Start adding the oats, the flax seed and the starch. The flax seeds and starch are added to make the mass stick together, instead of an egg, as well as the chickpea water. Add all ingredients and blend until the mass forms a ball on its own. If your blender has a hard time, continue by hand.