Tag Archives: vegetarian

Pumpkin Seed Soufflé with Butternut Squash Sauce

There are plenty of different butters and purees available made purely from nuts, such as peanut butter, almond paste or hazelnut nougat. They all work great in desserts, so I thought a butter made from pumpkin seeds might work in sweets well, too. Although its taste resembles the hazelnut nougat flavor, at the same time it also has a nice pumpkin seed aroma. The consistency of the pure butter is quite thick and first it looks brown, but if you loosen it up with some water or other liquid its color turns into dirty green and the butter gets creamy again. It can be used in batters or creams to both flavor and color them. This also gave me the idea to try the pumpkin seed butter in a soufflé.

Pumpkin Seed Souffle with Butternut Squash Sauce

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Butternut Squash with Pumpkin Seeds

Thinking about vegan desserts it was surprising to me how much our usual desserts rely on animal products. Many – if not most – recipes contain either eggs, gelatin, butter, milk, cream or honey. Sometimes not even fruit sorbets are pure because adding some egg white or mascarpone makes their texture less crystalline. On the other hand, many animal products can be substituted: Instead of milk or cream you can create nutritious milk from rice or nuts. In many cases, butter can be substituted by flavorful vegetable oils. Honey too can be replaced by various natural sweeteners such as sugar beet molasses, agave or rice syrup. I believe that all these great plant-based products should not be treated as substitutions only, but rather as full-valued products. If we would stop thinking of them as substitutions and rather see them as full-valued ingredients, many new and creative desserts could be created.

Butternut Squash with Pumpkin Seeds

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Beets with Cashew-Salsify Puree, Apple, Walnut and Kale Chips

If you open a cookbook about classic french cooking you will find recipes for several sauces. Except for vinaigrettes, almost all sauces contain either milk, eggs or animal bones. So while I was exploring vegan cooking, my idea was to figure out whether it is possible to create a rich brown sauce by using vegetables only. My result was more than satisfactory. I didn’t taste the same as sauces prepared with animal parts, but this rich vegan brown sauce works great for coating or glazing baked or roasted vegetables.

Beets with Cashew-Salsify Puree, Apple, Walnut and Kale Chips

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Broccoli Soup with Almond Milk and Roasted Almonds

Exploring how far I can take vegan food was only one of my motivations for creating a vegan menu. The other impulse originated from a documentary I came across recently. Forks over Knives takes a critical look at the western diseases from the perspective of the people’s diet. The main message of the documentary is that there is a direct causal relationship between the excessive amounts of meat, dairy products, sugar and fat consumed in our western diet, and the still increasing diseases of our era such as diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and cancer. According to the doctors and researchers featured in the film, all these diseases can be avoided and even cured by a whole-foods, plant-based diet.

Broccoli and Almond

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Chestnut-filled Cabbage with Sunchoke and Cabbage-Tapioca

Nana, a vegetarian friend of mine, announced a vegetarian month, which aims to motivate people to prepare and eat a meatless meal at least once during this month. Besides eating less meat, hopefully the participants will also think a little bit about the vegetarian diet and probably notice that meat does not need to be present on the plate every day. All submitted recipes participate in a contest, where the winner gets an invitation to nana for a vegetarian dinner. Originating from nana’s call for recipes, I took the opportunity to give a thought not only about the vegetarian, but also about the vegan diet.

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