BRAAAIIIINS! This is vegan Halloween!

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

Tags

dessert, food photography, Halloween, holiday, lego, nougat, playful, pumpkin pie, recipes, scary, vegan, vegetarian, white chocolate

I’m back home and back in the playful kitchen! Back with BRAINS with pumpkin pie filling and nougat filling!

What could be better than a seasonal treat right now? The leaves are falling, it’s getting colder… and very soon, it’s Halloween! You just have to mention Halloween and immediately, the song “This is Halloween” is stuck in my head. Anyway, I like the song, so no problem here!

I’ve never been found of Halloween until I’ve been to the US, dressed up and watched the movie (Nightmare before Christmas!). And I never liked zombies until lego came up with lego zombies. And those are still the only zombies I like.

So, here they are.

BRAINS!

(For vegans: GRAINS! Okay, that’s an old one…)

Oh, I really love those pictures, so you’ll get a lot of them today!

Okay, you’ll also get the recipe.

BRAINS with Pumpkin Pie Filling and Nougat

100g / 3,5 oz vegan white chocolate
Pumpkin Pie Filling (use your favorite recipe or this one. I recommend using a little less liquid than you’d use for an actual pumpkin pie)
50g / 2 oz nougat
2 Tbs vegan cream (I used soyatoo soy whip)
Brain Freeze ice cube mold (or another scary mold)

Melt white chocolate.
Put it in your mold, so that the brains are all covered in chocolate. This is the hollow chocolate body. Put in the refrigerator and let it harden.
Melt nougat and mix with vegan cream.
Fill some brains with nougat, some with pumpkin pie filling. Seal the brains with another layer of white chocolate and put it the fridge until the chocolate is hard. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Pie Filling (my favorite…)Nougat filling (for all those poor people who don’t like pumpkin! This is not your season, I’m sorry!)

Of course, you could make them any shape you want to, not just brains ;)

Brainfood!!! Mango-Energie Bar

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

bar, dessert, energie bars, food photography, healthy food, healty eating, lego, mango, oats, playful, raw, recipes, sport, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix, walnuts

So… I’m writing my exams right now. And learning really, really makes me hungry. It’s almost like I feel how my brain burns all that calories! But as storebought raw fruit bars are quite expansive, I usually make my own. The possibilities are endless, almost any combination of dried fruit and nuts will work.

And this one was really delicious, so even though this recipe was not meant for the blog in first place, after tasting the first bar I decided to share them with you!

RAW Mango Energie Bars

1 cup dates
1 /2 cup dried (soft) apples
1/4 cup dried mango, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts
2 Tbsp golden flaxseed
1/2 cup (raw) oats

Coarsely grind the walnuts and oats in your blender or food processor. Set aside. Mix dates, apples and mango in your blender or food processor until they stick together. (I use my blender. If you pulse, it works pretty well!) Add ground oat-nut mixture and flaxseed and mix until you have a formable dough. Form bars (or balls or whatever you want! ;) ) with your hands. Enjoy!

My little friends agreed that they’d make a great for a bike tour, too. =D
And as this was meant to be brainfood for me, I just had to add walnuts. First of all, they look like little brains. And secondly, I have a persian friend who always tells me to eat a lot of walnuts when I’m writing my exams. And with all the omega 3 fatty acids, which are good for your brain, you can’t go wrong with walnuts.

But the most important fact about this bar: It’s unbelievable fruity thanks to the mangos! Yummy!

Mandarine Yogurt Cake – Hell yeah it’s summer!

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

cake, cake decoration, cake filling, cooking, dessert, food photography, healthy, lego, muesli, playful, recipes, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix, yogurt

Wow – it’s been a while since the last post! I promise to improve! ;)

But, well, summer has finally arrived in Germany! And guess what – with summer being here right now, my exam period is starting… what a great timing. Sitting inside and studying while the weather is absolutely awesome is hard for me.

However, this is not about my exams, this is about food! Yummy, delicious, vegan food! And so… there’s nothing better in summer than a no-bake cake. A refreshing, delicious, cool, no bake cake. So, that’s exactly what I made. I remembered the Vanilla-Mandarine-Pudding cake that my grandma used to make when I was still very little. Inspired by that awesome food combination, I thought of a light, cool and vegan summer version of this cake. Here it is.

Trust me, it is delicious! An unexpected discovery with this cake was the crust, which I just whipped up pretty spontaneously, not knowing that it would taste SO great! I had some left-over dough from the crust and I just formed it into little balls and snacked on them – so yummy!

Yogurt-Mandarine Vanilla Cake
Ø about 18cm / 7 inches

For the crust

one cup muesli (just regular muesli, nothing fancy and NO granola)
2 tbsp almond butter
2-4 tbsp agave syrup
2 tbsp flax seed
pinch of salt (optional)

For the filling

1 can mandarines (ca. 300g / 10.5 ounces)
650g vanilla soy yogurt
2 packages agartine (german product) OR two tsp agar agar powder

For the crust: Put the muesli, almond butter flax and agave in your blender or food processor. Mix until it sticks together, adding more agave if it’s too dry and more muesli if it’s too sticky. Press the mixture into a round pan lined with baking paper.

For the filling: Pour the can (fruit + juice!) in a pot and stir in agar agar. Bring it to a boil for about 2 minutes. Pour the vanilla yogurt into a bowl and mix in the mandarine mixture, using a whisk. You want some of the little mandarine segments to separate, that’s what makes the cake great in my opinion. Pour the mixture into the spring pan, let it cool down completely. Store into your refrigerator.

“Hey… you forgot to say something!!!”
– Oh, yeah, sure… well, you don’t have to use store bought vanilla yogurt. Actually, it’s quite easy to make your own! Just scratch out the inside of one vanilla bean and add sweetener to taste. You can create a yellow color by either using curcuma or saffron.

Thanks for reminding me! ;)

RAW Strawberry Rhubarb Popsicles

16 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

almond, dessert, food photography, healthy food, ice cream, lego, playful, popsicle, raw, recipes, rhubarb, strawberry, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix

It’s getting warm! Summer is almost here – even where I live!

And that means… it’s time for ice cream! Oh, I have so many ice cream ideas, I’m really glad that we finally have the right temperatures for ice cream and popsicles!
Actually, rhubarb is a spring vegetable. Yeah, that’s right, it’s a vegetable, not a fruit. And a pretty healthy one, too. If this was a health blog, I could tell you a lot about it’s benefits, like the high amounts of dietary fiber, it’s vitamin B, A and K content, antioxidants and calcium. But this is just a playful blog, so you don’t even have to let people know that they are eating a healthy treat…

… cause nobody will notice. They taste that good!

Strawberry Rhubarb Popsicles

2 cups strawberries
1 small stalk rhubarb
3 tbsp almond or coconut milk
optional: 1/2 cup xylit (or regular sugar) for the sweet tooth… *

Mix all the ingredients in your blender. Fill in popsicle forms and freeze for about 6h or overnight.
Enjoy!

* NOTE: If you add sugar/xylit or not depends on your own sweet tooth and on the sweetness of your strawberries which varies a lot! When you try the mixture, it should be slightly over sweetened, because the frozen mixture always tastes slightly less sweet.

And you have to hurry up to make this treat – rhubarb season is almost over!!! It usually lasts until the end of june.

Homemade Soft Pretzels – whole wheat!

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

baking, bread, breakfast, cooking, dessert, food photography, healthy, lego, playful, Pretzels, soft pretzels, vegan, vegetarian, whole wheat

click for German version / Deutsche version hier

Fresh soft pretzels are one of the first things that come into peoples’ minds when thinking of Germany.
What most people don’t know: It’s actually just the south where those pretzels are really popular. You can also buy them in the north. But the south is famous for it’s soft pretzels.

I’m from the north. ;)

To finally get rid of the prejudice: People in Germany don’t look like the little lego guy above. They don’t wear leather pants and they don’t drink beer all day. Actually, leather pants are just the traditional costume in one particular state (Bavaria)! And there are 15 more states that don’t have leather pants. They do have beer and pretzels though. But no leather pants. And no dirndl. Just saying.

The lego guy is a traditional Bavarian.

Okay. I do have a pretzel food critic from the south (He’s not from Bavaria and he doesn’t wear leather pants). He ~~liked~~ loved my homemade pretzels. I love them, too. So I guess they are really good!

At first, I thought whole wheat pretzels were a completely new idea. After all, I’ve never, neither in the north, nor in the south, seen a whole wheat soft pretzel. As I’ve never seen them or heard about them, I always thought soft pretzel won’t work with whole wheat, or they won’t taste good.

I was proven wrong.

In both points.
1. Whole wheat pretzels taste great! I might even like them better than their white relatives.
2. My friend from the south told me, that some organic bakeries sell whole wheat pretzels, too. However, they don’t seem to be that popular. I really don’t know why.

Whole wheat Soft Pretzels

yields about 8 pretzels

400g (3 1/3 cups) whole wheat pastry flour (Germany: Weizen 1050)
1 package active dry yeast
60g (1/3 cup) margarine
160g (2/3 cup) soy milk (plus 4 tbsp in case you need more liquid!)
1 tsp salt
1 liter (4 cups) water
3 tbsp baking soda (Germany: Natron)
coarse salt for sprinkling

Combine four, dry yeast and 1 tsp salt in a bowl. Add margarine and milk. Start with 160g (2/3 cup) milk and add more if needed. Knead the dough by hand or use your food processor. (I always use my hands… honestly, cleaning your hands is easier than cleaning a food processor!). The dough should be smooth and not sticky. Use more water if needed (the exact amount always depends on your flour). Put dough back in the bowl, cover with a towel and let it sit for 30 min.

Put 1 liter water (4 cups) in a pot, add baking soda and bring it to a rolling boil. Now it’s time to form your pretzels! Roll into a log first and then form the “knot”. You could also watch a youtube video for more detailed instructions. Or you simply form pretzle sticks or buns! Place your pretzels into the boiling water, one by one, for one minute. Remove from water and put on a backing tray, lined with baking parchment. Brush with water and sprinkle with coarse salt. Let them sit for another 30 min. Bake for about 15-20 min, until golden brown in color (180 C / 360 F ).

Enjoy!

Those pretzels would be fun when served with Dessert Beer! =D

Cute Easter Lamb

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

baking, cake, chocolate, dessert, Easter, food photography, frosting, lego, playful, recipes, seasonal, vegan, vegetarian, yeast

Today’s the first day of spring! Yay!

However, it’s cold and it’s raining here… well, that’s just one more reason to do some baking! There’s no sweeter way to heat up the house!

My little, chubby Easter lamb.
Baking an Easter lamb used to be a tradition at our house when I was little. We used to have a special pan for the Easter Lamb.
Now I wanted to revive that tradition the vegan way. Without a special pan. If you have very limited shelf space in your kitchen, you think twice before buying another tool, especially those that are used just once a year! No, there had to be another way of baking an Easter Lamb.

And Easter Eggs. Easter Eggs are so much better when they are made of dough or chocolate!

I used a very traditional combination: Yeast dough, streusel topping and A LOT of sugar icing! I also formed some easter eggs and a little Easter cookie, as I had some dough left. (You could also form one big Easter Lamb… but I usually like to have more and smaller pieces!)

Easter Lamb

For the lamb:

350g (3 cups) all purpose flour
50g (1/4 cup) sugar
1 package vanilla sugar OR 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250 ml (1 cup) room temperatured almond milk (or any other kind of plant based milk)
3 tbsp Oil
1 package active dry yeast
1 pinch of salt
soy creamer (for coating)

For the streusel:

75g (2/3 cup) all purpose flour
40g (1/4 cup) sugar
40g (3 tbsp) margarine
pinch of salt

Decoration:

icing sugar
water
melted chocolate

For the yeast dough, mix all the dry ingredients. Add milk and oil and either knead with your hands (that’s the way I do it) or with a kitchen machine. Add more milk or flour if needed to create a smooth, non-sticking dough. Shape dough into a bowl, place in a large bowl, cover with a towel and set aside for about 40 min.

When the dough has doubled it’s volume, form little balls (Ø about 3 cm / 1 inch) from about 3/4 of the dough. Brush the balls with soy creamer and form the body by placing them in the desired shape on a baking sheet. From the rest of the dough, form legs and head. Brush with soy creamer and add to the body.

Brush legs and head with soy creamer.

For the streusel: Combine all ingredients with you hands or a kitchen machine. Top the lambs body with a “streusel fur”.

Bake for about 30 – 40 min (360 F / 180 C).

Decorate the cooled lamb with sugar icing and chocolate.

Easter lamb and bunny! I do like bunnies. I should bake a bunny, too…

More sweet stuff!

This was supposed to be a lamb’s head. Looking at it now… it could also be a bunny, right? Oh well, it’s the inner values (the taste!) that counts, right?

Yummy. It’s just as good as “Streuseltaler” from any German bakery. And it’s cute.

Are there any special easter traditions at your house?
As this was an early Easter Lamb, I guess I’ll have to do another one for Easter…

Caramel Cheesecake – Fairytale come true

17 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

baking, banana, cake, caramel, cashews, cheesecake, dessert, food, food photography, healthy, lego, playful, recipes, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix, whole cane sugar

Sweet times on Playful and Hungry!

I always thought, a cake can’t taste like cheesecake if it’s made from tofu. I was proven wrong. It took some trials and experimenting – but the result was a delicious AND healthy, vegan cheesecake. It’s high in protein and you don’t have to feel bad about eating it for breakfast. Or Dinner. Or lunch…

It’s might not be 1 : 1 like a sugar-loaded, non vegan cheesecake. But the consistence is perfect and it tastes just as good as any cheesecake I’ve ever tried! Give it a chance!

Using Whole Cane Sugar yields the wonderful caramel flavor! If you want a caramel cheesecake, don’t replace it! If you don’t care so much about the caramel flavor, you could also replace it with stevia or xylit or any other sweetener.

So… once upon a time, there was a little fairy. And what do fairies do all day? Exactly! They sparkle, twinkle, flutter around and eat cake. Today, it just had to be a cheesecake. Voila.

So she got out her pink plate…, well, no. She just did some magic and conjured it up.

Pling! One wink with her wand, and she had a whole plate full of cream…

Time to have some Caramel Cheesecake!

Caramel Cheesecake
Inspired by this recipe, Ø about 20cm / 8 inch

1 package (350-400g) firm tofu
1/2 cup (70g) cashews
1/4 cup (60ml) almond milk
1 tbs vinegar
3 tbs lemon juice
1 ripe banana (can be omitted . use slightly more sweetener)
6 tbsp soy yogurt
1/4 cup stevia (or more whole cane sugar – which also means more caramel ;) )
3/4 cup (100g) Whole Cane Sugar (add more if you like it sweeter!!!)
1/2 tsp powdered vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla extract

Put all the ingredients in your high speed blender or food processor and mix! Pour into a slightly greased backing pan and bake for about 45 minutes (350 F / 200 C).
Allow the cake to cool down before cutting it!

Oh, by the way… you can be looking forward to a RAW vegan Mango Cheesecake. Just saying… ;)

Greeting from Fairy Land!

Lassi – The indian way of milkshake

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

dessert, food, food photography, fruit, healthy, healthy food, healty eating, indian, lassi, lego, mango, milkshake, playful, recipes, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix

No indian meal without a lassi.

Lassi is a popular and yogurt based indian drink. It can be both sweet or savory. Traditional Lassi is savory, often yogurt is blended together with water and spices like roasted cumin and coriander seeds. It’s said to help your digestion when enjoying an indian fest, too. The most popular way to enjoy a sweet lassi is mango lassi. It’s refreshing and not as filling as a milkshake. And it tastes really great!

If the mango you use is ripe enough, you won’t need any additional sweetener. At least, that’s what my tastebuds told me. Feel free to add agave, sugar, stevia or blend in some dates. Whatever works for you is fine!

Another thing I like about Lassi: It’s so simple! No fancy ingredients! Okay, you can add fancy ingredients like rose water, but you don’t have too!

Mango Lassi

1 cup yogurt (I used soy)
1 cup water
1 ripe mango, cut into cubes *
Optional: a dash of cardamom or 3 cardamom pods
Optional: 1 teespoon rosewater

Put everything in your blender and mix. That’s it! Enjoy Lassi with an indian meal or just like that!

Note: Cardamom and rosewater are not for everyone. I love cardamom, but most people I know don’t… so please make sure you like it before you add it to your lassi! I warned you!

* No fresh mango on hand? Use some pieces of dried mango! Soak before mixing or use a high speed blender, it does the job!

You might have noticed that there was no mini fig here. You’re still on the Playful and Hungry website, don’t worry. I must have been out of sorts when I was taking these pics… and probably really hungry, too!

Okay. I just can’t do this. I just can’t post this without a playful pic. That’s just not right! So here you are. The hippie is one of my favorites. However, I definitelly need a female hippie to identify with…

Let’s make the connection between Lassi and my playful hippie picture: Many hippies travelled to india! =D There you go!