A Great Veggie Burger!

A Tofu-Curry burger grilled, on a grainy bun, topped with thin-sliced raw beetroot, onion sprouts, and avocado slices.

Great flavor and texture mix, with the warm and flavorful curry tofu-burger, the crunch of the fresh sweet beetroot, tang crispness of the onion sprouts, and delicious softness of the avocado.
Next time I should try making my own curry-burgers though, as these were pre-prepared fresh ones from an organic shop in Zurich. I'd be also that making ground-chicken or ground-turkey curry burgers in this context would be amazing, too...I'll try that at some point, but at the moment I'm eating mostly vegetarian, or fish. Maybe also a curried tunasteak would be an awesome substitute! Mmmm...

With in this picture a blended green-swiss-chards soup, which contained the whole head of swiss chards and two onions cooked/steamed down till soft, then blended up with some milk, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper... healthy meal overall! :-)

Salmon carrot spinach curry

Been eating a LOT of curry recently... especially fish-vegetable combo curries, either over boiled potatos or rice, or another grain.

Here's one of them, which I made by starting with sauteeing some onions, sliced carrots and yellow bell peppers, then adding coconut milk, and a bunch of spices (curry powder, onion powder, paprika, garlic powder, cumin, pepper, cayenne pepper, and a garam-masala spice mix, and 2 boullion cubes for the salt), added some water and let that simmer for a bit, then added the chunks of salmon, until they were cooked through, then added a bit more milk to bring up the juiciness volume some more, and then finally the fresh spinach leaves which cook in the heat of the sauces very quickly.

haha not the most photogenic dishes to capture, unless you do a good job with the plating... but hopefully the wok-pic still gives insight to it being tasty!

Herbed 'Lachsforelle" with Fettucini in Creamy Vegetable "carbonera" sauce

I believe the translation of Lachsforelle is "salmon trout", which makes sense since the flesh is salmon-colored, and John bought it thinking it was salmon :-) ...

Herb-ed that fish with oregano, basil, paprika, onion powder, salt and pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil, then baked it top shelf in the oven with high heat for 5-10 minutes,

And meanwhile, in a saucepan I sauteed some onions and red bell pepper with olive oil, oregano, fresh garlic cloves, salt, pepper until the onions were translucent, then stirred in some flour, and brought up the volume with some milk and blended the whole thing to make a slightly thickened veggie-flavored creamy sauce.... and then whisked 3 eggs, which I tossed over the freshly boiled pasta (essentially making pasta carbonera), then also adding the veggie sauce over that, which combined nicely to make a rich juicy protein-rich sauce all-together. Pretty tasty meal in the end--I recommend it, and will definitely make it again!

..would have garnished with some fresh parsley if I had it ;-)

Savory Bread Pudding, a la Kingsolver/Madison

I just finished reading a fantastic book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. And true to the "Boston Sunday Globe" quote on the second edition cover, this book did change my life.
Not saying that to be cliche or corny, but in reflection of the fact that the book is truly eye-opening, and inspiring, regarding that small choices by everyone help to shape who we are, our health, the economy, and the world's health.
I emphatically recommend this book, for all the information about food, gardens, farms and the agriculture/food economy, fun recipes, refreshing ideas about life philosophies, and great stories Kinsolver shares about her and her family member's life.

I tried one of the first recipes from the book ( all the recipes can be found online, too:
www.AnimalVegetableMiracle.com

So this was the recipe for "Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding"
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/BREAD%20PUDDING.pdf
I think bread puddings are exciting, so tried this one, substituting some other things that *were* in season (in line with what the book talks about!) and substituted freshly steamed green beans for the asparagus, and regular brown mushrooms for the morels, and that turned out great! (I only used about 1/2 as much cheese though, I think it'd be a tad too cheesy with the 3 cups the recipe called for. Good recipe to play with, substituting different veggies for the season!

Squash Soup

A muscat squash (left) and pumpkin

Squash is in season!!!

I love making squash soup, and I love even more getting to make a great meal out of the squash, and then getting the bonus of roasting the seeds into a delicious snack.

After halving the squash, I scoop out the seeds--for the seeds I make a general purpose seasoning salt including roughly 1/3 salt, then the rest some unmeasured proportion (in roughly decreasing quantities) of onion powder, garlic powder, paprika (some mild some spicy), ground thyme, ground oregano or any other herb I have handy, celery salt, and maybe some pepper.
I then sprinkle the seasoning salt over the seeds, and bake in the oven along with the squash @ about 350-400F (170-190C)--the seeds finish a lot sooner for a pre-dinner snack!
a big squash like this butternut often takes about 1.5 hours in the oven-- I just keep baking it till it's the right scoopable softness, then put that in a big pot, with some boullion/broth, maybe add some thyme, pepper, (a pinch of nutmeg seems traditional in this type of soup), use my nifty immersion blender to combine, and bring up the volume to the right texture with milk+cream, then check that there's enough salt-balance coming from the boullion, otherwise to adjust that at the end.
Another winter squash...type=?

Butternut squash halves

"Veggie dogs" in a blanket :-)

I just wanted to share one of my favorite from-scratch 'comfort foods' of a sort-- a variation of "pigs in a blanket", where I make a soft whole-wheat-flour dough (using some olive oil in the dough to make a softer type of roll), and then after cutting the triangles, stuffing them with a segment of veggie-dog, various vegetables (sauteed onions and bell pepper, steamed broccoli, maybe green beans, or any other that fits the day's fancy), and a small stick of a medium-sharp cheese (here, I like to use Gruyere, Sbrinz, or a sharp Emmenteller best). Bake for about 20 minutes and that's a fun dinner...

Baba ganoush Pizza

This ended up being a tasty random thing to do-- a thin layer of strong tomato-pizza-sauce, then dollops of a freshly made batch of baba ganoush from a batch of eggplants I grilled that afternoon. Then load up the favorite toppings-- and it ended up being one of my favorite pizzas I've made yet! :-)