For Friends...
Some dishes we love to offer our friends when having a nice movie or game night.
Marinated Grilled Vegetables
Super easy and super delicious! Prepare with your favourite selection of vegetables, i. e. one or two zucchinis, one egg plant, one red and one yellow pepper, some mushrooms and red onions...
Preheat your oven to as high a temperature as possible. Place a tray in the oven so that it gets preheated as well. When using
eggplant, cut the fruit into half an then cut the halves into slices. Put the pieces into a bowl, mix with plenty of salt and incubate for about half an hour. Meanwhile, cut
zucchinis into half and slice them as well.
Red and yellow pepper should be cut into large dices,
mushrooms into 4 to 6 pieces and
onions into eights. Put everything except the aubergines into a large bowl. If you like, you may also cut
one or two cloves of garlic into thin strips and add them to the mixture.
Thoroughly rinse the salted eggplant slices to get rid of most of the salt; then squeeze the pieces with your hands to get rid of most of the water and put them into the bowl together with the other vegetables. Sprinkle with some
olive oil and mix.
Now cautiously take the hot tray out of the oven, place it on a trivet and spread some
olive oil on it. Now pour the vegetables onto the hot tray and enjoy the sizzling sound! Quickly put the tray back into the oven.
The vegetables will be done once zucchini and pepper start exhibiting brown spots.
After cooling down, transfer the veggies into a bowl, add
some more olive oil,
some lemon juice,
a few drops of white wine vinegar (or, alternatively, a wee bit of balsamico vinegar, but skipping the lemon juice)
a little salt and
loads of chopped herbs such as parsley, basil and a little bit of peppermint. If you haven't add any garlic until now, you should now cut
one clove or garlic into thin stripes and add it to the marinade.
Briefly marinate and... yum!
Oriental and Mediterranean Delights
These became sort of our standard treats for friends living the vegan way.
Hummus
Top left - Goes well with freshly baked white bread, but also delicious with veggy sticks!
In a food processor, blend
2 glasses of chick peas (440 g, after dripping of the fluid),
1 glass of tahine (sesame paste, 250 g),
the juice of 1 to 1½ lemons,
3 to 4 cloves of garlic (roughly chopped),
100 mL of olive oil,
2 tablespoons of freshly ground cumin,
2 tablespoons of sweet paprika powder,
1 teaspoon of salt, perhaps
a pinch of chili powder and -- my special ingredient! --
2 tablespoons of peppermint syrup.
Let the food processor run until the hummus obtains a nice and smooth texture -- you may need to add some (50 mL) of water to increase the dish's softness!
Grilled Zucchinis
Top right - Easy to prepare and delicious!
Preheat your oven to 250°C. Meanwhile, spread some
olive oil onto a baking tray. Cut
3 to 4 zucchinis into slices about 5 mm thick. Place them onto the baking try, making sure they don't overlap. Bake for approx. 10 to 15 minutes -- they're right when they just start getting brownish dots.
After cooling, put the zucchini slices into a plastic bag, together with
the juice of half a lemon,
a clove of garlic (roughly chopped),
a pinch of salt and just enough
olive oil to ensure all slices are nicely covered when squeezing the bag together. Close the bag using a kitchen clip and marinate the zucchinis for some hours in the fridge.
Honey and Sherry Aubergines
Bottom left - Rich in both flavor and calories... (And truly vegan only when replacing honey with sugar.)
Cut
2 aubergines (eggplant) into cubes of approx. 1 cm. In a bowl, mix them with loads of salt and let them rest for at least 20 minutes. Wash the aubergines with a lot of water and squeeze them afterwards to get rid of most of the salt.
In the meantime, submerge
3 to 4 tomatoes under boiling water so that you will later be able to nicely peel them. Next, heat some (quite some!)
olive oil in a saucepan and add
1 to 2 roughly chopped onions. Fry until they just start getting brown. Add
2 finely chopped cloves of garlic and fry for another minute. If you happen to have, you may also add some
red or yellow pepper, chopped into little pieces and fry them until they start getting soft. Add some more
olive oil if necessary. Now add the eggplant and fry, stirring regularly. At this stage, you may want to add some more olive oi. When the aubergine chops become soft, push the saucepan's content to one side to make some room on its floor, perhaps add some olive oil, and briefly fry
about 50 mL of tomato puree, stirring continuously. After that, add the
peeled, deseeded and chopped tomatoes,
a large dash of sherry and
2 tablespoons of honey and perhaps
a pinch of chili powder and mix well. Let cook for about 20 minutes, adding more sherry, if necessary. Finally season with
freshly ground black pepper and a final dash of sherry.
Duqqa
Bottom right - A spicy explosion!
Preheat you oven to 250°C. Fill a saucepan with water and heat it until it boils. Add
50 g of hazelnuts to the water and boil them for about 5 minutes. Strain them and put them into an oven-prove bowl or tray, together with
5 tablespoons of cumin seeds and
5 tablespoons of coriander seeds. Put
100 g of sesame seeds into a separate, also oven-prove bowl. Put both bowls into the preheated oven for about 5 minutes.
After cooling down, place the ingredients from the first bowl into a food processor, together with
1 teaspoon of salt, and blend until you got a course powder. Add the sesame seeds, too, and briefly blend some more -- not too much, because otherwise oil will start leaking from the sesame, making the grains sticking together.
The dry duqqa mixture stays fine for several weeks in the fridge, gradually losing its flavor, though.
For serving, take some of the duqqa powder and mix it with just enough
olive oil to produce a nice paste that can e.g. be spread on a slice of bread.