vegan birthday.

V.

Hey y'all! :) About a month ago Esther celebrated her - (I'm not allowed to say the number, I guess) - birthday and traditionally invited all of us 6 friends to celebrate with her. Since Esther is vegan now, she prepared many delicious meals for us that did not include any animal related products (I guess that's brand new information for you, right?). Honestly, quite a while ago I was one of those people who went "Vegan? Is that another word for tasteless and boring?" - but let me assure you- it definitely isn't. Even though I'm not vegan or vegetarian I absolutely enjoyed the wonderful snacks Esther had prepared for us and therefore like to share them on the blog with you today! - (I can  totally see Esther rolling her eyes at this very moment and going: "this is ridiculous, I'm feeling self-conscious now", but I dont care!) Enjoy! :)

As a first course we got some yummy fruit and a watermelon smoothie. As you can see in the picture, I am philosophizing about how the taste reminds me of summer, others might interpret it as posing as arrogantly as possible. 

The second course was the birthday cake, which was a chocolate cake covered in blueberries. I guess I don't have to describe to you how wonderful it tasted, right?

The third course was basically our main course which consisted of aubergine bruschetta, couscous with chickpeas, tomatoes, arugula and so on, cabbage salad and sweet potato wedges. Delish!

As it got dark we went inside, listened to some music and Esther unpacked her presents. (And no, we're not glued to our laptops all day long, even though it kinda looks like it judging by the pictures you've seen so far)! :)

vegan day.

E.

Today I decided to have a vegan day which turned out to be a rather great idea. For breakfast I only had a smoothie because I wasn't feeling particularly hungry in the morning. After staring at all the work I had to do for university, I quickly fled from my desk into the kitchen and baked some vegan chocolate brownies.

And because it's already November, I decided to listen to this magnificent medley the entire time I spent in the kitchen: 

(Like I said: it's already November! Therefore I am allowed to listen to this. Don't give me that look!)

Vegan chocolate brownies

Ingredients

1 cup bananas (mashed)

1/4 cup soy milk (or almond milk, ...)

1/4 cup oil 

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

2 cups flour

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

First, mash the bananas in a bowl.

Add oil (I used coconut oil), soy milk, sugar, vanilla and salt and mix it all together.

Then add flour, cocoa and baking powder to the banana mixture.

Mix it all together and fill the mixture into a baking tray.

Let it bake for about half an hour.

Enjoy!

After I had shoved the brownies into the oven it was time to prepare lunch. I decided to make some zucchini »pasta« with pea purée and sautéed mushrooms, which tasted amazing. Though next time I am going to try switching the pea purée for an avocado sauce. 

autumn charm.

V.

Hey guys!! 

Dear god, it's been way to long since the last blogpost .. I just realized. I'm currently working on a lot of photo projects, which is why I tried to put my camera away as much as I could in my free time (a.k.a. blogpost-time) to simply get my mind off photoshop for once. But I really missed blogging, I'm telling you! That's why I would like to share with you today some lovely pictures that I took during the past weekend.

On Friday, my parents invited some good friends to dinner, which basically means that my mum served the perfect 5-course meal and put a lot of effort into the whole presentation -(she really doesn't think so, but I DO!). "Unfortunately" I could't taste most of those delicious treats, as I was invited to another party myself. :)

On Saturday, shortly after lunch, Mike and I went for a walk in a nearby neighborhood to enjoy the charm autumn has to offer. We had some coffee at Schloss Wartholz, a lovely place to visit at pretty much any season of the year.

We then went to a lake nearby to collect some chestnuts - and as you can see, we were quite successful! :)

Such a lovely day! :)