My food blogging has slowed down this past year, mainly because I've traveled a lot and because I really don't need to create new dishes: there are already so many delicious and easy vegan dishes in my repertoire that adding new ones doesn't seem worth the effort. 

Which is why I'm so amazed when someone says being a vegan must be boring—hardly! 

But I thought I'd put together a list of my favorite recipes from this year. While I like all the recipes I've posted, some are real winners. I find myself making them over and over, and especially for company. These are the ones I'd send you if you sent me one of those recipe chain emails.

Of course I've made many, many recipes from cookbooks and other blogs that I haven't mentioned, and which are far more deserving. So take this list with a grain of salt...err, maybe a pinch, though I wouldn't recommend overdoing it.

Favorite Breakfast: 

Scrambled Tofu I make this a lot, especially on weekends. 

Favorite Appetizer: 

Maple Mustard Tempeh with Maple Dijon Sauce I could eat this every day, and not just for an appetizer. It will change your mind about tempeh, that is if your mind needs changing. 

Favorite Bread: 

Spelt Banana Bread This is actually the only bread recipe I've posted this year. But when you find one you like you stick with it. This is it.

Favorite Soup: 

Butternut Squash and Black Bean Soup I love soup. This is one of my absolute all-time favorites. I brought it to a dinner party at a friend's house on Halloween, since it's so Halloweeny colored. 

Favorite Salad:

Wasabi Potato Salad I'm not as big a fan of salads (hence there aren't that many listed here) but when I do make salad, I prefer hearty salads. This is great served warm or cold.

Favorite Side Dish:

Lima Beans with Lemon and Garlic I also don't post a lot of recipes for side dishes, since I prefer simple sides. But this one is one of my favorites, one I find myself making often.

Favorite Main Dish: 

Butternut Squash with Black Beans and Polenta Triangles This is the second time butternut squash and black beans feature in a favorite recipe. There's a reason for that: They're excellent together! 

Favorite Dessert:

Chocolate and Oreo Pudding Again, I haven't made many desserts this year, mainly because my tastes have changed. Plus, it's just the two of us often, and it doesn't seem worth the effort. This one is worth the effort. Trust me.

We've never had a name for these holiday treats my husband likes to make. I remember my great aunt making them every year, along with other specialties. I bet lots of American families have similar recipes involving melted chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and dried Chinese chow mein noodles. 

But butterscotch chips contain dairy fat. So what's a vegan to do? This year I hit upon a solution, found in my cupboard where I keep the many jars of Speculoos I bring back from Belgium. It has a slightly butterscotchy flavor, a sweet caramelized flavor that's just perfect for these chow mein Whatchacallits. Combined with 70% dark chocolate, the Speculoos paste made for even better treats than the original.

Call them what you will. They're quick and easy to make, free-form rather than carefully rolled or sliced like other holiday treats. If you keep a room in your house unheated, like we do, you'll find it the perfect temperature for cooling off the treats and storing them. 

The amounts are pretty loose. We usually used 2 bags of chocolate chips (American-size bags, not the smaller British chocolate chips). Be sure you read the labels to find vegan chocolate chips. Alternately, use 70% dark chocolate bars (we use Divine vegan dark chocolate bars).

Melt 2 lbs of dark chocolate in a large double boiler or a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Add 1 cup of Speculoos (or more to taste). Stir in about 8 cups of chow mein noodles and 1 cup of peanuts. When the noodles and peanuts are coated with the chocolate mixture, spoon them onto wax paper and set in the refrigerator or a chilled room until they're firm. If you have extra chocolate, dip pretzels in it and chill the same way.

This makes a lot, enough for sharing. If you want to make less, cut the recipe in half.

If you live in America and haven't yet found Speculoos, try using peanut butter. I bet it wouldn't make any difference, just don't use too much or else the mixture might not firm up enough. 

And if you know what these things are called, please let me know.

Eggy scrambled tofu

It occurs to me that some people may think becoming vegan and giving up eggs means no more scrambled eggs. No more huevos rancheros. No more eggy burritos for breakfast.

So I thought I'd correct that impression. Medium firm tofu makes eggcelent (sorry!) scrambled "eggs". Add a dash of turmeric for color, and a dash of black salt for the eggy flavor, and you're well on your way to a hearty breakfast. 

Use medium firm tofu if you can find it—its consistency is much closer to eggs. Do not use Japanese style silken tofu, which you'll find in aseptic packages in the Asian food section of your supermarket. Save that for dessert. 

Don't add too much turmeric—you don't want it to taste like Indian eggs. Just a dash will do—it tends to become more yellow as the "eggs" cook. 

Black salt (which is actually pink) can be found at Indian grocery stores. You may also be able to find it online, if you know an Indian spice supply. If you smell it, you'll see immediately why it imparts an eggy flavor. 

I also added a bit of Cajun seasoning to mine. Of course you can get fancier, and add sauteéd onion, peppers, or even mushrooms.

Like my daughter, you may like to make a breakfast burrito out of yours. Fake bacon and vegan cheese and—horrors—ketchup wrapped up in a burrito. Or eat them with toast and grilled tomatoes, English breakfast-style. 

Update: I forgot to add, you cook these just like you would cook scrambled eggs. Saute in a frying pan with a little non-hydrogenated margarine or oil or oil spray. When the water has cooked out and they're getting dry, they're done. It takes about five minutes, just like eggs.

Green and white tea are my drinks of choice, but I've got issues with caffeine. I've always heard that white tea contains less caffeine than green tea, so I would switch to white in the afternoon, hoping to stave off a late-day caffeine high. Recently I noticed that white tea seemed to make me spikey, even more than the mild jolt I get from green tea. I wondered what was going on. 

Sure enough, according to Nigel Melican, one of the world's leading tea authorities, white tea, derived from buds and young leaf tips, has a higher caffeine level—as much as black tea. Green tea does, generally, contain less caffeine, but not always. Different manufacturers, different tea plants, different continents—all affect the caffeine levels of tea. 

And it's no use looking to decaf to save you. De-caffeinated tea likely has had the healthful benefits of tea, the polyphenols, stripped out. (It depends on the process, which depends on your continent, which bears more looking into.)

That's discouraging, since I really need to limit my caffeine, yet I want the health benefits of drinking tea. Plus I just like having a warm cup in my hand. 

So, it's strictly green tea for me from now on.

But how to make the best cuppa green? The article mentions that 80C is the proper temperature for preparing green tea—boiling water (100C) makes a bitter cup. I've been aware of this for some time—I always add a bit of tap water to my kettle after it boils, or else I wait a while after the kettle switches off to pour my cup. 

Interestingly, I'd noticed the taste difference several years ago, when I moved from the high desert of Albuquerque, which is about a mile in altitude, to spend time in Louisiana before moving here. I found the same green tea I previously drank tasted bitter. Of course, water boils at a lower temperature in Albuquerque than at near sea-level. So the taste was likely affected by geography. 

Yesterday I asked my husband, who is a scientist with a background in heat transfer, just how to make a cup of 80C water conveniently. We devised an experiment, of which I'll spare you the details (it involved adding my Maldon salt to ice water to calibrate the thermometer). My inexpensive electric kettle turns off when boiling is achieved, with no option for setting a lower temperature. There are markers, however, for .5 litre and 1.5 litres. The minimum fill is .5 litre. I estimated I was adding to about .75 litre of boiling water approximately 100 millilitres of tap water (actually, reverse osmosis water from a special drinking tap), which is at room temperature, or just less than 20C. It turned out this was too little 20C water to lower the temperature of that much 100C water to 80C. 

The correct proportion is 25% ambient (room temperature) water to 75% 100C (actually, it cools to around 97C when poured into a cool cup). If I add the cool water to the kettle of boiling water, the water becomes the perfect temperature. Alternatively, you could fill a cup a 1/4 full of tap water, then add boiling water, and then place the tea bag in, but I prefer pouring water over the tea bag. 

The real test came when I tasted the first cup of properly brewed green tea. I placed a lid over the cup (my Laura Ashley cup came with a matching ceramic lid) and let it steep a few minutes. When I tasted the tea, I was surprised at how much better it tasted than previous cups, even though I had previously added cool water to my kettle before pouring. I just hadn't been adding enough, and that 10 degrees or so in temperature made a lot of difference. There was none of the bitter, tannic taste that many people, including me, associate with green tea. None.

It was like drinking nectar. Seriously. 

But what about the CO2 consequences? Here, the water gets very muddy. Remember, filling the kettle with more water than you need is always a bad idea, carbon-wise. But even this depends a lot on where you live, and how you boil your water. In the UK, you're probably better off using a pan on a gas stove, since gas is better than the coal-powered electricity you're likely using. But if you live in France, go ahead and plug in your kettle, since your electricity likely comes from nuclear energy, which doesn't release CO2. However, if you're the kind of person who forgets they have a pan of water boiling on the hob, you're better off ignoring the environmental impacts and using the electric kettle anyway, since a major fire would have far worse environmental impacts than your kettle. 

But then, I've heard green tea can improve memory, so regardless of how you heat your water, you're probably doing the right thing by drinking a cuppa green. 

It's no good when a food blogger loses her appetite. For those of you who don't read my other blog, we found out a little over a week ago that my dog Bailey had cancer, and on Wednesday she died, rather unexpectedly. She was just 8 years old, an energetic and loving companion. 

I'm one of those people who can't eat while under stress. And this is stress on steroids—grief, waves and waves of grief. I occasionally feel hunger pains, but the thought of any specific food turns my stomach. 

I've been nibbling on Cheerios to stave off the hunger when it comes, half-heartedly eating toast. Right now I'm past due for my usual breakfast of cereal and soy milk, but I'm completely uninterested. (Ironically, my dog's interest in food never wavered.) 

So bear with me. There'll be no recipes for a while, as I really haven't cooked anything that wasn't rote for over a week. Maybe later I'll try to tempt my appetite into making a reappearance. Ironically, I've a house full of food, since on Wednesday I'd stocked up in preparation of staying home while my dog recovered. Hopefully it won't go to waste. 

This past Thanksgiving was perhaps the veggiest on record. (I'm into records this month.) In my cruising around the web, which is where I get most of my impressions about the United States these days, I noticed quite a few veggie-themed Thanksgiving ideas. The New York Times and the Washington Post both featured vegetarian feasts, with the NY Times posting quite a few recipes on its health and wellness blog.

As I mentioned below, I got my hands on Gourmet magazine's final issue, and on the cover it boasted 20 veggie dishes. That's unprecedented—I'd given up reading it due to the meatiness of its covers. (Note to magazine designers: slabs of beef and bird carcasses are an instant turn-off for veggies.)

It turns out it wasn't just my impression. Kathy Freston (proving that all Kathys think alike) noticed the same thing. Here's her article on AlterNet, 10 Signs Vegetarianism Is Catching On. (Thanks, Bazu, for bringing this to my attention on Facebook.)

It's not all Thanksgiving related—obviously, the rest of the world doesn't even celebrate Thanksgiving but all over the globe people are switching to veg diets, especially as awareness increases of the impact livestock has on climate and environment. Jonathan Safron Foer, who's been all over the TV and the internet lately, says 18% of students on college campuses eat veggie diets. That's a huge increase from when I went to college. 

What's more, there are more vegan cookbooks than ever on the shelves—in the United States, at least. Again, it was Bazu at Where's the Revolution? who brought that to my attention, with her five reviews of five vegan cookbooks in five days. And new vegan products are coming out every day, at least in the U.S. MatchMeats has recently begun selling fake meat products in shops in the East Coast. The food giant Cargill has developed a dairy-free cheese process, which they claim will make commercial vegan cheeses even more like their dairy counterparts. It's tastier and more convenient than ever to be a vegetarian or vegan in America.

But the news is not all good. Developing countries are consuming more and more meat, associating it with the good life their first world brethren have enjoyed for decades. But as Foer also points out, we once changed our diets similarly—we “now eat 150 times as much chicken as we did 80 years ago,” he says, which is a perfect rebuttal to those who say we'll never change our diets: we can and we did. Why not this time go back to the diets our grandmothers ate?

Where to begin, you ask. If you're reading this blog, then you've already been exposed to hundreds of vegan recipes, all of which you are perfectly capable of replicating in your kitchen, I assure you. But if you want more advice, check out another Kathy's Beginner's Guide to Conscious Eating. It's pretty good advice, in fact, I couldn't have written it better myself.

It's been raining so much I thought I'd make dessert out of the mud...fooled you!

This dessert is positively sinful, not because of the fat and calories it contains, but because it's so easy to make. Really, it tastes like you spent hours yet it takes only minutes to make, with ingredients you probably have on hand. Everyone keeps Oreos on hand, right?

It's based on a recipe I found in the New York Times. I added the Oreos and took out the Mexican flavors, and I think mine is better. Simpler, too. Plus it looks like mud, with dirt sprinkled on top. There's just something subversive about serving mud in a wine glass, isn't there?

Here's how: 

Chocolate and Oreo Pudding

3/4 cup sugar
200 grams or slightly less than 1/2 pound dark chocolate
1 box Japanese-style silken tofu
6 Oreo cookies, crushed

Melt the sugar with 3/4 cup water in a saucepan over low heat. Set aside. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in a bowl placed in a pan of simmering water. 

Meanwhile, whiz the tofu in a food processor until smooth. Pour in the cooled sugar mixture, and the melted chocolate. Whiz, scrapping the sides of the food processor bowl, until the mixture is uniform.

Place a tablespoon of crushed Oreos in the bottom of wine glasses or dessert cups. Pour 1/4 of the tofu chocolate mixture in each bowl or glass. Top with the remaining Oreos.

Chill for about a half hour, or cover and chill for a day or more.

Notes: Japanese-style tofu is the kind that comes in the aseptic package and is not chilled. In other words, you'll find it at almost any supermarket in the Asian food section. It's almost always called "Mori-Nu". Drain the liquid before using. To crush Oreos, place the Oreos between two pieces of wax paper and hit with a wooden mallet.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

I think I should change the name of this blog to Wednesday Soup Blogging. Because I really, really love to make soup. Maybe it's because we have so many cold, rainy days, perfect for simmering a pot of soup. Or because soup is so forgiving—a little extra spice, or a little extra oil never hurts soup the way it can a cake.

Fortunately, I love to eat soup as much as I love to make it. When I come home from a long hike in the countryside, there is nothing better than a bowl of steaming soup to warm up an empty belly.

This soup is another whizzed soup. I've noticed the British are especially fond of putting their soups in a blender and pureeing them. That's fine with me, but I like to dress them up a little, with some coriander (which Americans know as cilantro) and some drizzled coconut milk. You could also sprinkle some toasted coconut on top. And, for added texture, my husband insisted on leaving some cauliflower intact to add to his bowl.

For spices I've used curry powder, for its convenience, but also added another teaspoon of turmeric. That's because I recently read an article about how turmeric kills cancer cells in a petri dish. I guess a soup bowl is sort of like a petri dish, isn't it? Especially when it contains a melange of healthful ingredients like cauliflower and turmeric.

For easy directions, keep reading:

You'd never know this delicious cake is full of fiber and free of cholesterol!

I love parsnips. They're just about my favorite winter vegetable, aside from turnips. But you can't make cake with turnips. Parsnips, which are really like white carrots (except a little drier), are perfect for making cakes, as this vegan adaptation of a Parsnip and Maple Cake proves. 

Why would you want to make cake with parsnips, or for that matter, with carrots? It's a tasty way to get more fiber in your diet, which most of us could stand. And although I used half whole wheat flour for this cake, I wouldn't have felt guilty using all white flour, since I was getting such a fiber boost from the parsnips.

Here's how:

Parsnip and Maple Cake

3/4 cup margarine
1 2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 1/2 cups flour*
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 cup soy yogurt
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
3 medium parsnips, peeled and grated (about 3 cups grated parsnips)
1 cooking apple, peeled and grated
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
zest and juice of 1 orange (about 1 tablespoon zest, 1/2 cup juice)

Frosting:
1 cup vegan cream cheese*
2-3 tablespoons maple syrup
powdered sugar, for sprinkling on top

Prepare two round baking pans, about 9 inches across with cooking spray. Sprinkle flour in the pans and shake off the excess. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, cloves, allspice and cinnamon. When the margarine mixture has cooled, stir it into the flour mixture. Add soy yogurt and stir to blend. Pour in the orange juice and stir to combine thoroughly. Add the cider vinegar, then the remaining ingredients—the grated parsnip, the grated apple, the pecans, and the orange zest. 

Pour the mixture into two round cake pans, 9 inches wide. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes.

Make the frosting: beat the cream cheese until it's smooth. Stir in the maple syrup, a spoonful at a time, until it's thin enough to easily spread but not too runny. (I placed mine in the refrigerator for 15 minutes and it firmed up a bit.)

Remove one cake from the pan and set on a cake plate. Spread frosting over the top and place the second cake on top. Sprinkle with powdered sugar (place two tablespoons powdered sugar in a metal sieve and wave it over the top to sprinkle).

Notes: I used half regular flour, half light whole wheat flour. For the apple, I used a Bramley, but you could use any green or tart apple. The vegan cream cheese I used is new to the market, made by Pure. I really liked it.

These cows are cute, but they're destroying our planet.

You probably remember the United Nations report that came out in 2006 called Livestock's Long Shadow, which estimated that the greenhouse gases produced by livestock was equal to 18 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. It made a big splash in environmental circles, convincing a lot of people there was no way to eliminate growth of GHG (greenhouse gas) without taking a good long look at the way we eat.

Well, now there's another study that takes into account more factors than the original report, and it concludes that instead of 18 percent, livestock contributes 51 percent of worldwide GHG emissions, more than double the amount estimated by the troubling report of 2006. 

So that pretty much seals the deal. We should all give up meat and switch to fish, right?

Not so fast. It turns out our oceans are just one big Ponzi scheme, according to this well-researched article, Aquacalypse Now by Daniel Pauly, a professor of the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia. Stocks are being depleted far, far faster than the fishing-industrial complex has been willing to admit. New technologies, like GPS fish finders, are giving fishing fleets the edge over fish, and stocks are unable to keep up, especially since government regulations haven't been tightened to reflect the depleted state of the world's fisheries. For some fish, the stock has been reduced by 90 percent. And one study estimates that all commercial fish stocks will have collapsed by 2048. 

But farmed fish is okay, right?

Wrong. Most farm fish is carnivorous fish, meaning they eat smaller fish, harvested from—you guessed it—the sea. It takes 3 or 4 pounds of ground herring, mackerel and sardines to create one pound of farmed salmon. That's not very efficient, and not sustainable either.

There is some good news. It turns out that methane, which is 25 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2, has a much shorter half life—eight years instead of over 100. And we all know what cows emit when they burp and fart—methane. It's a serious issue, but due to the relatively short half life of methane, eliminating livestock from our diets means very quickly eliminating their potent emissions from the atmosphere—unlike eliminating cars, whose past emissions of CO2 will be around a long, long time. (That doesn't mean, of course, that we shouldn't eliminate as many sources of CO2 as we can, including cars and coal plants.) There's another enormous benefit from eliminating grazing animals, too: reforestation of land used for grazing and growing feed will potentially mitigate as much as half of all GHGs, since trees gobble up CO2 in photosynthesis.

Until we have the ability to generate heat and electricity and fuel using renewable sources that don't emit GHG, the single best thing we can do to postpone global warming is to give up meat and its equally unsustainable cousin, fish.

That also means giving up animal products like dairy, as well, since dairy cows emit methane and consume feed grown on deforested land. (Even breathing, which all living creatures need to do, emits CO2, but the larger the animal, the more respiration it requires—a huge contributory factor when you're estimating the emissions of 2 billion cows.)

But most people, despite the evidence of livestock's damage to the earth, still balk at giving up meat.

I try to imagine how I would feel if, say, someone told me that eating sweets contributes massively to global warming. I love dessert the way some people love bacon. Chocolate, in any form, is one of life's sweetest pleasures. I'd have a hard time giving it up. But I am living proof that giving up meat doesn't mean the end of all gustatory pleasure. There are plenty of meat substitutes, and more coming out every day. Even without meat analogs, there is plenty to fill my plate, or as is often the case, my bowl.

The purpose of this blog, in fact, has been to prove to people that I'm not deprived. By showing readers my meals and passing along recipes, I hope to demonstrate that a diet with no meat, dairy or eggs is not a diet of deprivation. Far from it. (And if my meals don't do the trick, try checking out the many, many vegan blogs and cookbooks. This one, for instance, is particularly un-deprived.)

Give up meat for a week. Tell people you're doing it for the planet, so they don't make fun of you. (The fear of ridicule was one of the main reasons I didn't become vegetarian despite a deep belief that it was the right thing to do.) These days, it's cool to drive a Prius, and it should be even cooler to be a vegan. There's plenty of evidence that eating meat is destroying the planet—just read the report from Worldwatch (pdf) and the earlier UN report. (Maybe you'll want to keep a copy in your glove box, just in case anyone stops to admire your values while you tool around in your electric car.)

And when you drive your Prius to the grocery store, be sure and steer your shopping cart right past the meat aisle. Your planet will thank you.

Pan-fried tempeh, with a simple Maple Dijon Sauce on the side.

I love tempeh, but it's hard to find around here. A few health food stores carry it, and the other day I got my hands on some. Am I ever glad I did, because I had almost forgotten how good this recipe was.

I used to make this pan-fried tempeh quite a bit. It's a nice appetizer, or even a main dish. I've brought it to parties where the idea of a vegan meal would send chills through the heart of hardened meat-eaters, and it was gobbled up.

I'd posted the recipe on my old Geocities website, but that's now gone. Thankfully, I was able to rescue it before it went under, and now I'm posting it here so it will stay in cyberspace.

If you've ever tried tempeh and didn't like it, give this version a shot. After all, anything dredged in bread crumbs and mustard and pan fried can't possibly be bad.

It was originally made with honey, but I've discovered maple syrup works equally well. Brown rice syrup, if you can find it, works also. And of course, if you eat honey, that may be the most economical substitution. Although I think I like it best with maple syrup.

Here's the surprisingly simple directions:

Maple Mustard Tempeh with Maple Dijon Sauce

1/2 lb tempeh, cut in 8 triangle shapes
1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup maple syrup or brown rice syrup
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup bread crumbs (the dried style, like panko)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (canola oil or rapeseed oil)

First, marinate the tempeh: Combine the tamari and the garlic powder and the onion powder in a small dish. Place the tempeh pieces in the dish. Let marinate for 1-4 hours, turning halfway to marinate the other side.

In a small bowl, combine the mustard and the maple syrup with a small whisk. or a fork. Set aside. Place the flour and the bread crumbs on a plate. Pour half the mustard sauce onto a plate; reserve the rest to serve later.

Over low-to-medium heat, heat the oil in an 8-inch saute pan (I use a small iron skillet). Dredge the tempeh pieces in the flour, then the mustard sauce. Then place them in the bread crumbs and coat with bread crumbs.

Fry the pieces over medium heat until brown on each side. You may have to brown them on the sides as well to get even browning. If the oil is too hot, the tempeh will brown too quickly. (In which case just call it Blackened Tempeh and insist it's Cajun.)

Serve with the mustard sauce.

Cookies Cream vegetarian restaurant in Berlin, where you pay extra for the mystique.

Berlin is known as being a haven for vegan food. It's also known for having some of the lowest restaurant prices in Europe.

Cheap, plentiful vegan food...well, not exactly. Like anywhere, you have to be armed with knowledge and the ability to find the most out-of-the-way location. Fortunately, I had both, thanks to Bazu, who provided me with a list of vegan eats in Berlin, and to a husband who suddenly developed a sense of direction.

After tramping through museums all day, we were hungry and cold, and wanted nothing more than to sit down to a satisfying meal. Or maybe stand up and eat a vegan hot dog. A place called Hot Dog Soup sounded intriguing. I had an address, and a U-bahn stop, but unfortunately it was located off our map of central Berlin.

After a bit of confusion we figured out the U-bahn system. (For some reason, German public transport has always stumped me. Maybe it's that I don't speak a lick of German.) We got to Frankfurter Tor, the stop near Hot Dog Soup but then came to a dead halt outside the station. Which direction to go in? Usually I have the directional sense of a homing pigeon, while my husband is hopelessly lost, but in the dark I'm a blind mouse. So he found a map at the S-bahn stop, located Grünberger Straße, and successfully guided us to the right place.

Yes, there really is a Hot Dog Soup in Berlin. It's small—only a couple of counters, and it offers hot dogs and soup. That's it, but the variety of hot dogs makes up for the sparse menu. You can get any hot dog (named after places, like Brazil and Hawaii and Chile) with a vegan frankfurter, and a couple of the soups were marked with a V. We chose the apple curry lentil soup, which turned out to be some of the best soup I've ever had. I immediately decided the long schlep to Grünberger Straße was worth it.

Since, for me, hot dogs are simply mustard delivery devices, I asked for a plain hot dog with mustard. My husband got a fancy one, and I guess he liked it, because it kept him occupied while I scarfed down the one bowl of soup we'd got to share. I feel bad about that, so now I'm going to have to figure out how to make Apple Curry Lentil soup.

The best part about our funky little meal in a funky part of Berlin was the price. Two hot dogs, a bowl of soup and a drink set us back 8.50. Including the train fare, we were out less than 15 euros.

Nice.

The next night I wanted to go upscale, and I wanted to avoid a long confusing train ride. I'd read about a vegetarian restaurant called Cookies Cream, and discovered it was only a few blocks from our hotel in Potsdammer Platz. It, too, sounded intriguing—it's located over a nightclub called Cookies, as the concierge at the hotel informed me when he made a reservation for me. It had good reviews on Happy Cow, the international vegetarian restaurant guide, so I was eager to check it out.

Again, finding it was the hard part. Despite locating the address we were stuck. No restaurant in sight, only a Westin Hotel. Finally we asked a shopkeeper, who informed us it was around the back. We turned down an alley, turned right again, went past some garage dumpsters, avoiding our gaze from the dead rat, and turned left. There, in a hidden nook, was a sign: Cookies Cream.

What an incongruous location for a restaurant named after a delightful dessert. Those Berliners sure know how to do irony!

We rang the bell, and after several minutes we were summoned inside. We went through the empty club and up some dark stairs to a candlelit restaurant.

The space was lovely. White tablecloths, fresh flowers, and sparkly wine glasses almost made me forget about the dead rat.

We were handed a one-page menu, with 3 or 4 items in each category. I assumed at least one was vegan, but I assumed wrong. I've never heard of a vegetarian restaurant that didn't offer vegan items. Especially a restaurant that seems to pride itself on being hip. Maybe the club downstairs only catered to arthritic old Bavarians, not hip, healthy vegan Berliners.

A square meal

Or maybe I'm too harsh. The server promised me the chef could veganize one item from each course on the menu. It's a fixed price menu (three courses for 32 euros) and the wine was around 35-50 euros a bottle for mid-priced vintage. My meal was good, but sparse. After a leafy salad, I was served a tiny square of risotto on a huge plate, with some poached grape tomatoes on the side. Dessert was—you guessed it—a tablespoon of pear sorbet.

I was hungry by the time I got home, despite having to walk past that dead rat again.

When we suggested to our server that they put a sign leading people to the restaurant, he told us they prefer that Cookies Cream is hard to find. I guess it adds to the insidery mystique.

I have some advice: Save yourself the trouble, especially if you're vegan. Head to Hot Dog Soup instead, for a satisfyingly groovy meal, and leave the cookies and cream for the squares.

Hot Dog Soup: Grünberger Straße 69. From Frankfurter Tor U-bahn, face the twin towers and go left on the S-bahn (or walk in that direction) 1 stop to Grünberger Straße.

Cookies Cream: 030-27492940  Behrenstrasse. 55 From the Memorial to Murdered Jews, head up Behrenstrasse almost to the Westin Hotel, turn left at 55, go to the end of the alley, turn right, go past the dead rat, then left, and the entrance is on the right up a short flight of stairs.

I'm leaving for Berlin later today. Does anyone have suggestions for vegetarian restaurants in the capital city? I'm looking forward to trying some German vegan cuisine.

The last time I was there, in 1990, I wasn't a vegan, but was leaning toward vegetarianism. I got very excited, however, when a friend told us he was bringing back "doner kabab". For some reason, I expected a donut on a kabab! Boy, was I surprised. 

Hopefully my experience this time will be more to my taste.

A saucy Rösti.

The other day I saw a bottle of Oxford Sauce at the Co-op in Oxford and, curious, I read the label. Anchovies. So back on the shelf it went. A few days later I was reading about Cumberland Sauce, which is usually served with game, and I discovered Oxford Sauce and Cumberland Sauce are the same thing. Except when you make Cumberland Sauce, you do not add anchovies.

That's fortunate, since I really wanted to try Cumberland Sauce with the Parsnip and Celeraic Rosti I was making for dinner last night. Cumberland Sauce is a fruity sauce made with redcurrant jelly, which is not a sweet jam like blackcurrant jam. In fact, jelly in Britain is not the same as jelly in the U.S. Confused? If you're looking for redcurrant jelly, look in the condiment section, not the jam section of your supermarket. And, by the way, I don't think it's easily available in the United States, though I might be proved wrong.

As for the rösti, you should be able to find celeraic and parsnips at a well stocked supermarket. Celeraic is the root of the celery plant. Unlike carrots and potatoes, parsnips and celeraic don't produce as much water when grated, so this recipe needs the addition of some liquid in order for the patties to hold together. This recipe adds Indian spices (fennel and cumin) as well as gram (chickpea) flour, so the rosti has a faintly exotic flavor.

Served with the Cumberland Sauce, this is a far cry from Switzerland and Germany, where rösti hails from.They're best eaten hot, right from the frying pan.

For instructions, keep reading.

Cumberland Sauce:

1 orange
1 lemon
6 tablespoons redcurrant jelly
4 tablespoons port (I used marsala cooking wine)
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon mustard powder (I used 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard)

Using a lemon rind peeler, peel the rind from the orange and lemon. Chop the lengths of rind to roughly 1 centimeter (1/2 inch).

Boil the grated rind in 1/2 cup water for 5 minutes; drain.

Combine the jelly and the port in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes, whisking the jelly to dissolve it.

Squeeze half the lemon and the whole orange; retain the juice.

Mix the powdered ginger and the mustard with the juice. Add the redcurrant mixture and the reserved orange/lemon peel. Whisk until smooth.

Serve hot or cold with the rosti.

Parsnip and Celeraic Rosti

2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
1/2 large celeraic, peeled and grated
3 parsnips, peeled and grated
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 teaspoons onion seeds
1/2 cup gram flour (chickpea flour, available in Indian stores)
6 tablespoons soy powder (Better Than Milk, or soy flour)
salt, to taste
canola oil, for frying

In a dry skillet (an iron skillet works best) dry toast the cumin and fennel seeds for about 3 minutes, stirring often. Grind in a spice grinder or a clean coffee grinder.

In a large bowl, combine the celeraic, parsnips, ground spices, lemon juice, onion seeds, and gram flour. Toss together. Add salt to taste.

In a small measuring cup, combine the soy powder or soy flour with 3 tablespoons water; whisk to form a paste. Stir this mixture into the grated vegetable mixture. If the mixture seems too dry to form patties, add a bit more soy powder/water mix.

Heat 4 or 5 tablespoons in a large non-stick skillet. To form patties, wet hands and gather about a 1/2 cup of the mixture into your hands and pat together. Lay the patty on to the hot skillet and fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes each side. Lay the rosti patties onto paper towels to drain.

Serve while hot, with the Cumberland Sauce on the side.

Note: To serve as an appetizer or starter, make smaller patties and serve on a bed of lettuce leaves or watercress.

Great interview with Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated and the upcoming book Eating Animals. A vegetarian since the age of ten, Foer says "Virtually every American is born into the idea that eating meat is healthy, normal." But he bucked the belief with relative ease, and believes everyone he knows will be a vegetarian in 20 years.

Everything is illuminated, indeed.

My bookmarks are overflowing with food news links I haven't posted in a while. Saturday's a great day for clearing it all out, so here goes:

Another day, another study tying red meat to cancer. This one studied 175,343 American men and determined red meat increased the risk of prostate cancer. (If 175,000 isn't a large enough study, here's one with half a million.)

Meat is murder for the environment, too: "A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home." But how many people would deliberately leave a light on, yet think nothing of eating a hamburger?

"The dilemma: Wine is good for your heart, but not so great for your liver." So eat this yummy vegetable.

I love that Michelle Obama gets kudos for taking the elitism out of the food movement.

It's not that hard to reduce your risk for heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes by 78%.

In fact, I'd like to reduce my risk for those four diseases by eating at Fatty's. Or maybe Ubuntu.

National flags made out of food. I like India's the best, though I could make something good out of Italy's. Switerland's looks exactly like the selection at the roadside restaurants we've stopped at. (Which is why you should just keep driving all the way to Italy.)

In a time of international recession, should you use reusable shopping bags?

Vegan diets are becoming more mainstream.

Gotta try this: Homemade pecan milk.

The Pescatore's Dilemma. How about this solution: Don't eat things with a face. Easy.

Brain fog? Read this: Burgers Made Me Dumb.

Five ways vegetarianism can save you money.

Pea Cobbler, for luscious little sweet peas.

One day I was making blueberry cobbler, and I couldn't help noticing the similarity between blueberries and peas. They're both small, round, and yummy. So why can't you make cobbler with peas, I wondered.

Of course you can, only instead of a sweet cobbler, I made a savory cobbler, adding mushrooms and leeks to the peas, and a herb biscuit topping. The result, while quite a different beast from blueberry cobbler, was warm and filling. Perfect for a late summer/early fall evening, when peas are plump and plentiful.

Here's how:

Pea Cobbler

2 leeks, cleaned and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons margarine
2 cups chopped mushrooms
2 cups fresh peas
2 tablespoons margarine
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup soy cream

Topping:
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
3 tablespoons margarine
1/2 cup soy milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (180C).

In a saute pan over medium high heat, saute leeks and garlic in the margarine until they're soft, about 6-8 minutes.

In a separate saucepan, saute the mushrooms until they're golden brown. Set aside.

When the leeks are done, spread them to the sides of the pan. Melt 2 more tablespoons of margarine in the middle. Stir in flour. When the flour/margarine mixture is smooth, stir in vegetable broth. Then add soy cream. Turn the heat to low and add the peas and the reserved mushrooms, stirring to combine the mixture. The mixture should thicken quickly. Remove from heat.

Pour the mixture into a prepared baking dish (spray with cooking spray first) and finish making the topping if you're already started it.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, thyme and basil. Cut in margarine with a spoon or knife until no large lumps of margarine are left.

Set aside until the pea mixture is in the baking dish.

Pour soy milk into the flour mixture and stir to combine. Drop by spoonfuls on to the top of the pea mixture. Place the dish in the preheated oven. Bake for 30 minutes or until the topping is golden brown.

Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes.

Full of summer's bounty, Southwestern Corn Soup is perfect for a busy almost-fall day.

It's the end of summer, so there's finally fresh corn in the supermarket. But it's also the beginning of fall, so the evenings are cool.

So of course this situation calls for corn soup. Like many meals, this one started with a knife in one hand, a vegetable in the other. While I shucked the corn and removed the kernels from the cob, I thought about my approach. I sautéd some onions in olive oil, added the corn, and pretty soon had a pot of soup simmering.

To the bowl of soup that eventually emerged I added some fresh squeezed lime, because nothing says Southwestern like the fresh taste of lime juice. And to round off the meal, I heated some refried beans and tortillas, made a wrap and served it alongside steaming bowls of soup.

It was incredibly easy to make, a meal fit for a busy end-of-summer day. Here's how: 

Southwestern Corn Soup Recipe

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 cobs fresh sweetcorn, kernels removed
1 zucchini (courgette), chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
5-6 cups vegetable stock
2-3 chipotle peppers, in adobo sauce, minced
2 tomatoes, chopped (I used 1 cup canned)
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 teaspoon dried oregano
salt/pepper, to taste
fresh squeezed lime juice, optional

Heat the olive oil in a large pan, large enough to hold the soup. Add the onion and saute until it starts to turn yellow, then add the garlic and the corn kernels. Stir them into the oil (you may have to add more) and after a minute, add the zucchini.

Saute briefly, and add the stock, peppers, and tomatoes. Bring to a boil and add the cumin and oregano. Reduce heat and simmer until the zucchini are tender.

Spoon into bowls and add fresh squeezed lime juice if desired.

Note: Chipotle peppers are found canned in the Mexican food section of many US supermarkets. If you live in the UK, you can find chipotle paste at Waitrose in the Mexican food section. If using chipotle paste, try using one teaspoon and adding more if necessary.

Apricots and tofu? Why not? 

Sadly, my husband isn't fond of apricots, or any orange food. So I waited until he'd left town and I had a friend staying with me to make Tofu with Apricots, a stir fry that isn't typical of the genre. I really like the sweetness of the apricots with the spicy/salty tofu marinade, but some people aren't fond a hint of sweet in a savory meal. 

If that doesn't describe you, then try this the next time you have tofu waiting in your fridge. To go with it, I stir fried some green beans, adding spicy Schezwan sauce. And sticky brown rice, of course. 

The best thing is, the recipe is very easy. As long as you remember to marinade your tofu ahead of time, the dish comes together quite quickly. 

Here's how:

Spicy Tofu with Apricots

Marinade:
 3 tablespoon soy sauce
 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
 1 tablespoon cooking sherry
 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
 2 teaspoon curry powder
 1 teaspoon hot chili oil, or to taste
 1 tablespoon sugar

Tofu and Apricots:
10 oz. extra-firm tofu, cubed
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, chopped
1 carrot, sliced diagonally
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup chopped dry-roasted peanuts

To serve: 
scallions (green onions)
brown rice

In a large dish, mix together the marinade ingredients. Marinate tofu in sauce 1 hour, or longer if possible. Turn frequently to ensure the tofu is marinated on all sides.

Heat the oil (both the canola, or rapeseed, and the sesame oil) in a wok or sauté pan; stir-fry the remaining ingredients until the onion and carrots have softened. Add tofu and marinade sauce; heat until warmed through, 3 or 4 minutes. Serve over brown rice with scallions (green onions) to garnish.

The debate: German or American beer? Most people would assume German beer is better, but don't be so fast: What about America's microbrews? And isn't Beck's just Budweiser with a shorter name?

I scoff at both sides of this debate. Everyone knows the best beer on the planet is brewed by the Irish. Not even the title of second best goes to the Germans or Americans; that must go to the Belgians. The Wisconsinites are third.

Now, before you give up on summer fruits, how do you prolong the life of berries? Heat them. (That's not a typo; I didn't mean "eat them," although that will do for later.)

And speaking of fruit, how long does fruit stay nutritious? Hint: It depends on the polyphenols, which are phenomenal for your health too.

Even more fruity stuff: How to cut a mango.

The real price of cheap food. So how come I have to subsidize your bacon with my taxes, but you don't subsidize my broccoli?

Are prepared foods making us fat? Probably, especially in America, where almost every prepared food contains HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). See above for why that is.

I love that there is no vegan's dilemma. Well, except for beer.

Guess what I did with these baby vegetables? Hint: I was helped by a lot of butterflies.

Answer coming soon.

This simple bowl of rice and beans—both budget and health conscious—became something else entirely under the influence of cilantro and lime.

You know how when people contemplate lowering their food budget, they declare they'll live on beans and rice? It's actually not a bad idea. Black beans are a great source of protein, iron, and fiber, and one cup has about 225 calories. Add some brown rice, and you have even more cholesterol-lowering fiber. And the cost? A pound (or a half kilo) of dried black beans can cost less than $1, or in Britain, around £2.

Although they need an hour or more cooking time, beans can cook with very little attention—I cleaned out my car while mine were simmering. Sometime during the cooking process I chopped a couple of onions, some garlic, and added them to the pot.

But the real tastebud-popping addition was the cilantro on top—I feel sorry for cilantro haters, I really do. Because the burst of fresh that cilantro (aka coriander) and lime add to any dish is truly amazing. (And did you know that cilantro relieves intestinal gas? It's true—more here.)

It sort of makes you want to live on a strict budget, just so you can eat this way every day. Simple food, with complex flavors.

For instructions on how you can make this simple dish, keep reading.

Black beans and brown rice with lime, cilantro, and chipotle

1 lb (.5 kg) dried black beans (also called turtle beans)
2 onions (I used one white, one red)
4 cloves garlic
olive oil (optional)
3 bay leaves
ground chipotle pepper, to taste (I used around 1 tablespoon)
salt, to taste
1 cup snipped cilantro (coriander) leaves
1 lime, divided into wedges
1 cup brown rice

Six to eight hours before cooking (or the night before), pick over the beans and wash them to remove any grit. (I often find tiny clods of dirt in my beans, so be sure you eye the entire package thoroughly by picking through the beans.) Place in a large pot and cover the beans with water, about one inch above the level of the beans. Let sit, covered, overnight or for around 6-8 hours.

When beans have soaked, drain the water. Cover again with water (about an inch above the beans, which have now expanded in size) and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and chop the onions and garlic.

In a separate skillet, sauté the onions in a bit of olive oil for 10 minutes or so, until soft. Add the garlic, sauté another minute, and pour the mixture into the pan with the beans. (Alternatively, omit the sautéing and add the onions and garlic directly to the pan, if you're trying to cut fat.) Add the bay leaves and as much chipotle powder as you wish (you can garnish with chipotle later, so don't overdo it if there are wusses in your family).

Let the beans simmer while you cook the brown rice according to package directions (it usually takes about 45 minutes to cook brown rice).

When the beans have cooked for an hour, taste them. They may not be done—the length of cooking time depends on many factors, including the age of the beans and the altitude. Cook another 15-30 minutes, or until they are soft enough to eat. Do NOT add salt until the beans are soft, then stir in a half teaspoon of salt and taste again, adding more if needed.

Serve the beans over the rice, with snipped cilantro, squeezed lime juice, and more chipotle if desired.

Note: This makes enough beans for several meals. You may freeze the beans (with or without rice) in single-serving size containers for quick meals in the future.

If you don't know how to cook brown rice: Add 1 cup rice to 2 cups salted water. Bring to boil. Cover and reduce heat to lowest setting. Let simmer for 45 minutes or until all the water is cooked out—you'll notice holes on the top where the water has evaporated.