Vegetarian Burgers {some thoughts and what I've learned so far}

Recently, on another of our weekly cooking get together, we dived head first into the vegetarian burger ocean. Who knows why I hadn't done it before but I think there is some really really dim memory of mine where I had once tried my hand on vegetarian burgers (all the way back when I still lived together with my mum) and it had ended in a disaster....well, a veggie-something-stiff-fry-pan-dish disaster. So after that, I kind of never ventured back into that direction.
Turns out, four to five years later, vegetarian burgers are not only delicious!! but super easy to make!!!

The first time we made them we used this recipe (smokey sweet potatoes with roasted garlic cream and avocado) tweaking a bit, as usual, because we were either too lazy from some things or didn't have other things on hand. They turned out really great:

And if you start reading through all the 1.000 recipes that are out there, you notice pretty much, it just boils down to this:

--> You get a base, which is either white beans, beans in general, chick peas, lentils, sweet potatoes or potatoes. (you're base can also totally mix and match any of them together). You have something to keep it all together, normally 1 or 2 eggs and a bit of flour or oats (or both). Some other additions, such as onions, garlic, spinach, zucchini (can also be used as a bade, apparently), egg plants....whatever comes to your mind and spices to give it that special something.
Pile on a bun with any sauce and further veggies and you're done! (My kind of magic!!)

So, the next time I was at home, all by myself, and craving some real food. I threw together:

• ~1/3 cup cooked chickpeas
• 1/2 sweet potato (5 minutes microwave-cooked)
• ~2 Tblsp whole wheat flour
• 1 egg
• arugula sala (about a hand full)
• salt, pepper, a bit of garam masala and a note of curry

Mixed all of it together in a bowl and fried the patties in some olive oil in a pan.

I had them as a normal burger the first night, but they were also great on salad the next night.
Have fun getting creative ;)

I can't help myself...but isn't it pretty?! Vegetarian brugers are amazing! ♥

...though, now while giving this whole burger conversation a second thought, somewhere in the depth of my growing cook book should be a recipe hidden, written by my aunt (who cooks amazingly!!!) about white bean burger. They. were. amazing. My I should venture into that direction in the future, try to dig it out and share it here?!
We will see what my cook book reveals. Stay tuned and have a beautiful weekend!!

Studying............

I. Am. So. Done with this. Done. I can not see any further books and I feel like my brain is just transforming into a sieve where everything goes through straight.
Also, totally unrelated, but I noticed I use 'yay' way too often....how are people supposed to take me serious?! (But I probably also just get way too excited about things....which makes it hard not to 'yay'...which is why people mainly don't take me too seriously...sight).
I'll just hang in there and try not to forget that my life is actually still pretty darn awesome....and the studying will soon be over! (....for this semester)

...sorry for the rant.

Mobile case makeover {An easy Anthropologie hack}

Hey there!
I'm really starting to tun out of appropriate mobile case makeover titles. Here, the Anthropologie part definitely did save me, but we'll see how we do in the future ;)
Anyways, recently I did some eye-shopping over at Anthropologies. I love that shop, but sadly, even the sale prices are too expensive for me, so we'll just keep looking at stuff. However, I stumbled upon this:

source

and, right next to me was:

...my phone case. With it's bare and transparent skin (which already started to be a bit dodgy....sorry). It was basically screaming for me to stop studying and help it out of its misery. And that's exactly what I did.

Much, much better right?!
In case you want to hop on the train, all you'll need is:

• a bare white/transparent/really any colour works phone case
• nail polish (it might be helpful to be a bit crazy over nail polish as I am, since that will leave you with a huge variety to choose from)

Let's get started!

Pretty much all I did was, to paint my way "to the top". I started with three base/ground colours and kept applying layer after layer, vaguely following the picture of the finished mobile case.

I used two different types of yellow to give more depth to the inside of the flowers. Also, not having all the right colours (jep. Not even me!) I kind of started mixing and matching a bit more at the end. Another idea would be, to start off with a entirely different colour pallet right from the beginning.

And that's it!
All my nail polishes were 'normal' sized brushes, so nothing special. It really works well if you try to 'flatten' them a bit while brushing off the surplus of paint. Let it dry, and you are done!
I really couldn't be happier with the end result!! (Happily running around campus with a flowery mobile case now ;) )

Cooking together {featuring the Indian cuisine}

With one of my friends here I have this thing where we try to get together as often as possible to: cook. Than, life gets in the way, uni gets in the way, family and other friends...the list goes on and on, but we still manage to do it about once every other week. (Ok, and sometimes we also like to just head into the city and hit on the local ice cream shops and frozen yogurt places....buuut we still try our best ;)).
Anyway, just this week we managed to meet again in between our studying schedules and every time we do so, we normally try to go for something new. (Cooking for yourself somehow has the tendency to get quite monotonous. This is us learning and expanding our variety).

I had messaged her earlier this week with a list of things I was considering to cook number b) were spicy potato and pea parathas. She answered with "What are parathas?!". Needless to say we ended up making parathas.
So what are parathas?! Wikipedia said this: "a flatbread that originated in the Indian Subcontinent [...] Parantha is an amalgamation of the words parat and atta which literally means layers of cookeddough". (source)
(Also, I just noticed that Wikipedia spells them with an 'n'...the recipe didn't. So that's up for discussion).

If I would have to answer this question, I would say parathas are delicious flatbreads filled with spicy mush. Less intellectual I know. But look at this:

They were soft, and yummy. Spicy but sweet with the added chutney. They had just the right amount of flavour and the texture between the dough on the outside and the soft and chunky mush on the inside. In short: I loved them. And best of all: They really are easy to be make!!!!

Since my experience with the Indian cuisine doesn't go far when we talk about the cooking part, I will leave you with the original link (Katie at the kitchen door, spiced-potato-and-pea-parathas). Although, I changed a few things, so you'll find my changes here in between the pictures. Let's get rocking ;)

I started with the dough since the recipe wants to let it sit for 2 hours. I followed the recipe except that I simply used 2 cups whole wheat flour (no substitutional cup of any other flour). Easy peasy.

Next step: Prepare your filling!

While our potatoes were cooking, we threw together a quick salad.

And here come the changes I made:
They mainly happened because I didn't have everything on hand the recipe was asking for (ok close to nothing of it). So what I did was:
I still fried the onions with some olive oil in a pan. Than I added cumin, salt, curry, garam masala and simple semi hot mustard. And it tasted amazing!! (Though don't be afraid to add a lot of all of them. I kept adding and adding them simply because I normally just cook one-person-sized-meals and after all, those dishes live of their spices right?!) We kept sneaking bits and pieces of the potato mush while putting it into our flatbreads.

For the rest, we pretty much stuck to the recipe again. Which surprised us a bit was that the recipe had mentioned it would get quite messy so I was prepared to do a lot of cleaning afterwards. I wasn't!!!! The dough was super elastic and easy to handle. No big messes and filling spilling out!!!! (Added bonus!)

We served it with yogurt and mango chutney but I had the parathas cold with hummus the next day and that was just as delicious!!!

I hope I convinced you!!! Have fun in the kitchen ;)

A yellow smoothie {trying out the color palette}

Good weather immediately makes me go for smoothies, so that was what happened recently....recently as in three month ago. Jep this is how old this recipe is and this is how long I have been planning to blog about it....but than it never happened. So by now, the weather is rather grey and even going into the cold-ish areas but I'm still fine with posting a smoothie recipe....because really? For whoever loves smoothies as much as I do, weather doesn't really matter ;)
Back then, I was trying out the "colour approach". You know,  like how to dye your smoothies in every possible colour. (Well, it's fun isn't it....or is this just me?). Anyway, after I successfully accomplished my green smoothie, I went for yellow....and than changed my mind half way and went with pale pink. Whups. It still tasted extremely awesome!!! (Ok, and let's be honest. I didn't change my mind, the smoothie simply didn't turn out yellow....but let's just pretend I was changing my mind anyways :D)

Adapted from neverhomemaker's smoothie, you'll need (1 serving):

• 2 mandarins
• 1 small frozen banana
• 1 large handful frozen strawberries
• vanilla soy yogurt and milk (as much as you want)

My mandarins were slightly sour but it gave the whole smoothie a surprisingly welcome freshness, and all in all, I'll keep this one in mind for whenever I really need an energy booster or something to wake me up! 

Happy smoothie making to you all :)

What happened recently {in a nutshell}

Hey there! Blogging really isn't something continuous right now, but to my own defence, there have been a lot of major changes recently (and they are still happening) so I guess, that does need some time to digest. However, I thought an update was really necessary and also, with a huge trip coming up soon (which will mean a lot more blogging is going to happen) I might just get back to it already. (breath! I really need to work on my super long sentences. Well, anyways. Hi there ;) )

So let's talk a bit pictures! What happened so far?!

I've been keeping on taking pictures of my food (also...I bought new cushion covers)

I sew this cute bag and took picture of it in my friends grandparents garden

We also, since we obviously didn't go there to take picture of my bag, took a dip in the pool and had an awesome salad!!

I finally came around to make some city trips in Germany with a friend. We started close to my old hometown in Frankfurt....

...went to Heidelberg...

...to Berlin...(where we discovered this beautiful Synagogue)...

(we also stood on the wall)

(and I found the hippest coffee-to-go-carrying-bike ever)

...over to Munich and Augsburg. This was the prettiest and coolest fountain I've seen in a long time.

And this kind of reminded me of Game of Thrones...oh right. We also finished the fourth episode and I found out that one of my younger brothers is watching it too. Who knew?! I'll have a lot to discuss with him from now on ;)

Back in Augsburg I had to catch up with all the news over a lot of coffee and ice cream...

Talking until the sun went down

Also....some mysterious gum artist is wandering around. We found this one in the city and another one at uni...

I changed my room (again) and sew a couple of new cushion covers. Thanks mum again for teaching me how to use a sewing machine all those years ago....and actually gifting me with my own last year ;) ♥

Also, with the upcoming exams....some studying is happening around here....though not really enough. We'll work on it ;)

There were a couple of selfie sessions after long and extended dance evenings 

I found my profession as a cat-whisperer :D (he is NOT dead!!!!)

And a friend and I made amazing pao de queijo!!

And talking about Brazilian things, I also purchased my first pair of havaianas!!!!! 

This was my this-is-a-fake-cheque-cheque from our grammar-investment-game. Seriously? Grammar games where you get fake cheques at the end are just never going to become lame :D

And just recently, (recently as in on Thursday) I went back to Berlin with a friend....

We found a super cute café....

'Katies Blue Cat'

And had brilliant Indian food!....But mainly: I got my tattoo extension!!!!!!!!! And I couldn't be happier with the location, my artist and the final product! :)

And that is pretty much all what happened recently in a nutshell ;)

The weather has been blasting hot but luckily cooled down a bit over the last two weeks (somehow I really don't like hot hot weather....), my younger brothers both graduated school (how did that happen?!) and I got my confirmation for Africa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So that will be what I'm going to start writing about in about a month! 

That's that for now ;) I hope you are all doing well :) Hugs and greetings and you'll hear back from me soon :)