Chili Infused Vodka & A Firecracker Cocktail Just in Time for Summer!

Now, it's pretty rare I experience an entirely new flavor sensation, but man-o-man,  this drink blew my mind. First discovered when checking out the amazing restaurant, Miya's Sushi in New Haven, Connecticut a few years ago. I ordered their cocktail called 'Bonobo Juice', made from 'Chinese Firecracker sake, soda water and lots of fresh limes'. I even bought a small bottle of their Firecrakcer sake another time, made in house, but at $25 or so for a small bottle, it's not something I can afford so often. Now that I live in Berlin, it's REALLY not something I can afford so often! ;-)

I was on a mission. I set out to recreate this drink myself and do that I did! Mine is obviously not made from sake, it's from our old friend vodka, but I think my drink fulfills the same craving, is cheaper and pretty damn close!

I picked up a package of chili peppers from my local Asian market, bought a bottle of the second (third if I'm feeling fancy) cheapest vodka (dear god don't buy the cheapest bottle) and off I went. The process was somewhat anti-climatic really. You'd think for a drink with such a punch the creation of it would be a bit more exciting. Ah well, that means anyone can do it! This is how:

Chili-Infused Vodka

- 1 bottle vodka
- 1/2 -3/4 cup chilis of choice (depends on your bravery)

I'm actually not even sure what kind of chilies I used, so just go with your favorite! I just grabbed the basic ones they had in the refrigerated section of my local Asian Market. Thai Sweet Chilies, Jalapeños, Habanero peppers, go for it!

Rinse the chilies and pull off the green stems. Open the vodka. Put the chilies in it, this will probably have to happen one at a time. The amount of chilies you put depends on your spicy tolerance. The first time I out a whole package of chilies in one bottle and it was delicious, but I think my friends wanted to kill me. Close the vodka bottle and keep somewhere room temperature and relatively dark for a month. I know, waiting is hard. The vodka will probably turn a bit more chili-colored, that's fine. After a month, you're ready! It can also sit much longer than that. The first batch I made at for 8 months because we kept waiting for the right moment to break it out.

Now for the best cocktail of your life (if you like spicy things). I am not brave enough to do shots of this, but you can do that too if you'd like.

Firecracker Cocktail

- 1 part chili vodka
- 1 part lime juice
- 3 parts Sprite or your lemon-lime soda of choice
- 1/2 - 1 Tbsp lime syrup
- ice

Fill the glass with as much ice as you want. Add the Sprite, lime juice (with limes if you'd like), lime syrup and chili vodka (with a chili or two in there for fanciness!). Give it a quick stir. Drink. Adjust the ingredients to your liking.

Watch out when feeding to your European friends because they are not used to spiciness and might die (or maybe that's just my friends, hi guys, I love you anyway!).

Seriously, new flavor sensation. I might have to start day drinking right now. Good thing it's a holiday today in Berlin! Did I mention I'm growing Thai Sweet Chilies and Jalapeño peppers on my balcony? I'm excited.

Must. Infuse. All. Vodka.

Vegan Nom Noms' How to Make Seitan app, coming soon to a smart phone near you!

Wondering what I've been up to the past few months? There is a reason I haven't been posting many recipes lately, and that reason is that I've been devoting all my energy to writing content for a new Vegan Nom Noms cooking app, developed by a couple friends at the awesome Berlin-based start-up Appetico, that will be released in June (next month!)! This issue of the app will be all about the magical, mystical seitan and I'm super excited about it! The most popular post on my blog is How to Make Seitan: An Illustrated Guide. If you like this post, you'll be a fan of the How to Make Seitan app.

What great about the app is that it is 100% based on pictures. There will be detailed recipes with a photo for every single step, hands-free swiping so there's no need to touch your smartphone with your food-covered hands, adjustable serving sizes tailored to the number of people you want to cook for and everything you ever wanted to know about seitan!

There are recipes for basic seitan, two types of seitan sausages, seitan cutlets, wraps, salad and much more. The way it's setup with a focus on images means anyone with eyes, including those thinking sei-what?!? will be able to bust out some wheat meat in no time. Sound good?

I wanted to break the silence to share the news here with you first. If you sign up now there will be some copies given away on the release date for a limited time!

Click here for more information about the app and/or to sign up to be notified when it's released/for the chance to receive a free download!

I'll of course be posting here once it's done and ready for download as well. :-)

Urban Gardening: Day 9

Finally after 9 days my little plant babies are coming to life! You can't tell so well from the picture, but my garlic has sprouted, as has one of my planters with peppers and 2 of my little tomato seedlings!

 The garlic was the first to sprout, here it us after a few days.

My little baby tomato seedlings! Only two of the 10 have sprouted so far and they were so tiny I didn't even notice them until my flatmate's friend pointed them out to me! Yay!

Peppers! Four of the five in there have sprouted.

Once these are big enough to move from the windowsill into their pots and put on the balcony, I plan to get the chilies, kale and feldsalat going...there's even talk of a seed/seedling exchange amongst my friends!

My First Garden! On a Balcony?!

Now that I'm actually planning on staying somewhere for more than 10 months for the first time in 6 (!!!) years, I can finally, FINALLY have a garden! Oh wait, I live in Berlin, a major city. While there are tons of community garden plots and city gardening efforts here, even for free, my life feels to busy and crazy at the moment to go somewhere else to garden, so balcony garden it is! When my flatmate and I were looking for apartments, we had two goals: That her room would be big enough to hula hoop in and that mine would have access to a balcony so I could grow things on it.

I have a small and humble balcony and it doesn't even face south, but damn, I'm going to make use of it!

This is apparently the darkest winter in about 50 years in Germany, in fact it snowed last week, in April (kill me) so we got off to a late start. I have a day off today so I finally decided to get my garden going. I already have some mint and scallions going that I grew from cutting and kept inside over the winter. Some friends in northern Germany (their blog: Altenstühlen), whose farm I volunteered on through HelpX twice already, in January 2010 and again August 2012, were nice enough to send me some of their own seeds, after I mentioned how delicious their veggies were in an e-mail. Well, I finally got around to planting the seeds today!

Unfortunately I realized half way through I didn't really have enough pots, so I stole my flatmate's egg containers (thanks Nicole!) to use to get the tomatoes and peppers going. In the yellow one egg container I have two different types of peppers, in the brown one two different types of tomatoes, in the black bigger pot to the left is another type of tomatoes and to the right I planted a few Brutzwiebeln (bulbs?) of garlic. I think it's the wrong time of year to plant garlic, but I'm going to try anyway. In fact, I just learned when looking up the German word Brutzwiebel, that there's no exact equivalent in English (Incubation onion? hah.) I swear I'm not going to be able to speak any language soon.

So here is what I plan to somehow fit on my balcony:

- Tomatoes
- Peppers
- Garlic
- Jalapeno Chilis
- Thai Chilis
- Mint
- Scallions
- Cilantro
- Feldsalat (translator says mache or lamb's lettuce? Sorry friends, all the packaging is in German and sometimes I've never seen these things in the States! #expatproblems)

I think I'll also get some basil and kale out there, I'm going to browse Amazon.de for the seeds now!

What have you grown on your balcony? Any advice? I am totally new at this, but I'm super excited to finally have a garden of my own, even if it's on the 4th floor of an apartment building!

Guest Post: Mashed Peas with Sauerkraut (Erbsenbrei mit Sauerkraut)

Deutsche Version folgt unten!

Over a year ago, I stumbled upon Carola's blog, twoodledrum, because of her Sauerkraut Spaghetti recipe. Since then I've bookmarked her site and check back often and have been following her recent Use Up-Along in an attempt to convince myself to take the same challenge (I have a habit of collecting random ingredients and letting them live on the shelf for ages, I'm sure like many of you!). I've written a couple American-themed guest posts for her blog (here and here). I asked Carola if she would be up for doing the same and writing a German-themed guest post for you all, and she generously agreed! In fact, it's like she read my mind, as someone left behind a huge bag of yellow split peas in my apartment and they've been sitting there as I try to figure out what to do with them. As you might be able to tell, if there is sauerkraut, I'm in, so I'm very excited to try this recipe out soon! Without further ado, let me leave you to Carola. If you read any German or are at all capable with Google translator (re: everyone!), absolutely go check out her blog: Twoodledrum!

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I’m actually a bit excited – my first guest post on an English blog! I can’t remember anymore when or why I first read “Vegan Nom Noms”, but I really like it. Nicole has been a guest blogger on my own German food blog, twoodledrum, twice, and I am proud to be here now. It was tricky to find a dish you might be interested in, since my favourite subject, cookies, was an American thing in the first place. But then I found something: Two years ago, I moved to my boyfriend’s village, deep in Hesse. I have encountered a lot of strange things here, and at first I thought that this dish was one of them – but it’s not! It’s very little work, delicious, filling and healthy. And German! After all, it has sauerkraut in it. The only thing you need is a good pot, otherwise the peas will scorch.

Mashed Peas with Sauerkraut (Erbsenbrei mit Sauerkraut)

- 2 or 3 potatoes

- 1 onion

- 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

- 250 g (1 1/3 cup) yellow split peas

- 750 ml (3 cups) vegetable broth

- salt and pepper

- 500 g (about 3 cups) sauerkraut

Peel and cut the potatoes in little cubes. Dice the onion and sauté it in the vegetable oil for 2 to 3 minutes. Then add the potatoe cubes, split peas and the broth, stir well and bring everything to a boil. No stirring allowed from now! Reduce the heat (for us, level 1 of 12 was enough, but it really depends on your stove), put a lid on the pot and simmer everything for approx. 90 minutes. Use a potato masher or a hand-blender to mash and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with hot sauerkraut.

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Erbsenbrei mit Sauerkraut

- 2 – 3 Kartoffeln

- 1 Zwiebel

- 3 EL neutrales Pflanzenöl

- 250 g gelbe Schälerbsen

- 750 ml Gemüsebrühe

- Salz und Pfeffer

- 500 g Sauerkraut

Seit ich vor zwei Jahren zu meinem Freund auf ein hessisches Dörfchen gezogen bin, kommen mir immer mal wieder seltsame Dinge unter. Erbsenbrei mit Sauerkraut schien mir erst einmal eines davon zu sein. Aber warum eigentlich nicht? Wenig Arbeit, lecker, sättigend und gesund. Wichtig für dieses Rezept ist allerdings ein guter Topf, ansonsten brennt der Brei an!

Kartoffeln schälen und würfeln. Zwiebel fein hacken, in Öl glasig dünsten. Kartoffelwürfel, Erbsen und Gemüsebrühe dazugeben, gut durchrühren und aufkochen. Ab jetzt nicht mehr rühren! Deckel auflegen und auf niedriger Stufe (bei uns hat 1 von 12 gereicht) für ca. eineinhalb Stunden leicht köcheln lassen, bis die Erbsen weich sind. Dann mit einem Kartoffelstampfer oder einem Pürierstab zu Brei verarbeiten und mit Salz und Pfeffer abschmecken. Dazu gibt es Sauerkraut.

Rosemary Potato Flatbread

 

I'm on a roll with these flatbreads, I know. This one is inspired by one of the famous squats in Berlin, Köpi, which has a monthly vegan pizza night on the first Saturday of the month. Here you get a brick-oven pizza (Steinofenpizza) for 2,50€ and vegan cupcakes for 1€ each. They also often have tons of zines available for a donation, topics from vegan desserts to sex education to consent to animal rights, etc. are covered.

Not for the faint of heart or large groups of tourists, you meander your way through the unmarked gates on Köpenickerstraße, past the caravans where some of the people from Köpi live, past some really impressive bike creations from their Bike Wars. It's a decidedly punk atmosphere and they have lots of bands over, a bar and various political events, shows, etc. Worth checking out, but remember to be respectful, as people actually live here and you are coming into their living space. You'll want to at least try to use your German here.

Anyway, they generally have 5 or so types of vegan pizza and I've decided my favorite is the potato rosemary. Pretty simple, it's a combination I just haven't ever considered, but the rosemary combined with the vegan cheese and potatoes makes a pretty amazing flavor explosion. I added some onions and garlic and baked it. The one in the picture had some mushrooms I needed to use up as well. I am now obsessed. Köpi uses a cheese that melts better than what I used, but mine still tasted awesome, so whatever.

Rosemary Potato Flatbread

- 1 pizza crust recipe of your choice or store-bought
- 2 medium potatoes, boiled until cooked (not super mushy, but you should be able to easily stick a fork through them)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 Tbsp. dried or fresh rosemary
- 1/2 onion, chopped however you want
- sliced mushrooms (optional)
- vegan mozzarella-style cheese of choice or make your own
- salt, to taste

Preheat your oven to 400ºF (200ºC). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I also sprinkle some fine cornmeal or semolina on the parchment paper to further prevent sticking, but that's up to you). Prepare your pizza crust or take your store bought one out of the fridge. Let it rest for 5 minutes before shaping. You might want to roll it around in a little bit of olive oil first to make it easier to handle. For a personal pizza, I use a ball about the size of my fist. The rest of the dough I stored in the fridge in plastic wrap for the next day. My trick is to make a circular ball then stretch it over the rim of a medium-sized bowl. Once it's stretched over the bowl you can pull out the sides a bit more, then pick it up off the bowl and transfer it to the parchment paper. You want it to be thin, less than a 1/4 an inch. You might think then it won't hold the toppings, but once it cooks it will rise a bit, get crispy and be fine. 

In a small bowl or cup combine the olive oil, rosemary and garlic, then brush over the whole crust. Slice the potatoes about 1/4 inch (1cm) thick lengthwise and spread out over the pizza, top with the onions and optional mushrooms, a bit of salt and then the vegan cheese. Here is a picture of my flatbread pre-cheese:

Here is my flatbread loaded up with vegan cheese (you could also make a cheese sauce) before cooking.

And the final slice....nom!

I was trying out a new vegan cheese and it didn't melt super amazingly, but it was tasty nonetheless, don't let the picture fool you. Next time I think I'll just make my own vegan mozzarella or cheese sauce and throw some rosemary in there and give that a whirl.