Boozy New Year “Fortune Cookies” with almonds

When I went shopping for Christmas cookie cutters recently, I found those really cute lucky charm shaped ones – and I ended up walking home with them instead of any festive shapes. So, this year it’s New Year cookies instead of Christmas cookies! And since New Year calls for a little booze, I decorated them with Amaretto frosting, so make sure not to hand those to kids. If you don’t like almonds or amaretto, you can always use hazelnuts or walnuts and any other kind of liqueur you like. 

Sweet potato and blood orange soup

There’s nothing better in the first cold days of winter than a hearty soup to warm you up. And even better is a soup that is hot and sweet at once. This lovely soup was made from sweet potatoes and a little blood orange juice which adds amazing flavor to it. If you are not sure if you like ‘sweet’ soups, use half sweet and half regular potatoes – this will make the soup more hearty. By the way: This also makes an amazing starter for a festive dinner! 

Kohlrabi carpaccio with cranberry walnut pesto

It always amazes me how a few very simple (and budget friendly) ingredients can turn into a very fancy looking and tasting dish with just a little creativity and carefully garnished plates. For this dish for example, I used kohlrabi as the main ingredient, which is a kind of cabbage that is very common (and inexpensive) in German speaking countries. It can be eaten raw or cooked, and has a mild cabbage flavor that works great in salads, hearty stews or as a side dish. I combined it with a sweet yet savory pesto made from cranberries and walnuts and served it on a bed of lambs lettuce. By the way, if you have any leftovers or simply don’t need all the pesto and veggies for serving, use it as a sandwich filling – absolutely delicious!

Vegan butternut squash risotto

Sometimes the simplest of things are the best! When your pantry is overflowing with pumpkins and squash in the fall and you can’t stand the smell of pumpkin spice any more, this simple risotto might be the perfect dish for you. It really brings out the creamy and savoury-sweet flavor of butternut squash and works perfectly as a side dish in a cozy fall dinner or makes a satisfying main course with a crisp salad on the side. By the way, if you don’t want to or can’t use white wine, simply replace it with the equal amount of vegetable broth. 

Fennel risotto with lemon and white beans

I love a big bowl of hot and creamy risotto – it warms you just like a soup on a cold fall or winter day, but is more filling and so more satisfying for a hungry stomach. And it’s really easy to make and extremely versatile since you can add pretty much all kinds of veggies you have at hand. You can also mix several vegetables or legumes in your risotto – just like fennel and white beans. To add a little extra flavor, I added some lemon juice and zest, which really took the dish from ‘good’ to ‘wow’.  Just make sure to add the lemon right before serving, this way you get the best and most intense lemon flavor. 

Vegan beet root ‘mac and cheese’

I have to admit, I never really got the fuss about mac and cheese. I mean it’s white pasta with cheese – what’s so special about it? To be a ‘proper’ dish for me, there is a distinct lack of vegetables in there. That being said, this dish was heavily inspired by a vegan mac and cheese version I one tried to make (and found a bit lacking the wow-factor, if you get my drift). But I decided to jazz things up by adding beet root, which not only gives the dish a bright pink color, but also gives it a real boost in flavor. If you are not really a fan of the ‘earthy’ taste of beet roots, don’t worry, the creamy (cheese) sauce balances this out very nicely. Just give it a try! 

Hummus pizza with beet root and pumpkin

If you combine the awesomeness of pizza and hummus, what do you get? The answer is: a frigging delicious hummus pizza! Though you could probably argue if you can still call it a pizza if there are no tomatoes on it, but that’s just semantics. Point is, it’s so good, you won’t care what it’s called. To make a perfect fall pizza, I used beet root, pumpkin and onion as topping, and pan-roasted the veggies beforehand to enhance their flavors. I roasted the beets separately from the other veggies to prevent everything from turning pink, but if you don’t mind pink onions and pumpkin cubes, go ahead and roast everything together. Enjoy! 

Super easy home made hummus

If I had to pick my favorite spread/dip, hummus would definitely win – even before any kind of chocolate spread. Hummus is just so versatile – you can spread in on fresh bread, dipp all kinds of veggies in it, use it in wraps and sandwiches… Or you can eat it right from the container, which I may have done a few times. You can get pretty good hummus at your local deli or supermarket, but I often find the store-bought kind lacking in flavor. Also, if you read through the ingredients label, you can see that many producers add all kinds of food additives such as thickeners or preservatives. If you want to avoid this stuff and make sure that the hummus tastes even more delicious, you can simply make from scratch. And don’t worry, it’s really easy to make!

I usually boil the chickpeas myself and don’t use canned ones, so my recipe starts with boiling the chickpeas. Boiling chickpeas often takes at least two hours, but you can shorten this time significantly by doing two thing: soaking the chickpeas for at least 12 hours before boiling and adding a pinch of baking soda to the water when you boil them. This will make the water slightly alkaline, which speeds up the cooking process. This way you will even save energy! If you are in a hurry and want to use canned chickpeas, go ahead – you will need about 400 g. 

Tart and sweet carrot lemon cake

‘Hiding’ vegetables in sweet baked goods is a great way of making them healthier and to up your five-a-day quota. And it makes for really tasty treats! I recently had my pantry overflowing with carrots and a sudden hunger for lemon cake – so I decided to combine carrot cake and lemon cake to produce their lovely and delicious love child. If you want to make this cake more carrot cake like, you can add some cinnamon to the batter – but it also tastes awesome without it! 

Celery root, carrot and apple salad

A few months ago, my food processor broke down and I had to buy a new one. Since then, every time I use my new food processor I always want to give myself a congratulatory pat on the back for choosing this one, because it is so amazing. The first time I used it, I threw all kinds of fruits and veggies in there just to test how long it would take to chop everything into teeny tiny pieces – mostly just a few seconds! Since then, I use my food processor almost every other day – it’s just so easy to just use it instead of grating carrots or other hard veggies by hand.

One of the dishes that are much less time consuming to prepare with my little kitchen helper is this tasty salad. Instead of grating the celery root, apple and carrots by hand, you can just throw everything in a food processor and Tadaa! Instant salad! (Though you can of course also grate the ingredients by hand.) Just make sure to process the apple on it’s own, as it will turn to mush if you process it with the harder vegetables. This salad works great as a main course, and you can also easily transport it to uni or to work as it’s keeps fresh and crisp for a few hours even without a fridge. Just give it a try!