Garfield’s favourite lasagna…

Ok, I fudged on the title. But when I cook lasagna I just have to think of Garfield, especially when it has the same colour as his coat. Did I watch too much TV when I was young, or do you have any food that reminds you of a cartoon hero as well?

Since I love lasagna, I tried a lot of vegetables and sauces. But my favourite version is with pumpkin (not surprising since pumpkin is my favourite vegetable ;) ).  I planned to post this recipe a few weeks ago, but since I started my new job, I realized how many time I had as a student! I hope you forgive me that I made myself rare in the last weeks!

pumpkin lasagna

1kg pumpkin

200g carrots

2 medium sized tomatoes

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1 tablespoon olive oil

500ml strained tomatoes

200ml vegetable stock

100ml dry white wine

100g cream cheese

200g sour creme

3 tablespoons parsley

8 lasagna noodles (you need 4 layers)

cinnamon, curry, chilli powder, salt, pepper

1. Clean the pumpkin and carrots and cut them to palatable sizes. Chop the onion finely. Preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F.

2. Heat the olive oil in a pan and roast the onion in it. Deglaze the onion with the white wine and vegetable stock. Pour the strained tomatoes, pumpkins and carrots in the pan. Press the garlic glove in the pan and let it cook for about 10min. Let the cream cheese melt in the sauce. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, curry and chilli powder and a pinch of cinnamon. Mix the sour cream with the parsley and season it with salt to taste.

3. Cover the bottom of a casserole with pumpkin sauce. Then layer 2 lasagna noodles over the sauce (or as many noodles as you need to cover the sauce). Afterwards sauce, then noodles, and so on. Cover the last layer of noodles with the sour cream. Slice the tomatoes and put them on top of the sour cream and salt them.

4. Put the lasagna in the oven for 25min.

Sometimes it has to be quick!

I am sure you know the feeling when you don’t want to stand in the kitchen for hours, but still would like to have a yummy meal. Well, in that case, pasta with vegetable sauce is always the right option for me. During the time the pasta is cooking, you can prepare the sauce.

Usually I use strained tomatoes as a base, but yesterday I thought I have to try something else. Luckily I commemorated a recipe with gorgonzola sauce that I found on Gourmandises végétariennes. I never tried the combination of gorgonzola and kohlrabi and was keen to test it. After cooking it I have to say that it really tastes great together! And the best thing is: the dish is ready in less then 20min- faster than every delivery service I know!

Pasta with kohlrabi in a gorgonzola sauce

250g pasta

2 kohlrabi

1 onion

1 garlic glove

1 tablespoon oil

200ml vegetable stock

150ml milk

70g gorgonzola

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

(cornflour)

salt, pepper

1. Chop the onion and garlic glove to small dices. Clean the kohlrabi and quarter it. Chip the quarters to 5mm/0.2 inches thick slices.

2. Start to boil the water for the pasta and cook the pasta according to the instructions. During this time start with the sauce.  Roast the  onion and garlic in a pan with the oil. Deglaze them with the vegetable stock and put the kohlrabi pieces in it. Let them cook for about 6min.

3. Cut the gorgonzola to pieces and let it melt in the pan with the kohlrabi. Fill the milk in the sauce and boil it up. If you think it is too liquid thick it with some cornflour.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Pour the sauce over the pasta and strew the parsley over it.

Little mood-boosters

After 3 savoury recipes I felt like I have to post something sweet again. And to be honest-I really needed something sweet at the moment to cheer me up! I am struggling with a cold since 5 days. People from Munich call it the ‘Wiesn-Grippe’ (Oktoberfest-cold), because everybody is snuffing and coughing here! I guess Indian summer made me frivolous with my clothing-I just forgot that the sun is less powerful than in July and it gets cold at night…

Anyway, I thought that instead of moaning (ok, I did that a lot this week:sorry to my brother at this point :)) I should do something that improves my mood. I don’t know about you, but the first food that comes to my mind when I need to improve my mood is chocolate. I guess you know that dark chocolate is a moodlifter because of the high percentage of cacao. But dark chocolate doesn’t work for me, I just don’t like it. A real mood-booster for me is white chocolate, not because of the scientific-proofed ingredients, just for the taste!

As I looked through my favourite blogs, I found a muffin recipe at ‘the vegetarian diaries‘ that sounded just perfect. Even my conscience is salved because of the vitamins in the raspberries (I can salve it pretty easy :) ). I made only half of the recipe and cut the oil out:

Raspberry-white chocolate muffins with almond slivers

for 8 muffins

140g wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

50g sugar

5g vanilla sugar

150g yoghurt

40g white chocolate

20g almond slivers

90g raspberries (frozen)

8 muffin cups, muffin pan

1.Preheat the oven to 175°C/250°F. Put the muffin cups in the muffin pan. Chop the white chocolate.

2. Stir the egg, sugar and vanilla sugar with a hand mixer until it is fluffy. Mix the yoghurt with the egg and sugar.

3. Sieve the flour, baking powder and baking soda over the bowl with the batter. Stir until the flour is wet, but not too long. Fold in the almond slivers, 2/3 of the raspberries and 2/3 of the white chocolate.

4. Fill the batter into the muffin cups. Put the remaining raspberries and chocolate on top of the batter. Bake the muffins for 35-40min.