The arrival of the pumpkins in the UK!

A few months ago I was terribly disappointed, I couldn't find a pumpkin for the life of me. As we know, I like to cook pumpkins, use them in stir fries, and especially to make pumpkin soup. I searched far and wide in the days in October leading up to Halloween, but I could only find a few large decorative pumpkins, nothing edible. My UK friends and colleagues tried to explain that UK people don't really eat pumpkin...

Therefore, I was pleasantly suprised when wandering around Asda this week to find these:

I was downright amazed that their source country was the UK. The green squash in the back had hit their best buy date so they were down to .50 pence each, the orange fellows didn't expire until later in the month, so they were regular priced at 1.64 GBP each. They were stored under the herbs in a hidden place well out of site, so no wonder no one bought them.

When I was in Germany in the fall I did manage to buy one there to cook, it had cost me 1.99 at Lidl. (1.64 GBP = 1.82 EUR = 2.62 USD as of today)

I did actually buy a third one, that already became soup. :-) Pumpkins in January though, usually I'd be well into my German stockpile by now and the stores wouldn't have any for sale, so this turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me this week.

Frugal side potatoes

I've had a busy week this week. I knew going into it that it would be busy, so I created a few big meals and spent the rest of the time combining them in leftover fashion. In addition, it was chilly this week in the UK so I made meals that could go into the oven for heating.

I started with the rooftop garden potatoes. I boiled them for 15 minutes and then put them into the roasting pan. I added a bit of onion and garlic (also from the garden). I added half of a leek from the market and a little oil (cost negligible). Full cost of the leek was .75 pence, so we're up to around .37 pence cost here:

Next I topped it with the remaining breadcrumb/parmesan cheese mixture from the Breaded mushrooms. As I calculated that cost into the mushroom recipe, I considered this one to be a free addition:

It went into the oven for 25 min at 175 C. Then I added a few chopped up tomatos for moisture and because they were reaching the end of their shelf life:

The final outcome was a side of potatoes with at least 5 meals this week:

Total cost per serving? Around 7 pence.

What ended up with it? One day I had leftover pasta bake for a carbfest, another day was a green salad, another day was assorted leftovers, and on and on...the above photo was the salad day, other day's portions were smaller.

Frugal Sunday lunch - a week late

I managed to get to the farmers' market on Saturday around closing time and came home with a few things as they lowered the prices to move them out:

1 large cauliflower + 1 giant bag of brussel sprout greens = 1 GBP
1 bag of brussel sprouts, around 75 of them = 1 GBP

Into this recipe went 1/3 of the cauliflower and 1 bunch of 4 of the sprout greens.
around 10 brussel sprouts went into the mix as well.

Already on hand:
a veg Thai green curry paste similar to this
a dented can of coconut milk, discounted to 51 p
rice and noodles
on sale tofu = 1 GBP
1 scotch bonnet/habenero pepper from my garden (ok, so not a perfect substitution, but in the vicinity)

Lunches made:
4.5 during the week and 1 for the freezer later for work

Estimated total cost:
.20 p for the cauliflower
.13 p for the greens
1 GBP for the tofu
.51 p for the coconut milk
.05 p for the paste
1 GBP for the rice/noodle servings
.15 p for the brussel sprouts
0 for the pepper (garden has already paid for itself)
=3.04 GBP

3.04 divided by the 5.5 meals = approximately .55 p per serving.

From the rooftop garden - peppers!

This year was a trial year for the new garden location. I didn't get into the place until June 5th, so everything I had started earlier had to survive the car ride and being schlepped up the four flights of stairs, and the change in climate from a shady patio to a sunny rooftop.

In addition, when I started seeds in March, I didn't know where I'd be in the summer, so it was a bit of guesswork. However, my bumper crop this year turned out to be the peppers. I went through a picked a bunch of them:


Everything below comes from my rooftop:

As I'm not really fond of peppers (except for the hot ones--the scotch bonnet peppers are the two little light green ones in the middle row, 2nd from the right, next to the tomatoes), I made up a batch of stuffed peppers, froze them, and gave them to someone.

We're having an Indian summer still in the UK so I have more peppers still to come. I've moved them to a sunnier local, now that the sun has moved, so they're getting morning sun until 2 PM. The remaining scotch bonnets are now turning red, as are the chilli peppers. The lettuce is happy with the cooler temps and the remaining tomatoes are turning red. So gardening is on wind down mode, but surprisingly to me, still continuing. In Germany I would usually be down to only one or two hardy tomato plants at this point, with the final containers getting emptied out and put away on the Oct 3rd holiday. Although the UK does have a later start than Germany as nothing really grew much for me in May/June.

From the Saturday market and the rooftop garden

I went at 16.20 so the prices were starting to drop for the 17.00 shutdown. :-)

-In the photo, starting at 12 o'clock, 3 packages of strawberries from Kent, all 3 packages together were 2 GBP

-1 o'clock - 5 ears of corn for 2 GBP

-4 o'clock - 6 peaches for 2 GBP

-center - 3 bananas for 60 pence

-6 o'clock - 3 packages of berries for 2.50 GBP

-8 o'clock - young purple broccoli shoots and leaves, the giant bag for 1 GBP

So everything in the photo came to 10.10 GBP (16.51 USD/11.52 EUR). Food tends to be more expensive here in the UK, so I was pretty pleased at the above. To preserve the berries I am drying them as I would only be able to go through one package of the raspberries and one package of the strawberries before they would start to go off.

What aren't I buying there?

- Lettuce - I'm still a big convert of lettuce in a bag with the roots in dirt from asda as that extends its shelf life for me. Next week my roof terrace lettuce should be ready.

- Tomatos - those are coming from the roof terrace as well.

-Peppers - I'm not a big fan of eating them although I do enjoy growing them. Unfortunately, the roof terrace favors pepper growing. This proficient one has produced 3 so far with 18 more still growing, nevermind what her 3 sister are doing in their own right (the scotch bonnet, bell pepper and sweet pepper plants).

Other people get overwhelmed by zucchinni, I'm stuck with peppers. I never imagined this would be the case in the UK...

I've now taken to inviting people over so that I can make pepper based dishes. ;-) Tonight's guest is being treated to Mexican with a variety of chopped up pepper based salsas and fresh pepper toppings for the tacos.

Vegan day 9 - Fresh Saturday

Were you wondering what happened with the food from the Saturday market?

Everything looked so great and fresh, so I went extremely basic on the cooking--minimal spices and low, short cooking.

Here is a third of the carrot bunch. The were sliced in half and given a short fry in olive oil.

Here are potatoes, fresh from the roof terrace garden:

The broad beans were in the '1 pound' markdown area, so I knew they needed to be used Saturday or Sunday. They had gone for about three minutes into boiling water and then were rinsed in cold water. Right after that they were shelled. Here new friend Ian is demonstrating the appropriate shelling technique.

The cooked potatoes and beans were then combined together. I had some ideas from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/, I like their photos, as well as that their recipes are not too complex. They were suggesting mint as the appropriate spice, but I wanted to leave out anything heavy as I wanted to truly taste the potatos.

Super Saturday - from the market

August is a great time to buy local produce here in the UK. Most of the 'local' produce here is coming from Essex or Kent. It's especially good if you go at the end of the market day on Saturday as the prices start to drop. ;-)

My photo isn't so great, but starting at the bottom and moving clockwise:

1 bunch of carrots
2. cauliflower - the carrots and the cauliflower were a deal together, for 1 GBP
3. 3 kilos of onions - 1 GBP
4. bunch of 4 bananas (the only non-local item) .90 p
5. in the back - tomatos on the vine and small tomatos - the gigantic bag weighing a few kilos for 2 GBP
6. broad beans - 1 GBP for the lot of them
7. strawberries - 2 containers for 2.50 GBP
8. in front - rosemary/olive oil bread - 2.50 GBP

I'm now set for the next few days with veg, excluding lettuce. :-)

Vegan dinner - day 7

Yeah, back to Mexican. :-)

Tonight: two bean burritos I assembled at home, easy peasy. A can of beans plus two flour tortillas. I was feeling a little edgy so I applied liberally jalapeno peppers to the interior. ;-)

To the right, I whipped up a little tomato mix to liven them up. I had roma tomatos from the weekly market. I added chopped garlic (from the roof garden) and as well as a pepper from up here. I finally have my first rooftop tomato which is about ready to be picked, looking forward to that one tomorrow...

Vegan dinner - day 6

It was warm and humid here today through this evening, now it's cool and rainy.

Today's dinner was pasta, two zuchinnis (we're in full zuchinni season here, they're dirt cheap!) in Dolmio's pasta sauce and a bit of bread. These pasta sauces have been on sale at asda, two 500 gram jars for 3 GBP. I'm a big fan, because there is nothing in these sauces which wouldn't be there if I made them from scratch.

You may notice this is a little carb heavy for me. I've noticed when I go vegan, to drop the cheese out of meals really knocks out a lot of the fat/calories. The rest of my work days usually look like this:

Breakfast: 08.00 - coffee in the office

09.30ish - cereal in the office. (I keep Bran Flakes in my desk drawer)

Lunch: 11.30ish - lunch in the office. Lunch is usually a leftover dinner. So when I made the above tonight, I made enough to have a second, smaller portion which will be tomorrow's lunch, usually with a side of salad, but sans bread.

Dinner: 17.00ish - tonight's dinner was the above.

19.00 - tonight a small bowl of cereal (again, focusing on the carbs a bit more than usual to keep the energy up--not normal when i'm my normal vegetarian self).

Aug 1 - vegan eating day 1

Saturday started off with a long 'to do' list of things to do in town and tasks at home. As I've been living in this flat for almost two months, I'm starting to get more ideas about how I want to use the space in some areas.

Breakfast - coffee at home.

Lunch - since we were out and about in town, we went to Nosh+Coffee. The one in the center of my corner of Essex is relatively new...

On the plus side:

-they are less expensive than their coffee counterparts Costa or Starbucks

-their food selection is more expansive--salads, sandwiches, containers of fresh fruit for 1.50 GBP

-they have a vegan option - salad with beans, hummus, and falafel for 3.50 GBP (which I had), as well as plenty of decent veg options like a feta cheese salad or egg and mayo sandwich.

On the negative side:

-I suspect the people management is lacking at this particular one, or maybe they're all this this, it's the only one I've been to. When you go to the main Costa in my corner of Essex, it's staffed by friendly Eastern Europeans or Spaniards, the Costa above the bookstore is staffed by friendly students, the Coffee+Nosh people are always sour faced, or complaining to one another about their work hours. But anyway...the salad is quite nice...

Dinner: We start with fresh peppers from the garden...

I'm not a fan of eating peppers, but I enjoy growing them for my guests...

I did a stir-fry--it's broccoli from the Saturday market, zuchinni from my garden and tofu, which later had Sharwood's Kung Po sauce added:

The final results....

At 12 o'clock on the table is a fresh salad with lettuce, tomatos, and olive oil.

1 PM is a homemade dipping sauce: tamari sauce, olive oil, water, dried chilli pepers.

3 PM is homemade vegan spring rolls that oversprung

The bottom are our two plates in action

center of the table is the fresh peppers chopped up.

The fancy table setting is a giant cardboard moving box which gets a new round of paper to cover it weekly. I still haven't decided upon a dining room table or coffee table yet, so I'm making due with this one until I figure out how I want the layout of the flat to be.

What's for Sunday lunch - Hokkaido pumpkin in Germany

If your corner of Germany is anything like mine in NRW, you're seeing Hokkaido pumpkins, like the one I bought the other day. Pumpkins are like every other seasonal produce one finds in Germany, we'll be awash with them for maybe a month, and then just like that they're gone until next year. So I'm buying them like the dickens, squirreling them away in my cellar storage area (they last up to 3 months when stored in a cool place), and making 4 meals a week with them in the meantime.

I must admit, I was not a pumpkin eater prior to coming to Germany. The only pumpkin I had ever had was the stuff that came out of a can and was made into pie, and we all know my aversion for desserts. The second strike against US pumpkin for me, is that a lot of recipes with it also include cinnamon and/or nutmeg, the only two spices in the entire world I abhor. So back to the Hokkaido.

Step 1: Buy one at your local farmer's market or supermarket. I bought one at Aldi Sued for 1.79, my local Kaufpark/Rewe affiliate and Edeka sells them for 2.75 each. My farmer's market connection is usually around 2 Euros or so. Mainly they seem to be coming from Holland. Go for a Bio one if possible, as one of the best things about the Hokkaido is that the skin is edible, so you save yourself the peel time/effort, as well as raising the fiber content of your recipe.

Step 2: Wash er up. Slice the top off. Scoop out the seeds.



If you're feeling ambitious you can set the seeds aside to wash and roast. Or you can throw them in your garden compost. We have a communal area in the small forest nearby for such biodegradable items which is where mine went. Either a forest creature is going to find a nice treat or next spring the Germans will begin to wonder how pumpkins are growing wild in the forest.

After I remove all the seeds, I use my small knife to give the insides a scrape, to remove all of the stringy bits remaining. Then I wipe the insides out with a paper towel to be sure I got them all.


Step 3: Into the oven. This is a great activity for cold rainy days like today to heat up the flat. I put it into a ceramic pan, then put about 1.5 inches of water inside the pumpkin. Then put the top back on, but slightly at an angle to allow for a little of the steam to escape. Next, give the whole thing a quick rub with olive oil. Finally, put a piece of foil lightly over the pumpkin, to allow the inside to cook without the outside getting overdone.

I try for around 195C, for around 50 min, but it depends on your pumpkin size, oven, etc. You'll know it's done when you poke it with a fork and the skin is easily pierced. If you want, pull the foil off for the last few minutes to allow the skin to brown up a little.


Coming out of the oven, it will look like this:






Step 4: The pumpkin is usually hot as heck, especially as the outside is oiled. So you can let it sit for a few minutes to cool, and then dump out the inside water. Then let it sit for a few more minutes to cool further. Or speed up the whole process and carefully dump the water immediately after taking it out of the oven.

Step 5: Slice and serve. Slice anyway you want. Sometimes I try chunks, today I went with slices.

Today's plate, starting at 12 o'clock is the pumpkin. I had a decent sized one, and here is about half of it. I so enjoy the warm rich taste of the Hokkaido, I purposely left it without any sauce or dressing for a change today. Continuing clockwise, in the 4 o'clock region are some pan-seared brussel sprouts, flavored with Bragg Liquid Aminos, although soy sauce would give you a similar result. 7 o'clock has some leftover beans which were spiced up with chili and onions when cooking them. 11 o'clock has some of those lovely Dutch sausages.


Because I take a lot of convenient 'one plate' meals to the office such as stir frys (due to our lack of on-site meal facilities and a shared microwave), on the weekends I like to prepare 'independent' items which aren't all mixed together in the same sauce.

The above is actually vegan, excluding the sausages which contain egg and milk. That wasn't my intention either way, but moreso to make something a little healthier as I was pretty run-down last week and wasn't eating so good in the days prior. In a time-saving maneuver I created double of the above, so tomorrow's dinner will be the same.

Fall in Germany...

is my favorite time of year. Is starts with these items, but I need to explain more...

From the weekly Muenster farmers' market last week

While I was in Muenster for the last three weeks, I enjoyed going to the Wednesday farmers' market. If you happen to be in the area, either on a Wed or Sat morning, I highly recommend a visit.

I generally don't enjoy shopping, but I do enjoy good food, and in particular being connected to the people who grow it. A balcony garden can only grow so much! ;-)

Some highlights:

1. The eggs in the back are from the egg man.

2. Front, the last of the local fresh peas. I had asked last week if there would again be peas next week, the selling girl shouts across to the older gentleman (the owner?) my question. Direct from the source came the answer, definitely Sat and maybe Wed.

3. Back, is a Thai Basil plant. In my corner of NRW it's easy to find (standard? Italian?) Basil, but Thai Basil in potted plan form is a little more difficult. It started dumping rain as I was buying this and the stand was sheltered from it, so I was chatting to the selling girl, and she asks where I'm from, what I'm doing in Muenster, etc. Turns out she spent a year of high school in Indiana and enjoyed it very much, even though it was more rural than she expected America to be.

4. A plethora of tomatoes. In this part of NRW tomatoes are at their peak right now of taste as well as good pricing, so I bought some extras so I could make some sauce.

5. Potatoes in the plastic bag in the center. I went to a potato stall, with oodles of different varieties of potatos. Which is the best potato to make mashed potatos? Ah, you want this one. A potato expert at the ready, I was very pleased. I suck at trying to buy potatos for mashing, (or rather for D to make mashed for me), so when there is a knowledgable potato seller available, I am very happy to take any and all potato buying recommendations.

6. Fresh corn, center back. Considering the number of corn fields in my immediate area, I'm always surprised that 1. It's not sold fresh in the supermarkets here, but rather stuffed 2 to a little plastic vaccuum sealed in some liquid pack and 2. It's not sold at roadside stands. So fresh corn is a rarity I'm always happy to find here. (It was between 75 cents to 1 EUR per ear, ouch!)

Other items in the photo: raspberries, yellow squash, garlic, little onions, cheddar cheese, giant German beans with a handful of 'bean herbs', and a bus ticket. Not photographed: a to go coffee and small bread.

Dinner from the balcony - tomatoes

I enjoyed the chilly, rainy weather by sleeping in late and then eating a large lunch. So by dinner time I was more in the need for a little snack than a meal and had not so much energy to cook. Good thing my downstairs neighbor pointed out to me that my tomatoes are 'ganz rot' today. ;-) I responded that I would definitely be eating them tonight, which was an acceptable response. (I love my flat and my neighbors. I could never have a stalker, because there are eagle eyes around the building, and they miss not a single thing.)

Here are the before photos. The green clump in the bottom right corner of the pot is basil. The yellow in the right of the photo are the yellow tomatos.

And here is the after photo. The basil went into olive oil with a sprinkle of garlic herb Mrs. Dash (which I brought from America for such culinary laziness) and fresh black pepper. The red at 12 o'clock is Nasturtium.

Lunch from the balcony - Tuesday

OK, excluding the goat's cheese, from the balcony. Assembly required. We have today:

-baby lettuce (growing too closely together, so a plethora of little leaves)
-a tiny strawberry hidden under the lettuce
-a turkish or hungarian pepper at the top (more pepper flavor than hot)
-tomatos
-basil
-sage (a little spicyness to balance out the mild favors)
-and taking center stage - cucumbers (will they ever stop??)

Lunch from the balcony

Fresh from the balcony this morning, everything in this salad was grown on my balcony. We have:

-lettuce (2 different types)
-tomatos (the yellow guy on the right is from my dwarf yellow Dutch cherry tomato plant, the red ones are from a balcony tomato plant, not exactly cherry tomatos, they get slightly larger and are more like 'regular' tomatos in taste and texture)
-half of a cucumber (from the never-ending supply)
-peas (2 pods, 1 bottom left)

now if only i could figure out how to cultivate olive oil and goat's cheese on the balcony.

back in germany - what's cooking

But not much to say after such a lovely trip to Lithuania and talking about it will just make me sad that I am back in the land of the angry dour cranks. So instead, here is the vegan meal I made Monday for Aunt B, a detox from all of the cheese, vodka, whiskey and general lack of fresh green things of the old country.

Starting at the top left, 11 o'clock is Uncle Ben's boil in a bag Thai rice. Going clockwise, 2 o'clock is Nando's sweet chili sauce with eggplant, tofu, and chickpeas. 4 o'clock is young pan-seared brussel sprouts spritzed with Bragg's Liquid Aminos.

Bottom center at 6 o'clock is two stuffed mushrooms which were gently warmed on the bottom. Their raw stuffing was mushroom stems, spring onion, and two types of fresh basil--green and purple, with a dash of olive oil to hold it all together. Bottom left at 7 o'clock is zucchini with garlic and red onion.

Aunt B is not a vegetarian and in particular she's not a fan of tofu unless it's pretty well hidden in a sauce, but she gave it two thumbs up. Although as the meat-eater in our twosome she had to eat some pretty bad looking things in Lithuania like tongue (of what animal I am not sure), and raw something that she was not sure of, except that it was red/pink and for breakfast. So I imagine known vegetables must seem rather mild in comparison.

Movie Review - Unser Täglich Brot

I rarely watch movies, (no matter where I am), but today D. and I saw Unser Täglich Brot at Filmpalette in Koeln. It's a documentary without commentary about industrial food production in Europe. STOP reading HERE if you plan to see the movie and don't want to be tainted by my below thoughts until after seeing it. ;-)

Overall, I found it to be very honest and neutral in its presentation. If you look at the film's website link above, don't be put off from the film that on first glance it seems like a PETA advert with the meat preparation photos shown. The film probably spends 60% of the time on cows, chicken, and pork, with 10% on fish and the remaining 30% on fruits/veg processing, and all is presented in a daily, matter of fact way, not sensationalized.

I would be interested to find anyone who does not learn something new from this film. D. and I were discussing post-film, there are many food preparations/methods/farm machines, that we did not know existed; as well as trying to comprehend the vast amounts of food that is prepared on a large scale. When you see how Aldi, Pennymarkt, and Plus sell fruit and vegetables in their shrinkwrapped packaging, it's easy to make the connection to this film when you see the women packing them into the containers of six, just like they sell it there.

If you live in Europe, I'd call it a must see.

low carb/vegetarian day 2 and what's on my bookshelf

After taking a few recipes from the book for a spin for both taste and ease of preparation, I decided to give the whole thing a whirl to see if this shakes up my January at all. The book gives vegan options for all vegetarian recipes (Vegan = vegetarian, but in addition excluding any product that comes from an animal such as eggs, dairy, cheese, or honey). I was rather happy being vegan (and not low-carb) when I lived in California, but I find the option to be somewhat difficult here in Germany.

Off to the Saturday trip to the Obst Frau, a few changes to my usual food choices:
Add to the usual list:
10 eggs*, goat's cheese*
cauliflower, avocado

* I will attempt to eat the vegetarian recipes that involve egg whites or goat's cheese, for anything involving an egg yolk or cow's cheese I'll choose the vegan option.
Exclude from the usual list:
apples, potatoes
hohe's multi vitamin fruit juice

Some initial thoughts:
1. If you're already OK with being a vegetarian and you're not of the 'coca-cola and twinkie' variety, vegetarian low carb (VLC from now on) isn't much of an effort or change, except for shifting away from rice and grains as the basis of your personal food pyramid.

2. Being in Germany for this regime is a mixed blessing.
Negative: There is a lack of packaged low carb food like I saw so often in the US.

Positive: A. There is a lack of packaged food in general here, so temptation to eat poorly is low. Personally I love the occasional bag of Doritos or Oreos. Nary a one here in Deutschland. The closest I can get is to get Oreos from Spain (and believe me I do when I'm there!) or Doritos from Netherlands. The Oreos are pretty close but the Doritos are hit or miss depending on the variety. The 'original' here is not like in the US, it's more of a general cheesy chip that looks like a Dorito, but beware, it's fool's gold. Cool Ranch is pretty close in taste between here and there, but not one of my favorites.
B. Also, Germany tends to be very organic in fruits and vegetables by nature so I suspect this is a less expensive experiment for me than an equivalent counterpart in the US who would be buying the more expensive 'organic' version of everything.
C. Germany apparently considers goat's cheese to be a staple item, and it even comes in multiple varieties--hard, soft, with honey, without, etc. Once I started to look for it I found it everywhere, even in the less expensive, discount grocery stores.

3. Having done this for two days, I imagine if you are a meat eater, this program throws your world into chaosis by taking away your hamburger bun and breaded chicken.

So far, I haven't noticed any of the usual symptons one might expecet--of being cranky, tired, lethargic, etc. In general I'm always cranky--ask my work colleagues. ;-) However, interestingly enough, I have been chock full of energy this weekend. Do I think this is a miracle way of eating? No. I think it's because my top three carbs are french fries, pizza, and beer, something to be avoided frequently in any anyone's eating style.

I was so full of energy I catelogged online my entire bookshelf here in Germany. If I was not an expat in Germany planning to leave here some day, I'd have more books. Curious? Visit here.

more on food

while back in the US i was noticing all of the 'low carb' products on the shelves, even candy and beer. i have a few friends who have sworn that the atkins low carb diet is the best in the world, but beyond getting a high level understanding of it, and noticing people eating burgers without the bun, i really didn't give it a second look as a vegetarian.

however, on a whim, i recently picked up a new book from www.bookswapper.de, The Vegetarian Low-Carb Diet by Rose Elliot. I was able to choose it because I traded Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone (an Oprah book club one) into the system.

I am further intrigued because this book offers a vegan option additionally in all of its recipes. The recipes seem relatively easy to prepare and simple in ingredient requirements, which is a definite plus for me 'she who cannot cook well'. I'm not sure that I could adhere to such a diet that involves eggs (or substitute a vegan tofu eggless concoction) for breakfast each day (especially as coffee-black and strong is all I need until lunch), nor do I have adherance to a 'diet' per se beyond not eating meat or fish, but any book that offers 'Smoked Tofu kebabs with Peanut Sauce' surely gets my attention.

Stay tuned, this could get interesting.