I was inspired by a vegan menemen made with tempeh. We were undergoing an atypical detox, but the vegan menemen tasted like the classical menemen that I love and have served so many times!

What do you need for a vegan menemen?

4 tbsp of olive oil

1 onion

2 bell peppers                                                                   

3 tomatoes

a pinch of dry oregano

a pinch of sea salt

a dash of pepper

How to make it?

Sauté the onion over low heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add the diced bell peppers; simmer them for 5-6 minutes.

Dice the tomatoes and mix them in with the oregano, sea salt, and pepper.

Add the tofu 3-4 minutes later (chop it in the pan or dice it before adding it).

 Serve it warm! Enjoy your meal!

You may wonder what Vegmezan is. If you click this link and then this one, you will understand that I wanted to come up with a savoury recipe from the vegan goodies wholeheartedly made by NoMoMoo*!

Well, Vegmezan is a cashew parmesan.

I used white spelt (whole spelt is trickier to use for bakes; with white spelt, you’ll get a fluffier dough) because I felt they’d complement each other!

Which were all the ingredients?

Well, I used—

250g white spelt flour

5g yeast

3g sea salt

1 tbsp of olive oil

160ml water

+olive oil

+white spelt flour

+(optional) 4-5 tbsp of tomato juice

+1 large tomato

+1 pc Vegmezan

My method?

Add the first 5 ingredients into a bowl in the specified order. Start kneading. When the dough feels compact and not sticky, let it sit for 1 hour.

Brush olive oil on a pizza baking pan, flour it, and spread the dough.

If you wish, pour homemade tomato juice (with basil) onto the dough; it is optional.

Place the tomato slices onto the pizza dough, then bake for 10 minutes at 220°C.

Sprinkle Vegmezan over the pizza after removing it from the oven.

My Dad was visiting; he was thrilled. He confessed that he didn’t even notice that the pizza was vegan.

*I’ll return in October with new vegan recipes that include other NoMoMoo goodies. Until then, already-tested but unpublished recipes will keep you company, along with the new recipes discovered throughout the detox that we’re undergoing again.

For a different pizza (but a filling one!), you’ll need—

100g quinoa (+500ml water)

a pinch of salt

1 tbsp of olive oil

60ml water

+tomato juice

+2 tomatoes

+salt

Optional: avocado

How can we bake a pizza from these?

Pour hot water over the quinoa.

Let it sit for half an hour. Drain the quinoa thoroughly. Then, add it into a blender with the salt, olive oil, and water.

Spread the batter onto a pizza baking pan over baking parchment. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes at 200°C.

Remove from the oven. Spread tomato juice over the crust, place the sliced tomatoes, add the salt, and bake for 15 minutes more at 200°C.

Add avocado slices over the pizza if you wish after removing it from the oven the second time.

Enjoy it! I have a hunch you will!

My weeks are tough. I work so much that I cannot stick to my daily chores (the recipe should have been published yesterday). To top it all, today’s my name day (which nobody knows about), but I made a cake and a pizza, to keep things festive. J 

And I recall Iran. I miss Iran, I miss my friends there, I miss the taste of this mirza ghasemi... I miss wandering around – I have travelled through Romania this year, but I wish to do it worldwide, without restrictions. I wish to be able to hug anybody without asking if he(she) allows me to.

Each trip to Iran had a certain warmth about it. I haven’t found this warmth anywhere else but at home.

This dish from northern Iran (around the Caspian Sea) saved me on many days, while I was trying to navigate through the labyrinth of non-vegetarian lunches and dinners.

I liked it so much the first time that I tried it (I was in Masuleh) that I congratulated the chef and I asked for an extra portion. Our waiter told us how to prepare it and I wrote down the recipe knowing that I’d surely use it someday.

Mirza ghasemi is not hard at all to make.

For 4 portions, you’ll need

4 eggplants

3-4 garlic cloves

3 tomatoes

(Marcel insisted to add 1 onion to the mix)

1 large egg

salt

+olive oil for frying

Smoke the eggplants. Let them cool and clean them.

Start frying the garlic (cleaned and cut into pieces), then add the tomatoes (cut into pieces) and the thinly-cut onion (and fry everything on medium heat for about 5 minutes). Add the cut eggplants and a pinch of salt (and fry for 5 minutes more).

When the ingredients are well done, break the egg and mix well.

Serve warm.

This is an appetizer, but I also served it with rice or fries. You could also spread it on a slice of bread or a flatbread.

The flavour is fantastic! At least from a culinary perspective, we do travel.

My last memory connected to mirza ghasemi is its cooking by a dear friend met on Qeshm Island – he was from the north, I was craving mirza, he knew that I wasn’t going to find it anywhere, so he cooked it... and Marcel happily helped him. 

P.S. The eggplants were from a close friend of mine. J