Yes, I already had my second cooking date. Last saturday a very lovely lady from Belgium honored my kitchen with a great vegan Belgian beef stew and an awesome  but very easy vegan Belgian chocolate mousse.

The name of that Belgian lady is Natalie and she´s in Berlin for a week to visit a friend. We met at couchsurfing.org as well and as life plays sometimes she´s a friend of my first cooking guest Justin from Canada too.

Early at sunday morning Natalie arrived in Berlin and I picked her up to meet with my friend Nina, who accompanied my cooking date another time. But this time – to the safety of Nina´s pots – we made the meal in my kitchen. 😉

At first we went on a little shopping tour together to get all the ingredients as there are for the vegan Belgian Beef Stew:

• a bowl dry soy cubes
• two onions
• two cloves garlic
• a small bowl brown mushrooms
• two big carrots
• oil
• gravy  (we used marigold organic gravy)
• vegetable stock – 250 ml
• parsley
• salt & pepper

Heat some oil in a big pot. Add the chopped onions and garlic cloves. After 2 minutes add the carrots (cut into slices). After another 2 minutes add the mushrooms (also cut into thick slices). After another 4 minutes add the prepared vegetable stock and bring to a boil.

Peel and cut the potatoes and put them into a saucepan. Add salt. Add water until potatoes are covered. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, 15-20 minutes, or until done – a fork can easily be poked through them.

In the meantime prepare the soy cubes with boiled water – you can also use vegetable stock. Let them sit in the water for about 10 minutes. Pour the water through a sieve and add the soy cubes to the vegetables. Add about 700 ml water. Stir in the gravy. Bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat about 15 minutes.

Drain water from potatoes. Put hot potatoes into a bowl. Add soy cream.  Use potato masher to mash potatoes until well mashed. Use a strong spoon to beat further. Add salt to taste and the chopped parsil.

Enjoy! 🙂

You´ll find the recipe for the dessert in my next blog! 🙂

If you´d like to help me with my project, if you´re coming to Berlin and want to cook with me, or even if you´re not coming to Berlin but still would like to cook a vegan or veganised speciality of your country with me – just let me know! I´m planning to travel a bit for my vegan international project in a few month.

Namaste!