6 Food trends I am completely over and 6 I am eagerly awaiting

Every so often food trends come and go from sun-dried tomatoes to focaccias to cupcakes and cronuts. Heck I've even been guilty of falling prey to the donut trend, making my own rather tasty vegan baked donuts. As I write recipes and read food blogs, sometimes I see the same recipes again and again. They are usually exclaimed over as though no one else has over made them quite so good, but only the next day you'll see another recipe pop up for raspberry and chia jam or mango and chia seed pudding. 

I know that food trends, especially in vegan cooking, come from a desire to abstain from particular ingredients or an inability to eat certain food due to severe allergies. It's great that people take the time to be inventive and create new food combinations. I don't have to like all of them. Heck, I love quinoa and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I even made a cauliflower pizza base! But it's when I see them so many times that I start thinking that I wish they'd disappear....

Massaged kale

                         

                                    Image from here via Creative Commons

Rubbing a bit of brassica (part of the cabbage family) in coconut oil until it until it resembles salad that's been sitting in the bottom of the salad bowl marinading in italian salad dressing at a family barbecue in the sun for the better part of a day? Yuck. Where I live you can't actually buy kale except for one week a year.

Kale chips
                               
                                             Image from here via Creative Commons


Sorry, they're just not the same as potato chips. Or even as good as beetroot chips. There's something about them that catches in the back of my throat, combined with the smell of nutritional yeast that, as much as I love the stuff, reminds me of vitamin B tablets.

Chia pudding

                            
                                       Image from here via Creative Commons

Yes, it's healthy and an alternative to creamy, high fat desserts. But after they've been soaking a while, chia seeds resemble frogs eggs turning into tadpoles, all slimy. Did you ever study those at school? I did. It was a little bit creepy.

 And don't get me started on chia jam, whilst it has it's place, in my humble opinion it's not as good as my pear and vanilla or strawberry and rosewater jam. Just saying.

Brussel sprouts

                       
                                  Image from here via Creative Commons

Brussel sprouts are very popular in Germany and as cheap as carrots and cabbages. But if I see another recipe for brussel sprouts fried or baked with oil, garlic and salt and pepper (with or without nuts and bacon). Surely everyone has worked these out by now that these go best fried rather than boiled within an inch of their lives like in years gone by?

Green juice smoothies

                          
                                     Image from here via Creative Commons

Yes, I know, you have an amazing blender (the maker of which sponsors your blog posts according to your disclaimer). And I have no longer got a blender since I moved house so I am poorer than you and cannot make smoothies or juices anymore. But do you have to make another post every time you replace spinach with kale or blueberries with raspberries? Here in Germany you can buy cabbage juice at the supermarket by the carton. That's hardcore.

Two ingredient ice cream

                                      
                                                   Image from here via Creative Commons

You've discovered this amazing way to make ice cream, so much so that you went and bought an ice cream maker. And you're going to share it with all of us. If I read a little further I will invariably discover that your magic ingredient is either bananas or coconut milk. Sometimes you even go crazy and use both! I have made ice cream both ways and it invariably taste like either bananas soft serve or coconut soft serve. Not surprising really.

6 Food trends I am eagerly awaiting

Poutine

                                                   Image from here via Creative Commons

Hot chips with cheese curds and gravy. How could it be wrong? I tried it first in Montreal at the Jazz Festival, then was a regular at Melbourne's Lord of the Fries. So good.

Linner
Like brunch but later and far boozier.

Sunday roasts in restaurants for lunch
Roast meat/nuts/tofu, roast veg, greens and gravy. A staple at British pubs and occasionally in Australia. Not so much in Germany unless you want the ubiquitous pork and potatoes that you can also get any other day, any time.

More smaller serve recipes
Single unit dwellings are a thing. Many of us are couple or not but happily child free. We can end up eating that same dish three days in a row. Not everyone has much freezer space. That said, I've seen recipes for a single chocolate chip cookie, these make me sad.

More local fruits and vegetables
Since moved to Germany I've fallen in love with kohlrabi and Schwarzwurzel (salsify). Back in Australia I loved bok choy, choy sum and chinese broccoli, (not so accessible except in asian grocers here) not to mention Lychees and Dragonfruit from Queensland. It's fun to try things you haven't had the opportunity to eat much of, or in turn cook your favourites in a new ways using local ingredients.

More supperclubs and potlucks. 
I've loved running a supper club for the last 6 months. I love the way that food can bring people together, especially those who might otherwise be socially isolated or lacking the opportunity to meet new people. People have been creating websites and apps to bring people together all around the world, but what is needed most is for people to open their homes and give it a go. It's fun and a great way to move out of our comfort zone and challenge yourself.

Restaurant Review: S Kultur, Leipzig

Living in an old Eastern bloc part of Germany, meat still is (like many parts of the world) a staple in everyday diets. Every day I see people walking around chewing on a fat Bratwurst in a roll. Yuck. I've always hated sausages. 

I recently went out to dinner with some vegan friends to a restaurant that of us had been to before, S Kultur in Lindenau. 

S Kultur is a lovely light and airy restaurant serving a selection of meals with an emphasis on fresh, seasonal produce. The menu is a combination of omni and vegan dishes across starters, salads and main meals. There was also an extensive wine list. 

I wasn't particularly hungry so I opted for 2 vegetarian chicken skewers with dates and pine nuts-peanut sauce 8.90€/12.70AUD. 

                              

It was absolutely delicious. But I say this with a proviso. This was mock meat made from soy. But it looked and tasted like chicken (perhaps slightly drier). 

One of my dining companions ordered sweet potato and chickpea curry with vegetables and vegetarian chicken pieces on rice (16.50€/ 23.60AUD). My apologies for the picture, my phone camera is a bit crap and I was tying to take a quick snap before we tucked in! 

                             

She was quite perturbed by the mock chicken, having not had meat for several years. The texture was very different to the soy based mock meats in Australia which are most often sourced from South East Asia, South Africa or America. My other friend ordered linguine with tomato and white wine sauce. 

We had a chat to one of the owners about the food. She was from Holland and explained that the mock meat was shipped in from The Vegetarian Butcher in The Netherlands, a company that makes a range of mock meats including burgers, chicken, raw minced meat and croquettes. The concept has grown in two years from 1 concept store in The Hague to more than 1000 Vegetarian Butcher Dealers across the Netherlands, through independent fruit-vegetable and butcher shops, natural food stores and supermarkets.

The owner kindly gave us some Dutch Bitterballs to try from the company. They are usually sold retail at S Kultur but they were waiting on a shipment. They had a crispy crust and inside was a creamy mixture based on organic lupin. Severed with a side of mustard they were divine! 

I also enjoyed some delicious wine. Perhaps the only thing missing from the menu was vegan options for desserts. I know some vegan folks wouldn't want to eat at a restaurant that sold meat, let alone mock meat, but for a city where veggie options besides stir fries and felafel can be hard to find (and there are almost no completely vegan restaurants)  it's great to have the choice. 

S Kultur isn't the cheapest place to eat in Leipzig, but the food was delicious and the ambience most relaxing. 

S Kultur
Nathanaelstr. 1, Lindenau

http://www.s-kultur.info/

Loving Hut, Northcote

I went along to Loving Hut in a good mood thanks to $5 wine (Tuesdays 4pm-7pm, Northcote Social Club) and a hungry belly. I wasn't sure what to expect, I can't eat too much soy or gluten. The lay out of the restaurant is white, big and spacious with plenty of light and weirdly, a TV showing scenes of the 'natural world'. We were rather taken with the otters frolicking. There's no alcohol but I enjoyed a fermented ginger beer with passionfruit ($4.50).

                                                
Chris and I arrived early and as we were hungry decided to order an entree. Money bags, deep fried (presumably) filled with mung bean, mushroom and tofu ($7). They were nicely done but we found the filling very bland. They came with sweet chilli sauce which I'm not a fan of. I really should just carry Srircha around with me!
                                              
                                               
For mains, despite my limitations, we decided to order something a bit different to our usual veggie options at Asian restaurants,  'Southern Fried Chicken' and a mixed mushroom stir fry and two bowls of brown rice. We were a bit confused when this above appeared at the same time as a friend's identical order which contained a pile of the 'chicken'. And why rice when we'd already ordered two bowls of brown rice which were sitting next to the dish? We queried the waiter and he said we'd been given the lunch version by accident he'd bring some more out. No dramas. They were tasty, chewy goodness with a general sprinkling of salt, five spice and other seasons. The insides had the texture of chicken. Oddly, the extra chicken we were given failed with the spices, and was definitely lacking in the five spice.  The sauce you can see didn't taste like soy mayo so I'm not sure what it was made of. It would have gone nicely with a big green salad, or even potato curry rather than rice.

I enjoyed the stir fry five mushroom dish ($12) , the mushrooms were chewy and tasty without any particular seasoning. it was a really generous serve, we didn't finish them.

Other folks at the table enjoyed the entree crumbed prawns, bean curd and veg stir fry with crispy noodles and Mongolian 'beef' (the latter was a huge sizzling plate of mock meat, definitely best shared amongst friends I think!).

Would I come again? Yes, but more so with a group of people who like to share a bunch of different dishes as a table so I could get more vegetables. Too much mock meat for me alas (of my own choosing) so I'd make different choices next time. Otherwise I'd come at lunch, it's a nice airy space for a lunch meal with a book.