Home-Made Tortillas with Kidney Beans and Fresh Vegetables

Have you ever taken a closer look at the ingredients of any given tortillas available at the supermarket? I recently did. The ones I found contained 14-15 ingredients, among other things emulsifiers, stabilizers, and preservatives…

Then I read the preparation instructions: one is supposed to warm the tortillas in the oven for 10 minutes. (In the microwave it would go faster.)

Ok, I thought, it can’t take much longer than those 10 minutes to make eight tortillas from scratch. And it didn’t. To be exact, it took 10 minutes and a half for me to have 8 home-made tortillas ready! When the first one was frying, I rolled the next one out, and so on. Note that you need a cast-iron pan to get soft tortillas – oddly enough, when I fried them in a Teflon pan, my tortillas turned too crispy to fold.

And if for the filling one chooses something that doesn’t need to be cooked – like canned beans and fresh veggies - it takes no longer than 15 minutes to have 8 delicious filled tortillas ready to be eaten. From scratch!

So, no reason anymore to buy those industrial “fresh” tortillas as they are ironically called!

This recipe is for 8 tortillas, which is just enough for 4 people as a main course or 8 as a snack.

This is what you need for the dough:

• 300g flour (I used half whole-grain, half all-purpose wheat flour)


• 150ml water


• 50ml sunflower oil


• two pinches of salt


• ½ tsp baking powder

And for the filling:

• 150g sour cream or soft cheese (for a vegan option, use a non-dairy option)


• 2 large ripe avocados


• 2 Tbsp olive oil


• juice of half of a lemon


• a couple of drops of Tabasco sauce


• two tomatoes, chopped


• half of a red pepper, chopped


• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced


• 120g canned kidney beans


• a few lettuce leaves


• fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley


• salt and black pepper to taste

To make the dough, just combine flour and salt in a bowl. Make a hole in the middle and add water and oil. (Note that if you’re using only all-purpose flour, you’re likely to need a bit less water. Start with 100ml and add gradually more if needed.) With your hands, work the dough until it’s easy to form it into a ball. Divide the dough into 8 pieces and roll each of them into a very thin tortilla. Don't worry if they're not perfectly round: when you fill and roll them, no-one will notice! Fry your tortillas on a hot pan (without oil) on both sides about 30 seconds, or until dark spots appear. Remember to use cast-iron pan only! Pile the tortillas on a plate and cover them while frying the rest – that way, they’ll keep soft and warm.

For the filling, peel the avocado and crush it with a fork. Add lemon juice, olive oil, Tabasco, and salt and pepper to taste. Spread a generous tablespoon cream cheese or sour cream and avocado paste on each tortilla, then divide tomatoes, onions, red peppers, kidney beans, lettuce, and cilantro/parsley. Add a bit more salt and pepper if you want, then roll the tortillas and serve immediately!

Miraculous Two-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse

About two years ago, I was desperately looking for vegan chocolate mousse recipes. I thought I’d tried them all: with avocado, with banana, with silk tofu, with whipped coconut cream – you name it. And yet, all of them were a more or less big disappointment compared to the one and only – you know, 3 eggs, 30 grams butter, 100g dark chocolate, a bit of sugar – the one recipe I haven’t had to look up in the past twenty years or so!

Oddly enough, I never came across this recipe when doing my research last time. I only found this amazingly easy recipe when I was looking for quick chocolate desserts. But on top of being really easy to do, this chocolate mousse also happens to be vegan (provided the dark chocolate you use is vegan). No milk, no eggs, nothing except for dark chocolate, and one secret ingredient.

Curious to know what it is? It isn’t tofu, cream, avocado, or banana. Nothing of the like.

It is… water!

Yes, you read right. All you need to do this perfectly tasty and creamy chocolate mousse is chocolate and H2O.

I like my mousse very bitter, very chocolaty, so I used 75% dark chocolate. If you like it sweeter, use 50% or 60% chocolate and/or add some sugar.

This is what you need for 3 smallish portions:

• 125g dark chocolate


• 100ml water

And this is what to do:

1. Measure the water and chocolate in a saucepan and let melt over a medium heat.

2. Remove from the heat, transfer the melted chocolate into a baking bowl over an ice bath (even very cold water is enough).

3. Now, beat the mixture with a mixer or with a twirl whisk for 2-3 minutes (I used a twirl whisk and it took about 5 minutes), or until the mixture starts to thicken.

4. Transfer it into three espresso cups or other small serving cups and let your mousse set either in the fridge or at the room temperature for a couple of hours before serving!

If you like, you can add something to flavour your mousse – how about coffee mousse, with some instant coffee powder? Or a small amount of Cointreau to give a citric twist?

Frozen Yoghurt with Lemon and Honey

This morning I walked past our local frozen yoghurt bar, and it struck me how perfectly frozen yoghurt would fit in my current dessert series! You know, the desserts that make themselves while you’re eating your main dish.

The convenience of frozen yoghurt over other types of ice cream is not just that it contains less fat and mostly sugar as well. It also helps you avoid one crucial and very time-consuming step: yoghurt is already cold enough for your ice-cream maker (as long as you keep your yoghurt in the fridge, that is ;) ), so no need to cool it before feeding it to your ice cream maker…

I decided to flavour my frozen yoghurt with lemon and honey – but feel free to try other flavours as well!

For a vegan version, use non-dairy yoghurt and sweeten it with sugar or agave syrup, for example.

This is what you need for three smallish portions:

• 500ml plain yoghurt


• 2 Tbsp liquid honey


• 1 tsp grated lemon zest

To make this is ridiculously easy. Just combine yoghurt, honey, and lemon zest, and make the frozen yoghurt according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. With mine, this amount of frozen yoghurt took 15 minutes to make – exactly the time it took us to eat our pizzas! Decorate and serve.

Smoked Salmon Spaghetti

This is a dish I used to make a lot when I wanted to get a delicious meal in no time at all. Now I still make it once in a while, mostly for the kids, and mostly on those days when I just can’t hear any complaining about food – this is the ultimate favourite of everyone!

For five hungry people you need:

• 500g spaghetti


• 300g smoked salmon


• 300ml heavy cream or sour cream


• salt and pepper to taste


• freshly grated parmesan and fresh dill or parsley to serve

This is how to do it:

1. Bring water to the boil. Add a bit of salt and then the spaghetti. Cook for about 8 minutes, or until al dente.

2. In the meantime, prepare the sauce: Cut the salmon in smallish pieces and fry them shortly in a large pan. Add cream, salt, and pepper, and cook over a low heat until the spaghetti is done.

3. Drain the spaghetti, place it in a serving bowl, and pour the sauce on top of it. Stir, then sprinkle with grated cheese and chopped parsley or dill. Serve immediately!

Sticky Toffee Sauce

Sticky toffee sauce is one of my favourite accompaniments for ice cream and/or strawberries. I used to make it myself quite often a long, long time ago, but not being a fan of cooking that hot syrup (sooo afraid of burning it, me, or the kids :) ), I haven’t made it in many years now.

But going through my old magazines I came across one toffee sauce recipe where you don’t actually need to melt any sugar – you can use molasses instead. So I’m back to my sticky toffee sauce routine!

This is a dessert you can make while preparing the main course - all you really need to do is to stir the sauce once a while during the ten minutes it needs to cook.

For 6 people you need:

• 100ml dark molasses (or dark treacle; Zuckerrübensirup here in Germany)


• 200ml heavy cream (non-dairy for a vegan version)


• 30g butter (or vegan margarine)

Combine molasses and cream in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, and let boil over a low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring once in a while. The sauce is ready when it starts to thicken. Now, add the butter, let it melt, and stir until the butter is well combined with the rest. Remove from the heat.

Serve hot, warm, or cold with ice cream and/or berries or fruit – if you resist the temptation to spoon it all up just like that…!

P.S. Nothing compares with the taste of a homemade sticky toffee sauce - with three ingredients. And I find the colour perfect as well. Makes me wonder how come the ones available at the supermarket have so many ingredients: one that I saw had 15 altogether – among them two different artificial flavours, colouring agents, and so on. Totally unnecessary, if you ask me ;)

Chocolate Fondue, the No Effort Way

I’m going to make a confession: Before coming up with this idea I had never eaten chocolate fondue. It’s always been a tempting idea, yet I wasn’t ready to invest money and especially cupboard space in those cute little chocolate fondue pots.

But then I realised you don’t need any fondue pots! You can use espresso cups, and make a hot water bath do the job for you – while you’re eating your main dish, of course!

Use any fresh seasonal fruit or berries to dip in the fondue. I bet at least mango, pineapple, peaches, cherries, and bananas would taste awesome! But now it’s the second last week of (at least organic) strawberry season here in southern Germany, so I didn't have a choice, did I?

For one portion you need:

• 2 Tbsp (non-dairy) heavy cream


• 20g dark (vegan) chocolate


• about 15 fruit pieces or berries to dip in the fondue

First, combine cream and chocolate in espresso cups. Then place the cups in an earthenware oven dish. Fill the dish with boiling water just enough for the cups to be covered until the cream-chocolate-level. (If you happen to have pasta for the main dish, think of using the cooking water to do this! Hugely ecological :) )

Once you’re ready to have your dessert, just stir the chocolate-cream-mixture gently with a spoon and remove from the water bath. Serve with fruit – dip them in the “fondue” with a small dessert fork! And don’t forget a spoon – you’ll need it to scrape the rest of that yummy chocolate…!

Oven Pancake with Strawberries and Crème Chantilly

Pancakes are a great dessert after a light meal - like pea soup! But who has the time to make them? No problem, pancake batter can also be baked in the oven. Once again, you can enjoy your main course while your oven is taking care of the dessert.

This time of the year I normally serve oven pancake with fresh berries and whipped cream - when no fresh berries are available, use raspberry or strawberry jam instead!

This is what you need for 6 portions:

• 150g flour (I use whole-grain, but you can use all-purpose as well)


• 400ml milk


• 3 eggs


• a pinch of salt


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 30g butter

This is how you proceed:

1. Set your oven to 225 C when you start cooking the main dish.

2. Make the batter: in a bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, and milk, and beat gently. Then add the eggs and beat until well combined.

3. Take a round cake form (mine has a diameter of 26cm). Slice the butter and place the slices in the form. Put the form in the oven for just the time it takes for the butter to melt. Then take the form out again, pour the batter in, and put it back in the oven.

4. Go and enjoy your main dish! Set the alarm for 15 minutes - it takes around 15-20 minutes for the pancake to be ready.

5. Serve warm with berries and crème Chantilly!