Casa Robino

Hello dear all!

I'm a vegan since january. Yaaaayy, who'd believe! Anyways, to make life little bit easier for fellow vegans visiting Istanbul, I wrote a post. To show them that they wouldn't starve in here. Please spread the word and feel free to comment to make the entry evolve.
Hugs mugs from humid Istanbul

http://feketeleves.wordpress.com/istanbul-was-constantinapoli/

I created the most wonderful vegan cake for the wedding at ot-301 on monday, and since I believe everyone should eat cake as often as possible I have written down my recipe. But for all of thoses who know me, I never actually measure/follow recipes so this is mostly a guess....

Chocolate-Espresso Cake

3 cups of all-purpose flour
6-8 tbsp of cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 cups raw sugar (or any vegan sugar)
12 tbsp of oil (sunflower, olive oil....)
2 tbsp of vinegar
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup cold espresso

We don't just cook Thursday night dinners and Christmas Eve dinners and late afternoon brunches and Pancake Sundays, apparently, we also cater for wedding parties when the opportunity arises.

And so, yesterday, Heather, Robin, & I spent some quality time in the spacious De Peper kitchen at OT-301 catering for the wedding party of Cris & Juana: a vegan feast of kısır, yoğurt çorbası, dolma, savory baked pumpkin, and chocolate-mocha cake to die for. The party also coincided with OT-301's 10 year anniversary, as well as local "no borders no nations" initiatives by supporting groups.

A few weeks before ever coming to Istanbul, I got a random e-mail from Mert there, who told me he had seen me dancing in Lily's dumpster-dive documentary, Skipping Waste.

The past few days, we've been discussing stereotypes, cultures, and subcultures, racism and prejudism... This is one of those random things I found browsing someone's facebook wall (pirate language: "plank"). I think it potentially proves and disproves a lot of prejudices about Americans.

"Oh you cook so amazing". People here are totally amazed by Amylin's cooking skills, how she is turning waste into a great dinner. Today she is cooking for 11 people & maybe even some more people who still might be coming. We also just welcomed back Rene, who is just arriving at the right time. We have noodles, tomato & avocado salad, humus red pepper, curried collyflower with dahl, green garbage with cashew nuts and some stuff, a fruit and nut cake, an enormous chocolate cake, and coconut rice pudding with anice, cashews, rasins and cardemom - all vegan. Bisaha - eet smakelijk

Hey crew! Im back in delft for a few days, and have been doing more dumpstering here... got so many carrots we didnt know what to do with, so decided to make a cake! Having recently turned vegan, i made an attempt at my first non-egg/butter gateau... and I must say... it was brilliant! Tasted just like a real cake, if not better, so thought id pass on the recipe... its really simple!

Ingredients:

2 cups grated carrots
1 1/2 cups raisins
2 cups water
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1 cup soy milk
2 tsp baking soda