Vegan Kaese Spaetzle!

The German version of Mac'n'Cheese?!

Originally it was planned to make enchiladas but we didn't have all the ingredients, so we went for the next best option: Kaese Spaetzle! It's a German specialty consisting of homemade pasta in a thick cheese sauce. Well, traditionally it's obviously supposed to be cow cheese but by now y'all should know that I'm not going to be a dumbass and use cow cheese :)

My Mom started preparing the dough for the pasta (for 4 people) by mixing 700 g (according to my online

Spaetzle maker (Google)

converter that's around 17.5 ounces) of spelt flour, 700 ml (~ 3 cups) of water (it was a little bit too runny so you might want to use a bit less), 2 tablespoons more of spelt flour (you can also use corn starch or any other kind of flour of course), a pinch of salt, pepper and a few tablespoons (just try until it starts to taste a bit like something) of dried vegetable broth. Then moving on to the cheese sauce I poured some rice milk into a frying pan, because...well...because my Mommy told me to do so haha. I was quite skeptic if this was going to turn out anything like it's supposed to, because rice milk has a significantly lower level of fat than cow's milk or even soy milk. Since I didn't have soy milk I just had to use rice milk. You wait until the milk is boiling and then you sprinkle the (vegan) cheese (I used the same kind as I wrote about two posts ago) in the pan. I used about six slices of it and in the beginning it really didn't look too well, because it seemed like it didn't want to melt the way I needed it to. After waiting, stirring and letting it boil a while more it turned out quite gooey and cheesy! While working on the sauce you might want to get the water boiling for the Spaetzle. To make this kind of pasta you actually need a Spaetzle maker, but you can get one of those in pretty much every department store or you just improvise. Glazed onions taste really (and I mean REALLY) great with this meal also, so if you can live with shedding a few tears over this meal you should cut up some onions and

gently fry them in a pan. You place the Spaetzle maker on top of the pot of boiling water and just slice them right in there. Let them cook until they come swimming back on top and then put them in the sauce pan. Stir, season with salt, pepper, the onions & a few cut up tomatoes and TA DAAAAA you have some cheesy, traditional German Kaese Spaetzle with a hint of American Mac'n'Cheese. 

I hope I don't bore you guys with these food posts. If you ever try this recipe I'd love if you would let me know how it went! Or not. That's fine too...
Seriously though, you won't regret trying this out!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you around here again someday!

Katie Lynn :)

PS: This is where we got the idea btw and they have so many more awesome recipes! http://www.veganguerilla.de/kase-spatzle/

My impressions of Rome & the Vatican

Alone under Catholics...

Before we arrived at Roma Termini (train station) I did not have many expectations. I generally never have many expectations for things, because I hate planning things out thoroughly. I just take things as they come. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but sadly it’s usually an annoying habit that makes it almost impossible for me to do stuff on time. Anyways, all I expected from this trip were tons of pasta, meeting my friend Giuseppe and seeing LOTS of churches. Our group was almost entirely made up of Catholic Theology students and I want to add that every single one of them was super nice and not at all how you would imagine them to be. They kept asking if it wasn’t too much for us since the focus of the trip was very much on religious aspects of Rome & the Vatican. I can only recommend going on a field trip with Theology students, because from my experience they sure seem to be the nicest people of the entire university. So much so that I even looked through the program of the faculty to see if I might find a new major there haha I’m not even joking.

The Pantheon

We spent the night in a sleep wagon with 6 bunks in one compartment. The window couldn’t be opened so sleeping on the top bunk felt like sleeping in a sauna. A very, very tiny sauna haha. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well, but oh well, I was excited for Rome. I’m not even going to mention the breakfast we got in the morning. The price for the whole trip was more than reasonable, so I’m not going to complain about it. The sun was up and it was nice and warm when we arrived. We took the bus line to our hotel and apparently the

Castel Sant'Angelo

maximum number of passengers a bus “can” hold is twice as big in Rome as in Graz. The busses were so stuffed with people that you didn’t even need anything to hold onto, because you were held by all the people surrounding you anyways. When we arrived at our hotel I was a little bit surprised (I might have had a tiiiiiny expectation there haha), because from what I’ve heard from our professors it sounded more like a hostel. It was a really nice hotel run by Pallottine Sisters (nuns) with a fridge in the lounge for everybody to use. My boyfriend and I had a really nice room with a HUGE (and I mean HUGE!!!) balcony from which we could catch a glimpse of the St. Peter’s square. We also had a bathroom in our room while other people from our group apparently had to use showers and toilets out in the hallway. 

 We had a bit of free time between arriving at the hotel and starting our program for the day so we went to shop for a few groceries. Prior to that I asked our professor if I could use the hotel kitchen to cook my own food (yes, I’m a bit stingy), but that wasn’t possible. That meant I at least had a reason to HAVE TO eat out a lot which usually I rarely ever do (but love). At the grocery store I bought some bread, jelly and soy yogurt. I was going to buy some water too, but there are fountains all throughout Rome with drinking water so we just always filled up our bottles there (kaching!). 

Drinking water fountain in Rome (Source: Google)

Santa Maria dell'Anima

 We visited SOOOO many churches and other interesting buildings that it would probably make more sense to just name them all at once and then write about what stuck to my mind about them (if anything). We visited Santa Maria dell'Anima, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Santa Maria della Pietà (+ Campo Santo Teutonico), St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. Peter’s Church (+ dome), the catacombs, Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, Silvester Chapel, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Clemente, Trinità dei Monti, Il Gesù, San Ignazio. That was what our professors planned. We also had quite a bit of free time so my boyfriend, having been in Rome before, had a few things planned to see as well. 

Inside of Santa Maria sopra Minerva is a replica of the corpse of the saint Catherine of Siena and there is a small opening in the coffin-type-of-thing for people to kneel in and pray to that…replica of a corpse. Being a protestant (and not a practicing one at that) it was very interesting to me to watch this catholic custom. We walked over the Piazza Navona which is like a main square for artists. There are so many of them sitting there making all sorts of paintings including caricatures of people which, later that week, would result in my face

Piazza Navona

landing on a piece of paper as well. The Holy Mass in the church Santa Maria della Pietà was held in German and I’m going to quote (and translate to English obviously) two statements the priest there made that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. He said “Alone we are helpless” meaning without God we are helpless and “Inner peace comes from God”. I guess I don’t have to explain how that makes me a bit mad. Another thing that I don’t like about (catholic) masses is when they have that one guy walk around with the bag you’re supposed to put money in. Asking for money to renovate the church or for a charity project is fine, but put the bag somewhere and people can go there themselves to put money inside. Don’t send someone walking around holding that bag under people’s noses and shame them into giving money. Plus, it’s not like there aren’t already boxes for donations at the entrance of the church. Geez. Okay, quick rant over haha. If you get the chance you should definitely pay the 5 € (or 7 € if you don’t want to walk ALL the stairs and use the elevator) to get on top of the St. Peter’s dome, because the view is quite awesome! The weather wasn’t too great when we were there but you can still get a great view over Rome.

View from the St. Peter's dome on the St. Peter's square

 We also got the chance to talk to Monsignore Dr. Matthias Türk about ecumenical questions we had. I figured that I might never again have the chance to ask someone as far into the actual Vatican as him the question that interests me most about Catholicism. “Why can’t women be priests and do you see this changing at some point in the future?” Well, he wasn’t all too thrilled that I obviously didn’t know that this question didn’t fit the topic of our meeting. He told me that I should probably ask my professor that question as he is a professor of dogmatic. Then, however, he went on saying that women simply weren’t appointed to be priests by Jesus Christ like men were. While I thought about that statement he said something else that I didn’t quite catch. The girl sitting next to me seemed to have understood and whispered to me “I’m actually embarrassed to be studying Theology right now…” After the meeting was over I was told that he said something along the lines of “Women just don’t have the same charisma as men do.” I’m not even going to say a single word about what I think of that statement. My professor told me that he was not too pleased with Mr. Türk’s explanation either and said that he would like explain it to me another time. Which he did a few days later and what he said made sense. There is a church reformation going on, but the church simply doesn’t seem to be ready to take that huuuuuuuuuuuuge step yet to let women become priests. He also said that it was something he himself does not entirely agree on with the church.

The catacombs are also definitely worth seeing. It was quite creepy down there, especially

The Catacombs (Source: Google)

seeing all the graves of little kids. Brrr. The next church we saw was San Clemente which, if I had to pick, was probably my favorite church of all the ones we saw. If I remember correctly it has two more stories (and by that I obviously don’t mean stories to tell, but architectural stories) that are underground but there is an altar too and it just looked really awesome. Admittedly, after the third church we visited, all the other ones started to look the same to me. The art you get to see in them though makes it worth walking all over Rome to see every single one. 

San Clemente - lower church (Source: Google)

We saw Pope Francis twice that week. One was just a usual Holy Mass and during the other Holy Mass he canonized three people. It was an interesting experience and he seems to be a good guy, and according to my professor he might be making a few good changes in the church system. For the Vatican Museums we stood in line for QUITE a while and spent 2 and a half hours inside. There are many interesting things in there, but there are SO many people inside that sometimes you can’t even get to something you might want to look at. Inside of the Sistine Chapel were about a dozen security guards yelling (!) around to be quiet (the irony…) and not take pictures. It completely ruined whatever flair could have been present there. Without the group we also visited the Colosseum (if you only want to pay the reduced price for

The Colosseum

students you should bring your passport, they don’t accept student ID’s), the Capitol, the Forum Romanum, the Cat Forum (an excavation site for stray cats to live in), the Pantheon, the Fontana di Trevi and once again the Piazza Navona, because for his birthday my boyfriend wanted to have an artist paint a caricature of us. It was quite fun and the end result was pretty nice too so it was definitely worth it! One night we went to the church Santa Maria in Trastevere with our professor and only a few other people of the group to attend an evening prayer. It was a very impressive event and the atmosphere was great inside and outside of the church, because it was just a little further away from the typical touristy parts of Rome. I think this is all…geez this post is long. Sorry guys haha.

Forum Romanum

Fontana di Trevi

This trip was super impressive, exhausting, interesting and fun. If you ever want to go to Rome try to find a group of Theology students to tag along with ;) you won't regret it!

Katie Lynn :)

PS: As to being vegan in Rome it was more than easy. Since people in Southern Europe generally don’t speak English very good (or at all) you just have to make sure you lay out the most important phrases in the language of the country you’re in. By the way, some sorts of pasta automatically have parmesan cheese on them even though it’s not written in the menu so better add “senza formaggio per favore” to your order so you won’t piss off the waiter/waitress by sending it back.

Spaghetti al pomodoro e basilico

PPS: If any of you are looking for a place close to the St. Peter's square I definitely recommend the hotel we stayed at! The nuns are super friendly and speak English, Italian, German & Polish (although I could swear I heard some French as well...)!

http://www.casamissionariepallottine.it/default.aspx?language4switching=ENG

PPS: (YES I'M DONE AFTER THIS!) Does anyone know if Scholl foot blister band aids are vegan? Cause they definitely saved my life since I was so smart and wore my new shoes for this trip. If they are, I definitely also recommend those haha!