KERB does Alchemy

I visited KERB does Alchemy street food fest yesterday at the Southbank Centre in London. This particular food festival was especially dedicated to Indian, Pakistani, Nepalese, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Afghan street food. There were so many vibrant stands, I especially loved this lassi and samosa truck, its look kind of summarises it all. 

There were so many tempting veggie options that it was hard to choose what to eat. First of all we had Jackfruit Jalfrezi with brown basmati rice and mixed green salad from the Spicebox. It was my first time trying jackfruit ever and it was very nice, I will certainly be on a lookout for it. The jalfrezi was nice and spicy and all in all the dish was a very good combination. Regrettably I couldn't eat their Tandoori Cauliflower Steak anymore later, as I was too full. I hope to meet them somewhere else soon to be able to try the other dishes. They also have a takeaway in London serving the healthiest curries in the city.

Later my partner had a dosa from Horn OK Please. I've had this several times and I love the dish. I however needed something less spicy in the end, so decided to have just a good old mac'n'cheese by Anna Mae's.

What a great food market visit this was again, and the weather stayed surprisingly pleasant throughout.

Bean and sweetcorn nacho bake

Oh bliss, it's a long weekend and the weather seems to be fairly okay so far. I'm happy and have nice plans for the weekend, which will probably be revealed here later. But first I want to share a recent recipe of mine with you, which is another way to eat a vegetarian chilli and nachos. I baked the chilli with cheese and some nachos and served it with even more tortilla chips. This was a very nice dish, especially for a film night or Nordic noir night in my case.

Ingredients

1 large onion

3 garlic cloves

1 romano pepper

Olive oil for frying

1 can black beans

1 can sweetcorn

Ground cumin to taste

Ground coriander to taste

Smoked paprika to taste

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

300 g organic peeled tomatoes

½ cup dried soya mince

Fresh coriander leaves to taste

1 lime's juice

175 g tortilla chips

250 g grated cheese

Sour cream to serve

Method

Fry the chopped onion, garlic and romano pepper in olive oil for a while. Add the black beans and sweetcorn. Season and add the tomatoes and let simmer.

Prepare the soy mince separately as per instructions and add it to the mix as well. Season with fresh coriander leaves and lime juice.

Place the chilli in an oven dish or several smaller ramekins. Put some tortilla chips around the edges and cover with grated cheese.

Bake at 200 C for about 15 minutes until the cheese has melted and the bake looks nice.

Serve with sour cream and tortilla chips on the side and enjoy!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Your VegHog

Little salad bowl of everything

Here comes yet another salad bowl containing anything I could find in the cupboards and found suitable to combine, whether it was small amounts of fresh veggies or an open bag of bread croutons. It was a good meal and good to use the rest of the vegetables that I happened to have. If only I could be so savvy every week.

I combined in this salad bowl fried halloumi (of course) with lamb's lettuce, carrots, lentil and bean sprouts, tomatoes, radishes, bread croutons and homemade hummus. It totally had the taste and feel of summer especially served in a summery Moomin bowl.

I'm sharing this dish idea with this month's Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Utterlyscrummy and co-hosted by Fuss Free Flavours and Fab Food 4 All purely because I used the ends of packets for this and utilised some left-over vegetables.

Your VegHog

Marinated mozzarella with tomato

I made this marinated mozzarella with tomato as a starter yesterday and it was a really striking looking dish and very tasty. The recipe is by Yotam Ottolenghi Marinated buffalo mozzarella and tomato from his vegetarian cookbook Plenty (p. 126-127). It can also be found online here. It's a simple and fine dish like Ottolenghi says.

I followed Ottolenghi's recipe otherwise, but scaled it down by the half, as there were only two eaters. The dish was exquisit: lemony, garlicky mozzarella with a punch of qualitative olive oil and a flavour of the fennel seeds going through accompanied by tasty local tomatoes. I will definitely serve this as a starter at a future dinner party and can only recommend it.

Your VegHog

Today's food shopping

Today I went to the shop a little bit more prepared than usual, as I had chosen beforehand a few dishes that I would cook today and during next week. I was even organised enough to check the cupboards what I already had here, and then off I went.

So these are the items shown in the picture, can you guess what type of food I'll be making next week?

• grated mozzarella
• different types of tomatoes
• red chillies
• oat cream
• lamb's lettuce
• fennel seeds
• mozzarella
• tonic water
• greek yogurt
• lemon
• butter
• toasted sesame oil
• pasta
• tahini
• sweetcorn
• pasta
• onions
• lime ginger
• oregano
• lemongrass
• coriander
• basil
• bell pepper
• red onions
• coconut cream
• rapeseed oil
• thai basil
• hazelnut milk
• olive oil
• sugarsnap peas
• beer

Have a wonderful week!

Your VegHog

The Forest Feast for Kids

I don't remember when I last introduced one of my cookbooks to you, it has certainly been a while. Since I recently purchased The Forest Feast for Kids by Erin Gleeson, I thought I'd write a little bit about it now. 

I already loved Erin's first cookbook The Forest Feast, so it felt only natural that I would buy the second one as well, even though I don't have kids myself. I think that this book is perfectly nice for some bigger kids as well, like me.

This book is full of simple vegetarian recipes that are beautifully presented, and once again the artwork is very endearing. There are plenty of good tips for kids how to cut vegetables, and the book is also teaching the vocabulary for different cooking methods. The instructions for making the dishes are very visual and have simple steps to follow, which is obviously ideal. The book is fairly priced, which is another good thing.

I hope that I can maybe try out some of these recipes with my nephew. I'm sure that this book would inspire and encourage many youngsters to cook and to eat colourful vegetables and fruit.

I can't wait for Erin's third cookbook, The Forest Feast Gatherings, to be released this autumn, how exciting!

Your VegHog

Cheerful spring roast dinner

The start of the asparagus season is such a lovely happening every year I find. It's very exciting starting to see asparagus from England and then your own county. I started liking asparagus back in the day in Germany, but then only the white asparagus was ever served. I really love German style white asparagus soup or just the chunky asparagus spears served with sauce Hollandaise and potatoes.

These days I make quite a few green asparagus dishes in the spring and summer and this time I decided to incorporate steamed asparagus into a vegan roast dinner. It became a colourful and uplifting looking dish, just like spring should be.

For this roast dinner I cooked steamed asparagus, a vegan Schnitzel, roasted carrots, roasted potatoes, fried onions, and served fresh lamb's lettuce and tomatoes on the side.

And why not serve the dinner with this green Sign of Spring beer by Stonehenge Ales. It tastes exactly like a regular tasty ale, but has been coloured green with food colouring.

Enjoy your spring meals!

Your VegHog

Archive recipes for the National Vegetarian Week 2016

The National Vegetarian Week 2016 is happening now, or actually it's almost over, and unfortunately I haven't been able to make any new flashy recipes for it. I've only seen wonderful contributions by other bloggers. I thought that I'd share some of my archive favourites from the blog with you and chose nine from different types of dishes and cuisines. Of course I have many more favourite dishes, but these kind of came first to mind.

Bean and lentil burgers

Homemade veggie burgers are an absolute essential in my vegetarian diet. I like making different patties and serving them with vegetables and ideally also homemade rolls. This burger patty is a non-breaded bean and lentil mix, very nice with char-grilled bell peppers.

Thai inspired pumpkin soup

I often make vegan soups and the options are limitless. Sometimes I like to make Thai spiced soups like this pumpkin soup containing coconut cream, ginger, chilli, lemongrass, lime, coriander and other Thai style spices. This is a wonderful warming and comforting soup and fits in perfectly into the pumpkin season.

Flammkuchen – Leek flame cake

A crispy thin flame cake is a wonderful thing filled with leeks, cheese and crème fraîche. It makes a nice change to the normal pizzas. I do like making pizzas very much as well, but when I want something more special, it'll be a flame cake.

Pepper and black bean chilli with rye nachos

Mexican food is very good for vegetarians, as there are so versatile and tasty options, normally also containing a lot of proteins. Vegetarian chillies can be so tasty and can be eaten with so many different sides like nachos, rye nachos, rice, tortillas, pasta and potatoes. Chillies are quite simple to make once you've got the hang of it. Just keep the most common seasoning at home, and you are ready to go anytime.

Finnish potato pies

I added one Finnish recipe here, just because it's my own cuisine. These pies in rye crust filled with buttery potato mash are so good. Normally these pies disappear very quickly once I've made them. I'm planning to make a batch this weekend again and can't wait to tuck into these.

Tomato and mozzarella pasta

Pasta! Oh yes, don't mind if I do. I really love different pasta dishes, as first of all they are tasty, but also so easy and quick to throw together on a weekday. I sometimes make my own pasta, if I want something more complicated. This sort of tomato and mozzarella pasta made with the best ingredients is one of my main favourites.

Puy lentil and black turtle bean pie

This sort of savoury pies are my absolutely favourites among ultra filling veggie grub. This pie is full of savoury lentils under a smoky and buttery potato mash It would be a perfect Sunday dinner or something different to serve to guests.

Lebanese dirty rice

Lebanese dirty rice in its simplicity has to be one of the best vegan dishes ever. It's mainly just lentils and rice served with crispy fried onions and seasoned with subtle ground cumin. This is also a very economical dish to make and easy for weekdays.

Halloumi, lentil and freekeh salad

I probably make at least one main meal salad per week, and as it's the main, it has to contain some filling agents. Often I use lentils, halloumi and different grains or seeds. This one is just another example of a tasty and filling salad.

I hope you liked the archive recipe compilation and I wish you a good weekend!

Your VegHog

Lunchbox – Rice and beans and homemade spelt rolls

Here is another lunchbox post to show you one of my quite typical lunchboxes for a day. I spend quite a long time commuting and then finally working, so I want to have a well organised lunchbox, which will fill me for the day.

This box from last week contained homemade spelt rolls with cheese for breakfast. I was more than happy to scoff them both in one go. I also pressed some blood orange juice with added fresh ginger and that certainly woke me up!

For lunch I had rice with black beans and sweetcorn, nicely seasoned with fresh coriander, ground cumin, ground coriander and smoked paprika, also containing fried onions and garlic – a perfect weekday meal as far as I am concerned. There was a small container with additional smoked chilli paste as well.

This was quite a big lunchbox, normally one roll should be enough for me, but since I had baked more rolls the previous day, I thought I'd take more with me.

Have a good week!

Your VegHog

Black bean and kale tacos

I've been so fond of Mexican food lately. I think I could have it every day, as there are so many wonderful veggie options and beans are really good for you. It's also very dangerous that my local pub makes a very good veggie burrito and it's huge. I really shouldn't be having that so often, as I almost can't walk home anymore afterwards, that's how big the portion is.

Now I decided to make slightly different tacos with soft taco shells, filled with black beans with smoked chilli flavours and kale as the additional green. These were really nice tacos and the top kale bits crisped a little bit in the oven, which I love. So here is my recipe.

Ingredients

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tin black beans

1 small tin sweetcorn

Ground coriander to taste

Ground cumin to taste

Smoked paprika to taste

Chilli flakes to taste

Smoked chilli paste to taste

1 lime's juice

2 tbsp tomato purée

160 g kale

8 soft taco shells

Grated cheddar

Red jalapenos

Sour cream

Fresh coriander

Method

Chop the onion and garlic finely and start cooking them in vegetable oil until the onion is slightly browned.

Add the black beans, sweetcorn and seasoning to the mix. Also add the lime's juice and tomato purée.

Steam the kale for a few minutes and add to the beans.

Fill the taco shells with the bean and kale mix.

Add some grated cheddar on the top and bake them in the oven for a few minutes until the cheese has melted and the taco shells are partly crispy.

Serve with red jalapenos, sour cream and fresh coriander and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with Shaheen for this month's Eat Your Greens. 

Your VegHog