Blueberry and lentil salad

Who knew that puy lentils would go wonderfully with blueberries and grilled cheese in a salad? Well, I didn't, but took my chances as I had some excess blueberries to be used. I decided to scatter them on top of the salad for some colour, et voilá, it was delicious. I can only recommend this trick now that blueberries are in season. Are you brave enough to try?

Otherwise this has been another hectic week, but making superfood salads does cheer me up quite a bit. So how has your week been, and are you happy to see the weekend approaching?

Finnish Your Dinner

We held a small event in our shared courtyard yesterday, and invited our neighbours to come over to try some Finnish food. This was all because I saw on Friday that there was going to be a worldwide cooking event to celebrate Finland's approaching 100 years of independence by offering Finnish food to your friends and neighbours where ever you are. The independence day itself is on the 6th December, and last weekend it was 100 days until that day. The theme was "Dinner under the Finnish sky", and we actually got lucky and had a blue and white sky.

It was a bit of a short notice hearing about this two days before cooking, so I decided to keep it simple, and make just a couple of small snacks. I also made my own leaflets inviting the neighbours to the event.

I made three dishes for our Finnish Your Dinner event:

- Finnish potato pies, a dish that I've already shared here on several occassions. You can find the recipe here.

- Chanterelle tart, of course I had to use seasonal mushrooms, which are very popular to be used in Finland in this season.

- Kropsu, a thick oven pancake from my region, served with fresh blueberries and raspberries. I've also posted a Kropsu recipe before, which you can find here.

There was also of course homemade salty liquorice vodka accompanied by melancholic Finnish rock music to make the right atmosphere.

It was all very rustic and homely, just like Finland is. It was also nice to get to know some neighbours with this weird excuse. I was afraid that people would now think that I'm a bit odd, which is actually quite accurate in the end, so it doesn't really matter. Sometimes it's good to try to be social. I find Danish people very friendly and talkative in general, so it's nice to have small gatherings over here.

Have a nice week everyone!

Your VegHog

Our weekend breakfast

Our breakfast yesterday and today was pretty identical. It's what you can see on the picture. Only on weekends I have time to have a proper breakfast. On other mornings I either skip it fully or quickly scoff a yogurt or a fruit. So on the weekend it's nice to take time to make and eat breakfast. Now that we have a proper dining table after a long while, it's also nice just to sit down for meals at a table.

We had some of our usual oven rolls with cream cheese, onion, tomato, basil and cheese on sourdough rolls seasoned with salt and pepper and baked in the oven. I love this combination so much, and it fills for a long time.

Then I also made kind of a small fruit salad with prickly pears, grapes and raspberries. Prickly pears, cactus fruits, are so healthy and refreshing, and apparently also a good hangover cure. I'm very fond of them at the moment and need to experiment more with them in other dishes as well.

The drinks were coffee, orange juice and ginger shots, either apple-ginger or cranberry-ginger.

What a good way to start the day. Yesterday this gave me strength to a long day spent mostly on boats. That sea life can surely be tireing! We also visited some outdoor cultural performances.

How has your weekend been?

Your VegHog

Rye bread with buttered chanterelles

The fresh chanterelles from Sweden have arrived in our vegetable markets, and I couldn't be more delighted about it. Even our tiny local supermarket has some! Chanterelles are my favourite mushrooms and I like using them whenever I can get hold of them. They are the true gold of the north and this is my favourite kind of comfort food.

This time I made a Nordic chanterelle classic, buttered chanterelles with onion on toasted rye bread. I also added some garlic, salt, ground black pepper and fresh thyme. I quickly fried the mushrooms in butter, but had to be careful not to fry them too long, as they can easily get soggy, and they only need a very brief frying. I rarely use real butter these days, but for some dishes it's definitely worth it.

The seedy rye bread was also from a local bakery that make such tasty breads and pastries. I have actually found my sweet tooth a little bit here again due to the pastries and lovely ice-cream available.

This was a wonderful Sunday brunch for us, which we will be enjoying more often in this fresh wild mushroom season. I'm even planning to freeze some, now that I'm at the source.

Your VegHog

Green and golden Thai curry

I'm so happy that I got a "proper" meal cooked for a change. I made a vegan Thai curry, because I just love them, and this one was quite comforting again.

I found some beautiful colourful heritage carrots in the vegetable market, and also bought the other fresh ingredients for this curry there. It's so much fun shopping at a proper vegetable market, but also a bit dangerous, because I want to buy everything around!

This was my first time frying tofu on a gas stove, and it was a great experience (I'm very easily entertained). I got it just the way I wanted, and fast! I also managed to find just the right kind of tofu in the shop. They sometimes come in glass jars in Denmark, which is a bit weird, but this one was in a "normal" packet.

Green and golden Thai curry

Ingredients

Curry paste

2 cloveless garlic
2 red chillies
2 cm fresh ginger
1 lime's juice and a little bit of the zest
1 tbsp white miso
1 tbsp tomato purée
3 tbsp vegetable stock powder
2 tsp palm sugar
1 tsp black pepper
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp ground cinnamon

Other ingredients

250 g tofu
2 fresh onions with stalks
5 yellow, red and purple heritage carrots
1 pak choi
2 tbsp vegetable oil
400 ml coconut milk
1 cup jasmine rice

Method

Make the golden curry paste by puréeing all paste ingredients together into a smooth paste.

Cut the tofu into generous chunks and fry them in vegetable oil until golden brown and firm on the outside.

Slice the carrots and coarsely chop the onion.

Cook the onion in vegetable oil until softened, then add the carrots to the pan, and after a while the curry paste.

Cook for a couple of minutes, add the coconut milk and let simmer until the flavours have blended nicely. Taste and add any seasoning, if needed.

Cook the jasmine rice.

Slice the pak choi and add it to the curry just a couple of minutes before serving. I also added the green onion stalks at this point.

Serve the curry together with the rice and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen. You all still have a few days time to take part in the challenge, if you have cooked with greens.

Your VegHog

Copenhagen Cooking & Food Festival 2017

Copenhagen Cooking & Food Festival started on Friday, and we visited the main site on Israels Plads yesterday. They had some pretty neat vegetable displays, so I got a few cute pictures that I want to share with you today.

I also bought beautiful local vegetables, and can't wait to cook with them. I also bought a cute little pineapple tree (it's on one of the photos), and I hope that I can keep it alive.

Apart from the main site, cooking events are taking place all over Copenhagen for a week. Some of the events are vegetarian, but I haven't purchased tickets to any of them yet.

I hope you like these photos. I just can't get enough of beautiful vegetable photos.

Have a nice Sunday!