Eat Your Greens July Round Up

The lovely month of July is ending, and it's time to look back to the Eat Your Greens recipes in July. Despite the hotness in many parts of the world, we received some great recipe entries. Thank you so much to all of you for taking part, and of course also to the readers. You might find some good summer food inspiration here, so do have a look!

Emily from Cooking for Kishore shared very tasty looking Zucchini & Carrot Patties. She has grown the zucchini herself, which is always great and it's a very seasonal ingredient. I'm a big fan of different vegetable patties and zucchini ones are always very high up there on the top. I would be happy to tuck into these anytime!

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe cooked this vibrantly green Lettuce, broccoli and pea soup. The colour is no surprise considering how many greens it contains: lettuce, broccoli, peas and zucchini. This looks really nice, and I would be really interested in trying lettuce in soup, as that's a new one for me. Johanna mentions that the soup got the nickname “grass soup” for tasting a bit grassy. That's quite funny.

My Eat Your Greens co-host Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen posted a comforting Marrow and Fenugreek Curry. Shaheen's homegrown marrows are of course the star of the show, but she also spiced the curry with fragrant fenugreek. I'm sure that added some nice warmth to the curry. The dish looks absolutely delicious, and it's a different creative idea for using marrows. I also like the marrow rice on the side very much.

Spécialiste de l'éphémère from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie shared with us their bowl of vegan tofu “chicken” pieces with cauliflower rice and green asparagus and lettuce on the side. The idea with the cauliflower rice is nice, and it looks like a tasty bowl of food. It's also great to have a look around on the blog and refresh old French skills from school.

My own recipe was a Pineapple and halloumi salad. I just adore fruit and berries in a salad with halloumi. This salad was a bit different, as the pineapple slices were baked. As greens I added loads of mixed salad leaves and shredded green cabbage that's so lovely right now.

Thanks again to all participants! Shaheen will be hosting in August and we look very much forward seeing your recipes again!

Your VegHog

Favourite summer food

I have a lot of summer favourites in food. I just love eating fresh peas straight from the pods, boiled or grilled new potatoes, fresh berries, seasonal mushrooms, fresh onions, watermelons etc. It's just nice to eat all kinds of colourful food right now.

An ensemble of fried halloumi, mac'n'cheese, carrots, red cabbage, pickled red cabbage, slow-roasted tomatoes and fresh green leaves is just the type of plateful that I really want to be eating in the summertime, especially in this current heat. This plate was just assembled more or less from left-overs, which is always sensible.

This sort of dish can basically be any seasonal vegetables or berries with a bit of protein and carbohydrates on the side, and should ideally require minimal heating.

What do you like eating in the summer?

Your VegHog

Holiday in Finland

Here are a few photos from my countryside holiday at home. It was really hot throughout, so I actually didn't go to that many places. I would have preferred to have a few more walks, but it just wasn't possible in that weather. It's a shame for the plants and animals that it's this dry, but let's hope that they will get some rain soon. It seems to be a good year for butterflies though, which is nice.

Pineapple and halloumi salad

I'm back from my holiday in Finland, which was lovely as usual. The heatwave was there, and it's here in Copenhagen too. I'm just trying to cope with cool drinks and food at the moment, and not move around too much. I will post some photos from my holiday soon, I just need to look through them first.

Salads are pretty perfect for this weather, when you don't want to heat the kitchen up and there isn't even much appetite. So I made this pineapple and halloumi salad. I already posted a similar Pineapple salad recipe last year which was adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi. Today's salad is again slightly different, so I'm sharing the ingredients below, but you can also visit the other links for the variations. This recipe requires the oven to go briefly on, which is of course not so optimal in this weather, but it's really worth it for the pineapple slices.

Pineapple and halloumi salad

Ingredients

½ small pineapple

¼ tsp chilli flakes

½ tsp salt

3 tbsp olive oil

250 g halloumi

Vegetable oil for frying

Mixed salad leaves

Green cabbage

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 220 C. Cut the pineapple into slices and coat them with the chilli flake, salt and olive oil mix. Bake them in the oven for about 15 minutes, and let cool after the baking.

Cut the halloumi into pieces and fry them in a pan until golden brown.

Place the mixed leaves and shredded green cabbage to a bowl, add the pineapple and halloumi and enjoy!

I'm sharing this salad with July's Eat Your Greens hosted by me and co-hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Tomato tart

Summer, sun and tomatoes – there is a combination that I really like! There are so many good colourful tomatoes in all shapes and forms around at the moment, so I've been making many tomato dishes. I've made salads, pasta dishes, rice dishes and tarts, and I will make many more. It's a shame that I'm not growing any own tomatoes this year, but maybe next year again.

Tomato tart is one of my all time favourites. I made this one with slow-roasted tomatoes, and they got really tasty and fragrant after the roasting. Of course cheese is another important part of these tarts, and the flavourful Irish Cheddar really made this one something special.

Tomato tart

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry

150 g tomatoes

Olive oil

Salt

Ground black pepper

Fresh thyme
1 onion
2 garlic cloves

100 g grated Cheddar cheese

Method

Cut the tomatoes in halves and place them on a baking tray. Sprinkle salt, pepper, thyme and olive oil on top of them and roast them in the oven at about 100 C for about one hour until they have dehydrated a little.

Before

After

Chop the onion and garlic finely and fry them lightly in olive oil.

Spread the shortcrust pastry on a baking tray, and place the tomatoes, onion and garlic, cheese and extra fresh thyme on the top.

Bake at 200 C for about 20 minutes until the pastry is crispy and the cheese has melted nicely.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Veggie burgers with sprouts

I hope that you all are having a wonderful weekend! I couldn't be happier, as my long awaited summer holiday has now started. I didn't have a summer holiday last year, so I'm intending to enjoy this one properly. The weather is also looking promising.

I made these veggie burgers a while ago. They are actually even vegan. The patty itself was made from an organic burger mix, which contained a lot of grains, carrots, herbs etc. They tasted really good, and became nice and crispy thinner patties.

I added all sorts of sprouts on the burgers: beetroot and garlic sprouts and pea shoots. They made the burgers really fresh tasting. I used fluffy brioche buns from the local shop to serve it all together.

Have a lovely weekend!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in July

It's July, and I will soon have my holiday! I'm so excited to go home to Finland and have some time to chill. But first I'm enjoying the Danish summer in Copenhagen, and what a good one it has been! We've been to public football viewings and had many walks in the parks. There is currently also a jazz festival ongoing, and live performances are taking place all over town. There is a nice atmosphere everywhere.

Let's have a little look what's been happening in my kitchen. I've been cooking a lot of light summer food, as it's too hot to put the oven on, or spend a long time in the kitchen. Here are some of my recent vegetarian dishes.

Mac'n'cheese with mushroom sauce, peas and rocket

Mac'n'cheese with a hot chilli sauce made by my partner

Fried new potatoes and onions with halloumi and corn cobs

Pasta dishes with tomatoes and mozzarella

Of course I've been buying nice vegetables in the market again, like these heirloom tomatoes and mini aubergines.

I have a new banana chilli plant and a giant basil growing on my windowsill. The chilli is doing well, and the basil has already provided us with plenty of leaves. 

Then to some sweet stuff. This Super Fudgio hazelnut-cocoa spread is fully vegan and so tasty.

I recently bought these caramel and chocolate panna cotta. They were really tasty desserts coming in sustainable glasses.

I've started using more oat milk with my coffee again, and my current favourite is iKaffe by Oatly, which can also be foamed.

I'm sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry's Pickings, who is hosting the In My Kitchen event.

Have a nice Sunday and rest of July!

Your VegHog

Beetroot falafel

The weather has still been great here, only too dry, as the plants and animals would desperately need some water to drink. I hope that everyone is remembering to put shallow water bowls to your gardens for hedgehogs and others, if there is also a dry and hot spell in your area!

There was only one cloudier day this week, but otherwise it has been hot. I've tried to stay in the shade, as I'm not too keen of hot weather either. But it's also good, as I found a bunch of summer clothing that I haven't been able to wear for ages due to chilly weather last year. They all feel like new now and my holiday wardrobe is thereby sorted.

So I made these colourful beetroot falafel the other day. I wish I had made this falafel mix myself, but no, it is a shop bought new variant with chickpeas and beetroot. The mix holds together very well when fried and is easy to shape, so I've bought it a few times now. The beetroot flavour is present, but it's not too overpowering. This mix makes a great change to regular falafel, and I'm sure that it would also make great veggie burgers.

Beetroot falafel

Ingredients

400 g beetroot falafel mix

Vegetable oil for frying

Pita bread

Cashew nut and almond hummus

Tomato slices

Yellow bell pepper pieces

Mixed salad leaves

Pickled red onion

Method

Shape falafel from the mix and fry them in oil until crispy on the outside.

Prepare the vegetables and other toppings.

Serve the falafel with the pita bread and toppings.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog