Eat Your Greens April 2019 Round Up

I hosted the cooking and green food challenge Eat Your Greens again this month. It seemed to be quite a quiet month, but we got some excellent recipes that I'm sharing in this post. Eat Your Greens is created and co-hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen, and she will take over hosting next month again. Here are the great vegan and vegetarian recipes shared with us in April.

Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen cooked a Baby Potato, Red Kale and Cabbage Subji. This dish contains lovely fragrant spices and a lot of vegetables like potatoes, green cabbage and kale. It's a vegetable side dish, but it looks so delightful that I would be happy with it as a main. 

Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen posted Wild Garlic Scones. I'm a big fan of both wild garlic and savoury scones, so this recipe is just perfect for me. The pale green colour looks great, and on top of everything, the scones are vegan!

Laura from Vegfully made Roast veggies and giant cous-cous Mediterranean style. This roasted dish contains aubergine, courgettes, bell peppers, tomatoes and potatoes, and they are served with wholewheat giant cous cous, feta and olives. It looks really good and I can only imagine how good it tasted.

I shared Asparagus and peanut noodles, which have Asian flavours and feature asparagus in a slightly more unusual setting.

This was it for April, I hope to see you all in May. Thank you so much everyone for reading and contributing!

Your VegHog

Chipotle potatoes with black eyed peas

We went to a street food festival yesterday, and it was a very nice event. I think that the rain earlier on the day had scared some visitors away, but when we were there, the weather was lovely and sunny. I want to write a post about the festival next week, so stay tuned.

Now to these spicy chipotle potatoes. I found some great potatoes on the market, and decided to make a Mexican style dish with them. I cooked them thrice, first boiled, then fried crispy and finally cooked with the spices. They were great, and went really well with the black eyed peas, sweetcorn and red bell pepper. I used some chilli cheese in this recipe, but it's only optional. The recipe is also very easy to veganise by skipping or replacing the cheese. Have a look below at my recipe.

Chipotle potatoes with black eyed peas

Ingredients

500 g potatoes

1 red bell pepper

2 cups cooked black eyed peas

1 small can of sweetcorn

2 onions

2 garlic cloves

1 chipotle chilli

Smoked paprika to taste

Ground cumin to taste

Ground coriander to taste

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Mexican oregano to taste

50 g chilli cheese (optional)

Vegetable oil

Fresh coriander

Method

Boil the potatoes until they are done. Fry them in oil until they have a crispy surface. Set them to side.

Cook the black eyed peas until they are done.

Chop the bell pepper, onion, garlic and chilli.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan.

Cook the onions, garlic, chilli and bell pepper until soft.

Add the spices, beans and sweetcorn to the mix and let cook for a while.

Then also add the potatoes.

Serve with fresh coriander and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Lentil and chickpea curry with roasted red peppers

My Easter break was just lovely, but also quite busy, as I didn't spend much time at home. We had visitors from England, some of my partner's family members, and we did extensive walks in Copenhagen with them and also visited Sweden. Now I'm just happy that I don't have many plans for the weekend, and can spend it mostly at home. It's also a rainy day today after a long while. I'm happy for the plants and wildlife that there is a little bit of water again. There is a street food festival and a cultural festival close by, so I think we will go there at least briefly in the afternoon regardless the rain.

Now I wanted to share a warming vegan curry recipe with you, which also fits the cooler weather quite nicely. I used both green lentils and chickpeas as the base of this recipe, but the roasted red peppers really add something special to it. There is also a lot of spinach in there, but it has kind of disappeared in the sauce. Here is my recipe for this curry.

Lentil and chickpea curry with roasted red peppers

Ingredients

2 red bell peppers

Vegetable oil

4 onions

2 garlic cloves

1 red chilli

2 carrots

1 cup cooked green lentils

1 cup cooked chickpeas

1 tbsp garam masala spice mix

¼ tsp ground turmeric

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

2 tbsp tomato purée

½ cup frozen spinach

Method

Cut the bell peppers into slices, coat them with vegetable oil and roast in the oven.

Cook the chickpeas and green lentils.

Chop the onions, garlic and chilli finely, and also chop the carrots.

Start cooking the chopped onion in oil until soft, and then add the garlic and chilli to the pan.

After a while, add the carrots and the seasoning.

Then also add the cooked lentils, frozen spinach, some water, and let simmer slowly until the flavours have blended nicely.

Either use the roasted red peppers as a topping, or mix them into the curry.

Serve rice or naan bread on the side of the curry and enjoy!

I want to share this recipe with My Legume Love Affair #127, which is hosted by Amrita from Motions and Emotions. My Legume Love Affair was created by Susan from The Well Seasoned Cook and is now hosted by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Fried rice and Easter

It's already a national holiday here in Denmark today, and I'm getting ready for Easter. I have made our humble decorations, just some yellow tulips and catkins with wooden and ceramic eggs. Now I still need to clean the appartment, but sun is shining, so I reckon that it will be fun with some music playing in the background.

We will get guests from England, so we will be spending Easter out and about in Copenhagen. Hopefully I can also cook a meal for them. I was thinking of vegan hot dogs with different condiments and veggies, as hot dogs are very popular in Denmark. But we will see, how it goes.

I made this fried rice with mixed cabbage, beetroot, soya “chicken style” bits a while ago, but the dish looked quite suitable for Easter, so I posted it now. There is also a chilli-pineapple salsa on the side of the stir fry.

Have a happy Easter everyone!

Your VegHog

Asparagus and peanut noodles

This week has again been sunny, but quite chilly. Yesterday even a few snowflakes came down. Anyway it's starting to look more springlike with all the flowers around and leaves on the trees starting to grow. Next week it's already Easter. We will get some visitors from England over Easter, so we will mainly be out and about in town.

This dish could actually be an alternative Easter meal. Asparagus just belongs to the spring, and it's nice to see local asparagus appearing in the market. I was looking for new inspiration for cooking asparagus, and I stumbled upon this asparagus and peanut pairing in The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit. It sounded nice, so I adapted this recipe from it, and also added some spicy noodles to the mix. The dressing also contained some lemon, and of course lemon and asparagus are always a great match.

Asparagus and peanut noodles

Ingredients

For the asparagus (adapted from The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit: Asparagus & Peanut)

1 bunch green asparagus

3 tbsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp soy sauce

Pinch of sugar

100 g chopped roasted salted peanuts

1 tsp black sesame seeds

For the noodles

200 g tofu

Vegetable oil for frying

200 g noodles

1 red chilli

1 jalapeno

1 garlic clove

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

Method

Cut the tofu into cubes and fry them in the vegetable oil.

Cook the noodles and cool them down again.

Chop the chilli, jalapeno and garlic finely, and cook them in oil until soft.

Then add the noodles and tofu to the pan, and season to taste.

Steam the asparagus spears and prepare the peanut dressing by mixing the ingredients together.

Serve the noodles with the asparagus and peanut dressing and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens, which is hosted by me this month, and co-hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen. There is still plenty of time also to share your recipe in April!

Have a great weekend!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in April

It's incredible that it's already April and signs of spring are in the air. The sakura are already blooming in Copenhagen and we've had a few warm and sunny days. However I think that the temperatures are due to drop again. In Finland at my mum's place it was still snowing this week. But before I forget, I want to share with you what's new in my kitchen.

Mikkeller botanical tonic is not so new, but it's still waiting for some special guests. Maybe we'll try it at Easter.

I find these Katjes unicorn sweets made with veggie gelatine so cute. I'm glad that they also made black unicorns. I sent these to my nephew and I think he liked them.

These Chipotles en adobo have become a frequently used item in my kitchen. It adds such a gentle heat to so many different dishes. Now it would be difficult for me to live without it.

I've been trying some new veggie products like Plantepølser, Pipfri and Veggie Bites. They are all very tasty and handy to use. I served the sausages with potato mash, cheese braised fennel and lambs lettuce. From the Pipfri I made cabbage and pepper tacos, where the red cabbage came as fried and pickled.

I've made again some homemade naan bread a few times, and it's always a great accompaniment to vegan curries.

These twice-baked leek and cheese potato skins are my go-to cold weather, cosy night in dish. It takes a little patience to bake the potatoes twice, but they are totally worth the wait.

I also cooked a halloumi, red pepper and pearled barley stew.

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

Have a great weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens welcoming April recipes

This is no April fools, it actually is time for Eat Your Greens in April! I am hosting this vegan and vegetarian cooking challenge again this month, and it's co-hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen, who has created the event.

Eat Your Greens is all about sharing vegan or vegetarian recipes featuring green vegetables. Post your recipe on your blog, and add a link to the post by end of the month to the comment section below. There will be a round up post at the end of the month showing all the green recipes that you shared with us.

You can read about the recipes shared in March here. They were all just fabulous! I really hope that you can take part this month and I'm looking forward to seeing all your lovely recipes.

Your VegHog