Red Thai curry

I'm having a relaxing long weekend. I already had yesterday off from work, and today as well. It will be nice to just potter around at home and go to town a bit. Today it's sunny, even though rain was originally forecast, so I think that we will pop over to the street food market today.

Today's recipe is one of my favourites: Red Thai curry with tofu. It's of course a vegan dish, served with sticky jasmine rice on the side. Find my recipe below.

Red Thai curry

Ingredients

200 g tofu

2 onions

1 red romano pepper

2 carrots

2 tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

1 red chilli

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp palm sugar

1 tbsp miso

¼ tsp smoked paprika

½ tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground coriander

2 bay leaves

400 ml coconut milk

3 tbsp tomato purée

1 lime

Fresh coriander

1 cup jasmine rice

Method

Cut the tofu into cubes and fry them in a hot pan in oil until they have a crispy and golden brown surface. Set them to side.

Chop the onions, pepper, carrots, tomatoes, garlic and chilli.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan and start cooking the onion until it's soft. Then add the other veggies, garlic and chilli, and cook for a few minutes.

Add the seasoning and the coconut milk, and let simmer until the flavours have blended nicely. Season to taste. Then also add the fried tofu to the mix.

Cook the rice and serve the red Thai curry with it.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Leek, kale and potato soup

It's been another busy week here, and the next one won't be any different. Luckily then I'll have a long weekend to relax more, and maybe to post more, as I have some dishes in store. Yesterday we took part in the people's climate march in Copenhagen, where also Greta Thunberg was speaking. I think there were about 30.000 people there. Today it's also the EU parliamentary election day. I already voted in advance, but I will be following the results closely. It would be nice to see a big green impact all over Europe.

Now to something else green. This is a healthy green soup full of veggie and legume goodness. I used leeks, kale and potatoes in this soup, as the name suggests, and there were also green lentils to make it more wholesome. Have a look at my recipe below.

Leek, kale and potato soup

Ingredients

3 leeks

8-10 small potatoes

¼ cup green lentils

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

1 cup kale

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp vegetable stock powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Method

Slice the leeks, and also use the green tops. Carefully wash the green tops, as there usually is dirt. It's best to cut them lenghtwise and wash the leaves individually.

Peel and square the potatoes, and also chop the onion and garlic finely.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan and start cooking the onions. Cook them until they are soft and slightly browned and then also add the garlic.

Cook the lentils in a separate pan, and set them to side.

Add the cut leeks to the onion and garlic and cook under lid until the leeks are soft.

Add the potatoes to the pan, season with vegetable stock powder, salt and ground black pepper, and add water. Cook until the potatoes are done.

Chop the kale coarsely and remove all thick stalks. Then add them and the lentils to then pan and let cook for a few minutes.

Purée the soup in a blender and cook it still for a while after the puréeing.

Serve with crusty bread on the side and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens. It's hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen. Go and have a look at her wonderful blog. You also still have time to submit your Eat Your Greens recipe for May.

Have a nice day everyone!

Your VegHog

Kimchi fried rice

I've been a bit quiet here on the blog side, but nothing to worry about, I'm still here. I've just been busy with various things and haven't found so much energy for blogging in the evenings and weekends. I've been cooking though, so I have quite a few recipes to share with you.

This vegan kimchi fried rice is actually my partner's recipe, but he taught me how to make it. I do enjoy a good fried rice, and I've been making this a few times now. We found a lovely jar of kimchi in our local supermarket, and it really adds something nice to this dish.

Kimchi fried rice

Ingredients

1,5 cups brown rice

150 g kimchi

200 g chilli and lemongrass tofu

1 yellow bell pepper

3 carrots

1 onion

3 garlic

1 green chilli

2 cm fresh ginger

Vegetable oil for frying

Sauce:

Sauce from the chilli and lemongrass tofu

Sauce from the kimchi

2 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp miso

Method

Cook the rice until it's done, cool it down, and set to side.

Make the sauce by mixing the ingredients. I had a flavoured chilli and lemongrass tofu with a marinade, so it was handy to use the marinade in the sauce. The sauce should be about 0,5 cup in volume, so you can add some water, if it's less. Taste and add more sesame oil or soy sauce, if needed.

Chop the tofu into cubes and fry them in hot oil until they are crispy and golden brown. Set them to side.

Chop the pepper, carrots, onion, garlic, chilli and ginger. Fry them in oil, first the pepper, carrots and oniong, then adding everything else, including the kimchi, after a few minutes. Set it to side.

Fry the cooled brown rice in oil in a hot pan for a few minutes.

Add all the components that you set to side and the sauce. Mix it all together and make sure that everything is heated through.

Then serve and enjoy!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in May

How can it be May already? Well it's very springlike here already, even though the weather still keeps changing a lot. I guess that's typical for spring anyway. Here is what's new in my kitchen at the moment.

I've had busy times travelling for business, so I brought some souvenirs from my business trips to Düsseldorf, Cologne and Vienna. They are mainly just local sweets and drinks shopped at the airports, as I didn't have much time for shopping otherwise. 

Easter went by fast, but I had decorations up and of course there were also Easter beers and eggs.

A dried ramson, wild garlic, spice is new in my kitchen. I haven't managed to get any fresh ones yet, but I guess this dried one is nice too.

Here are some foods that I've cooked recently. I made the Finnish classic Karjalanpiirakat, Karelian pies. They contain savoury rice pudding in a thin rye crust, and are just heavenly when eaten warm with butter on top. I use my grandmother's recipe when making these, as I used to make them together with her.

These risotto burgers with mac'n'cheese were quite nice too.

I also made some veggie noodles with soya bits.

Here is just a random food shopping haul from the other day.

I'm sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry's Pickings blog. She is hosting the In My Kitchen blog challenge.

Your VegHog

Street Food Festival København 2019

Last weekend there was a really nice street food festival in Hans Tavsens Park in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen. There were about 30 food and drink stalls, and a lot of relaxing atmosphere. We got lucky with the weather as well on Saturday, as it had been a rainy day previously. We managed to get a lot of sunshine while we were at the festival.

There were quite a few vegan and vegetarian options: a tempeh dumpling workshop, vietnamese curries and spring rolls, vegan ice-cream, halloumi burgers, aranchini, falafel, vegan smørrebrød (Danish open sandwiches), craft beer and cocktails, just to mention a few.

Here are some of my snapshots that I took at the festival. I hope you like the atmosphere.