Eat Your Greens August Round Up

August is almost over so it's time to look at your Eat Your Greens recipes in August.

Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen and my Eat Your Greens co-host made a tempting Crushed Potato, Courgette and Feta Salad. She roasted new potatoes, round courgette, yellow courgette and beans with olive oil, and then added peas, parsley, feta and salt and pepper for some further baking. This combination of several greens sounds so wonderful and is even better when made with homegrown produce.

Laura from Vegfully cooked a refreshing Courgette and mint soup. She sautéed leeks and garlic in a pan, added celery, courgettes, seasoning and vegetable stock. After cooking for a while, the ingredients were blended in a smooth soup and fresh mint, feta, pepper and olive oil were added for serving. This sounds like a perfect summer soup to me and I would be happy to eat it anytime.

Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen shared a wonderful dish of Asparagus and Peas in a Creamy Mustard Sauce. She combined the slightly more unusual vegetable, asparagus, with Indian flavours. There is a creamy mustard sauce with ginger, chillies, cumin seeds, turmeric, coconut milk and lemon juice with pan-fried asparagus and green peas. I'm sure that asparagus works very well with Indian spices and I'm very intrigued by this dish.

My own recipe this month was a Spanakopita with crispy filo pastry, spinach and feta. It's also a nice piece of summer baking and really addictive.

Thank you again to all participants and readers. It was such a nice month of green food, and there will be more in September when Shaheen will be hosting again. I hope to see you all then.

Have a nice weekend all!

Your VegHog

Farmers Market Visit

There was a change of plans yesterday, when I realised that there would be a nice farmers market taking place in Refshaleøen. So of course we had to go there to check it out instead of the culture event. Or we actually postponed the cultural events to today, as that festival is still on. Luckily the weather is still nice.

The farmers market was related to Copenhagen Cooking & Food Festival that just started last Thursday. I will be writing more about the festival once I get to visit it properly. There were nice vegetable vendors on the market and lots of other local produce: craft beer, cider, flour, bread, honey, flowers etc. I came home with two ufo squashes and local garlic.

Here are some photos from the farmers market.

Sundried tomato and mozzarella sandwiches

Hot summer weather has returned this week, so the summer isn't over quite yet. It's a lovely weather today and I can't wait to get out to a culture festival all around Copenhagen Harbour. There are different performances, exhibitions and events everywhere and the weather is just perfect for it. So I guess the plan for today is settled, but I'm not sure yet what to do tomorrow. Of course the festival still continues tomorrow, but let's see how much we manage today.

Last weekend I made these delightful little sundried tomato, mozzarella, olive and basil sandwiches or panini. The bread was a really nice artisanal rosemary and sea salt bread. It was just perfect for this dish.

Sundried tomato and mozzarella sandwiches

Ingredients

2 artisanal breads

125 g mozzarella

100 g sundried tomatoes

50 g green olives

2 tbsp garlic butter

Fresh basil leaves

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Method

Heat a grill pan on the stove and preheat the oven to 180C.

Chop the mozzarella, sundried tomatoes and green olives coarsely and mix them with the basil leaves, salt and pepper.

Cut the breads in half, spread the garlic butter on each side inside and fill the breads with the mozzarella and tomato mix.

Close the breads and grill them on a grill pan so that they get some grilling marks. Finish them in the oven and bake them for about 5-10 minutes depending on how crispy you want the bread to be.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Spanakopita

It has been quite a cloudy and rainy weekend over here, but it made it easier for me just to relax and take it easy. Today we'll head to the vegetable market to get some supplies for next week, and then I'll just potter in the kitchen making Sunday dinner.

A spanakopita has been on my mind for a while, and I also wanted to work with filo again after a long time. So I finally got around making a tasty spanakopita with crispy pastry and comforting soft spinach and feta filling. It was surprisingly easy to make, and I will surely be making it again.

Spanakopita

Ingredients

230 g filo pastry

230 g frozen spinach

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

140 g feta

3 tbsp fresh parsley

2 eggs

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

½ cup olive oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and let the frozen spinach thaw. Then drain all excess liquid off the spinach.

Mix the spinach, onion and garlic with the crumbled feta, fresh parsley, eggs, salt and pepper into an even mix.

Brush a baking tray with oil and place two sheets of the filo pastry on it. Brush the sheets with oil and add a couple of more layers.

Then put the spinach mix onto the pastry, and layer the rest of the sheets on top, and brush them all individually with oil.

Wrap the excess filo on the edges to the baking tray.

Bake the spanakopita for about one hour until the pastry is crispy and the filling has cooked nicely.

Enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe as my this month's Eat Your Greens contribution. I'm hosting the challenge this month with my co-host and creator of the challenge, Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog.

Your VegHog

Street Food om Søerne 2019

I had the pleasure of visiting this year's Street Food om Søerne street food festival by the Copenhagen Lakes. The festival took place last weekend and it was located close to our home, which is of course very convenient. There were a lot of vegan vendors this year, and many others had vegan or vegetarian options.

I had the best burger there that I've ever tasted, and it was made by Planteslagterne. I failed to ask what the juicy plantbased patty was made from, but in any case it tasted amazing. It was a cheese burger with pickled onions, lettuce and vegan mayo in a brioche bun. 

 

One of my other favourites were vegan kebabs with organic, gluten free and soy free tempeh made from lupin beans. The tempeh was made by Foodture, and the kebabs were made by Simple Raw, a vegan restaurant in Copenhagen. The concept of making it from lupin beans is fascinating, #from flower to plant protein". It was such a nice combination with fresh veg and really tasty tempeh. The tempeh was quite authentic looking kebab, as it came from the traditional turning skewer. I think several vegan cafés in Copenhagen serve this tempeh, so I have the chance of finding it again.

We also had tasty fries from Green Fries, a Swedish company. They served lovely dips on side and you got to select a salt for the fries. I had fries with garlic salt and roasted onion mayo and truffle mayo. We've had these fries before, and every time they just hit the spot.

As drinks we enjoyed different craft beers from Mikkeller and organic cocktails from Rebæl.

We also got acquainted with a veg box subscription idea by Grim, where the “ugly” vegetables that are rejected by supermarkets are delivered to your door once a week. I think that's a great idea and I'm considering of joining. My only problem with veg boxes is that there are long months with cabbage in season. Don't get me wrong, I really like cabbage, but it's difficult to use a lot of it for two people. What are your experiences with veg boxes? Do they make meal planning easier or more complicated?

This year's festival's main sponsor was the supermarket chain Irma, and they had brought some colourful swan boats to our lakes. We normally only have white and black swan and duck boats. On those colourful boats you could take a tasting and talking ride with some of the vendors. I think this was also quite a neat idea.

I wanted to try so many things more, but couldn't fit more food or drink in. There were rye and potato burgers, vegetarian tacos and quesadillas, fresh salads and juices, vegan ice-cream and many more tempting dishes. I can't wait for next year, as it looks like the vegan festival doesn't take place in Copenhagen this year. Here are some atmosphere photos from the street food festival.