Chickpea, potato and cauliflower curry

Today is a big day in Copenhagen. After a decade of building work, the new cityring metro line will open. There will be a celebration with live music and the new driverless trains will start driving in the afternoon. We will also get a new station closer to our home, which is very exciting. We will try to catch a train from there later today. As an additional plus, public transport is free in whole Copenhagen today. It will be an exciting day. I can't wait to see the design of our new station.

But now first to this curry. I made a chickpea and potato curry with roasted cauliflower. It was quite a basic vegan curry with garam masala, carrots and spinach and I served homemade naan breads on the side. I though that the roasted cauliflower added a bit of extra to it and made it a bit more unusual. I decided not to share the recipe here, as the curry has just some basic ingredients in it. I have posted similar recipes many times.

Have a good Sunday everyone!

Your VegHog

Cactus fig juice

I started today in a very healthy way with morning exercise followed by homemade cactus fig juice. There were such lovely and colourful cactus figs at the market, and they were quite cheap as well, so I had to buy them again after a long while. They made a very nice juice with lime and ginger. Check out my method below.

Now I'm baking rolls for breakfast, and then I'll hit the town for some food, and perhaps clothing, shopping. The rain has cleared for now, so I'm hoping for a nice autumn's day. What are your weekend plans?

This is how I made the cactus fig juice.

Cactus fig juice

Ingredients

6 cactus figs

½ lime

3 cm fresh ginger

1 cup water

Method

Peel the cactus figs, and be careful while at it. They have actual cactus spines on them unless they have been carefully removed. It may be best to use gloves.

Also peel the ginger and put it in a blender with the squeezed lime and peeled cactus figs.

Blend and add water to taste. I added about one cup, but you might want to add more or less depending on how thick you want the juice to be.

Sieve the juice to remove the hard seeds of the cactus figs and enjoy.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Roasted vegetable pitas

I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday. We took a train to a nearby village and walked around there a bit. There was a mix of a cute little old town and modern architecture. It was quite interesting to go outside of Copenhagen, which we don't do very often. I'm really keen to travel in rest of Denmark to get to know the whole country better. Today I just want to go for a walk and cook a Thai curry in the evening.

I recently made these pitas with roasted aubergine and bell pepper, vegan broad bean strips and cabbage. Here is a quick and simple recipe.

Ingredients

1 aubergine

1 bell pepper

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil for roasting and frying

Ground black pepper to taste

Ground cumin to taste

Ground coriander to taste

Smoked paprika to taste

Chilli flakes to taste

Salt to taste

250 g vegan protein (I used Beanit made from broad beans)

100 g hummus

Kale, cabbage, beetroot mix

4 pitas

Method

Chop the aubergine and bell pepper into cubes. Slice the onion and chop the garlic finely.

Coat the aubergine and pepper with olive oil, and roast them in the oven until done.

Heat olive oil in a pan and fry the onions. Add the garlic to the pan, and then also fry the vegan protein.

Add the roasted vegetables to the pan and season to taste with ground black pepper, ground cumin, ground coriander, smoked paprika, chilli flakes and salt.

Warm the pitas in the oven, spread hummus on the inside and fill them with the roasted vegetable mix. Add fresh veggies of your choice. I used a kale, cabbage and beetroot mix.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pea and lentil frikadellen

Oh dear, I haven't blogged much at all in September. My apologies for the quietness here and on Instagram and Twitter. Everything is fine here, but it has just been very busy. We had a guest from the UK and were proud to show our city. Then I've been balancing the usual weekday activities, like Danish classes, with work.

This weekend I don't have many plans, and just prefer staying at home. I've been too much out and about lately. I will try to get some blogging done as well on the weekend. I've still been cooking quite a lot, and have some new recipes to share with you. This season is so exciting for me with all the squashes and mushrooms, but more about that later.

Here are some very basic but tasty vegan pea and lentil frikadellen or fritters. They are made from green lentils, dried pea crush and some veggies. They are easy to make and are just a nice accompaniment to any dish. I usually have all these ingredients available, so it's a good dish when you don't have much else in your cupboard.

Pea and lentil frikadellen

Ingredients

1 cup green lentils

1 cup dried pea crush

3 carrots

2 onions

4 garlic cloves

½ cup frozen spinach

2 tbsp vegetable stock powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Fresh thyme

3-4 tbsp wheat flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Cook the green lentils and dried pea crush until soft.

Chop or grate the carrots finely. Chop the onions and garlic finely.

Cook the onions, carrots and garlic in oil until soft, and combine with the pea and lentil mix. Also add thawed frozen spinach to the mix.

Season the mix with vegetable stock powder, salt and pepper. I also added some fresh thyme.

Remove any excess liquid from the mix, mix the flour in and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Shape frikadellen from the mix. Add more flour, if the mix isn't firm enough.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan, and fry the frikadellen on both sides until crispy and golden brown.

Enjoy as a side with many different dishes or just as a snack on the side. These also make quite nice party snacks, especially when made a bit smaller.

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens challenge hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen and co-hosted by me. Go check out her blog for more details and inspiration, you still have plenty of time to take part in September!

Have a great weekend!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in September

September is here, and I'm quite happy about it. I love the autumn season in the kitchen and outside. I can't wait to get some autumnal decorations for my kitchen. But first, let's have a little look what's been going on there lately.

As you may have noticed, I'm a bit of a collector of different hedgehog themed items. So of course I had to get Hedgehogs on the Horizon beer, a black IPA by Uiltje Brewing Company from the Netherlands.

Here's more drinking goodness from the Netherlands: Chocomel. I was delighted to see it here in the shops as well. I think it's the best chocolate milk out there.

Our favourite supermarket chain had an insanely good coffee offer the other week, hence the hoarding. Do you think this pile will cater us until the end of the year?

Same supermarket (Irma) has started an environmental campaign with cute and informative environment leaflets. 

Here are some of my recent cookings as well. I made a warming lentil curry, and there will surely be more of them towards the autumn.

I have made many weekday dishes with juicy local corn on the cob. I just like to boil them and have some potatoes, grill cheese and other veggies on the side. For me these are the perfect dishes for the season.

There have also been nice radishes, so my partner made fried rice with radish and kimchi.

I also made pepper and chilli tortillas with Mexican potatoes. This is just a nice comfort food for the weekend. There is just a suitable amount pottering in the kitchen, and then the reward while watching some nice series.

As usual I'm sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry's Pickings, as she is hosting the In My Kitchen challenge. Head over to her blog to check out her lovely kitchen and many more from all participants.

Your VegHog

English breakfast and Copenhagen Cooking & Food festival

This morning we had a vegan full English breakfast again after a while. I found huge potato röstis in our local shop, so they had to be tried. Otherwise there were just the usual vegan sausages, baked beans, fried bread and fried tomatoes. I also served less traditional yellow water melon as refreshment on the side. Isn't it cute!

Yesterday we went to Copenhagen Cooking & Food Festival's main site in the hope of getting some local produce. Unfortunately this year they had concentrated more on cooking demonstrations and tastings instead of having the vegetable stalls and other local producers there. I though it was a bit of shame, as in previous years I got such lovely stuff from there, and the veggie displays were excellent. Well, I guess the concept changed a bit. I was tempted by pizza from The Pizza Bro, as they had pumpkin pizza and potato pizza, but I wasn't hungry enough to eat a pizza then. Here are a couple of photos from the event. It was a hot day, and no cooking demonstration was on while we were there, so it was a bit more quiet.

Have a great Sunday!

Your VegHog