In My Kitchen in January 2020

It's a new year in the kitchen too and I'm very excited for it. In January money is typically tight and I try to live more healthily, but there normally also are several lapses to lovely comfort food. This post mainly contains Christmas presents and food souvenirs from Finland, but I'll also try to share a couple of simple vegan weekday meal ideas for those, who are taking part in Veganuary. Those are all dishes that I've recently cooked.

My partner got me this lovely pipe-smoking whale enamel cup for Christmas. It's just so cute. And my mum got me the new seasonal Moomin mug called “Tykkylumi”, “crown snow-load” which is heavy snow that accumulates on a tree. It's also very pretty and wintery. 

 

I bought my partner an indoor mini garden, a silicone base, where you can cultivate micro herbs. The packet came with radish, broccoli and rocket seeds. Soon you will probably see his plants decorating my food photos. 

 

One of my local supermarkets has started cultivating herbs on site to reduce the transport and water footprint. They have a big glass cupboard full of growing herbs, and you can buy them in small bunches and they survive for a while in little water at home. I think that it's a really neat idea. I also like the confetti coriander that they have, which I haven't seen elsewhere. It looks almost like dill with thin leaves, but of course tastes fully like normal coriander.

I also got this dill and parsley herb salt for Christmas, and my partner got the dreamy chocolate hippos.

Then to the food. These are all easy dishes to make and can be adapted depending on what ingredients you have available. They are also all vegan. I always want to avoid food waste, and in January I will be paying even more attention to that. The first dish is a mix of vegan “chicken” type of soya protein (Salty & Smoky Oumph) with tomatoes, bell peppers and aubergine served with hummus and flatbread. This dish can be made in so many variations and is easily adaptable. The smoky Oumph was very tasty and handy to store as a frozen product. 

 

This is a Thai noodle bowl with fried oat block (like tofu, but made from oats), broccoli and peanuts. So tasty, so warming and always one of my favourites. 

 

I fried the leftover beetroot gnocchi again and served it with roasted bell peppers stuffed with cherry tomatoes and garlic. It was a quick and effortless dish.

This is a bowl of koshari, which is Egyptian streetfood with rice, lentils, chickpeas, spicy tomato sauce and fried onions. It's so tasty and easy and affordable to make at home.

These are carrot wraps filled with Mexican style rice mix and fried oat block. I often make this sort of wraps full of warming spices and protein.

Here are some homemade lentil and broad bean frikadeller that can be enjoyed with many different dishes as a source of protein.

Polenta chips are easy to make and are so lovely when fried.

So this is how my year in the kitchen begins. As usual, I'm sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry's Pickings blog, who is again hosting the In My Kitchen series. I can only urge you to take part in the event or at least to read the shared blog posts, it's so much fun!

Have a great weekend!

Your VegHog