Seasonal Sunday Supper

I always look forward to Sunday dinners, because I then have the time to cook for longer, often pretty much all day long. I don't usually have many other plans for Sundays, I just want to spend cosy time at home cooking and relaxing.

That's what I will do today as well, but this dish is our last week's Sunday dinner. We had Glamorgan sausages, roasted potatoes, steamed baby brussels sprouts, onion gravy and salad. I was happy to see brussels sprouts arriving to the shops and will cook plenty of dishes with them. Do you have any unusual and new ideas, where or how to use brussels sprouts? I would like to use them in all kinds of different dishes, not just as a side.

This dish was fairly quick and effortless to make apart from the gravy, which needs to cook for longer. It doesn't need that much attention though, apart from the occasional stirring. The shop bought Glamorgan sausages by Good Life were excellent and I think they'll become a regular in my freezer. Welsh Glamorgan sausages consist of leeks, cheese and mustard and are very tasty, I need to make some myself soon again. But sometimes it's just easier to add ready made veggie burgers and sausages to such meals and not make everything from scratch.

How has your Sunday been? What are you cooking and eating today?

Your VegHog 

Fondant potato, cheese and onion pies

I have been making fondant potatoes a few times lately. They are so tasty and comforting and also a bit naughty due to the rich butter ans vegetable stock mix where they cook. I think that they are quite perfect for autumnal dishes. I have made fondant potato pasties in the past and now I wanted to incorporate them into proper pies. I wanted to go with a good tried and tested combination of potato, onion and cheese with notes of thyme running through. These pies turned out really nice and I will surely make them again.

I had some seasonal vegetables on the side, steamed sweet sprouting cauliflower, which is very mild and pleasant new vegetable for me, and roasted acorn squash and purple carrots. I love the vegetables of this season!

Here is my recipe for 4 small pies:

Ingredients

3 onions

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil

6 potatoes

Fresh thyme sprigs

500 ml vegetable stock

25 g butter

1 garlic clove

400 g shortcrust pastry

150 g grated Cheddar

Sides: steamed sweet sprouting cauliflower, roasted purple carrots and acorn squash

Method

Chop the onions into half rings and cook them slowly and long until they are caramelised. Then add the finely chopped garlic to them.

Quarter the potatoes and place them into a frying pan. Put some thyme sprigs onto them and also add one quartered garlic clove and the butter. Then pour in the vegetable stock so that the potato tops aren't quite covered. Let simmer until the stock has evaporated and the potatoes are tender and browned. The potatoes can be turned over just before removing them from the pan.

Roll the shortcrust pastry out thinly and divide it into ramekins or small pie dishes. Cut the rest of the pastry into about 0.5 cm wide long strips.

Fill the pastry with grated cheese, onion mix and potatoes by layering them into the dishes in turns. Season with some additional fresh thyme.

Cover the pie with a pleated griddle of pastry.

Bake the pies at 180 C for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash risotto

Who is happy with me about the proper squash and pumpkin season starting? I can see many soups, stews and casseroles in my future and it makes me very happy indeed. I really love autumn, the colours, the food, the atmosphere. It's still warm here now, but I'm not sad that the summer will be ending soon. What are your feelings about the autumn (of course not all my readers are facing autumn at this time)?

I haven't made a proper real non-pearled-spelt risotto for ages it feels, but when I got a hold of some harlequin squashes, I thought it's time. I don't think that a vegetarian risotto ever gets boring, as there are so many possible variations. I added a little hint of chilli to this recipe.

Ingredients

1 l vegetable stock

Few dried porcini mushrooms

½ harlequin squash

1 yellow bell pepper

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

1 small chilli

Olive oil

15 g butter

1 cup arborio rice

1 cup dry white wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Grated vegetarian pasta cheese

Pine nuts and tomato slices for serving

Method

Heat the vegetable stock in a separate saucepan and add the crushed porcini muchrooms to the stock.

Cut the squash into cubes and the bell pepper into slightly smaller cubes. Chop the onion, garlic and chilli finely and start cooking the onion in olive oil. Once it's lightly browned and soft, add the garlic and chilli and cook for a couple of minutes more.

Add the squash and bell pepper cubes into the mix and again let cook for a few minutes. Then add the butter to the pan followed by the arborio rice. Mix for a few minutes and then add the white wine. Let it mostly absorb.

Add a few ladles of the vegetable stock and let simmer under the lid by stirring often. Also keep making more stock additions before the risotto can dry out.

Season to taste. Once you are happy with the flavours and textures, serve with some sprinkled vegetarian pasta cheese on the top and enjoy.

I would like to share the recipe with this month's Credit Crunch Munch as a frugal recipe. The challenge is hosted this month by Michelle from Utterly Scrummy Food For Families and co-hosted by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours. The reason for this is mainly that I was able to use end of two risotto rice packets (no idea why both were open!) and also the vegetables had been around for a while waiting to be cooked. I didn't want them to go to waste. A risotto can be quite an economical dish, as you don't need too many things to make a very filling meal.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Your VegHog

Autumn in my neighbourhood

I had the day off yesterday, which was very good. I decided to take my camera with me on my stroll to the shops. Luckily I didn't have to rush anywhere and the weather was wonderful. Well, in the morning at least, towards the midday it got almost too hot, as I prefer the crisp autumnal air. Autumn is my favourite season and I was delighted to look at its colours more closely yesterday. It's not this green everywhere around here, but I walked mainly through the parks, and I'm also lucky enough to live directly next to a small park.

So here are my photos from yesterdays town stroll, I hope you like them.

Onion squash and lentil soup

Organic onion squash is back in my regular supermarket! That really is good news. I don't really mind if they don't get any other vegetables in for a while now... or maybe that goes a bit too far, but onion squashes are seriously tasty!

I grabbed a couple of squashes and as the first dish I decided to make the basic classic (at least my personal classic), a vegan soup with onion squash, onions and red lentils. This was really tasty flavoured with some fresh coriander, which turned the colour slightly weirdly into greenish, but that doesn't matter to me. I used my new herb pairing wheel for ideas when creating this recipe. Please have a look below how I made it.

Ingredients

1 medium onion squash

2 onions

3 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

500 ml vegetable stock

½ cup dried red lentils

A handful of fresh coriander

Allspice to taste

Salt to taste

Method

Chop the onions and garlic cloves finely.

Peel the squash and cut it into small cubes.

Start cooking the onions and garlic in a saucepan in olive oil, after a while add the squash cubes.

Stir for a few more minutes and then add the vegetable stock and lentils.

Let simmer until the squash and lentils are fully cooked.

Season the soup, purée it and enjoy!

Even though this is a very basic vegan soup, I want to share the recipe with the No Croutons Required soup and salad cooking challenge, as I'm happy that the soup season is here again and I can use my favourite squashes. The challenge is hosted this month by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes and the co-host for this event is Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen.

Your VegHog

Roasted miniature new potato and leek bake flavoured with cider

I guess this is how most of my food photos are going to look now that the evenings are getting darker, the only time when I have time to cook on the weekdays. I do apologise for the darkness and hope to make some brighter looking photos on the weekends as well. I hope you'll like the food nevertheless.

I made this autumnal dish ultra savoury, just the way I like it. It's a bake made with roasted miniature new potatoes in a leek, cheese and cider sauce and here's the recipe.

Ingredients

500 g miniature new potatoes

1 tsp vegetable oil

½ tsp smoked paprika

3 baby carrots

3 leeks

3 garlic cloves

10 g butter

1 tsp vegetable stock powder

Salt

Ground black pepper

50 ml dry cider

100 g cheddar and red Leicester mix

Breadcrumbs

Sage

Thyme

Method

Wash the potatoes and roll them in vegetable oil and dust with smoked paprika, then roast them in the oven until done.

Chop the carrots and leeks into thin slices, also chop the garlic finely.

Start cooking the carrots, leeks and garlic in the butter. Cook them for a few minutes until slightly softened. Then add the vegetable stock powder, salt and ground black pepper and also pour the cider in. Let simmer slowly under the lid until all flavours have blended nicely.

Once the potatoes are cooked, mix them into the leeks. Then also add half of the grated cheese into the mix. Put it into an oven dish and cover with the rest of the cheese and the breadcrumbs, sage and thyme.

Bake in the oven until the cheese has nicely melted and golden brown. Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Carrot and spelt mini loaves

When the evenings grow darker and it's chillier outside, I like baking fresh bread and rolls. Evening is normally the time of day when I get my baking urges. Sometimes it's purely because I notice that there isn't any bread for the next day. And since the root vegetable season is upon us, I have been using them more in cooking again. Carrots are a wonderfully healthy and tasty addition to homemade bread. Have you ever tried such bread? It's quite a normal thing in Finland.

I baked this bread pretty much following my previous recipe for Carrot and spelt rolls. Only this time I used just spelt flour and baked mini loaves instead of rolls, which makes the shaping phase slightly easier. I purchased these mini loaf cases a while ago, and was keen to bake something in them. They would also be very good for baking slightly bigger muffins. I got seven mini loaves with this recipe, but you could of course also make one large loaf of bread.

These mini loaves make a great breakfast or lunch with some added butter and cheese. Or how about filling them with fresh salad, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers... anything you like! I could also see them as cute additions to the dinner table to go with pasta or salad.

I don't think it's necessary to repeat all the instructions here as the full recipe can be found here. 

 

Have a good weekend!

Your VegHog

Harvest pasta

I call today's dish a harvest pasta as the tomatoes, the bell pepper and the basil come from my own small balcony garden. I posted an update yesterday of what's happening there (have a look here, if you missed it!). It is very satisfying to prepare such a meal. However I feel a little bit bad that I was too lazy and didn't make my own fresh pasta to go with these fine ingredients, because that would've made this dish even better. Well maybe next time, the plants are still very productive, and there's nothing wrong with a quick weekday pasta, is there.

For seasoning of the sauce I used again my sea buckthorn salt. I'm pretty sure, I've mentioned it before, but here's a bit more info. It's slightly pink Himalayan salt seasoned with sea buckthorn berries from the Ostrobothnian west coast in Finland, and it can be used just like regular salt, but it has some health benefits. Remember when I made a post about the Old animals' home in Ylistaro? Anyway, these berry salt products, and much more, are manufactured there at Wanha Markki. When I visited them in August, I obviously had to extend my salt supplies.

And now to the making of this pasta dish. This recipe makes two large pasta bowls.

Ingredients

6 tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

1 large yellow bell pepper

Handful of fresh basil leaves

Olive oil

Sea buckthorn salt (regular salt is also fine)

Ground black pepper

125 g mozzarella

Farfalle pasta

Method

Chop the garlic finely and the tomatoes more coarsely. Heat olive oil in a saucepan and cook the garlic there for a few minutes and then add the tomatoes. Simmer the tomato sauce slowly, for an hour or two until it has reached an intense tomato taste. Season with fresh basil, salt and pepper, once the sauce is pretty much done.

Chop the bell pepper into generous bits and roast them brushed with olive oil in the oven until they are soft and have some roasting marks. I love this method for cooking pepper, they get so insanely sweet in the oven.

Cook the pasta al dente. I used farfalle this time, which isn't normally so frequently used by me, but it's a nice pasta shape. Once the pasta is cooked, mix it into the tomato sauce.

Place a portion of the pasta with the tomato sauce into a bowl and add the roasted pepper bits and torn mozzarella on the top. Sprinkle some fragrant olive oil also on the pasta and serve.

This is a pasta dish full of good flavours, my favourites in fact.

Have you been growing veg or herbs this year, and what would your ideal harvest meal be?

Your VegHog