Carrot-cauliflower-lentil soup

I've been meaning to make a carrot and cauliflower soup for a while now, all last winter basically, but only just managed to make one on my holiday in Finland. My mum was at work and I wanted to make a light yet nutritious dinner for all of us once she would be back, so I decided to make a soup. I used carrots, cauliflower and red lentils as main ingredients in this and it turned out to be quite comforting. The addition of cottage cheese for serving was also a nice one. I love the firm and grainy Finnish style cottage cheese, very different to the more moist British style. Here is the simple recipe.

Ingredients

5 carrots

1 small cauliflower

1 large onion

1 cloveless garlic

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1,5 l water

1 vegetable stock cube

1 cup red lentils

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Cottage cheese for serving (optional)

Method

Chop the carrot and cauliflower into pieces and the onion and garlic finely.

Start cooking them in oil until they are slightly glazed.

Add the water, vegetable stock cube and the red lentils and let simmer until the components are soft.

Season and purée.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Roasted potatoes and carrots with tofu cutlets

Sunday is the perfect day to enjoy a vegan half roast dish and half fresh dish. I combined some tofu cutlets with roasted potatoes, roasted carrots, steamed garden peas and fresh pea shoots and tomatoes. It was a good and colourful combination and went down well. Here is how I made it.

Ingredients

500 g potatoes

Olive oil

Smoked paprika

Salt

2 large carrots

Olive oil

Salt

2 spelt and hazelnut tofu cutlets

1 onion

1 garlic clove

Olive oil

Fresh garden peas

Pea shoots

Tomatoes

Method

Brush the potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle smoked paprika and salt on the top. Roast in the oven until nicely roasted.

Peel and slice the carrots and roast them in the same fashion as the potatoes.

Pan fry the tofu cutlets (or an alternative vegan Schnitzel). Also fry onion rings and finely chopped garlic in the pan.

Remove the fresh garden peas from their pods and steam them.

Serve the components together with fresh pea shoots and tomatoes and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pea and carrot pilaf

Time for a solid weekday cooking with ingredients I happened to had and had to cook in order not to waste them. Cooking is a creative process and I also hate to throw vegetables out, so I always try to utilise everything and make up dishes, if need be. It's a good thing to do especially before the weekend, as there will probably be some eating out or fancier dishes then. I had these great fresh garden peas in the pods and thought they would be a good ingredient for a vegan rice pilaf type of a dish. So then I created this pea and carrot pilaf.

I'm sharing this recipe with Shaheen's vegetarian cooking challenge Eat Your Greens for this month. She is a fellow vegetarian blogger and has a wonderful blog called A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. Do check it out, if you don't know it yet! I realised that September is drawing to a close (!) and that I should quickly post a greenish dish to participate. So here's my pilaf recipe, have a look how I made it.  

 

Ingredients

1 cup fresh garden peas

1 romano pepper

2 carrots

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

200 g rice (mix of brown basmati, red camargue and wild rice)

2 tbsp vegetable stock powder

Ground cumin

Thyme

Salt

Ground black pepper

Method

Remove the peas from the pods.

Chop the romano pepper, carrots, onion and garlic finely and start cooking them in olive oil.

After a while, add the rice and peas followed by vegetable stock powder and water to cover it all.

Let simmer until the rice is done.

Season to taste and serve.

So easy and good, enjoy!

Your VegHog

Kohlrabi and carrot sticks with hummus

I haven't just been tasting whiskys (previous post), I've also had a taste of healthy life with lunches such as this assembly of kohlrabi and carrot sticks. I love all sorts of vegetable sticks enjoyed with homemade hummus. Onto this plate I also added some homegrown tomatoes. Do you often enjoy such light lunches? I should definitely do it more often.

Somehow I never seem to get kohlrabi in this country. What's up with that? So now that I saw these beautiful specimen in my local health food store, I just had to grab a few. I hope they'll have them for a while yet, because I really got into the taste again. I prefer them eaten raw with a dip, that is just divine.

By the way, how do you like my hiding deer?

Have a great start to the weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Couscous with red lentils and roasted carrots

This dish has everything I want from an easy weekday dish. It's simple, quick, cheap, tasty, fairly light and on top of it all, it's vegan! Those are the things I tend to appreciate most after a long day at work. Cooking is a relaxing method for me, but sometimes I just need to get the food ready quicker with less hassle. This week this was my Monday evening dinner and here's how I made it.

Ingredients

6 medium carrots

1+1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp sunflower seeds

3 tbsp pumpkin seeds

1 cup couscous

1 vegetable stock cube

½ cup red lentils

2 shallots

3 garlic cloves

1-2 tsp ras el hanout

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Cut the carrots into about 2cm long thin sticks, brush them with olive oil and roast in the oven until soft.

Toast the seeds in the oven.

Cook the couscous in water with the vegetable stock cube and also cook the lentils separately.

Chop the shallots and garlic cloves finely and start cooking them in olive oil.

Once they are softened, add the lentils, spices, couscous, seeds and carrots.

Serve warm as a main or a side. This isn't too bad cold either.

Your VegHog

Red fritters

I don't use beetroot enough in cooking even though it's a brilliant colouring agent. At least it coloured these fritters nice and red. I found these Fritters made of sweet potato, carrot and beetroot quite tasty and a nice colour addition to a plate. They are pretty basic grated vegetable fritters and my recipe is below.

Ingredients

1 sweet potato

1 beetroot

1 carrot

1 onion

2 eggs

6-8 tbsp wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Grate the sweet potato, beetroot and carrot and chop the onion finely. Combine them in a bowl.

Add the eggs and flour and stir into an even mix.

Season the mix and heat vegetable oil in a frying pan.

Shape fritters on the pan and fry them on both sides for a few minutes until done.

Remove any excess oil with a kitchen roll.

Then the fritters are ready to be served.

Your VegHog

 

Roasted cauliflower and carrot soup

The weather here is still acting weird. There have been some warm days, but then suddenly cold winds and rains have appeared from out of nowhere. This means that soups are still very much wanted by me when I get home after a long day. This one is a very easy vegan soup made with tasty ingredients. Have a look how ridiculously simple it is. As a little twist I decided to roast the cauliflower and carrots.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower

2 carrots

1 shallot

2 garlic cloves

3 tbsp olive oil

1 l vegetable stock

1 tsp sage

1 tsp salt

½ ground black pepper

Method

Cut the carrots and cauliflower into pieces, brush them with olive oil and roast in the oven until soft.

In the meanwhile chop the shallot and garlic finely. Once the vegetables are roasted, start cooking the chopped shallot and garlic in olive oil. When they are soft, add the roasted vegetables and the vegetable stock to the saucepan.

Season the soup with sage, salt and pepper and simmer under lid until the flavours have blended nicely. Purée into a smooth soup and serve warm. That's all!

Your VegHog

Vegan Schnitzel with potato mash, roasted baby carrots and creamy mushroom sauce

It is possible to make a really filling vegan meal, for example something like this vegan Schnitzel with potato mash and creamy mushroom sauce. The vegan Schnitzel are shop bought, but everything else is made from scratch. The creaminess to the sauce comes from oat cream, a great vegan ingredient. Have a look how easy it can be to get absolutely stuffed from a vegan meal.

Ingredients

4 vegan Schnitzel

1 kg potatoes

2 tbsp margarine

4 tbsp soya milk

1 tsp salt

10 baby carrots

2 tbsp olive oil

200 g baby chestnut mushrooms

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

250 ml oat cream

Method

Boil the peeled potatoes for the mash for about 30 minutes, mash and add margarine, soya milk and salt.

Brush the baby carrots with olive oil and roast in the oven until nicely browned.

Chop the mushrooms into thin slices and the shallots and garlic finely. Heat olive oil in a pan and fry the shallots and garlic until soft. Add the mushroom slices and cook for further 5 minutes. Then add the oat cream and let simmer for about 15 minutes until the cream has been infused with lovely mushroom flavour.

Heat the Schnitzel in the oven for a more low-fat result.

Combine the components on a plate and serve. Maybe something green could also be added to this meal.

And have a great weekend!

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

Spelt and carrot mini rolls

Happy July everyone! It's a really nice day here, so the month seems to start well. I'm only stuck indoors now waiting for a delivery. Hopefully it arrives soon so that I can go out a bit.

I made these spelt and carrot mini rolls after I harvested some of my small and funny looking purple carrots and thought they would be perfect in some rolls. The spots of the purple colour look quite funny on the rolls, but of course also regular carrots can be used for this recipe. Due to their smaller size, these are nice to be snacked with bits of cheese or just on their own. I have already posted a similar recipe, my spelt flake and cider rolls, but somehow I thought that these were possibly nicer. I'll let you be the judge of that, if you make both rolls.

This is the recipe for about 20 spelt and carrot mini rolls.

Ingredients

1 carrot

300 ml dry cider (I used organic Black Fox cider)

2 tbsp dry yeast

2 dl spelt flakes + a few more for sprinkling on the top

5 dl spelt flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

50 g butter

Method

Grate the carrot. Warm the cider lukewarm and add the yeast, spelt flakes and grated carrot in there. Melt the butter and mix the spelt flour, sugar and salt.

Combine all the ingredients, knead to a dough and let it rise for one hour. It's perfectly sufficient to knead just with a spatula, you don't necessarily have to knead by hand.

Then shape small rolls from the dough and place them on a baking tray. Sprinkle some more spelt flakes on the top and let them rise for further 30 minutes under a teatowel.

Bake the rolls at 200C for about 15-20 minutes until fully baked. Serve with cheese, butter or soft cheese when they are still warm.

Your VegHog

Carrot bagels

I'm back home and to my own kitchen. It's a bit easier cooking here as I know where everything is and know about the oven temperatures etc. It was very good being on a small holiday back in Finland though and I returned with a suitcase full of Finnish food and drinks, some of which you will surely see here in my blog. And people outside of Finland, remember that most of these classics can be purchased online, if something catches your eye. So, now to today's  easy breakfast recipe.

Quite often I bake carrot rolls, but this was my first time making carrot bagels. To be fair, the middle holes closed during the baking almost fully, so are these rolls after all? Anyway, it's the thought that counts, and smaller holes make the bagels easier to fill, right? If you've never tried carrot rolls or carrot bread, I would really encourage you to do so. Carrot adds a lovely little flavour and colour to baked goods.

I found this recipe on the good pages of Valio rated as easy to make and a good baking idea to make with kids (only in Finnish again). They made 20 small bagels with this recipe, but I got 14 somewhat larger ones as the end result.

Here are the ingredients and instructions.

250 ml milk

½ tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp dry yeast

1 carrot

550 ml wheat flour

50 ml melted butter

Grate the carrot finely with a cheese grater. Warm the milk lukewarm and mix in the salt, sugar and dry yeast.

Add the grated carrot to the dough. Then also add the flour and butter. Mix into a soft dough. Let it rise for about 40 minutes.

Divide the dough into small sections and shape rolls from it. Let the round rolls rise on a baking tray under a teatowel for further 15 minutes.

Make a 3cm wide hole in the middle of the rolls by stretching the dough.

Bake at 225C for about 12 minutes and serve with butter, cheese, tomato, cucumber or whatever you may desire.

Your VegHog

Pearled spelt with broccoli

Here's my last holiday dish for now, but do not worry, the next holiday is already booked. Tomorrow I'll have to leave the beautiful banks of Kyrönjoki and return to England, so today I made this pearled spelt dish with carrot and broccoli and I also visited the lovage bush again. Here are the instructions for making this dish.

Ingredients

1 broccoli

2 onions

1 cloveless garlic

1 carrot

2 dl pearled spelt

4-6 large lovage leaves

1 litre water

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 tbsp rapeseed oil

Method

Chop the onions and garlic finely. Cut small dices of the carrot. Cook the onions and garlic in a pan in rapeseed oil until soft and then add the carrots and cook for further 5 minutes. Heat the water in a separate pot with coarsely chopped lovage leaves.

Add the spelt to the pan and then about a third of the lovage water. Let cook for about 15 minutes and keep adding more water. Finally add the broccoli florets and the seasoning and let simmer until everything is cooked nicely.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

 

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pies are just delightful: under a rich, creamy potato lid hides a savoury bean and vegetable mix. I have made a few such pies, as a friend of mine has taught me how to make them, but I think that this could be my favourite one. I made the potato mash a little bit more interesting by adding smoky cheese to it.

I can't believe how cool the weather is at the moment again, so any pie is welcome to me. This recipe makes a proud amount of pie, either one large oven dish or 4-6 smaller ramekins. Follow these instructions to make this pie.

1 kg potatoes

25 g butter

1 tsp salt

50 g smoky cheddar

1 cup dried green lentils

1 cup dried mixed beans

4-5 medium shallots

1 tbsp olive oil

2 carrots

4-5 garlic cloves

300 ml dry cider

200 ml vegetable stock

25 g dried porcini mushrooms

2 bay leaves

1 tbsp miso

½ tsp ground black pepper

Soak the beans overnight, if you're also using dried ones (Tinned ones would be ready to go). Boil them heavily for about 15 minutes and then lightly for about an hour. It's a good idea to read the instructions on the packet, as the boiling length depends on the beans.

Rinse the lentils and boil them also for about 20 minutes. Break the porcini mushrooms slightly and soak them for about ten minutes.

Peel the potatoes and boil them in water until soft and mash them. Add the butter, salt and smoky cheddar to make a smooth mash.

Chop the shallots, garlic and carrots finely (carrots into small cubes) and cook them in olive oil for about 10 minutes. Add the cooked and drained beans and lentils with the porcini to the pan.

Then add the cider and let it evaporate. Finally add the bay leaves and vegetable stock and let simmer for a further 15 minutes at least.

Season with miso, salt and black pepper to achieve a savoury mix. Remove the bay leaves before baking.

Place the bean mix into a large oven dish or into small ramekins and top with the smoky potato mash. Little butter can be added to the top. Bake at 175C for about 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown and enjoy warm.

Your VegHog

Curried cauliflower and lentil soup

I don't know what's going on, but the weather is playing crazy here in England. One minute it's warm and sunny, and then heavy rain and wind the next. Well, I guess that basically is what you'd call an English weather. This can only mean one thing: soup time for The VegHog!

This recipe is not very much originally Indian apart from the spices, but I think that it's sometimes nice to make a comforting curried soup, and all these vegetables go perfectly with the curry flavours. So here are my simple making instructions.

Ingredients

2 shallots

3 garlic cloves

1 small dried chilli

1tbsp vegetable oil

2tbsp Garam Masala spice mix

4 small potatoes

2 carrots

1 cauliflower

About 1l water

1 cup dried red lentils

Fresh coriander leaves

1-2tsp ground turmeric

Naan bread for serving

Method

First make your Garam Masala spice mix (you can also use a ready made one, but making it from scratch is fun!). My instructions for making it are here.

Chop the shallots, garlic and chilli finely and cook them in the vegetable oil in a large saucepan until soft. Peel the potatoes and carrots and chop them coarsely and remove the cauliflower florets.

Add the Garam Masala to the saucepan and then the chopped potatoes, carrots and cauliflower florets. Cook for a few minutes and then add about 2/3 of the water (you can add more later depending on the desired thickness) and the rinsed lentils. Let the soup simmer under lid until all vegetables are fully cooked and the flavour has developed in the desired way. Stir the soup occasionally. Season with fresh coriander leaves and turmeric to taste.

Once everything is cooked and you're happy with the seasoning, purée the soup. Then serve it warm with warm naan bread on the side and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Wild mushrooms on sweet potato and carrot spaghetti

The whole clue of this dish is that the spaghetti is no pasta, but made of sweet potato and carrot strings instead. Combined with the creamy wild mushrooms it makes quite a nice and earthy meal. I was inspired to make this after seeing Nigel Slater's recipe for Mushroom ragout and root vegetable pappardelle.

Ingredients

40g dried wild mushrooms

3 small shallots

3 garlic cloves

2tbsp olive oil

1 large sweet potato

2 carrots

1tbsp fresh sage

½tbsp thyme

2tsp vegetable stock powder + 200ml water

250ml oat cream

½tsp ground black pepper

½tsp salt

Method

Peel the sweet potato and the carrots and cut them with a vegetable cutter into thin matchstick strings resembling spaghetti.

Soak the dried mushrooms in water for about 10 minutes.

Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan and quickly toss the string vegetables through. Prepare the vegetable stock and add it to the pan and let simmer until cooked al dente.

Chop the shallots and garlic and start sweating them in olive oil in another pan. Add the drained mushrooms into the pan and cook for about 5 minutes more. Then add the cream and let simmer for further 10 minutes infusing the cream with the strong mushroom taste. Add some of the mushroom soaking water, if you want even more intense taste (you can add some of that into the vegetable stock as well). Season to taste with sage, thyme, black pepper and salt.

Combine the sauce with the fake spaghetti or just serve it on the top of them.

Enjoy! ~ Your VegHog

Red lentil and carrot soup

Here's an easy, cheap and convenient recipe for the winter: vegan red lentil and carrot soup. This is one of my basic soup creations, but I think it's very tasty and filling as well. Look how easy it is to make!

2 onions

2-3 garlic cloves

2tbsp olive oil

3 carrots

2 cups red split lentils

2tbsp vegetable stock powder + 1,5l water

1tsp salt

1tsp black pepper

Sage

Thyme

Chop the onions and garlic small. Peel and chop the carrots. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and sweat the onions and garlic for a few minutes. Add the carrots and sweat some more.

Prepare the vegetable stock by combining the vegtable stock powder with water, and pour the half of it into the saucepan. Rinse the lentils and add them to the pan and let boil for a few minutes. Then reduce the heat slightly and add some more vegetable stock. Add more of the vegetable stock whenever needed and also depending on the desired thickness of the soup.

Let the soup simmer until the carrots and lentils are fully cooked and season it with salt, ground black pepper, sage and thyme. Then just puree it with a hand mixer. Taste, and add more seasoning if needed.

I told you it was going to be easy! Then just enjoy the warm soup with a nice bread. On this occasion I baked again my cider bread to be eaten with the soup.

Your VegHog

Potato casserole with honey-glazed carrots and steamed purple sprouting broccoli

The sweetened potato casserole is one of the traditional Finnish vegetarian Christmas dishes. It takes a long time to prepare as the resting time is long, but it's worth the wait as that's when the casserole gets its special sweetness. You can prepare this well in advance and freeze for Christmas. I have combined the casserole today with some simple sides: honey-glazed baby carrots and steamed purple sprouting broccoli. These will all make nice additions to any veggie Christmas.

The sweetened potato casserole (1 large or 4 small ramekins):

1,5kg potatoes

About 2dl cooking water of the potatoes

4tbsp flour

200ml milk

3tbsp butter

2tsp maple syrup

1tsp salt

Peel and boil the potatoes until soft and save about 2dl of the cooking water. Mash the potatoes and let them cool slightly. Place the mash into an oven dish and add the flour and the cooking water to make a smooth mash. Cover the dish with foil and let stand in a warm place for about four hours. I put mine to the oven at 50C. This is the phase when the mash gets sweetened.

After this has been done, add the milk, melted butter and syrup, and season with salt. Then either use a large oven dish to make one casserole or divide the mix into four small ramekins. Don't fill the dishes fully as the casserole will move while heating and could easily boil over.

Bake the casserole at 150C for about 2 hours. After this treatment you should be left with a soft and sweetened casserole that can be combined with any veggie dishes.

The honey-glazed baby carrots:

150g baby topped carrots

1tbsp honey

3tbsp butter

50ml vegetable stock

Fresh thyme

Heat butter in a pan and quickly saute the carrots in there. Add vegetable stock and bring it to a light boil. Then add the honey and thyme and continue cooking until the carrots are al dente – not too soft and not too hard either. That's at least how I like them best.

The steamed purple sprouting broccoli:

230g purple sprouting broccoli

Steam the purple sprouting broccoli for about 10 minutes until they are also al dente. Take care that they don't get too soft.

Serve all components together for nice sweet and savoury flavours and combine with a nice wine. Enjoy!

Your VegHog