Winter gardening

I thought I'd make a small update to urban winter gardening, although it's fairly quiet at the moment as all growing is limited to indoors.

Some of my herbs aren't doing so brilliantly due to the dark winter. The monster basil is still alive and well, though. It's always so handy to have fresh herbs ready to season food, so I hope they start doing better soon again.

The chili is still growing and producing a lot of small chilies. I have just hung another batch to dry and the dried chilies will become really handy in cooking.

I have planned to sow some radishes soon, and possibly some other early veg. I dried the radish seeds from my own last summer's produce, so it will be all exciting when the next generation starts appearing.

I hope that the sun comes out soon, and I can start working on my tiny balcony garden. Please share what you are growing at the moment and what big plans you have for the spring and summer!

Your VegHog

Green pancakes with lime butter

This January feels like the longest month ever, and I have been quite busy. It's nice to be able to relax with cooking and blogging a bit, and thank goodness it's Saturday. 

I have been looking for inspiration and ideas in my cook books and online, and have been reading Yotam Ottolenghi's vegetarian cookery book Plenty a lot. I have tried quite a few recipes from that book, and none of them have disappointed so far. A recipe that I saw in this book and altered slightly, Crusted harlequin squash wedges, is at the moment my most read post, so it must be a sign.

Also today I decided to try out one of his recipes, and this one is a real winner. Today's recipe is for absolutely fabulous green pancakes with spinach, spring onions and chili. (The recipe is also online here.) You know that I'm quite cautious with spices, so I reduced the chili amount from Ottolenghi's original a bit, and I didn't have any fresh coriander leaves handy either. Otherwise I followed the original instructions pretty closely. If you're planning to cook this, definitely also read through Ottolenghi's recipe and tips.

Lime butter:

100 g butter

1 lime (zest grated and 2 tbsp lime juice)

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp white pepper

1 small garlic clove

¼ tsp chili flakes

This lime butter is a spectacular one! Remember this for the future as well when you need a seasoned butter, and when wouldn't you? Only a couple of simply steps are needed for making it.

Grate the lime zest and press the juice, also chop the garlic. Beat the butter at room temperature and then add the other ingredients to it.

Shape a sausage shape of the butter and let it rest in the fridge. This is that one done, and you can advance to pancake making.

Pancakes:

250 g spinach

110 g self-raising flour

1 tbsp baking powder

2 eggs

50 g butter

½ tsp salt

1 tsp ground cumin

150 ml milk

6 spring onions

1 green chili

Olive oil for frying

Chop the spring onions and chilies finely, and wilt the spinach in a pan with little water. 

Drain the spinach and chop it small as well.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, eggs, melted butter, salt, cumin and milk into a batter, and then also add the spring onions, chili and spinach and whisk some more.

Heat olive oil in a pan and fry the pancakes for a few minutes on each side until they are crispy and golden brown and cooked fully through.

For serving place some of the lime butter on the top and enjoy this goodness! I love it!

Your VegHog

Vegetable chili

A spicy chili made with a variety of vegetables is a great dish, especially for this time of the year. It doesn't require much technical skill, you can just let it simmer and only need to remember to stir sometimes. I used black beans as the main component, and to make the chili even simpler I chose to use the canned ones. I like to serve my chili with rice to get a neutral taste to balance the spiciness out.

This is how to make a vegetable chili.

2 bell peppers

4 onions

2 cloveless garlics

800g black beans (2 cans)

140g tomato puree

450g santini tomatoes

1 yellow chili

Juice of one lime

Fresh coriander leaves

2tsp paprika

2tsp cumin

1tsp cocoa powder

1tbsp vegetable stock powder

1tsp salt

Olive oil

100g red leicester cheese

1 cup rice

First of all chop the bell peppers, chili, onion and garlic and heat some olive oil in a suitable large pot. Fry the onion until soft, then add the garlic, chili and peppers and fry for another minute or two. Add the cumin, paprika, cocoa powder, black beans, tomato puree and tomatoes to the mix.

Let it simmer under the lid at moderate heat for about 20 minutes and stir occasionally. At some point start boiling the rice as well.

Season the chili with the juice of a lime, vegetable stock powder and salt. Taste to check whether the seasoning is right for you.

When the chili is almost done, add the fresh coriander leaves and the grated cheese. Serve hot with the rice.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Honey glazed flying saucer squash with chipotle chili mash

This post is related to my #iwanttobelieve campaign and thereby also to yesterday's post. I'm using the other half of my funny flying saucer squash today. Please read more about it and have a look at the Flying saucer squash pies.

This dish is a great mix of sweet and spicy and smoky. I think that the honey glaze works very nicely with squash accentuating its natural sweetness, and chipotle and smoky cheese make a great extra flavour to a potato mash.

For the squash

½ flying saucer squash

2tbsp olive oil

2tbsp honey

About 10 fresh sage leaves

1tsp sea salt

For the mash

500g potatoes

1 dried chipotle chili

1 garlic clove

100g Applewood smoked Cheddar

1tsp sea salt / chipotle sea salt

Butter

Cut the squash into generous wedges along the star shapes of it. There's no need to peel it. Place the wedges into an oven dish and brush them lightly all over with olive oil. Roast them at 180-200C for about 30 minutes and sometimes turn them over.

Now also start the mash. Peel the potatoes and boil them in salted water until they are done, in approximately 30 minutes. Chop the chipotle and garlic finely and grate the cheese.

Prepare the glaze for the squash. Pour honey into a bowl and add about one tablespoon olive oil to it. Chop the sage finely and add it and and salt to the bowl.

When the squash is already mainly roasted, glaze it with the honey mix and put back into the oven for further 20 minutes or until you are happy with the glazing and the squash. Also now keep turning the wedges over occasionally and brush more glaze on them if needed.

Heat some butter in a pan and lightly fry the garlic and chipotle in there. When the potatoes are boiled, mash them and add the garlic, chili, salt and cheese to them. Mix to a smooth texture.

Serve the squash with the mash and enjoy! Happy Halloween everyone!

Your VegHog

Chili and walnut pasta

I recently bought this lovely vegetarian cookbook Alice Hart's Vegetarian. As I bought my copy in Germany mine is called Gemüse satt! This book has so many inspirational and tempting recipes. I want to try so many of them. The first recipe I tried from this book was the rigatoni pasta with chili and walnuts (p. 166-167) as a quick weekday supper. I cut a couple of corners, such as using dried thyme, and that's why mine looks a bit pale. However I can assure you that it was absolutely delicious and very easy to make. I'm certain I will make this many times more in the future.

This is my way of making this dish.

Ingredients

250g rigatoni pasta

150g walnuts

1 garlic clove

1 red chili

1tsp thyme (use fresh thyme if possible)

5tbsp vegetarian pasta cheese

Olive oil

Salt

Ground black pepper

Method

Roast the walnuts in a dry pan and chop them smaller after the roasting. Chop the chili and garlic finely and heat them in a pan with some olive oil at low heat. Grate some vegetarian pasta cheese and add it and thyme to the pan. Remove the pan from heat and add the walnuts, salt and pepper to it.

Boil the pasta until it's al dente. Add couple of tablespoons of the boiling water to the walnuts. Mix the walnut mix with the pasta and the dish is ready to be served.

Your VegHog

Garden salad with chili oil dressing

I made this salad as a side salad and am revealing in tomorrow's post what I served it with. Some of these ingredients came from my own balcony garden: the radish pods and the chilies for the chili oil. If you let radish grow to seed you can then harvest fresh pods that taste exquisite. I'm planning to dry some of them as well in order to get seeds for next year. Radish is a brilliant balcony plant as all of its parts are edible. I have already posted some radish recipes and will be posting more, for example salads featuring radish flowers.

I made my own chili oil about a month ago and let it infuse in a closed bottle since then. I just added four red chilies and some chili flakes into a small bottle and filled it up with olive oil and now it has become nice and spicy chili oil. It's perfectly okay to use a ready made chili oil as well for this dressing.

The salad:

Lettuce

Red chard

Edible flower petals

Pea shoots

Radish shoots

Radish pods

Wash the ingredients and trim off the hard ends of the radish pods and place them into a salad bowl.

The dressing:

3tbsp chili oil

2tbsp cider vinegar

Ground black pepper

Herb salt

Mix the oil and vinegar and add pepper and salt to it. Then shake it in a small sealable container or a bottle. Sprinkle the dressing on the salad and mix.

Enjoy as just a fresh salad or combine with a variety of summer foods. As promised my serving suggestion will be published tomorrow.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

The VegHog's classic bean burger

This is in fact an old recipe from The VegHog's archive and it's a simple recipe for a basic bean burger. I'm looking into developing it further and have a few other variations but please try this one as well.

The preparation starts on the previous day if you use dried red kidney beans as they need to be soaked. Otherwise these are very easy to make.

Ingredients

1 cup dried red kidney beans

1 onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

1 chili

2 eggs

Bread crumbs

Salt

Pepper

Oil

Method

Soak the dried beans overnight and on the next day you can start with the actual burger making. First heavily boil the beans for about 15 minutes and then boil at lower heat for about one hour until they are fully soft. Then mash the cooked beans.

While the beans are boiling you can finely chop the onion, garlic and chili and mix them to the beans. Also season the mix with salt and pepper. I used a homegrown dried red chili and although it was tiny it was quite spicy. Let the burger mix cool down as otherwise you'll have difficulty shaping the burgers and keeping them together.

Once the mix is cooled down prepare a production line with a plate with beaten egg on it and another one with bread crumbs. Then heat a generous amount of vegetable oil in a pan. Shape a burger of the dough, roll it in the beaten egg and bread crumbs and fry from both sides until golden brown. Repeat these steps as long as you have bean mix left.

Serve with lovely buns, cheese and tomato or however you would like. Also have a look at my previous veggie burger recipes and tips how to make this vegan.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Chili and Cheddar muffins

Savoury muffins are rather great and quirky but also easy to make. With the spiciness of these you could easily surprise your friends.

Makes about 15 muffins:

150g Butter

3 Eggs

3dl Flour

3tsp Baking powder

1tsp Salt

1/2dl Milk

2dl Grated chili Cheddar

Packet of chili soft cheese

Grate the cheese. Instead of the chili Cheddar also regular Cheddar or some other cheese could be used and fresh or dried chili added to the mix.

Mix the eggs and cheese with a hand mixer. Mix the dry ingredients together and add them to the cheese mix with the melted butter and milk. Mix it all to an even paste, which would look like a normal muffin dough but only taste savoury.

Put the paste into muffin cases up to approximately the middle and bake at 200C for about 20 minutes when the muffins have risen and received some golden brown colour.

Let the muffins cool down and top them with a soft cheese icing. Squirt soft cheese through an icing gun on the top of the muffins. The icing can also be left out as the muffins are quite cheesy and tasty even without it.

Happy baking moments!

Your VegHog

Homegrown

It's the best thing ever if you have your own garden and are able to grow your own vegetables but there's something rewarding in just growing herbs on your window sill. The VegHog is a flat dweller but that doesn't stop it from having fresh herbs and chili around. Its humble chili plantage has given it many chilies to use either fresh or dried.

Fresh herbs are so nice and flavoursome for seasoning different dishes and so easy to grow. You can either buy them in a grown state or buy the seeds. Sometimes however the ready grown supermarket herbs won't last that long.

Spring is coming sooner or later, so I have planted something new indoors and have plans for moving them to the balcony when it gets warmer. I will be growing wild strawberries, herbs, chili, cherry tomatoes and beans. Hopefully I'll be able to harvest some of them later in the year. Watch this space!

Happy planting moments!

Your VegHog

Tomato and chili macaroni bake

This is a quick pasta bake for a weekday dinner, which doesn't require loads of ingredients, time or effort. It tastes good nevertheless. I usually find pasta bakes almost better than pasta dishes as the bakes are covered in melted cheese!

You'll need:

Macaroni

1 Onion

1 Chili

4-6 Tomatoes

2 Garlic cloves

Emmentaler grated

Fresh basil leaves

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Do so:

Pre-boil the macaroni until slightly tougher than al dente. They will cook further in the oven at a later stage.

Chop the tomatoes, onion, garlic and chili and grate the cheese.

Heat a little oil in a pan and fry the chopped onion first. When it is translucent add the tomatoes, and after a while frying and stirring, the garlic and chili. 

Season with salt, pepper and basil.

Add the macaroni to the sauce, stir through and put it all into an oven dish. Place grated cheese on the top and bake at 175C for about 20-30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog