Roasted garlic

Roasted garlic is one of the most beautiful things on earth, and tasty too. I love it how the garlic fragrance fills the whole house during the roasting and how butter smooth the ready article is.

Roasted garlic is not hard to make. Just cut off the top of the head of the garlic. You can also remove some of the papery outer layers. Pour olive oil on the top, close in a foil parcel and roast for about 40 minutes until the garlic is very soft.

I have recently added roasted garlic to many dishes, some of them already posted here and probably many more to come.

I'm very sorry about the brief post, but I am just absolutely knackered today. This week can only get better. I hope that you are having a good week though!

Your VegHog

Garlic and basil rolls

You already got a sneak preview to these rolls posing on the side of my Alphabet soup, and now the recipe for them will be revealed. I got the recipe from Valio's webpage here and it's developed by Riikka from Vatsasekaisin Kilinkolin, a Finnish food blog. I'm posting below my own only slightly altered version. 

The dough may seem too soft for shaping rolls, but if you're only able to roll it at that texture on a floured surface, the rolls become wonderfully soft and fluffy. First I was skeptical and wanted to add more flour, but I'm glad I didn't. However I used a slightly different rolling technique to the original. Mine might have not been as pretty, but they were so tasty that I don't care!

This recipe makes about 14 rolls.

Ingredients

250 ml milk

1 tbsp dry yeast

1 + 1 egg

1 tbsp honey

½ tsp salt

5 dl wheat flour

50 g + 50 g garlic butter

Bunch of fresh basil

Method

Mix the yeast into lukewarm milk. Add one of the eggs, honey, salt and the half of the flour and mix. Add the rest of the flour and keep kneading for about 20 minutes by hand or 10 minutes with a machine. It is a long time, but worth it. Add 50 g of the melted garlic butter towards the end of the kneading. Cover the dough with a tea towel and let it rise for about one hour.

Place the dough on a floured surface and roll it into a sheet of about 35 x 35 cm. Spread the other half of the garlic butter (not melted, only soft so it's better spreadable) on the dough and sprinkle the chopped basil onto it. Roll the dough into a long firm log, swiss roll style, and cut roll sized pieces from it. Let these rise on a baking tray under a tea towel for about 30 minutes. 

Brush the rolls with a beaten egg and bake them at 220C for about 12 minutes or until the rolls are fully baked.

Enjoy with salads, soups, pasta dishes. They are at their best when fresh from the oven.

Your VegHog

Fusilli with roasted tomatoes, mozzarella and basil-garlic sauce

Such a pasta dish, like the one I'm sharing with you today, is my go-to dish whenever I want to eat fairly quickly yet tasty or just want to have a lazy weekday meal. Tomato-mozzarella-basil-olive oil is such a winning combination that it's easy to keep it simple. The flavours work well together, the dish is tasty and quick to make – what's not to like?

This is what today's pasta dish consisted of:

Ingredients

300 g mini plum tomatoes

6 tbsp olive oil + some to be drizzled on the top of the ready dish

2 garlic cloves

A bunch of fresh basil leaves

250 g mozzarella

300 g fusilli pasta

Sea salt

I also had some shop bought garlic bread on the side.

Method

Place the whole tomatoes into an oven dish and drizzle olive oil on the top. Roast them at 180-200C for about 10 minutes until they start bursting open.

In the meanwhile boil the pasta in salt water until al dente.

Purée the garlic with the basil leaves and olive oil and set to side. This will be drizzled on top of the dish just before serving.

Tear the mozzarella. Tearing doesn't just look nice on the dish, but it also contains the moisture in the mozzarella.

Serve the pasta with the tomatoes, basil-garlic sauce, mozzarella, little sea salt and good quality olive oil. It's ready to be enjoyed!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Pasta Please challenge. Pasta Please is a monthly vegetarian cooking challenge by Tinned Tomatoes blog hosted this month by Knead Whine blog with the theme “dishes that can be on the table in twenty minutes”. I thought that my recipe fits the category, and quite often quick pasta dishes are what I choose to cook after a hectic weekday.

Your VegHog

Cooking a summer recipe off-season

I tried to defy winter today by cooking this rather summerly dish. It's light and the ingredient combination reminds of summer, so not a typical February dish today. This is just what I would imagine eating al fresco on a summer holiday.

Last Saturday I picked these lovely colourful heirloom tomatoes up from a food market, and was since then wondering what to cook with them. Then I remembered this dish that I posted in August and have made occasionally, Heirloom tomato and mozzarella pasta and made today's dish in a pretty much identical way to that. Go and have a look at the original post, if you fancy making such a dish!

This small summerly cooking and dining session at least cheered me up after a long and busy Wednesday. I also start thinking that there's actually hope that we are slowly going towards the summer, as the days are getting longer all the time. It's still chilly and we saw the first snow here yesterday, but hey, spring is bound to come soon!

I hope that everyone's having a good week!

Your VegHog

Garlic knots

It has been raining and raining and raining... A severe weather warning is a good excuse to stay in and bake and cook! I'm lucky enough to do just that this week, only going to the grocery store is the unpleasant bit. Today I'm sticking to the basics, but very tasty basics at that matter!

These garlic knots are a great side to pasta dishes, soups, stews and salads. I got the idea for them in the beautiful cookbook The Forest Feast (p. 28-29) by Erin Gleeson. I think that this book is a great purchase because of the photos and artwork alone, but the recipes are mouth watering as well. All the ones I've tried so far, have also been quite simple, which is nice.

Here is how I made the garlic knots:

Spelt pizza dough (recipe here)

2 tbsp butter

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp parsley

Roll the pizza dough into a long thin rod and tie knots from the pieces of the rod.

Bake the knots in the oven at 200C for about 15-20 minutes.

Heat the butter and finely chopped garlic in a frying pan.

Turn the knots in the pan for a couple of minutes, sprinkle some parsley on them and serve.

Your VegHog

Garlic soup

Now the evenings are getting chillier and vegetarian soups are back on the menu with vengeance. To me this garlic soup represents autumn comfort food par excellence. Only a couple of days after seeing the recipe, I cooked it. The original can be found here in the recipe collection of Valio, but it's in Finnish only. However, I followed it fairly closely and gave all the ingredients and instructions here in English.

This soup is just beautiful, but I wouldn't recommend eating it before important occasions or for example job interviews, as it is pretty garlicky! I have never chopped two whole bulbs of garlic into a dish, but this ended up being quite gentle after all that simmering.

If you started feeling like having a garlic soup topped with hot bread and cheese, this recipe is quite a good one, and it's easy as well!

Ingredients

2 garlic bulbs

2 leeks

50 g butter

2 tbsp wheat flour

1,5 l vegetable stock

2 dl dry white wine

Ground black pepper to taste

2 tl marjoram

1 baguette

150 g grated emmental

Method

Chop the garlic finely and chop the leeks into thin rings.

Heat butter in a pot and cook the garlic and leeks gently until they are soft. They must not get brown during this process.

Add the wheat flour and vegetable stock to the pot.

Then let the soup simmer for about one hour.

Season it with the white wine, black pepper and marjoram.

Toast the baguette slices with cheese in the oven and place them on the soup.

Enjoy the soup and let it warm you!

Your VegHog

Spinach, garlic and pine nut pasta salad

September has started really warm here in southern England. That means I'm having a small break from all the roasted vegetable dishes, pies etc. and making just a fresh pasta salad today. This is an ideal lunch to take with you to work or studies, I find. This is also an easy one to variate depending on what you have in your cupboards. Have a look!

Ingredients

250 g farfalle pasta

100 g spinach

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp olive oil

40 g pine nuts

30 g vegetarian pasta cheese

A few fresh basil leaves

Salt

Ground black pepper

Grated nutmeg

Method

Boil the pasta soft. I normally boil it a little bit softer than I would for a warm bowl of pasta. Otherwise when cooled, the pasta might be too firm. After boiling rinse the pasta with cold water and drain.

Chop the garlic finely and cook it soft in one tablespoon olive oil. Add the spinach and one or two tablespoons water and wilt the spinach. This takes only a few minutes. Let the pan contents cool.

Toast the pine nuts in the oven or on a dry pan.

Combine the pasta with the spinach garlic mix and the pine nuts. Season the salad with the rest of the olive oil, fresh basil leaves, salt, ground black pepper and grated nutmeg. Grate the vegetarian pasta cheese and add it to the salad.

Done!

Your VegHog

Watercress pesto

Here's a quick recipe now to have a break of all the holiday posts, this is mainly a food blog after all! This is a lovely green summer recipe.

A watercress pesto is fresh and punchy and a perfect company for a light summer pasta. It's so easy and quick to make, so there are really no excuses for not making it. These are the ingredients that I just puréed together and stirred into a pasta dish.

100 g watercress

50 g pistachios

1 garlic clove

25 g vegetarian pasta cheese

4-8 tbsp olive oil

Mix the pesto into pasta or spread it on crusty breads and enjoy with fresh vegetables.

Your VegHog

Roasted garlic courgettes

As I already told you a few posts back how I'm inspired by the vegetarian cookbook The Forest Feast by Erin Gleeson, and so is today's dish (p. 140-141 in The Forest Feast “Accordion zucchini”). This dish is quite easy to make, but so full of flavour, and a good tip for those who are growing courgettes as you always need new ideas how to cook them. This dish also looks cool in a summer party for example.

Amounts below are per one courgette, make as many as you need. I calculated about ½ courgette per person as I served these with other small dishes. Here's how I made the dish.

1 courgette

3 garlic cloves

1 tsp olive oil

Sea salt

Ground black pepper

Grated vegetarian hard cheese

Make cuts to the courgette, but don't cut it quite through the bottom.

Make thin slices of garlic and push them into the slots of the courgette.

Brush the courgettes with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper on the top and roast at 150C for about one hour.

Sprinkle the grated vegetarian hard cheese on top of the courgettes 10 minutes before the baking time ending. I had once again the good old Sussex Charmer handy. Then just enjoy!

Your VegHog

Cheesy garlic bread

There's still time to slip in one more post for May. This is more a tip how to make a quick side to salads, pasta dishes etc. The bread is not self-made, so that's what makes this such a quick and easy solution.

1 small baguette

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp olive oil

25 g butter

1 tsp parsley

25 g Sussex Charmer cheese

Make a cut into the baguette lengthwise without cutting it fully through.

Cook the finely chopped garlic in olive oil for a couple of minutes and then mix it with the butter and parsley.

Spread this garlic butter into the baguette and sprinkle grated cheese on the top.

Wrap the baguette in aluminium foil and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes and it's done!

Stay hungry! - Your VegHog

Frozen pesto cubes

When I make pesto, I tend to make a fairly large batch that I sometimes don't manage to eat in time. That's when this idea of frozen pesto cubes comes in handy: freeze the excess pesto and take it out to melt, or add to pasta sauces or pizzas whenever needed.

I prefer to make the cheeseless pesto version for freezing, just a clean basil dressing with basic ingredients. The following amounts are enough to fill a normal ice cube tray.

Ingredients

80g basil leaves

50g pine nuts

6 garlic cloves

1dl olive oil

Method

Puree all the ingredients together and pour into the slots of an ice cube tray.

Freeze.

Use whenever convenient.

Easy!

Your VegHog

Spinach, sundried tomato and pepper pasta

I thought I'd post a quick weekday pasta dish. Basically just throw everything into the pot and enjoy a nice pasta. This is how it's made.

4 sundried tomatoes

1 onion

1 yellow pepper

2-3 garlic cloves

50g baby spinach

2tbsp olive oil

2 dried red chillies

1tsp salt

½tsp black pepper

100g grated mozzarella

250g rigatoni pasta

Chop and soak the sundried tomatoes for about 15 minutes. Chop the onion, pepper, chilli and garlic.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and lightly fry the vegetables for about 15 minutes (first add onions, then pepper, garlic, chilli, sundried tomatoes and spinach). Onions should be glassy, spinach wilted and pepper tender and slightly sweetened.

Cook the pasta al dente. Add the cheese to the vegetables, and then the pasta. Just stir through and serve. That's it!

Your VegHog

 

Red onion Strudel cake

I like having all sorts of different snacks around Christmas time, so I wanted to make quite a savoury and winterly snack and came up with this idea for a red onion, thyme and cheese Strudel cake. It resembles a little bit a pull-apart bread, but then again is completely different. I wanted to call it Strudel cake because of the twirls it has. It can be served at any Christmas party and you can prepare it easily before the party as ready made puff pastry is used.

3 red onions

320g puff pastry

1 egg for brushing

Butter for greasing the cake tin

Olive oil

Sussex Charmer hard cheese (or another vegetarian hard cheese)

2-3 garlic cloves

Fresh thyme

Nettle salt (any other salt will do)

Black pepper

Heat some olive oil in a pan and sweat the chopped red onions there at low heat for about 20-30 minutes so that they already get slightly sweetened. After 15 minutes of sweating also add finely chopped garlic and continue the gentle slow cooking.

Season the onions and garlic with thyme, salt and black pepper. Set to side and allow to cool completely.

Spread out a large puff pastry sheet and place the onion mix evenly on it. This should be a fairly thin cover only. Grate the cheese and sprinkle it on the onions.

Roll the puff pastry into a firm long roll and then cut about 2cm long pieces of it. They can be cut diagonally.

Grease a cake tin with butter and place the small Strudel pieces in there so that they touch each other. Brush the cake with a beaten egg and sprinkle little thyme leaves on it.

Bake at 180C for about 40 minutes until the puff pastry is fully baked. Enjoy as a nice snack and pair with mulled wine!

Your VegHog

Pear and walnut salad

I wanted to post a fresh and quick salad on this occasion just as a change to the autumn style dishes. This salad can be enjoyed at any time of the year. A pear and walnut salad is a classic, but I wanted to make somehow a different one. I first was reluctant to use a garlic and honey vinaigrette in this salad, but it turned out to be a rather interesting choice.

The salad:

Pear

Walnuts

Rocket

Ricotta cheese

The vinaigrette:

Garlic

Olive oil

Honey

Vinegar

Salt

Make the vinaigrette first. You could also use another salad sauce for this salad or even leave it as it is as pear is quite a juicy fruit.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the finely chopped garlic. Add honey and vinegar and simmer for a while. Add salt and the vinaigrette is done. Add more of any ingredient depending on the taste.

Roast the walnuts in a dry pan for a few minutes. Peel the pear and make thin shavings of it with a peeling knife. There are quite many possibilities to present the pear, but this time I decided to make the thin shavings.

Mix the rocket leaves with the vinaigrette and place them on a plate. Put the walnuts, pear and ricotta on the top and the salad is ready to be enjoyed. Easy!

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Rosemary, garlic and mozzarella spelt crust pizza

My aim was to make a very different kind of pizza than I would usually do, so I ended up making a fully new type of crust and a tomato-free filling. On that note I'm not sure whether it should be called a pizza or not. It would work well as a side bread to a pasta dish or a salad as well. I chose to use spelt flour in the crust, which made a very tasty and crispy crust. My recipe makes either 2 small thin crust pizzas or one larger one.

Ingredients

The crust:

100g wheat flour

100g spelt flour

7g dry yeast

175ml warm water

1tsp salt

2tbsp olive oil

The filling:

Fresh rosemary

1 cloveless garlic

Mozzarella balls

Lemon juice

Chili flakes

Olive oil

Prepare the dough for the crust first. Mix the dry ingredients together and add the warm water. Knead to an even dough and add more flour or water if needed. Finally add olive oil to finish off the kneading. Let the dough rise under a tea towel for about one hour. There's not much to prepare for the filling, so you can just rest most of the time while your dough is rising. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

Once your dough is ready roll it out on a baking tray. Brush the surface with olive oil. You can even use some homemade rosemary oil for this. Then place the garlic shavings and rosemary leaves on the crust. I used cloveless garlic for this and shaved thin slices of it with a peeling knife. Add the mozzarella balls and press little lemon juice on the pizza. Sprinkle some chili flakes on the top. Bake for about 10 minutes until the crust is crispy.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog