Roasted veg, chickpeas, tempeh and tahini sauce

My apologies for the quiet blog once again. I don’t seem to have much energy for blogging at the moment and my daily dishes aren’t that inspiring. Last weekend was cold and icy and we still had proper snow in the week, but today it looks quite different. It’s a little bit cloudy at +4C and we are of course heading to the market soon, as there’s not much else to do on the weekends. There is of course a lovely vegetable and flower market, but also take away food and drinks in the market halls. You are not allowed to consume any food or drink on the premises, but there is also a nice nearby park. Now to my dish.

The title kind of says it all. I roasted some potatoes, squash and carrots and added chickpeas and fried soy-glazed spicy tempeh to it. I made a tahini-lemon sauce that was sprinkled on the dish and there I had it, a tray full of goodness. I took inspiration from Yotam Ottolenghi’s traybakes for this dish. I’ve also been very inspired by the Danish tempeh that is now easily accessible here in the supermarkets. It’s locally produced, made from split peas and lupin beans and such a nice quality. I always have some in my freezer these days.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog 

 

Lentil rice with roasted cauliflower and tahini sauce

 

I’ve had a busy weekend with cleaning and baking, as we had guests over last night. I made various veggie snacks for them and they went down a treat. Now I’m a bit tired today and just planning to take it easy and go for a little stroll in town. It’s a sunny day, so this seems like a good idea. What are you all up to?

Here is just a quick post of a recent dish. I made this vegan bowl of lentil rice with small pieces of spaghetti, roasted cauliflower, crispy baked tofu and tahini-lemon sauce. I just love this sort of bowls of food, as they are so comforting, but also a bit healthy.

Have a nice Sunday!

Your VegHog

 

Turkish bread with veggie pieces and cabbage

When I lived in Germany I used to get some fluffy Turkish bread everywhere, but now I haven't been seeing them around much. I started missing this type of bread so much that I decided to make my own. I consulted my cookbooks, but those recipes didn't quite feel right. Then I came across the Lazy Cat Kitchen blog and their No-Knead Turkish bread. The recipe seemed very straight forward, so I gave it a go, and it turned out to be very good indeed. I would advise you to follow that recipe, if you want a loaf of Turkish bread.

I thought that it would be nice to have some easy veggies with a tahini sauce with this bread, and of course I had to choose the protein. I used Astrid och Aporna's fake chicken pieces, which are so good. They are bouncy, as they are pre-fried, but also juicy. The veggie pieces are made of mixed seitan and soy. I marinated them with a blood orange marinade, as I've been having a lot of blood oranges lately. You can substitute them with any other nice veggie pieces.

This is otherwise a really quick dish, but of course the bread baking takes the most time and effort. However it's of course very much worth it. See here, how I made this dish, and have a good Sunday!

Turkish bread with veggie pieces and cabbage

Turkish bread

Lazy Cat Kitchen's No-Knead Turkish bread

Marinade for the veggie pieces

½ blood orange's juice

1 tsp maple syrup

½ tsp sea salt

½ tsp smoked paprika

½ tsp ground cumin

Other ingredients

300 g veggie pieces

2 shallots

1 garlic clove

½ red cabbage

Fresh coriander leaves

Oil for frying

Optional hummus to be served on the side

Tahini sauce

4 tbsp tahini

1 lemon's juice

1 tbsp water

1 tsp sea salt

½ tsp smoked paprika

Method

I marinated the veggie pieces in a blood orange marinade first. Mix the ingredients for the marinade together and roll the veggie pieces in the marinade. Cover the bowl and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Make the bread.

Mix the ingredients for the tahini sauce and set it to side. This will be sprinkled on the veggie pieces later on.

Chop the cabbage into thin strips, and also chop the shallots and garlic finely. Fry them briefly in hot oil, and then also add the veggie pieces to the pan. My pieces were pre-fried, so they just needed heating up.

Sprinkle some fresh coriander leaves and the tahini sauce on the top of the mix, and serve it with the bread and some hummus.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Green tahini cauliflower with quinoa cabbage roulade

The weather has become more autumnal here, and I'm turning to my comforting seasonal autumn favourites in food. There will be a lot of roasting, stews and steaming bowls of soup in my near future.

This dish was widely improvised around the ingredients I had. I bought a green cauliflower for a change. It's a bit paler than broccoli, and still tastes like cauliflower, so it sends a confusing message to the brain. I roasted it with a tahini-lemon-garlic-coriander sauce, which is always such a good choice, definitely one of my vegan comfort food favourites!

On the side I served a large cabbage roulade filled with quinoa and pearled spelt that were cooked in vegetable stock with onion and garlic and some spices. It was quite basic and rustic, but actually very tasty. I just couldn't resist the lovely purple cabbage. Does anyone have good cabbage recipes by the way, as I always tend to make only roulades or casserole, and would appreciate some inspiration?

So it's almost the weekend, my friends. Do you have any good plans or are you mainly just going to take it easy? Have fun whatever you do!

Your VegHog

Bowl of roasted potatoes and cauliflower with spicy chickpeas and tahini sauce

Sometimes I just love putting several things into a bowl and enjoying the variation of vegetables and legumes and whatever as one meal. Pretty bowls are also so nice to look at, as we know from the social media. This bowl may not be the greatest of all time, but it was definitely tasty. The combination of roasted potatoes and cauliflower with tahini can never go wrong for me anyway. Have some chickpeas as extra protein on the side and we're ready to go!

What are your favourite weekday bowls?

Here is one of mine:

Ingredients

New potatoes

Smoked paprika

Salt

Vegetable oil

Cauliflower

Cooked chickpeas

Smoked chilli paste

Lambs lettuce

Tahini + juice of lemon

Method

Roll the new potatoes in vegetable oil and sprinkle smoked paprika and salt on them. Then roast them in the oven until done.

Also brush the cauliflower florets with oil and roast them in the oven.

Fry the cooked chickpeas in a pan for a little while with smoked chilli paste until they are warm and nicely seasoned.

Mix some tahini with lemon juice to make a dip. Add some water, if needed.

Then serve all components together in a bowl with some lettuce on the side.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Roasted cauliflower with lentils, freekeh, pomegranate seeds and tahini sauce

I absolutely love roasted cauliflower with tahini and here's another vegan dish combining these flavours. Apart from those ingredients I used puy lentils and freekeh as strong protein additions and pomegranate seeds and coriander for the freshness and vibrancy. I really liked this dish. I got inspired by the Braised cauliflower & puy lentil tabouleh recipe by Lee Watson, which is in his wonderful vegan cookbook Peace & Parsnips (p. 112-113). My dish was quite different in the end, but the inspiration was definitely there when flicking through cookbooks once again. So here comes my recipe.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower

Olive oil

½ cup puy lentils

½ cup freekeh

1 onion

1 red chilli

Vegetable stock powder

Salt Ground black pepper

Ground cumin

1 pomegranate's seeds

Fresh coriander

Tahini sauce

1 lemon's juice

3 tbsp tahini

Fresh coriander

3 tbsp water

Method

Make the tahini sauce by mixing the ingredients and set to side.

Cut the cauliflower into florets, brush with olive oil and roast in the oven.

Cook the lentils and freekeh in water until done.

Chop the onion and the chilli into half rings. Cook the onions in olive oil until browned.

Then add the chilli, lentils, freekeh and seasoning. Also add the roasted cauliflower to the mix.

Serve with the pomegranates and tahini sauce.

Have a good weekend!

Your VegHog

Lebanese rice, tahini cauliflower and roasted carrots

Finally it has been a bit warmer and sunny, but I've been quite busy this week, as usual after returning from holiday and therefore unable to really enjoy the weather. I will probably only be able to take a closer look at my holiday photos on the weekend, some of which I'm keen to share with you. So don't worry, there will be something more about the holiday sooner or later. Today's post is just a quick meal recommendation for nice vegan feasts.

This dish and similar ones have been great favourites of mine this past winter and I'm probably going to continue to cook them in the spring as well: Lebanese rice with vermicelli served with a tahini cauliflower bake. This time I also added some roasted carrots to the dish and also a roasted garlic head. It was really very very nice.

I have already posted similar recipes previously, so have a look here for the Roasted cauliflower in tahini sauce and here for the Lebanese rice with vermicelli. What do you think, is this something you would like to eat? Believe me, it's very tasty and yet simple to make!

Have further a nice week!

Your VegHog

Roasted cauliflower with Arabian nutty rice, tomato sauce and tahini sauce

It's time again for a vegan Lebanese feast! I know that many of you have been having Veganuary, so I thought that I would squeeze in one more vegan dish for this month. I have been eating mainly vegan this month, but unfortunately didn't commit fully to a vegan month. January has been so very long, so I'm quite happy to move on to February.

On this plate I combined Arabian nutty rice (recipe previously posted here) with roasted cauliflower and a couple of interesting sauces. The first one is a tomato sauce with chilli and the second one is a tahini sauce with lemon juice and garlic and they both complimented the cauliflower and rice very well.

All these recipes are from the book A Lebanese Feast of Vegetables, Pulses, Herbs and Spices by Mona Hamadeh. I would very much recommend that book, if you want to make simple, but very tasty, vegetarian and vegan dishes with Middle Eastern spices.

Your VegHog

Roasted cauliflower in tahini sauce

Earlier this week I promised to post the dish that I served with the Lebanese rice with vermicelli. This yet another vegan recipe for Cauliflower in Tahini and Coriander Sauce (p. 170-171) is also from A Lebanese Feast of Vegetables, Pulses, Herbs and Spices by Mona Hamadeh and I have cooked it several times since I detected it. It's an extremely nice dish, and a bit different from my usual cooking.  

 

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower

Olive oil

2 onions

6 garlic cloves

2 lemons

Salt

400 ml tahini

Fresh coriander

Method

Cut the cauliflower into florets, brush them with olive oil and roast in the oven until browned and softened. The florets don't need to be fully cooked, as they will return to the oven.

Chop the onions and garlic and cook them in a pan until little browned.

Make the sauce by mixing the juice of the lemons with the tahini, salt and little water into a smooth sauce. Also add some fresh coriander into the sauce.

Add the onions and garlic to the cauliflower and pour the sauce over them. Return to the oven for about 20 minutes.

Scatter some more fresh coriander on the top for serving and you can also dust the dish with smoked paprika (which I also did, but unfortunately only after I took the photos).

This is really good served with rice, and so easy!

Your VegHog