Eat Your Greens welcoming February recipes

It's February, and it's my turn to host Eat Your Greens this month. I'm really ready to eat plenty of greens keeping my diet healthy this year. I co-host the challenge with Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen every other month. Eat Your Greens is all about sharing vegan or vegetarian recipes featuring green vegetables, and we always write a round up post collecting the recipes at the end of the month. You will find the full rules of participating here. If you want to get further inspiration, go and read about the January recipes that were shared with the challenge.

I'm looking forward to seeing your tasty recipes.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

My Legume Love Affair #124 Round Up

It has been an absolute pleasure hosting My Legume Love Affair again. We received so many lovely recipes that I'm going to present here. My Legume Love Affair is a monthly cooking challenge that was originally started by Susan from The Well Seasoned Cook and is now hosted by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen with different guest hosts every month. Have a look at the lovely recipes shared with the 124^th edition of the challenge.

Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen posted a recipe for Mung Beans in a Creamy Tomato Coconut Milk Sauce. I'm sure that this combination is very delicious, as I really like mung beans, and anything in a creamy tomato and coconut milk sauce is just heavenly. Apart from that, the dish is full of warming spices, so I would be up for it anytime.

Archana from The Mad Scientists Kitchen shared Fresh Hara Chana Chaat, Green Chickpea Salad, with us. I have never had any fresh chickpeas, but they sound great, and I really hope to be able to taste some one day. You can eat them as snacks as they are, or make lovely dishes like this healthy salad with them. In this salad there is also carrot, cucumber and many nice spices.

The Girl Next Door from The World Through My Eyes made (Hara Chana) Choliya Kadhi, Fresh Green Chana Kadhi. This recipe is also made with fresh green chickpeas, and they look ever so good again. This dish is best to be served hot or warm with some rotis, parathas or rice on the side. Again, I would really like to try this dish also.

Emily from Cooking for Kishore cooked Instant Pot Sweet Pongal. It's lovely to have a sweet dish shared with the challenge for a change. This sweet Pongal made with mung beans, basmati rice, coconut milk and spices is traditionally an offering made to God. It looks so good, and it's nice to learn about all these wonderful traditional dishes.

Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen shared Vegan Cincinnati Spaghetti. This is a hearty pasta dish that also has an interesting history, as it was invented by Macedonian migrants to the US in the 1920s. There is a spicy sauce made with lentils and kidney beans with spaghetti, and a fresh avocado as a great topping for colour, different texture and freshness.

I made some Red lentil rolls this month. I'm a keen baker of different savoury rolls, and I like to add whatever comes to mind to them. Now red lentils came to mind, and the rolls turned out quite nice.

Thank you so much everyone for your contributions, it has been a really good month! Thank you also so much Lisa for letting me host again!

Your VegHog

Red lentil rolls

What could be better than some freshly baked rolls on a Sunday, especially in this cold weather. I can't think of many things, so I started the day baking.

I made some basic rolls with red lentils. I got the idea from a Finnish bread that is made with lentils, and thought that it would be nice to try making my own. I used a simple cup measuring system, so the recipe is really easy to follow. This recipe makes about eight rolls, depending on the size of course. Have a look below how I made them.

Red lentil rolls

Ingredients

½ cup red lentils

3 cups wheat flour

1 tbsp dry yeast

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp sunflower seeds

1 cup lukewarm water

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp poppy seeds

Method

Cook the lentils, drain and let them cool down after the cooking.

Combine the dry ingredients of the dough first, and then add the water, lentils and oil.

Knead into an even dough. Add more either flour or water, if needed.

Let the dough rise for about one hour.

Shape rolls from the dough and put the poppy seeds on top.

Bake the rolls at 220 C for about 10 minutes or until done.

They are best enjoyed fresh.

I'm sharing the recipe with My Legume Love Affair #124 that I'm hosting this month. My Legume Love Affair was originally started by Susan from The Well Seasoned Cook and is now hosted by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen.

Your VegHog

Green broth

It has been snowing here overnight, so the ground is nicely covered in white. Here is a photo from our backyard. Soon we will go to town to see Copenhagen covered in snow and ice, but first I wanted to share this recipe with you.

I made a light but warming green broth with Thai spices and coconut milk. Green pak choi leaves were the star of the show, but I also really enjoyed that spicy broth. If you want to make a more substantial dish, you could add some noodles, fried tofu or tempeh to this recipe.

Green broth

Ingredients

3 pak choi (green leaves only)

1 onion

1 cloveless garlic

1 green chilli

1 cm fresh ginger

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp palm sugar

½ tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground coriander

2 tbsp white miso paste

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

2 bay leaves

400 ml coconut milk

1 lime's juice

Handful of fresh coriander

Method

Chop the onion, garlic, chilli and ginger finely and cook them in oil until soft.

Then add the seasoning.

Add the coconut milk and little water and let simmer.

Blend the mix to make a really smooth broth. Remove the bay leaves before blending.

Chop the pak choi leaves coarsely and add them to the broth once it's almost done. Cook for a while longer with the pak choi.

Serve and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with Eat Your Greens that is hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog this month. Check out the other green recipes shared with the challenge.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Vegan fry up

How has everyone's weekend been so far? Mine has been very nice in a slightly frosty but sunny weather. There is even a little bit snow and ice in places. Yesterday we went on a long walk in the countryside and by the seaside. It was nice to get so much fresh air after a busy week in the office. Today we will also be walking quite a bit, but just in town. I would like to go to a viewing tower, if the weather stays clear.

An English style fry up is a great breakfast to start an active day outdoors. You don't feel like eating anything for a while after a full English. In this vegan fry up I combined small soya sausages, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, potato röstis and chipotle ketchup. It was really easy and quick to make, all in one pan. Of course I also had fresh orange juice and coffee with oat milk on the side. It was a nice way to start the day.

Have a lovely Sunday!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in January

It’s nice to start a new year in the kitchen, and as usual I want to share some new items and dishes with you.

I got the new seasonal winter Moomin mug for Christmas, and I bought some Moomin coffee to go with it. The mug has a very serene winter atmosphere, and I gladly drink my coffee and mulled wine from it. Another great Christmas gift was this cute polar bear, fox and hedgehog placemat. I'm sure that you will see it in some future food posts.

I also got some new kitchen gear as a Christmas present from work: two large oven dishes and a set of tea towels, potholders and an apron. Those will surely come in handy, and I actually didn't own an apron before, so maybe I'll start wearing one now.

There was a lot of food over the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. However I didn’t photograph so many dishes. I found some food gems in Finland, like this new product Vegekebakko, vegan wheat protein on a wooden stick that sent me on a trip to my childhood. The stick mimics a 80s classic, a meat version of the product. I was so excited to see that they made a vegan version, and had to buy a packet. They were actually very nice, so nice that I need to go back to Finland soon to get more of them. For this dish I also made some pickled kohlrabi.

I couldn’t resist this festive mature Cheddar (juhla=party), and I’m saving it for a special meal in the near future. I will probably try it with these crispbreads and the rye buttons. One of the crispbreads is a new product FINN CRISP Carrot Crunch, a rye crispbread containing carrots and seeds. The other crispbread is one of my favourites made of oats. 

Of course there were also plenty of chocolates and Christmas beers, some of which are depicted here.

For New Year’s Eve my partner and I had a relaxing jackfruit taco night at home before we went to see the local fireworks by our lakes. For the tacos I followed Meriel Armitage’s recipe for jackfruit carnitas. It was a very nice recipe, especially the pineapple salsa, and I will make these carnitas again.

I didn’t have a big Christmas tree this time, just a mini tabletop one and a small pine outside in front of the window. Of course at my mother’s place we had a proper Christmas tree. I also got a bunch of blue hyacinths for the season.

I quite regret not buying one of these vegetable characters to my kitchen from a Finnish supermarket. Especially the broccoli would've been great.

I’m sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry’s Pickings blog, who is hosting the excellent In My Kitchen series also this year. Go and have a peek into her lovely blog.

Your Veghog

Mac'n'cheese lasagne

It was my 6th blog anniversary yesterday, but I was too busy with work and couldn’t post anything then. I wasn’t able to celebrate it either, but when I think about it, I’m very proud that I’ve kept blogging for such a long time, and hopefully will continue for many years to come. And all that is thanks to you my lovely readers, so thank you so much for reading my posts, commenting and sharing your vegetarian cooking ideas. I couldn’t do it without you!

My first food post on this blog was a halloumi lasagne with grilled peppers and The VegHog’s special tomato sauce. I laughed out loud a bit when reading that first post today, but it was quite amusing. I still sometimes make my lasagne that way, but now I don’t normally make the sauce from scratch by skinning tomatoes etc.

Suitably to the theme, today’s post shall be a lasagne of a different kind. It’s a mac’n’cheese lasagne, and it contains exactly what the name promises, a vegetarian lasagne filled with mac’n’cheese layers. I won’t share any specific recipe for this, because you can basically just layer a lasagne with your favourite mac’n’cheese and then just bake it. I still also used normal lasagne sheets in this one and layered them with a homemade mac'n'cheese, which had been made with a thinner macaroni than my usual ones, garlicky tomato sauce and lots of cheese on the top.

I didn’t add anything else to the lasagne this time, but a range of veggies would also go well here. I just wanted the ultimate comfort and got it. It was a real guilty pleasure, and I don’t expect to make it that often, as it may not be the healthiest dish of them all. What do you think, have I crossed a line?

I hope you all have a really nice week!

Your VegHog