English muffins with vegan bacon

I have more lockdown comfort food for you, because there isn’t much else to do. I found a new vegan smoked bacon made from seitan and tried it with grilled English muffins as breakfast. It was actually very nice.

We are now going for a walk in nature, another great activity. There are sheep and alpacas roaming in an area nearby, so it will be nice to see those creatures.

Your VegHog 

Cheddar, wild garlic and pasta pancakes

How has your week been? I’m still trying to get the new home sorted while working from home. It has been incredibly busy at work and the working days tend to stretch and overlap more than usual with the private life. I would prefer being able to return to the office soon, but let’s see what happens.

I’ve been cooking a lot this week. Food seems to be the main comfort in these times. I had some leftover pasta and I got the idea to make pancakes from them. My partner was a little bit skeptical when I presented this idea to him, but he ended up happily scoffing few of these away.

I made my usual waffle and pancake batter and mixed the pasta in there. I also added some mature Cheddar and wild garlic. I now have a wild garlic plant growing by the window in my kitchen, so it’s very handy to take some for cooking.

I would recommend using a smaller pasta shape for this recipe. I had wholemeal pasta in animal shapes, unfortunately they aren’t showing in the photos as I would’ve hoped.

Ingredients

1 ½ cup wheat flour

2 tbsp sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ cup oat milk

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2 cups cooked pasta

100 g Cheddar

3-4 wild garlic leaves

Butter for frying

Method

Whisk the wheat flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, oat milk and vegetable oil into a smooth batter.

Mix the pasta, Cheddar and wild garlic into the batter.

Make smallish pancakes and fry them in a pan until golden brown.

Serve with additional butter and/or Cheddar.

This dish will guarantee a comforting breakfast or brunch any day.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Vegan sushi and Easter Bunny onigiri

I was delighted to see all your comments about my new kitchen, thank you so much! I’m indeed settling in slowly, finding my way in the kitchen and cooking more and even more experimental food at the moment. I have found a couple of nice supermarkets nearby that cater to all our needs, so I’m more comfortable cooking here.

I hope you all had a nice Easter and got to relax a bit. I’m sure it was different from the usual for all of us. We just enjoyed a lot of nice food, drink and long walks in the nearby forest and seaside. The weather was great and sunny throughout, although yesterday it tried to snow a little bit! I also put some Easter decorations up, as most time lately has been spent at home. I couldn’t resist these cute chocolate bunnies.

We had some fun by making slightly Easter-themed vegan sushi featuring Easter Bunny onigiri. I tried to colour some of the rice with radish peels, but they are not quite as good at colouring as beetroot. However I left the pieces in the rice creating a "David Bowie bunny onigiri". Can you see the resemblance? 

The sushi rolls were filled with marinated tofu, carrots, radish and wild garlic. It was so nice to make vegan sushi after a while. Now I have the required kitchen space to make it properly.

Have a nice week!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in April

I hope you are all well and staying safe! I've been very quiet here on the blog, but I'm doing fine. I'm glad to see that my fellow bloggers are active, which is nice to see in these difficult times. It can distract a bit from the reality.

I've actually been occupied with many things, as in my kitchen in April, is a new kitchen! Yes indeed, we moved houses amidst a global pandemic, but luckily it all went well and now we are slowly settling in to the new place. We moved to a different part of town, which is quite pleasant with a large park and the sea close by. I still really miss our old apartment and the part of town, as it was our first home in Denmark.

I'm glad to be in the new place though, it's actually a brand new flat with a flashy and big kitchen. So just wait, once I'm more sorted, the recipes will start coming again. The new kitchen has a lot of storage space and a lot of light coming in. There is a large balcony next to it, we actually have two balconies now, and I'm going to get back to urban gardening. I already bought a tomato plant, which looks promising. I had to give up a gas stove and now need to learn how to use an induction hob. I've also started using a dishwasher. It's actually quite handy.

It has been a benefit working from home these days, as I've been able to organise the stuff from the moving boxes etc. on my breaks. We also had to buy almost all furniture, as we didn't move our stuff from the UK and the first apartment was furnished, but Ikea have been delivering very nicely. We are expecting more small stuff to be delivered in a few days.

So here are a few photos from the new place. I will show you more soon. 

And goodbye, my prescious old kitchen, you were such a great cosy cooking corner!

I'm glad that Sherry keeps the In My Kitchen event going, so I'm sharing this post with her.

Have a nice weekend everyone and take care!

Your VegHog

Samosas with mango chutney and Bombay potatoes

I hope you are all well out there! The situation in Denmark is that all schools, other educational institutes and public spaces like libraries, have closed for at least two weeks. It was also recommended by the government that bars, nightclubs and restaurants would close, and many have done so. The shops are open and have most goods, I only noticed that instead of toilet paper and tinned food, Danes hoard fresh vegetables. I hope that I can buy some from the market today. It is quite surreal, but it's best to take these measures trying to stop the disease from spreading.

In any case, the cooking will have to go on and it is a good way to relax. I have never made samosas before, but wanted to try making them from scratch. I decided to make an oven baked variant. For the samosas I took guidance from Cook with Manali and also watched a few Youtube videos on how to make samosas.

I served a quick homemade mango chutney and Bombay potatoes on the side. Here is how I made them.

Ingredients

Pastry

2 cups wheat flour

½ tsp salt

4-5 tbsp oil

5-6 tbsp water

Filling

500 g potatoes

1 onion

2 garlic

1 red chilli

½ tsp garam masala

1 cup frozen peas

1 tsp nigella seeds

Vegetable oil

Mango chutney

For the mango chutney I more or less followed this easy recipe by Good Food Australia.

Method

For making the pastry, mix the flour, salt and oil until it has a crumbly texture. Then add water little by little and shape into a firm dough. Don't knead the dough too much. Let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

In the meanwhile, make the filling. Cook the potatoes. Chop the onion, chilli and garlic and fry them in oil until soft.

Add the seasoning, peas, nigella seeds and cooked potatoes to the pan and let cook for a while, then let the mix cool.

Divide the pastry into 8 parts and roll them out individually into circles. Cut the circle into two halves, shape a pocket, fill it with the potato filling and seal the pastry closed into a triangle shape. If you haven't made samosas before, there are handy Youtube videos to consult on how to shape them.

Brush the samosas lightly with oil and bake them in the oven at 180 C for about 30-40 minutes until crispy.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

In my kitchen in March

Here's a quick peek into my kitchen. I've left much of the cooking for my partner lately, but have also managed to cook some basic dishes. Spring is not quite here yet, so there have been many comfort dishes on the plate.

I saw these flowering cauliflower stalks in the market and of course I had to try them, as they looked so cute. They were a very tasty cauliflower variant. I steamed them and had on the side of a vegan Schnitzel dish with fried potatoes, steamed flower sprouts and beurre rosé (yes that's right, I used rosé wine making beurre rosé instead of beurre blanc). Have you tasted such cauliflower stalks before?

Here are other dishes that I've made recently. A spaghetti bake is always lovely and it's proper comfort food for me. The bird oven mitten was made by my mum a few years ago.

Mexican rice and Oumph wraps

Homemade garlic rolls

Lentil curry

Noodles with cabbage and vegan chicken style bits

I'm sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry's Pickings blog, who is hosting the monthly In My Kitchen blogging event.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Vegan Kebab

Here's a mid-week comfort and junk food treat for you: a vegan kebab! I got this great kebab spiced pulled seitan, and I made some flatbreads containing the seitan, red cabbage, pickled red cabbage, roasted bell peppers and roasted vegetable hummus. It was just delightful as any dish with loads of nice veggies and hummus would be. I can only recommend this combo.

Ingredients

200 g kebab seasoned pulled seitan

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

2 bell peppers

4 tbsp vegetable oil

Ground cumin to taste

¼ small red cabbage

Pickled red cabbage

Hummus

Flatbread

Method

Cut the bell peppers to coarse bits and roast them in the oven coated with oil.

Slice the onion and cook it until soft and slightly browned. Mince the garlic and add it to the mix.

Fry the seitan with the onion and garlic. Season with ground cumin to taste.

Serve the mix with the roasted peppers and hummus on a flatbread.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog