Eat Your Greens February Round Up

Let's have a look at what was shared with Eat Your Greens in the month of February, which was our first challenge for this year. We received quite a few wonderful recipe ideas, and I feel very inspired for green cooking again. Unless I overlooked something, the whole round is also vegan! Have a look at the recipes below, and also visit everyone's lovely blogs!

Sadhna from Herbs, Spices and Tradition made Green Chili Pickle following her mother's recipe.

Sadhna also writes about health benefits of chilli on her blog, so it's worth having a read there. I can't take too much heat with my food, but I've been a bit better lately adding more chillies to my cooking. I would be happy to taste this chutney though, as Sadhna mentions that it's actually not that hot at all. The green chillies are just smothered with all kinds of nice and warming spices.

Laura from Touch wood shared a whole collection of green recipe ideas: Eat Your Greens for Lunch. Pictured here are her Edamame beans on toast. She also shared green wraps with avocado and rocket, wilted spinach on toast with other vegetables and roasted butternut squash with cooked greens. The beauty of all these recipes is that you can easily make them quickly and even pack up to go. Laura makes adding greens to your lunch look so easy, so surely no one can have any objections to that!

My Eat Your Greens co-host Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen cooked Vegan Green Meatballs. The mock meatballs are made from vegetarian sausage mix and they already contain some greens: spring onions and green chillies. The tasty looking meatballs are covered in a fragrant and spice coriander sauce. The whole dish is vegan, and there is a side of basmati rice. This combination seems like the perfect dinner, and I really admire the green colour.

Beth from BLD in MT : Living a Simple Life in This Interconnected World shared Coconut Cauliflower Tacos with Creamy AvoLime Sauce. This dish looks so beautiful and tasty, and the green comes from avocado, lime, cilantro and spinach. She really puts the greens into Eat Your Greens. I really like the sound of the method for making the coconut cauliflower with a crunchy panko crust. These must just taste heavenly with the flavourful avo-lime sauce. This is a recipe that I need to try soon, as I can eat a good veggie taco anytime.

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe made a Lentil, tomato and rice dish using some excess tomatoes and basil. Lentils and rice are always a great match, and topped with sweet cherry tomatoes and fragrant basil, it's even better. This is a wonderful way using leftovers creating something beautiful with the bits and pieces that were neglected.

My own recipe was Ramen, which I made with Danish seaweed and pak choi representing the greens (seaweed unfortunately got into hiding below all the other stuff, so it looks less green here!). I also used several other vegetables and tofu in this warming dish. The dish was inspired by a local ramen restaurant in Copenhagen, and I paired the dish with their beer.

Thank you so much again everyone for taking part! It was a wonderful first round for 2018. I will be hosting next month as well, as Shaheen is rather busy, but she will soon return to hosting as well. So as always, we will be delighted to see your green recipes in March.

Your VegHog

Ramen

I love vegan ramen noodle bowls with a hearty miso broth. I'm lucky to have a wonderful ramen joint closeby (that's their beer on the photos, perfect match to ramen!), but it's also nice to make an own attempt once in a while. Especially now that it's chilly and very much a soup and broth season. There is some more cold air from Siberia coming our way!

I added quite a few veggies to this bowl and also Danish seaweed, which I was delighted to find in my local health food shop. I used tofu as the protein as usual in such dishes. The broth is the most important part of ramen, so I just slowly cooked it to taste. That's why these ingredient amounts shouldn't be taken too literally. I didn't add amounts for the vegetables either. It depends how much you want to make and how dense you want the ramen to be on vegetables. Here is my recipe anyway.

The VegHog's Ramen Bowl

Ingredients

Broth

3 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp white miso

3-5 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp mirin

Seaweed

2 garlic cloves

Water

Other ingredients

Wholewheat noodles

Tofu

Pak choi

Shiitake mushrooms

Carrot

Turnip

Chilli

Seaweed

Method

Cook the noodles, cool them down and set to side.

Chop the tofu into cubes, fry them in oil and set to side.

Also prep the other vegetables by cutting and slicing them into desired shapes.

Start making the broth by first cooking the minced garlic in oil and then adding the other ingredients. Add water carefully and gradually by tasting the broth. Let it simmer until the flavours have blended nicely.

I added all other vegetables as raw, I just fried the shiitake mushroom slices briefly in a hot pan.

To serve, add the noodles, tofu and vegetables to the warm broth, and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens, which I'm hosting in February, and the challenge is co-hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen. You still have a few days left to take part!

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Fried potatoes with sausage

I got more of these excellent Snällkorv by Astrid och Aporna, when we visited Sweden again the other week. These are really nice juicy vegetarian sausages made from wheat gluten and soya. I also bought loads of other stuff there, which you will be seeing before long here on the blog. But now I felt like a veggie sausage dish.

For this dish I took inspiration from my childhood, from something that especially my father would frequently cook as a rather heavy evening snack: fried potatoes with fried sausage pieces. I of course made a vegetarian version of this dish, and added just some onions and garlic, salt and pepper, and fried the pre-boiled skin-on potatoes with the veggie sausage pieces. It was very nice grub for the winter.

This dish is also quite good for the cheap eats category, as I'm still trying to save some money when cooking. Actually veggie food isn't that expensive when you cook yourself, but sometimes I want to use just basic ingredients, and still make sure that there will be some protein in each dish. That reminds me that I want to write about the local vegetarian restaurant and café scene in Copenhagen soon. There are too many good options, so I'm only getting through them very slowly.

Your VegHog

Carrot rolls

Carrot rolls have been my favourite ever since my childhood. My mother often made them, and they were just the best thing when warm and fresh. I also make these rolls quite often, especially as I need some evening snacks twice a week to make it through my language class, where I go straight from work and skip dinner on those days. Then these rolls and all sorts of vegetable broths are life-savers.

This recipe is just one variation of the rolls. I normally just make them with the fingertip feel, without measuring the ingredients. I used both orange and purple carrots here in order to get a more vibrant colour. You can also add oat flakes and all sorts of seeds to this recipe, whatever you happen to have in the cupboard.

Carrot rolls

Ingredients

240 g spelt flour

200 g wheat flour

1 tbsp dry yeast

1 tsp salt

250 ml lukewarm water

1 orange carrot grated

1 purple carrot grated

4 tbsp olive oil

Method

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add the grated carrots to the lukewarm water and mix it to the dry ingredients.

Knead for about 10 minutes, and also add the olive oil.

Let rise for about one hour under a teatowel.

Shape rolls from the dough and bake them at 220 C for about 10 minutes or until done.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Peanut and cabbage noodles

I've made these spicy peanut and cabbage noodles a couple of times, but I never seem to be able to make a pretty picture of them. Well, I will keep trying, as the dish itself is so tasty.

I made slight variations to the dish this time. I would normally add tofu as the protein, but now I had these soya chunks around, and decided to use them. They also fitted the dish very well, and also the sprouts on the top add a nice zing to it. The spicy peanut sauce itself is of course key, so make sure to taste it and balance the flavours according to your taste while you make it. It's also easy to substitute the different components, but I do think that this is a nice use of cabbage.

Peanut and cabbage noodles

Ingredients

Sauce

5 tbsp peanut butter

5 tbsp soya sauce

3 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp mirin

½ tsp chilli flakes

Other ingredients

½ red cabbage

1 onion

1 garlic clove

200 g soya chunks

Sesame seeds

Radish sprouts

Wholewheat noodles

Method

Mix the sauce ingredients together, and add more of any ingredient to taste.

Cook the noodles, cool them down and set to side.

Cut the cabbage into thin strips. Chop the onion into half rings and chop the garlic finely.

Fry the onion and cabbage in a pan until soft, although I like to leave a bit of crunch to the cabbage.

Add the soya chunks and garlic and fry some more.

Stir in the sauce and the noodles and heat through.

Serve with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and radish sprouts.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in February

Now it's time to have a look at what's been happening in my kitchen lately. It has been another busy month, and I haven't spent too much time in the kitchen, but have a few nice new items to show.

There have been plenty of blood oranges and lovely veg in my kitchen recently. It has cheered my winter up a lot! This morning I had again freshly pressed blood orange and lemon juice to start off the Saturday.

I also have a new winter-themed Moomin mug that I got from my mum for Christmas. It's nice to sip warming drinks from this one and watch the Winter Olympics. Are you also following the Olympics?

There is a cute pink pony hook on the fridge keeping my oven mittens tidy.

I just love all sorts of retro tins, so it goes without saying that I had to get this smoked paprika tin with an aviation theme. I bought it at a covered market in Sweden.

I have yet to try this white miso instant soup, but I can imagine that it's very nice and warming, and a convenient dinner on busy weekdays. I will try it very soon.

These wholemeal Spätzle (German egg noodles from Swabia) were really tasty. I had them the traditional way with fried onions and cheese. Spätzle is one of my all time favourite foods. 

 

Here are some dishes that I've cooked lately. I'm still very much cooking comfort food, as it's still winter and chilly.

The other day I made a nice and warming vegan lentil curry, which is always a good idea.

This is a classic Finnish dish: cheesy oven sausages, of course as a veggie version. Sometimes I crave these wholesome dishes of my childhood and try to make veggie versions of them. It tastes better than it looks, and it's brilliant with mashed potatoes.

I've made some warming soups, like this carrot, red lentil and potato soup. I've also eaten much more soups at work than usual. They are just perfect for this season.

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

Have a great weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Homemade pizza for a cosy night in

Are you familiar with the concept of Hygge, a word that went viral a few years ago?

Hygge (/ˈhjuːɡə/ HEW-gə or /ˈhuːɡə/ HOO-gə) is the Scandinavian word for a mood of coziness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of wellness and contentment. Over recent years, hygge became a defining characteristic of Danish culture. (source: Wikipedia) 

Well I like hyggeing at home very much. Having a good book to read or a film to watch, curling up on a sofa with a hot beverage or nice comfort food. That's hygge at its best for me. Our recent pizza night was just one of those cosy nights in. I made a cheesy spelt crust pizza with various tomatoes (no tomato sauce at all this time), green olives, garlic and some seasoning. It was just perfect, and I hope that I would do such nights much more often. This pizza was also part of my cheap eats regime.

How is your weekend going? Are you relaxing more or out and about? I hope that you'll have a good one whatever you are doing!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens welcoming February recipes

Hello everyone and welcome to the first Eat Your Greens challenge in 2018! We've had a little break from the challenge in the busy holiday season, but now Shaheen and I are back with hosting. I also hope that you are full of ideas for green recipes and ready to share them with us! February can still be gloomy, especially in the Nordic countries, but I hope for an energy boost through greens.

For those of you, who might not know the rules of Eat Your Greens, have a closer look via this link. It's very simple though, just post a vegan or vegetarian dish containing green vegetables on your blog during February, and share the link to the post in the comment section of this post. The recipe will be featured in the round up at the end of the month.

I hope that we'll get many recipes to have a nice collection of recipes for the first Eat Your Greens challenge in 2018!

Your VegHog