Easter food

 

I had a wonderful Easter break last weekend. It was very relaxing with whole five days off work. It also snowed, which was quite interesting. The spring isn’t quite here yet. There was of course a lot of food so I wanted to share some of it with you. There was a roast dinner with a vegan loaf, but otherwise I tried to keep it a bit lighter with plenty of salads, like these bruschetta with olive and pepper tapenade and insalata caprese on the top.

Vegan loaf, onion gravy, marinated carrots and peppers, blood orange salad

Pasta salad with garlic olives and pine nuts

Plantbased potatoes dauphinoise with oat cream

Asparagus in a puff pastry, olive tapenade and Emmental wrap

 

Globe grapes

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

In my kitchen in April

There are some Easter goodies in my kitchen in April: two chocolate Easter bunnies, more chocolate bunny pralines, plant based truffles and gelatin free sweets. I think these will see us through the holidays. And here are some other things from my kitchen.

We had a virtual team cooking event from work. My colleague from Pakistan showed us how to make Chapli Kebab and Nankhatai biscuits and we cooked along in a video conference. Of course I made vegan kebab from plantbased mince and they turned out quite nice and spicy too.

This new range of frozen vegan ready meals by Grönt from Copenhagen is just excellent. I especially love their Tikka Masala, but they also make a great green curry, lasagne and chili non carne. The recipes are developed by a chef from a Michelin starred restaurant and the meals are very reasonably priced, so I got a bit hooked on them.

I have plans for this olive and hot pepper tapenade over Easter.

I can’t wait to try these lupin beans and lupin bean hummus.

I made a wonderful rich tomato soup with passata, mini gnocchi and butter beans.

These tacos were made with Naturli’s new pea-based taco strips and a hot and smoky homemade sauce.

This is roasted potatoes with beurre rosé, vegan frikadelle and salad.

I’ve been eating more veggie burgers lately, like this beetroot and cheese burger with potato wedges.

Again, a pasta bake with salad…

As always, I’m sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry’s Pickings blog. She is hosting the In My Kitchen event.

Have a nice Easter everyone!

Your VegHog

 

Oven potatoes with vegan bacon

 

I made the vegan bacon with pea-based protein bits. First I rehydrated them in water and soy sauce and then pan-fried them. The bits were then coated with smoky umami sauce, soy sauce, oil, smoked paprika and miso and grilled in the oven. The bacon was very nice and I have also had it with beans on toast.

My oven potatoes were my standard twice-baked leek and cheese ones, which are always very comforting. I slip in a little bit of dry cider to the leek mix and it works wonders for the flavour.

Your VegHog

Martabak

 

I’ve been watching some old UK Masterchef seasons, the ones I’ve missed since I moved away. Of course the cooking in that program is very meat oriented, but I quite enjoy watching it. In one episode a contestant made martabak, which instantly got my interest, as I hadn’t heard about it before. Martabak or murtabak is a stuffed pan-fried bread traditionally cooked in the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia.

I followed this recipe as a guidance for making the dough. For the filling I made Bombay potato style spicy potatoes with chickpeas. It was a really nice dish and I will surely make martabak again. The options are endless thinking of what sort of different fillings you can make. All in all this was a very tasty vegan dish.

Martabak dough

300 g wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp oil

190 ml water

 

Mix the ingredients for the dough and knead.

Soak the dough in oil for one hour.

In the meanwhile make your desired filling.

Once the dough is ready, stretch it to thin sheets, fill them with your filling and fold into small parcels.

Fry the parcels in a pan until slightly crispy and golden brown.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

 

Koshari

 

Koshari, traditional egyptian street food, is an excellent weekday dish. It’s economical, yet filling and tasty. It’s just a layered bowl of lentils, rice, chickpeas, pasta, spicy tomato sauce and fried onions. I simply love it. First time I had koshari as street food in London and instantly fell in love with its simplicity and lovely flavour combinations. Have you tried koshari before?

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

 

Champ with vegan bacon

 

As it is St. Patrick’s Day today, it inspired me to make a little Irish style dish yesterday. In the end it wasn’t too Irish, as my leek addition sent it maybe on the other side of the Irish sea to Wales. Anyway I tried to make champ, which is a traditional Irish dish, potato mash with scallions. I also added buttered leeks, onion, garlic and Cheddar to the mash.

I made my own vegan bacon to go with it. I will post the bacon recipe once I have experimented with it a few times more, but it was quite excellent. On the side I served fried vegan Bratwurst and kale, beetroot and cabbage slaw. It was a nice dinner.

 

So I guess none of us are really celebrating St. Paddy’s this year, but are you making some special green food or drinks to mark the day? In any case, have a nice day!

Your VegHog

 

Blackbean chilli

It has been another quiet weekend over here and even the work weeks haven’t been quite as hectic lately. I went to the office on one day this week and felt like I didn’t get any work done while I was there. I was also exhausted when I got home. It’s weird how I think that I work much more when working from home. I have less breaks and I’m more available to reply to calls and emails. Does anyone else have similar feelings?

On the other hand the time for commuting is saved, so more potterings at home can be done. I’m cooking a lot, but mainly comfort food and I should start putting the balconies into spring shape. It still snowed briefly yesterday, so it’s not warm here yet, hence the gardening is not calling me so much yet.

A chilli is a nice weekday dish. I really haven’t made vegan chilli for a long time and I’m not sure why, as it’s always a treat. This one was just a basic black bean and bell pepper chilli served with basmati rice. What is your favourite plantbased chilli?

Your VegHog

 

Spätzle – Alpine noodles

 

I have written many times about Spätzle on this blog, because it’s one of my absolute favourite foods. They are traditional noodles from the Alpine regions of Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. For years I made the egg variant that my friends from Southern Germany taught me. But then I started making a vegan version that contained polenta and potato flour, which made me realise that eggs are not needed for the texture. Most recently I made just a wheat flour variant, as I didn’t happen to have any polenta or potato flour at hand. It turned out very good as well and I’m posting that simple recipe here today.

The tools you use are crucial for making a successful Spätzle. Hence I bought the proper tool, Spätzlehobel, with a voucher that I got for Christmas. I haven’t regretted for a minute for buying this, as it makes Spätzle cooking so easy and effortless. You just place the dough into the small plastic container and then slide it on the metal grater over a pot of boiling water. The dough drops nicely to the water and cooks there. This is a very clean and easy method to work with that dough. However I have also used a potato ricer for many years for this purpose. It is also perfectly fine. Some traditional Spätzle makers also spread the dough on a wooden board and scratch it from there to the boiling water, but I have never tried that method, as it looks like a lot of skill is needed for that.

 

Here is my recipe for these semi-wholemeal Spätzle. The basic recipe is plantbased, but I always have my Spätzle with cheese (Emmental is good for this dish) and fried onions, so my dish was only vegetarian.

Vegan Spätzle

1 cup wheat flour

1 cup wholemeal wheat flour

1-1 ½ cup water

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp salt

Mix the dough until it’s bouncy. Add more water or flour, if the texture isn’t right.

Bring water to the boil.

Press the dough through a Spätzlehobel or potato ricer to the boiling water.

Boil until the Spätzle float on the surface.

Remove the cooked Spätzle with a slotted spoon.

Serve the Spätzle with your favourite sides and enjoy!

Your VegHog

 

In my kitchen in March

So it’s already March and time to have a little look into my kitchen.

There is this new product, vegan taco strips and of course I had to try them. They were indeed very nicely spiced with a great texture. I fried the strips and put them into roasted bell pepper halves. I served the dish with Mexican rice.

I made another Mexican style dish, Mexican mac’n’cheese with butterbeans and spices. This is my go-to recipe when I’ve run out of ideas.

This is a mushroom risotto with tomatoes and burrata on the side. I will be making more of this kind of dishes towards the spring.

For a change I made a white pizza with potato, rosemary, shallot and mozzarella.

When the times were colder, a ramen was a great dinner idea. This one was made with tofu, noodles and pak choi.

Yes, I’ve eaten comfort food again, like this creamy truffle spaghetti with oat cream.

I made a salad with Emmental and leftover sprouting broccoli that had started flowering in the fridge.

These berry oat bars were great snacks. I need to try the other flavours too.

Vegan fizzy cola sweets were also very nice.

I’ve had a lot of blood oranges recently, as they are still in season.

I got this new balsamic vinegar from an Italian shop and it’s so nice.

These quality grissini are from the same Italian shop.

I have a couple of herbs and watercress by the kitchen window.

My curveball this time is a Copenhagen scene from February. It got really cold in February, so much so that the whole harbour froze over. Even our very famous Little Mermaid got some ice around her. She lives a peaceful life now without tourists.

As usual this post will be shared with Sherry from Sherry’s Pickings blog, who is hosting the monthly In my kitchen event.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog