Bruschettas

It's a sunny morning here in Copenhagen for a change, but we have a little chore to do before we can go out. We need to move our stuff out from the loft room to the new basement storage, as the new house owners will expand the loft to apartments. Luckily we don't have so much stuff up there, just some mainly empty moving boxes. But I will miss the cosy wooden hideaway, which is a proper room with a view over the rooftops. It will be more handy to have the stuff in the basement though, as we live on the first floor. Otherwise I don't have any plans for today, but will go for a walk at least, as the weather is nice.

I made these tomato-olive and plain olive bruschettas yesterday for brunch and they went down very well. They were topped with garlic, olive oil, salt, ground black pepper, wild garlic, mozzarella and either just green olives or green olives and cherry tomatoes. I bought the bread to a reduced price, as I went to the supermarket in the evening. That's such a handy way to save money and still get fresh bread from the day.

Your VegHog

Roasted bell pepper and tomato baguettes

I will take this opportunity to inform you that I'm off to a small holiday tomorrow. I'm sure I can't resist posting photos to Instagram from the location, so at least there you can get some spoilers. After the holiday this blog will of course be full of holiday photos and stories. So I can also reveal that I will be going to Norway, where I haven't been since the 1980s, and never to these parts where I'm now going to. It's so exciting! This autumn break is very much needed right now.

Here is also a quick food post, fully unrelated to the holiday news. I love roasted vegetables and I love putting them on breads, especially bell peppers and tomatoes are perfect for this. Therefore I end up making veggie breads quite often.

This is how simple it can be, here are the ingredients I used this time:

• sourdough olive baguette
• small tomatoes roasted in olive oil
• bell peppers roasted in olive oil
• whipped soft cheese
• fresh basil leaves

What goes onto your favourite bread?

Have a great weekend! 

Your VegHog

My first sourdough bread

I grew up watching my grandmother baking rye sourdough bread every week and occasionally helping her out (not that I was much of a real help). She made such a tasty traditional regional bread and since then I haven't been much in touch with sourdough baking. I have never baked one from my own starter until now. However as I love eating that style of bread, I have been determined to make my own at some point. Of course it takes a little bit time and patience to make a sourdough bread, but the results are absolutely worth it. This dough variation didn't need much of kneading, just long rising times, but that's fine if you plan your schedules well.

I got the starter mix from BreadMatters and it came with instructions that were very easy to follow. There's also quite a lot of advice and FAQs for sourdough bread baking on their website. I knew I wanted to make a rye bread as my first attempt, so I made one entirely from rye flour. I liked this variation very much, and now I have some starter left for other breads to experiment with. I think I'll need to try something with spelt flour as well. The starter can be fed so that it doesn't run out! 

 

What are your experiences of sourdough bread baking?

Your VegHog

Grilled mini sandwich triangles

On a lazy weekend like this, it's so nice to make some warm sandwiches for breakfast or lunch and just relax. Or these sandwiches can be even enjoyed in the evening when watching a film.

I made these mini triangle sandwiches on the griddle pan to get the nice grilling effect with the stripes. You can put any vegetable into the sandwiches with cheese. I chose a quite classic mix of tomatoes, rocket, basil and garlic.

Here are the ingredients I used:

Bread slices

Emmental slices

Baby plum tomatoes

Rocket

Fresh basil leaves

Garlic clove

I rubbed the garlic first on the breads and then assembled the sandwiches with the filling.

Then I char-grilled the sandwiches in a pan on both sides and cut them into small triangles.

These were just perfect with some coffee.

Your VegHog

Carrot bagels

I'm back home and to my own kitchen. It's a bit easier cooking here as I know where everything is and know about the oven temperatures etc. It was very good being on a small holiday back in Finland though and I returned with a suitcase full of Finnish food and drinks, some of which you will surely see here in my blog. And people outside of Finland, remember that most of these classics can be purchased online, if something catches your eye. So, now to today's  easy breakfast recipe.

Quite often I bake carrot rolls, but this was my first time making carrot bagels. To be fair, the middle holes closed during the baking almost fully, so are these rolls after all? Anyway, it's the thought that counts, and smaller holes make the bagels easier to fill, right? If you've never tried carrot rolls or carrot bread, I would really encourage you to do so. Carrot adds a lovely little flavour and colour to baked goods.

I found this recipe on the good pages of Valio rated as easy to make and a good baking idea to make with kids (only in Finnish again). They made 20 small bagels with this recipe, but I got 14 somewhat larger ones as the end result.

Here are the ingredients and instructions.

250 ml milk

½ tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp dry yeast

1 carrot

550 ml wheat flour

50 ml melted butter

Grate the carrot finely with a cheese grater. Warm the milk lukewarm and mix in the salt, sugar and dry yeast.

Add the grated carrot to the dough. Then also add the flour and butter. Mix into a soft dough. Let it rise for about 40 minutes.

Divide the dough into small sections and shape rolls from it. Let the round rolls rise on a baking tray under a teatowel for further 15 minutes.

Make a 3cm wide hole in the middle of the rolls by stretching the dough.

Bake at 225C for about 12 minutes and serve with butter, cheese, tomato, cucumber or whatever you may desire.

Your VegHog

Tomato focaccia

I got The Forest Feast by Erin Gleeson for my hog birthday (old in snuffler years). The Forest Feast is a unique blend between an artbook and a cookbook as Erin puts it herself. It's full of wonderful recipe ideas and beautiful illustrations and photos. It's also rare for me to have an American cookbook, so I'm very excited about it.

When I saw the picture of the “Polka-dot Focaccia” in the book (p. 40-41), I was instantly inspired. In the end I made the focaccia according to my own recipe, but the look is similar.

This is my tomato focaccia recipe, try it!

Ingredients

Selected small colourful tomatoes

500 ml wheat flour

1 tbsp dry yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

200 ml lukewarm water

2 tbsp olive oil

Dried wild rosemary

Sea salt

Method 

Mix the flour, dry yeast, sugar and salt, and then add the lukewarm water and olive oil. Knead to a dough. Stretch the dough on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and let rise for about 40 minutes under a teatowel.

Place the tomatoes on the dough and press them down gently. Sprinkle the sea salt and dried rosemary on the top.

Bake the focaccia at 220C for about 20 minutes and serve fresh. The focaccia is perfectly good on its own, but also great dipped into basil infused olive oil.

This is very easily done and makes a good addition to a summery serving table. I'm again full of hope for the summer as it has been warm here in England for a few days now!

Your VegHog

Basic burger buns

I'm now starting a post in three parts, which works every day closer to having a complete veggie burger meal, and I'm starting this series today with simple homemade burger buns.

As you might already have noticed, I like making vegetarian burgers fairly frequently and am always experimenting with new patty ideas. It's also important to have a good bun to accompany the patties as well. These buns are quite basic burger buns, but they have a hint of pretzel flavour, which I always like.

Ingredients

150 ml milk

2 tbsp dry yeast

1 tbsp sugar

2 eggs

1,5 tbsp soft butter

450 ml flour

1 tsp salt

Sesame seeds for the top

Method

Warm the milk lukewarm and add yeast and sugar to it. 

Then also beat one of the eggs into the milk and add the soft butter.

Combine the milk mix with the flour and salt and knead to a dough. Let the dough rise in a warm place under a teatowel for about two hours.

Then shape buns (I got 6 small ones, double the recipe for bigger burger feasts) from the dough and let them rise for a further hour under a teatowel.

Brush the buns with a beaten egg and sprinkle sesame seeds on the top before baking.

Bake at 200C for about 10 minutes until fully baked.

Serve with your favourite veggie burger or read my next post for a new idea.

Your VegHog

Basil ciabatta

I baked ciabatta, as it's one of my favourite bread types. I got inspiration and guidance from this recipe (in Finnish only), but then put my own twist on it. The original recipe used herb cream, but I thought that fresh herbs would be nicer and chose basil as the herb, as I wanted to serve the bread with tomato and mozzarella.

These ingredient amounts make either one large ciabatta or two smaller ones. Even 4-6 ciabatta rolls are possible, depending on the size.

28 g fresh basil leaves

250 ml cream

450 ml white bread flour

2 tbsp dry yeast

½ tbsp sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

Chop the basil leaves finely and warm the cream lukewarm. Add the basil to the cream and let infuse for a couple of minutes.

Mix the dry ingredients. Then add the basil cream and olive oil and knead to a bread dough.

Let the dough rise under a teatowel in a warm place for about one hour.

Shape to breads, brush them with olive oil and let rest under a teatowel for a further 15 minutes.

Bake at 220C for about 20 minutes until the surface is crispy and golden brown and the breads are fully baked.

After a while of cooling, I served the ciabatta with striking green tiger tomatoes, torn mozzarella and basil.

Your VegHog

Cheesy garlic bread

There's still time to slip in one more post for May. This is more a tip how to make a quick side to salads, pasta dishes etc. The bread is not self-made, so that's what makes this such a quick and easy solution.

1 small baguette

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp olive oil

25 g butter

1 tsp parsley

25 g Sussex Charmer cheese

Make a cut into the baguette lengthwise without cutting it fully through.

Cook the finely chopped garlic in olive oil for a couple of minutes and then mix it with the butter and parsley.

Spread this garlic butter into the baguette and sprinkle grated cheese on the top.

Wrap the baguette in aluminium foil and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes and it's done!

Stay hungry! - Your VegHog

Olive focaccia

I'm pretty tired today (again!), so I'm only going to share a quick bread recipe with you. Having freshly baked bread is always great, and there's something about a fluffy, easy focaccia. I seasoned this one with green olives and rosemary for a nice Mediterranean feel. Have a look how easy it is!

All you need is:

500ml wheat flour

1tbsp dry yeast

1tsp sugar

1tsp salt

200ml water

2tbsp olive oil

200g green olives

20g grated Emmental

Rosemary

Sea salt

Chilli flakes

And this is how it's done:

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, dry yeast, sugar and salt) and then add the lukewarm water and olive oil and knead to a dough.

Spread the dough on a baking parchment and let it rise for about 40 minutes under a teatowel.

Press the whole green olives into the dough. Then sprinkle a little grated Emmental cheese, rosemary, sea salt and chilli flakes on the top.

Bake the focaccia at 220C for about 20 minutes and it's done!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Sea-buckthorn bread

Sea-buckthorn is the healthiest berry I know, a real super berry, and it's taste is very interesting. I've been looking for a sea-buckthorn bread recipe since I bought some ground dried sea-buckthorn powder in Finland, and finally I've found an idea here that I wanted to try out. The sea-buckthorn berry powder adds a really nice flavour to this bread, and I must say that this is one of my absolute favourites. I changed the recipe a little bit, so here is my version of it.

Recipe for 2 loaves

500 ml water

50 ml melted butter

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp dry yeast (about 1 small bag)

8-9 dl bread flour

3 dl stoneground oatmeal

0,5 dl sea-buckthorn powder

Mix the dry ingredients, melt the butter and heat the water lukewarm. Add the butter, water and syrup into the dry ingredients and knead into and even bread dough. Add more flour or liquid, if the texture isn't satisfactory.

Let the dough raise for about 15 minutes under a tea towel. Then shape it into 2 loaves of bread or into smaller rolls. Let them rest under a tea towel and double the size.

Sprinkle a little water on the top and bake the breads at 220C for about 20-25 minutes (depending on the size).

Let them cool a little and then enjoy with butter and cheese, or save some for later.

Your VegHog

Grilled vegetable sandwich

I just realised that I haven't posted any sandwich ideas here, can it be true? I can only remember paninis, rolls, bagels, bruchettas... anyway, today I am indeed posting a sandwich recipe, and what could be better for a start of a new week.

I char-grilled some vegetables and halloumi slices and stacked them on bread – easy + I love the smoky flavour! These vegetable amounts should be enough to make four generous sandwiches.

1 aubergine

1 zucchini

1 halloumi

100g baby salad leaves

Bread slices

Vegetable oil for grilling

Slice the vegetables and halloumi into thin slices.

Heat vegetable oil in a griddle pan and char-grill the vegetables on both sides until they have distinctive grilling marks. Due to my pan's size I had to do several batches of grilling, so I placed the ones that were already done in a dish into the oven to stay warm.

When the grilling is done, half a large bread slice (or use two bread slices on top of each other) and stack the salad and vegetables on one slice and then place a lid on the sandwich. I decided not to grill the bread on this occasion, but feel free to do so.

Serve warm and enjoy!

Your VegHog