Summer brunch

It is so nice to have some outdoor meals in this glorious weather. It is quite hot here, but in the shade with a little breeze from the harbour you can just about survive. This morning I prepared a little spread on our balcony table with iced cold-brew oat latte, watermelon slices, nectarines, red currants, yogurt with granola and dried berries and freshly baked cheese-sausage-horns with vegan chorizo. It was such a nice relaxing moment with no rush to go anywhere or to do anything.

Now we will go to a street food market to have further treats outdoors. I’m curious about vegetarian zucchini fritter gyros from a Greek stall. I think I’ll have to try that today, unless I'm still too full from this brunch. Let's see, anyway it will be a very relaxing day today.

Have you been enjoying some al fresco dining this summer?

Enjoy your weekend!

Your VegHog

Sweet or savoury?

We had sweet and savoury waffles for breakfast this morning, or actually it was more like a late Sunday brunch. Now I’m kind of bursting and will need some rest. The weather is very changeable today, so I’m not sure yet what to do with the rest of the day. I would have some cleaning and wardrobe organising to do, if deciding to stay indoors.

The savoury waffles were topped with smoked Cheddar, salad, tomatoes, fresh peas (first Danish peas of the season for me), green olives and vegan butter.

The sweet waffles were topped with blueberry compote, fresh blueberries and vegan butter.

Sweet or savoury, that is the question. What type are you? 

 

Have a nice Sunday!

Your VegHog

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 

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

Fishless finger sandwiches for breakfast

I just had my one year anniversary of living in Denmark. It's incredible how quickly the time has passed. I've really been enjoying every minute here, and I'm so happy that I took that decision to move. It has been a very busy year with many things going on in my life and many changes, but luckily I have managed to blog at least a little bit. And of course I'm planning to blog further.

The lifestyle in Denmark is more similar to what I'm used to from Finland, so it was easy to feel like home straight away. Copenhagen is a very international city and there are so many interesting places to see. I don't even want to travel anywhere else on holiday, I'm just happy strolling around in my own city. I've learned a lot of Danish and can already have short conversations in Danish. It's only hard to practise, as everyone switches quickly to English, if you're not fast enough, but I do like to try.

Now to today's dish. I wanted to celebrate the anniversary with a vegetarian version of a weird and wonderful British dish: the humble fish finger sandwich. I never managed to eat anything like it while I lived in Britain, so I wanted to create a version of this classic dish now. Do Brits even eat this, or is it just an urban legend?

I recently bought some vegan fishless fingers and they were perfect for this dish. They don't taste fishy at all, which is good, but the texture seemed to be similar to what I remember of fish fingers. I refined the sandwiches a little bit by using sourdough bread and topping them with tomatoes, spinach and vegan chipotle mayonnaise. I don't think that those things are included in the traditional recipe. This was actually quite a nice dish and definitely hit the spot as breakfast. 

Have a nice Sunday!

Your VegHog

Facon muffins

We have kept sampling the Astrid och Aporna veggie products, and this morning it was the fejkon's turn. I made English muffins with potato rostis, cheese and facon, and they were quite excellent for breakfast. I'm sure that these sandwiches will keep us going for a while.

How has your weekend started? I just want to mainly relax this weekend, as there is a busy week ahead, and also after the whole festive season, it's just nice to be at home. I think we'll go to a museum this afternoon and for a little stroll. It's a bit chilly and cloudy today, but should be nice to go out a bit.

Enjoy your weekend!

Your VegHog

English breakfast

Do I miss England after over four months in Denmark? The answer is not really. To be honest I don't think about it much, but of course I miss my friends, some of the local people in my area, nice restaurants and pubs, certain products in shops and so forth. However all in all life is better for me here. I'm glad that I have no regrets regarding the move, and it has been good to settle in here.

A vegetarian version of the English breakfast might be something that I miss slightly. It's not something that I would have very often, but now I made a spontaneous vegetarian fry up breakfast, as it has been quite a while. I was also watching some cooking videos by the Avant-garde Vegan, Gaz Oakley from Wales. He made aubergine bacon for his vegan breakfast, and that was something that I wanted to try. I slightly changed the marinade based on the things I had available, but I very much liked the end product as an addition to a veggie fry up. But definitely do check Gaz' YouTube channel, if you haven't done so yet, there's some really fine vegan cooking over there.

I also made different kind of baked beans by using butter beans and tinned tomatoes to make the mix. I added a splash of cider vinegar, salt and sugar to the beans and let it reduce for a while. I served some ready made soysages from the shop, potato rostis, wholemeal roll and a fried tomato with this breakfast.

Here is how I made the “facon”.

Facon

1 aubergine cut into thin strips

For the marinade:

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp white miso

1 tsp oak smoked salt

¼ tsp garlic granules

1 tsp smoked paprika

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C.

Cut the aubergine into very thin strips.

Make the marinade by mixing the ingredients together.

Roll the aubergine slices in the marinade so that both sides get coated and place them on baking paper.

Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until crispy and serve with the breakfast.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Our weekend breakfast

Our breakfast yesterday and today was pretty identical. It's what you can see on the picture. Only on weekends I have time to have a proper breakfast. On other mornings I either skip it fully or quickly scoff a yogurt or a fruit. So on the weekend it's nice to take time to make and eat breakfast. Now that we have a proper dining table after a long while, it's also nice just to sit down for meals at a table.

We had some of our usual oven rolls with cream cheese, onion, tomato, basil and cheese on sourdough rolls seasoned with salt and pepper and baked in the oven. I love this combination so much, and it fills for a long time.

Then I also made kind of a small fruit salad with prickly pears, grapes and raspberries. Prickly pears, cactus fruits, are so healthy and refreshing, and apparently also a good hangover cure. I'm very fond of them at the moment and need to experiment more with them in other dishes as well.

The drinks were coffee, orange juice and ginger shots, either apple-ginger or cranberry-ginger.

What a good way to start the day. Yesterday this gave me strength to a long day spent mostly on boats. That sea life can surely be tireing! We also visited some outdoor cultural performances.

How has your weekend been?

Your VegHog

Vegetable omelette

Here is a quick post before I go to bed. I think I was quite productive at work today, and even got some stuff done at home. We are still very much sorting out stuff from our moving boxes, as it seems difficult to find space for it all, or enough storage units. I think I'll see a trip to Ikea in my near future. The flat does have enough space, we only need a couple of more shelves and drawers, then it should be fine. We luckily also have quite a large loft room, where we can keep stuff that's needed more rarely.

It feels weird to write a breakfast themed post in the evening, but here we go anyway. Sometimes a proper omelette is a really nice breakfast to have (and why not also a lunch or dinner, if you like). I made a substantial one recently that contained courgettes, onion, tomatoes, cottage cheese and basil. Then there was just a bit of milk added to the eggs and salt and pepper to season. I mixed all ingredients together with the finely grated vegetables and fried in a pan. The turning of this monster wasn't easy, but I got it turned without horrible damage.

This was such a nice breakfast, and I'll have to make a similar one soon. The beauty of this is that you can use some leftover veggies in this, and get really creative. I also think that the cottage cheese was a nice addition. It was also quite an ad hoc addition, as I noticed that it was running out of date. I always feel very happy when I can utilise something that might have gone to waste otherwise.

What's your favourite omelette like, or do you not like omelettes at all? Any experiences with vegan versions?

Have a nice week!

Your VegHog

Grilled cheese and olive hummus breads for breakfast

This has been a good weekend what comes to my slow breakfasts at home. I've had wholemeal baguettes with grilled cheese, olive hummus, tomatoes, onion and basil. They were so good and tasty, and I'm really glad I took the time to make them and then sit around peacefully and enjoy.

The olive hummus is ready made from the shop and it's really good. It gives a bit of a change to the usual hummus. The cheese is similar to halloumi in the sense that it's suitable for frying and barbequing, but it's made only from cow's milk. I think it's also a bit softer than halloumi, and I enjoy it very much. I've also tried to learn how to fry these the best on the gas stove, which has been okay, although I managed to scorch some quite black (I still ate them...).

Of course I also had coffee from a Moomin mug to complete the nice moment.

How has your weekend been?

Your VegHog

Holiday mood

Good morning everyone! You probably already guessed it from the title and the too cheerful Monday morning greeting that I'm about to go on a holiday! Well I'm only going home to Finland, but it will be so good to see my family. It seems that it's still occasionally snowing over there, so that will be interesting for this time of year. I hope that you won't be having too much toil either, even if having just a regular working week.

So this was my breakfast bowl this morning, gathering strength and vitamins for the holiday. It's so nice to eat such colourful bowls of food, especially in the spring and summer. This bowl contained Greek yogurt, pineapple and strawberries.

I will be sharing some things from my Finland trip later. Remember still to take part in Eat Your Greens in April! I will be posting the round up from Finland, there's still one week to go!

Have a wonderful week!

Your VegHog

English veggie breakfast

I haven't made a proper fry up at home for a while and I thought that it would a nice thing to have on a Sunday morning when there's a bit more time to make and eat a bigger breakfast. After a little bit of effort, the huge breakfast was ready and it was so filling again. It really keeps you going for quite a while.

This time I made a slightly different version, still containing beans, fried tomato and mushroom, but I also added fried halloumi instead of veggie sausages. Halloumi makes a very good addition to the English breakfast, as it's so nice fried and it's an extra protein there and a filling agent.

The bread was spelt sourdough bread and I made the hash browns myself. I tried a new recipe with them that doesn't contain eggs, just potato, onion, seasoning and butter. I had a bit of a mishap with them, as they quite fell apart and became deconstructed hash browns. I think that was due to the too large potato pieces and perhaps I didn't let the butter and potatoes cool enough so that they would've stuck better together. However, they tasted wonderful with the breakfast, so I didn't care too much.

Are you a fan of a veggie fry up? What are your favourite components of the English breakfast?

Have a relaxing Sunday!

Your VegHog

Mozzarella and pickled beetroot sandwiches

For this breakfast recipe I used the beetroot and carrot root vegetable bread, which you may have seen in my foodie shopping from Finland post. However any bread is good here, even just regular slices of toast. I decided to add a little bit more beetroot to these breads by pickling thin beetroot strings. I let them pickle overnight, but I'm sure a shorter pickling time would also be fine.

I absolutely love the look of the vibrant beetroot. I never want it to be a dominating flavour, but in small doses it's great, almost as seasoning. I enjoyed these breads very much and they made a nice change to my regular breakfasts.

Ingredients

1 sweet beetroot

4 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp sugar

½ tsp salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

250 g mozzarella

Handful fresh rocket

1 small garlic clove

4 slices of bread

Method

Cut the beetroot into spirals. Briefly heat the pickle mix for the beetroot and leave it overnight in the pickle. I'm sure you can use these earlier, if you don't want to wait overnight.

Slice the mozzarella and cut the garlic clove in half.

Toast the bread slices and rub the cut sides of the garlic onto the bread.

Fill the breads with rocket, mozzarella and pickled beetroot and enjoy!

Your VegHog