Hatsapuri

 

Happy New Year 2022 everyone! I hope that you had a nice celebration. We did our usual thing: dinner and drinks at home and then watching some fireworks drinking mulled wine from a thermos mug. It was quite a calm party.

Before we went outside our late New Year’s Eve’s dinner was Hatsapuri, a Georgian cheese bread that is oozing soft melting cheese in the middle. I mainly followed a Finnish recipe by Valio for it, but below is my version with a few amendments. I used a blend of three cheeses and I think that it worked quite well. I was thrilled to find blood oranges at the local market, so we had a fresh blood orange salad on the side.

 

 

The starters: carrots and hummus and chocolates.

And some of the fireworks at midnight.

Hatsapuri

Ingredients

1 dl water
½ tbsp dry yeast
3 dl wheat flour
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
100 g mozzarella
25 g cheddar
25 g smoked burrata

Method

Mix the lukewarm water with yeast and 1/2 dl of the flour. Leave it for about 30 minutes until it bubbles.

Add all other ingredients apart from the cheese and knead. Let the dough rise for 3 hours and knock it back hourly.

Roll the dough out thinly into a circle and fill it with the cheese. Fold the dough over the cheese to cover it.

Bake at 250C for about 10-15 minutes. Serve hot when the cheese is still soft and enjoy!

Your VegHog

 

Slovenian frika

I started the day by making traditional Slovenian food, which is a first for me, as I’m not too familiar with that cuisine. Frika is a Slovenian cheese and potato hash and I adapted my version from this recipe by Ana Roš. I didn’t have the correct cheese to add, so I just used mature Cheddar. Obviously the pork fat was substituted by salty butter and vegetable oil. My frika ended up being very rustic looking (it’s really difficult to turn it in the pan), but it was a really nice Sunday breakfast.

Your VegHog

 

Cheese-onion-potato pie

 

I haven’t been a very productive blogger in September. I have been cooking plenty of nice dishes though, and I hope that I will have the energy to post them here soon. We have a new vegetable market close by, so I can get even more incredible local produce, which is motivating for cooking nice dishes.

I will be on holiday next week, but it will be another staycation. The Covid-19 situation got worse again in Denmark and we have more restrictions in place. We had to postpone our trip to Norway to next spring. Hopefully by then things will have calmed down. So now I’m just looking forward to a week filled with quiet walks in the surrounding areas, reading, cooking and possibly some home decorating.

Now to today’s dish. Cheese, onion and potato, what a match. They go so well together that I sometimes think that I don’t need to eat anything else. I made this shortcrust pie with softened onions and garlic, mashed local organic potatoes, thyme and Cheddar cheese. It was so good and comforting, just perfect for the autumn.

 What are your plans for the weekend? Have a nice one in any case!

Your VegHog

Cauliflower cheese

 

I'm in the mood for autumn comfort food, so I've been cooking a lot of it and loading a heavier plate at work for lunch. I need to be a little bit more careful and get some exercise on the weekend, otherwise it's just getting too much. I need to make a few lighter meals again, but before I start with those, let's talk about cauliflower cheese.

Cauliflower cheese is such a nice side with many different dishes and I could eat it as the main dish as well. I often make cauliflower cheese just with melted cheese on top, but lately I've made it more often with a proper roux based white sauce. The white sauce does make it so much better, but is of course a bit of extra work. If you use colourful cauliflower like the purple and yellow ones, it's also easy to add a bit of a colour to the dish. I used yellow cauliflower on one of these samples. Sometimes I roast the cauliflower first instead of boiling or steaming, as roasted cauliflower is just so tasty.

I just saw today that my blogging friend Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe blog had also written about cauliflower cheese. She had made a quite special creation of cauliflower cheese pasties. I think that's a great combination and is lifting the dish to another level of comfort food. This will definitely go on my to-cook-list. Johanna also linked to her previous creative cauliflower cheese dishes, which are so inspirational. Recently she shared an idea with me how to use leftover cauliflower cheese: on a pizza! That's another candidate for the must-try-list. Go and have a look at her post and nice blog, if you haven't already.

Here are my simple steps for making this basic cauliflower cheese with roux based white sauce and Cheddar. The photos are just some different cauliflower cheese cooking sessions lately.

Cauliflower cheese

Ingredients

1 cauliflower

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp wheat flour

100 g grated Cheddar

½ tsp onion powder

½ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp vegetable stock powder

A grind of ground black pepper

500 ml water (cauliflower cooking water can be used)

Method

Cut the cauliflower into florets and cook them in water. Save the cooking water and place the florets in an oven dish.

Prepare the roux. Heat the butter in a pan and whisk in the wheat flour. Let the flour cook a bit, for about 2 minutes.

Slowly add some of the cauliflower cooking water and keep whisking. Gradually add more water until you are happy with the texture.

Season the sauce and start adding the cheese in there. Whisk the cheese in and let it melt into an even sauce.

Pour the sauce on the cauliflower. Add some additional grated cheese on top and bake the cauliflower cheese at 180 C for about 25 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Cheese, onion and potato pie

I have been into comfort food even more than usually lately. I don't know, it must be the chilly weather and darkness. And what could be more comforting in this season than a warm cheese, onion and potato pie in shortcrust pastry? I think that offers pretty much the ultimate comfort, at least for me.

I roasted the potatoes that went into the pie, and I also slow-cooked the onions first. Then I filled the pie with them and a lot of Cheddar. Off to the oven the whole thing went, and baked until the crust was crispy and golden brown. That's the recipe in all its shortness.

I got so full after eating a couple of slices of this pie, so it should be consumed carefully. It should be fine when shared with some good friends though.

Your VegHog

Grilled cheese sandwiches

Sometimes it’s refreshing to have just a simple grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. I tried to make these a bit different though, as I got a lovely loaf of olive and cheese bread on our trip to Sweden. Sweden of course is just about 40 minutes train ride away from us, so it’s nice to visit the other side of the pond occasionally. They have some amazing bakeries there, and we also got these amazing rum and chocolate balls there. At the moment Malmö is lit with nice Christmas lights and the Christmas markets are on. They also have a great covered market with street food and other food stalls. That's where we bought the bread. It was really cosy over there.

But now to these breads. I made a spread from olive oil, garlic and smoked paprika that I brushed the bread with. Then I added some fresh spinach and Maasdamer cheese on the top, and baked the breads in the oven. The spinach was only an attempt to try to make them healthier and slightly green.

The breads were very good, but I love this kind of melted cheese breads anyway. It's just perfect on busy evenings or cosy film nights at home. What about you, is the grilled cheese sandwich also your hero?

Your VegHog

Cheese and onion pie

We've had a couple of chilly days here in Copenhagen this week. It hasn't been raining, so I'm quite happy with the dry yet chilly weather. The ground was frosty one morning, and that gave me a nice boost while walking to the train station at 7 am. I have about 15 minutes' walk to my train station with a lovely lake scenery and loads of sea birds, and that walk always wakes me up. Then a 30 minute train ride to work follows, which I spend by reading the news online and doing some Danish language exercises with an app. This all of course has nothing to do with the dish that I was going to share with you today, but sometimes it's nice to give little peeks to my everyday life.

Now to the warming dish. What would this season be without a hearty cheese and onion pie? Nothing, I tell you! I have made this classic again, and it's basically the same one as in this post, but of course it always varies a bit. This time I covered the pie with a crispy griddle of pastry, and it was very nice. I saw the pie recipe once in Simon Hopkinson's cooking programme on the BBC and have been making it ever since in a slight variation. You can find his recipe here.

I'm so glad that it's Friday tomorrow, as this week has been so busy. I have no plans either, so it will be nice just to relax. What are your weekend plans?

Your VegHog

Spinach and cheese roulade

"One day my log will have something to say about this. My log saw something that night." Log Lady, Twin Peaks

I was looking for cooking inspiration in my cookbooks, not so much in Twin Peaks, and found an interesting roulade idea. This recipe is from Yotam Ottolenghi's vegetarian cookbook Plenty More: Taleggio and spinach roulade (p. 290-291). I changed some things in my recipe, and have written down my version below, but you can find the original Ottolenghi recipe also here. I really think that you should try this recipe, and just maybe the log will have something to say to you.

I made some minor adjustments to the dough by using slightly different type of ingredients, but didn't change anything else about it. It was very easy to work on and made a nice smooth ball after the kneading. For the filling I made the semi-dried tomatoes myself, as I love that sort of tomatoes. They are just so fragrant when made in the own oven. The most major change was using havarti and mozzarella instead of pecorino and taleggio, as those were just easier to come by. I think they worked well too.

I initially thought that my roulade was a bit dry, but my partner assured me it wasn't. Of course I left out the crème fraiche, so that would have made it more moist anyway. The roulade was quite tasty in the end, and it held very well together in the oven. I'm tempted to make a similar roulade with different kind of filling. Don't you think that the cut pieces look a little bit like hedgehogs?

Spinach and cheese roulade

Ingredients

Dough

160 ml milk

2 tsp dry yeast

350 g wheat flour

1 tsp sugar

50 ml vegetable oil

1 egg

1 egg yolk

Filling

150 g spinach

20 g basil

100 g havarti cheese

250 g mozzarella

200 g semi-dried tomatoes

1 egg

2 tsp poppy seeds

Method

If you are making the semi-dried tomatoes, better start with them, as they can be in the oven for a few hours. Cut the tomatoes in halves, sprinkle with a little salt and possibly oregano, and bake at about 50 C for a few hours until they start drying slightly. The temperature can be increased at times, if necessary.

Mix all dough ingredients together apart from the milk. Warm the milk up slightly and mix it into the other ingredients and knead for a good while. I probably kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes. Once the dough is a smooth ball, it's good. Let it rise in a bowl for about 45 minutes. Then roll it out thinly on a baking tray that has been lined with baking paper. Let rise for another 30 minutes under a tea towel.

Put the filling onto the dough and shape a large log from it. Let rest once again 30 minutes under a tea towel.

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C. Brush the roulade with a beaten egg, and sprinkle the poppy seeds on top. Bake for 10 minutes, and then reduce the temperature to 160 C and bake for another 25 minutes.

Let it cool down a bit before slicing.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Mexican mac'n'cheese

Mac'n'cheese is certainly one of my favourite dishes, and I also like when it's slightly altered at times. I like the fairly new M&S ready meal, mac'n'cheese with leek and smoked cheese breadcrumbs, and recently one of my local burger places had truffle mac'n'cheese on offer (really really tasty!).

So that's how I thought that I could also try a new version of the classic in my kitchen. I wanted to go with Mexican spices, and what could've been a better choice than Gran Luchito smoked chilli paste as the base for the spicing. Feel free to use other brands, but I really like Gran Luchito at the moment.

My partner doesn't like milky and creamy sauces, so I whisked the cheese directly into chilli seasoned vegetable stock. I liked the end result of this recipe, soft macaroni smothered in cheese with a hint of chilli, just perfect for me. Try it, if you are a fan of mac'n'cheese and/or Mexican food!

Mexican mac'n'cheese

One large oven dish

Ingredients

300 g macaroni

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 small chilli

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp smoked chilli paste

Sprinkle of smoked paprika

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

200 ml vegetable stock

200 g grated emmental

Method

Cook the macaroni and set to side.

Chop the onion, garlic and chilli finely and cook them in vegetable oil until soft.

Mix in the seasoning and the smoked chilli paste.

Then add the vegetable stock and let it heat through.

Gradually start whisking in the grated cheese so that it melts into the mix. Use about 100 g of the cheese at this stage.

When the cheese mixture is smooth, mix it with the macaroni and put into an oven dish.

Cover with the rest of the cheese and bake at 180 C for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Cheese and onion pie

Maybe it’s already over for me with the healthy eating boost to the new year. I’m not sure, but lately in this chillier weather I have been craving for heavier dinners. It has been chilly and foggy over here, almost feeling like winter. January has been so long, but unfortunately not such a productive blogging month for me. I’m confident that it will get better towards the spring.

I suddenly remembered this favourite of mine, Simon Hopkinson’s mother’s cheese and onion pie, and simply had to make it. I have made this pie for several times. It's so full of cheese and onion goodness and it's a tough one to beat as a winter favourite. I pretty much followed the recipe that I have already shared on my blog here. I only added some dry cider to the onions this time, and it was a very tasty addition, I can only recommend it. I also made the pie in a slightly lower pie dish this time, and obviously the decorations were different. It's nice to spend a couple of extra minutes making cute surfaces for covered pies. This time I went with the hedgehog theme. This would also make a nice centrepiece when inviting friends over.

The original recipe is by Simon Hopkinson, My mother's cheese and onion pie. It's also in his vegetarian cookbook and was made by him in his BBC cooking programme. I can only recommend this recipe!

Your VegHog

Mixed vegetable and cheese tartlets

I love making vegetable tarts and mini tartlets, as they are just so nice as freshly baked snacks. They are brilliant even later or as a work lunch.

The beauty of these tarts is that you can take whatever left-over vegetables you have and add them here, even small amounts are fine, as not so much is needed. I happened to have some kalettes, what an earth are they? Well they seem to call the flower sprout looking mini kales now kalettes. I might have missed something, probably a re-branding? Anyway I like them, they are healthy and look so cute. For these tarts I shredded them to smaller pieces.

I rarely make my own pastry, which makes these tartlets super easy. For these I just took a little bit of ready made and rolled out shortcrust pastry, cut pieces from it with cookie cutter and placed them into silicone muffin cases.

Then I prepped the filling. I pre-cooked the pepper, tomatoes, onion and garlic in a pan, so that they were already softened, and seasoned them. I placed them onto the pastry, added the kalettes and cheese and baked until golden.

These were so good, they melted in the mouth! Here are the ingredients I used:

Shortcrust pastry

Kalettes

Romano pepper

Cherry tomatoes

Onion

Garlic

Basil leaves

Cheddar

Salt

Pepper

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog