The VegHog’s Cheap Eats Cooking Challenge 2022 – Round up

 

Earlier in January I called for my Cheap Eats Cooking Challenge 2022 and now is the time to end it. It wasn’t a huge audience success for the participation (actually no other recipes shared than my own), but I got lot of nice comments on social media so I’m happy about it. It would’ve been nicer for this post to have some other contributions as well, but I will share some of my dishes instead.

I cooked loads of affordable dishes during the past four weeks and I have posted all of them on Instagram, so you might also want to have a look at #theveghogscheapeats to catch them all.

I selected my German Spätzle noodles with onions, white wine and cheese recipe as my main contribution for the challenge. It is a very comforting dish, where a basic dough for the noodles or mini dumplings really goes a long way. My Spätzle dough recipe is vegan, but many people also make them with eggs. You could veganise this whole dish by using vegan cheese. You can find my recipe here.

Pasta

Pasta is a true staple of cheap eats and student cuisine. I have made a lot of pasta myself recently as my homemade vegan pasta dough is very cheap and making pasta from scratch keeps you occupied for a while so that you have less time for snacking in between. Of course I also cooked many dishes with ready made pasta, it’s not just affordable, but also very convenient on busy weekdays.

Rice & couscous

Rice and couscous dishes also tend to be on the cheaper side and they can be a nice change from all that pasta. All you need to add is some veggies and maybe tofu and you’re good to go.

Soups

A good hearty soup is so lovely every now and again and even from the most basic ingredients you can make a nice soup or broth. I made these tomato-based soups and also my own vegetable broth. I added homemade dumplings into one of the soups making it even more filling.

Potatoes

The good old potatoes also make nice economical dishes, which can be very comforting and filling. They are best friends with onions and cheese, so only sky is the limit with what else to add!

Baking

If you bake bread yourself, you can save a bit of money and as a benefit have nice fresh bread at home. I usually just make some breakfast rolls and pizzas, because they are easy, but I would like to be a better bread baker.

Mexican food

I find that there are many good cheap recipe alternatives in the Mexican cooking. Once you have some basic spices and pulses at home, you can make a lot of different things like quesadillas, tacos and Mexican rice.

Indian food

Vegan curries with pulses are excellent Cheap Eats. You can make a huge dish with just some spices, pulses and veggies and don’t have to break the bank.

This was my small contribution towards cheap eating and the dishes were all very nice. I even saved some money and will now treat myself with something nice.

Have further a nice week!

Your VegHog

 

Finnish Your Dinner

We held a small event in our shared courtyard yesterday, and invited our neighbours to come over to try some Finnish food. This was all because I saw on Friday that there was going to be a worldwide cooking event to celebrate Finland's approaching 100 years of independence by offering Finnish food to your friends and neighbours where ever you are. The independence day itself is on the 6th December, and last weekend it was 100 days until that day. The theme was "Dinner under the Finnish sky", and we actually got lucky and had a blue and white sky.

It was a bit of a short notice hearing about this two days before cooking, so I decided to keep it simple, and make just a couple of small snacks. I also made my own leaflets inviting the neighbours to the event.

I made three dishes for our Finnish Your Dinner event:

- Finnish potato pies, a dish that I've already shared here on several occassions. You can find the recipe here.

- Chanterelle tart, of course I had to use seasonal mushrooms, which are very popular to be used in Finland in this season.

- Kropsu, a thick oven pancake from my region, served with fresh blueberries and raspberries. I've also posted a Kropsu recipe before, which you can find here.

There was also of course homemade salty liquorice vodka accompanied by melancholic Finnish rock music to make the right atmosphere.

It was all very rustic and homely, just like Finland is. It was also nice to get to know some neighbours with this weird excuse. I was afraid that people would now think that I'm a bit odd, which is actually quite accurate in the end, so it doesn't really matter. Sometimes it's good to try to be social. I find Danish people very friendly and talkative in general, so it's nice to have small gatherings over here.

Have a nice week everyone!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens welcoming July recipes

It's great to be back hosting Eat Your Greens! Shaheen kindly covered for me, while I got settled here in Denmark. I must say that I've settled in fairly well so far and can't wait to experience more here.

But now it's time to see your wonderful summerly green vegan and vegetarian recipes. What could be better time than July to eat all those lovely greens!

If you are not familiar with the challenge yet, you can read more here. But in all simplicity, share a vegan or vegetarian recipe featuring green vegetables that you have posted on your blog in July in the comment section below, and it will be featured in the round up at the end of the month.

I can't wait to see your green summer creations! Have a look at the wonderful June recipes for some more inspiration!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens – Call for February entries

I have the pleasure of co-hosting Eat Your Greens vegetarian cooking challenge from now on, as Shaheen from A2K – A Seasonal Veg Table, who created the challenge, kindly asked me to join her. This February is my first turn to host and I’m really excited to see what kind of recipes you will share with the challenge.

The idea of the challenge is to cook a vegan or vegetarian dish with green vegetables, post it on your blog and share it with the challenge. Then the recipes will be collected into a round up post, which will be posted on the current host's blog. You can find more detailed instructions about how to enter on this page and you can read the January Round Up of Eat Your Greens here to get the idea. Believe me, it's a lot of fun to participate!

I really hope to see many interesting entries, so please take part. I will be posting my own entry later this month, as didn't have time to do it yet.

Also let us know, if you have any questions about anything. At the end of this month or beginning of the next I will post a round up on my blog of all February entries.

Have a nice week!

Your VegHog

Turnip and lentil salad

Turnips, the unsung heroes of the root vegetable family, the less appreciated vegetable. However this hasn't always been the case, already Pliny the Elder (c. AD 23 – AD 79) considered the turnip as one of the most important vegetables of his day, rating it "directly after cereals or at all events after the bean, since its utility surpasses that of any other plant". Very high praise for the turnip there.

Like Pliny the Elder, I love turnips, they are so nice fresh for example with a dip like hummus. They also made a great addition to this vegan salad, where I combined them with carrot, pistachios, mixed leaves, warm lentils and an onion dressing. I decided to add them as thin shavings to the salad. This was a very nice salad in the end and I'm happy to eat the rest of it at work tomorrow.

I'll share this recipe with Vegetable Palette, a vegetarian cooking challenge hosted by Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table and am excited to see whether anyone else has chosen the humble turnip as their white vegetable. 

 

I'm entering this salad also to this month's No Croutons Required, a vegetarian soup and salad cooking challenge hosted this month by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen and co-hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes.  

Here's the recipe for my turnip and lentil salad.

Ingredients

60 g mixed salad leaves

3 turnips

1 carrot

½ cup puy lentils

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

Handful of pistachios

Dressing:

¼ onion

4 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tsp black treacle

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp thyme

Method

Chop the quarter onion very finely and mix it with the rest of the dressing ingredients.

Cook the lentils in water with some added vegetable stock powder.

Toast the pistachios in the oven a little.

Make thin shavings from the peeled turnips and carrot. For example a peeling knife is perfectly fine for making these shavings.

Serve the components together and sprinkle the dressing on the top.

Your VegHog