Upside down brussels sprout pizza

It's time to start thinking about Christmas food, as it's soon December. I want to test a few center piece candidates before deciding the dishes for our vegetarian Christmas feast, and I think that it's nice to sample different seasonal food in this pre-Christmas period. So in this spirit I made a seasonal upside down brussels sprout pizza. The crust is a seedy thick crust and the toppings are potatoes, slow cooked onions and brussels sprouts with sage and other spices. I topped the pizza or pie with sea buckthorn and cranberries to add a splash of colour and they also added a nice flavour contrast. I think that this dish could be nice at the Christmas table. I just love sprouts and good ones have started appearing at the market, also the ones in the stalks. I need to make more sprout dishes in the near future, but here is this recipe first.

Upside down brussels sprout pizza

Ingredients

Dough

200 g wheat flour

1/2 cup seed mix

2 tbsp dry yeast

1 tsp salt

150 ml lukewarm water

3 tbsp vegetable oil

Filling

1 onion

1 garlic clove

5-6 small potatoes

8-10 brussels sprouts

Vegetable oil for frying

2 tbsp vegan butter

1 tsp Cabbage Karma spice mix

1 tsp sea salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Fresh sage leaves

Sea buckthorn and cranberries for decoration

Method

Mix and knead the dough ingredients and let it rise for about one hour.

In the meanwhile prepare the other ingredients. Cook the potatoes and slice them. Steam the brussels sprouts and cut them to halves. Slice the onion and chop the garlic finely and slow cook them in oil.

Add the potatoes and brussels sprouts to the onions and spice the mix. I used Cabbage Karma spice mix that is a blend consisting of coriander seeds infused in orange oil with fennel seeds, sumac, black pepper and lemon thyme. I also added sea salt, ground black pepper and fresh sage leaves.

Arrange the vegetables in the pan. Use the same pan for frying and baking in the oven. I put the brussels sprouts on the bottom (meaning that they will be on top of the pizza once turned around), then the potatoes followed by the onions. Then place the dough on top. Hand stretch it over the vegetables and bake the pizza at 200 C for about 20 minutes. When it's done, turn it around on a plate and enjoy! 

I'm sharing this recipe with the last edition of Eat Your Greens hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen and co-hosted by me. Sadly this event will come to an end after this month, but you still have time to share your green recipe with us! It would be nice to get plenty of green recipes for the last round up. There are more details about the rules here.

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens October Round Up

October went by pretty quickly, didn’t it? I can’t believe that today is already the last day, and there are little witches and ghosts roaming in the streets. Unfortunately our doorbell has been malfunctioning for quite a while now, due to be repaired only towards end of November, so the little tricksters and treaters won’t be able to access the premises.

Anyway, this post is now about Eat Your Greens and the recipes shared with the challenge in October.

My Eat Your Greens co-host Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen cooked a Vegetable Tagine. The tagine was made with homegrown courgettes, carrots, potatoes, sweet potato, chickpeas and dried fruit, and served with couscous on the side. Oh, how I would love to eat a vegetable tagine right now, as it has been quite chilly this week, and those spices would surely warm me up!

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe shared a Mediterranean pumpkin and chickpea salad. This salad is so colourful and it features roasted pumpkin, red cabbage and red capsicum with dukkah, served on a bed of spinach with additional chickpeas and tzatziki. It sounds like a great combination, and I’m welcoming all pumpkin dishes at the moment.

My own October recipe was a Pattypan squash and broccoli green curry. A Thai green curry is such comfort food for me. I made this one with of course a green curry paste, pattypan squash, tenderstem broccoli, spinach and fried pieces of that “oat tofu”.

So my friends, this was my last time hosting Eat Your Greens and I would like to take a moment to thank all of you great contributors and readers over the years. It has truly been a great time being part of this challenge and getting know so many nice bloggers around the world. Shaheen will be hosting next month, so I hope that we will see many of your contributions there again!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens welcoming October recipes

Welcome to Eat Your Greens in October! I hope that you will all share nice green autumnal dishes with us.

It's quite simple, just post a vegan or vegetarian recipe featuring one or several green vegetables on your blog and share the link in the comment section of this post below. Your recipe will then be presented in the round up at the end of the month. You will find the full rules for participating here.

Also go and check out my co-host Shaheen's blog. She hosted Eat Your Greens last month.

I look forward to seeing your creations!

Your VegHog

Pea and lentil frikadellen

Oh dear, I haven't blogged much at all in September. My apologies for the quietness here and on Instagram and Twitter. Everything is fine here, but it has just been very busy. We had a guest from the UK and were proud to show our city. Then I've been balancing the usual weekday activities, like Danish classes, with work.

This weekend I don't have many plans, and just prefer staying at home. I've been too much out and about lately. I will try to get some blogging done as well on the weekend. I've still been cooking quite a lot, and have some new recipes to share with you. This season is so exciting for me with all the squashes and mushrooms, but more about that later.

Here are some very basic but tasty vegan pea and lentil frikadellen or fritters. They are made from green lentils, dried pea crush and some veggies. They are easy to make and are just a nice accompaniment to any dish. I usually have all these ingredients available, so it's a good dish when you don't have much else in your cupboard.

Pea and lentil frikadellen

Ingredients

1 cup green lentils

1 cup dried pea crush

3 carrots

2 onions

4 garlic cloves

½ cup frozen spinach

2 tbsp vegetable stock powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Fresh thyme

3-4 tbsp wheat flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Cook the green lentils and dried pea crush until soft.

Chop or grate the carrots finely. Chop the onions and garlic finely.

Cook the onions, carrots and garlic in oil until soft, and combine with the pea and lentil mix. Also add thawed frozen spinach to the mix.

Season the mix with vegetable stock powder, salt and pepper. I also added some fresh thyme.

Remove any excess liquid from the mix, mix the flour in and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Shape frikadellen from the mix. Add more flour, if the mix isn't firm enough.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan, and fry the frikadellen on both sides until crispy and golden brown.

Enjoy as a side with many different dishes or just as a snack on the side. These also make quite nice party snacks, especially when made a bit smaller.

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens challenge hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen and co-hosted by me. Go check out her blog for more details and inspiration, you still have plenty of time to take part in September!

Have a great weekend!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens August Round Up

August is almost over so it's time to look at your Eat Your Greens recipes in August.

Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen and my Eat Your Greens co-host made a tempting Crushed Potato, Courgette and Feta Salad. She roasted new potatoes, round courgette, yellow courgette and beans with olive oil, and then added peas, parsley, feta and salt and pepper for some further baking. This combination of several greens sounds so wonderful and is even better when made with homegrown produce.

Laura from Vegfully cooked a refreshing Courgette and mint soup. She sautéed leeks and garlic in a pan, added celery, courgettes, seasoning and vegetable stock. After cooking for a while, the ingredients were blended in a smooth soup and fresh mint, feta, pepper and olive oil were added for serving. This sounds like a perfect summer soup to me and I would be happy to eat it anytime.

Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen shared a wonderful dish of Asparagus and Peas in a Creamy Mustard Sauce. She combined the slightly more unusual vegetable, asparagus, with Indian flavours. There is a creamy mustard sauce with ginger, chillies, cumin seeds, turmeric, coconut milk and lemon juice with pan-fried asparagus and green peas. I'm sure that asparagus works very well with Indian spices and I'm very intrigued by this dish.

My own recipe this month was a Spanakopita with crispy filo pastry, spinach and feta. It's also a nice piece of summer baking and really addictive.

Thank you again to all participants and readers. It was such a nice month of green food, and there will be more in September when Shaheen will be hosting again. I hope to see you all then.

Have a nice weekend all!

Your VegHog

Spanakopita

It has been quite a cloudy and rainy weekend over here, but it made it easier for me just to relax and take it easy. Today we'll head to the vegetable market to get some supplies for next week, and then I'll just potter in the kitchen making Sunday dinner.

A spanakopita has been on my mind for a while, and I also wanted to work with filo again after a long time. So I finally got around making a tasty spanakopita with crispy pastry and comforting soft spinach and feta filling. It was surprisingly easy to make, and I will surely be making it again.

Spanakopita

Ingredients

230 g filo pastry

230 g frozen spinach

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

140 g feta

3 tbsp fresh parsley

2 eggs

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

½ cup olive oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and let the frozen spinach thaw. Then drain all excess liquid off the spinach.

Mix the spinach, onion and garlic with the crumbled feta, fresh parsley, eggs, salt and pepper into an even mix.

Brush a baking tray with oil and place two sheets of the filo pastry on it. Brush the sheets with oil and add a couple of more layers.

Then put the spinach mix onto the pastry, and layer the rest of the sheets on top, and brush them all individually with oil.

Wrap the excess filo on the edges to the baking tray.

Bake the spanakopita for about one hour until the pastry is crispy and the filling has cooked nicely.

Enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe as my this month's Eat Your Greens contribution. I'm hosting the challenge this month with my co-host and creator of the challenge, Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog.

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens welcoming August recipes

We are welcoming vegan and vegetarian recipes made with green vegetables for the August 2019 Eat Your Greens challenge. I'm hosting the challenge this month, and it's created and co-hosted by the lovely Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog.

You only need to cook a vegan or vegetarian dish featuring one or several green vegetables, post it on your blog and share the link with us in the comment box below. So easy, isn't it! If you want more guidance, you can find the full rules here.

I look forward to seeing your creations soon, and if you need some inspiration, do head to Shaheen's blog for the July round up.

I wish you all a great and productive August!

Your VegHog

Spinach and potato curry

How is everyone? I haven't been blogging enough and reading other blogs, as I've been quite busy at work again and then tired in the evenings. I try to catch up a little bit this weekend, although the weather is now really nice, so we will be heading to a beach soon. I also have some nice recipes in the pipeline, I just need to find the time to write them down and edit the photos. I can't believe how quickly July is going past. My holiday is over, but I still want to enjoy the sunny days here in Denmark and just explore Copenhagen. Copenhagen is the perfect summer city with the seaside, channels and cosy parks.

Now to this vegan recipe. I made this comforting curry the other day, and it was very tasty with the Finnish oat block product on top. It's a block like tofu, but it's made from oats and pea protein. I very much prefer this to tofu or paneer, but as the oat block is still a new product and difficult to get outside of Finland, it's okay to substitute it with tofu or paneer in this recipe. Otherwise the curry is quite a basic one, there are just some nice small summer potatoes, frozen spinach and green lentils. I added fresh peas to the rice, which was a great addition, as I can't get enough of fresh peas at the moment. Here is my recipe, if you want to have a look.

Spinach and potato curry

Ingredients

160 g oat block (substitute with paneer or tofu)

8 small potatoes

½ cup green lentils

½ cup frozen spinach

1 large onion

3 garlic cloves

2 chillies

2 cm fresh ginger

Vegetable oil for frying

1 tbsp garam masala

½ tsp turmeric

½ tsp ground coriander

1/ tsp ground cumin

3 tbsp tomato purée

1 cup jasmine rice

1 cup fresh peas

Method

Cut the potatoes in halves or quarters depending on the size. Cook the potatoes in water until done, and set them to side, and do the same with the green lentils.

Chop the onion, garlic, chillies and ginger. Heat vegetable oil in a pan and start frying the onions slowly until they are light brown. Once the onions are done, add the garlic, chillies and ginger, and the spices to the pan. Fry for a while.

Add the potatoes, lentils, tomato purée, spinach and some water to the pan, and let simmer until the flavours have blended nicely.

Cut the oat block to cubes, fry them in vegetable oil until golden brown and serve on top of the curry.

Cook the rice, and towards the end of the cooking time, add the fresh peas to the rice.

Serve the curry with the rice and enjoy!

I want to share this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens cooking challenge hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen, and co-hosted by me. Go and check out Shaheen's blog, there's still plenty of time to take part in July, especially now that there are so many lovely greens around!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens June Round Up

June went by very quickly, but we received some lovely recipes to Eat Your Greens, which I'm presenting to you in this post.

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe shared Macaroni cheese with broccoli. It's a great idea to add some vegetables to mac'n'cheese, especially some greens. I'm sure that broccoli was a very tasty addition to this comforting mac'n'cheese.

Éphée Lafée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie made Bruschetta de petits pois et menthe. These are creative bruschettas containing peas, garlic, mint and green onions. They are very green, and they seem to be the perfect dish for the hot summer.

Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen posted a Baby Arugula and Tomato Salad with Pomegranate Seeds. Salads are just perfect for this season, and I would eat this either as standalone dish, or a side salad. It's so colourful and vibrant.

Shaheen, my Eat Your Greens co-host, from Allotment 2 Kitchen shared a Cinnamon Chickpea Tagine, and in the post she also presented some Bedminster Street Graffiti Art. The tagine dish is full of vegetables and warming spices, and it features courgettes as the greens.

I made a vegan Creamy courgette and spinach pasta, which used to be one of my favourite dishes when I was a student, and it's still nice to make especially in the summer when courgettes are new and fresh.

Thank you so much everyone for taking part in Eat Your Greens this time around. Shaheen will now host in July, so please keep contributing!

Your VegHog

Creamy courgette and spinach pasta

I'm a very happy hedgehog at the moment, as my three weeks of summer holiday started yesterday. Next week I will be heading home to Finland, and you will probably hear something from my trip later. You can also follow my holiday photos on Instagram theveghog. I very much look forward to spending midsummer in Finland after a long time. It's a big outdoor celebration in the whole country embracing the summer and enjoying the nightless night when the sun never sets. I just hope that the weather will be nice. Otherwise I don't really have any plans for the holiday, I just want to relax at home. What about you, do you have any nice holiday plans yet?

Now to food. I had two small lovely firm and green courgettes, and I wanted to make a creamy vegan pasta with them. I just cooked the courgette slices with onion and garlic and simmered in an oat cream. For extra greens I added some frozen spinach, and the dish was ready to be served with spaghetti. I really like this kind of uncomplicated and tasty pasta dishes, which I often made in my student times.

Creamy courgette and spinach pasta

Ingredients

2 courgettes

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

Vegetable oil

200 ml oat cream

Frozen spinach

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Spaghetti

Method

Slice the courgettes and chop the onion and garlic finely.

Cook the onion in vegetable oil until soft, and then add the garlic.

After a while cooking, add the courgette slices. Cook until they are softened in places. I still prefer leaving a bit bite to them.

Add the oat cream, spinach and seasoning to the pan, and let simmer until the flavours have blended nicely and the cream has become bit firmer.

Cook the spaghetti and serve it with the sauce. Have a nice summer salad or a crusty bread on the side and enjoy!

I want to share this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens challenge. I'm hosting this month, and the event is co-hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen. You also still have plenty of time to take part this month!

Have a great weekend!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens welcoming June recipes

Now it's officially summer, even though it doesn't fully feel like it over here yet. Anyway it's time to cook with green vegetables, and share them with our Eat Your Greens cooking challenge for foodbloggers. I'm hosting Eat Your Greens this month, and the event is co-hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog.

Eat Your Greens is all about sharing vegan or vegetarian recipes featuring green vegetables. Simply cook a vegan or vegetarian meal with green vegetables, post it on your blog, and share the link in the comment box below. If you are on Twitter, please share the post also there and add #eatyourgreens @SeasonalShaheen @TheVegHog , and we will retweet your post.

There will be a round up post at the end of the month showing all the green recipes that you shared with us. You can read more about the recipes shared in May here, and full instructions on how to take part are here.

Have fun cooking, I can't wait to see your creations!

Your VegHog

Leek, kale and potato soup

It's been another busy week here, and the next one won't be any different. Luckily then I'll have a long weekend to relax more, and maybe to post more, as I have some dishes in store. Yesterday we took part in the people's climate march in Copenhagen, where also Greta Thunberg was speaking. I think there were about 30.000 people there. Today it's also the EU parliamentary election day. I already voted in advance, but I will be following the results closely. It would be nice to see a big green impact all over Europe.

Now to something else green. This is a healthy green soup full of veggie and legume goodness. I used leeks, kale and potatoes in this soup, as the name suggests, and there were also green lentils to make it more wholesome. Have a look at my recipe below.

Leek, kale and potato soup

Ingredients

3 leeks

8-10 small potatoes

¼ cup green lentils

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

1 cup kale

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp vegetable stock powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Method

Slice the leeks, and also use the green tops. Carefully wash the green tops, as there usually is dirt. It's best to cut them lenghtwise and wash the leaves individually.

Peel and square the potatoes, and also chop the onion and garlic finely.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan and start cooking the onions. Cook them until they are soft and slightly browned and then also add the garlic.

Cook the lentils in a separate pan, and set them to side.

Add the cut leeks to the onion and garlic and cook under lid until the leeks are soft.

Add the potatoes to the pan, season with vegetable stock powder, salt and ground black pepper, and add water. Cook until the potatoes are done.

Chop the kale coarsely and remove all thick stalks. Then add them and the lentils to then pan and let cook for a few minutes.

Purée the soup in a blender and cook it still for a while after the puréeing.

Serve with crusty bread on the side and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens. It's hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen. Go and have a look at her wonderful blog. You also still have time to submit your Eat Your Greens recipe for May.

Have a nice day everyone!

Your VegHog