Strawberry-lime cider ice lollies

The hot weather continues and I'm still trying to find the best cooling drinks and food. I now started making my own ice lollies as I bought a set of four of these silicone ice lolly moulds, and they are awfully practical for making all kinds of different fruity and boozy refreshing ice lollies.

Rekorderlig strawberry-lime cider is one of my summer favourites to have in a bar when it's really hot, and with some added fresh mint and lime it's even better. That is the reason why I chose these ingredients to make my ice lollies.

I got four ice lollies out of these:

500 ml Rekorderlig strawberry-lime cider (1 bottle) 

A few small mint leaves

½ lime

First I poured the cider into a large jug and let it stand around a while, and stirred so that the carbonation mostly disappeared. During this time you can already add the mint leaves and tiny lime pieces into the cider.

Fill the drink with the greens into the ice lolly moulds and freeze. Enjoy the frozen goods when you need the cooling most.

Your VegHog

Zucchini and feta pancakes

The Pancake Day is around the corner, and I would suggest you to try my savoury pancake creation. These pancakes consist of zucchini and feta with a hint of mint, and I found them quite good. I know that most people probably prefer sweet pancakes, but they might not realise how nice savoury ones can be as well. I haven't made any sweet pancakes in ages, so I thought this would do as my Pancake Day contribution.

Here's how to make The VegHog's Zucchini and Feta pancakes.

Ingredients

1 zucchini

1 large vine tomato

100g Greek feta

8 mint leaves

½tsp salt

½tsp chilli flakes

110g self-raising flour

1tbsp baking powder

150ml milk

2 eggs

50g butter

Olive oil for frying

Method

Grate the zucchini and the peel and purée the tomato. Crumble the feta with your hands into small pieces. Melt the butter in a small pan.

Make the batter by whisking the milk, eggs, melted butter, baking powder and flour together. Season it with salt, chilli flakes and mint leaves (those you can chop up a little). Then add the tomato purée, grated zucchini and crumbled feta and mix into an even pancake batter.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan and fry the pancakes on both sides until golden brown with slightly crispy edges.

Serves well as a breakfast or a snack in between. Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Chocolate and peppermint balls

I found this sweet recipe by Fazer when I was researching and getting inspiration for the Marianne crush I purchased in Finland. Marianne are traditional Finnish chocolate filled mint sweets made by Fazer, who launched the crush range a few years back. Now after having made these chocolate balls, I can't wait to get to Finland soon to buy more of these crush products.

Ingredients for about 25 balls:
 

Please note that the original recipe is only available in Finnish through the link, but I have followed it pretty closely.

100 g butter

1 dl sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

4 tbsp cocoa powder

3 dl oat and barley flake mix (original recipe is only with oat flakes)

2 tbsp strong cold coffee

For decorating:

Marianne crush (or any mint sweets and milk chocolate crushed)

Instructions:

Make some strong coffee. Enjoy the most yourself while making these balls and set two tablespoons of the coffee to side to be chilled.

Mix the butter, sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl.

Add the cocoa powder, coffee and oat flakes.

Mix until you have a smooth and firm paste.

Shape small balls of the mixture and finally roll them in the crush, so that it sticks all around them.

Let the balls rest for couple of hours in the fridge before serving.

Then just enjoy!

Your VegHog