Brown butter roast new potatoes with cauliflower cheese

We’ve been pampered with a lovely warm weather this weekend and we’ve been outdoors a lot. Yesterday we went to a street food market and it was almost like “in the olden days”, the pre-corona days… Today we’ll go to the vegetable market and will buy the veggies for next week. Do you have any cooking ideas? I’m currently not too creative. I think I’ll just buy what’s seasonal and local now.

There has been a cauliflower shortage over here lately. The shops haven’t had any for weeks and I’ve only been able to find some in the vegetable market. I’m not sure what could have caused this. Soon we should get the local new season cauliflowers, so maybe it’ll get better then. But don’t you know the feeling, when you can’t get something, then you really start graving it!

This dish was made with one cauliflower that I managed to find. It was just a roast dinner with cauliflower cheese, but the roast potatoes were a bit special. The recipe for the brown butter roast new potatoes is by Anna Jones and it’s published in this Guardian article. I would recommend this style for a change.

Have a good Sunday!

Your VegHog

Roasted new potatoes with asparagus and beurre rosé

I’m having a slow Sunday morning, but soon we’ll head for a little walk at the harbour. I don’t have any other plans for today and that’s fine.

Here’s just a little dish that could give inspiration to a seasonal vegetarian Sunday dinner. I made roasted new potatoes and steamed asparagus with beurre rosé made from rosé wine and pink peppercorns. My salad contained fresh local peas, spring onion stalks, tomatoes and feta, and I also served a vegetarian cheese Schnitzel with the dish. It was a comforting yet fresh dish full of vegetables. It’s a celebration for the good stuff that’s in season currently here in Denmark: new potatoes, asparagus and fresh peas. This dish is of course also easy to veganise by using a vegan Schnitzel and skipping or substituting the feta.

Your VegHog

New potatoes and cauliflower cheese

Ah the summer is truly here and it's time to enjoy some of the wonderful seasonal produce. I hope it's not too hot where you are! Here in Copenhagen a fresh wind has already started, so we are coping well.

New potatoes have always been my favourites, already as a child. In the Nordic countries they are served in the summer as soon as they have grown a bit, but some of them are actually still quite tiny. They are boiled and served with just butter and dill, or sometimes in a milky sauce. They are eaten with the skins on, as the skin is at this point of growth very thin.

The new potatoes of the north have a special sweet and nutty taste to them, something that I can't quite describe. They just melt in your mouth. Some say it comes from the growing under the midnight sun. There might be some truth to it, as at least in the UK and Germany the new potatoes don't taste the same.

In this dish I combined some of the finest Danish new potatoes with a cauliflower cheese. It really was a fine feast.

Potato spelt rolls

I rarely leave any potatoes to spare, but here's a roll recipe for just those occassions when too many potatoes have been roasted. Of course the potatoes can also be roasted especially for these spelt rolls. I really like potatoes in different kind of breads and this is just one of my basic roll recipes, so easy to make and very economical and tasty.

Recipe for 10 rolls

Ingredients

6 roasted new potatoes

25 g butter

200 ml lukewarm water

1 tbsp dry yeast

300 g spelt flour

1 tsp salt

Method

Mash the potatoes and melt the butter.

Add the yeast, salt, water and butter to the potatoes and mix.

Gradually add the flour and knead.

Let rise under a teatowel for about one hour.

Shape rolls from the dough.

Bake at 250 C for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy warm or later on once cooled.

I want to share with this rolls recipe with Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Lancashire Food in July and co-hosted by Fab Food 4 All and Fuss Free Flavours, as this is quite a cunning way using a few left-over roast potatoes. All other ingredients in this recipe are basic and cheap as well. It really pays off baking your own bread and it's so wonderful to have fresh bread!

Your VegHog

Crushed roast potato and sweetcorn tortillas

I woke up into sunshine and quite a warm weather, which was really delightful for a Saturday. At this point it seems as if it could get the warmest day of the summer here so far. I'll soon be heading out, but before that I want to share my crushed roast potato and sweetcorn tortilla recipe with you. I really adore roasted corn and potatoes and I added smoked chilli paste seasoned black beans to these, so good!

Ingredients

2 corn cobs

400 g new potatoes

Rapeseed oil

Salt

Smoked paprika

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

100 g tomatoes

1 can black beans

2 tsp smoked chilli paste

Fresh coriander

Grated Cheddar

Chilli mayo

8 wholemeal tortillas

Method

Brush the corn cobs and new potatoes with rapeseed oil and roast in the oven. Also sprinkle some salt and smoked paprika over the potatoes. I normally roast corn cobs under foil and finish under the grill.

Chop the onion, garlic and tomatoes finely and start cooking the onion in oil. Once slightly browned, add the garlic, soon followed by the tomatoes and black beans.

Let simmer and season with the smoked chilli paste and fresh coriander.

Once the corn cobs are roasted, cut the corn off the cobs. And once the potatoes are roasted, crush them slightly by pressing with a fork.

Assemble all components onto tortillas and serve them with grated cheddar and chilli mayo.

Enjoy!

I'm sharing the recipe with this month's My Legume Love Affair hosted by Kalyani from Sizzling Tastebuds.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Roasted new potatoes and sweetcorn cobs

Roasted new potatoes make such a great weekday meal combined with different sides. This time I just roasted some corn cobs with the potatoes and served crunchy lettuce leaves and homemade chilli and lemon butter on the side.

The potatoes don't need much attention while roasting, perhaps an occasional turning. Same goes for the cobs. I just brushed them with oil, covered their roasting tin with a foil and let them roast underneath the foil for about one hour. I finished them under the grill in the oven for a couple of minutes after removing the foil so that they would get even better grilling marks.

For the chilli and lemon butter I just chopped a red chilli and grated one lemon's zest and mixed them into butter. That's such an easy and good option for summer barbecues.

I really enjoyed this pretty effortless dish and will make such dishes many times more this summer, as I only rarely get the chance to do a real barbecue.

Your VegHog

New potatoes are here!

The new potato season has now started in England, but I wish I was in Finland. The new potatoes there have such a nice flavour, it's much more special than here. A hint of it can be tasted in the English new potatoes as well, but it's only a promise of the true flavour.

I have fond childhood memories of new potatoes. It always was quite a special time of the year once they started appearing, summer had started and school was out (in Finland school summer holidays start in late May or early June and last until mid August). Those potatoes were so tasty beyond comparison, which is fascinating to think about that I could love potatoes so much as a child! I still love potatoes, and especially the new season ones and I'm still excited when starting to see them in the shops.

I normally just boil or steam the new potatoes and scoff them with butter only and possibly with a side salad. Good new potatoes pretty much melt in your mouth when nicely boiled and they don't need much company, let alone a sauce.

This time I served some other sides with the new potatoes: cream-free cauliflower cheese, steamed asparagus and some fresh tomatoes and lettuce on the side. All of this made a very nice and summery dish. I can't wait to make more nice new potato dishes. What are your favourite combinations for new potatoes?

Your VegHog

Roasted miniature new potato and leek bake flavoured with cider

I guess this is how most of my food photos are going to look now that the evenings are getting darker, the only time when I have time to cook on the weekdays. I do apologise for the darkness and hope to make some brighter looking photos on the weekends as well. I hope you'll like the food nevertheless.

I made this autumnal dish ultra savoury, just the way I like it. It's a bake made with roasted miniature new potatoes in a leek, cheese and cider sauce and here's the recipe.

Ingredients

500 g miniature new potatoes

1 tsp vegetable oil

½ tsp smoked paprika

3 baby carrots

3 leeks

3 garlic cloves

10 g butter

1 tsp vegetable stock powder

Salt

Ground black pepper

50 ml dry cider

100 g cheddar and red Leicester mix

Breadcrumbs

Sage

Thyme

Method

Wash the potatoes and roll them in vegetable oil and dust with smoked paprika, then roast them in the oven until done.

Chop the carrots and leeks into thin slices, also chop the garlic finely.

Start cooking the carrots, leeks and garlic in the butter. Cook them for a few minutes until slightly softened. Then add the vegetable stock powder, salt and ground black pepper and also pour the cider in. Let simmer slowly under the lid until all flavours have blended nicely.

Once the potatoes are cooked, mix them into the leeks. Then also add half of the grated cheese into the mix. Put it into an oven dish and cover with the rest of the cheese and the breadcrumbs, sage and thyme.

Bake in the oven until the cheese has nicely melted and golden brown. Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Veggie barbeque

I rarely do a barbeque, but a veggie barbeque can be a fine thing. When I'm here in Finland during the summer, a few barbeques are a must. This time I just char-grilled some vegetables, halloumi and rye bread, and that made a very filling meal. I have been eating quite a lot in general on this holiday, so a small diet could be in the cards when I get back to the UK, a healthy diet with affordable pulses etc. Okay, but back to the BBQ theme now.

Here are the components of my meal this time:

- new potatoes (pre-boiled), I could just barbeque new potatoes alone, they get divine after a bit of char-grilling

- bell peppers

- aubergine, rub the aubergine slices with barbeque seasoning and oil

- new season onions

- tomatoes, I put the tomatoes into additional foil bags, as they get very soggy

- halloumi

- rye bread, a must in a Finnish barbeque and so tasty slightly grilled and eaten with some butter

As a veggie barbeque drink I could recommend the Finnish Olvi Hiili 4,5 %, a very dark beer that actually tastes a bit like coal.

What kind of veggie barbeques have you been having?

Your VegHog

 

 

Roasted new potatoes with shaven asparagus

This is a really simple seasonal dish. I had to try the shaven asparagus stripes, as I keep seeing them in so many current recipes. It wasn't bad at all, and it was curious not to cook the asparagus for a change. So basically I just combined here roasted new potatoes with lightly lemony asparagus. I could see this is a side dish in upcoming Midsummer celebrations. What do you think?

Here is what ingredients I used and how I made this dish:

500 g new potatoes

1 tsp olive oil

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp smoked paprika

250 g green asparagus

½ lemon's juice

1 tsp olive oil

Brush the new potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle salt and smoked paprika on the top. Roast in the oven until done.

Shave thin stripes from asparagus with a peeling knife and dress them with lemon juice and olive oil. Let infuse in the fridge while the potatoes roast.

Serve the potatoes and asparagus together.

Your VegHog

Very green salad

I have been looking into French vegetarian cuisine, because this year lucky me is spending Easter in Paris! Vegetarian meals are not so typical in traditional French cooking, but I'm determined to find the best influences and ideas. I have never been to Paris, and now I want to visit several vegetable markets, and hopefully will be able to find nice vegetarian cafés and restaurants. Any recommendations? I'm definitely going to post some exciting bits from my trip here afterwards, but now to today's recipe.

I recently purchased the wonderful vegetarian French Market Cookbook by Clotilde Dusoulier, where I found this recipe for the Very green salad – Salade toute verte (p.18-19). I was impressed by the freshness of the recipes in this book, and particularly in this one the flavours were nicely balanced. Have also a look at Clotilde's blog here, it's not a vegetarian blog, but many dishes are plant based. 

Here is my take on this filling warm and cold spring salad.

For the salad:

500g new potatoes + a sprinkle of salt and vegetable oil for roasting the potatoes

200g asparagus

1 cup of frozen peas

1 large heart of romaine lettuce

½ cup hazelnuts

For the dressing:

Some fresh coriander leaves

1tbsp lemon juice

1tbsp grapeseed oil

1tbsp hazelnut oil

1tsp sea salt

½tsp ground black pepper

Method:

Wash the potatoes, place them in a roasting dish, brush with vegetable oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast them at 180C for about 40 minutes until cooked. Toss them a few times during the roasting.

Toast the halved hazelnuts. Put then in an oven dish and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes. Steam the asparagus and peas until tender.

Cut the lettuce and prepare the dressing by just mixing the ingredients together. Add the dressing to the lettuce just before the warm components are done. I decided to serve the peas and asparagus also warm, just like the potatoes.

Then mix all the ingredients together and serve instantly. Bon appétit!

Your VegHog

Onion squash soup

This squash has many names: Red Kuri squash, Japanese squash, Onion squash etc. The name commonly used in the UK is Onion squash, so that's what I'm using as well. It's one of my favourite squashes due to its chestnutty flavour, and today I made a soup with it. For many years as a vegetarian, squashes weren't part of my diet as they weren't so much readily available, and now I know what a loss it was. These days I can't imagine a diet without different squashes as they are so versatile, healthy and tasty.

Here's how this easy soup can be made.

1 medium onion squash

3 shallots

4 garlic cloves

300g baby new potatoes

2tbsp vegetable stock powder + 1l water

2tbsp olive oil

1tsp salt

1tsp white ground pepper

1tsp thyme

1tsp parsley

Peel the squash, remove the seeds and then dice it. Chop the shallots and garlic finely and quarter the potatoes. There's no need to peel them as new potatoes have very thin skins. Prepare the vegetable stock by combining the vegetable stock powder with water.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and cook the shallots and garlic until soft. Add the squash and potato cubes into the pan and cook for a few minutes. Then add the vegetable stock and simmer under the lid until the squash and potatoes are fully cooked.

Stir occasionally and season with salt, white pepper, thyme and parsley. Fresh herbs give more flavour, but dried ones are also fine for this soup. Serve the soup with earthy rye bread and enjoy!

Your VegHog