Halloween party food

I didn't manage to make a range of spooky foods this year even though I was determined to manage it. I won't be having a Halloween party either, but I've been eating some nice Halloween-themed party foods lately nevertheless. I wanted to collect them to a post and share with you. All of these dishes are vegetarian and one of them is vegan.

I made these loaded vegetable nachos, as I think that nachos are always great party food whatever the occassion. These nachos were topped with char-grilled and roasted crown prince squash and red bell pepper, tomato-pepper-chilli sauce, black lentils and cheese. The best thing however will have to be these cheerful ghost plates.

I got the inspiration for this black garlic mac'n'cheese from my blogging friend Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog, who posted a Black Garlic Macaroni Cheese Bake a few days ago. I showed Shaheen's recipe to my partner, and he wanted me to make this dish, so I did. I made mine slightly differently than Shaheen, as I didn't use any milk, but the pasta cooking water instead, and I didn't bake my mac'n'cheese either. I really loved the flavour and richness that the black garlic added to a regular mac'n'cheese. I might be adding some always into my future macaroni and cheeses, as it was such a good combination. I served some homemade black garlic breads on the side, and I also think that the wormy looking pasta worked well for a spooky result. Thank you so much Shaheen for this brilliant idea, my partner is also very grateful!

This is just an orange pizza that I made the other day, but I think it would fit well to some Halloween festivities. It's a cheddar, onion and red bell pepper pizza on a spelt thin crust. I pre-fried the onions and bell peppers for this pizza. I don't always do this with toppings, but these ones definitely benefited from it. Here are photos pre- and post baking.

These vegan mini hot dogs were surprisingly filling. I really liked the smaller veggie sausages from Aldi. They are incredibly cheap, and I have made a couple of vegan English breakfasts with them too. I only added some grated carrot and fried onions on the top of these hot dogs, as I didn't happen to have any suitable sauces at the time.

I'm going to write an own post about this crown prince squash soup and caramelised onion bread later, but also wanted to include it here, as it fits the theme. The soup was made from the same crown prince squash as the nacho toppings. I got a third dish out of the squash as well, that's how huge it was, and it was also very cheap.

I hope that some of these ideas could inspire you for Halloween-themed veggie cooking. Now I would just like to wish everyone a happy Halloween!

Your VegHog

Dino party

It was my birthday the other week. I didn't do anything special much, just went out for a dinner and a bit of live music, but the next day I wanted to stay home and have a little finger food and bubbly night. When I found these endearing dinosaur party items, I just had to have them. I really believe that they are not just for children's parties, but even “slightly older" women can have fun with them. Yes, I drank sparkling wine from a dinosaur mug through a dinosaur straw. I hope you don't think that I'm crazy... I really like dinosaurs anyway, so it was quite a fitting theme, I think.

Here are the snacks that I prepared for this dino party:

Pasta salad – recipe is in this post 

Carrot sticks – always an easy, but nice addition to finger food plates, and healthy too!

Red lentil hummus – recipe is in this post 

Tomato salsa – I didn't make my own salsa this time, but this one from the shop was decent enough for dipping

Rye nachos – some filling rye nachos with seeds that I've brought from Finland

Lamb's lettuce – I love lamb's lettuce at the moment, it has just the perfect combination of crunch and soft and it's very mild and goes with everything

English sparkling wine – my head doesn't take sparkling wine drinking well the next day, but this Hattingley Valley bubbly I'm perfectly fine with, and the beauty of it is that it's local too

Asparagus and mushroom tartlets – see quick recipe below

Asparagus and mushroom tartlets – 8 tartlets

Ingredients

150 g shortcrust pastry

100 g baby button mushrooms

5 thin asparagus speers

1 small onion

1 garlic clove

100 g grated cheese

Fresh basil

Salt

Ground black pepper basil

Method

Roll the pastry out, cut into small circles and press them into muffin cases.

Fry the finely chopped onion and garlic and sliced mushrooms in a pan and season.

Put the mushroom mix into the muffin cases, sprinkle cheese on the top and finally place the asparagus pieces on the top.

Bake in the oven at 200 C for about 15 minutes until the tartlets are golden brown.

Enjoy!

Have a great week!

Your VegHog

Pasta salad with oak smoked tomatoes

Sometimes I really like to have a good homemade pasta salad and this one is an extremely easy and quick to make. It's a great addition to any salad buffet at a party or just lunch on its own. It's very tasty thanks to the oak smoked tomatoes, olives and basil.

If you can't get hold of these oak smoked tomatoes by the Isle of Wight Tomatoes, you can substitute with sundried tomatoes or even with fresh or roasted tomatoes, and perhaps season them with oak smoked sea salt to get a little bit of smoky flavour. The purple basil can also easily be substituted by green basil, it just adds more colour to the dish. I was so delighted to find purple basil plant at the shop. I hope it will live on for a while, as it's a very fragrant basil.

Ingredients

250 g Fusilli Bucati pasta

90 g oak smoked tomatoes

1 small can green olives

125 g buffalo mozzarella

Fresh purple and green basil leaves

Handful of toasted pine nuts

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Good quality olive oil to taste

Method

Cook the pasta, cool down and set to side.

Cut the olives in halves and tear the mozzerella into pieces.

Combine the ingredients and season.

You can also drizzle some of the oak smoked oil from the tomato packet into the salad.

Enjoy!

I'll share the recipe with Pasta Please hosted by Thinly Spread and co-hosted by Tinned Tomatoes.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Smoked pepper hummus with potato flatbreads

I want to write about a nice snack today that I thoroughly enjoy. It can be offered at parties or just enjoyed at home on dark autumn evenings.

I have already published my basic chickpea hummus recipe, but today's recipe is a different hummus with a lovely spicy and smoky flavour. The hummus is similar chickpea based hummus but with added char-grilled sweet red peppers. They add a great flavour and nice colour to this dip.

Today I combined the hummus with Finnish style potato flatbreads. Also about these I have already published an article. They are very easy but tasty breads and even a great way to use your left-over potato mash. There's not much kneading needed and the dough is easy to shape. This time I actually managed to get barley and granary flour, so getting closer to the authentic Finnish ones.

The hummus

150g sweet baby red peppers

Vegetable oil for char-grilling the peppers

150g dried chickpeas

2 garlic cloves

1 lemon's juice

1tsp cumin powder

4tbsp water

5tbsp olive oil

1tsp paprika

1tsp salt

The only downside of this is that if you use dried chickpeas, you'll have to remember to put them to soak on the previous evening or early in the morning if you make this in the evening. I like working with the dried ones and I also have truck loads of them, so it's good to make a lot of hummus.

So, soak the dried chickpeas first and then cook them. First heavily boil them for a couple of minutes and then let them boil slower for about one hour until they are soft. Stir occasionally.

In the meanwhile char-grill the peppers in a grill pan. I used small baby peppers, so they could just be cut in half before the grilling. If you use larger ones you can chop them a little bit smaller. First heat some vegetable oil and then grill and turn the peppers until they have black charring marks and are cooked softly.

After the chickpeas are cooked soft let them cool. Chop the garlic and squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl with the garlic and peppers. Add the chickpeas and season with paprika, cumin and salt. Add the olive oil and water and puree into an even paste. Taste again and add more seasoning or more fluid if needed.

The potato flatbreads

You can make these breads while the chickpeas are boiling. Then they should both be nice and fresh to be enjoyed together.

500g potatoes or potato mash

3dl barley flour

1 egg

1tsp salt

Peel the potatoes and boil them until soft. Then chase them through a potato ricer or just mash them as usual. You can of course skip these steps if you are using a left-over potato mash. Add the egg to the potatoes and stir. Then add the flour and salt and knead for a while until the dough is even.

Roll the dough out thinly and use a cookie cutter to cut out small flatbreads. Place them on a greased baking tray or baking paper. If you so will you can also make a larger bread. Typically this is a very easy dough to shape as the potatoes are good binding agents. Obviously it pays off using tasty waxy potatoes.

Bake the breads at 180-200C for about 20 minutes until they have received some brown spots.

And there you have today's snack dish. Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Rye nachos

I bought such lovely sesame and sea salt rye nachos in Finland and combined them with some char-grilled vegetables, cheese and sauces. Any nachos are great with some extra veg, but these rye variations are especially tasty and filling. They are like thin rye bread crisps.

Here's how I made this nacho dish.

Tomato sauce:

200g tomatoes

1 garlic clove

1 small onion

Olive oil

Fresh basil

Black pepper

Salt

The tomatoes for this sauce came from my own garden, and it's quite a basic sauce. Chop the onion and garlic and fry them in olive oil. Add the tomatoes and let it simmer. Season the sauce with basil, pepper and salt and finally puree it. This sauce can be served either warm or cold, whichever you prefer.

Green pepper butter:

1 green bell pepper

Parsley

Chili flakes

Black pepper

50g butter

This was a quite nice addition to the nachos and especially melted over the char-grilled corn cob that I served with the nachos.

Chop the pepper very finely and mix it with parsley, chili flakes, black pepper and soft butter. Done!

Nachos:

1 bag of sesame and sea salt rye nachos (or other nachos or rye crisps)

1 red bell pepper

1 small zucchini

½ onion

Oltermanni and Emmental cheese (other cheeses can be used)

1 Corn cob on the side

Vegetable oil for grilling

Quarter the bell pepper and slice the zucchini. Cut rings of the onion. Char-grill these and the pre-boiled corn cob.

Place the pepper, zucchini and onion rings on the nachos into an oven dish. Grate cheese on them and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and the nachos warmed through.

Serve with the sauces at a film night or a party or just give yourself a treat and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pumpkin and puff pastry twirls

Happy World Vegetarian Day and happy October!

It seems to be suitable to start this month with a pumpkin post and The VegHog's special recipe. These little pumpkin twirls are perfect for your upcoming October parties as they are very easy to make and are an unusual vegetarian canapé for your guests.

This recipe makes about 20 small twirls.

Ingredients

500g all butter puff pastry

¼ small pumpkin

50g Red Leicester cheese grated

1 egg

Chili flakes

Sesame seeds

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Roll the puff pastry out thinly into a sheet. You could also buy your puff pastry as a ready made sheet. Shave very thin strings with a peeling knife of the pumpkin. Grate the cheese and beat the egg.

Spread the pumpkin strings evenly on the puff pastry sheet. Do the same with the cheese and chili flakes. Be careful with the chili flakes not to make it too spicy.

Roll the puff pastry carefully over in the fashion of a Swiss roll until you have a log of pastry with the filling. Brush the end with the egg so that it will stick together.

Cut thin slices of the log and place them on baking paper lying down on their side. Brush them with the egg and sprinkle sesame seeds on them.

Bake for about 30 minutes until the dough has risen and is golden brown. They are ready to be served, but they taste nice even cold.

Have nice and tasty October festivities!

Your VegHog