Roasted bell pepper and tomato baguettes

I will take this opportunity to inform you that I'm off to a small holiday tomorrow. I'm sure I can't resist posting photos to Instagram from the location, so at least there you can get some spoilers. After the holiday this blog will of course be full of holiday photos and stories. So I can also reveal that I will be going to Norway, where I haven't been since the 1980s, and never to these parts where I'm now going to. It's so exciting! This autumn break is very much needed right now.

Here is also a quick food post, fully unrelated to the holiday news. I love roasted vegetables and I love putting them on breads, especially bell peppers and tomatoes are perfect for this. Therefore I end up making veggie breads quite often.

This is how simple it can be, here are the ingredients I used this time:

• sourdough olive baguette
• small tomatoes roasted in olive oil
• bell peppers roasted in olive oil
• whipped soft cheese
• fresh basil leaves

What goes onto your favourite bread?

Have a great weekend! 

Your VegHog

Jacket potato with pepper and soft cheese filling

The weather has been getting a little chillier here again, so I turn to my winter favourites like jacket potatoes for comfort and warmth. I have also been eating many soups and curries. I wouldn't mind if it stays cold for a while considering what lovely food I feel like eating then. What are your winter favourites?

So for these jacket potatoes with soft cheese filling, I chose the biggest baking potatoes that I could find. In my student days I quite often used to make this sort of bell pepper infused soft cheese and added it to all sorts of dishes. I had been planning for quite a while now to use it as a filling for chunky baked potatoes and it actually worked rather well. I will certainly be making these again! I'm very fond of the whipped soft cheese due to its lightness.

Ingredients

4 large baking potatoes

Vegetable oil

Sea salt

3 orange bell peppers

2 onions

4 garlic cloves

Salt

Ground black pepper

300 g whipped soft cheese

On the side: A salad with blood oranges and mixed leaves

Method

Stab the potatoes several times each with a fork and roll them in an oil and sea salt mix. Place on a baking tray and bake until done.

Chop the onions and garlic finely and cut the bell peppers into cubes. Slow cook them in a pan until they are soft and season with salt and pepper. Let them cool and mix with the soft cheese. You can add some fresh basil into the mix, if you like. Put the mix into the fridge to wait for the potatoes.

Once the potatoes are done, fill them with the soft cheese and pepper mix and serve. I added a blood orange salad to the side for some additional freshness.

Your VegHog

Blueberry pie

The fresh berries that are appearing in the shops and markets at the moment are calling my name and I want to incorporate as many to my cooking as possible. This includes the occasional sweet pie or cake as well. Today I made an oat based blueberry pie very rich on berries, for which I found this easy recipe by Valio. The recipe is only in Finnish on that page, so I am going to give my version here, as I also have changed a couple of small things as usual. I guess this pie could even be called a blueberry cheesecake, as soft cheese is a main part of the filling.

The base:

100 ml melted butter

1 egg

½ dl sugar

½ dl wheat flour

3 ½ dl oat flakes

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp vanilla sugar

The filling:

3-4 dl blueberries

200 g plain soft cheese

1 egg

½ dl sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

The decoration:

1 tbsp blueberries

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp sugar

Method:

Line a baking tin with baking paper. I used my Ø 25cm pie tin, and it seemed to be just the right size for this. Whisk the butter, egg and sugar into smooth consistency. Then add the flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and oat flakes and mix into a base dough.

Spread the dough into the baking tin, also around the edges. It should be relatively soft to spread, but could get sticky. Floury hands could help you then to press the dough everywhere you need it.

Pour the blueberries onto the base. Whisk the soft cheese with egg and sugar and pour it on the top of the blueberries.

For the top decoration press one tablespoon of blueberries through a sieve and mix the blueberry juice with lemon juice and sugar. Pour the juice on the pie in circles and then pull a knife through the juice from the middle of the pie towards the edges to make the decoration pattern.

Bake the pie at 175C for about 40 minutes. Serve chilled and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Cucumber salad with pepper and soft cheese dip

This is a light and summery salad with a tasty soft cheese dip and a fresh cucumber. Enjoy it as a snack or a side dish. The pepper dip also works beautifully with vegetable sticks, bread sticks, crisps, whatever you can think of!

This is all you need:

1 cucumber

1 orange romano pepper

150g plain light soft cheese

1 small onion

1 garlic clove

Small bunch of chives

Olive oil for frying

Salt & Pepper

First make the dip. Cut the pepper into thin and small strings and chop the onion and garlic finely. Fry these in olive oil and let simmer under the lid for about 15 minutes at moderate heat. Season with salt and pepper. Mix the veg with the soft cheese and add the chives.

Peel the cucumber and cut it into four pieces. Spread the pepper dip on the cucumber halves and enjoy.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Chili and Cheddar muffins

Savoury muffins are rather great and quirky but also easy to make. With the spiciness of these you could easily surprise your friends.

Makes about 15 muffins:

150g Butter

3 Eggs

3dl Flour

3tsp Baking powder

1tsp Salt

1/2dl Milk

2dl Grated chili Cheddar

Packet of chili soft cheese

Grate the cheese. Instead of the chili Cheddar also regular Cheddar or some other cheese could be used and fresh or dried chili added to the mix.

Mix the eggs and cheese with a hand mixer. Mix the dry ingredients together and add them to the cheese mix with the melted butter and milk. Mix it all to an even paste, which would look like a normal muffin dough but only taste savoury.

Put the paste into muffin cases up to approximately the middle and bake at 200C for about 20 minutes when the muffins have risen and received some golden brown colour.

Let the muffins cool down and top them with a soft cheese icing. Squirt soft cheese through an icing gun on the top of the muffins. The icing can also be left out as the muffins are quite cheesy and tasty even without it.

Happy baking moments!

Your VegHog

A trio of vegetarian filo parcels

I'm using today the exciting and fragile filo (phyllo) pastry for my vegetable parcels in three variations. So first I prepared three different fillings and then baked the parcels. Obviously you don't have to use the same fillings as these are only my suggestions and ideas.

I have divided this entry to sections for each parcel type: Aubergine mash filo parcels, Mushroom and cheese filo parcels and Grilled pepper and soft cheese filo parcels.

Aubergine mash filo parcels

Ingredients:

Filo pastry

1 Aubergine

1 Pepper

Olive oil

Gloucester cheese

Salt & pepper

Cut the aubergine into slices of approximately ½ cm thickness and cut the peppers into halves (the second pepper goes into the soft cheese parcels but grill both at the same time). Brush the vegetables with olive oil, place into an oven dish and grill until they are soft and get some dark bits.

Mash the grilled aubergines with a hand mixer and add salt and pepper into the mix. Slice the pepper into small bits and add it to the aubergine mash. Add the grated cheese and mix until you have a firm paste. Set this to one side to cool down and continue making the other fillings.

Mushroom and cheese filo parcels

Ingredients:

Filo pastry

A few mushrooms

1 Red onion

1 Clove of garlic

Fresh chives

Salt & pepper

Olive oil

Red Leicester cheese

Chop the mushrooms, onion, garlic and chives into small pieces. Fry them in a pan. First fry the onions and garlic in olive oil, add then the mushrooms and fry until they are cooked. If your mixture is too moist at this point, pour everything into a colander and drain the excess fluid out. Take the pot from the heat and add the chives, salt and pepper and mix the grated cheese in. Let it cool down before filling the parcels.

Grilled pepper and soft cheese filo parcels

Ingredients:

Filo pastry

1 Pepper

Grilled peppers soft cheese

Spring onion and black pepper soft cheese

Gloucester cheese

Olive oil

Take the other grilled pepper and chop it into small pieces. Mix it with the soft cheeses (take about a third of each packet) and the grated Gloucester.

Making the parcels

You can make any kinds of shapes or forms, small or large, whatever you feel like. Filo pastry can be a bit tricky to work with as it's so fragile and delicate.

Spread the pastry on a baking surface and cut it into suitable pieces for your parcels. I think I cut mine into eight parts. Use at least double pastry because otherwise the parcel might not hold together. You can use several layers but be then careful that pastry isn't too thick at some parts. That may result into dry parcels.

Put a small amount of your filling onto the pastry and shape a closed parcel out of it. Place the parcels on a baking tray.

Bake at 220C for about 10-12 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

This is a great fingerfood to serve at a party with vegetarian treats. These can even be eaten cold. I couldn't recognise later on which parcel had which filling and that added a great element of surprise to the eating.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog