Red fritters

I don't use beetroot enough in cooking even though it's a brilliant colouring agent. At least it coloured these fritters nice and red. I found these Fritters made of sweet potato, carrot and beetroot quite tasty and a nice colour addition to a plate. They are pretty basic grated vegetable fritters and my recipe is below.

Ingredients

1 sweet potato

1 beetroot

1 carrot

1 onion

2 eggs

6-8 tbsp wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Grate the sweet potato, beetroot and carrot and chop the onion finely. Combine them in a bowl.

Add the eggs and flour and stir into an even mix.

Season the mix and heat vegetable oil in a frying pan.

Shape fritters on the pan and fry them on both sides for a few minutes until done.

Remove any excess oil with a kitchen roll.

Then the fritters are ready to be served.

Your VegHog

 

Caribbean style sweet potato curry with chilli roti bread

I have been planning to make a Caribbean style curry for a while now that I have managed to make a few edible Indian style curries. When I watched the BBC cooking programme How to be a better cook by Lorraine Pascale, and saw a Caribbean style curry made there, I thought that that recipe would make a nice base for a vegetarian one. You can find the original here, which unfortunately isn't vegetarian. I quite often still enjoy watching cookery shows where also meat dishes are prepared, because I can always learn a new style of cooking or get new recipe ideas. Most things can be altered and made vegetarian anyway. I also like Lorraine's style a lot.

I made the chilli roti bread as described on the BBC's page, so please refer to that recipe when making the bread. The curry recipe I obviously had to amend as it wasn't vegetarian, but I still followed Lorraine's tips for the preparation. Mine is maybe simpler, which also makes it a wonderfully easy curry to prepare quickly at home. So here is my version below and the original one can be found here.

Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes

4 cm piece of fresh ginger

2 red chillies

2 tbsp medium curry powder

400 g coconut milk

200 ml vegetable stock

200 g sugar snap peas

4 spring onions

1 lime

Method

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into cubes.

Chop the ginger and chillies very finely.

Add the curry powder to a medium hot pan and cook for a couple of minutes until the aromas are released.

Add the sweet potato cubes, chilli and ginger to the pan and stir.

Then add the coconut milk and the vegetable stock.

Simmer until the sweet potato is cooked.

Chop the spring onions into thin slices. You can cut the sugar snaps in half (like I did) or leaves them as whole. Add them both to the pan.

Press the juice of a lime onto the curry.

Serve with the spicy chilli roti breads and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Lazy Sunday lunch

I have been suffering from some winter tiredness lately. I have no strength whatsoever and that also shows in the kitchen. Last week and weekend were so hectic that I just couldn't be bothered to make a proper Sunday lunch this time. Normally that's my favourite time of the week to just dwell in the kitchen and cook for ages. Now I wanted to be quicker in order to get relaxing faster. I chose ingredients that had been lying around for a while without specific cooking plans and combined them in a lazy Sunday lunch.

 
This lunch consisted of:

Roasted sweet potato and butternut squash wedges – these were first roasted normally and then overbaked with cheese.

Broccoli and cheese Quorn escalopes – an easy ready meal, but nice to be combined with such dishes. I haven't been eating much Quorn for years, but now I have redetected it a little bit.

Mixed salad – just mixed salad leaves, pumpkin seeds and a pomegranate molasses dressing.

Fried onion rings – quickly fried shallot rings are a good addition to Schnitzel & co.

That was it. Next time I might be posting something slightly more inspirational.

Have a great week everyone!

Your VegHog

Sweet potato and bean burgers

Why can't a veggie burger or Schnitzel be part of a Christmas meal, especially in various pre-Christmas parties? I think it certainly can, and would make a refreshing change. That's why I made Christmassy sweet potato and bean burgers.

Make with this recipe about 16 generous sized burgers.

Ingredients

1 kg sweet potatoes

240 g / 1 can red kidney beans

2 onions

3 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp chilli flakes

½ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp salt

Ground black pepper to taste

Ground nutmeg to taste

1 tbsp maple syrup

2 dl spelt flour (or wheat)

3 eggs

2 dl semolina

1 dl breadcrumbs

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Peel the sweet potatoes, boil them in water and mash. I did this stage on the previous night, as I'm known to be impatient to wait for the mash to cool. It also gets a bit firmer and easier to handle, if it rests longer. Anyway, let the mash cool, even if you boil the sweet potatoes on the same day.

Chop the onions and garlic finely and cook them soft in olive oil. Add the beans to the pan with the seasoning and let cook for a few minutes. Then also let this mix cool.

Combine the bean mix with the sweet potato mash and add the maple syrup. Add couple of tablespoons of flour to the batter, if it feels too soft and the burgers won't hold together.

Make an assembly line of three plates: flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs combined with semolina.

Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan and start shaping the burgers. Then roll them first in the flour, then the egg wash and finally the breadcrumbs. Fry the burgers on both sides until crispy.

Serve with rolls or as Schnitzel. I also served here some sea buckthorn jelly on the side in whimsical hedgehog and mushroom shapes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Wild mushrooms on sweet potato and carrot spaghetti

The whole clue of this dish is that the spaghetti is no pasta, but made of sweet potato and carrot strings instead. Combined with the creamy wild mushrooms it makes quite a nice and earthy meal. I was inspired to make this after seeing Nigel Slater's recipe for Mushroom ragout and root vegetable pappardelle.

Ingredients

40g dried wild mushrooms

3 small shallots

3 garlic cloves

2tbsp olive oil

1 large sweet potato

2 carrots

1tbsp fresh sage

½tbsp thyme

2tsp vegetable stock powder + 200ml water

250ml oat cream

½tsp ground black pepper

½tsp salt

Method

Peel the sweet potato and the carrots and cut them with a vegetable cutter into thin matchstick strings resembling spaghetti.

Soak the dried mushrooms in water for about 10 minutes.

Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan and quickly toss the string vegetables through. Prepare the vegetable stock and add it to the pan and let simmer until cooked al dente.

Chop the shallots and garlic and start sweating them in olive oil in another pan. Add the drained mushrooms into the pan and cook for about 5 minutes more. Then add the cream and let simmer for further 10 minutes infusing the cream with the strong mushroom taste. Add some of the mushroom soaking water, if you want even more intense taste (you can add some of that into the vegetable stock as well). Season to taste with sage, thyme, black pepper and salt.

Combine the sauce with the fake spaghetti or just serve it on the top of them.

Enjoy! ~ Your VegHog

Sweet potato Christmas casserole

Sweet potatoes are a nice thing to have at Christmas. This recipe makes a smallish side dish of sweet potato casserole for your festive table. Please multiply the ingredients in the recipe, if you think you need more than just a small side dish and if there are several eaters. You can prepare this casserole in advance and freeze or refridgerate the dishes for Christmas.

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 egg yolk

2tbsp milk

1tbsp maple syrup

Salt

White pepper

Nutmeg

Method

Peel the sweet potatoes and chop them into a few pieces. 

Boil these pieces in salt water until they are soft, for about 20 minutes.

Puree the sweet potatoes, and add the milk, egg yolk and two thirds of the breadcrumbs. 

Season the puree with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and nutmeg and half of the maple syrup.

Place the puree into an oven dish and pour rest of the syrup and breadcrumbs on the top.

Bake at 180C for about one hour.

Serve warm at the Christmas table.

Your VegHog

Pearl barley and porcini Schnitzel

Guess what? It's veggie burger time, and that always means good times for me! Today's burger Schnitzel is a mushroomy one paired with healthy and earthy pearl barley.

Ingredients

15g dried porcini mushrooms

150g pearl barley

1tbsp vegetable stock powder

2 garlic cloves

1 onion

4tbsp barley flour

1 egg

Ground black pepper

Nettle salt

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Soak the pearl barley overnight in water. On the next day boil the pearl barley in water with added vegetable stock powder for about one hour until tender. Drain the pearl barley and remove all excess fluid.

Chop the garlic and onion and crush the dried porcini. Soak the porcini for about 30 minutes. Mix all these ingredients with the pearl barley.

Add the flour, egg and seasoning to the bowl and mix carefully. The mixture should reach a fairly firm texture so that the Schnitzel hold well together. Shape Schnitzel of the mixture.

Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the Schnitzel on both sides until they are golden brown.

Serving suggestion

Serve the Schnitzel with smoked pepper hummus, potato flatbreads and sweet potato oven chips on the side.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Low fat sweet potato chips

These sweet potato chips are very effortless to make and low on fat: no oil and no frying! Simply coat the chips and then bake until crispy. Here's how.

2 sweet potatoes

1 egg

Grated vegetarian pasta cheese

Bread crumbs

Potato flour

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into long thin chips.

Grate vegetarian pasta cheese and mix it on a deep plate with bread crumbs. Place potato flour on another plate and beat an egg on another.

First coat the chips with the potato flour. Then roll them in the egg and the cheese and bread crumb mix.

Place them into an oven dish and bake at 180C until the sweet potatoes are baked with a crispy coating.

Enjoy with a nice dip or salsa or pair them with a chunky veggie burger.

Your VegHog

Sweet potato gnocchi with pesto

This is another one of my gnocchi recipes: simple but delicious. Try it!

For the pesto:

Large bunch of fresh basil

Vegetarian parmigiano

Garlic

Pine nuts

Olive oil

Make the pesto first as it can rest in the fridge until the gnocchi is ready. Grate the vegetarian parmigiano. Grind the garlic and pine nuts, add the cheese, basil and olive oil to it and grind to a smooth paste with a hand mixer. Put it into a sealable container and let rest in the fridge.

Tip: Freeze cubes of the pesto in an ice cube tray to be used later. That way you'll always have a quick pesto at hand!

For the gnocchi:

300g Sweet potatoes

200g Potatoes

1 dl Wheat flour

1 tsp Salt

I used a mix of regular waxy potatoes and sweet potatoes as regular potatoes are more binding. Peel the potatoes and the sweet potatoes and boil them for about 30 minutes until they are soft and let them cool down. Then mash them by pressing through a potato ricer into a bowl. Add a pinch of salt and some flour into the bowl and mix and knead until you have a bouncy firm paste that can easily be shaped. Add flour carefully while checking the texture of the dough. It's important to get a texture that is bouncy and holds together at the boiling stage and that doesn't get soggy.

Shape the dough into small balls with teaspoons or by hand. Another method is to make a longish thin rod and then cut small pieces out of it. Bring water to the boil and put the gnocchi in, let boil heavily throughout. Boil until they float on the surface, which happens quite quickly.

Mix the gnocchi with the pesto and enjoy!

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Stuffed courgettes with sweet potato mash

Have you ever let a vegetable inspire you? It has happened to me many times but when I saw these spherical courgettes for the first time, I just couldn't resist. I had been cooking plenty with ”regular” courgettes but these immediately caught my imagination. I bought them and didn't quite know what to make. Then I decided to stuff them with other vegetables and bake. I happened to have couple of sweet potatoes at home so I made a mash out of them to accompany my courgettes. One courgette per an adult with some mash is a more than a filling meal.

Sweet potato mash

Start by peeling sweet potatoes and placing them in water to boil until soft. You might want to cut them to smaller pieces as they tend to be monstrous big.

When potatoes are cooked, mash them with a hand mixer and add some salt and butter. In this case I also baked the mash in the oven for it to become a brownish baked cover but you can leave it as it is if you want to.

Stuffed courgettes

Cut top bit off the courgettes and scoop their insides out until the outside is pretty thin but able to hold the stuffing in and so the courgettes can stand steadily. Keep the lids and insides as we're using them later. Chop other veg you want to use. I used closed cup mushrooms, onions and garlic that I quickly pre-fried in a pan.

Mix the pre-fried veg with the courgettes' insides which should be in quite small bits anyway. Add some grated cheese to the mix. You can basically put anything in there that you desire to eat.

Quickly fry the courgette shells in a pan in little bit of oil turning them around. Then place them into an oven dish. Stuff them with the veg and cheese mix, put the lids on them and let the whole thing bake until the courgettes are soft and stuffing is fully cooked and hot. They need around 15-20 minutes in 180 C.

You can stuff the traditional cucumber shaped courgettes as well: Cut them in half, remove some of the insides, put filling on and bake, simple!

Stay Hungry!