Black badger sausage rolls

How has your weekend been so far? Luckily there's still a bit of Sunday left to relax. We switched our Christmas lights on at the flat yesterday evening and drank some mulled wine outside looking at our lights. I will post some photos soon. Today I'm not going to do anything much, just some cooking.

I recently made these savoury black badger pea and freekeh sausage rolls, and I think that they would be nice vegetarian finger food for any pre-Christmas party. The filling is vegan, but to make them fully vegan, you would need to use vegan puff pastry. It was easier for me just to buy the readily rolled out puff pastry from the shop, which meant that this dish was quite easy and quick to make.

Black badger sausage rolls

Ingredients

1 cup cooked black badger peas

½ cup freekeh

1 onion

1 yellow carrot

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil for frying

1-2 tsp vegetable stock extract

½ tsp dried thyme

1 tbsp liquid smoke

320 g puff pastry sheet

Method

Cook the peas and freekeh.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and start cooking the onion in olive oil.

Cut the carrot into small cubes and add them to the onions. After a while also add the garlic.

Add the peas and freekeh to the pan and season the mix. Let it cool down.

Roll out the puff pastry and cut it into two long rectangles. Fill the pastry with the sausage mix, close by pressing with a fork and cut the sausages into bite sized chunks.

Bake the rolls at 200 C for about 10 minutes until they are fully baked golden brown.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

New Year's Day veggie roast

I prepared a vegetarian roast dinner yesterday to welcome the new year. As you can notice from the heaviness of this meal, I'm not planning to have a diet or anything... well but seriously, these are all quite healthy things on the plate, aren't they. I didn't make anything new or experimental, these are all components I make fairly often, but maybe in other combinations. I have already posted some of these recipes, so I have added links below to the old posts.

Here are the components I had on the plate yesterday:

Sweet potato and bean Schnitzel – Recipe here 

Redcurrant and chilli jam – Recipe here 

Roasted potatoes – Brush small potatoes with olive oil, paprika and sea salt and roast in the oven until done.

Steamed flower sprouts – Steam the flower sprouts until done.

Cauliflower and cheese bake – Steam or boil the cauliflower florets a little. Cook finely chopped garlic soft in olive oil and add little vegetable stock, salt, black pepper and thyme and pour on the cauliflower florest. Cover with cheese and bake until done. This can of course also be made with cream, recipe for example here.

Chestnut mushrooms with onion and garlic – Simply cook the onion, garlic and chestnut mushrooms in olive oil until nicely done. Season with sage, salt and pepper.

Tomato and mixed leaf salad with pine nuts and pomegranate molasses dressing – Dressing recipe here and otherwise just throw in whatever you like in a salad. This combination is probably my most used as a side salad.

Roasted mini shallots – Peel the shallots and brush them with olive oil. Roast in the oven covered with a foil at low temperature until fully cooked.

That was it! Did you have a special meal for New Year's Day?

Your VegHog

My Cookbooks Part II – New Feast by Greg & Lucy Malouf

Happy New Year everyone! It's a New Feast for the New Year. I haven't made any resolutions as such, but I would like to be able to continue cooking and blogging as thus far and lead a healthy and balanced life. Hopefully that's not too much to ask.

Now after Christmas I haven't been cooking much anything that takes an effort, therefore the first post for this year won't be a recipe. However I am planning to make a vegetarian roast dinner today, which might appear here later. I started My Cookbooks series in November last year and Part I can be found here. Now I wanted to continue the series with a book that I got for Christmas: New Feast, Modern Middle Eastern Vegetarian, by Greg and Lucy Malouf.

I haven't had time to cook anything from this book yet, but it is showing promise and I can't wait to try some of the recipes and learn new techniques and ways of spicing. In general there are so many very good Middle Eastern veggie dishes and I enjoy the seasoning and choice of ingredients in that style of cuisine. This book has a massive choice on different recipes and suggestions for menu ideas for different occasions.

I'm particularly keen on trying to make some of the breads, such as the griddled flatbreads (p. 36) or Middle Eastern pizzas (p. 46-49), and the flavoured butters would make a wonderful addition to those (p. 52-57).

I'm also very interested in making some of those vegetarian dips and spreads, as there can never be enough in your selection. These could go so well with different fritters, and for those there is also a whole chapter in the book.

The roasted tomato and chickpea curry with coconut and coriander (p. 208-209) looks and sounds so tasty that it might be one of the first dishes I try to cook from here. Or then it will be the tomato and bean soup with harissa and honey (p. 94-95), as I do like the sound of that as a good winter dish.

And how about this wedding couscous with herbs and flowers (p. 218-219) – it just looks so great!

I will make sure I'll post any cooking attempts from this book in the blog and refer to the book as always. I can't wait to get started!

Your VegHog

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pies are just delightful: under a rich, creamy potato lid hides a savoury bean and vegetable mix. I have made a few such pies, as a friend of mine has taught me how to make them, but I think that this could be my favourite one. I made the potato mash a little bit more interesting by adding smoky cheese to it.

I can't believe how cool the weather is at the moment again, so any pie is welcome to me. This recipe makes a proud amount of pie, either one large oven dish or 4-6 smaller ramekins. Follow these instructions to make this pie.

1 kg potatoes

25 g butter

1 tsp salt

50 g smoky cheddar

1 cup dried green lentils

1 cup dried mixed beans

4-5 medium shallots

1 tbsp olive oil

2 carrots

4-5 garlic cloves

300 ml dry cider

200 ml vegetable stock

25 g dried porcini mushrooms

2 bay leaves

1 tbsp miso

½ tsp ground black pepper

Soak the beans overnight, if you're also using dried ones (Tinned ones would be ready to go). Boil them heavily for about 15 minutes and then lightly for about an hour. It's a good idea to read the instructions on the packet, as the boiling length depends on the beans.

Rinse the lentils and boil them also for about 20 minutes. Break the porcini mushrooms slightly and soak them for about ten minutes.

Peel the potatoes and boil them in water until soft and mash them. Add the butter, salt and smoky cheddar to make a smooth mash.

Chop the shallots, garlic and carrots finely (carrots into small cubes) and cook them in olive oil for about 10 minutes. Add the cooked and drained beans and lentils with the porcini to the pan.

Then add the cider and let it evaporate. Finally add the bay leaves and vegetable stock and let simmer for a further 15 minutes at least.

Season with miso, salt and black pepper to achieve a savoury mix. Remove the bay leaves before baking.

Place the bean mix into a large oven dish or into small ramekins and top with the smoky potato mash. Little butter can be added to the top. Bake at 175C for about 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown and enjoy warm.

Your VegHog

Le Grenier de Notre-Dame in Paris

Le Grenier de Notre-Dame is a pretty little vegetarian restaurant in Paris. It's located in a very convenient place, just on the opposite riverbank of the Seine to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. 

We were quite lucky to get a table when we arrived there at lunch time. They had to send some customers away that came after us as the restaurant was full. The restaurant is very cosy and nicely decorated with plants, just what you would expect from a Parisian veggie restaurant. 

There were many tempting dishes on the menu, but I decided to have Les spaghettis a l'ail et au fromage – organic brun pasta fried with fresh garlic and emmental cheese. My friend had a polenta dish with seasonal vegetables. There was crusty bread and a small salad also served on the side. The portion size was huge, which made a hungry traveller very happy indeed, and it wasn't expensive. Adding a little bit wine with that, I was very delighted about this meal.

We even managed to handle the whole ordering in French (easier in a veggie place as you can't order anything meaty by accident), but I'm sure that the staff speak English as well.

Go and visit them, if you ever happen to be near by!

Votre hérisson des légumes

Mini pizzas

I missed to post this on the weekend when it would've been more suitable, but here it comes anyway. Veggie pizzas are so nice, especially for a lazy Saturday film night, or even for a kids' party. This time I made veggie mini pizzas with different toppings. I have listed below the ingredients I used, but you can get creative and put your own favourite toppings on.

Ingredients for about 12 mini pizzas

Pizza dough:

400g wheat flour

100g semolina + some for dusting

2tbsp dry yeast

1tsp salt

350ml warm water

2tbsp olive oil

Topping:

250g grated mozzarella

1 orange pepper

1 onion

180g tomatoes

100g spinach

85g green olives

1 garlic clove

Basil leaves

Make the dough first. Mix the dry ingredients together, and then add the lukewarm water and olive oil. Knead a while into an even dough and let it rise under a tea towel for about one hour.

In the meanwhile you can prepare the toppings. Chop the veg into suitable slices and grate the mozzarella. I didn't make a tomato sauce this time, but just used tomato slices instead.

Once the dough has risen, roll chunks of it out into small and thin circles. Roll them out on semolina so that the crust will get a nice crispy semolina finish.

Place the toppings on the crusts and bake the pizzas at 220C for about 10 minutes until fully baked. Serve warm and enjoy!

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

1st VegHog birthday

Today is the 1^st anniversary of The VegHog blog! It's somehow unbelievable that it has already been one year since I started as I only feel like a small VegHoglet, but I'm very proud to have made it for a year. I'm so grateful for all your encouraging comments during the year and I hope you'll still have fun reading this blog in the future.

During this first year of vegetarian food blogging I got hungry for more. I had the opportunity to share some of my all time favourite vegetarian recipes and fully new creations with you and it has truly been a ball. You can have a look back at my first introduction post on January 7^th 2013, but I don't think that my plans have changed that much since. Maybe I have sometimes started giving you more accurate descriptions of my recipes, the ingredient amounts and such, which is good.

Always remember that I love reading your comments in general and hearing from you when you have tried my recipes. Let's have a great second year!

Your most humble VegHog

Vegetarian food café Morgenstedet in Christiania

Morgenstedet is an ecological vegetarian food place in Christiania, which is an area within the beautiful Danish capital Copenhagen. Freetown Christiania was founded in 1971 as an autonomous neighbourhood and a commune for about 850 residents through squatting in old military barracks.

I visited Christiania recently and it's an interesting place to say the least, but what I was most thrilled about was the good quality, no nonsense and cheap (for Copenhagen's standards) veggie food that they served at Morgenstedet. On that day they offered three main course options: Chili sin carne, Pea soup and Burrito, and I believe that they actually aim to offer two main dishes and a soup every day (closed on Mondays). I chose the Chili sin carne, which was a large and tasty tofu, romanesco, mixed bean and other vegetable chili served with rice. You could have chosen a side salad, bread or desserts as well.

The plates are filled instantly at the counter, so even with some queueing the food is quickly received. The ambience for eating is very chilled although the place was quite busy when I was there. There is a cozy inside eating area and a garden. The staff speak English like pretty much everywhere in Denmark, but isn't it just more fun trying to speak Danish!

See you soon!

Your VegHog

 

Posted with Blogsy

Homemade hedgehog shaped ravioli with mushroom filling, parsley and lemon butter and steamed asparagus

It's the Hedgehog Awareness Week 2013 (5.-11. May) so just to spread the word I came up with this idea to make whimsical hedgehog shaped ravioli. Asparagus is ideal on the side as it's now in season and the mushroom filling is in my opinion also very suitable to the hog theme.

All you need is a hedgehog cookie cutter, mine is from Ikea's current range and a pasta machine that makes your life a whole lot easier. You could theoretically cut every hedgehog individually with a knife or pastry cutter but that really is a massive task.

Parsley and lemon butter:

100g butter

½ lemon

A few leaves of fresh parsley

This is a fresh and quick herb butter to make and goes well with many vegetables. I find it especially tasty with asparagus.

Make this butter first with just a few easy steps. Take soft butter and squeeze the juice of half a lemon to it. Then chop parsley leaves and mix all these ingredients together. Roll to a small rod in cling film and let set in the fridge.

Ravioli filling:

A handful of porcini mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic

1tsp vegetable stock powder

A few leaves of fresh parsley

Vegetarian pasta cheese

Roasted pine nuts

Bread crumbs

Olive oil

This is a very savoury and strong mushroomy filling, therefore it doesn't need a strong sauce to go with it.

Rehydrate the dried porcini mushrooms in a small amount of water containing a teaspoon of vegetable stock powder. When the mushrooms are soft heat a little oil in a pan and lightly fry the mushrooms there so that they can lose the excess fluid. Add the finely chopped garlic and fry a moment longer.

Grate the cheese, chop the parsley leaves and grind the pine nuts. Add some bread crumbs to remove any excess fluid. Then mix the mushrooms with those ingredients and let the mix set in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Pasta:

400g grade 00 pasta flour

4 eggs

Salt

My pasta dough recipe is for a large dough, which makes about 25 raviolis and they can even be slightly thicker. Please read my more thorough ravioli making tips here. Make only half of the dough if you don't have several hungry eaters.

Knead the ingredients to a firm and even dough and then let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes wrapped in cling film. Once the dough has rested long enough start either rolling out sheets of it with a rolling pin, which requires a lot of strength, or work it through a pasta machine to produce thin sheets. I personally don't find super thin pasta so good for ravioli as thicker ones hold better together and are more filling.

When the pasta sheets are rolled out start cutting the hedgehog shapes out, fill them with the mushroom mix, brush the sides with water and press two hog pieces firmly together. Repeat several times and cook the ravioli in boiling salt water for about 10-12 minutes. The ravioli are done when they float on the surface.

Steamed asparagus:

Asparagus is finally in season and you should be able to obtain lovely local produce. At the same time as boiling the pasta steam them to keep the flavour strong, glaze with the parsley and lemon butter and serve as a side dish.

Finally make a masterpiece on the plate with hedgehogs snuffling in the undergrowth. Let parsley and lemon butter melt also on the ravioli, add some fresh pea shoots to the presentation and enjoy.

Some just can't get enough of hibernation...

Happy Hedgehog Awareness Week!

Your VegHog

Baked onion squash soup

This soup that I found in Simon Hopkinson's book, The Vegetarian Option p. 40, is so spectacular that I'm sure I'll be making it over and over again. It's a crossover between a baked pumpkin and a pumpkin soup and also the look is so irresistible.

Hopkinson's version is called ”Pumpkin soup Paul Bocuse” and is based on a French chef's recipe. I had to try it instantly when I saw it although mine once again is my own interpretation. I didn't even use a pumpkin but an onion squash instead as the main ingredient and made two different versions: a vegan and a vegetarian option. Onion squash is earthy nutty and sweet and I found it ideal for this soup, it also looked extremely cute.

Ingredients for the vegan version:

1 onion squash

1 cup red lentils

Vegetable stock

½ onion

2 cloves of garlic

Thyme

Bread crumbs

Chili flakes

Pepper

Salt

Method:

Pre-boil the lentils in stock until they are almost soft. Chop the onion and garlic and fry them lightly in a separate pan. Add the lentils and vegetable stock to the pan and keep simmering for a while. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and chili flakes. Add the bread crumbs only if the soup is not thick enough.

Carve the squash. First cut a small lid off, then remove the seeds.

Ladle the lentil mix to the squash, place the lid back on and bake in an oven dish at 180C for about an hour until the squash is fully baked soft and has received some dark bits. If the squash gets too dark too quickly, lower the heat a bit.

One squash makes a huge dish as the whole squash is edible. I would suggest to save some of the baked squash if it's too mighty for you or to share one between two people.

Ingredients for the vegetarian version:

1 onion squash

Vegetable stock

½ onion

2 cloves of garlic

Emmental grated

Vegetarian pasta cheese grated

200ml double cream

Thyme

Pepper

Salt

Method:

Chop the onion and garlic and fry them for a short while. Add the cream to the mix and let it infuse at low heat under a lid for about 15 minutes. Season the sauce with thyme, salt and pepper. In the meanwhile grate the cheeses.

Carve the squash. First cut a small lid off, then remove the seeds.

Put some grated cheese into the bottom of the squash and ladle the creamy sauce into it. Add more cheese on the top and place the lid back on. Then bake in an oven dish at 180C for about an hour until the squash is fully baked soft and has received some dark bits. If the squash gets too dark too quickly, lower the heat a bit. The cream sucks in some lovely squash flavour.

Enjoy warm!

Your VegHog