Green tomato chutney

“A Tigerella never loses its stripes”, I said when I had finished this chutney. With mixed feelings I have now officially ended my tomato growing season and next week I will cut the remaining vines down. Couple of weeks ago I harvested the green tomatoes that weren't able to ripen anymore in this lack of light and cold nights. Some I was able to ripen in a vase indoors, but there was still a fair amount left that I didn't want to go to waste. So I explored the possibilities what to make of them and went with the chutney idea. I just made a basic chutney like I normally would, and it got actually very nice. Now I can still enjoy my tomatoes during the winter.

Ingredients

400 g green tomatoes

1 onion

100 ml Aspall cyder vinegar

200 g sugar

1 tsp chilli flakes

1 tsp ginger powder

Method

Chop the onion and the tomatoes.

Cook the onion with the vinegar, sugar, chilli flakes and ginger powder for 5 minutes.

Then add the tomatoes to the pan.

Let the pan contents simmer for about 40-50 minutes or until the liquid has mostly evaporated and the mixture has reached a sticky texture.

Pour the chutney into sterilised preservation glasses and store. I got a large jar and a small one out of this.

Chutney has many uses, have it for example with cheeses, veggie nuggets, sandwiches or roasted vegetables.

Your VegHog

Fried heirloom tomato pizza

Fried pizza is my new passion. You can read my first post on the subject here, with all the drama around my scorched hand. Now I made a simple basic tomato and mozzarella pizza that was pan-fried first and then grilled quickly in the oven. This method gives the pizza an incredibly crispy crust and a slightly smoky taste.

I can only dream about the lovely tomatoes I purchased in France in the summer (*see the dreamy picture below), but luckily farmers' markets have some nice ones over here as well.

Here's how I made these small pizzas.

Spelt pizza dough

400 g spelt flour

1 tbsp dry yeast

2 tsp salt

350 ml lukewarm water

3 tbsp olive oil

Toppings

Tomato sauce (Tomatoes, shallot, garlic, olive oil, basil, salt and pepper)

Heirloom tomatoes

Buffalo mozzarella

Method

First make the dough by combining the dry ingredients, then by adding the water and olive oil and kneading. Let the dough rise for about one hour in room temperature.

Then make a basic tomato sauce, although you can skip this step completely and just put fresh tomatoes onto the pizza. That's also a very good alternative. This time however, I also added a tomato sauce.

Once the dough and the sauce are done, slice the heirloom tomatoes and tear the mozzarella, and you are ready for the frying bit.

Heat a non-stick and oven-proof frying pan very hot on the hob, and also heat the grill setting of the oven as hot as possible. Then place the stretched pizza dough and the toppings into the pan. You can also add the mozzarella onto the pizza after the frying and grilling, then it's nice and fresh.

Leave the pizza in the pan until the crust gets slightly brown below and then pop the whole thing into the oven under the grill for a further couple of minutes. My grill doesn't get that hot, so I had to leave the pizza for about five minutes to get nice colour. The first frying bit is also only a few minutes, so it's a very quick way to make a tasty pizza.

Then repeat the frying procedure to make a few more pizzas, unless you used a large pan that could accommodate the whole dough. This is the bit to be very careful at, as the pan and its handle will be extremely hot.

Drizzle some basil, chilli or garlic infused olive oil onto the pizzas just before serving. These always give a nice edge and extra flavour.

So how about making such pizzas on the weekend?

Your VegHog

Queen squash nut roast

Are you already planning for the centrepiece of your vegetarian Christmas dinner? This year I want to go with some sort of a nut roast again as the main attraction, of course the usual potatoes, casseroles and salads on the side. So, the other day I was practising nut roast cooking for Christmas and made this tasty queen squash nut roast. I'm not sure yet, whether this one will make it to my family's Christmas table, but it's a good contender. Here is another nut roast recipe of mine, and I will post one more before Christmas, if I have the time. 

Ingredients

1 queen squash

1 large carrot

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp rosemary

1 tsp sage

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

240 g peeled and cooked chestnuts

1 dl breadcrumbs

Method

Peel the squash and carrot. Remove the squash seeds, but save them. They can be toasted in the oven in a small ramekin and used as decoration for this dish or added to salads.

Cut the squash and carrot into slices/cubes and roast them in olive oil in the oven until they are soft and have roasting marks. Then mash them.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and cook them soft in a pan and mix with the spices and chestnuts. Slightly crush the chestnuts, and then also add the squash mash and the breadcrumbs to the mix.

Line a bread tin with baking paper and put the nut roast mix in there. Press it down fairly firmly. Cover the tin with foil and pierce it a few times.

Bake at 180C for about one hour. The foil can be removed halfway through to get a firmer texture.

Serve the ready nut roast with a vegetarian gravy, roasted vegetables, berry jellies (cranberry, sea buckthorn, redcurrant etc.), salad and any other Christmas or roast dinner sides.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Schupfnudeln mit Schnitzel

This dish is basically just something I assembled for a Sunday dinner. Only the sauce is my own creamy vegan mushroom sauce, but the other components are ready made. This is a perfect dinner for a Sunday when you don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

The main part of this dish are Schupfnudeln, which are southern German and Austrian potato dumplings or thick noodles that are just being pan-fried to get a nice and crispy coating. I'm determined to make my own some day, just like Schnitzel of this style, so watch this space! Schupfnudel can be purchased in various online shops and German shops even outside of Germany, so you should be able to get the ready made ones as well.

Here's a list of the components for this German inspired dish, and how I prepared each one of them.

300 g chestnut mushrooms

250 ml oat cream

1 tbsp olive oil

4 spring onions

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

4 vegetarian breaded Schnitzel

160 g flower sprouts

500 g Schupfnudeln

Butter for frying (oil is also fine for a lighter meal)

The mushroom sauce takes the longest to make, so start with prepping that. Slice the mushrooms and chop the spring onions, onion and garlic. Heat the olive oil in a pan and cook the onion and garlic soft. Add the mushrooms and spring onions, and let it cook for a few minutes so that the mushrooms turn a bit darker. Add the oat cream and seasoning. Let the sauce cook until the cream has absorbed the mushroom flavour nicely.

I baked the Schnitzel in the oven to avoid extra oil usage. They just needed about 15 minutes in the oven.

At the same time I steamed the flower sprouts, which are a hybrid vegetable between kale and brussels sprouts. They make a really nice side to many autumn and winter dishes.

Cook the Schupfnudeln in hot butter in a frying pan until they get golden brown and little crispy.

And that's all! Enjoy your meal!

Your VegHog

Garlic knots

It has been raining and raining and raining... A severe weather warning is a good excuse to stay in and bake and cook! I'm lucky enough to do just that this week, only going to the grocery store is the unpleasant bit. Today I'm sticking to the basics, but very tasty basics at that matter!

These garlic knots are a great side to pasta dishes, soups, stews and salads. I got the idea for them in the beautiful cookbook The Forest Feast (p. 28-29) by Erin Gleeson. I think that this book is a great purchase because of the photos and artwork alone, but the recipes are mouth watering as well. All the ones I've tried so far, have also been quite simple, which is nice.

Here is how I made the garlic knots:

Spelt pizza dough (recipe here)

2 tbsp butter

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp parsley

Roll the pizza dough into a long thin rod and tie knots from the pieces of the rod.

Bake the knots in the oven at 200C for about 15-20 minutes.

Heat the butter and finely chopped garlic in a frying pan.

Turn the knots in the pan for a couple of minutes, sprinkle some parsley on them and serve.

Your VegHog

Vegetarian sushi cubes with crispy tofu and glazed pumpkins

My newest small kitchen gadget, the Rice Cube, inspired me to make this dish. It turnes vegetarian sushi making into pure enjoyment! I have the feeling that you will be seeing many food cubes in my presentations in the future. My partner is more the sushi cooking type, but he has shown me his methods, and now I'm ready to publish a vegetarian sushi post.

I have been wanting to try more crispy tofu methods for a long time and have been contemplating what to combine with it. I thought that it would be good with a sushi style dish.

I also wanted to include a vegetable on the side, and pumpkins and squash suit well this combination. I had two munchkin pumpkins that I glazed with a teriyaki style glaze.

Crispy tofu

400 g tofu

1 tsp groundnut oil (for roasting)

1 tbsp mirin

½ cup semolina

3 tbsp groundnut oil (for frying)

Remove the excess liquid from the tofu and cut it into cubes. Brush an oven dish with groundnut oil and place the tofu cubes there. Bake them at 150C for one hour or more until you are happy with the firmness of the tofu cubes. The intention is to make them nice and dehydrated with a crispy surface, but still a soft middle.

After the baking, roll the tofu cubes in mirin and then semolina and fry them briefly in hot groundnut oil.

Glazed pumpkins

2 munchkin pumpkins or one medium sized pumpkin

1 tbsp groundnut oil

50 ml mirin

50 ml soy sauce

2 tbsp toasted sesame oil

3 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp miso

Cut the pumpkins into small wedges and remove the seeds. Brush them with groundnut oil and roast for about 30 minutes at 150C.

Make the glaze by carefully mixing mirin, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, maple syrup and miso. Pour the glaze onto the pumpkins and roast them until the glaze has thickened and coated the pumpkin wedges. Stir them occasionally during the roasting.

Sushi cubes

1 cup sushi rice

1 ¼ cup water

1 tbsp brown rice vinegar

1 tsp sugary water

¼ tsp salt

1-2 tbsp green nori sprinkle

A few strips of sushi nori

Soak the rice in the water for 30 minutes and then simmer it for about 10 minutes until the water has absorbed. Drizzle some brown rice vinegar to it to taste and also add little water with dissolved sugar in it and a sprinkle of salt. Let it cool.

Shape cubes from the rice. I added green nori sprinkle to one half of the rice and wrapped nori strips around the plain ones.

Serve all components together. They all taste cold as well, but it's also nice when the tofu and glazed pumpkins are warm. This is also a great lunch for the next day.

Your VegHog

Spelt crêpes with a cheesy mushroom filling

Now I'm on the spelt crêpe trip and just can't get enough of them! When I was planning for a further savoury vegetarian crêpe recipe, it became apparent that mushrooms would be the right choice for the filling. The nuttiness of the spelt is just divine with earthy mushrooms. I used chestnut mushrooms, but I can't see why not many other variations couldn't be used. If only could I get fresh chanterelles at the moment! I chose basil as the herb for this dish, but why not try sage or thyme as well.

This recipe will make about four large crêpes.

Batter ingredients:

2 eggs

4 dl milk

2 dl spelt flour

1 tsp sugar

½ tsp salt

Other ingredients:

Butter for frying

5-6 chestnut mushrooms

1 shallot

1 garlic clove

1 tsp olive oil

Salt and ground black pepper

Handful of fresh basil leaves

100 g mature cheddar

Method

Whisk the crêpe ingredients into a smooth batter and let it rest for about 30 minutes in the fridge.

Chop the crêpe fillings: slice the mushrooms, chop the shallot and garlic finely and grate the cheese.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and cook the shallot and garlic until soft. Add the mushroom slices and cook until the mushroom liquid has evaporated. Season the mix with salt and pepper.

Heat some butter in a pan and fry the crêpes golden brown on both sides. Place the filling into the middle of the flat crêpe while it's still in the pan. Turn the crêpe corners over the filling in order to cover it. Let it in the pan for few moments so that the cheese can melt a little and the flavours blend.

Have you ever made savoury crêpes? What are your favourite fillings?

Your VegHog