Vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese

Bolognese sauce is a tasty classic and I have tried to create a vegetarian version of it. This sauce can be enjoyed with pasta or even used as the basic sauce for a lasagne. The popular dish Spaghetti Bolognese was invented outside of Italy, as the original Italian Bolognese sauce is never served with spaghetti.

Mince meat in tomato sauce is the essence of this dish and carrots normally also belong to the traditional sauce, but I'm not sure how traditional my addition of baby button mushrooms is. Obviously a vegetarian version of a meat sauce can never be so authentic. Anyhow, I liked the sauce so much that I will keep adding the mushrooms in the future as well. What vegetables do you normally add to these kinds of sauces?

Ingredients

2 onions

3 garlic cloves

300 g meat-free mince

400 g tomatoes

200 g baby button mushrooms

1 carrot

2 tbsp olive oil

A few squirts of tomato purée

Salt

Ground black pepper

Oregano

Fresh basil leaves

Spaghetti

Vegetarian pasta cheese

Method

Chop the vegetables finely (slice the mushrooms) and start cooking the onions in olive oil. Once they are little soft, add gradually the mince, carrots, mushrooms and tomatoes. Let simmer until the flavours have blended nicely and the liquid has reduced.

Season with tomato purée, salt, black pepper, oregano and basil to taste. Cook the spaghetti and serve with the sauce and grated vegetarian pasta cheese.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Stuffed marrow

I have been very busy lately and haven't really been able to cook any nice dishes. Nevertheless I thought I could share this stuffed marrow recipe with you, as I didn't want to leave you hanging for too long. I promise to improve my ways for the Christmas season, which is soon enough upon us!

I do admit that on the photos this dish does not look appealing at all, but I can assure you that these stuffed marrow halves were very succulent and tasty. It was a very filling dish as well due to the pearled spelt addition.

Here's my stuffed marrow recipe, if you would like to give it a go.

Ingredients

1 marrow

1 bell pepper

1 red onion

2 garlic cloves

4 tomatoes

3 spring onions

1 tbsp olive oil

½ cup pearled spelt

½ cup vegetable stock

1 tsp salt

1 tsp Herbes de Provence

½ tsp ground black pepper

250 g halloumi

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

Cut the marrow in half and remove the insides by shaping two boats, but also save the insides. Cook the marrow halves in hot olive oil, just that they get a small glaze around the surface. You can leave them in the oven at 150 C while you make the other preparations.

Chop the bell pepper, onion, garlic, tomatoes and spring onions finely. Start cooking the onion and pepper in the olive oil, and then add the tomatoes, garlic, marrow insides and spring onions. After these have been cooked for a few minutes, add the spelt and the vegetable stock.

Let simmer until the liquid has mostly absorbed and the spelt is cooked. Leave the filling a little bit moist so that it doesn't dry out in the oven. You can add little water before the baking if needed.

Stuff the marrow halves with the filling and bake covered in foil at 180C for about 40 minutes. You can remove the foil for 5-10 minutes before the end, if you think that the top needs some colour.

Fry the halloumi slices in the vegetable oil and place the fried slices on top of the marrows.

All done and ready to be enjoyed!

Your VegHog

Roasted cauliflower slices

For a long time now I've kept seeing lovely images of roasted cauliflower slices, and really wanted to try such a dish. Then I detected a recipe for Cauliflower cheese steaks in Erin Gleeson's The Forest Feast (p. 148-149) and was finally convinced to try. Last week I noticed that my favourite pasta cheese had returned to stock in my local supermarket after a long absence, and this was a great dish to use it on. Obviously I'll now be making loads of pasta again as well.

At some point in the future I will follow the recipe in The Forest Feast, as that looked absolutely amazing. Here is how I made my roasted cauliflower slices in the end, a bit more basic version.

1 cauliflower

2 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp sea salt

10 g vegetarian pasta cheese

Cut the cauliflower into thin slices and grate the cheese.

Roast the cauliflower slices at 180C for about 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the grated cheese on top of them and roast for further 5 minutes until the cheese has melted.

Serve as a side dish to roast dinners etc. These are so tasty that I would sometimes just have them as a snack on their own.

Your VegHog

My Cookbooks Part I – Modern Art Desserts by Caitlin Freeman

Today I'm starting a new series introducing my cookbooks. I love books and reading in general, so it's no surprise that I have also collected a few cookbooks. One day I will have a flat or house big enough for a library room.

The first one I want to write about is one of the more quirky ones, it's Caitlin Freeman's Modern Art Desserts. Unless I'm mistaken, it's my only dessert cookbook, but it's a very special one indeed. It's more like an ode to creativity in the kitchen. I am an art lover and visit galleries and exhibitions frequently. That was also a reason to buy this book, and I purchased it at Tate Modern's gift shop. I think that everyone who likes art or cooking or both, should read this book. It makes such a wonderful read, there is a fascinating story behind each of these creations.

Caitlin Freeman is an American art student turned pastry chef, business woman and author, and her journey is told in the book as well. She has created these art dessert recipes for her husband's company the Blue Bottle Coffee and their coffee shops, some of which are in large art galleries. 

So far I have been too intimidated to cook anything from the book, but I'm always dreaming of one day making the Mondrian cake. I'm not the best pastry cook, I do like my savoury stuff, but maybe one day I will give it a go. The recipes are written very clearly and even the equipment and ingredients are introduced in detail, but most of the desserts are really time consuming so you need to be really committed.

If I was to create my own art work influenced dish, I think I would choose something made by my favourite artist, the Belgian surrealist, René Magritte. By the way I had a Magritte moment the other day when a pigeon flew past me just in front of my face! What about you, has art inspired you in creating recipes? Any masterpieces you would want to share here?

Taras Boulba

Smeirlap! An insult that you probably wouldn't want to make or get, but this Belgian beer has a rather dramatic label with this insult being shouted at a person. You can look the word up, if you want to know what it means. I'm however concentrating on the drink, which is a very pleasant beer by the Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels. Here is a small review of it.

Brasserie de la Senne – Taras Boulba 4,5%

• Extra hoppy ale
• Clean nose of citrus and malts
• Freshness
• Full hoppy bitterness
• Complex, almost chalky mouthfeel

This beer is definitely worth a try, if you can get it!

Your VegHog

Cooking video - Purple sprouting broccoli and potato soup

I tried something new and made a cooking video. It's not the most brilliant edit and not even my best recipe, but I thought it would be nice to introduce in a different visual way how I usually make my vegan soups. What do you think, should I make more of these in the future? That wouldn't be too often anyway as it's quite time consuming, but it is a great fun and I wish I could chop that quickly!

I have listed the ingredient amounts here in writing as well, but haven't written any further instructions. I hope that the video explains it mostly. You can variate the vegetable stock amount depending on how thick you want the soup to be. I initially added 500 ml, but added a little extra water later. Then just simmer until everything is cooked and the flavours blended nicely. This soup making method can be used for pretty much any vegetable combinations.

Ingredients

250 g purple sprouting broccoli

250 g small potatoes

2 onions

3 garlic cloves

500-700 ml vegetable stock

Salt, ground black pepper and sage to taste

Enjoy the video!

 

Music: Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Your VegHog

Root vegetable pancake

This is one great pancake for this season, and this is a good trick to get your kids eating root vegetables. And this can also be how to get your kids cooking, as the recipe is so easy. Then of course the contents hiding wouldn't work anymore, but the magic word “pancake” might just save you? Well, I'm sure that some kids like root vegetables anyway. I have tested this on bigger kids and they really liked it.

I found the recipe on Valio's pages, but made my own version of it. Have a look below. 

Ingredients

1 parsnip

1 carrot

1 shallot

2 eggs

300 ml milk

2 dl spelt flour

½ tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

150 g Greek yogurt

Method

Grate the root vegetables and chop the shallot finely.

Whisk the eggs and then add the milk, spelt flour, salt and sugar.

Add the grated root vegetables and chopped shallot to the batter. Then add the Greek yogurt.

Pour the batter on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake it at 225C for about 35 minutes.

Let the pancake cool slightly before serving and then cut it into suitable sized squares.

Your VegHog