Smoked tomato pizza

It's already November and now comfort food is more in demand than ever during the dark long nights. Pizza is always great for this purpose and what could be nicer than a pizza night at home.

This is a recipe for a smoky tomato pizza with a spelt crust that gets its flavour from some lovely oak smoked tomatoes. The crust will be first fried crispy on the pan and then grilled in the oven. With that method you can get close to the heat of a pizza oven in your own kitchen and the results are great. Here comes my recipe that made four smallish pizzas.

Ingredients

Spelt crust:

2 tbsp dry yeast

200 g wheat flour

200 g spelt flour

2 tsp salt

350 ml lukewarm water

3 tbsp olive oil

Topping:

180 g oak smoked tomatoes

200 g fresh plum tomatoes

1 clove garlic

1 onion

Salt

Pepper

Fresh basil

Olive oil

200 g mozzarella

Method

Make the pizza dough first for the crust. Mix the dry ingredients together and then add the water and olive oil and knead. Let rise under a tea towel for about one hour.

Chop the garlic and slice the plum tomatoes and onion.

Heat an oven-proof pan on the hob very hot.

Roll parts of the dough out and place it onto the hot pan followed by the toppings. Leave on the hob for a couple of minutes.

Put the whole pan into the oven under a hot grill. Bake it there until the surface is nicely golden brown and the crust is fully baked. Also here we are only talking about a few minutes depending on the oven performance.

Enjoy the pizza!

Your VegHog

Beavertown Stingy Jack Spiced Pumpkin Ale

Here comes a quick drink recommendation for the season: Beavertown Brewery's Stingy Jack Spiced Pumpkin Ale. I just had to push this post in before October ends.

I always tend to like the Beavertown beers, but with this pumpkin ale they really have outdone themselves. It's a very spicy drink with many different flavours. There's a background of heavy nutmeg and juicy fruit esters, a gingery tingle on the tongue and a banana flavour. The colour of the beer is deep orange, suitably for the season. The mouthfeel is oaty with some barley, nutmeg and spicy flavour. I strongly recommend this beer and am quite sad that I have none left for this evening.

Once again, have a good time with your Halloween celebrations!

Your VegHog

Spicy pumpkin soup

I guess it could be too late to post a pumpkin recipe for Halloween now, as everybody has probably already made their plans. I didn't have time to post this earlier, as I was on holiday, but here it is anyway, maybe pumpkin recipes are needed after Halloween too. I know that I will be cooking loads with pumpkins and squashes still this autumn and winter, as I just can't get tired of them.

I have already posted the recipe for this vegan soup here: Thai inspired pumpkin soup. It's my partner's signature dish, with which he tired to win me over many years ago and succeeded. It may not have been the soup alone, but I can't deny that it had something to do with it. 

This time I added some fresh thai basil leaves to the soup to give an extra anisseed type of flavour, but otherwise I followed the originally posted recipe pretty closely. The seasoning was made more to taste and I added the ingredient amounts pretty much randomly. However the result was great and I soon want to make this again!

Have a nice All Hallows' Eve everyone!

Your VegHog

Bratkartoffeln – German style fried potatoes

I'm off to Germany tonight!! I'm so happy to have holiday and be able to visit my old home country. I try to post something from there, but if I don't manage, please don't wonder where I am, I'll be back very soon.

Before I'd leave, I wanted to make a vegetarian German dish and chose the good old Bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes) this time. They can be close to heaven when made correctly with a crispy surface and soft middle with an extinct taste. It helps, if the potatoes are cooked the previous day and then directly fried in hot oil and butter. I prefer adding some butter, as it gives them some extra flavour, but you can easily veganise this dish by using plant substitutes for butter. I served the Bratkartoffeln with some fried chestnut mushrooms as a side and here's how I made them.

Ingredients

500 g potatoes

1 large onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp vegetable oil

25 g butter

Salt

Ground black pepper

Parsley

Method

Boil the potatoes in water on the previous night, cool down and store in the fridge overnight. The next day cut them into generous slices or wedges. I left the skins on on mine, but you can also peel them, if you prefer.

Heat the oil and butter in a pan and add the potatoes. Fry them until they are crispy and golden brown.

Chop the onion and garlic finely. Fry them in a separate pan in some oil and add them to the potatoes once they are soft and slightly browned.

Season the dish to taste and enjoy!

Bis bald!

Euer vegetarischer Igel

Broccoli nuggets

I made these broccoli and cheese nuggets last year and now I made very similar ones to have a nice Saturday night meal while watching some Nordic noir on TV. These nuggets were baked in the oven, so they don't have any cooking fat on them. Of course I added cheese to make them extra tasty. I have to say that they went down pretty well. They had a crispy surface and were fluffy and cheesy inside with a nice broccoli flavour. I served the nuggets with chunky oven chips, barbeque sauce and cheese dip. 

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

1 broccoli

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

Olive oil

Salt

Chilli flakes

1 tbsp spelt flour

100 g Cheddar and Red Leicester cheese mix

2 eggs

Breadcrumbs

Method

Cut the broccoli into florets and steam them until they are soft.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and cook them in olive oil until soft.

Let the components cool, combine them and add the salt, chilli flakes, spelt flour, grated cheese and the egg yolks.

Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl and also put the breadcrumbs into another bowl.

Shape nuggets from the broccoli mix and roll them in the egg whites first and then in the breadcrumbs.

Place them onto a baking tray and bake in the oven at 200 C for about 15-20 minutes until the surface is crispy and golden brown.

And they are all done!

I'm entering this recipe for this month's Eat Your Greens, which is a vegetarian cooking challenge hosted by Shaheen from A2K- A Seasonal Veg Table. Although my photos look more like eat your beige, but as broccoli is in the nuggets, I think it'll be fine. I'm happy that I finally cooked something with a green vegetable to be able to participate this month, as my cooking has been quite a bit about squashes, potatoes and cauliflower recently.

Have a great week!

Your VegHog

Butternut squash pasta

The other day I cooked this butternut squash pasta recipe and it was a beautiful dish. The original recipe is here: Nigel Slater’s butternut squash with orecchiette and tomato recipe. Frying the squash in butter and oil mixture just gives it such a great taste. Nigel really is on to something here. I love the warmth that comes from the cumin seeds and the slight heat from the chilli flakes. All in all this is a great vegetarian dish, and super easy to make! 

I made a few changes to the original recipe. Instead of orecchiette I used spelt tagliatelle, nice organic pasta that I snapped with me from the health food shop, and I'll have to buy it again. It stayed nicely al dente and added some nuttiness to the dish.

I added a clove of garlic to the dish, which wasn't in Nigel's recipe, but I don't think that it made things worse.

I had to use fresh basil instead of sage. When I shopped for this recipe, my shop unfortunately didn't have any fresh sage, so I opted for basil, which was also lovely, but I really hope to taste this dish with sage as well.

Have a good weekend!

Your VegHog

Oat biscuits

This is one quick and easy baking recipe when you feel like making a small batch of something sweetish to gnaw on. These are also great to take to work as a snack or just have with some coffee or tea. This is quite a Finnish style oat biscuit, thin yet little chewy in the middle and crispy around the edges. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

50 g butter

1 dl sugar

2 dl oat flakes

1 tbsp wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

Method

Melt the butter and sugar together in a pan. Take off the heat and mix in the other ingredients quickly to make an even dough.

Place about 1-2 tbsp of the dough for each biscuit onto a baking paper. Leave enough space between them, as they will spread in the oven.

Bake them in the oven at 200 C for about 5-8 minutes. And all done!

Your VegHog