Pizza is life

I'm always in the mood for pizza, especially homemade variants, and I quite often bake pizzas at home. I would describe my homemade pizzas as “rustic”, as they are not perfect, just comforting and tasty, but not the best looking perhaps. If I eat pizza in restaurants, I often find myself ordering a Pizza Margherita, as I think that the true skill is in the basics.

Over the years I have tried to perfect my pizza dough recipe, but I think that there is still work to be done. I don't measure the ingredients when I mix them for the dough, but just make it by feeling and experience. Good dry yeast is essential for me when making the dough, and I have luckily found my favourite product. I prefer a thin crust, and a spelt and wheat mix for the dough, but lately I have sometimes been making a thicker crust. I mainly make a full baking tray rectangular pizzas, because I think that it's a more practical shape for home baking. I would only very rarely make a round pizza.

I collected pizza photos from a few months, and I'm sure you'll get the drift of my favourite toppings by looking at them. For me it's crystal clear that pineapple belongs on a pizza, and it is on most of my pizzas, sometimes tinned, sometimes fresh pineapple. Another favourites of mine as pizza toppings are olives, mushrooms, bell pepper, onions, and often instead of Mozzarella I prefer hearty Cheddar. That's why many of my pizza photos are rather orange. Cheese of course is essential for a pizza, and I like a double cheese pizza. I use different cheeses on my own pizzas: emmental, cheddar, mozzarella and sometimes a mix or even yet another cheese style. I think it's nice to use different kind of cheeses on pizzas.

I normally make the tomato sauce myself, just a basic garlicky sauce, preferably puréed smooth before spreading on the pizza dough. Sometimes I put a veggie ragout made with vegetarian mince on the pizza, or occasionally just fresh tomatoes instead of a sauce altogether.

Here are now quite a few pizza photos. I would love to hear what's your favourite pizza like, and do you make pizza often at home?

Your VegHog

Mushroom and Emmental sandwiches

I'm on my autumn holiday and having a great time. We already went on a small city break to Norway's capital Oslo earlier this week and saw the magnificent fjords again. Now I'm just taking it easy at home in Copenhagen and will attend a culture night event tonight. That is one of my favourite events of the year, when museums and other public buildings that may not be accessible otherwise open their doors for the public and have different events. Our first stop will be a railway control tower with a great view over Copenhagen and a champagne bar on the top. We should be there just on time for the sunset.

Some of my family members will also come over for a visit tomorrow and stay a few days with us, so I'm also shopping food and planning what to cook for them. Any ideas for 4 adults and one kid? The weather hasn't been the greatest, it's raining a bit again, but I'm still happy to have whole two weeks off work, enjoy the autumn scenery and spend time with family.

What could be a better way to start the day than with crispy and cheesy mushroom and Emmental sandwiches. I could eat this sort of sandwiches at any time of the day, and I often do. Now in the autumn it's so nice to use different seasonal mushrooms in the cooking, and the combination of mushrooms and Emmental cheese is just perfect. Here is my simple recipe for these sandwiches.

Mushroom and Emmental sandwiches

Ingredients

2 breads, rolls or baguettes

200 g closed cup mushrooms

2 garlic cloves

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Fresh thyme to taste

1 tbsp olive oil

100 g grated Emmental cheese

Method

Slice the mushrooms and chop the garlic finely. Cook them in olive oil and season with salt, ground black pepper and fresh thyme.

Cut the breads in halves and brush a little olive oil on the cut sides. Place the mushrooms and cheese on them. Bake at 180C for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

In My Kitchen in October

My favourite season autumn is here! The trees are starting to turn colourful, days are shorter and mornings can be frosty. I just love it, as it's somehow so cosy. I also love all the seasonal food in the autumn. Here is a little peek to my autumnal kitchen.

Here is some of the lovely seasonal produce I've recently purchased: chanterelle mushrooms, corn cobs, tenderstem broccoli, cactus figs etc. I've also made a little pine cone and pumpkin display on the dining table.

I haven't bought that many new food items lately, but here are some: Yeast flakes and smoked tofu by Vantastic Foods. I find the quality of their products excellent and there is also a nice tofu character. 

I made a dessert with butter-pecan ice-cream and dark chocolate popcorn bites. It was a nice dessert, a bit more unusual, but very quick to make.

Here are some of my autumn dishes.

Vegan chilli with kidney beans and bell pepper, and sweetcorn rice

Creamy mushroom sauce with mashed potatoes

Fondant potatoes with vegan nuggets and steamed tenderstem broccoli

Red lentil and roasted bell pepper lasagne

I'm sharing this post once again with Sherry from Sherry's Pickings blog, who is hosting the In My Kitchen challenge.

Have a nice new week!

Your VegHog

Eat Your Greens welcoming October recipes

Welcome to Eat Your Greens in October! I hope that you will all share nice green autumnal dishes with us.

It's quite simple, just post a vegan or vegetarian recipe featuring one or several green vegetables on your blog and share the link in the comment section of this post below. Your recipe will then be presented in the round up at the end of the month. You will find the full rules for participating here.

Also go and check out my co-host Shaheen's blog. She hosted Eat Your Greens last month.

I look forward to seeing your creations!

Your VegHog

Chickpea, potato and cauliflower curry

Today is a big day in Copenhagen. After a decade of building work, the new cityring metro line will open. There will be a celebration with live music and the new driverless trains will start driving in the afternoon. We will also get a new station closer to our home, which is very exciting. We will try to catch a train from there later today. As an additional plus, public transport is free in whole Copenhagen today. It will be an exciting day. I can't wait to see the design of our new station.

But now first to this curry. I made a chickpea and potato curry with roasted cauliflower. It was quite a basic vegan curry with garam masala, carrots and spinach and I served homemade naan breads on the side. I though that the roasted cauliflower added a bit of extra to it and made it a bit more unusual. I decided not to share the recipe here, as the curry has just some basic ingredients in it. I have posted similar recipes many times.

Have a good Sunday everyone!

Your VegHog

Cactus fig juice

I started today in a very healthy way with morning exercise followed by homemade cactus fig juice. There were such lovely and colourful cactus figs at the market, and they were quite cheap as well, so I had to buy them again after a long while. They made a very nice juice with lime and ginger. Check out my method below.

Now I'm baking rolls for breakfast, and then I'll hit the town for some food, and perhaps clothing, shopping. The rain has cleared for now, so I'm hoping for a nice autumn's day. What are your weekend plans?

This is how I made the cactus fig juice.

Cactus fig juice

Ingredients

6 cactus figs

½ lime

3 cm fresh ginger

1 cup water

Method

Peel the cactus figs, and be careful while at it. They have actual cactus spines on them unless they have been carefully removed. It may be best to use gloves.

Also peel the ginger and put it in a blender with the squeezed lime and peeled cactus figs.

Blend and add water to taste. I added about one cup, but you might want to add more or less depending on how thick you want the juice to be.

Sieve the juice to remove the hard seeds of the cactus figs and enjoy.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Roasted vegetable pitas

I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday. We took a train to a nearby village and walked around there a bit. There was a mix of a cute little old town and modern architecture. It was quite interesting to go outside of Copenhagen, which we don't do very often. I'm really keen to travel in rest of Denmark to get to know the whole country better. Today I just want to go for a walk and cook a Thai curry in the evening.

I recently made these pitas with roasted aubergine and bell pepper, vegan broad bean strips and cabbage. Here is a quick and simple recipe.

Ingredients

1 aubergine

1 bell pepper

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil for roasting and frying

Ground black pepper to taste

Ground cumin to taste

Ground coriander to taste

Smoked paprika to taste

Chilli flakes to taste

Salt to taste

250 g vegan protein (I used Beanit made from broad beans)

100 g hummus

Kale, cabbage, beetroot mix

4 pitas

Method

Chop the aubergine and bell pepper into cubes. Slice the onion and chop the garlic finely.

Coat the aubergine and pepper with olive oil, and roast them in the oven until done.

Heat olive oil in a pan and fry the onions. Add the garlic to the pan, and then also fry the vegan protein.

Add the roasted vegetables to the pan and season to taste with ground black pepper, ground cumin, ground coriander, smoked paprika, chilli flakes and salt.

Warm the pitas in the oven, spread hummus on the inside and fill them with the roasted vegetable mix. Add fresh veggies of your choice. I used a kale, cabbage and beetroot mix.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog