Tomato salad with lemon dressing

I wanted to make a quick and fresh salad and add a splash of colour among all these winter dishes. So I ended up making this tomato and zucchini salad with some added freshness of a lemon dressing.

Salad:

65g baby leaf salad

275g selected tomatoes

1 zucchini

Dressing:

½ lemon's juice

3tbsp olive oil

3tbsp fresh basil leaves

½tsp salt

½tsp black pepper

Make the dressing by mixing the ingredients together. I don't have a dressing shaker and I normally use a small airtight container for this purpose. Just put all the ingredients in there and shake vigorously.

For the salad half the tomatoes and slice the zucchini thinly. Then layer all the salad ingredients on a plate, drizzle the dressing on the top and enjoy.

Your VegHog

Cheese scones

If you want a quick and easy savoury bakery, these basic cheese scones are the way to go. Even the ingredients are so basic that at least I am likely to have all of them in my cupboard most of the time. I just made these in a blink of an eye by using this recipe from the BBC Food as a guideline, and I only made a couple of alterations to the recipe. With these ingredient amounts I got 16 small scones, my cookie cutter's diameter being 5 cm.

225 g self raising flour

pinch of salt

pinch of cayenne pepper

55 g butter

50 g mature Cheddar cheese

150 ml milk

Mix the flour, salt and cayenne pepper, and rub in the butter. Add the cheese and milk and knead only lightly into an even dough.

Spread the dough about 2 cm thick and cut scones of it with a round cookie cutter. Brush the tops with little milk and sprinkle some additional cheese on them.

Place the scones on a greased baking sheet and bake them for about 15 minutes at 220C.

That's them done. Enjoy with a nice cup of tea!

Your VegHog

Spinach, sundried tomato and pepper pasta

I thought I'd post a quick weekday pasta dish. Basically just throw everything into the pot and enjoy a nice pasta. This is how it's made.

4 sundried tomatoes

1 onion

1 yellow pepper

2-3 garlic cloves

50g baby spinach

2tbsp olive oil

2 dried red chillies

1tsp salt

½tsp black pepper

100g grated mozzarella

250g rigatoni pasta

Chop and soak the sundried tomatoes for about 15 minutes. Chop the onion, pepper, chilli and garlic.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and lightly fry the vegetables for about 15 minutes (first add onions, then pepper, garlic, chilli, sundried tomatoes and spinach). Onions should be glassy, spinach wilted and pepper tender and slightly sweetened.

Cook the pasta al dente. Add the cheese to the vegetables, and then the pasta. Just stir through and serve. That's it!

Your VegHog

 

Chilli cheese rolls

I love baking fresh rolls and developing new recipes, and I don't think I have published any roll recipes here recently. What can be nicer than have a homemade breakfast roll, or take one to work and enjoy the next morning. Rolls also make a brilliant company for soups. This recipe combines spicy cheesiness with the earthy rye. I used a Cheddar that has already been seasoned with chilli, but nothing stops you from using Cheddar and chilli separately.

For 8 small rolls:

200 g mature chilli Cheddar

100 g rye flour

100 g wheat flour

1 tbsp dry yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

250 ml warm water

First mix the dry ingredients together and crumble the chilli cheese into the mix. Add warm water and olive oil and knead to a dough.

Let the dough rise for about one hour under a teatowel at a warm place.

Divide the dough into small rolls and place them on a baking tray.

Bake at 200C for about 30 minutes until fully baked throughout and crispy on the outside.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Vegetarian English onion soup

It has been little chilly lately even in England, so soups are in style again. I'm sure the summer season for light and fresh salads will arrive soonish, but now I feel more like making soups, broths and stews.

Onion soup is an especially wonderful and hearty winter dish, a very filling soup and easy to make. I have made an English style vegetarian onion soup instead of the typical French one. I used dry English cider and smoked cheddar, which make it rather English style. Give it a go, I'm sure you'll love it!

Ingredients for the soup:

4 large onions

25 g butter

1 tsp salt

2 garlic cloves

2 bay leaves

1 tbsp flour

1dl dry English cider (for example Wyld Wood organic cider)

500 ml vegetable stock

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

1 tsp black pepper

For the top:

Applewood smoked Cheddar

Rye bread slices (1 per a soup bowl)

Method

Peel the onions and chop them into crescent shapes. Heat the butter in a large pan. Caramelise the onions in the butter under lid at low heat until they are soft and browned. Season them with salt once little liquid has appeared. This stage takes anything from around 40 minutes to a couple of hours, so be patient and keep occasionally stirring.

Once the onions are turning brownish, mix the flour into the onions and then pour in the cider. Let it simmer for a few minutes and then also add the vegetable stock and the bay leaves. Continue simmering for around 30 minutes. Season the soup with soya sauce, black pepper and thyme and remove the bay leaves before serving.

In my mind rye bread with cheese is the best topping for this soup. Bake the rye bread slices with the cheese on the top in the oven and place the slices on the soup just before serving. Decorate with thyme leaves.

Enjoy the soup and feel the warmth!

Your VegHog

Runeberg's torte 2014

Remember these cakes from the last year? Runeberg's torte, Runebergintorttu, is a seasonal Finnish cake to celebrate the national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg's (1804-1877) birthday on the 5^th of February. I tried to improve my previous recipe, and make somewhat taller cakes this year, because that's the right look for them. My dough was also more moist due to the added rum.

I think everybody should try these, as they really are lovely, and very quick to make!

Cake ingredients:

100g margarine

1dl sugar

1 egg

1dl wheat flour

1dl breadcrumbs

½dl ground almonds

1tsp baking powder

4tbsp rum

A few drops of almond extract

Topping ingredients:

Raspberry jam

Icing ingredients:

1tbsp lemon juice

2dl icing sugar

Method:

Beat the margarine and the sugar. Then add the egg, almond extract and rum to the mix while beating further. Mix the dry ingredients for the dough together in another bowl. Combine both mixtures and beat it all into an even paste.

Divide the dough into baking cases or use my method to get the high cakes: I lined metal food rings (5cm height, 6cm Ø) and placed them on a baking parchment. Then I filled them half full with the dough. If you make these large ones, there will only be about four cakes with these ingredient amounts. Otherwise you can get about 10, if you prefer smaller ones.

Bake the cakes in the oven at 200C for about 15-20 minutes, depending on the size, until fully baked. Let the cakes cool down after baking.

In the meanwhile make the icing by mixing the icing sugar and lemon juice into a firm paste. Place the raspberry jam on the top in the middle of the cakes. You can even press it a little bit into the cake. Squirt the icing onto the cakes in a thin circle around the jam and let set in the fridge for a few minutes. Now the cakes are ready to be served. 

Have nice Runeberg's Day celebrations!

Your VegHog

Wild mushrooms on sweet potato and carrot spaghetti

The whole clue of this dish is that the spaghetti is no pasta, but made of sweet potato and carrot strings instead. Combined with the creamy wild mushrooms it makes quite a nice and earthy meal. I was inspired to make this after seeing Nigel Slater's recipe for Mushroom ragout and root vegetable pappardelle.

Ingredients

40g dried wild mushrooms

3 small shallots

3 garlic cloves

2tbsp olive oil

1 large sweet potato

2 carrots

1tbsp fresh sage

½tbsp thyme

2tsp vegetable stock powder + 200ml water

250ml oat cream

½tsp ground black pepper

½tsp salt

Method

Peel the sweet potato and the carrots and cut them with a vegetable cutter into thin matchstick strings resembling spaghetti.

Soak the dried mushrooms in water for about 10 minutes.

Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan and quickly toss the string vegetables through. Prepare the vegetable stock and add it to the pan and let simmer until cooked al dente.

Chop the shallots and garlic and start sweating them in olive oil in another pan. Add the drained mushrooms into the pan and cook for about 5 minutes more. Then add the cream and let simmer for further 10 minutes infusing the cream with the strong mushroom taste. Add some of the mushroom soaking water, if you want even more intense taste (you can add some of that into the vegetable stock as well). Season to taste with sage, thyme, black pepper and salt.

Combine the sauce with the fake spaghetti or just serve it on the top of them.

Enjoy! ~ Your VegHog