Crushed potatoes with olives

Here come my new favourites! I have been planning to make crushed (or smashed) potatoes for a long time now. First I started looking around the internet how people usually make them, but I wasn't fully satisfied with the methods I saw. I wanted to make fully roasted crushed potatoes and combine them with olives. So here's the recipe that I came up with, and the potatoes basically make themselves, that's how easy it is. Maybe it could be the potato side dish to your weekend meals?

Ingredients

500 g small potatoes

100 g green olives

Olive oil

Sea salt

Paprika

Wild rosemary

Garlic infused olive oil

Method

Brush washed but unpeeled small potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle sea salt on the top and roast them at 180C for about 30 minutes. Turn them in between, or shake the roasting tin around.

After this time the potatoes should be almost cooked. Roast for longer, if they are not at all soft yet. When they are softish, so not fully baked, crush them with a fork.

Then sprinkle paprika and wild rosemary on the top, and add more salt and olive oil if needed. I added some garlic infused olive oil at this stage. Also put the olives into the roasting tin and roast for further 30 minutes.

It can well be enjoyed as a stand-alone dish, but is also good to be combined with Sunday veggie roasts and such.

Have you tried crushed potatoes before, and what do you think about my version?

Have a nice weekend all!

Your VegHog

Couscous salad with roasted courgette

I really enjoy a couscous salad for lunch as it's such a versatile and filling thing. Today I combined couscous with a roasted courgette and onion, and also added some pomegranate seeds. This salad could be eaten either warm or cold, however you would prefer. I always like the freshness and colour that pomegranate seeds add to any dish.

Have a look how I made my salad.

1 yellow courgette

1 red onion

2 tomatoes

1 spring onion

1 dl couscous

1 garlic stock cube

3 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

4 tbsp pomegranate seeds

Roast the roughly cubed courgette and red onion at 220C for about 15 minutes. Brush them with olive oil before the roasting.

Cook the couscous. Bring one decilitre water to boil and remove it from the heat. Add the garlic stock cube and pour in the couscous and let it swell for about 10 minutes. Let the couscous cool.

Chop the tomatoes and spring onion. These will be added fresh to the salad.

Combine the components and season with olive oil, salt and pepper and sprinkle pomegranate seeds on the top. And the salad is done!

What is your favourite couscous salad?

Your VegHog

Rye crisp canapés

Yesterday I wrote a post of my rye whisky and rye gin tasting and the company behind these wonderful products, the Kyrö Distillery Company. These are the canapés I enjoyed during the tasting and still didn't have a rye overkill yet.

It's always nice to make colourful canapés to serve, and these are quite effortless to make. You can put any of your favourite vegetables and cheeses on them. Soft cheese always gives quite a nice and fresh contrast to these.

Ingredients

Rye crisps – Rye crisps can be obtained in well stocked supermarkets and health food shops or online. You might not get exactly the same ones as I had, but any thin rye crisp bread is good.

Olives – Olives are always a nice addition to a canapé serving.

Here are the different sorts I made.

Tomato and basil crisps:

Small tomatoes ( I used my own produce, Tomato Tigerella)

Fresh basil leaves

Chilli cheddar

Radish crisps:

Radishes

Plain soft cheese

Sea salt

Cucumber crisps:

Cucumber

Plain soft cheese

Chilli flakes

Pepper crisps:

Baby peppers

Olive oil (for roasting)

Smoky cheddar

There wasn't much preparation needed, mainly just chopping and filling. Fill the crisps just before serving as depending on the filling, the crisp can get soggy quickly.

The only thing that required a bit more cooking were the roasted baby peppers. Brush them with olive oil to get them extremely sweet, yet smoky. About 30 minutes roasting time is needed for these.

Serve these canapés at a party or just during a cosy film night. What are your favourite fillings for these?

Have further a nice week!

Your VegHog

Kyrö Distillery Company – Going back to the roots

I was born in the small town of Isokyrö in western Finland in the late 1970s and spent most of my childhood and youth there. The main trade of this quiet place is agriculture, but now unheard things are happening: a whisky distillery, Kyrö Distillery Company, has been founded there! I was very excited when my mum told me these news in June. She had even cut out a local newspaper article for me about the distillery (because that's how they still do it in those parts of the world!).

Even the building where the distillery is located has fond memories for me. That place is none other than the old dairy building of Isokyrö. They used to produce Oltermanni cheese there, which I'm pretty much obsessed with. My grandparents had cows that produced milk for making that cheese. In the early 21^st century Valio moved the Oltermanni production away from Isokyrö and I claim that after that the taste of Oltermanni slightly changed. And it looks like it wasn't just my imagination, as back then Valio even confirmed to me in an email conversation that the taste can be different when the cheese is produced elsewhere – such shocking revelations!

Anyway, there is no longer need for bitterness about Oltermanni's sad departure from Isokyrö as the dairy building has now been put to good use by the Kyrö Distillery Company. They distil rye whisky, which is first of its kind in Finland. A 100% rye whisky, like they make it, is a rare thing even on a global scale. Finns like putting rye pretty much everywhere, but surprisingly a pure rye whisky hasn't been made there before. The five founders of Kyrö Distillery Company say that the idea of making rye whisky struck them in the sauna, and that is the very place where many successful Finnish ventures have started! 

Every time I visit Finland I go to Isokyrö to see family, and when I had my last holiday in August, I got really lucky as the distillery pub was open for the public. I already wrote a post about the 18th century market in Isokyrö, and during that market the distillery had opened the pub and organised tastings and viewings. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go on a tour or to the tastings, but for the next visit that's definitely on my list. These are still early days for the pub, but in the meanwhile it opens once a month, if I'm correctly informed. 

In the pub they served lovely fruity cocktails, long drinks and the real thing. I tasted Juuri (Root), which is the unaged rye whisky and I also had cocktails named after local places, such as “Perttilän Silta” and “Pukkilansaari” and long drink of the house. These were made of Juuri and the other product of the Kyrö Distillery Company, Napue Gin, which gets its name after the very village the distillery is situated in. There is a memorial of the Battle of Napue (1714) very close by and the typeface of that monument has been used to create the clean design of the Kyrö Distillery Company's products. They call it Napue Sans! I find the whole branding of the company to be very modern, but strongly mixed with tradition, and that's what makes it so appealing to me and surely to many others.

*These are old VegHog archive photos from the Battle of Napue memorial site taken 2011 and 2012.

You might know that I'm bit of a lightweight when it comes to hard booze, but of course I had to taste these products straight. On a normal day I might rather opt out for a cocktail. Here are a few tasting notes and other thoughts on these drinks.

Juuri – Like I mentioned above, Juuri is the unaged whisky and the first matured batch will be available in 2017, but it's in itself already a very accomplished drink.

Juuri tastes like eating toasted rye bread with honey. There are also some anise notes and hint of raisins and caramel.

Napue – For me a local gin was always going to be a very welcome drink as it is so versatile to use in cocktails and long drinks. Napue gin is also made of rye along with diverse fine botanicals. I read somewhere that it even contains sea-buckthorn, my favourite berry!

The rye smell hits you first, but the gin also has an initial smell of juniper and fresh botanicals. The foretaste is peppery, then berry and juniper tastes linger on the tongue. I think in the aftertaste I was able to get a hint of the sea-buckthorn, even if I might just have been imagining it. There is a strong rye taste throughout.

Now Master of Malt has both Juuri and Napue in their selection and they ship them almost everywhere in the world (check their page if your country is included). That means happy days for us expat Finns who can now get piece of home in the post. 

Thank you Kyrö Distillery Company for bringing a breath of fresh air to Isokyrö and good luck for the future! I'm sure I'll be seeing you soon.

Your VegHog

Chanterelle and harlequin squash spelt risotto

Here comes another harlequin squash recipe of mine. I coupled it with another seasonal treat, chanterelles, and made a spelt risotto with them. I'm not fortunate enough to get fresh chanterelles at the moment, but definitely do use them instead of dried ones, if you can get some. Otherwise this is quite a basic risotto recipe, rice of course substituted by my favourite, pearled spelt.

These are the things you'll need and the instructions to make it are below.

½ harlequin squash (or a whole small one)

25 g dried chanterelles (or other wild mushrooms, for example porcini would be fine)

1 large shallot

2 garlic cloves

1 l vegetable stock

1 tsp chanterelle fond

1 tbsp olive oil

25 g butter

1 dl dry white wine

1 cup pearled spelt

Fresh savory to taste

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

30 g mature cheddar

Cut the harlequin squash into cubes and remove the seeds.

Soak the chanterelles in water for about 10 minutes. After that, drain them well.

Chop the shallot and garlic finely.

Heat the vegetable stock.

Heat olive oil in a large pan and cook the shallots and garlic until soft. Then also add the harlequin squash cubes and chanterelles to the pan. Cook for a further couple of minutes.

Add the butter to the pan and then the pearled spelt. Cook again for a couple of minutes and make the white wine addition. Let the wine mostly evaporate, and then also add a few ladles of the warm vegetable stock.

If you can get chanterelle fond somewhere, add it to the pan. Alternatively you can also use the soaking water of the mushroom for some extra mushroom taste.

Let the risotto simmer under the lid and keep stirring it and making vegetable stock additions before the pan dries out.

Cook until the spelt is soft, or I prefer al dente, and season with savory, salt and pepper. Season to taste, and add even more wine, if you think it's needed.

Mix in the cheese before serving. I also made some cheddar crisps as decorations on the top.

Enjoy warm! The taste usually gets better when heated up the next day, but I'm rarely patient enough to leave any.

Your VegHog

Sweetcorn and black bean burritos

I spontaneously started craving burritos, so I had to do something about that (well, a day later that is...). As I happened to have black beans in the cupboard I started planning what else could go with them into nice veggie burritos. I chose the ingredients below, mainly black beans, sweetcorn, pepper and tomatoes. Those are always good basics + I got to use loads of my own tomatoes again. I can't promise that these are very authentic burritos, but it's my take on them anyway.

And here's how I made them.

500 g tomatoes

4 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

Slow-cook the above ingredients into a tomato sauce, until the sauce is concentrated and the tomato taste is intense and any excess liquid has evaporated. Simmer at least one hour, mostly with lid on, and stir occasionally. This is quite similar method to my slow-cooked tomato sauce recipe.  

Then continue with the below ingredients.

2 large shallots

1 pointy yellow romano pepper

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp paprika

½ tsp chilli flakes

240 g / 1 can black beans

240 g / 1 can sweetcorn

Chop the shallots finely and the pepper into small cubes. Start cooking them in a separate pan in vegetable oil until they are soft.

Add the seasoning and then the beans and sweetcorn. Cook for about 15 minutes at low heat.

Add the concentrated tomato sauce to the vegetables and stir.

Now your filling is ready for the burritos.

6 soft tortilla wraps

300 g Red Leicester and Cheddar cheese mix grated

Warm the tortilla wraps up and fill them with the sweetcorn and black bean mix and cheese. Wrap them into burritos and enjoy!

I also served a tomato salsa (my recipe here) and plain cottage cheese on the side.  

Have a good weekend!

Your VegHog

Lentil and pea burgers

No month goes by without veggie burger time for me and it's here again today! Sometimes it's almost like no week goes by without veggie burger time, especially now in this slightly colder season. This could be a good recipe, if you are planning cosy weekend evenings in. Have a lovely weekend all anyway!

In these burgers I combined red lentils with ground dried peas and pepper, and this is a really good and easy basic veggie burger recipe.

Makes a batch of about 15 burgers.

1 cup red lentils

1 cup ground dried peas

1 vegetable stock cube

1 pointy yellow romano pepper

1 large red onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

2 eggs

1 ½ cups spelt flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Ciabatta rolls

Tomatoes

New onions of the season

Gem lettuce

Rinse the lentils and cook them in water with added vegetable stock cube until they are soft. Add the ground dried peas just before the end, in order to cook them also for a couple of minutes. Drain the lentils and peas well and let them cool.

Chop the romano pepper, onion and garlic very finely.

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and shape burgers from the mix. Add more flour, if needed for the firm texture. I normally add a couple of tablespoons of the mix and shape the burgers on the hot pan.

Heat vegetable oil in a large pan and fry the burgers on both sides until golden brown.

After the frying place them on kitchen roll to get rid of excess oil.

Serve as burgers with ciabatta rolls, tomato slices, new onions and gem lettuce.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog