Thai green curry

I absolutely love Thai green curry and other vegetarian or vegan Thai curries. In this dish there are fresh Thai flavours with fragrant thai basil, firm tofu and fluffy light jasmine rice as the side.

For the tofu I used my frozen tofu method. I'm not sure, if I have mentioned it here before? Anyway it's quite simple: unpack a block of tofu, remove some of the excess liquid without pressing it too much, freeze and defrost before use. The freezing seems to have a pleasant influence on how the tofu can later be fried firm on the outside and soft in the inside. In this recipe I used very chunky tofu pieces.

Here is my vegan Thai green curry recipe made from these beautiful ingredients:

Thai green curry paste:

1 onion

4 cloves garlic

2 large green chillies

1 cm fresh ginger

3 kaffir lime leaves

Juice of ½ lime

Pinch of ground turmeric

Handful of Thai basil

Handful of fresh coriander

Other curry ingredients:

250 g tofu

1+1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 carrots

2 pak choi

100 g asparagus

1 tsp palm sugar

160 ml coconut cream

2 dried lemongrass stalks

2 tsp vegetable stock powder

Thai basil to taste

Fresh coriander to taste

Soy sauce to taste

1 cup jasmine rice

Method:

First make the curry paste by puréeing the paste ingredients together.

Cut the tofu into long chunky pieces and fry them in hot vegetable oil until firm.

Cut the vegetables into long pieces and start cooking them in vegetable oil. Add the palm sugar and the green curry paste and keep cooking for a few minutes more.

Add the coconut cream, lemongrass stalks, vegetable stock powder and let simmer until the vegetables are cooked nicely. I personally prefer a bit of bite in them.

Season with soy sauce, Thai basil and coriander to taste. Also add some more lime if you like.

Cook the jasmine rice and serve it together with the curry.

This recipe will be my own contribution to Eat Your Greens cooking challenge, which I'm hosting this month and co-hosting with Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. Don't forget to share your recipes!

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Stuffed lumaconi in tomato sauce

I recently bought the chunky lumaconi pasta shells and thought that the first dish made with them should be a pasta bake, and that's what I made. I went with the classic combination of pasta, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil here. I stuffed the pasta shells with mozzarella cherries that had been rolled in pesto, covered them with a heirloom tomato sauce and a bit of extra cheese and baked in the oven.

The firm giant pasta stuffed with fragrant pesto, melting mozzarella and covered in fresh tomato sauce made a very good combination indeed. Here's my recipe.

Ingredients

Sauce:

3 large heirloom tomatoes

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

2 tbsp tomato purée

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Stuffing:

Handful of basil leaves

2 garlic cloves

10 g pine nuts

4 tbsp olive oil

200 g mozzarella cherries

Pasta:

12 lumaconi pasta shells

Vegetarian pasta cheese

Method

Make the tomato sauce first by cooking the finely chopped onion and garlic until soft and then adding the finely chopped heirloom tomatoes. Let simmer and season to taste.

Prepare the stuffing by puréeing the pesto ingredients together and mixing them with the mozzarella cherries.

Cook the lumaconi in water until al dente, cool them down with cold water so that they are easier to handle.

Stuff the lumaconi with the mozzarella cherries and pour the tomato sauce on the top.

Grate little vegetarian pasta cheese for the top.

Bake at 180 C for about 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Bread board with cheese and olives

I really enjoy eating a variety of different snacks gathered on one board. These kind of boards are always a good idea for a cosy night in and I think that the next Saturday evening is already settled. The best thing is that there isn't too much preparation for this. This time I baked my own breads, but homemade bread is useful anyway, so it doesn't matter that it takes a bit longer. Otherwise it's hardly any work to gather such a board.

For this board I made three breads, mini carrot baguettes, mini carrot loaves with wheat flour and spelt rolls with pumpkin seeds, hazelnut crunch and cider. I wanted to serve the bread with dips and cheeses and altogether this was actually a surprisingly filling evening meal. I also added some soft roasted garlic, as I have been roasting garlic heads lately like there's no tomorrow, so lovely for the winter! Aged Havarti cheese has been my another guilty pleasure of the season and had to go onto the board, it's such a nice and flavoursome cheese.

Here are the components of this board:

Mini carrot baguette

Mini carrot loaf

Seedy spelt rolls

Butter

Roasted garlic

Aged Havarti

Gouda

Olives

Roasted peppers

Hummus

Balsamic vinegar

Do you ever fancy such snack boards?

Your VegHog

Just another lunchbox

I wanted to post another lunchbox of mine and this one is actually quite typical for me when it comes to the gnocchi, as gnocchi or pasta are so quick to throw together the previous night with just some small additions. It's also nice to get creative with these dishes. I manage to make something like this for next day's lunch even when I go out for the evening on a weekday and have to get up at 6 am as usual.

I'm also glad that there are actually some fruits in this, as I have been neglecting them too much for the recent breakfasts and lunches. I'm sure that this will change again towards the summer.

This lunchbox contains:

Blood orange slices

Apple slices

Pumpkin gnocchi with red pepper and sundried tomato pesto and cheese on the top

Your VegHog

Freekeh salad

Monday and a new week... it has been quite stormy here, not the best start to the week, but hopefully it'll get better. I do not need belated trains on my commute to work. Anyway, now is the perfect time again to make those weird and wonderful weekday salads like this one, where I combined freekeh with lettuce, chicory, carrots and gouda. On the side I served couple of extras, croutons, whipped soft cheese (my new favourite) and hummus. For a salad this was actually like comfort food!

Ingredients

½ cup freekeh

1 tsp vegetable stock powder

4 mini gem lettuce

2 red chicory

2 carrots

150 g mature gouda

Bread croutons

Hummus

Whipped soft cheese

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing

Method

Cook the freekeh in water with the vegetable stock powder until done. You can add it either warm or cold to the salad.

Chop the gem lettuce and chicory and grate the carrots.

Cut the gouda into cubes and make the dressing.

Serve everything together, enjoy and have a great week!

Your VegHog

Strawberry and cream buns – Laskiaispullat

It's Shrove Sunday, so it's the perfect timing to make these traditional Finnish Shrove buns that are mainly eaten on Shrove Tuesday and on the days before it. I love these strawberry and cream buns and my partner is also quite happy to get them. He might want them more often than once a year...

My standard recipe for these buns can be found here. I followed it otherwise, but used double cream for the filling and added some sugar nibs on the top of the buns before baking. It's quite traditional to add coarse sugar on Finnish buns.

Have a wonderful week!

Your VegHog

My first sourdough bread

I grew up watching my grandmother baking rye sourdough bread every week and occasionally helping her out (not that I was much of a real help). She made such a tasty traditional regional bread and since then I haven't been much in touch with sourdough baking. I have never baked one from my own starter until now. However as I love eating that style of bread, I have been determined to make my own at some point. Of course it takes a little bit time and patience to make a sourdough bread, but the results are absolutely worth it. This dough variation didn't need much of kneading, just long rising times, but that's fine if you plan your schedules well.

I got the starter mix from BreadMatters and it came with instructions that were very easy to follow. There's also quite a lot of advice and FAQs for sourdough bread baking on their website. I knew I wanted to make a rye bread as my first attempt, so I made one entirely from rye flour. I liked this variation very much, and now I have some starter left for other breads to experiment with. I think I'll need to try something with spelt flour as well. The starter can be fed so that it doesn't run out! 

 

What are your experiences of sourdough bread baking?

Your VegHog