Spelt rolls

Thank you so much everyone for your comments, likes, tweets to The VegHog's Cheap Eats Week so far! I'm still trying to keep the theme week up throughout the weekend, so there should be couple of more cheap eat recipes.

Baking your own bread is always quite an economical choice, as the few ingredients needed tend to be on the cheaper side, and I do this regularly. I very often make this kind of spelt rolls in slight variations. I chose a fairly basic version for this post, yet featuring the sunflower seed bottom. I got that idea from German bakeries that offer very seedy rolls with a similar bottom part. Good other cheap additions to these rolls would be for example grated carrot and oat flakes.

This recipe makes 6-8 rolls.

Ingredients

400 g spelt flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp dry yeast

2 tbsp sesame seeds

250 ml lukewarm water

2 tbsp olive oil

6 tbsp sunflower seeds

2 tsp poppy seeds

Method

Mix the dry ingredients together followed by the water and olive oil. There's no need to knead much, just make an even dough and let it rise for at least 30 minutes.

Shape rolls from the dough and tip the bottom onto a pile of sunflower seeds. Then sprinkle poppy seeds on the top.

Bake the rolls at 250 C for about 10 minutes.

Enjoy with butter and cheese. That is my preferred combination.

Your VegHog

My student time standard dish

Obviously my money saving theme week made me think of times when I had tighter budgets and what I was eating then, so I wanted to contribute one of my student time favourite dishes to The VegHog's Cheap Eats Week. What would be better than sharing a short recap with you how my culinary life used to be back then and also hearing if you have any nice student time recipes to share!

When I first moved from home at 19 in order to live and study in another country and a city that I didn't know before, I wasn't the greatest cook. My mum and grandmother had been spoiling me too much with their lovely cooking, so I had only occasionally made some basic dishes like homemade pizza. I started finding more interest in cooking when I became a vegetarian as a teenager, but I didn't make great experiments back then. My cooking was more about just leaving the meat out, unless I tried some more experimental recipes from various cookbooks or magazines.

This kind of creamy mushroom sauce with pasta that I cooked now was basically my go to dish as a student. I loved creamy sauces back then and found that they went particularly well with pasta. I normally just added an onion and a vegetable of my choice, of which mushrooms stayed my favourite, and simmered them with cream to make a sauce. I seasoned the sauce quite discreetly with salt and pepper and very rarely some herbs. It was a cheap and filling dish to make, also fairly quick, so it was perfect for a busy student. To my horror I have to say that I quite often even used tinned mushrooms... not the greatest I would say now, but cheap nevertheless.

Sometimes I still get cravings for such a sauce and pasta and then nothing can stop me. This is today's variation from my student time favourite, perhaps a little more refined. Certainly back then I only very rarely used fresh herbs and the cream was dairy and not oat cream, also the pasta was the cheapest variation.

Ingredients

250 g closed cup button mushrooms

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

250 ml oat cream

1 tsp vegetable stock powder

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Fresh basil leaves

Fusilli or other pasta

Grated cheese

Method

Slice the mushrooms and chop the onion and garlic finely.

Start cooking the onion and garlic in olive oil and after a while add the mushroom slices. Cook until excess liquid has left the mushrooms and they are lightly browned.

Add the oat cream and let simmer at low to medium heat until the cream has been infused with lovely mushroom, onion and garlic flavours.

Season and let simmer some more.

Cook the pasta and serve it with the sauce and some grated cheese.

What do you think of this dish? And please also note on some of the photos a few original books from my study time, Nibelungenlied in Middle High German with High German translation. That's some of the best stuff in the whole wide world and I miss studying those books so much!

Your VegHog

Onion soup

When I was planning dishes for this ongoing theme week on my blog, The VegHog's Cheap Eats Week, I thought that at least one soup should be included in the recipes, as vegetable soups tend to be quite cheap to make, yet so tasty that I'm always prepared to eat a comforting soup. I thought that an onion soup would be very nice to make for a change before the colder period is fully over. I added dry cider into mine, so it was a bit more English than French style onion soup, and I served it with tasty cheesy bread on the side. You can veganise the dish by leaving out the cheese from the bread. It was so comforting and wonderful that I could dive back into it anytime. The only slight downside for making this is that you need a lot of patience in the first part of the onion cooking, as it can take a while before they are perfectly browned.

Here is my onion soup recipe:

Ingredients

3 large yellow onions

2 large red onions

25 g butter

4 garlic cloves

2 tbsp wheat flour

300 ml dry cider

3 bay leaves

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder + water

Fresh thyme leaves

Yeast extract to taste

Liquid aminos to taste (or substitute by soy sauce)

Sprinkle of salt

As a side: Baguette slices and cheese

Method

Cut the onions into half rings and start cooking them in butter in a large saucepan.

Cook them very slowly under the lid and stir occasionally until they have browned nicely, at least for about 45 minutes.

Chop the garlic finely, add to the onions and simmer further.

After a while stir in the wheat flour and add the cider and let simmer for a while.

Then add the bay leaves, vegetable stock, thyme, yeast extract and liquid aminos.

Let simmer under the lid until the flavours have blended and season the soup to taste.

Prepare the side by baking the baguette slices in the oven with some cheese on the top until it has melted and serve them with the soup.

Enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe also with the No Croutons Required cooking challenge hosted by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen and co-hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes. 

Your VegHog

Couscous with roasted Mediterranean vegetables

The VegHog's Cheap Eats Week has already started nicely and is continuing today with this vegan couscous dish with added roasted vegetables. This vibrant dish contains a few fresh vegetables that have been roasted, but the couscous is the filling agent and it's very affordable. Some money can be saved here by using seasonal vegetables. For the first time ever I also roasted a whole chilli and it was quite an interesting addition.

So here's today's cheap eat:

Ingredients

1 head garlic

1 aubergine

3 romano peppers

1 onion

100 g tomatoes

1 red chilli

Olive oil

1 cup couscous

2 tsp vegetable stock powder

Salt

Ground black pepper

Method

Slice the top off the garlic head, drizzle it with olive oil, cover in foil and roast.

Cut the aubergine in half and cut a griddle pattern on each of the cut sides. Drizzle them with olive oil. You can add more oil during the roasting, if they are threatening to get dry. I want my roasted aubergines very soggy, and even the skin can be discarded afterwards, if it's too tough.

Cut the romano peppers into pieces and slice the onions. The tomatoes can be roasted whole. Roast the vegetables brushed with olive oil in the oven until they are soft and have nice roasting marks. The roasting time varies a bit, the tomatoes need less time than the aubergine and peppers. I roasted some of the vegetables in different tins to be able to control the process better.

Cook the couscous in water with some added vegetable stock powder. Combine the couscous and the vegetables, season a little with salt and pepper and serve.

Have you been saving some money through cooking? What are your best cheapskate tips when it comes to eating?

Your VegHog

Rice and beans

I will start The VegHog's Cheap Eats Week that I announced yesterday with this tasty recipe of rice and beans. It's very cheap to make and very nutritous. It was even more convenient for me to make, as I had some left over rice from the previous day that I didn't want to go to waste. This dish is vegan and can be had in several different variations, the bean sort can vary, sweetcorn is optional and dried beans are also okay to use. This is also an excellent dish when you want to loose a little bit weight without compromising on nutrition: the combination of pulses and grain provides all the essential amino acids, just like dairy. It's also so filling that you don't have to eat huge amounts at a time. This recipe should make fairly proud portions for four people.

Ingredients

200 g rice

2 onions

4 garlic cloves

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 can black beans

1 can sweetcorn

All seasoning to taste:

Salt

Ground black pepper

Ground cumin

Ground coriander

Smoked paprika

Chilli flakes

Tomato purée

Method

Cook the rice separately.

Chop the onions and garlic and cook them in vegetable oil until soft.

Add the beans and sweetcorn and the seasoning.

Let simmer for a while together and serve.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

The VegHog's Cheap Eats Week

It's time for a theme week for a change. I want to share some affordable vegetarian and vegan recipes with you during the coming week. Money has been quite tight for me lately and I thought that it would be nice to make some simple and cheap dishes to save a little bit of money. It's nice to notice the price difference between eating out and making a more affordable version at home. Quite often the homemade version is tastier, as you can make it exactly as you like. I think that vegetarian cooking is always fairly cheap, if you stick to basic pulses, seasonal vegetables, grains etc., but isn't it nice to be able to save a bit every now and then. Please also share your cheapskate recipe ideas here in the comments section and post them onto your blog. I'm excited to see some cheap eats.

There is a vegetarian cookbook Veggienomics by Nicola Graimes that is dedicated to vegetarian cooking on budget. It contains plenty of affordable recipes, but also hints and tips on how to be an economical cook. I will be posting one recipe from that book this week. This would also be a very good book for students, as they often live on tight budgets. Back in my student days I tended to eat fairly one sided, as I didn't really know how to make lovely cheap meals. Maybe I'll even share some of my student day favourites with you.

Here are already some affordable dishes that I have recently cooked:

Pasta with roasted pepper pesto – Roasted pepper pesto can be made from the antipasti type roasted peppers, garlic, olive oil and I normally also add cashew nuts. When it's then combined with pasta, so good! Cheese of course improves things, but isn't mandatory.

Potato wedges – Potato wedges are easy and cheap. Just cut some potatoes into wedges, brush them with oil, sprinkle some salt and smoked paprika on the top and bake in the oven until done.

Tomato alphabet soup – This is a tomato soup with added alphabet pasta and mozzarella. The mozzarella and bread are optional, but add something nice to this dish. I can't believe how filling this soup is!

There are also a few more affordable older recipes of mine under the Cheap eats label. 

Have a good week and let's save some money!

Your VegHog

Borough Market London

I went to Borough Market in London yesterday and had wonderful time hogging some veg there. There's so much good produce and street food on offer. I had my much beloved koshari for lunch accompanied by a New Forest cider. I also got some stuff to take home for cooking and some seeds for my balcony garden. I bought some tomatoes, oak smoked tomatoes, kohlrabi, smoked garlic, fresh garlic, a crown prince squash and some craft beers.

After Borough Market we continued to the Southbank Centre food market and spent the evening there. What a great day it was!

Here are some photos from Borough market. I hope you'll enjoy them. What are your favourite food markets?

Your VegHog