Veg Bitch » vegan

Archive for the ‘vegan’ Category

Simple cardamom cake

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

I love baking, and cooking too. But baking has a special place in my heart. The summer when I was 14 we moved to a new house and I didn’t have any friends. It was the summer holiday in between semesters and I just didn’t know anyone in this new place we lived. I spent the entire summer reading semi erotic fantasy novels (47 of them!) and baking cookies and cakes until we were all ready to burst from all the baked goods. I piled on the pounds but it was still nice. However, I didn’t bake this cake that summer, I know that for sure. It’s a very simple and incredibly tasty cardamom cake that requires little work but really delivers. I couldn’t get any good photos of it, when I last baked it the sun had already set and I am too tired to make a new one. Instead I give you this photoshopped version, it’s a cardamom girl cake!

This cake is really good just the way it is. Or you can slice it and serve it with some fruit salad and soy cream. Either way it’s absolutely delish! It’s an old fashioned Swedish recipe that doesn’t use eggs, so veganizing it was a no-brainer. It’s also not incredibly sweet but has fantastic flavour.

Cardamom cake:

125 g (½cup) vegan margarine
300 ml (1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp ground cardamom
250 ml (1 cup + 2 tsp) soy milk
500 ml (2 cups + 1 tbsp) flour
2 tsp baking powder

Turn the oven on to 180 C. Melt margarine in a pot. Turn of the heat and add sugar, cardamom and milk into the margarine. Sift together the flour and the baking powder and add to the wet mix. Stir carefully with a whisk until the lumps are gone (but don’t overmix it). Grease and flour a pan. It looks cuter in a bundt pan but a normal sponge cake pan will do just fine. Pour batter into a the cake pan and bake in the middle of the oven for about 45 minutes or until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted to the centre comes out clean. When the cake is done, let cool for about 5 minutes then flip onto a plate. Remove the pan while the cake is still warm and let it cool completely. Let mature in a bag for a day before eating, it tastes even better if you do!

Tags: baking, cake, cardamom, swedish
Posted in baked goods, sweet, vegan | 14 Comments »

Potato farls

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

Tell me something, do YOU want to be more Irish? Oh g’wan! Just admit it. Even I wish I was more Irish and I’m sure Alex wishes he was too, even though he’d never admit it and probably start muttering about the damn potato famine…

Yesterdays favourite, the potato farl is as Irish as.. potato and it’s delicious too. I’m a fan of most potato things, like crisps, thick chips, french fries and potato wedges (basically, cover it in hot fat and I’ll eat it) but I hate boiled potatoes, or mashed ones. This, however, is an acceptable kind of boiled and mashed potato.

The potato farl is also often called potato bread and it’s an important ingredients in the Ulster fry, an incredibly fatty breakfast consisting of fried potato farls, soda bread, bacon, sausages and eggs, preferably fried in lard. That’s not how I roll but I’m sure they’d be good fried… We had potato bread in England and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since.

Ok, recipe time!

Vegan potato farls:

1 kg (2 lbs) potatoes
3 tbsp vegan margarine
2 tsp salt
450 ml flour (just under 2 cups)

Peel and cube the potatoes. Boil until soft and then mash or use a potato ricer. Add in the margarine and salt and stir until the margarine has melted. Work in most of the flour and then knead on a floured surface. You might need more or less flour depending on the texture of your dough. You want a stiff non sticky dough. Take balls of dough and roll out to a 0.5 cm (1/4 inch) thick cake about 15 cm (6 inches) across. Sprinkle the cake with some flour. Cook in a dry pan on medium heat until both sides are golden. Flip it occasionally. Cut each cake into quarters. Makes about 10 cakes.

To fry the bread add a little oil to a pan and fry for about a minute on each side in some oil. Serve warm.

Recept på svenska: Irländskt potatisbröd

Tags: bread, irish, potato
Posted in bread, england, vegan | 18 Comments »

Garlic roasted broccoli

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

I have a new favourite food! Before I went vegetarian broccoli was one of my most hated vegetables. I wouldn’t go near it and I swore it would never ever go in my mouth. Well, that all changed and now broccoli is a huge favourite. I still have a horrible cold so both yesterday and today’s dinner has consisted of easy to cook comfort food. They’ve both also featured my absolute favourite way of cooking broccoli.

So, yesterday’s meal:

Garlic and ‘parmesan’ roasted broccoli with a mac n bechamel (it’s a Swedish classic) with spinach, nutmeg and black pepper. Generously topped with parmazano. Woooooah! It was so good I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

And today’s dinner:

More of that delicous garlic roasted broccoli. This time teamed up with a nice home made potato farl and some baked beans to form an Irish dinner. How is this Irish you ask? Well, does it have green? Yep. Potatoes in any form? Yaps. Tasteless baked beans? You betcha!

Garlic and ‘parmesan’ roasted broccoli:

Because you deserve it!

1 head of broccoli (about 500gr/1 lb)
2½ tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic
½ tsp thyme
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp fake parmesan

Turn oven on to 225C or 450F. Cut the broccoli into little florets. Mice/press/grate the garlic cloves. Mix all the ingredients together and toss with the broccoli in a bowl. Make sure to get the oil mixture everywhere on the broccoli. Spread on parchment paper and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes. Serves 2-3 people.

Recept på svenska: Vitlöks- och ‘parmesan’rostad broccoli

Tags: bread, broccoli, comfort, irish, potato, roasting
Posted in beans, gluten free, healthy, vegan | 6 Comments »

I’m almost healthy!

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Edit: I feel so filthy and cheated! I was sure Oreo’s were vegan but atleast here in Sweden they have whey! The first time we bought them they were imported oreo’s from the US and they were lovely and vegan 8and expensive!). Since then they’ve started being sold here in Sweden in almost every store. These are not US imported. The ones we get in our normal store isn’t vegan at all. Damnit! I feel so cheated and upset : /

Saturday was Alex’s birthday and he seems very happy about it. I was an awesome girlfriends and bought him 9 Discworld books as well as supplied him with baked goods and Homer Simpson socks. Who’s the man? You da man! (Yeah, that’s me.)

Now I’ve run out of energy and I’ve come down with a nasty cold. I’m so happy about those frozen soups now, I’m much too tired to cook.

Last week I went to the doctor to talk about my SAD. I’m not getting any medicine but I am going to start seeing a psychiatrist because they figure that might help. The doctor ran a lot of tests, she was really nice and friendly. Upon mentioning being vegan she asked me if I’d like her to do some additional tests just to make sure I wasn’t suffering from any vitamin deficiency. There was a lot of testing being done and they had to take quite a bit of blood (actually, it only LOOKS like it’s a lot of blood, but still it was scary!). Turns out almost everything about me is perfect. Perfect blood.. everything, pressure, sugar, value.. the lot. I’m fine for b12 and the other essentials too. The only thing that was off was my liver. when she phoned me up she asked if I was either taking lots and lots of pain killers or if I’m drinking lots of alcohol. I don’t do either so they’re going to do another test in a couple of weeks. I’ve read up about it on the internet and the other things that can cause this is lots of fatty foods or being on the pill. Maybe the doctor didn’t think I ate much fat, because you know, vegans are so healthy and they never eat fat… um, but I’m going to cut down my fat intake drastically and we’ll see if that makes a difference. I might be vegan but it’s not lettuce that built this very voluptuous body. If that doesn’t work I might have to go off the pill. We’ll just see.

Anyway, before going on this fat free ‘diet’ we had a party to attend. So yesterday we went to a friends house to celebrate Alex’s birthday and the hosts up coming birthday. Here’s what I brought!

Delicious cookies n’ cream cupcakes. I <3 Isa! I ordered Vegan Cupcakes but it ran out of stock so this is a recipe from online.

Vegan homestyle chocolate chip cookies. Dreena is a vegan goddess!

We made a few changes to this one. Mainly, have no blackstrap molasses, we didn’t use a 1/3 cup maple syrup, instead we used half maple and half golden (maple is SO expensive here).

Tags: cookies, cupcakes, personal
Posted in baked goods, Other things, sweet, UNhealthy, vegan | 10 Comments »

Wasabi pea pureé

Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Rise is such a comfort food for me. It doesn’t really make sense, it’s not a particularly Swedish thing. We’re more.. meat and potatoes, potatoes potatoes. I guess it’s starch thing, I used to hate potatoes as a kid (so much, in fact, that I threw up if I was forced to eat them) so rice became my starch of choice. Today I decided I wanted onigiri filled with wasabi pea purée. Yum! I’ve not been feeling great lately, but I’m seeing a doctor on Tuesday and I’m hopefully getting some help. And besides that, I got myself a daylight lamp today. It’s used in light therapy to help against SAD and it’s hopefully going to help make things a bit better. Anyway, I needed cheering up so here’s what I made!

Wasabi pea purée:

200 ml frozen peas
1 tbsp ready made wasabi
2 tsp oil
2 tsp water
salt and pepper

Put peas in boiling water and let boil for 2 minutes. Put in a food processor with all other ingredients and mix together until semi smooth. Add more salt and pepper if needed.

For the onigiri I cooked rice and let it cool. I used one of my onigiri moulds, filled it half full with rice, put in some of the purée and then more rice. Cut up some nori and wrapped it around the onigiri. And then some more wasabi and some soy sauce and I was ready to be comforted.

Tags: comfort food, japanese, onigiri, peas, rice, wasabi
Posted in asian, bento, condiments, gluten free, vegan | 10 Comments »

Vegan checkerboard cookies

Monday, October 8th, 2007

We were going to a party on Saturday night and everyone there was supposed to bring something baked and delicious. I made some pretty fab coconut cupcakes frosted with a lemon icing (from VwaV). As a present for the birthday girl I bought a nice stoneware jar, light blue with polka dots and filled it with simple checkerboard cookies. I spent the day slaving away in a hot kitchen, no time to wash my hair, put on make up or be fancy in any way. Although I did make up for that later, the photo shows a less charming me.

First a photo of the cupcakes. They were lovely and Alex ended up eating about a third of them.

It never ceases to amaze me just how vegan friendly some of our old Swedish cookies are. I KNOW you have checkerboard cookies in other countries too, but it’s also a very Swedish thing. Many recipes are so simple, no eggs, no milk, just butter/margarine. Hey, that’s almost too easy! I flipped through a Swedish cookies and cakes classic, we’ve had it in my home since forever. In Swedish it’s called Sju sorters kakor. Not long ago they translated the book to English, it’s called Swedish Cakes and Cookies. This recipe is from that book, the only thing I changed was the margarine, mine’s vegan, theirs isn’t. It’s one of those recipes that doesn’t even belong to a certain author or anything anymore, it’s so old and well used it’s public property now. They’re not terribly sweet, but they’re lovely with coffee or tea.

Swedish checkerboard cookies: makes LOTS and LOTS!

450 – 500 ml (1 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp – 2 cups) wheat flour
100 ml (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) sugar
200 g (2 sticks) vegan margarine

2 tsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla essence (but make sure to use a little more flour!)
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Mix together the sugar, margarine and flour until it forms a ball. (Kind of like when you’re making a pie crust). Divide the dough in two parts and mix each part with a flavouring. One of the doughs with cocoa and the other one with vanilla. Divide each dough into two pieces and roll them out to two rolls (I made three of each because I am hardcore!). Put two different coloured rolls next to each other and put two more on top of that making a checkerboard pattern. Press it a little so the doughs stick together and wrap it in plastic film. refrigerate for a little while. Turn the oven on to 200C (390F). Take the log out of the fridge and cut into 3-4 mm (1/6 inch or so) slices. Put on a baking paper on top of a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes. Let cool. Enjoy!

Tags: baking, cookies, swedish, vegan
Posted in baked goods, soup, UNhealthy, vegan | 10 Comments »

Vegan Jerusalem artichoke soup

Sunday, October 7th, 2007

We’re currently working on translating all the recipes here to Swedish and adding them to a separate blog with just recipes so that my fellow Swedes don’t have to do lots of crappy translating. When I started speaking English on a daily basis (that is, when Alex moved in with me) I quickly discovered I was nowhere near fluent in kitchen English ( a typical session of cooking would go ‘Alex can you hand me that.. thing. I need it for this.. thing. You know the thing? For the thing?). I’ve picked up a lot since then and now know most of the necessities of cooking English. No more lying awake at night thinking about what a colander is or trying to understanding what all those weird sounding spices were. I thought the word for whisk was whip since you used it for whipping cream. Anyway, so we’re translating things at the moment. We’re also trying to get an index together of all the recipes on here. So that’s taking quite a bit of our time at the moment.

I found a bag of organic Jerusalem artichoke tubers for almost no money at all (less than a dollar or 50 pence) and so decided to make us some delicious soup. I love this creamy sophisticated soup so much but we rarely get to eat it because Jerusalem artichokes are usually ridiculously expensive. Being on a tight budget usually doesn’t allow this kind of luxurious food. I sprinkled some store bought ‘bacon’ bits on top and served it with some nice white bread on the side.

Jerusalem artichoke soup: Serves 2

250 g (1/4 lb) Jerusalem artichoke tubers
3 small potatoes
1 smallish garlic clove
½ tbsp oil
1 dl (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) white wine / cooking wine
250 ml (1 cup) water
1 stock cube
150 ml light cooking ‘cream’ (half and half? Mine’s 5% fat but light cream or medium would work too)
salt and pepper
1 tsp thyme

Peel the artichoke tubers and the potatoes. Chop into smallish pieces. Mince the garlic. In a medium pot sautée the potatoes, tubers and garlic in the oil. Add wine and boil for about a a minute. Add water and stock cube and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes until everything is soft and a bit ‘mushy’. With a handheld mixer or a blender, mix the soup until smooth. Add back to the pot and add the ‘cream’. Heat. Add the thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot with a nice bread and maybe some ‘bacon’ bits (they’re so good!).

Tags: blog, jerusalem artichoke, recipe, soup
Posted in blog, gluten free, soup, vegan | 4 Comments »

‘Instead of sunshine’ soup to cure autumnal depressions!

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

I’ve been trying my best to not give up on summer but I’ve had to let it go now. The mornings are cold now and the room is completely dark when I get up to go to work in the morning. The trees are shifting colours to yellow, red and brown. It’s beautiful but also depressing. I have SAD and this is the time of the year when I can feel it kicking in. There are a few things that really help me when it comes to SAD; Arctic root, exercise and good food. I might be just imagining the food helping, but there’s something so fulfilling and comforting about hot food, soups and stews.

When we had friends over for dinner and gaming (I have a wii now!) on Saturday night I made a nice hearty soup and served it with some bread and a salad. I got a big pot out and filled it almost full. Everyone loved the soup, and really, what’s not to love about a nice hot soup, chock full with vegetables, lentils and curry? Eat it on one of those horrible days when the sun refuses to show and you’re feeling depressed and panicky.

Instead of sunshine soup: Serves 6-8

3 tbsp curry powder
3 tbsp canola oil
2 onions
3 big cloves garlic
1 red chilli
3 medium carrots
Half a celeriac
1 large parsnip
1 celery stick
1/2 medium leek
2 red bell pepppers
2,5 dl (1 cup) red lentils
2 liters (8 1/3 cups) water + 4 stock cubes (or the same amount of stock)
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper

In a LARGE pot, combine canola oil with curry. Chop your onions and garlic and add it to the curry. Curry releases most of it’s aromatic flavour when heated in a little oil. While the onions are sautéeing at medium heat, finely chop your chilli. Add to the onions and let cook for a few minutes. Meanwhile, peel and cube your carrots, celeriac and parsnip into 1 cm/half inch cubes. Add to the pot and stir. Chop the rest of you veggies finely and add to the pot. Sauté for a few minutes and then add your lentils, water and stock cubes (or ready made stock) and 2 bay leaves. Let soup cook for atleast 20 minutes, but a longer cooking time makes for a nicer heartier soup (I let mine cook for over an hour while I prepared other food). Salt and pepper to taste. Remove bay leaves before serving.

Tags: curry, lentils, parsnip, soup, vegan
Posted in gluten free, healthy, slow, soup, vegan | 8 Comments »

Tofu balls!

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

The first tofuballs recipe I ever made was from a cookbook called Vegetarian nosh4students. The name is terrible and so is the book. The tofuballs were really good though but looking through it just now (Tania asked me where they were from and I was going to e-mail her it as I didn’t think I should post it) I realised the version I make doesn’t really have that much in common with the one in the book. I’ve heavily modified it. Anyway. These tofuballs are the bomb. I love them with a chunky tomato sauce.

Oh and btw, I don’t know what lamingtons are. They apparently like them in Australia. They’re also just like a Swedish baked treat that I love, Kärleksmums (love yumms!). It’s basically just sponge cake dipped in a chocolate frosting and then immediately dipped into desiccated coconut. They’re lovely. I got the idea from Shmooed Food a long time ago and when we had left over sponge cake from making the ‘trifle’ I thought we’d give it a go.

Tofuballs with awesomesauce:

Tofu balls – Serves 3 – 4 people. We usually only get three servings, but we’re chubby and like to eat much.

1 large onion / 2 small ones, finely chopped
2 small cloves of garlic, minced
1 pack of tofu 500 gr / 17,5 oz (18 or 17 works)
1,5 dl (2/3 cup) of fresh breadcrumbs /1 dl (½ cup) ready bought
1,5 tbsp flour
2 tsp soy sauce
3 tsp dried herbs (basil, marjoram, thyme, parsley, oregano, whatever rocks your boat, and is in the pantry)
salt and pepper to taste

Turn oven on to 190C or 375 F.

Just crumble the tofu and squeeze some of the water out. Chop onions and garlic finely.
If you don’t have breadcrumbs ready, mix some plain bread in a food processor to make crumbs.

Put all the ingredients in a big bowl and mix them well. Form into smallish balls (the small ones are tastier!) and put on an oiled baking tray. Spray them lightly with oil and oven them for about 25 – 30 mins. Take them out when they are browned and firm.

Chunky sauce - Serves 3 people.

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 clove garlic
1 (400-500g / 15 oz ) can tomato sauce (that’s the smooth kind, not seasoned, not juice and not chunks)
½ courgette
1 yellow bell pepper
Salt and pepper
1 tsp herbs (thyme is good, or basil)

Chop everything finely. I mean finely! Heat up a pan with oil in and fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes. Add the courgette and the bell pepper and fry for another few minutes. Add herbs, salt and pepper and the tomato. Turn heat down and let simmer together for 5 mins or so.

Tags: sauce, swedish, tofu, vegetables
Posted in healthy, tofu, vegan | 13 Comments »

Vegan Roasted Vegetable Quiche

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

I said I’d post recipes for the very tasty dinner we had this Sunday, but I’m a lazy bum that never gets around to doing anything. Really! Anyway, I got my act together and decided to post the recipe for the quiche I made. The quiche mix is based on SusanVs recipe for Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches. Everyone loved the quiche (and Susans quiche recipe is such a winner)

Roasted veggie quiche: Makes one big quiche, or three smaller ones

Pie crust (use any crust you like, I used the All Purpose Pie Crust from La Dolce Vegan)

Roasted vegetables:
1 big carrot
1/4 celeriac
2 parsnips
1 bell pepper
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
Thyme
1 Sweet potato
1 tbsp olive oil

Turn oven on to 250C (480 F). Peel and cube the carrot, celeriac, parsnips and sweet potato. Peel onion and cut into wedges or onion boats. Slice up the bell pepper in nice big bits. Peel the garlic and cut each clove in 4 pieces. Put in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil and lots of nice fresh thyme. Bake in oven for about 40 minutes, until the vegetables are nice and tender.

Quiche mix:
350 gr package silken tofu
1/4 cup soymilk
2 tbsps nutritional yeast
1 tbsp arrowroot
1 tbsp tahini
A little turmeric
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp salt
Pepper
½ tsp rosemary
½ tsp sage

Cheezy paste:
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp oil
2 tsp water

Turn oven to 175 C (350F).
Mix all the quiche mix ingredients together in a food processor.When the mix is nice and smooth pour into a bowl, add the roasted slightly cooled veggies and stir together. Put into a pie crust. In a small bowl mix together nutrotional yeast with oil and water to a paste. With the back of a spoon, spread the paste over the quiche mix (it makes the quiche taste kinda nice and cheesy).Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Tags: quiche, roasted, tofu
Posted in slow, tofu, vegan | 6 Comments »

Blogroll

Not in english

pinging and more

Archives