I should be cleaning and cooking right now, but I needed a break! Most of the day has been spent listening to sexist music, cleaning, shaking my fat ass and cooking. Instead of doing that for a little while I’m going to share the most perfect apple sauce recipe ever. The reason it’s so perfect is it’s simplicity. Forget about spending hours in the kitchen, peeling the apples, deseeding and boiling. You just pop this baby in the oven, blog about your day, file your nails, do your hair and then press those suckers. That really is all you do.

Awesome sauce:

You will need a potato press for this recipe (It looks like a giant garlic press, check it out here or here!) if you don’t have one then I advise you to not even try this recipe out, it’s not worth the hassle.

The apple sauce doesn’t use much sugar, I don’t like it when it’s too sweet. Taste your sauce (haha, that sounds rude, sorry!) and decide if you want more. It has no preservatives and it is delicious!

• apples
• sugar

Turn oven on to 200 C (390F). Take your apples and ‘fork’ them (that is, pierce them with a fork) in several places. Put apples on a parchment paper on an oven tray. Put as many as you can fit on there. The bigger your tray the more apple sauce you will get. Bake apples in the oven for about 40 minutes. If they fall apart, don’t panic, they’re supposed to. When the apples are done, take them out of the oven and immediately start pressing them into a big bowl. Don’t worry about trying to remove the peel, just press a few apples at a time in the press, the peel and the seeds will stay in the press and the apple purée will go into the bowl. Open the press, remove seeds and peel. Repeat with more apples. After they’re all done you add the sugar to your purée. Measure how much puree you have and add sugar accordingly. For every 4 cups of purée add ½ cup sugar. (Or if you’re Swedish like me, or just use metric anyway, for every litre of purée, add 1.5 dl sugar). Stir together and freeze in little bags. The apple sauce keeps for about 1-2 weeks in the fridge as it has no preservatives.

I was given a lot of bananas yesterday that I had no idea what to do with. So today, after spending the entire morning slaving (we had to get out of bed at 5am to go to the flea market and sell all our stuff) and most of the afternoon slaving (cooking!) I decided to try to make some banana bread. I don’t think I’ve ever had banana bread ever although the word is funny, just like banana hammock, but it sounded good enough. So I googled and here’s what I found, Isa’s recipe on the ppk. I modified it a bit and it came out totally delicious! Served warm with some soy ice cream and the very last of our non vegan caramel sauce. Tomorrow I’ll be having friends over for dinner and I’m going to make some of my own caramel sauce. it’s all going to be totally fab!

Also: I TOTALLY had no idea that quiche isn’t pie! Or well. I was googling for pies (savoury/salty) but I couldn’t find anything but sweet pies. No wonder, apparently you Americans call it quiche! Alex swears it’s not an English thing ‘it has to be American’ but I don’t know. You should have told me!

Coconut banana bread:

• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup margarine
• 1/4 cup apple sauce
• 1/4 cup desiccated coconut
• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed well
• 2 cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup soy milk, mixed with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla flavour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Grease up a bread pan and coat with desiccated coconut. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Cream together the margarine, apple sauce and sugars. Mash up the bananas and add to the margarine mix. Pour the apple cider vinegar into the soy milk and stir. Add to bananas. Add in the coconut. Mix together the wet ingredients with the dry. Mix well and pour into the bread pan. Bake in the oven for about an hour. It’s delicious!

My very good friend Eva moved to England this Thursday. I miss her already! We had a small dinner to celebrate and say goodbye (mourn, really!) at a restaurant we all like that has quite a few vegetarian options. She was given a few gifts and everyone paid a little towards her dinner. I had the enchiladas, loaded with cheese and sour cream (and trust me, my stomach made me pay dearly for that mistake) and Alex had the grilled quorn filet’s with green pepper sauce and Idaho potatoes. They don’t have any vegan options, but I think that if you ask them to not put cheese or sour cream on your enchiladas they’re vegan. They’re filled with some very lovely roasted and sautéed vegetables and the price is reasonable.

Eva, I miss you already! <3

1. Alex and Maria, 2. Maria and Eva, 3. quorn with green pepper sauce, 4. Emmy and the fipps, 5. veggie enchiladas, 6. Eva opening gifts

Ok pretties, I have a question! On Sunday we’re having people over for dinner (HAY Maria, YO Phipps, whaddup MUM?). It’s all good! I was thinking we’d have a Swedish themed dinner with faux salmon, faux caviar and dill’d potatoes, but then I was all ‘hell no’ we’re going to have a Swedish autumn dinner, whether we like it or not! and then it got a little difficult. Now, here’s what I’m thinking; Toast with garlic sautéed button mushrooms and chanterelles with some nice baby spinach as a starter. And fried apple wedges with a rosemary caramel sauce for dessert. The entree I’m not sure about. There’s definitely going to be some awesome roasted root vegetables and definitely a nice gravy of some sorts, maybe with pink peppercorns (which are the fruits of the Peruvian pepper tree, Schinus molle) but I don’t know what to serve as my with them. Seriously, roasted root vegetables and sauce just isn’t enough!

So help me out here, what would you serve with this meal? And no, Swedish meatballs isn’t the answer. Bork!

(Also, next dinner is totally going to be summer themed, I’m thinking bbq, potato salad and fresh fruit. Hah, in your face stupid autumn and winter!)

I totally haven’t been cooking or baking anything today. Except for a HUGE pot of Celine’s Creamy Tomato Soup (for my mother, she wants to eat it all week!). So, yeah, I totally haven’t been doing as much cooking as I planned. But I have a very good reason not to. We’re picking up a little kitten tonight! It’s number two in a growing collection of cats (and by collection I mean we have one since before) and we’re thinking of naming her Noodles. But I don’t know, anyone have any suggestion? Alex said we should name it Dough, seeing how we already have Cookie, but he sucks.

There are so many poor cats needing a family that can take care of them. This kitten and it’s siblings lost their mother when they were only four weeks old and they really need a loving home to take care of them and love them. Hopefully we’ll do a good job with the kitty we’re getting.

Yeah, so that’s all folks. More cooking some other day, spiced up with even more lovely cat hairs!

<3

Update: So yeah. I has a kitty. She’s going to be called Semla, which is a traditional Swedish pastry eaten at shrove tuesday/mardi gras/fat tuesday. It’s delicious, filled with cream and sweet and we both totally love it. It also happens to be Alex’s favourite item from the bakery, and he chooses it every time over cinnamon buns, fudge and chocolate cake. So yeah, we both agreed that destiny brought us all together. She is such an adorable little kitty and now we’re just trying to get over the introduction. Cookie is a devil cat, but sweet and loving, so it shouldn’t be a problem at all. Semla, we already <3 you!

When was the last time your awesome mother baked you a delicious vegan plum pie? I bet she’s not as awesome as my mother, she made one a couple of days ago! It was in one of those weekly magazines with recipes, crossword puzzles, true stories from people’s lives and random jibberish. She veganized it (which was really easy) and then got baking. It was totally fab!

There’s also been a lot of bad things happening lately, I haven’t slept much and I’m beginning to feel autumn coming (in terms of how I feel mentally) so things aren’t awesome right now. That’s why there’s been such a lack of updates. Hopefully I’ll get some much needed sleep soon and wake up feeling tip-top. Tonight there’s dinner at a friends house though, so yay!

Almond plum pie:

• Pie crust
• 4 dl (1 and 2/3 cups) flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 150 gr (5 1/3 oz) vegan margarine
• 2 tbsp cold water

• Filling
• 700 gr (1,5 lbs) ripe plums
• ½ dl (3,5 tbsp) sugar
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 dl (1/3 cup + 1tbsp) finely chopped almonds
• 2 tbsp vegan margarine

• Glaze
• ½ dl (3,5 tbsp) apricot marmalade
• 1 tbsp water

Pie crust: In a food processor, blend the flour, sugar and margarine together until it looks like a coarse meal. Add in the water and mix until it forms a ball of dough. Roll out to a big circle, about 30 cm across. Put in a springform pan, about 22 cm across, don’t bother with smoothing out the dough around the edges, it looks much more rustic if you don’t. Put in the fridge for about 30 mins to let it cool. Turn the oven on to 200C.

Cut the plums in half and deseed them. Put them in the piecrust.

Mix all the dry ingredients for the filling and sprinkle over the plums, turn them around a little bit so that the mixture is evenly spread over the fruit. Cube the margarine and put on top of fruit.

The ends of the dough (you should have some extra sticking out over the pan)  you now fold over the fruit filling. It won’t cover the pie completely and it’s not supposed to. Put in the oven and leave for about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the water and the apricot marmalade together in a pot and bring to a boil. The marmalade should melt. When the plum pie is ready and comes out of the oven use a pastry brush and brush the pie generously with your marmaldae mix.

Tastes LOVELY with some vanilla sauce or some soy ice cream.

So, your suggestions sucked, big time! Haha, only kidding, they seemed quite tasty actually but I made something much much better. It’s like an orgasm in your mouth (and trust me you DO want to know what that tastes like!).

Now, hear me out. This recipe is not the simplest ever but it might just be the tastiest god damn thing you have ever had on your plate, and I’m not only saying that because I made it up, it actually is! Served with buttery mashed potatoes and a sauce that’s just to die for, some maple and soy sauce glazed asparagus. I’m in heaven!

Well, are you going to make it?

Awesomest stuffed chard in history:

• a bunch of chard
• 1 dl (½ cup) quinoa
• 2 dl (1 cup) vegetable stock
• 1 bell pepper
• 1 small sweet potato (I have seen sweet potatoes the size of a fist, and ones the size of a small head)
• 1 small onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp thyme
• ½tsp marjoram
• salt and pepper

• 1 dl (½ cup) stock + 1 tbsp tomato paste

Turn oven on to 200 C (390 F). Rinse quinoa in hot water and put into a pan, add vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Boil for about 12-15 minutes.

Chop up the sweet potato and the bell pepper and pop them in the oven to roast.

Cut of the leaves from the stems of the chard, reserving the stems. Boil leaves in water for about a minute to make them softer and greener. Rinse the stems and finely chop the nice bit of them, the most coarse bit near the bottom is no good.

Chop onion finely and mince garlic. Sauté with finely chopped chard stems until soft and somewhat transparent. Strain away any excess water and add the quinoa when it’s finished boiling. Take the roasted vegetables out of the oven when they’re ready, this should be about the same time as the quinoa is (they take about 15 minutes). Chop them up a bit more and add to the pan. Season with thyme and marjoram, salt and pepper.

Take a leaf of chard and put about 2 tbsp of filling on it. Roll it up into a compact roll and put in an oven safe dish. Mix a little vegetable stock with a tablespoon of tomato paste and pour over the rolls. Put in the oven for about 20 minutes, covered with tinfoil.

Serve with mashed potatoes and the best damn gravy you know.

ok, I know I asked for mangold recipes in my last post but what I meant was;

Does anyone have any good chard/swiss chard recipes to share? I bought some and I’ve never had it before. I need to know you favourites!

Ok, so I’m off to work in a couple of minutes but first I really wanted to post this mosaic of what I’ve cooked lately.

It’s actually just two things. A strawberry mousse cupcake that Alex has been eyeing lately, he gets news from Peta2 and the vegcooking blog and this was one of their recipes of the week. He’s a sucker for pink sugary things so we agreed on making these together. Together, however, means that I do the baking and he does the eating. (I know her cupcakes are prettier, but don’t you dare get bitchy with me, this is my second cupcake frosting ever!)

The other thing I made lately was this pink beetroot pie. Alex claims beetroot pie is his favourite so I make it fairly regularly and it’s always soo good. This time one of my friends came by for dinner and we all enjoyed this pie with some salad on the side. The filling is just pickled beetroots cut in pieces, leek, red bell pepper, salt and pepper and some thyme. I mixed some tofu with some soymilk, cornstarch and nutritional yeast and then threw in some more beetroot and blended that with the rest to make it lovely and pink.

Yesterday we went out and bought 4 bags full of lovely produce so we can finally COOK again. The fridge has been very empty lately and I’ve been feeling uninspired but now I can’t even wait. I bought mangold /CHARD!(i’ve never tried it before) so if you have a favourite recipe, please share! I have no idea what to do with it.

1. Strawberry mousse cupcakes, 2. Beetroot love pie, 3. Love pie, 4. Strawberry mousse cupcakes, of love!

Alex has been a vegetarian for a year today. Last year on this day he had a fish and chips (in Sweden no less!) and then decided that he was going to give up on eating animals. Go him!

Happy anniversary snygging!