Flowers and spring food.

  Spring is at it's best and the first tiny flowers are on there way out, leaving room for slightly larger and brighter ones. We have a long weekend right now due to some holidays, and the weather is finally bright, sunny and warm.

















We went on an excursion to a bog close to where we live. We had never heard of it before and it doesn't seem to be a very well visited place, since there wasn't even a parking lot, you just had to park at the side of the gravel road that went by the path. The bog doesn't really fit into the surroundings, since it's mostly farm lands. That made it extra special, since it was like coming to the north of Sweden for a little while. The weather was stunning.














 Lunch: Quinoa with basil, thyme carrots with red onions, bacon imitation bits (recipe from the best veggie burgers on the planet) and some olives. Some balsamic dressing from Appetite for reduction on top of this and it felt like I was in the middle of summer.














 Our seedlings was in desperate need of re-potting, so I gave them huge pots that they will be able to stay in for the rest of the summer. We are growing red chili peppers and ghost peppers and there's also a basil plant that we bought from the supermarket.





















I had iced coffee 3 times today, maybe sliiightly to excited about the good weather. Drinking it as always in my awesome Vegan Dish mug that I won during Vegan MoFo.

I made the chocolate pumpkin loaf from the Post Punk Kitchen, but subbed baking powder for baking soda and I should've known better. It came out really rubbery and sad, but pretty!

Risotto and garlic bread

Green pea and lemon risotto from Veganomicon and bread filled with loads of garlic and non-dairy butter. This risotto is really simple to make and peas, lemon and roasted red peppers goes so well together. We also made candy cane vanilla ice cream for dessert, which was amazing in every single way. Happy weekend!

Cabbage pancakes

 

I'm reading on a lot of blogs from the U.S that it's strawberry season. When I read that, I tend to look out the window, let out a big sigh and curse the fact that I live so far up north. Let me tell you, it's not strawberry season here, not even close. The last snowfall wasn't even a week ago and the trees are still naked without leaves.  It has it's charm though, waiting for the green to explode. And I dare say I believe it's close now.



















Meanwhile, I continue eating one of my favorite and most simple winter meals ever. Cabbage pancakes with lingonberry jam. It's super simple, just finely chopped cabbage mixed with flour, baking powder, water and salt, then fried up and served with a generous spoon of jam. Yes, we eat sweet jam with savory foods in Sweden. The cucumber isn't very seasonal but hey, I got to live a little too.

This weekend we spent Saturday in Martins mother's summer cottage. We worked hard burning loads of cut down pine trees. Later in the evening, I took a long walk by my self and saw a total of 18 roe deers. I love life on the countryside.

Spring forward

Spring is definitely here,  even though it has been snowing several times the last two weeks. Surely, the snow hasn't really stayed on the ground for very long, but it has been really heavy and stormy snowfalls, not what you want to see when you look out the window in mid April! The trees are still bare but some of them are on the edge of bursting out with green leaves and hopefully flowers too.




















The earliest spring flowers on the ground however, are in full bloom. Scillas and Crocuses are everywhere in the towns and neighborhoods,  bursting with colors. In slightly more wild areas, other kinds of flowers are taking over. The anemone nemorosa is the flower pictured above, in Swedish it's called vitsippa (vit = white) and is such a pretty little flower.



















Another early flower and a relative to the anemone nemorosa is the anemone hepatica, called blåsippa (blå = blue). This feels pretty exotic to me, since I never saw it in the wild when I was younger. It's protected in Sweden and was nowhere to be seen in the suburban areas of Gothenburg I grew up in. However, my mother did have a small plant of the flower in our garden that I think she inherited from her grandfather (I'm sure she will correct me or give the more detailed story in the comment section). This last few weeks at work, my co-workers have been talking about how abundant this flower is right now in the forests so I got really intrigued and went out to a protected meadow where they were said to grow. And if they were! There were lots of them and they are such delicate and bright little flowers, I just love looking at them. I read  There's something special about very seasonal plants, you have just a short amount of time to admire them and then they're gone.
 

 

These pictures are from the previous weekend, when we went to a pretty cool place called Lekeberga-Sälven, some miles east, a small gorge with really nice paths for walking. At the end of one of the paths were a wind shed and a fire place just at the shore of Svartån, a river that goes through the city of Örebro and also provides the city with all it's drinking water. It was just such a beautiful place that I can't wait to go back soon and camp for the night there.

Sunday lunch

Sushi with carrot and bell peppers and noodles with peanut sauce and roasted coconut shreds and sesame seeds.

Moka pot and lokumi

 

My mother travelled to Uganda in March and brought back a bag of espresso coffee for me, which resulted in her giving me her old moka pot since I didn't have one to use the coffee in. 

My friend Mikael is half greek and visited Greece last weekend, and brought home a box lokumi with rose water flavour. You might know lokumi as Turkish delight or lokum, but since this is from Greece, it's lokumi. It goes very well with the strong coffee, since it's achingly sweet and gooey.

Easter

Easter - the holiday that will bring you giant eggs out of paper with colorful patterns on them, filled with candy.


























I made a punk rock cookie jar mix - with inspiration from the PPK blog, to give as a gift.



















We had easter lunch at Martins mother's house, and she had made this absolutely stunning cake that we call princess cake in Sweden. It's a layered cake filled with jam and whipped cream, and topped with marzipan.

Can you believe it fell snow again just a few days ago? Come on, it's APRIL!

I made vegan version of one of Swedens most popular holiday foods - herring. Here is vegan mustard herring, but with aubergine instead of the fish! I used a recipe from The Vegan Swedes. It was really really good and I would recommend eating it with potatoes and knäckebröd.

A snowy Friday in April.

 I started an internship at a sewage and industrial water treatment plant 4 weeks ago, and have since been leaving the house at 6.10 AM to bike the 10 K to a neighbor city. Beacause of easter, I now have 4 days off and planned to celebrate the first day by having a long sleep in. I should have known better. My circadian rhythm wants me to go to bed early and wake up early, so by 7 AM i was up and having breakfast. This morning I had some rye bread with dill hummus and pickled gherkins, an orange and some chai tea. Then, it started snowing. In April!

Yesterday at work some co-workers re-potted some plants and cut away pieces of them that everyone else got to take home if they wanted. I opted for a small aloe plant as well as a small banana plant! Today I put them in soil and pots and got to hang out with the other plants on my windowsills.

I made loads of ground seitan patties for tomorrow's easter lunch While they were being fried in my lovely cast iron pan, I made some lingonberry jam. I still have a lot of berries from when we went picking them in September, and it's so great to be able to make your own jam from your own berries.

After cleaning out my wardrobe, it was about time for a cup of coffee and some dark chocolate coffee beans my mother brought me from the airport in Brussels. The picture in the right is a common view from the kitchen table, Lucias little legs all stretched out while she's hanging out with us while we're eating

African Rhino Peri-Peri sauce

Our fridge has a whole door shelf only dedicated to hot sauces, and it's constantly over flowing. Some of them are still haning in since the visit to the Hot Sauce shop on San Juan Island, WA, and some are new, bought from Extreme Food in Gothenburg. They are all used, for different dishes. Some works great as condiments by themselves, some tastes great stirred into some egg-less mayo and some works best if incorporated in the food while cooking.

The latest addition is one of my absolute favorites so far. We got to taste it in the store (Extreme Food) when Martin asked for something fruity. And it was! The bottle says it's extra hot, but I would say it's moderate. It has a dominant taste of tomato and lemon besides the peri-peri. We immediately felt this was a sauce that would fit well in our kitchen. And since we didn't have any peri-peri sauce, it was about time. We were even more delighted when we got to see the actual bottle, the layout is nice and I love those broad flat bottles. What rhinos has to to with it? The Kalahari pepper company donates a small amount for ever bottle sold, to Save the Rhino, an organization that works for saving and helping rhinos in Africa and Asia. The only downside is that it will be eaten way to quickly.

Birthday brunch

I visited my family in Gothenburg this weekend, mainly to celebrate my sisters 19th birthday.

There was brunch. Amongst other stuff, there was avocado and seaweed caviar tiny sandwiches.



















Also, tiny vegan burgers.

Then we got back home and found Lucia sleeping happily in her new box.