Vegan MoFo 2012 - how I will be blogging.

(No clue what Vegan MoFo is? Read about it here!)

It's that time of year again. The seasons are changing and the darkness it creeping up on us from all sides and the daylight is getting more and more precious. It's also the time to start cooking up a storm an blog about it, because that is what we do and we are good at it too. So let the MoFo-Party begin!

This is my third year participating, and I thought I'd change things up a little bit, get a bit more structured. I thought about themes and decided that I wanted to have a theme for each day of the week, like Jojo from Vegan in Brighton had last year!

Monday: New Foods
New week, new beginnings, right? I'm going to start the week by using an ingredient or type of food I've never eaten or cooked with before.

Tuesday: Lingonberries!
Most of you probably isn't familiar with this amazing little berry that grows so well in the Swedish forests but now you will get to know it a little bit better, especially the jam it's most commonly made into.  Be prepared to start love eating jam with your dinner.

Wednesday: Chili peppers
I've been growing chili peppers at home this year, and have quite an amount of them to use for various things. I will let you in on how to grow them, what to use them for, and for Halloween you will get to be antiquated with a really spooky one...

Thursdag: Chopped
Me and Martin will take turns giving each other mystery ingredients to use for dinner.



(no banner yet!)
Friday: Family Friday
Family Friday will continue on Fridays, letting you get to know my family members and the food they're cooking.

Saturday: Scones
What's better for a Saturday morning in October than a warm scone?  I will try out a few varieties.

Sunday: Weekly recap
I want to end the week by telling you about the other blogs I've been reading and enjoyed, spreading the love is the most important thing about Vegan MoFo for me.

Vegan MoFo 2010 + 2011

Vegan MoFo (Month of Food) is about to begin! The idea is to write as much as you can all month, about vegan food. It will be my third year and I thought I'd share my favorite posts from myself from the previous years.


Highlights from my Vegan MoFo 2010:

 It was Vegan MoFo 2010 that made me start my blog. During that time, was living on the Faroe Islands, and had this view from my kitchen window. I had a lot of time and didn't have any theme, I just winged it but managed to blog every single day. I got comments and readers and had so much fun with it that I have kept blogging ever since.

  - DIY seitan from scratch

- Making a thanksgiving "meat" cake
- Pitepalt - a Swedish potato dumpling
- Oat sandwich bread

- Donuts
- Eating vegan on the Faroe Islands


Highlights from my Vegan MoFo 2011:

 I had kept blogging ever since last years MoFo, but had now just recently moved back to Sweden, to a new small town in the inland. Quite a contrast to north Atlantic island life. I didn't have a theme this year either, but blogged a lot and had fun with it.

- My interview with an organic blueberry farmer in the UK.
- Homemade coconut milk

- Carrot dogs
- Martin reviewing hot sauces
- Autumn stew with juniper berries

Breakfast and lunch

 

Cold brewed coffee.



















Potatoes "baked" in the microwave with lingonberry jam, and crisp rolls with homemade bilberry jam.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce with pumpkin and chickpeas, and green beans.

Kohlrabi from the garden and berries from the forest

Smoky split pea soup

Smoky split pea soup from Appetite for Reduction with crisp bread topped with cucumber and spicy mustard. The perfect lunch on a gray Friday at home.

The cat is busy rolling around and grooming her big belly.

3 days in the Baltic Sea

The city wall around Visby, built in the 13th century and still standing strong.

After a 3,5 hour drive south-east and a 3 hour ferry ride northeast, we arrived to Gotland, an island situated smack in the middle of the Baltic Sea. We spent a night in a hostel that only 15 years ago made up the islands prison. We slept well in the old cell but woke up to heavy rain that kept falling the whole day through. Used to windy and wet weather on islands, we weren't bothered and strolled the narrow hilly streets of Visby, before heading east and to the other, more barren coast. It was just out of season, and the roads were almost empty. We saw sheep, alvar lands, sea, rauks (stacks), wild bunnies, cliffs and a lot of grey sky.

In the second evening, we got to sleep on the floor of the ferry that would take us to Stora Karlsö the next morning. I slept badly, sharing a tiny mattress belonging to the captain of the boat with Martin. After a short but windy boat trip we arrived to the worlds second oldest National Park, Stora Karlsö. The landscape is made up by a large limestone plateau, alvar, juniper berry bushes and high, steep cliffs were birds are nesting in the summers. It wasn't only my love for barren and windy landscapes, sea water and islands that bring us to this place, but Martin's brother who have been working there for the summer as a chef. We went to pick him up.

We spent 32 hours on the islands, taking the guided tour, watching sheep, eating food in a restaurant with a giant window towards the sea and enjoying the island where no one but the guides, chefs and hostel-guests are living. I went swimming of course, and we took a walk along the coast line, getting wet and looking at fossils.

Restaurant New Tokyo, Kumla

My grandparents has been visiting me and Martin in Hallsberg this weekend. We've done some sightseeing around Örebro, seeing the old town, the city park and the castle. In the evening, they took me out for dinner and I found this restaurant in the nearby town Kumla that sounded good. They serve sushi and thai food, a combination that sounds alarming but the food was really good. They had a few different vegetarian and vegan options to choose from; veggie sushi, stir fried veggies or veggies in curry. I choose the only one that contained tofu, and it had lots of fresh veggies stir fried and coated with a sauce of soy sauce, garlic, ginger and fresh chili. The portion was huge, the veggies was cooked perfectly and the sauce was spicy and had a lot of taste. Cashews would have made it better, but I was happy and full by the end of this dinner. The food was very reasonably priced, my dish was 79 SEK (12 USD).

+ Taste, portion size, a couple of different veggie options
- service, and I wished more of the veggie dishes contained tofu

Family Friday: Grandmother Inger

I’ve mentioned it before, but I am really happy that I’ve gotten to grow up with both my grandmothers. This post is about my father’s mother, Inger. She grew up in a tiny place called Bäckefors, in a region called Dalsland. She moved away from there, to Gothenburg, when she was young, and sometimes talks about how she rented rooms from angry old ladies and went out dancing on the weekends. When I grew up, she lived on the same side of the city as us, and since my mother’s parents lived 4 hours away, we spend a lot of time with her and my grandfather. The number of nights I’ve spent there are uncountable, it was like a second home and my memories are only fond from my childhood when it comes to her.

Me and my grandmother when I was 16. And the food of course.

There’s one dish in particular that I remember eating there for dinner. I’ve never seen it or had it anywhere else, so I’ll call it Inger’s casserole.

Grandma Inger's casserole 

What you'll need
Boiled rice
Canned pineapple, circles or in chunks
Slices of seitan or your favorite non-meat, pre-fried in a pan until lightly browned
Vegan Bearnaise-style sauce (I make a simple white sauce (flour+oil+milk) and add ground turmeric, some garlic, loads of tarragon and apple cider vinegar). However, I'm sure a curry sauce would also be amazing. 

To assemble
Add the rice to a pan, layer with seitan, put the pineapple on top of that and spread the sauce on top. Bake for about 20 minutes.