Cooking vegan food up north.

Cosmos Apple Pie from Vegan Pie in the Sky

2012-02-24T13:52:00.000+01:00

I have no idea why it took me so long to buy Vegan Pie in the Sky, since I have the two other books in the same series. The other week when I was over at my friend Hannah for lunch the other week, I flipped through her copy and knew I had to get one myself. It's a beautiful book, and I'm so glad it's in my bookshelf at last. I had already made two recipes from it before,the Pear Frangipane Tart and the Old Fashioned Chocolate Pudding Pie, both 5-star desserts. This week, I invited Hannah over for some apple pie.

Apple pie, the pies of pies, it was the only reasonable place to start. I have made quite a few pie-ish desserts in my days, mostly crumbles but also the occasional pie with crust, but I don't think I've ever made one with both a bottom and top crust. Until today. Over all, the pie came out well. The dough was a bit tricky to work with, it was quite prone to crack while rolling it out, and didn't have much elasticity at all. However, I managed to get it together without falling apart and made some decorations with the excess dough. I must say, the crust was the best thing about this pie. It's crispy but oh so tender, and with a lovely mild taste that goes so well together with the apples and cinnamon. On the down side, the pie came out quite watery. This didn't make it any less tasty, but made it look a bit messy when cut.

I'll definitely make this pie again, and this crust will be used for many fruit and berry pies this year! If you have this book yourself, what recipe is your favorite?

Chai spiced oat milk

2012-02-23T19:35:00.000+01:00

There's a new non-dairy milk on the market here. The leading brand of oat products (Oatly) has started selling oat milk with chai flavour! There's no tea in it, just the usual cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and ginger. It's really good to drink it cold just by itself, it's thin and the flavour is not very strong. I would have liked it even more if it had a stronger taste, but hey, this is good enough! I wonder why they didn't start selling it before the holidays, it would have been a perfect beverage hot or cold during that period. It's also good in chai tea, since it will add all the qualities of milk-in-tea but without diluting the flavour to much.

Happy Shrove Tuesday!

2012-02-21T17:55:00.001+01:00

Today is Shrove Tuesday and here in Sweden we celebrate by eating a semla (or two, or three). I blogged about it last year, so I'm not going to say much about it today. I just wanted to remind you to make one, since it's one of the best Swedish treats there is. I mean, it's a fluffy sweet bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream, doesn't that say it all? Above is the one I had today when coming home from school.

A semla is great served with coffee. Just don't get to exited about the tastiness of the semla so you spill it all.

Last years semlor, eaten in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Two years ago I did a chocolate coffee variation. I added some cocoa powder to the dough, then added chopped chocolate and some coffee to the almond paste, as well as some cocoa powder in the cream.

Falukorv / Falu sausage

2012-02-15T20:31:00.000+01:00

To me, Falukorv is in the top five when I think about common easy Swedish meals. It's a thick sausage originated in the town Falun in about 1890, and can be served in many ways, most commonly sliced and fried and served with elbow macaronis, or oven baked and served with mashed potatoes. That's how we ate it today.

I'm not going to write this as a recipe, since I wouldn't think a sausage like this is avaliable in vegan versions anywhere else, but the concept is easy: slice it (but not all the way down), squirt some mustard in between the slices, add some thinly cut apple in there as well, and top it off with some vegan cheese. Bake it in 225 C for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the sausage is browned. Serve with mashed potatoes and ketchup!

Chocolate balls

2012-02-10T17:11:00.000+01:00

Today a friend of mine walked from Örebro to Hallsberg (where I live), which is a walk about 30 kilometers long. In -12 degrees Celsius (10 F), I think he deserves an applause. We did the only decent thing friends would do in this situation, served him coffee and chocolate balls.

Thursday lunch

2012-02-09T15:26:00.001+01:00

Last night I was watching a Jamie Oliver show on TV, and he made some awesome sounding Indian food, so for lunch today I made some Indian inspired curry. I used the recipe for Chickpea Spinach Curry from Vegan with a Vengeance as a base but added shredded apple along with the spices, used beluga lentils instead of chickpeas and added some finely cubed carrots. Served with warm newly made chapati and some lettuce, it's makes a perfect winter lunch.

Aloha burgers in the cold midwinter.

2012-02-04T14:17:00.001+01:00

When temperature is down to -17 C outside and it's only the beginning of February, you have to do what you can to get away from the midwinter if only for a short while. I decided to make the Aloha

Teriyaki Burgers from the Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni Marie Newman. This is most definitely one of my favorite cookbooks, for several reasons. First, it's a book all about burgers, so I think the awesomeness is pretty self explanatory. Apart from that though, every burger or bun or condiment I've made has been really good. No fails what so ever. Friday nights burger sounded very promising, with a base of TVP and gluten flour, spiced up with pineapple and teriyaki sauce. I didn't have teriyaki on hand, so I used some bottled Jamaican jerk BBQ sauce in place of it. The burger turned out amazing. Really meaty without being tough to chew, and with a sweetness from pineapple and brown sugar, this burger is very high on my burger hall of fame right now. We ate in smacked in between two toasted slices of bread with classic condiments such as ketchup, mustard, red onions, pickles and fried onions. Best thing ever. I'm pretty sure I will make these again within a couple of days.

Pumpkin marmelade

2012-02-02T13:35:00.002+01:00

Last Saturday when we visited Miljövårdscentrum we bought amongst other stuff this marmelade made at the store from their own pumpkins. It's pumpkin base and have hints of citrus and cinnamon, tastes that goes really great together. I had some on top of a crepe for breakfast this morning, and the taste is really good. Unfortunately, it was full of sugar crystals that definitely makes the experience of eating it a bit unpleasant. Maybe it will do better in some baked goods.

Weekend

2012-01-29T22:06:00.000+01:00

The weekend is almost over already, but I have one more day off before starting my next two courses in school on Tuesday. It has been two nice days so far though. Saturday, we visited this little small shop called Miljövårdscentrum outside of Örebro where they sell a lot of ecological and locally produced food. Martin got a gift card for this store for his birthday so we went there and bought a lot of nice stuff. Quinoa, basil tofu, dried mango, a huge bucket of fancy broth powder and more.

Tofu tattoo in Örebro.

We went to a birthday party in the evening and got served the most amazing food. Vegan "meats" and a pie made with artichoke hearts and blended corn. We got to take the leftovers home with us and had a great breakfast this morning.

For lunch, we made a salad with quinoa, olives, lettuce, tomato, carrot, red onions and the basil tofu.

Lucia says hello.

What I ate Thursday

2012-01-26T21:51:00.001+01:00

This is a mash up between a smoothie and overnight oats. Inspired by a recipe for Banana Oat Morning Fuel from 500 vegan recipes, I made it by soaking oats in oat milk and peanut butter overnight, then blending it with frozen banana, cocoa powder and some soy protein powder. Best start of the day you can get.

I have an exam tomorrow so I spent the morning studying. A coffee break was very needed. I drank it in my awesome mug from Vegan Dish and ate some chocolate covered marzipan to go with it. Lucia got a gift from my mother in the mail the other day, two mice to play with. She's not very enthusiastic though, as always when it comes to physical activities. How do one make a super lazy cat more active?

Lunch was spaghetti with mushrooms (button and chantarelles), chickpeas and carrots in a "forest inspired" sauce. Nom nom nom.

Dinner was Easy Mexican Red Rice from Vegan Dad with pinto chipotle patties and steamed carrots drenched in tahini. The rice was OK but a bit bland. I would use more spices next time for sure, but the concept was nice.

Now it's almost 10 pm and I'm craving something sweet like crazy.

Lucia

2012-01-23T15:12:00.003+01:00

Say hello to Lucia! She moved in with us yesterday!

When I started volunteering at the local cat shelter Lucia was the first cat that my eyes fell upon. She is very big, heavily over weight but has the sweetest little face and would stretch out one of her front legs as a greeting when you stepped into her place. Ever since, we have been bonding more and more, slowly. Then she got adopted out, but came back again only a couple of days later, because the person didn't like her. When I came back to the shelter after the holidays, she had two big wounds on her back after being in a fight with another cat at the shelter. They were messy, and the fur on her back was gross and smelly, so I started cleaning it. It took about 25 minutes, and during that time my love for her grew even stronger and it wasn't until then I realized how much I wanted a cat to live with me. How much I wanted Lucia to live with me. And now she does!

She seems to like it here. She is still a bit scared of moving around in the apartment, but she seems happy sitting on top of her cat tree looking out the windows and get loads of cuddles. She loves being rubbed on her belly. Can you tell I'm happy about my new friend?

Sandwich cake.

2012-01-19T19:39:00.000+01:00

Sandwich cake. Definitely one of the more fun Swedish dishes there is, this is a cake made out of sandwiches. The concept is simple, bread is stacked with various fillings in between and decorated, then sliced into pieces and eaten as any other cake, just not as dessert. Most common on festive occasions, like birthdays, graduation parties or midsummer celebrations, this is a crowd pleaser for sure. Usually the fillings are connected with tastes from the sea, but you can really fill it with whatever you want to. Hummus, tartex and mushroom paté would all be nice fillings, and with the toppings you can go wild and use whatever rocks your boat.

This one was made for Martin's birthday party, and had two fillings. One very similar to skagen mix, but with chickpeas instead of tofu, and the other one was made with yellow lentils, apple, leeks, curry and mustard. On top there's non-dairy cream cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, seaweed topping and blood oranges.

And since it was a party, of course there was baked goods. I didn't take any pictures, but it was kind of the same buns as in this picture taken 3 years ago (sweet yeasted buns filled with vanilla custard and dipped in sugar) and peanut butter chocolate pillows.

Ghost pepper sauce

2012-01-10T22:54:00.002+01:00

It's Martin here again for the second installment of my Hot Sauce Section here at Fanny's blog. Brace yourselves for one scary blog post - we'll be dealing with the poltergeist of peppers: Bhut Jolokia - The Ghost Pepper. Besides being one of the tastiest peppers in the world it's one of the hottest as well. The maximum heat mesured for the pepper on the Scoville scale is a whopping 1,041,427 (compared for example with Tabasco sauce's measly 2500-5000).

The Ghost is named rather figuratively - the heat comes creeping and consumes your taste buds bit by bit. The more you eat and the longer you eat it - the hotter it gets. And this chili sure wants to kill you.

I've so far come by two different varieties of Ghost Peppers Sauces. "Ass Kickin Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce" and "The Ghost Hot Sauce". Even though as far as I've understood these two are in the lower spectrum of Ghost sauces - they still pack a lot of flavor and a respectable amount of heat.
"Ass Kickin'" has the simpler composition and the more direct approach - and is the winner in the long run. Very usable both in side dishes (such as Ghost Mayo) or as a spice in stews or wok's. "The Ghost" on the other hand also packs some fruity additions and does compromise a little bit more on the heat.

All in all - Bhut Jolokia is king, taste a lot better then Habanero and has the added quality of an unusual way of being hot. Try it, love it and never look back!

Blood oranges and salty crackers with soy cheese and figs.

2012-01-10T14:24:00.000+01:00

Blood oranges and salty crackers with soy cheese and figs.

Saturday: Edamame salad and Pumpkin muffins

2012-01-07T17:48:00.003+01:00

None of the 4 stores in my town carries frozen corn today. What's up with that? So inevitably, my edamame salad is lacking of corn kernels. It was fine anyway, and I ate it alongside a sushi roll filled with carrots, fresh ginger and peanuts.

Pumpkin muffins - from Vegan With a Vengeance of course - baked in mini paper cups and topped with a tiny amount of cream cheese cinnamon frosting.

Cast iron pan

2012-01-03T16:27:00.003+01:00

I got this beautiful cast iron pan for christmas and it's been such a great addition in my kitchen. I still feel a bit like a newbie using it, not sure how to use it properly to get the most out of it. But I'm getting there. So far it's been great for seitan burgers, tempeh sausage crumbles and savory breakfast pancakes. What's your best advice for taking care of and using a cast iron pan? And what dish is unbeatable cooked in a cast iron?

Vegan Bacon Pancakes

2011-12-30T16:26:00.004+01:00

Vegan Bacon Pancakes
makes 4 pancakes
Eating vegan often means eating loads of vegetables, which is great, but sometimes you just want to wake up to a batch of bacon pancakes.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tbs oil
1/2 cup water
veggie bacon, a suitable piece for each pancake

Mix the dry ingredients first, then add the oil before stirring in the water.

Heat up a small amount of oil in a pan and fry the "bacon" until browned on one side, then flip over. Now add 1/4 of the pancake batter on top of it, and let cook until the edges are dry. The center of the pancake wont bake properly, since the bacon is beneath. Flip the pancake and let cook until done. Enjoy with maple or golden syrup. I strongly suggest serving these with a cup of coffee on the side.

A christmas story

2011-12-30T16:26:00.001+01:00

I spent a week in Gothenburg with my family over the holidays. My mother had decorated the house really nicely with amongst others, this handmade candle and a super duper old tomte.

We ate a lot of very good traditional christmas food, mine was veganized of course! Here are the Vegan Swedish Christmassy Meatballs and brussel sprouts. In the background are some red cabbage.

The centerpiece on the Swedish christmas table is usually a mustard coated ham, here is a one that is not made from a pig's butt but from the beloved soybean.

My grandmother, Inger, and a plant that was blooming on my relatives balcony.

Me and the hostess of the party at christmas eve, Carina and me during a game where everyone got to wear a mustache.

My sister, Isabella.

Family.

My mother always decorate the christmas tree with the most adorable ornaments. How about a cat with a bunch of books on the back?

Christmassy breakfast, rice pudding with sugar and cinnamon.

We went for dinner at my grandparents on Boxing Day and she made me the most wonderful lasagna with creamed spinach. I even got to take home the leftovers and ate them for lunch the day after.

The boys of the family. And man.

Sick of christmas food, we cooked up some other dinners the following days. On the left is a salad with string beans, sunflower sprouts, bell pepper and a dressing made with coconut, ginger and chili. On the right is deep fried artichoke hearts that were later dipped in a mango sauce. Out of this world.

The food loot I brought home. Loads of different hot sauces, sweets and fun stuff. Two tiny pans - perfect for pancakes.

I also got some stuff from Lush. Vanillary perfume, You Snap the Whip body butter, Candy Cane soap and Northern Lights soap.

A year in review - August to December.

2011-12-30T14:22:00.000+01:00

August

I got back from England and had two weeks to pack all my stuff and get ready to start school and move to a new town. I ate a lot of fruit from my mothers garden and tried black and white food photography.

September

Moved to Hallsberg, where I started school. Moved into a small apartment and went berry picking in the north. We also did some hiking in the nearby forests.

October

Fall colours everywhere, and Vegan MoFo as well! I made a lot of food, such as pumpkin luna bars and cowboy cookies. My mother and sister visited me.

November

The leaves fell of the trees and I won a Vegan Dish mug. I made tempeh burgers on top of raised waffles and the sunrises were amazing.

December

I started volunteering at a cat shelter together with my friend Hannah and made some pretty cat friends. I made swirly cookies and celebrated christmas in Gothenburg.

How was your year?

A year in review - January to July

2011-12-26T22:44:00.001+01:00

January

Moved from the Faroe Islands to Reykjavík, Iceland. It was fun living in a city again and I got some new awesome friends and colleagues. I ate more diverse food and discovered overnight oats.

February

Ate a lof ot sushi, both homemade and from restaurants. Went on some pretty awesome road trips along the coast of Iceland and went swimming in the freezing ocean every Friday. Soaked in a natural hot spring during a storm and made ginger ale.

March

Last month on Iceland. Celebrated the Swedish waffle day and semla-day togehter with our co-workers. Went on the most amazing road trip to northern Iceland, concurring the storm winds and slippery roads. Found all the best restaurants and coffee shops, and then it was time to leave. Wrote "Vegan Guide to Reykjavík" with all my best food advice.

April

Moved away from Iceland and spent a month living with my family in Gothenburg, Sweden. Hung out a lot with the dogs and went to see relatives in the south. It was springtime and warm weather, and I ate the first radishes and the flowers were starting to spring into bloom.

May

Travelled in Oregon and Washington for 6 weeks, and ate a lot of great food, met the most amazing people and went swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Probably the best weeks of the year.

June

After coming back from the U.S, I spent two more weeks in Gothenburg with family. I was featured in a Russian food magazine, talking about eating vegan on Iceland. We celebrated Midsummer, and then I was off to the UK to do 6 weeks of volunteering on organic farms, one of them a blueberry farm.

Candied hazelnuts

2011-12-26T14:24:00.000+01:00

My advice to you, track down some candied hazelnuts as soon as possible.

Vegan Swedish Christmassy Meatballs

2011-12-21T15:39:00.000+01:00

When I was a small kid, I used to sit by our oversized kitchen table and help my mother making meatballs. I got to stir the breadcrumbs into the tomato paste, mustard and liquid, and remember being amazed of how she put it away all runny, then five minutes later it had thickened up! Kitchen wonders. My mother always fried up one test meatball first, to make sure the seasoning was just right, and I can still remember the excitement I felt when she took it out of the pan, put it on the cutting board and cut it in two pieces, one for me, and one for her. Getting half the meatball made me feel important, that my opinion on the seasoning was required to make them taste good, and I always tried to give my best advice. A little bit more salt perhaps, or some pepper. I have no idea how much she actually considered my advice, but this whole process is a fond memory of mine.

Never being very happy with bean balls, I knew this year had to be different. Meatballs is a staple on the Swedish Christmas buffet, and now I finally have an awesome vegan version to indulge. The texture is firm yet soft, and has a to me striking resemblance with my childhood memories. This would be wonderful any time of the year, perhaps with some adjustment of the seasoning to suit the occasion. For the holidays, a gentle taste of fried onions goes great with mustard, allspice, cloves and a hint of tomato. I recommend serving these either with boiled potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jam, or with some beet root salad on bread.

Vegan Swedish Christmassy Meatballs

How to:
- Fry the onion in little bit of oil until soft and lightly browned. Purée it with an immersion blender.
- Mix the onion with everything else except the seitan and let sit for about 5 minutes, to thicken up.
- Using a food processor, ground up the seitan until in very small pieces.
- Mix the seitan with the breadcrumb mixture. It will be gooey but not to wet. If it is, add a bit more breadcrumbs.
- Optional: let it sit in the fridge for about one hour, for less mess when handling.
- Use your hands to form small balls and fry in a medium-hot pan until browned on all sides and firmed up.

A bowl of kale and a mini cake

2011-12-18T20:27:00.001+01:00

I'm taking full advantage of the kale while it's in stores, this giant bowl of it got turned into a salad today.

This little cake above might be ugly, but it was SO GOOD. It's the chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, made in a spring form and cut into rounds, topped with vanilla frosting and crushed candy canes.

Kale salad

2011-12-16T13:32:00.000+01:00

Kale is finally available in most supermarkets and I buy as much as I can fit into the fridge. I love the raw kale squeezed to tenderness so that's how I've been eating it mostly. Mixed up with lemon, garlic, sriracha, olive oil and tahini, it's the perfect salad. Mix some bulgur in to that and you have a perfect lunch. This, and loads of clementines makes the darkness bearable.

I've got to pieces of advice for you; eat your greens and grow a moustache (it will keep you warm through the winter).

Last but not least, if you're into crust punk, check out Martins band Åtgärdslandet, they just recorded a few songs which you can listen to here or download here.

3 x cat

2011-12-13T08:27:00.002+01:00

These are 3 of the cats that are currently residing at the cat shelter I'm volunteering at. Such lovely creatures.

Fishy wheat germ patties

2011-12-09T13:11:00.001+01:00

Fishy wheat germ patties
enough for 2 people

60 g wheat germ
40 g frozen green peas
115 ml boiling water
1 tbs frozen dill
1 tbs white wine
1/2 tbs mustard
1 tbs capers
salt and black pepper
1/3 sheet nori, finely chopped

Mix everything except the nori and let sit for about 15 minutes to thicken a bit. Add the nori and stir. The mixture will be very sticky, do not attempt to shape them with your hands. I use a spoon to add balls of it to the frying pan, then a fork to flatten them into desired shape. Fry in a bit of oil over medium heat, until browned and firm. Serve with pretty much anything; rice, potatoes (mashed!), on a bun or as pictured above, kale salad.

Swirly cookies.

2011-12-04T19:56:00.001+01:00

Made from this recipe, using non-dairy butter.

Twisted saffron sweet bread

2011-12-02T16:10:00.001+01:00

Here's something to brighten up the dark days of December! I vibrant yellow sweet bread, twisted and filled with shredded almond paste.

Isn't it amazing what a camera on a tripod with long exposure time will do? I wanted the picture to be bright and colorful, suitable for the vibrant yellow color of the saffron, but since it was already 3 PM, I had to expose the picture for 13 seconds! Below is the more true-to-reality lighting conditions. However, I kind of liked that version a lot too.

If you want to make this kind of Swedish traditional sweet bread yourself, you have a recipe and story here, but you might want to shape them in a more traditional way, like this:

Moo Free Chocolate calendar

2011-12-01T12:06:00.001+01:00

My mother sent me a gift that arrived yesterday - a chocolate calendar from Moo Free Chocolate!

Avocado pasta

2011-11-29T15:03:00.001+01:00

This dish might feel more suitable in summer time, but who don't need the feeling of summer in late November? The ingredients might sound weird together, but it's an awesome combination, trust me.

Avocado pasta with lemon and seaweed.

spaghetti, enough for one, boiled
1 ripe but not mushy avocado, cubed
2 big cloves of garlic, chopped
1-2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
1/4 nori sheet, cut into stripes
olive oil
salt and pepper
olives, optional

Add the olive oil, garlic and ginger to a pan and heat until fragrant. Add everything else except olives and stir to heat through. Serve with olives.

Knäck

2011-11-27T19:30:00.001+01:00

It's less than 4 weeks until Christmas and time to start embracing everything that makes this season special before it's over. To be honest, I like this time before way better than the actual celebrations. It might be all the lights. In trees, in the cities and in every window. It's a really welcome addition this time of year, when it's pitch black outside before 4 PM and the evenings feel soooo long.

It might also be the food and sweets that is only eaten this time of the year. Today I made a batch of a traditional Swedish treat, called knäck. It's super simple, extremely sweet and very tasty!

Knäck

1 part golden syrup
1 part granulated white sugar
1 part non-dairy heavy cream (I used one made of oat with 20% fat)
1/2 part chopped almonds (optional)

Bring everything except the almonds to a boil in a heavy bottomed sauce pan. Keep boiling and stirring occasionally until it has reached 120° C (248° F). Mix in the almonds if using. Now you'll have to work pretty fast, since the knäck will harden when cooling. Pour the batter into miniature muffin liners. Let cool and eat!

Pistachio nuts

2011-11-25T14:12:00.001+01:00

I got these from my mother, who had got them from her co-worker, who had bought them in Iran. They are hands down the best pistachios I've tasted, and the perfect snack after this weeks studying for exams. I hope to get into cooking again this weekend and next week, now that all the holiday cooking is coming up! There will be lots of traditional Swedish food and sweets, just like it should be. Have a nice weekend!

Lunch + Dinner

2011-11-17T19:14:00.001+01:00

Tempeh Wingz from Don't Eat Off The Sidewalk! with potatoes, carrots and leek.

Sushi without filling, steamed broccoli with orange sauce and a tomato.

Lingonberries

2011-11-14T09:27:00.001+01:00

Lingonberries, the red gold of the Swedish forests.This evergreen plant grows in abundance in the forests and the tart little berry ripens in the autumn. That's when you go out and pick as much of them as you could possibly eat until next season, and preserve them by freezing or making jam. And even though you can make all sorts of things with them, like juice or in baking, jam is by far the most common way to indulge them. The jam is simple, and made only with lingonberries and sugar, and is a bit tart. You can also make something called "raw stirred" lingonberries, which is raw berries mashed up with sugar. These condiments are then eaten with a huge variety of things, savoury and sweet. It goes great with potatoes, pancakes, cabbage, oatmeal, cereals, pitepalt or whatever you want!

Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes

2011-11-11T09:21:00.000+01:00

I'd never heard of crab cakes before seeing the recipe for tempeh ones in Vegan Brunch, and since I usually never had tempeh around I never made them. Until now. They're really easy to make, doesn't require any hard to find ingredients and the taste and consistency is awesome. I wasn't sure what to serve them with except the sauce that was also in the recipe, so I just put it all on top of a slice of danish rye bread along with some tomato and pickled cucumbers. A drizzel of lemon on top and there's a perfect little meal.

If you don't have Vegan Brunch, the recipe is also available online here.

Seitanic stuffers

2011-11-10T13:49:00.001+01:00

Yesterday morning I woke up to this sky. WOA!

One of my favourite cookbooks right now is definitely The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni Marie Newman. It's a fantastic book and every recipe I've tried has been a success. Yesterday I made the Seitanic Stuffers which is basically a seitan burger filled with something. I filled mine with some melty soy mozzarella I had in the fridge, and they came out great! The only thing I can't grasp about this book is the burger sizes, Joni must like them huge! I always get more burgers than the recipe suggests and I even find them too big then! That's not a complaint though. Anyway, we had them for dinner on some buns and with french fries on the side and almost died of fullness. I should have listened to the book and had them with a salad, they're really filling! I had the left over burgers for lunch two days in a row, once with rice, lentils and peas, and the other day with toast.

What's your favourite burger?

Log cabin breakfast.

2011-11-09T09:29:00.000+01:00

I managed to get my hands on some tempeh whilst in Göteborg, and started to carefully plan what to make with it. I'm not an experienced in the tempeh field - but definitely got interested when eating the tempeh strips I got when visiting the Tofurkey Factory in Hood River, OR. So when deciding what to cook, I flipped through The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni Marie Newman, and found these awesome burgers, the Log Cabin Burger. They're described as a mix between a pancake and a sausage, which I totally couldn't resist. I decided to focus on the sweet side of it, and served it up on top of raised waffles with syrup and margarine. This was so GOOD! I can totally picture myself sitting somewhere deep inside the forest in a little cabin eating this in front of the fire. The tempeh flavour is really at it's best in this burger, now go make some!

Chocolate for breakfast.

2011-11-07T16:09:00.000+01:00

This was a glorious breakfast (though not very filling). Orange juice, coffee and chocolate pumpkin loaf.

Sweets on the west coast.

2011-11-06T18:37:00.002+01:00

I spent the weekend on the west coast, in the town I grew up in, Göteborg (or to use it's English name, Gothenburg). I hung out with my family, and no catching up is complete without a lot of fika (check out the link, and learn about Sweden's holy institution of coffee and a sweet). My mother had made some candy cane brownie cookies, and even though they didn't came out very pretty, they were really tasty.

Above is two new sweets sold by one of the biggest coffee chains - Espresso House. Earlier they've had a basic chocolate ball, and now they have come up with two new varieties, one rolled in nuts (the one on the left), and the other one that has a hint of mint flavour and is rolled in candy cane sprinkles (the one on the right). They were both pretty good, with a very fluffy inside and crunchy outside. Most of all, it's nice to have some more options!

Vegan Dish mug.

2011-11-03T18:29:00.001+01:00

Vegan MoFo is fun for many reasons, and let's be honest, one of them is the many giveaways. I was lucky enough to win 2 of them this year! I won the Flavor Bible over at Happy Vegan! and this wonderful mug from Vegan Dish. I love this cup already, it's HUGE, so I can use it both for beverages (although, if I drank that much coffee, I would shake for a week) and soup! The creator of the mug is Jeanette Zeis, who also does loads of other pretty ceramic things.

Pumpkin.

2011-11-02T12:12:00.000+01:00

Hello friends! MoFo might be over but fall is continuing and winter is quickly approaching, so there's a lot of fun cooking to look forward to.

Last week I couldn't take my eyes away from everyone's posts with photos from pumpkin patches. Eating pumpkin is not very common in Sweden, so those pretty pumpkin patches are not really that available. However, since Halloween is pretty popular here as well, people do carve pumpkins as decorations. Last year, while living on the Faroe Islands, I bought my first pumpkin ever. I really liked the things I created with it then, so when I saw that the supermarket had a couple of them left from Halloween I bought one and spend the rest of the afternoon making it into purée. I ended up with 15 cups, that are now safely tucked away in my freezer. I know I want to do the pumpkin muffins from Vegan With a Vengeance as well as a pumpkin pie, but otherwise I'm not sure. Any ideas?

If you're wondering about the two weird photos up there, I just wanted to recreate this picture that I took last year in the Faroe Islands. As you can see, I wasn't successful.

My Vegan MoFo 2011 Round-up!

2011-10-31T07:44:00.000+01:00

Last day of MoFo and the perfect time to share some of the things I've been enjoying this MoFo.

The best themes

True blood food by That Pain in the Ass Vegan. Most awesome was probably the vegan tongue.
Year 2 of vegan gravy by Tofu-n-Sprouts. The true gravy queen.
Horror movies with menus by Don't eat of the Sidewalk. Katie has managed to make me (a person who truly hates scary movies) want to watch all of the movies she's written about.
Vegan in Brighton. Jojo has been keeping up with not only one but four (4!) themes. Random eats, Football Foods, Cookbook Challange and New Foods. Her posts have all been great fun to read.

Things I've tried and loved

Roasted cabbage, inspired by It's raining kale.
Pumpkin Luna Bars by V.K Rees.
Apple pie smoothie by Veggie V.

Great posts

Gnocchi's guide to eating, sleeping and stirring up trouble.
Vegan Bic Macs.
Bac'n cupcakes.
Maple Coconut Peanut Butter.
DC Vegan Baking Swap
A Visit to Uwajimaya
DIY Yuba
Tofu Musubi

3 great new (to me) blogs

Elitefood. Traditional Finish cuisine - veganized. I recognize a lot of these dishes from Swedish cuisine and can't wait to try some of these recipes.
V.K Rees Photography. Awesome photos, beautiful cat, great food and Vanessa seems to be a pretty damn cool woman!
Oh, ladycakes. This blog always makes me happy. It's colourful, the photos are pretty and she's made a MoFo all about pumpkin!

5 favourites from my own MoFo posts

Very deep dish pizza

2011-10-30T12:36:00.002+01:00

I was spending the weekend with Martin and parts of his family, and we decided to make something fun for Saturday dinner; deep dish pizza!

The way we made it was really easy. We made some basic pizza dough and put it in a spring form. Spread a layer of vegan cream cheese on the bottom, and started filling up with layers of soy mince and tomato sauce, pineapple and vegan mozzarella cheese.

We baked it for about 30 minutes, and then it looked like this. Quite a beast!

We had some dough and filling left over so we made some mini ones in the muffin tins. Since we were out of the cheese we added some sliced banana on top, yum!

All of this was really tasty and of course we ate some pizza salad to go with it.

This was my last food-post during MoFo 2011 - I've been posting every day and it has been a lot of fun! I feel like my blogging wasn't that much fun though, so I hope November and December will feel more inspiring for both me and you. Tomorrow's post will be a round up!

2 x breakfast

2011-10-29T10:00:00.000+02:00

Black bean burger (from Veganomicon) on plain white buns (from The best veggie burgers on the planet) and lemonade.

Green smoothie in a bowl. Made with banana, apple, spinach and soy milk.

Pumpkin luna bars

2011-10-28T10:09:00.000+02:00

I'm not sure your autumn will be complete unless you make these pumpkin bars from V.K Rees Photography. No further description needed - now go make them!

Ginger potatoes with aubergine

2011-10-27T12:04:00.000+02:00

I spent two weeks this summer working on an organic blueberry farm in England (read the interview with the farmer here!), and that's where I first had this dish. Wei Wei, the woman of the house, did not only bake some mean blueberry muffins, she was a queen of the kitchen! She cooked great food most everyday, but this dish is probably my very favourite of the things we got to eat there. I don't make it exactly the same way as she did, but it's still yummy and perfect on a dark and cold autumn evening (as it is here today).

Ginger potatoes with aubergine
serves 2

250 g potatoes (4 small-medium ones), cut into chunks
150 g aubergine (I used one half), cut into cubes
2 cloves of garlic, finely shopped
a chunk of ginger (see the picture below), finely chopped
a splash of soy sauce

- Boil the potatoes until almost tender.
- Sauté the aubergine in canola oil over medium heat until tender and a bit browned.
- Add the garlic, ginger and potatoes and a splash or two of soy sauce. Cook until it comes together a bit and the garlic and ginger is fragrant.
- Serve with bread or some fresh greens such as baby spinach or lettuce.

Interview vith Robin, an organic blueberry farmer in the UK!

2011-10-26T10:30:00.002+02:00

I stayed with Robin and Wei-Wei on North Harton farm for two weeks this summer for my first WWOOFing experience. It was two great weeks with hard work, a fantastic communal feeling and with truly picturesque surroundings. Growing organic blueberries is not an easy task, and I thought I’d let Robin tell you his own story about being a small scale farmer in the British countryside.

Wei-Wei and Robin

My parents owned North Harton farm. As a child we had 3 farms on and around Dartmoor. My grandfather had a farm close to Haytor. When my mother died she gave the farm to the National Trust. I was able to buy some of the farm back and decided to live here 5 years ago. I am rather reclusive and do not promote publicity or advertise our blueberries.

A blueberry field in the sunset.

There is no clear reason why I chose to grow blueberries; perhaps it was some divine inspiration, who knows - but I guess the blueberries are organic because I could not afford to be anything but organic what with the expensive tractors, trailers and fertilisers that non organic farmers have. Now we are fully certified organic with the soil association who are a great organisation and we sell to ethical and family distributors like Riverford Organics. I like to think that as blueberries are a super-fruit and very good for your health it makes sense to eat them in their purest form. I can testify that they are good for your memory and make you young because Wei-Wei my dear lady says I only look 40 and I always remember her birthday! And as for Wei-Wei she only looks 30!

To have an organic blueberry farm you need to be able to work throughout all the seasons, and you need to work hard. There is no escaping; if you can't get yourself up early in the morning then you had better find a normal nine to five job. And working on a farm means working in the rain, snow and freezing cold. The only holiday I have is walking to the top of the farm to see my Dartmoor ponies. On average I work about 18 hours a day seven days a week and sometimes longer. So you could ask "Why do you do it?" The answer is that when you have a passion for something you just do it no matter what. That's what makes Dartmoor blueberries the best blueberries in the world. Royalty, film stars and Jo Blogs down the road all seem to like genuine British organic blueberries. We have 17 different varieties that fruit from July to the end of October, so each punnet will have different tasting berries. We are in the business of making people happy, and we are always happy when we hear people who buy our blueberries say "Wow!"

Of course being organic is not for your average farmer - all our plants, 25,000 of them, would stretch 20 kilometers if laid out in one long row and they have to be weeded by hand; pruned by hand, in fact everything is by hand including the picking and labeling. We are grateful to all the wonderful people who come from all over the world to help us produce the best blueberries in the world. The WWOOF organisation has also played an important part and Wei-Wei and I are always delighted to meet new young people with so much enthusiasm even though many have had no farming experience - they simply love staying on an ethically minded farm with other likeminded souls. It is certainly a great life on the farm, and if you like the fresh clean air of beautiful Dartmoor then why not visit us!

The farm is situated in the Dartmoor National Park - quite lovely!

Where can you buy Dartmoor blueberries? Well if I could I would give them away. I am an anti-capitalist so I try and sell them to the nicest people I know! We stay well clear of supermarkets which are the main reason for the demise of town high streets. Supermarkets in being economically efficient are tight fisted toward the farmers that supply them.

So you can buy Dartmoor blueberries from Riverford Organics. They do a vegetable and fruit box scheme that you can order to your door, and in the summer the chances are they may well be selling our blueberries! They are an ethical company like ours so if you care about the planet, the universe and where we are heading then why not buy from your friends rather than bad guys?

Wei-Wei my dear lovely lady makes some great recipes with blueberries including apple and blueberry pie, blueberry juice, blueberry muffins, blueberry jam, pavlova with blueberries... the list is endless!

Thank you Robin for sharing! If you missed out, I did an interview with a cranberry farmer in Washington earlier this summer, check it out here!

Cowboy cookies

2011-10-25T08:16:00.002+02:00

This is the perfect cookie. It's the cowboy cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, with some small changes (almonds instead of pecans, some white chocolate chips mixed in as well, and I sprinkled pearl sugar on top of some of them). They have a great texture, no cake-feeling here! They're crunchy yet not at all hard, and the taste blows me away. I have finally found my go-to cookie recipe, and if you havn't tried these yet, go make them!

Creamy lemon pasta bake

2011-10-24T08:44:00.000+02:00

Creamy lemon pasta bake
adapted from the Pioneer Woman
serves 3

220 g/7,7 oz spaghetti
3 gloves of garlic, finely shopped
2 tbs olive oil
peel from one lemon, grated
100 g/3,5 oz vegan cream cheese (I use a garlic and parsley flavoured one)
½ tsp dried oregano
pinch of black pepper
pinch of salt
juice from half a lemon
3 tbs soy milk
fresh parsley

- Boil the spaghetti and drain it.
- Heat the olive oil over low heat and add the garlic. Sauté until golden and fragrant, then add the lemon peel and turn the heat off. (I do this step in the pan I will later use for the oven, since it works both on the stove and in the oven. That makes it easy, but you could also use a sauce pan and put it in the oven safe dish before next step)
- Mix in the cream cheese, oregano, pepper, salt, lemon juice and soy milk, and stir. Depending on the consistency of your cream cheese, you might have to use a little bit more or less soy milk. You want it to be about the same thickness as a blended tomato sauce, if that makes sense.
- Add the spaghetti to the creamy mixture and mix until the spaghetti is coated.
- Bake for about 10 minutes at 200 C/395 F or until golden on top.
- Mix in some chopped parsley and serve! This is awesome with a green salad or garlic bread.

Pear Frangipane Tart from the Post Punk Kitchen

2011-10-23T10:13:00.000+02:00

I made this Pear Frangipane tart some weeks ago when my mother was visiting. She brought a bunch of pears from her own tree, and since we were both still swooning over a pear almond pie we ate a few years ago, this was the time to try the recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen blog. I was kind of nervous before baking, since the almond "batter" looked horrible and since I was bringing this to a dinner party, I hoped for the appearance to be less repulsive after baking, and it came out beautiful. Like the ugly duckling really. It tasted amazing all along, so I was never really that worried. I can't recommend this tart enough, so just get yourself some pears and make it yourself!

To go with the autumn theme - look at this stunning color of some maple leaves I used for decorating a gift wrapped in newspaper

Plain White Buns

2011-10-22T09:59:00.000+02:00

This weekend my sister is visiting me here in my new hometown and what's better for welcome dinner than burgers? I had a bunch of black bean burgers from Veganomicon in the freezer so I put all my energy into baking my own buns (it didn't take a lot of energy though!). Of course I turned to The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet for a recipe. I haven't tried that many recipes from it yet, but every single one I did try has been amazing. Amazing! I decided to go for the most basic buns, the Plain White Buns. They come together really quickly, rise sky high and smell absolutely wonderful while baking.

Next time I think I'm gonna make 10 instead of 8, these where a bit to high. But they were sooo tasty!

Lentil-balls and apple puff pastry squares.

2011-10-21T07:46:00.001+02:00

I made lentil-balls for dinner and served them along with the given things, spaghetti and tomato sauce. The balls where really good, but since I hardly ever cook with the intention to create a recipe, there is none. However, they contain: green lentils, onion, garlic, green bell pepper, sunflower seeds, breadcrumbs, spices and a small amount of gluten flour. Now, do it yourself!

Then, there was dessert! (Yes, I used the same parchment paper but as for the lentil-balls but I did turn it over.) Store bought puff pastry, topped with apples, cinnamon and sugar. I brushed them with some homemade peach jam once they were baked too.

They were awesome.

4 sweet bloggers have nominated me for the Liebster award, which is some kind of thing you do to spread the word about the smaller bloggers you like. Thank you Smooch Panda, Food Stains, Beans, Figs and Katz and Phoenix, you made me very happy! I'm not a big fan of doing these things myself and I have no idea how many followers everyone have, but I'm planning a round up of all the amazing things I've read during MoFo later on so I will spread the love then, promise.

Homemade coconut milk.

2011-10-20T08:43:00.000+02:00

I love everything that's DIY, and now homemade coconut milk is added to my repertoi!
How to make this happen?

Take ½ cup of shredded coconut.

And mix with 1 cup of boiling water in a food processor for a couple of minutes.

Strain in a colander, mash the coconut pulp to really get it all out. Here comes the best part: you can do it all over again, using the same coconut 2-3 times!

Mine did turn out kind of thin, but worked wonderfully in a rutabaga purée I used it for. It tastes great to drink by itself as well!

Appetite for reduction: Black beans in Red velvet Mole

2011-10-19T10:17:00.000+02:00

I love the to me a bit complex flavours of this mole. It's sweet, spicy, heavy and chocolaty with a hint of cinnamon. It looks like a thick chocolate sauce and tastes like nothing else. It feels like you're eating something unique, even though it's really easy to make! I served it over basmati rice, steamed carrots and spinach, and although it's good, I miss something that's a bit more fresh and... acidic? I'm pretty sure a fresh salsa of some sort would make this meal more complete and not quite as heavy. How do you like to serve your mole?

Chickpeas, frigde, freezer and a lake.

2011-10-18T13:29:00.000+02:00

Today's post is kind of a mish mash. A picture of boiled chickpeas in freezer bags, a peak into my fridge and freezer and a picture of a lake in autumn. I'm not a super blogger this MoFo, but I hope to make up for it in November and December.

Before moving to Hallsberg I want to a big Indian supermarket in Gothenburg and bought a giant bag (5 kilo) of dried chickpeas.Chickpeas is definitely my favourite legume (maybe shared with green peas) and since they are so versatile they get used a lot in my kitchen. I like to cook them up in big batches and freeze them for easy use later on.

So this is my fridge. In the door, I keep things such as capers, liquid smoke, malt vinegar, soy sauce, cooking wine, sriracha and ketchup. On the top shelf there is all kinds of jams and jellies, the huge almost empty glass jar is lingonberry jam. You can also spot some tahini and margarine. The second shelf is pretty empty since I have no left overs today, but there are some pears that my mother brought from her garden. The last two shelves are for veggies. Right now there's bell peppers, rutabagas, cabbage and more.

My freezer is kind of a mess since it's so full. Mostly, there's huge bags of lingonberries, apple pieces, cranberries and such.

We went to a gorgeous lake today that's nearby the town I'm living in. It's pretty big, very blue and it was kind of windy today to the surface was pretty rough. Imagine living in that house shown in the picture above, quite a view!

Monday Morning: Oatmeal and sandwich.

2011-10-17T09:08:00.000+02:00

Oatmeal with bilberries and a sandwich with arugula, cucumber, fried tofu and a mustard dill sauce.

This particular sauce is a traditional Swedish sauce typically served with fish, but is normally vegan in it's nature! The Swedish name is Hovmästarsås, which translates literary as "head waiter sauce", and the name is said to origin from back in the days when the head waiter made the sauce by the table in front of the guests. You eat the sauce cold and it's really good on sandwiches, tofu or potatoes. IKEA sells this kind of sauce, but I haven't been able to make sure if their brand is vegan, so look at the list of ingredients before buying!

Bilberry muffins

2011-10-16T11:19:00.000+02:00

Bilberry muffins, made with the recipe for "very berry muffins" in Vegan Brunch.

Before summer, I would have called these blueberry muffins. But working at an organic blueberry farm taught me that what we call blåbär (litterary translated blueberry) in Sweden, is called bilberries in English! That's so confusing. What's called blueberries in English is called American blueberries in Sweden.

Anyway, 17 % of Sweden is covered in bilberry plants, isn't that incredible? They are a lot smaller than blueberries, and I find that their taste is more concentrated, but I might be partial!

Carrot dogs

2011-10-15T10:16:00.000+02:00

Carrot dogs must be the most cliché vegan food there is, but it's actually tasty. I like them better made of tofu or seitan, but this is easier and way cheaper. How to do it? Steam the carrot until kind of tender, then fry it a bit using a grill pan for those pretty stripes.

So, the sauerkraut. I'm not sure. It wasn't bad, but not great either.

Vegan MoFo Hump Day!

2011-10-14T11:16:00.000+02:00

We're halfway through Vegan MoFo 2011 and that means it's a perfect day to kick back, gather the strength and inspiration to do the last part too, or read the thousands of blog posts you have'nt had the time to read yet.

While doing this, and celebrating that the weekend is here, I've got the perfect song for you. It's a newly written song by Leslie Hall and if this will not get you in the vegan cooking party mood I don't know what will.

Click here to hear the song!

And, for the best sing-a-long opportunities, here's the lyrics:

I eat the finest cuisines, in the finest of places / Stuff my mouth full and always say thank you / But if it's raised in a cage, and it can't even move, if it's hormone filled and in a bad mood / I'm gonna pass on that / Reach for something better / The only milk I'll drink comes from the nipple of a soy bean / Veggies make you live forever, and they seem to taste much better / When they're cooked and grown with love, so give a chef who knows what's up a hug / Momma just can't seem to get it, Papa he just rolls his eyes / When I tell them I'm much healthier, they just say that it's all lies / But beans, nuts, fruits and veggies can really fill the belly / Get you vitamins you need, shiny hair and extra speed / Don't take that meat-wich any further, I want a marinated, deep fried, hand-tied mushroom burger / I like it! / We gotta stand strong for our feathered, furry, sometimes scaly animal friends and their little babies / 'Cuz I wouldn't want to live in a cage in a dark warehouse killed at an early age / Pumped full of hormones, sleeping in my feces / Never met my mother, raised by machines / Never get sunshine never get green, but that's just me / [That girl loves fruit leather!] / So ask us what we're eating, delicious and repeating / Fruits and veggies are so nice, with a slice of tempeh, yes, I'll have that twice / Don't forget the legumes!

Happy Vegan MoFo Hump Day everyone!

Bacon and egg breakfast burger in bagel bun.

2011-10-13T11:48:00.000+02:00

This is my lunch today. The bacon and egg breakfast burger from The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni Marie Newman. This book is fantastic. It's filled with loads of fantastic burgers and all of them sounds really great, and I've loved the ones I've tried so far. This particular burger is tofu-based and is super yummy on the bagel buns from the same book. I served mine with some fried onions and green bell pepper, mayo, mustard, ketchup and some extra bacon crumbles.

Unfortunately, I have some serious camera troubles right now and there will probably take a while before I've managed to repair or replace it. It sucks, but I will try to continue MoFo with me last pre-written posts and then I guess I'll just have to make my old rusty compact work for a while.

Butternut sushi

2011-10-12T12:48:00.002+02:00

Inspired by the recipe for butternut rice in Appetite for Reduction, I steamed some butternut squash and boiled some rice the other night for dinner. I didn't have coconut milk, and I didn't bother to spice it up with anything else, I just mashed the squash and mixed it with the rice and stuffed a tortilla with it. I added some sriracha and salad and gobbled up this wonderful thing in minutes.

I had a lot of leftover rice, and got the idea to use it for sushi. Not sure how it would work, the rice being basmati and not the short grained one I usually use for sushi, I just mixed in a little bit of rice vinegar in the rice-butternut mix and spread it out on a sheet of nori. To stick with the orange theme, I used raw carrot sticks as a filling and rolled them up. It worked like a charm and tasted wonderfully sweet and yummy. I think I might do this again and so should you!

Sunflower butter - Do it yourself!

2011-10-11T10:15:00.000+02:00

Although I'm a bit tired of peanut butter after travelling a lot (the best on-the-road-food ever), it's still a staple in my fridge. But what about other kinds of nut and seed-butters? I'm constantly reading about people eating almond or cashew butter, and it sounds great. It's not easy to find in Sweden, and if you do, you don't know if to laugh or cry when you see the price. However, as with (almost) everything else, you can make it yourself. I started out with sunflower seeds, a cheap option that let me try my food processors ability. It turned out it's not great, but good enough to produce a relatively smooth seed butter that tastes great!

How to make it?

1. Toast the seeds lightly in a dry pan (optional)
2. Put them in the food processor and fire away.
3. After a while, add a little bit of oil, and mix some more. How much or if you have to add it at all, might depend on your seeds and blender. I needed about 1,5 tbs oil for 1,5 C of seeds.
4. Add a dash of salt and a tiny amount of agave (optional)
5. Blend some more, until creamy.

This looks a bit weird, I know. The sunflower butter has the un-charming colour grey-beige and the colour of the homemade grape jelly doesn't look very natural, but it is! Tastes great too.

Monday Morning: Smoothie and cucumber

2011-10-10T15:13:00.000+02:00

Blueberry smoothie with spinach and banana. Rye bread with boston cucumber.

Boston cucumber is a pickled mix of cucumber, onion, bell pepper and mustard seeds, and is a Swedish invention from the 50's with inspiration from the U.S. The mix has nothing to do with Boston, the story says it was the secretary of the inventor who came up with the name.Is this what you would call a relish? I've never quite understood what that was.

Guest post: Hot sauce reviewes!

2011-10-09T14:01:00.001+02:00

This post is written by Martin, my hot sauce loving boyfriend.

Duringthe past months I have felt an increasing need for exploring the world of veryhot food. Diving into this part of food culture seem to me like entering therole playing nerd basement of food, crammed with fat men in geeky t-shirts andwomen dressed in gothic style clothes, all with a burning desires for sour lipsand aching throats. Probably just my strange preception, but nevertheless anirresistable longing for me.

Whenwe visited the U.S we happened on a sauce shop in Friday Harbor, WA. The FlavourEmporium, run by an old military vet who marched me through a tasting of avariety of different hot sauces. I will here review the three ones I ended upwith. Take into consideration that I am still a novice in this field, and whatI today might experience as pretty hot might be a breeze in a couple of months.

WickedCactus Sauce - Smoking Gun

Thissauce comes from the St.Louis-based company Wicked Cactus Sauce and this is oneof their least hot sauces. It's a chipotle sauce that contains a very smokyflavour. It has a pretty firm consistency and there are a bunch of pulps hidingin the sauce.

Iwould say that this is a perfect sauce for marinading or grilling with, as acondiment it's slightly too thick and since it packs such a lovely smoky tasteyou want that taste to be evenly spread. Don't be afraid to use a heftyquantity of this stuff, the taste won't disappoint and it won't burn you.

Painis good - Garlic Style Batch #37

Nowthis sucker is a slightly different matter. While it's not one of thoseabsurdly hot sauces I'd say that most people would experience it very hot. Thesauce is based on Habaneros, has a runny feel and apart from the distinct tasteof garlic a solid vinegar backdrop. Lots of pulps in there as well.

Thissauce doesn't mess around, it comes swinging for you with full force trying toknock your teeth out, but has the redeming factor of the heat not lasting thatlong. It's my least favourite of the three, but it works well as a spicycondiment and a swirl of this in a stew or chili will put the heat level up afew notches a least.

VampfireHot Sauce

Straightfrom the murky swamps of Louisiana comes this occult sauce. It's a plainconcept in my eyes, much like a stronger version of Tabasco. Smooth all throughand maybe with the most syntetic taste. It's by far the cheapest of the bunch.I think it lives up to it's name, the heat isn't intense and you have to usequite a lot to feel it, but when it comes creeping upon you, sweat pushing outfrom your skin, then you know that Dracula is sucking you blood from inside.

Hopefullythis will be a reoccuring little guest apperance from me on Fanny's blog, andif there is anyone that enjoy reading about this stuff I will be happy to sharemore of my ventures into the heat.

Market Candy

2011-10-08T08:00:00.000+02:00

When I went up in the elevator from the shared laundry room I met an old lady. She told me there was a market in town, so I brought Martin out there with me. I live in a town with about 7000 people, so it's pretty small. I swear, I saw more people today out than I've seen altogether since I moved here. I learned that the market is yearly (I guess everyone knows about it since there has been no posters!). It was a very typical small town market. Donut carts, a small tivoli, hot dogs, cheep t-shirts, and of course - loads of candy! It's pretty much always the same. This year though, Martin told me that what is called "market nougat" is often vegan! So of course we had to buy some in various tastes. Supposedly, it's made of margarine, sugar (loads!), flour and whatever taste you want it to be, cocoa powder for example. We got some chocolate, whiskey (!) and pear, as well as some marmalade thing and hard caramels.

Also, we got one of there long things. The woman in the boot was very sweet and let us go in the back and check all the list of ingredients to find if there was one without gelatine. As we found out - the "sour coke" was. How could we not buy one (two actually)?

Appetite for Reduction: Everyday Chickpea Salad

2011-10-07T11:41:00.000+02:00

I made quite a few changes to this salad. I used bulgur instead of quinoa, spring onions instead of red, arugula and spinach instead of romaine and even sunflower seeds for the cashews in the dressing. As said in the description for the recipe, it's foreverly customizable, and the dressing is simple yet really tasty. I wasn't sure how the sunflower seeds would do in it, but it came out really creamy, so I'm pleased. I'm sure I will make loads of different versions of this salad in the future, and so should you.

Creamy chantarelle sauce

2011-10-06T07:57:00.000+02:00

When I got home form school one day, there was a big bucket of yellowfoot mushrooms/funnel chantarelles. Martin had picked them for me, and when I was done with my happy dance I lay them out on newspapers to dry. They reduce a lot in volume, it's incredible really, but the dried mushrooms will last you a long time, since the taste is so concentrated that you need very little in each dish.

Today, I used them for a creamy sauce that goes well with any "meat and potato" kind of dish. I had it with tofu, caulipots and onions, and I suggest you do to!

You make it like you would most creamy sauces. Melt a bit of margarine in a saucepan, add some flour and stir to make a paste, add soymilk and some water and let thicken on medium heat. Add some crumbled mushrooms, salt, pepper and some thyme, and let simmer on very low heat until the mushrooms is soft.

Arakas me Patates

2011-10-05T11:35:00.000+02:00

This dish is called Arakas me Patates, or braised peas with potatoes. I found it over at Souvlaki for the soul, a blog written by a man named Peter. The dish is Greek and tastes wonderfully from garlic, olive oil, dill and lemon. It's a comforting dish that tastes great now that autumn is here in full force, and while it's very simple, it's boosting with flavours and the lemon gives it a really tangy feeling. Eat it with bread on the side, something really crusty and fluffy would probably do it more justice than my sad little scone.

You can find the recipe here, and the only change I would advice you to make is to cut down on the oil. It's a huge amount in the recipe, and I would say you would do enough with 3-4 tbs.

Autumn stew with juniper berries.

2011-10-04T10:23:00.001+02:00

Autumn is here to stay for a while, so what's better suited for dinner than a warm stew filled with stuff that's connected with he season? This stew is based on seitan and chickpeas and gets it's taste from lingonberry jam, red wine, rosemary, thyme and juniper berries.

The juniper berry grows on juniper plants (no kidding..). It's not actually a berry, but a cone with a berry like appearance! The berry is commonly used in the Swedish cuisine, most often used dried in meat-dishes. I picked some when I was in Hälsingland.

When I got home the other day, I found a huge bucket filled with Funnel Chanterelles, a mushroom that is everywhere in the forests right now. It was a gift from Martin, isn't that the sweetest thing ever? I used some of these for this stew, and the lingonberry jam is homemade as well. Nothing beats eating something you picked in the forests or grew by yourself.

I found this recipe on a Swedish blog called Räkfrossa, and the woman behind it was nice enough to let me translate it here for you. I used seitan instead of the tofu.

Autumn stew
serves 4

300 g/10 oz tofu
1 can chickpeas
200 ml/0,8 cup soy- or oat creamer (unsweetened)
25 g/0,8 oz dried funnel chantarelles or 200 g/7 oz fresh
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely shopped
50 ml/3 heaped tbs red cooking wine
3 tbs lingonberry jam
1 tsp dried thyme
½ tsp rosemary
5 dried juniper berries, crushed
2-3 tbs soy sauce
black pepper

- If using dried mushrooms: put in water for 10 minutes.
- Cut the tofu in pieces drain for a bit.
- Fry the onion, tofu, garlic and mushrooms in a bit of oil until a bit browned. Add creamer, wine, lingonberry jam, thyme, rosemary and juniper berries and let simmer for at least 10 minutes, and up to 30. Add the chickpeas towards the end and add soy sauce and black pepper to taste.

I served this with boiled potatoes and carrots, and cabbage mixed with lingonberry jam on the side.

Monday Morning: Yeasted waffles.

2011-10-03T09:26:00.003+02:00

These are my favourite waffles, because the taste is so simple yet complex. The yeast gives them this whole new dimension, and the texture is just bloody perfect. I like to eat them with vegan butter only, and sometimes with a bit of jam on top as well. The recipe comes from the book Vegan Brunch, a book really recommend for everyone.

A garlic dressing bowl.

2011-10-02T18:58:00.001+02:00

This pretty little green ceramic bowl is for making salad dressings or sauces in. The ribbed bottom perfect for grating a clove of garlic on, and then you just add the remaining ingredients on top of it.

Have you seen this video on how to peel garlic? If not, do it! It's impressive and today I had to try for myself. I only wanted one clove, and used two small ceramic bowls, but it still worked perfectly.

I used the dressing bowl and the peeled clove of garlic to make a soyghurt sauce with dill and lemon, served on top of a couscous beetroot salad.

Also, I've got a teaser for you! I've tried a recipe for vegan meringue today, and it came out great, although not very pretty since I couldn't bother to use my piping bag to make pretty swirls. I'll make sure to blog them before MoFo's over!

Vegan MoFo 2011 - let's go!

2011-10-01T20:37:00.000+02:00

October is here - and so is Vegan Month of Food 2011! It's a month when people all over the world will focus on blogging about vegan food, read more about it here. Vegan MoFo is fun, and has a special meaning to me since it's what got me to start my blog last year. I had so much fun and have (obviously) kept blogging since.

This year I do not aim to post every single day like last year, but will do at least the weekdays. I do not have a theme, but hope that you will like my posts anyway. I've planned almost all of them, with a few goals in mind: eating less boring breakfasts, using all the berries I've been picking this year, cooking what I've bookmarked on Pinterest and cooking recipes from Appetite for Reduction. I think it will be a lot of fun!

More than posting myself, I also aim to read as many of other peoples posts as possible, and comment as much as I can. Will you blog as well? Let me know so I can read your blog!

Super fudgy brownies.

2011-09-25T16:13:00.001+02:00

I've already blogged about these brownies, so I'll keep it short. They are the best brownies ever. The crust, the taste and the fudgieness is perfect. Unfortunately, the blog that contained the recipe is deleted, but I've still got the recipe saved on my computer, and thought I'd share it with you.

Super Fudgy Brownies:
borrowed from the (former) blog Not A Rabbit

Ingredients:
3/4 Cup Vanilla Sugar (you could use regular granulated sugar and add some vanilla extract with the milk)
1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 Cup Chocolate Soya Milk
160g Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa or more)
3/4 Cup - minus 2 Tablespoons Plain Flour
2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180'c and line a 8 - 9 inch square brownie pan with baking parchment.

Put the sugar in a blender and whiz it into a fine powder. There will be sugar clouds! Don't skip this step, it's what makes the crust perfect.

Put the sugar into a medium sized mixing bowl and add the oil and the chocolate soya milk. Give it a little stir.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave and add to the sugar/oil/soya milk concoction. Mix well.

Now add the flour and the cocoa and stir like the wind (the chocolate will be cooling and the mixture will be thickening already).

Now pour/dump the mixture into your pre-lined baking tin, spread it around a bit (press it into the corners if it's quite thick already) and stick it in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean (honestly, I've never timed them. I usually just do the washing up while I wait. This week I got distracted reading MoFo blogs and totally forgot about them, and they were still great!).

Cool the brownies completely, then refrigerate for a couple of hours before cutting. I cut mine into about 16 small squares usually.

Looking back on Vegan MoFO 2010

2011-09-22T21:59:00.001+02:00

Last year, Vegan MoFo was in November and I had just started this blog and was living on the Faroe Islands. It kicked off my blogging and I'm still going! Here's some of what I posted last year:

Eating Vegan on the Faroe Islands

D.I.Y Seitan from scratch

Swedish Choklad-biskvi / Sarah Bernhardt cookies

2011-09-18T09:22:00.002+02:00

If you go to one of those old school coffee shops in Sweden that's named "konditori" instead of café, you will most likely find a variety of this sweet. They are called "biskvi", and has a bottom made of almond paste that are topped with buttercream and then dipped in chocolate. It's really tasty, and feels a bit elegant and complicated even tough it's super easy to make yourself!

1. Make small rounds out of almond paste and bake until a bit browned at 180° C/350° F, probably about 8-10 minutes. Cool down.

2. Top with buttercream. I used the chocolate buttercream frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but anyone would work. Play with the taste! I thought about adding a whole raspberry in the centre but didn't have any, but I'm sure that would be awesome.

3. Put them in the freezer for a couple of minutes to firm up the frosting, it will make it easier to dip. Melt some chocolate and dip them into it. Wait until the chocolate is set and eat!

Sesame cookies

2011-09-15T21:19:00.001+02:00

A couple of days ago I baked cookies for the first time in my new home. I've had my eyes on these sesame cookies ever since Celine posted the recipe on her blog, and they didn't disappoint, rather the contrary, they have a sesame flavour that will fill up your whole body and just the perfect sweetness. Make them and admire their beauty!

Tonight I'm sitting at my new kitchen table planning my Vegan MoFo! It will take place in October this year and is an international event focusing on vegan food on blogs for a whole month!

2011-09-10T12:09:00.000+02:00

It's cold outside in the mornings, and it's getting dark at 8 already. And although it looks like any other summer's day when you face the sky, it's painfully obvious that winter is getting closer. I'm not ready yet, so I happily ignore it which makes me really cold when biking to school in a thin sweater.

My apartment is slowly getting homey. I still don't have a kitchen table, a sofa or anything on the walls, but I'm getting there. Having the freezer full of hand picked berries helps too. Some days ago I made loads of apple sauce from Martins fathers apple tree, and it's pink and tastes wonderful! I think it's going to be a glorious food autumn, even though I'm now a student with a pretty slim budget.

Here's some of what I have been eating lately:

Home fries, carrot sticks and peas with mushrooms. Breakfast of champions.

Apple sauce in the making. This machine is awesome, you don't have to peel the apples or anything, just chop them and boil them quickly and runt i through.

My pink apple sauce!

Baked potatoes with lingonberry jam and some sweet chili-chips.

Home grown grapes from my classmate.

Blueberry smoothie.

Crepes with different fillings. 1. Peanut butter and homemade grape jelly. 2. Homemade plum jam. 3. Tahini and agave.

Zebra cake

2011-09-08T09:20:00.000+02:00

Look at this mess of patterns!

Berry picking in the north.

2011-09-06T13:20:00.000+02:00

Only oneday after moving in to my new apartment, I left for the north. Sweden is divided into three parts, and thebiggest and most northern one, is called Norrland, which translates into Northern Land. That’s where I was going,accompanying Martin and parts of his family to spend the weekend in hisgrandfathers cottage. The house, situated by a bog and a lake on a mountaincalled “The Bear Mountain”, is built by himself, starting with only a smallpart of it that was once a tiny store. It has very little electricity, comingonly from a truck battery, so the main part of the light in the evenings comesfrom candles. It was awesome. The nature up there is astonishing, and it’s likea retreat from people. It’s so quiet, and in the night the sky is filled withstarts you normally can’t see due to light pollution.

The mainevent up there was berry picking. We picked lingonberries, billberries,cranberries, juniper berries and even some mushrooms. Everything grows wild inthe forests and is available for everyone thanks to a law calledAllemansrätten. It means “Everyman’s right”, or “Freedome to roam”. It’s awonderful law that makes the forests available for anyone. I came home with 10 litres/42 cups of lingonberries,which I will turn into jam within the next couple of days. I’ll make sure tokeep you posted about this national jam of Sweden and everything else I makewith my lovely berries.

Rose Hip Soup

2011-08-29T21:34:00.000+02:00

Have you ever eaten a rose hip before? It's the fruit of the rose, and can vary in size, shape and colour, from orange to red to purple and almost black. The rose hip contains loads of vitamin C, so eating them is really good for you! Making a sweet soup out of them is really traditional in Swedish cuisine, and you'll probably want to eat it warm with ice cream. Or cold as a thick juice. It's good for you when you have a sick stomach too. Not convinced yet? Look at the bright colour!

The variety we picked was big, round and dark orange/red. This is what they look like on the inside. The small hairs is sometimes really itchy so watch out for them or put them inside the shirt of someone you don't like.

This colour is insane. This is the boiled, mashed and strained rose hips.

Swedish rose hip soup
This is really more of a method than a recipe, because the quantities it's a matter of taste and the variety of rose hips you use.
1. Pick the rose hips.
2. Cut off the weird ends.
3. Cut them in half and clean out the seeds. (You might not have to do this, I will get back to you when I've tried a more easy way!)
4. Boil them in a little bit of water until really soft.
5. Mix them up really good with an immersion blender or what you have on hand.
6. Put the purée in a fine mesh strainer and push them through it, leaving the stringy bits behind.
7. Put the purée back in the sauce pan, adding water until desired thickness.
8. Add sugar until sweet enough for your taste, and heat until the sugar has dissolved.
9. Eat or store in the fridge.

Heatrow airport.

2011-08-24T16:43:00.000+02:00

Hungry, we used our last British pounds for lunch at Heathrow airport terminal 5, before leaving England for Sweden. To our great surprise, we were able to find a decently priced vegan meal, that was delicious and filling to! We ate at Itsu, a japanese place where we shared a plate of sushi and salad, and a bowl consisting of rice, coconut curry sauce, veggies, seaweed, shiitakes, cashews and tofu! To that we drank a lemonade with loads of ginger in it.

Chickpeas, b&w photos and my plans for the autumn.

2011-08-23T20:05:00.001+02:00

I don't know if I told you, but I'm going back to school this autumn! It's a 2 year long program, which in the end will make me a water technician. Then I will hopefully work with cleaning water or something similar somewhere exciting.

So, in two day's I'm moving to Hallsberg, a small town only famous for being one of the most important railway hubs in Sweden. I will live all by myself for the first time ever and I'm really looking forward to it! Yesterday I bought this huge bag of dried chickpeas that will hopefully keep me full for the winter.

So not only have I been packing and procrastinating things like signing up for an electrical provider, I have also been making jam. I picked 4 kg/9 lb plums from my mothers tree, and made a huge batch of jam. And there's still so much left on the tree that I just can't take care of. I also made a very tasty plum sauce, inspired by this recipe.

I found three very ripe peaches at home, and guess what, they are now jam as well. Editing these photos made me discover how beautiful food is in black and white, focusing on the shape instead of the colours.

Mac n' Cheese Pancakes

2011-08-19T14:14:00.001+02:00

In June, I ended my travels in Oregon and Washington with a short stay in Seattle. I had the pleasure to stay with two vegan couchsurfers, and they took me to Wayward Café for Saturday brunch, an awesome all vegan place with loads of breakfast options. That morning, I went for the hillbilly omelette, but their daily special was Mac n' Cheese pancakes, and the thought of them never quite left me. I decided today was the day to give it a try.

I looked around some blogs for a recipe, but they all seemed to call for some kind of ready made vegan cheese, which I did not have on hand and did not wish to pay a small fortune for at the store either. So I made up my own version, calling for no ready made vegan cheese.

First, I made the Easy Breezy Cheezy Sauce from Appetite for Reduction. Then, I made the batter for No Fail Buttermilk Pancakes from 500 vegan recipes, and added a dash of turmeric for colour. I also cooked up some macaroni and let it cool.

The the experimenting could begin. Some of the recipes I had read said to put the pancake batter in the pan, sprinkle some macaroni on top and add cheese before flipping it over. I tried, without the cheese, and it worked OK. I also tried to mix the macaroni with the batter before adding to the pan, and I liked how that made them more incorporated in the pancake, so I went with that for the rest of them. I tried mixing some cheezy sauce into the batter pre-fying, but the taste somehow got lost in there, so I skipped that.

My conclusion:

Mac n' cheese pancakes
What you'll need:
- A batch of pancake batter (no sugar or vanilla or anything)
- Cheesy sauce of some kind
- Boiled macaroni

How to:
- Mix the macaroni into the pancake batter, how much is really up to you, it can handle quite a high ratio of macaroni to batter.
- Fry them up until golden on both sides, and serve with the cheezy sauce on top!

It's delicious.

Devon and Cornwall has never left me hungry.

2011-08-08T23:16:00.000+02:00

I've now been in England for almost 6 weeks, spending the time in Devon and Cornwall WWOOFing at three different farms. Soon it will be time to go back to Sweden, were I will move to a new town and start school again - I'm pretty excited!

Fresh blueberry juice on the blueberry farm

I've been more hungry than usual these weeks from all the body work, but has never been left hungry. The WWOOFing hosts are supposed to feed you, and they sure have. At the blueberry farm Wei Wei cooked up loads of food for 13 people every night, all her own inventions. She made us both cornish pasties and food inspired from her earlier life in China, all of which tasted great.

Cornish pasties, labelled V for vegan.

On the other farm, the host wasn't there a lot, so we were left to cook for ourselves, and can I just ask you English people what's up with self raising flour? It wasn't my best friend. The bread machine was however. I had never baked in one before, but it was so easy I couldn't believe it.

Spagettie bolognese with frozen veggie mince.

On our last farm, were we are now, Carol does most of the cooking. She's a fierce woman soon to be 70, and she cooks up a hearty tasty vegan meal for us every night, followed by dessert.

Blueberries on filo pastry.

Sticky ginger date cake from Vegan Feasts, might just be the best cake ever.

Have you read my interview with David, the cranberry farmer from Greyland, WA? Did you like it? Would you like to read a similar interview with the blueberry farmer I stayed with in Dartmoor National Park? Let me know and I'll try to set it up!

Cornwall.

2011-08-06T21:01:00.000+02:00

I'm currently hanging out and working on a small farm in Cornwall. I'm fighting nasty weeds, petting cute animals and every morning I get the pleasure of giving the ducks more water to play with. I swear I can hear them laughing. I also get to eat a lot of good food here, but I'm not cooking myself, so there's not much to blog about really. Although, I do have a long list with posts to write in the near future, so I'm pretty excited about that.

Until then, would you do me the favour and tell me what you would like me to write about?

Red currant jelly

2011-07-27T23:54:00.000+02:00

It all started with two huge bowls of red currants that Martin picked from a bush in the garden. The freezer was already full of them, so we decided to make jelly, which is to me the most natural next step for a picked berry of this kind. Alena who is also staying here, had done it before so she guided us along the way. No need for recipes when you have friends with knowledge!

It's really simple,
1. Boil the red currants (stem and all), in water until soft and a bit mushy.
2. Mash the berries through a strainer, making sure to get all the juice out of them. (We added a little bit of the cooking water in this step to make it slightly thinner).
3. Admire the colour, it's gorgeus!
4. Weigh the berries, and add equal amounts of sugar. (We used jam sugar with added pectin, which is not nessecary but makes the process easier). Bring to a boil and keep boiling until it had reached it's setting point. Test this by putting a small amount of the jelly on a cold plate and let it sit in the fridge for some minutes. Push your finger through the edges, if it wrinkles up it's done!
5. Can it.

I don't know about all of you people out in the world, but in Sweden we eat currant jelly with food, not only as a a sweet. It would be perfect together with this or this, both recipes from Our life in Sandarna, who cooked traditional Swedish food for a whole month last vegan mofo.

Where I am right now? On the countryside in Devon, England! There's three of us who're WWOOFing/housesitting a small farm with 2 horses, 2 mini ponies, 2 dogs and a chicken. When the weather allows we're having breakfast on the driveway, like above. My 5 month summer holiday is going pretty well, I must say. What are you guys up to? Anyone nearby in Devon or Cornwall?

Interview with David Cottrell, cranberry farmer in Greyland, WA.

2011-07-20T12:22:00.000+02:00

During my travels in Oregon and Washington, I got the pleasure to stay a few nights with David, a cranberry farmer living outside of Greyland. During these two days David opened up his farm to us and gave us an insight in his work, himself and the society he grew up in. I remember those days with a smile on my lips, and I will never drink cranberry juice again without recalling the Friday night we spent driving his home made railroad over the cranberry bog.

I wanted to share some of what David told me during these days, so here is an interview ( I know it's long, but I didn't want to cut something out, so please hang in there!), just for you!

David, how come you're a cranberry farmer?
My grandfather started growing cranberries about 1940. When he died, my father took over the farm and expanded it. I grew up working on the farm every day, until I went off to college. Even then I came back to help at harvest (sometimes skipping classes if necessary). In my 20‘s I traveled a lot and saw a lot of the world, lots wonderful things and people, but I found that I missed the cranberries and the community that goes with them, and I discovered that some of the happiest people I met were people with roots. So 27 years ago I came back to cranberry farming in partnership with my brother, and I have been here ever since.

How's life on a cranberry farm?
Life on the farm revolves around the weather. Cranberries are a wetland plant. They need lots of water, and, like most plants, they need sun. We live on the edge of a rainforest which gives us a mix of both.

When the weather is nice, there are 100 things to be done: weeds to pull, sprinklers and thermostats to check (we use them for frost protection as well as irrigation), water levels to monitor, areas to fertilize, areas to replant, ditches to clean, wood to cut, grass to mow, more weeds to pull....the list never ends, but it changes from season to season.

In the course of a week we will walk over most of our land as we go about our different projects, so we know every foot of our cranberry bogs as gardeners would know their gardens. It’s very personal, which is how growing food should be (in my opinion.)

When the weather is rainy, there are always projects in the sheds and shops to keep us busy, repairing buildings and equipment or building new things. During the winter when it is cold and stormy and the cranberries are sleeping, my brother and I can take turns tending the farm while the other one travels to interesting places.

Please tell me about harvest, it seems like such an event!
Our cranberry harvest starts about September 20 and goes into November. It’s the most exciting time of the year. Everything we’ve done all year long has been building to this one event. Often our cousins and friends come to help us bring in the crop and celebrate.

We pick the cranberries with a small machine called a Furford Picker, invented by a local man about 50 years ago. It is powered by a small motor, and you walk behind it like an old style plow as it runs its fingers through the vines, like a comb through hair, picking off the berries as it goes.

The picking machine drops the berries into burlap sacks which are left behind it in the field. Then somebody carries them over to the small railroad track that runs through the field and stacks them on the cart, which takes the sacks into the warehouse. There they’re cleaned, graded and sent off to the cannery to be made into cranberry juice, sauce, craisins, or packaged as fresh fruit.

When the weather is good and the berries are ripe we’ll pick until the last rays of sunlight have faded, and then we’ll pick up the hundreds of sacks of berries that are still left in the field by the light of the moon. Those days are magic!

On the other hand, by November the days are short and it’s often cold and raining sideways. Then it’s a race with Winter to get the berries in before it floods and they float away, or it freezes and they’re ruined. Those are hard days, but the finish line is in sight, and that is its own kind of fun!

I think anybody who has ever raised a garden knows this joy, but when it’s been a part of your whole life, and your father’s, and your grandfather’s before him, it takes on even greater depth.

Me, getting to drive the cranberry railroad!

What do you like to do with the cranberries?
Do you mean eating them, or other things, like juggling them?

I eat many of them fresh and raw, or add them to things when cooking. I also make cranberry juice by boiling them with a little sugar and pressing them, then sweetening the left-over pulp to make a sauce. My mom, who is 80, has many more advanced recipes, but I’m a simple cook.

As for other things, many people string cranberries for Christmas decorations. Also, did you know that cranberries are one of the few fruits that bounce? If you want a challenge some time, try playing ping pong with a cranberry. It works! Just think, you could never do this with a strawberry, a banana, a pineapple, or a melon!

How does the coop Ocean Spray work?

The Ocean Spray co-op is made up of cranberry growers of all different sizes from all over the USA and Canada. If you are a member of the co-op you promise to send all your cranberries to Ocean Spray, and in return the co-op promises to guarantee a market for everything you grow. Then as the profits come into the co-op over the next year, the money is divided equally among the cranberry growers proportional to the amount of cranberries they shipped.

It is a very fair system which prevents the big farmers from competing against the little family farmers and slowly forcing them out of business, as has happened to so many other small farmers. Instead we are all working together to sell the best product we can, and then we all share in the value.

Although it has grown into a big company, Ocean Spray Cranberries is still run by a board of directors of 11 farmers elected from all the different growing regions of USA and Canada, and one hired manager, so the company is still very much run by farmers for farmers. As a small family farm, we are very lucky this way!

What is the pros and cons with farming the "old school way"?
Well first of all, I don’t know that I can claim to be truly “old school”. Those old guys were tough! They cleared acres of land with nothing but a shovel and a hoe. They pushed their carts through the bogs by the strength of their backs and legs, or had their wives do the pushing, and they picked their berries with their own fingers. I like having a picking machine with a motor and I like having a tractor! If there’s a way I can get more done in a day and have fewer sore back-muscles when I go to bed, I’ll give it a try even if it’s not the way my grandfather would have done it.

But one of the things I like to think I share with the old timers is that I farm according to the economy of nature rather than the economy of money. The “modern farmers” I know seem to worry a lot about profits and losses, investment and debt, dollars and cents, as if it were just another kind of business investment that you could walk away from.

For us and many of our neighbors though, the commitment is a little greater. Our calculations are mostly about soil and water, sun and rain, the health and sickness of the farm. For those of us who think this way, the farm is a member of the family that you would never sell, unless to pass it on to somebody who can take care of it.

While you have the stewardship of the land you take care of it as best you can, and it will take care of you. For me, that sums up “old school” farming, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.


David and George, a breeding stallion he saved from slaughter.

Thank you David! I hope everyone got the chance to learn something new, and maybe some of you will share your favourite cranberry recipe?

Individual Deep Dish White Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-07-15T17:58:00.000+02:00

I managed to bring a whole pound of vegan white chocolate chips with me back from Seattle, but when I got home I had no clue what to do with them. I realized that the best idea might also be the most obvious one - chocolate chip cookies. I know everyone is raving about the ones from Vegan with a Vengeance/Vegan cookies invade your cookie jar, but to be honest, they always comes out either to puffy or to oily for me, so I started searching for a different recipe.

I almost immediately stumbled into a blog called The Caramel Cookie, which is not a vegan blog, but it features some vegan recipes. That's where I found something totally new to me, deep dish chocolate chip cookies! The photos where beautiful, the comments where positive and the concept was new and exciting - I knew I had found my recipe. I halved the recipe, made them in individual serving cups and used my white chocolate instead of dark. They came out FANTASTIC! A cookies that you can eat with a spoon - yes please! I will make sure to experiment with deep dish cookies in the future. You'll find the recipe here.

What's your favourite recipe for chocolate chip cookies?

Seattle

2011-07-12T21:22:00.000+02:00

Seattle offered lots of good food, here's what we had time for:

Bacon burgers at Sage Bakery & Café. A bit pricey but delicious.

We also bought two day old sweets from there, a coconut cupcake and a cranberry muffin.

On Saturday morning we went to a farmers market with our couchsurfing hosts.

After they had stocked up at the farmers market, we went for breakfast at Wayward Vegan Café. They had an extensive breakfast menu and almost everything sounded good. We went for a breakfast burrito and the hillbilly omelette. One of our hosts went for the daily special - mac and cheese pancakes! I'll have to try make that at home someday.

Right across the street were the vegan store Sidecar For Pigs Peace and got some stuff to bring home.

We had to have pizza at Pizza Pi, the all vegan pizza place. I must say that I can actually get better vegan pizzas in my home town in Sweden, but I was impressed with the cheese stuffed crust.

Of course we had to visit Fremont. We had a lovely day there, visiting the Sunday market, walking along the water and hanging out in Water Works Park. We also stopped at Flying Apron Bakery, only to be quite disappointed. We weren't really feeling like ordering anything, but went for a slice of the cake. It turned out to be quite expensice, and only OK, but not fantastic.

Pasta salad in a bag for lunch.

And that was that trip! We flew back home and when you read this we're already gone again - to England this time to try out WWOOFing. I'll update you on how that is soon!

Olympia

2011-07-10T22:23:00.000+02:00

After almost a month of small city life, we found ourselves in Olympia, the capital of Washington. The city doesn't even have a population of 50,000, but it felt like a big city for us. Longer distances, buses everywhere and the parks were sadly grey. However, as long as cities goes, Olympia was very nice.

We went our for lunch, to Saigon Rendez Vous, a Vietnamese-Chinese restaurant with a huge vegetarian menu, even during lunch hours. The price was low, and service quite bad, but the food was great. They relied heavily on tofu, fake chicken and fake beef, something I love. Maybe it's only me, but when the only vegan option is stir fried veggies with rice, I leave.

We couldn't finish the fake chicken with lemongrass, so we got a box with it to go, and I ate it some time later in a park.

I finally got to go to a Farmers Market. Except for asparagus and cherries, I was excited for the Blue Heron Bakery that had a booth there as well. They had so many choices! Here's a chocolate mocha cake.

Some fudgy peanut bar.

We made lentil soup for dinner one day.

Onion bagel with vegan cream cheese, fried zucchini and tomatoes.

Vegan macaroni and cheese - straight from the freezer!

Martin went to the store to "buy some candy". He came back with two containers Rice Dream (Mint Carob Chip and Swiss Almond), two bags of candy and a package of Oreos. That's a man I like.

We wanted to make dinner for the woman we stayed with, so we made asparagus with vinaigrette, potato spinach squares and corn on the cob.

In the evening she wanted to take us to a place to watch the sunset and the bats that lived there. Little did we know that there would also be a team of volunteers catching and studying the wings for damages, then releasing them of course.We got to help and got to see them really up close, so cool!

Blueberry muffins on the farm.

2011-07-08T09:47:00.000+02:00

It's afternoon, and I'm walking over the fields towards the house after a long day of weeding on the farm. It's raining, and I'm cold, wet and my hands are aching. For some reason, I come to think about blueberry muffins. And I'll be damned, when I open the door to the main house and steps into the kitchen, I'm greated by Wei Wei (the woman of the house) and Hans (a young German boy staying here with his family), making vegan muffins.

Port Townsend

2011-07-06T21:24:00.000+02:00

We only stayed in Port Townsend one night, but we got a long afternoon to walk around the adorable city. First, we went to the coop to buy some lunch.

Ain't this wall lovely?

We bought Tofurkey sausages and salsa verde and ate with the rice we had brought.

We found this lovely soda fountain where we drank some soda and lemonade.

We stayed with a woman who lived in a rebuilt catholic church, pretty cool house. Before going to the bus in the morning, we had yoghurt and granola which we had bought at the food coop the day before.

Dartmoor Organic Blueberries, North Harton Farm

2011-07-04T22:34:00.000+02:00

I havn't even posted all my posts about my travels to Oregon and Washington yet, but I'm already away on new adventures. This time I'm WWOOFing on farms in south-western England for six weeks in total. First out is A blueberry farm in Dartmoor, which is a wonderful setting for anything. I'm staying in a wonderful turfed stonehouse surrounded by green hills, and so far it's been amazing. The weather is just wonderful, the people here are funny and the food has been great.

The only thing I don't enjoy is the nettles. They hurt me at least 4 times today and I just hate the feeling!

The main task today was relaying the pipes for water.

Unfortunately, most of the blueberries are unripe still.

But every once in a while, there's a ripe one!

Have any of you done WWOOFing?

Sautéed New Potatoes en Persillade

2011-07-03T16:05:00.001+02:00

I bought an issue of Vegetarian Times while in the U.S, it was a farmers market special and it featured this lovely recipe for sautéed new potatoes en persillade. You should try it!

San Juan Islands

2011-07-01T12:00:00.001+02:00

We spent a little bit over a week on the San Juan Islands, and managed to visit the 4 main ones, Lopez, San Juan, Shaw and Orcas. I love couchsurfing so much, how else would we have gotten to stay with the islands nurse on Lopez, with a hobby farmer on San Juan and attending a huge fancy house warming party on Shaw?

Our first stop was Lopez. We stayed with a lovely woman and her family there, and the first thing she did was giving us a cookie. She was off to a good start.

The dump on Lopez is wonderful. Instead of trashing stuff that still works, they collect it and arrange it like a thrift shop - but it's free!

Blossom Grocery in Lopez Village. The natural food store with a good selection but high prices.

We went on to San Juan. 3 day old goat cuddling with the dog.

We were walking around downtown Friday Harbour when we saw a place that had these kind of daily specials where it was all you can eat-something. We were lucky, the next day was deep fried veggie sushi rolls and we couldn't resist it. To our surprise, it was very tasty.

We found some Rice Dream ice creams in the food store.

We went on to Shaw Island, probably the least visited of the 4 since there are very limited arrangements for tourists there. We enjoyed the small island life to the limit though, thanks to our wonderful host. Here is her cute dog.

We went to Orcas over the day and I had kumquats for the first time in my life. I loved it!

Actually, it was my birthday, so I baked a peach cobbler in the evening to celebrate. The next morning we went back to the mainland.

Port Angeles

2011-06-29T06:00:00.000+02:00

So we spent 3 nights in Port Angeles and had a great time. Here's some of what we ate:

Kale! It is nowhere to be found in Sweden so I was happy to buy a bunch at the supermarket.

We were waiting for our host to finish work, so we went into The Veela Cafe for an espresso and an espresso chip cookie from Alternative Baking Company.The taste of the cookie was great but I like a crunchy texture rather than soft.

The next day, we had lunch at Dynasty Chinese Restaurant, who offered a lot of different tofu dishes.

The food was lovely and very cheap, a combination in my taste.

We went for some ice cream sandwiches for dessert, which we bought at Good to go! Natural Grocery. Unfortunately, they were pretty slimly and gross.

Our host Gayle were working her butt of at work so we made dinner for her in the evening. It was going to be a potato salad but I bought the wrong kind of potato so it turned into potato and kale squares instead.

Some coffee.

Bonus picture: Lake Crescent with a rainbow across, seen from Mount Stormking!

Have you ever been to Port Angeles?

Midsummer

2011-06-27T09:47:00.000+02:00

Midsummer is one of the most celebrated holidays in Sweden. People will dance around a phallic symbol made out of birch twigs and flowers, eat pickled herring and strawberries and hope for sunny weather. I spent the day with my family and ate some good food, although the weather was disappointing as always.

Vegan Skagen Mix.

Strawberry harvest from my mother's garden!

I love this picture that my sister took of me and my mother on our way home from picking flowers. I'm the one on the left, did I tell you I cut almost all my hair off?

Eating on the road

2011-06-25T17:09:00.004+02:00

I've never had to go to bed hungry while travelling as a vegan, no matter if I was travelling in Sweden, Iceland, Turkey or Germany. The U.S was no exception, rather the contrary. I always travel on a very limited budget, meaning that I rarely eat out at restaurants and buying a cup of coffee at a café is to be considered a luxury. Oregon and Washington was pretty cheap comparing to Scandinavia, so that allowed us to eat out way more than we usually do on the road, which of course was a lot of fun! I wouldn't have want to miss the experience of eating lunch at food carts in Portland, trying Ethiopian for the first time, eating soft serve, having breakfast coffee at a diner, cooling down with lemonade at a soda fountain or enjoying cheese filled pizza crust.

The money isn't the only reason I rarely eat out while travelling. I love being out in the nature and would prefer going to see a big tree rather than a big church 9 times out of 10, so I often find myself on a mountain top or at a remote beach at lunch time, with no lunch options in site. That's when I sit down, open my backpack and eat whatever is in there.

Let me give you some samples:

Me, eating a carrot dipped in peanut butter. I love having a jar of peanut butter and some carrots in my backpack, it makes such an easy snack!

When the peanut butter jar is almost empty, I use it to make overnight oats for breakfast.

Tofurkey deli slices from the Tofurkey Factory.

Bananas, Amy's lentil soup and water after an exhausting hike in the sun.

Sourdough bread roll from a bakery in Cannon Beach.

Chocolate soy ice cream on the beach.

I realise that I didn't take one single picture of what we ate most of the time, tortilla chips and salsa. All these different salsas was like heaven!

What do you eat while on the road?

Thursday breakfast

2011-06-23T12:51:00.000+02:00

I'm taking a break in the travel posts to show you today's breakfast. And hey! Tomorrow's midsummer's eve in Sweden, one of the most celebrated holidays. I'll update you on that in a couple of days for sure..

The dog's superhero: Colleen

2011-06-22T22:39:00.000+02:00

Martin were browsing couchsurfing for a potential host along the more southern parts of the Oregon coast, and he had quite a hard time finding someone. Then he says; "Here's a woman who said she rescued 27 dogs and found homes for all of them". She didn't have much information about herself on her profile, and she had no prior experience with couchsurfing, but we both agreed this would be an interesting place to stay at for the night we needed. About two weeks later, we found ourselves sitting in the living room with Colleen, who told us the amazing story about how she rescued 27 dogs from their death and found homes for all of them. I think it's fantastic.