Happy New Year!

2011 has come to an end! Time to welcome 2012 xD

I wish you all have many yummy vegan meals in 2012, and that you all have happy lives and that the animals can have happy lives too without being abused and killed for food or other reasons ^.^

So ye, i hope in 2012 the world will be a better place to live for everyone than it was in 2011!

Happy New Year all!! <(^.-)^

Kakemenn

Dunno what the word for it is in english, directly translated it's "cake men" which sounds kinda wrong xD Lets go for cookiemen or something instead since they are more cookie-like than kake-like =p In Norway it's normal to bake/eat these in december =p We often have to make several batches since they disappear pretty fast, which means they are yummy ;p

This recipe my mom got from someone on her work, and it's the best kakemenn recipe that i know =p

Ingredients
100 g melted margarine
2 dl milk
3 dl sugar
1 liter flour
1 teaspoon "hornsalt" (aka ammoniumhydrogenkarbonat NH₄HCO₃ which is kinda hard to find @_@ i once used baking soda instead since they dont really have hornsalt in supermarkets in Belgium, i think i used 2-3 teaspoons baking soda since hornsalt is stronger. Using baking soda does not give the same taste though, so now i brought hornsalt from Norway ^.^)

Mix all the ingredients, roll it pretty flat, like 0,3-0,5 cm with a rolling pin (for those lucky ones who have that, i miss it =s) and shape figures with a figure shaper or so if you want to (its possible without too xD). Bake them in the oven on 200°C for 6-8 minutes.

Mine dont look so cool since i was too lazy to shape them after finding out i couldnt roll/squeeze them flat with a spoon >.>

Merry Xmas all!! =D

Hope you all have a great Xmas!! =D

Looking forward to opening presents, even though i know what most of it is already xD (figured it was best to pre-open it before i travelled to belgium to see if i wanted to bring all and to see if it was liquid or breakable or norwegian money xD)

Will also be interesting to see what food i get served @_@ Normally i would make nut-roast or so, but it's not me who do the cooking today, but my bfs family =p

This i made some days ago: baked potatoes and brussel sprouts with peas and carrots and mushroom sauce =p I also had a burger but i ate it before i took picture xD I guess this would work as an Xmas dinner =p Yummy it was at least! =D

I dont have Xmas feeling yet though, maybe i get when i open presents =p

How is your Xmas? =p

Edit: Here is a picture of the leftovers of my xmas dinner. For xmas i first got tortilla chips with salsa sauce <3 followed by a slice of bread with the mushroom sauce on the pic, then the dinner was alpro soya filet (and not sausage like in the pic =p) with salat, tomatoes, cucumber, shredded carrots, shredded celery root with some dressing, and vinaigrette sauce =p Then for dessert was soyaicecream with berrysauce =p

I also got many nice presents, i'm specially happy with the kitchen equipment that makes my life easier on the kitchen xD Was kinda annoying to not have an object like this (see pic), but now i got many! =D

Source: http://www.primusweb.no/things/sleiv/MH/SS-44968?pos=26

Also got a new nice knife =p Was kinda annoying to only have one good one xD

What i didnt get was a rolling pin (like in the pic below) and the books i wanted (probably since they can only be bought on internet), but then again my birthday is soon coming up, so maybe someone gets me some of it, even though i highly doubt it ;p I also wanted gifts that helps others, or that people pledge to veganism for a period of time (preferably forever! =D) or other kind of alternative gifts, but i only got material gifts (which are also cool, but kinda isnt that good for environment and poverty etc =p).

Source: http://www.kookwinkel.nl/upload/webshop/L/_Y1S0610Silpindeegroller30x8cm.jpg

Orange cake

After my friend told me once that she had made an orange cake (i didnt taste it xD) i always wanted to make it =p So here it is =p I based it on the easy vegan chocolate cake recipe and googled to find out how much glacing to do xD

This recipe is for my mini-cakeshape of 13x13 cm, so if you want normal size just multiply with 4 =p

Ingredients
1.5 dl flour
1 dl sugar
0.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 dl freshpressed orange juice (i also add the pulp since i dont wanna waste it)
1/3 dl vegetable oil
0.5 tablespoons vinegar

Mix the dry stuff together, then add the wet stuff and put it in the cakeshape and bake in oven on 175°C for about 40 minutes. Cool the cake before adding the glacing.

Glacing
35 g powdered sugar
Freshpressed orange juice (where i also add the pulp xD) until it gets nice consistency, i think maybe 1-2 ts should be enough maybe.

 Bit bad picture, but taste is definitely good (if you like oranges) =p

Sorry for no updates for a while

Finally done with exams!! And back in Belgium now too, so hopefully some more action here on the blog now xD I think exams went good, but we will see when the results arrive =p Now it's time to relax a bit before i start searching for job. It's very nice to be with my sweet bf again atleast! <3 But i will probably miss Norway and the people there too =/

Before i left Norway i celebrated both my birthday and x-mas =p X-mas/exam celebration with nut-roast (norwegian) (njam njam! =p), and then a birthday party celebrating me and my dad (who really had birthday then, and not in like 2 weeks like me xD) =p So then i got to meet some family before leaving again. I also went out with friends to see pepperkakebyen (kinda like a town made of cookiehouses decorated with candy xD)

For the birthday party i made like 100 cookies into around 27 oreo and 27 bourbon from this recipe (norwegian): Oreo cookies. Was kinda horrible making that many in the middle of the night, so now i dont like them anymore =p But my sis likes them xD But i'm not making more, 100 is enough! >.> I also made banana spice cake and orange juice cake xD (the orange juice cake i liked the most ;p)

Here's also picture of lussekatter which we eat for lucia day =p They are extra cool since they are yellow!! =D I should really start cooking more colored food since i love the colors xD Maybe green next time xD

Hopefully some of the recipes comes soon too xD Btw do you wanna see more pictures from pepperkakebyen? Since i got some more xD

Pink/purple stuff

One of the first things i saw when i came back to Norway was that mom had kale in the garden. I was like wtf xD I had been reading about other people searching everywhere for kale, and i find it in my garden, very nice surprice!! ^.^

Here is a pic i found when i searched on ecosia for kale:

She also has other greens and berries in the garden =D For example beetroot that i have been experimenting a bit with lately.

Pic that i found on ecosia of beetroot:

I like to color stuff, so i thought; Why not add it in food!

Here is why:

Before: Looking nice and pink ^.^

After: Me disappointed =(

So i guess it's best to use in raw stuff, like smoothies ;)

This one is made with 2 bananas, 1 apple, 1 orange, 2 leafs of kale, and 0,5 beetroot.

The muffins is this recipe + 0,5 beetroot or so.
Btw the taste changed a bit, but neither to the worse nor to the better, it was just a bit different xD

In Norway again now

The 25th october i went back to Norway since i had a presentation to do in one of my classes. Unlucky me they changed the date of the presentation from the 1st november to the 26th december, and my group told me the 25th what to do =s So i had to read a bit on the plane. The travel went fine, and the presentation too except for me being too nervous and having blackout xD Now i have 2 hand-ins to work with to next week, cant wait to be done! Because of the presentations and the hand-ins i've not worked with the normal schoolwork so i have shitloads to catch up on now =s Hope i can do it, but my lack of motivation and concentration isn't really helping xD My exams are the 30th november and the 9th december so still a while luckily =)

I will stay in norway until the 14th december now, then i go back to Belgium to my lovely bf =p <3 Finally school-free then! =D Just gotta try and find a job then, hope it goes quick and that i will earn enough to pay houserent and food >.>

Hopefully my basil plant is still alive when i get back too @_@

Also i got half of this waiting for me (or 1/4, i dont mind if people there take a bit as long as i get some xD it's probably better if they eat most of it hehe)

Maybe not too smart of me to buy such a big one since normally it's gone within a week and my stomach gets ouchy and i feel all bad! @_@ It was in promotion on Lidl >.> xD

Pumpkin muffins/cake

I wanted to use the spare pumpkin i got to make pumpkin muffins, but when the dough was ready, i couldn't find muffin shapes, so i putted it in cake shape instead hehe.

I followed mostly this recipe on vegweb: Pumpkin Spice Raisin Muffins 
The idea for pumpkin puree i found here on Vegandads cool blog (i wanted to make this too but got too lazy xD) and i searched with ecosia on how to make pumpkin puree (but i was too lazy to do/remember what they said) =p

Well here is what i did:

Ingredients:
1 dl whole wheat flour
0,5 dl sugar
About 0,5 teaspoon baking powder
About 0,25 teaspoon baking soda
About 0,5 teaspoon vanilla suger
About 0,25 teaspoon ginger
About 0,25 teaspoon nutmeg
About 0,5-1 teaspoon cinnamon (i just poured in hehe)
And you can also add cloves if you got, i dont have =(
About 0,5 teaspoon lemon juice
About 0,5 tablespoons vegetable oil
And then i have no idea how much pumpkin puree* i added, but i guess it was about 1 dl or so =p
And i also radded some raisins, i guess 0,25 - 0,5 dl xD

*First i cutted my remaining pumpkin (maybe 10x5 cm or so, i dont remember =p) in pieces and had them on a sheet in the oven on 200°C to try to make pumpkin puree. I think they were there for 20-30 minutes and i turned them once, then i putted them in a blender and blended them to a puree-like consistency. There's probably better ways to make it, but this worked more or less xD
For the cake i first added the dry ingredients and mixed, then the pumpkin puree, lemon juice and oil and mixed it, and last i added the raisins. Depending on your amount and liquidity of the pumpkin puree you may need more flour or liquid =p
Then i poured the mix into my beloved 13x13 cm cakeshape after a wild search for the cupcake shapes that i didnt find (so if you want cupcakes then do that hehe, should be like 2-4 cupcakes in this recipe @_@) and had it in the oven on about 200°C (i think, my oven is a bit evil on the temperatures so could be im wrong xD) for about 20 minutes =p

I managed to take a picture before i ate all as well hehe =)

Kiwi cake

Here comes the kiwi cake! I don't remember exactly the ingredients, buts more or less like that =p

Again i use a 13 x 13 cm cakeshape, so multiply with 4 to get for a 20 x 30 cakeshape =p

Ingredients:
0,5 dl wholewheat flour
0,5-1 dl white flour
0,5 dl sugar
0,5 dl oat meal
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
0,5 - 1 teaspoon vanilla suger
Some salt
0,5 teaspoon vinegar
2 mashed ripe kiwis
1 tablespoon - 0,5 dl soymilk

Mix together the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients except the soymilk and mix well and add soymilk if needed and mix more. Then bake in oven on 175°C for 30 - 40 minutes.

The first time i used too much liquid xD And the way to find out if it was done or not was to taste a piece in the middle ;) Hehehe

Carrot soup

With 2-3 kg carrots laying around, carrot soup seems like the natural thing to make, so i did =p

This time i was too lazy to look around for a recipe, but later while it was boiling i saw that veganmisjonen also had shared a (norwegian) recipe that is more or less the same as mine (i didnt read well through it, i just read its with carrot, onion, and some other ingredients hehehe reading through it now, i see we have like 8 ingredients in common, this is also where i got the idea of adding tumeric and ginger)

Well, here is my recipe:

Ingredients:
0,5 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
About 4 carrots, chopped
0,5 - 1 celery stalk, chopped
1 handful chopped leek
1 potato, chopped (i had a spare boiled potato in the fridge, so i added mine along with the water)
0,25 - 0,5 papika/bell pepper (i used yellow one =D)
Vegetable oil
Stock cube
Water
Salt and pepper
Tumeric and ginger powder (optional, i think maybe it's better without, depending on your taste xD)

First heat oil and stir onion, garlic, carrots, celery, potato, and bell pepper until it's nice and shiny xD Then add water until it's covered, leek and stock cube and let it simmer until it's tender. Let it cool down a bit, then blend it together in a blender or food processor. Put it back in the pan and add more water if needed (i needed a lot more water haha), and tumeric and ginger powder if you want that stuff in, and taste with salt and pepper, and let it heat up again before you serve/eat.

Kiwi icecream

The good thing about buying many of foods that are on sale is that i can experiment with new things to do with them. I dont want half of the food to turn rotten and end up in the trash, so instead when it turns very ripe, im like "oh shit, what am i gonna use it for?!?!!" followed by some hunting on the internet or in my cookbooks for recipes xD This way i ended up with making the broccoli-carrot-potato burgers, the pear cake, the kiwi cake, and the kiwi icecream =p

Here comes kiwi icecream!

Ingredients:
1-2 frozen ripe bananas
1-2 ripe kiwis

Mix in food processor until nice consistency and enjoy hehehe

Pear cake

I wanted to make kiwi-pearcake (since i needed to get rid of kiwis and pear, which reminds me i should have added carrot to it aswell along with some boiled potatoes and bell peppers hehhehe), but by the time i got the pear in the dough, i relized that no way i was gonna get some kiwis into it without it turning into soupy-cake (or me needing to add more flour that might result in the dough overflowing xD). So i can try making kiwi cake tomorrow instead to use the kiwis xD (i actually made kiwi cake some days ago but i was too lazy to post the recipe yet, but it's more or less the same as pear cake and vanilla cupcakes :>)

So ye, the source of this recipe was the kiwi cake that i didn't post yet which i based on my favorite vanilla cupcakes =p

Ps: recipe is based on a very small cakeshape! My cakeshape is 13x13 cm (since i'm the only one eating cakes here i had to reduce a bit xD) so if you make for a normal 20x30 cake pan, then multiply recipe with 4 or so =p

Ingredients:
0,5 dl wholewheat flour
0,5-1 dl white flour
0,5 dl sugar
0,5 dl oat meal
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla suger
0,5 - 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Some salt
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1 mashed ripe pear
And if the dough is too liquid or too dry add whatever is lacking hehehe, my pear was extremely liquid so i added more flour!

Mix the dry ingredients together and add the mashed pear and the vinegar and mix together to a nice dough. Pour into a cakeshape of about 13x13 cm and bake in oven on 175°C for 30 mintues.

It's possible i used too much baking powder and baking soda since it raised a lot, but it was still very yummy! =D Taste kinda like a sweet cinnamon bread (if that exists xD)

Maybe i should let some other pears get overripe too ;p Hehehe

Broccoli-potato-carrot burgers

I've been having a lot of broccoli that i had problems getting rid of lately (actually it was 1 big broccoli xD), and since i also bought 2 kg carrots today (on top of the 1 kg i already have) and had some leftover boiled potatoes in the fridge, i decided to try to make broccoli-potato-carrot burgers =p And they turned out great! (except for that the first batch was too soft since i didnt use maizenna in them, more flour might have been able to fix it aswell)

I took inspiration from the recipe of broccoli brugers that are on veganmisjonen her blog (here is link to my blog that got link further to her blog haha).

Like always i didnt really measure good so i'll give an estimate ;)

Ingredients:
0,5 broccoli, steamed/boiled
1 medium sized boiled potato
2 carrots, grated
1 vegetable stock cube
I think 1 dl oatmeal, or maybe it was 0,5 ;p
0,5 - 1 dl flour
1 tablespoon maizenna
Salt and pepper to taste (i only used pepper since the stock cube is already pretty salty)
Some vegetable oil to bake in


Directions:
Chop the steamed/boiled broccoli and potato into pieces with a foodprocessor for example and might aswell add the vegetable stock cube here aswell so it is into pieces also (i tried to pulverize it a bit first). Then add the grated carrot (or if you have an awesome foodprocessor like mine, then grate it on top of the rest with the food processor ;D hehehe). Mix it nicely together and add the oatmeal, flour, maizenna, salt and pepper and mix it more nice together. I guess it's smartest to let it rest/cool a bit here, but i was too lazy so i just heated some vegetable oil in a pan and fried the burgers some minutes on each side until they were ready ^.^

Then munch munch time ;p (i ate it with mashed potatoes, salad and some vinaigrette made of mustard, vegetable oil, soyamilk and vinegar i think (the vinaigrette was gifted to me since i like it so much! ;D))

Now i'm empty of broccoli, might buy some more later this week though =p hehe

More smoothie xD

Starting to be extremely many smoothies on the blog lately xD

This one is without vegetables hehehe =p

Ingredients that i used:
2 (small) bananas
2 small pressed oranges
2 kiwis
1 apple
5-10 frozen strawberries
Some icecubes
1 glass of water

It's also weird, i think im getting into a cycle where i sleep 6 hours, then 10 hours, then 6 hours etc xD I prefer the 6 hours since i get more of the day then, but only if i feel well-rested =p

Reminds me of some days ago when i had a cycle of ouchy throat one day, then next day not ouchy, then the day after it was ouchy again, then the day after that it was not ouchy xD

Wonder what next cycle will be xD

Anyone else got strange cycles?

My food processor/blender

When i moved to Belgium, one thing i wanted to take with me was the food processor of my parents (they said i could have it xD), but it's kinda risky to take it on the plane so i bought a new one here instead.

The one i bought was this one: Philips HR 7625/70 from Vanden Borre for 55€.

It has both a food processor and blender, which is pretty handy, and it is cheap ^.^ (i like cheap stuff =D

So far it has succeeded in all i tried to do. It can also go in dishwasher which is nice =p I didnt try to make nut-butter yet though, so im curious if it will handle that but we will see =p I have made banana-icecream with it atleast which worked very well, and smoothies, soup, chopped boiled broccoli and more =p I usually only use the blades of the food processor though, but maybe i should test out the rest of the equipments also one day =p

So if anyone is looking for a cheap food processor and blender i reccommend this one! ^.^

Some veggie-days coming up! =D

 This info is found here: Wikipedia FTW!

Friday 30. september is the "Hug a Vegetarian Day" so everyone go hug some vegetarians =p i hope i get some hugs aswell xD
Saturday 1. october is the "World Vegetarian Day" so i encourage everybody to be veggie that day! =p
Me and my bf will celebrate the day by going to Loving Hut, which is 100% vegan ^.^
The whole month of october is the "Vegetarian Awareness Month" so you can try to do the whole month as veggie/vegan (or the rest of your life too which is even better =D)
Sunday 2. october is the "World Farm Animals Day". The day to remember all of the animals that suffer and are needlessly killed by the food-industry.
Theres also some more days/weeks in october that you can read about on wikipedia.

Then 1. november is the "World Vegan Day", so i hope all will be vegan for (at least) a day then ;)
Here is own Wikipedia site for World Vegan Day, and here is link to the Vegan Society.
It's cool its on the date of 1/11/11 this year =p

Of course the best is to be vegan every day ;p

And don't forget about Meatless Monday (or meatless everyday in my case ^.^)

Banana chocosoymilk

I found a chocosoymilk at Lidl made by Soywell, so i bought it to test it out. It wasn't the best chocosoymilk i have tasted (i think Naturli' is the best, and Alpro has the 2nd best chocosoymilk =p). The chocosoymilk from soywell tasted kinda a bit watery, and they could have added more chocolate in it i think to get a deeper taste xD

So, i figured i would "spice" up the taste a bit, so i took 1 banana and about 2 dl chocosoymilk in the blender and blended until it was well-mixed. Very much improvement of the taste! =D Kinda reminds me of something i had when i was younger, i can't remember if it was medicine or candy though haha xD Maybe both =p

Anyways, taste got perfect now, so maybe i should buy more of the chocosoymilk to mix with bananas =p Soywell is kinda cheaper than alpro ^.^ (less than 1€)

Broccoli burgers

I had some broccoli since it was cheap and since i wanted to make the broccoli burgers that i found on veganmisjonen her blog. This is a great way to get rid of leftover rice and broccoli (i mostly have problems with leftover broccoli that sometimes turns yellow/brown xD)

Here is the link to the recipe that i found on veganmisjonen her blog (norwegian): Broccoli burgers

For the english speaking people who follow my blog, here is a short version:

The ingredients i used was:
ca 1 small broccoli or half a big broccoli around 200-300 g, steamed (or boiled) and food-processored into small pieces (i tried in the blender first time, that didnt work too well xD)
ca 2 dl boiled rice (i think it is about 1 dl dry rice)
1 dl oatmeal
1 stock cube
Some oil
Some flour to make it stick better together

So i just mixed the ingredients, and shaped it into burgers and fried them =p

The first time i boiled extra much rice (with a stock cube in) to have next to the burgers as well, the 2nd time i used leftover rice for it.

The picture is from the first time i made them, the 2nd time i just ate them like snacks xD

The coolest part is ofc that they are green! =D

Fresh pressed orange juice!

I got one of the cool objects to juice oranges with, so recently, i've been juicing a lot of oranges!
I prefer juicing eating-oranges (stonefree and more pulp) and not the juicing-oranges (with stones and little pulp, and annoying smell/taste on the skin =s).
I always add the pulp into the juice, so with eating-oranges, it becomes "pulp with juice" while with jucing-oranges it is normal "juice with pulp".
Edit: now i prefer the juicing oranges since too much pulp in the other ones, but here in Norway i think they only got eating oranges.

Before i came to Belgium i didnt even know there were different types of oranges! Maybe since i didnt buy oranges in Norway, since i didnt like eating them (i always got covered by juice then, and it was boring to peel) and i didnt have a cool juicer =p

Green smoothie2

Made another green smoothie now =p This one i wanted to drink so i added water =)

Ingredients:
1 orange
1 banana
2 hands of fresh spinach (although mine was out of date so not that fresh, but got them for half price xD)
Water, for exampel 0,5-1 glass, im not sure howmuch i used.

Fun fair

This evening i went to fun fair in Leuven =p Looked like they had a lot of fun attractions there! =D They also had big, nice fireworks!! =D I love fireworks! =D I didn't do any of the attractions they had though, since I'm trying to save some money, but it's fun to just walk around and take pictures aswell =)