Tomato soup and olive tapenade

Yoyo. Had some leftover tomato puree i wanted to use, and some black olives, so why not make tomato soup and black olive tapenade then :D (actually i made the black olive tapenade yesterday and had leftovers today, but it was yummy together so heck why not xD)

For the soup i used:
Tomato puree
Water
Dried mint
Olive oil
Vegetable bullion
Alphabet pasta (other pasta also works)
Salt
Pepper
Lemon juice

Basically i just boiled the ingredients until the pasta was done :p and ye i didnt measure the ingredients xD

For the olive tapenade i used:
Black olives
Garlic
Vegetable oil
Salt
Pepper

This i blended. Also here i didnt measure.

This tapenade is perfect on roasted bread with vegan margarine on :D

Very delicious :D

Halloween 2014

I love holidays, they give a good opportunity to celebrate =D

As always, halloween is a time for spookiness =D And gross (but still yummy) food =D

So for this years meny i chose to eat mummies, larvaes, blood, and gore ^.^

Followed by way too much candy (and also before and while making the dinner xD)

And some chips and popcorn too =p

I even made some green spooky muffins with some bugs, brains and other nasty stuff in it, but everyone was too full to eat, including me :x

I dressed up as a witch who had been in a witchfight xD

In the evening we watched a movie called the collector. This movie had too much torture and blood and stuff so i was watching computer screen instead luckily, else i would have nightmares still. My brother and sister weren't the biggest fan of it either, but they wanted to know how it ended so they kept watching. I read the summary on wikipedia instead, gave me enough info, without all the visual details :x

Was a nice halloween, looking forward to next years halloween already =D

Veggie lasagne with fennel sauce

Found a lasagne recipe in one of my cook books (donderdag veggiedag, its in dutch though but i guess nice to have if you know dutch xD). It turned out better than expected (sometimes when i cook from recipes, food comes out bit tasteless, but this one was yummy =p)

So i wanted to share recipe =D This one is bit different from the meaty lasagne that i have on the blog from before, since it doesnt have tomato sauce, and it doesnt have milk sauce =o It also doesnt have "meat" xD This one is just veggies =p I made half a lasagne (so i tell what i used, if you want larger then just double it or quadruple). It lasted for 2 meals (or 2 persons if you are so lucky you have someone to share it with)

Ingredients:
Margarine/oil/both/none xD i used both oil and margarine
0.5 fennel, chopped in small pieces
1 yellow or red bell pepper (recipe said yellow since its supposed to be yellow sauce, but i used red since thats what i had), chopped in small pieces
Water to desired consistency (i also added half a veggie stock cube)
Turmeric (i just added until satisfied xD in recipe its safran though but didnt have that)
Salt and pepper until yammie
1 full tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional)

Lasagne plates (i used 3), boiled so they are soft

Oil/margarine/water
0.5-1 onion (depending on size), chopped
0.5-1 clove garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
0.5-1 eggplant (depending on size), in cubes
About 150 g fresh spinach, chopped
Spices (i used basil, oregano, chili, paprika, salt, pepper, onion)

Pine nuts (or in my case sunflower seeds) as decoration

For the sauce:
Saute the fennel and bell pepper, then add water (and stock cube) to cover the veggies and add turmeric and simmer until veggies are tender. Then puree them with a hand mixer or blender or food processor and add more water if needed. Add salt and pepper to taste and nutritional yeast.

For the veggies:
Saute the onion, then add garlic. Add eggplant and bell pepper and saute more until soft. Then add spices to taste, then add spinach and saute until its ready. I also added some water so i didnt have to use shitloads of oil xD

Assembling:
First do a layer of sauce, then veggies, then lasagne plates, then sauce then veggies then lasagne plates etc, and finish it with a layer of sauce, then spread some pine nuts or sunflower seeds on top, and do in oven for about 15 minutes on 180°C.

Enjoy =D I had a salad with mine for extra green, fresh and crispiness

Sorry for bad photos, took them with phone and they looked nicer on that small screen xD But it's the taste that matters for me, not the looks =p

Halloween 2013

Sorry blog for not sharing much lately. Since last i've had my hopefully last exam, and i have travelled on vacation to Belgium to my sweet bf where i had some nice 2 weeks that passed by too fast. On the other hand it's nice being back at work again (yes i actually missed work while i was on vacation xD) and also to be home with my own family =p I wish the distance was shorter though, so i could visit my bf more often.

Anyways back to the topic of halloween. I kinda love holidays and celebrations, and ofc i had to prepare some fancy food for the occation. I also managed to acquire a pumpkin but it's still just laying on the desk, waiting to be used, no carvings or anything in it xD So gotta figure out some pumpkin recipes for next week since i'll probably end up eating pumpkin every day again or so until its gone xD

So for this years halloween i wanted colored food and heres what i came up with:

Dinner:

I guess it might look like i murdered someone ? xD Was yummy atleast =D

I sadly dont have any recipe since i didnt really measure well, but i can give a short summary of what it is in case anyone else wants to try making it =p

So the green is a pesto made of green peas (mine were thawed frozen ones), broccoli (boiled), spinach (i used frozen but fresh is probably good also), soy yoghurt, veggie bullion, salt, pepper, garlic, basilicum (i didnt have fresh so used dried), pumpkin seeds, and nutritional yeast mixed in food processor or blender (could be i forgot some ingredients too).

The red is spaghetti boiled together with a small red beet that i chopped in pieces (great for food coloring!!!).

The orange is mashed sweet potato and carrots. I boiled them to they were soft along with some onion, then mashed them together with some vegan butter, coconut milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and possibly some other ingredients i forgot about xD


Then over to dessert:

This is a banana-blueberry marzipan cake xD

I kinda started using half of the recipe for my 17th may cake, but added some blueberries, bananas and raisins, and dropped the almonds and used a bread shape. It had to stay in oven for way longer than the other recipe and it came out quite dense when it finally wasnt dough anymore xD

For topping i used raspberry jam, bananas mixed with whipped vegan cream, and marzipan mixed with some leftover red beet water from the boiling spaghetti to get it bit more pinkish. Then i did some more jam and some candy skulls for decoration =p

In case someone wondered why i didnt decorate the whole cake it is because someone wanted to have it non-decorated. Personally i prefer with decoration =D But i guess you taste more of the cake part without decoration =p I also made a kiwi-jelly that failed (it wasnt jelly xD) but dont have a picture of it.

Then after eating my family watched the movie "White Noice" while eating some burnt popcorn (i always burn them xD). Was nice movie i think =p Not too scary xD

Hope everyone else had a nice halloween too =D

Pumpkin + mac & sauce

This year my parents surpriced me by buying a pumpkin (i guess i had asked/spammed for one so more likely they buy then ofc xD).

The bad thing in norway is they only got pumpkins week before halloween and not the rest of the year, atleast not that i have seen, and you have to buy a superbig one then. The one i had was probably 6+ kg.

I was too lazy to carve it out for halloween, so i just ate it =p Like every day for a week, so got a bit tired after a while xD So i tried different things, and what i found out worked best was pumpkin pieces in curry or soup, or grated pumpkin in different dishes (i tried in sauce and lasagne). In muffins/pancakes was also good =p What wasnt good was oven roasted, but could be i did it badly.


This i made twice (with and without cauliflower). I dont remember exactly what i did, so ill just put what i think i did.

Mac & pumpkinsauce:

Ingredients:
Macaroni (or other pasta)
Margarine
Onion
Garlic (optional)
Cauliflower (optional, and can also use other veggies)
Grated pumpkin + maybe pumpkin puree if you got that (i had leftovers)
Flour
Non-dairy milk
Stock cube
Nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper

Boil macaroni. Saute onion and garlic and cauliflower (could be i used water also, i dont remember). Mix in some flour and add milk, grated pumpkin, stock cube and let it simmer. Add nutritional yeast and salt and pepper.

Yammies! (yes it looks like puke, but tasted very good =D)

Todays dinner, tomatopasta xD

I guess time to start taking more pic of my food and actually add it fast into pc so i feel like blogging about it xD

Since i have a bunch of cooking books laying around (all vegetarian, no vegan =s) i decided to use my friend random number generator to generate a number, then i open all the cooking books on that side/number and pick the book/recipe that i wanna make the most (or have/know most of the ingredients of xD). Then i lay away the cooking book with a note in for that side so i can easily find my recipe, and generate a new number and choose one of the other recipes/books and lay it away and continue doing this until all the cooking books have a recipe to make xD I told myself i only need to do 3 of them each week though, else all my days are occupied by recipes already, and some of the recipes need like 10 ingredients i dont have, so not so fun then xD

Dunno if i will continue doing it, but i guess i should use the books more and not just let them sit unopened in the closet xD

So ye, first day i picked to make tomatopasta page 134 in the book "Verdens beste vegetar-retter" since i had most of the ingredients and was too lazy to go to shop and wanted a quick and easy meal =p

I did some changes though since i dont have balsamico vinegar and i dont eat cheese and dont have any vegan cheese. I also used lemon juice on bottle and not from a real lemon xD I was also too lazy to measure most of the ingredients, so heres what i used xD

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
0,5 - 1 tablespoon soy sauce (since i didnt have balsamico vinegar and i have no idea what it taste xD)
0,5 teaspoon vinegar (wondering if vinegar could replace balsamico vinegar xD)
0,5 - 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Some fresh and some dry basil
Salt and pepper
1 tomato, chopped
Pasta, i assume its around 100g per person? i think i used 80 or so though =p

So i mixed the wet stuff + salt + pepper, then i added chopped tomato and let it mix or something while the pasta was boiling. Then when pasta was ready drained off the water of the pasta and added the pasta to the tomatothingy and mixed it and ate =p

I wonder what balsamico vinegar taste like xD This is a lunch meal btw, so im still hungry >.> Which means i can eat something more!! =D

Veggie-soup

I wanted to use some vegetables to make a soup so i just mixed alot of random stuff =p Its 1 month ago so could be i remember bad xD

Veggie-soup

Celery
Carrot
Potato
Veggie bullion/stock + as much water you need
Tomato if wanted
Paprika/bell pepper if wanted
Leeks/onion/garlic if wanted (i regret i didnt use onion)
Peas/lentils/beans/pasta if wanted (i used some frozen peas i had xD)
Spinach if wanted (<3 spinach, i used frozen ones)
The spices you want ^.^ for example salt and pepper

Cut the vegetables in pieces and boil it until its tender, then if you want you can do it in a food processor (i did that now, but normally i don't do it). A lot of variation possibilities depending on what you have and like ^.^

This soup tasted like a vitamin bomb or so, probably because of the food processor  xD But was also yummy ofc =p

Vegan lasagna

Some days ago i found a recipe of vegan lasagna here, so i wanted to test it out! I haven't eaten lasagna for some years now (except for a vegetable lasagna that kinda failed since it didn't taste so good xD), so it was cool tasting "normal" lasagna again! =D It failed a bit though since the lasagna plates weren't cooked good so they were still hard, so next time i will use more water in the recipe and hope they cook then, or cook them longer =p I also got empty of the white sauce at the end, so i had to make a bit more =p And i skipped the pine nuts, and added basil and oregano in the TVP mixture for more taste ^.^ (for those who don't know, TVP = textured vegetable protein, the kind i used was TVP mince which is mince consistency, but there are chunk(ball) consistencies also but i think mince fits the most in this recipe)

Here is the recipe copy-pasted (and changed some stuff) from Like a Vegan her blog, all credits goes to the author of the recipe and not to me since i just followed the recipe (more or less). Btw there's more cool recipes on the blog worth checking out i think =p

Meaty Lasagne

Difficulty: Medium
Serves Four


Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups TVP
• 3 stock cubes (i used vegetable stock cubes ^.^)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped (other colors should work aswell xD)
• 2/3 to 1 large jar of tomato pasta sauce (+spices like oregano and basil if you want ^.^)
• 1/3 cup vegan margarine/butter
• 1/4 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 3 large sheets of instant lasagne (oh shit it needed to be instant? xD that explains why mine weren't cooked xD)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Handful of pine nuts (can be skipped =p)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Prepare the TVP as per packaging and crumble in the stock cubes, mix well.
3. In a large frypan, fry the onion and garlic until onion starts to turn translucent.
4. Add the TVP mixture and combine well, keep stirring over the heat for about 3 minutes.
5. Throw in the pasta sauce, you should base how much you used on your personal preference. (and maybe some water also if your mixture is pretty "dry" =p)
6. Set the TVP mixture aside and melt the margarine in the microwave.
7. With a fork, whisk in the flour and microwave for a further 1 minute. (lol after 10-20 sec mine was boiling like hell, so be careful with this =p)
8. Whisk in the soy milk until the sauce is creamy.
9. Add salt and pepper to taste (add some garlic too if you’d like)
10. In a greased 8×8 oven-proof dish, add a layer of the TVP mixture to the bottom followed by 1 1/2 of the lasagne sheets. Chuck a layer of white sauce, then more TVP, then lasagne, then TVP and finish it off with a nice thick layer of white sauce.
11. Sprinkle with pine nuts and bake for about 20 minutes.

Hope you enjoy ;) i did for sure! xD Now gotta buy more TVP though, but i think i will test it out with red lentils maybe, that might work as well =p

Twisted ancle xD and more =p

This week on wednesday i twisted my ancle during aikido training (i fell wrong xD). I think it's the 2nd time that i twist my ancle/foot (first time was at school when i was 6-10 years old or so, so i dont remember much from it xD). It was a bit painful, but not so much, so i continued the aikido training like if nothing had happened xD The day after i went to school like normal and walk/run like i normally do, and when i came home, my ancle had grown (swollen up) ALOT xD it was just like a big big "balloon" xD Still not so painful, mostly annoying =p Friday the swelling got less again and today its even better so i think it will soon be fully cured =p I think it was a pretty light twist, but i dont really have alot of experience to compare with so i dont know =p This summer i twisted my tumb when i fell on the bike, and that was worse xD then i couldnt use the thumb like normal for some days/weeks and it was more painful xD

Well, enough about twisting xD i just find it kinda fasinating to be (lightly) injured xD (says something about how little i got injured in the past xD)

This week i found something vegan in shop that i havent eaten in a looooooooong time: Bourbon cookies!!! =D They used to have them on Lidl, and i loved them! But Lidl left norway many years ago =( The bourbon cookies i found was a bit different from the Lidl ones, but they were still yummy, but now i want the Lidl ones rofl xD Maybe time to do some internet shopping? xD

These are the bourbons i bought =p about 10 kr for a package of 100g

 

 Today i made wok for lunch ^.^

Its with random vegetables: carrot, broccoli, onion, cauliflower, celery, red pepper, zucchini, and noodles =p And then i add soy sauce for more taste ^.^ Yammie! =D