Family evening

Today i will go out with family to eat pizza at Peppes (this was our xmas present to our parents =p), followed by watching Star Wars 7 on cinema =D We have now watched Star Wars 1-6 during the xmas holidays, so going to cinema to watch the 7th one is a nice finish =D

Started this day with a banana-raspberry shake made of frozen bananas, water and home made raspberry jam =D Very yummy =D

I also ate some leftover strawberry yoghurt from oatly (i prefer alpro) with müsli =p

Biked 10 minutes on my stationary bike and did some strength exercises today =p Time to hop in the shower now before i leave =p

Raspberry ice cream

Today for breakfast i decided to have raspberry ice cream (although it's cold and not sunny outside xD). Because i have frozen bananas i went for the easy, healthy version =p I also added some leftover vegan yoghurt i had =p I let the frozen fruit rest a bit in the food processor before i started it so it wouldn't be too heavy for the food processor to chop the frozen fruits =)

Ingredients:
Frozen banana
Frozen raspberries
Vegan yoghurt (optional)

Put ingredients in food processor and blend =p Enjoy =D Very delicious, healthy, easy and fast =p Can also be made with different berries =p

Almond cake with banana and chocolate

I had some remaining almond pulp after trying to make almond milk inspired by oneingredientchef *english*. I also had a brown banana (actually i had 2 xD), and i wanted to make a cake.

I kinda wanted to use the almond pulp as flour, and not as filling, although i drooled a bit at fyrstekake/macaroon cake *norwegian*.

Inspired by veganeren her almond cake with raspberries *norwegian*, and her chocolate chip cookie bars *norwegian*, i decided to make an almond banana chocolate cake xD

Ingredients:
2 dl almond pulp
3 dl flour
2 - 2.5 dl sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
0.25 teaspoon salt
0.75 dl vegetable oil
3 dl vegetable milk
1+ teaspoon almond essence
1 banana, chopped in pieces (not mashed, i divided mine in 3 lengthwise along the natural division and then chopped in cubes)
100 g chocolate, chopped in pieces

First stir together the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients and mix. Then add the banana pieces and chocolate and mix them carefully into the dough. Put in cake shape sized about 20x30 cm and put in preheated oven on 175°C for about 35 minutes. Check if ready.

Probably best when cooled, but we didn't wait that long, too impatient xD

Sorry for the horrible picture xD It was nice taste though =p

Everyone should also try the almond cake with raspberries on veganeren, it's also really delicious =D <3

Mothersday

Yesterday (9th February) was mothers day in Norway, so i decided to do something nice for my mother =p

When me and my sis and bro were kids we used to give breakfast on bed for this occasion (if i remember correctly xD). Last years though she normally wakes up before us so then it's a bit harder xD

This year i wanted to surprise her with breakfast though so i putted my alarm at 7:30 (but i woke up before 7 xD) and made pancakes (with this recipe from vegetarbloggen *norwegian*). That's my favorite pancake recipe. I replaced half of the flour with whole wheat flour, and i used only half of the sugar, so it would be a bit healthier =p

I figured it would be a bit awkward though if i went into her room with food while she was sleeping, so i cleaned the kitchen a bit instead and made it a bit cozy. Then when she and my dad came, we enjoyed pancakes for breakfast ^.^ (my sister and brother were sleeping so i didn't make for them xD). I forgot to take pictures of the pancakes, but they looked more or less like pancakes xD

Then later i made pineapple upside down cake (recipe from veganeren *norwegian*) and peanut butter cookies with chocolate pieces (recipe also from veganeren *norwegian* who got her recipe from theveganzombie here *english*).

I also had a blueberry banana ice cake in the freezer (basically frozen bananas blended to cream, then frozen blueberries added, followed by some soaked almonds and dates and a bit of vanilla sugar, blended good, put in cake shape and stored in freezer).

Everyones favorite was the pineapple upside down cake. It was really fresh and tasty and so easy to make! I will definitely make it again! :D

The peanut butter cookies with chocolate pieces were also pretty good :p they kinda tasted just like they sound like xD So if you like peanut butter and cookies you will like these cookies :D

The blueberry banana ice cake was nice as well xD This one is more healthy and could probably have a bit better taste xD Actually it is so healthy that you can eat it for breakfast every day without feeling guilty xD It is practically a frozen smoothie, and it can be made with infinite varieties and can be made raw xD

We kids also gave my mom an orchid flower since she likes them :D

So i hope it was a nice day for her =)

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

Banoffee pie

Made a banoffee pie today after drooling at the recipe a couple of times =p

The recipe i found on vegetarbloggen (one of my favorite blogs!) and it turned out delicious. Like a pie with banana and toffee cream =p Nice caramel taste =D I think if i make it again that i will use grated nuts in the dough instead of just flour though, maybe a nut-date-flour mix =p

For english version of the recipe you can use google translate xd

Enjoy =D

Marzipan cake

Heres the cake i made for the norwegian national day 17th of may.

I used more or less the same recipe as last year that i found on vegetarbloggen, but i did some adjustments, so this years cake tasted better =p

Ingredients i used:
400 g flour
2.5 dl sugar
25 g grounded almonds
2 ts baking powder
2 ts vanilla sugar
Some salt
4.5 dl plantmilk
1.5 dl vegetable oil
Some drops of vanilla and almond essence to taste

Mix together dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients and mix together. Divide dough into two buttered and floured 20-24 cm diameter round cake forms and bake in oven on 185°C for 20 minutes. Let it cool.

For me, one of the cakes was bit bigger than the other one. In the original recipe, both are supposed to be sliced in half, but i only did the bigger one in half. Then i did the unsliced cake in the middle.

But ye, back to the assembling. Heres what i used:
Juice (i used tropical juice)
Jam (i used strawberry, but others are fine too)
2 bananas
Vegan whipped cream (i used 2 boxes of GoGreen Visp (2 dl each box), but would be smart to have an extra just in case of need)
Vanilla cream/pudding (i used Freia vaniljesaus mixed with 2.5 dl milk, but alpro vanilla pudding or other vanilla puddings would work too)
Marzipan
Fresh berries for decoration

I had 3 cakepieces so this is what i did:
First i took one of the cut cakepieces and poured over it with juice until it was pretty wet. Then i added the jam, then bananas in pieces, and then whipped cream. Then i added the uncut cakepiece and poured juice over that one too so it got wet. Then i had a layer of jam followed by a layer of vanilla pudding. Then i added the 3rd cakepiece and poured juice over that one too. Then i did whipped cream all around the cake, and on the sides too. Then i rolled out marzipan and covered the cake with it. Then i decorated with berries and some leftover whipped cream.

Heres the result

Chocolate-zucchini muffins

Zucchini rocks, specially in baking ^.^ (and for dinner =p)

I found a recipe for chocolate-zucchini muffins here at happy herbivore (english), and i just had to make it! =D

I'm happy i did, this stuff is yammie! =D

I also added nuts in, which made it even better ^.^

So if anyone got leftover zucchini that they wanna use, chocolate-zucchini muffins is a yammie way to do it =p

Black bean brownies

Yesterday i boiled up some black beans i had in the closet. I decided to make brownies since i had heard that bean brownies are yummy =p I kinda followed 2 recipes, the below one on vegetarbloggen (norwegian) and the one it was based on from happy herbivore (english).

I followed a bit from each recipe (they are more or less the same) and added whatever i thought was needed. A bit annoying was it that it doesnt say amount of boiled beans the recipes use, only canned or dry, so i used 375 gram. I shared with my family and they said it tasted ok, but they could be better (this was also my opinion). Maybe more chocolate or sugar would help, since they were lacking some taste kinda =p And also nuts in would be great i think! =D The dough tasted better than the finished brownies, so i can save myself an hour there by just eating the dough instead, if i dont plan to make brownies from it =p

They dont taste like beans btw =p But it could be smart to tell people that they contain beans after they ate from it, since some people are sceptical to beans in their brownies and wont taste it if they know @_@

Banana brownies

These banana brownies looked so yummy i just had to make them!

The recipe i found here on Sweet Potato Soul her blog.

Since it's stupid measurements (cups xd) i'll write the version i think i used incase i wanna make it in the future so i dont need to find a converter all the time =p (its been some weeks since i made it so could be i remember wrong what i did).
I guess the original recipe is cooler so i would check out that one too (clicky the link above) =p Her pics looks way yummier than mine atleast since my oven is a bit fucked up and likes to burn stuff on the top and leave it unbaked at the bottom.
I also didnt use coffee powder since i dont have that, but i think that its yummier with, if you are so lucky to be in possession of coffee powder =p I also dont have a fancy egg replacer, but i dont let that stop me xD

The recipe i write is for my mini cakeshape of 13x13 cm.

Ingredients:
0.5 dl coconut cream (the creamy part when you have it in the fridge and it seperates)
50 g dark chocolate
0.5 dl flour
Tiny bit of salt
0.25-0.5 teaspoon baking powder
0.5 tablespoon flax seeds + 1.5 tablespoon water
0.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
0.5 dl sugar
1 ripe banana

I possibly also used like 1 teaspoon of corn starch? I dont remember XD

First i melted the coconut cream and dark chocolate (together) in a bowl sitting above boiling water.
Then i mixed the flax and water together and added 0.5 mashed banana, vanilla extract and sugar and mixed. Then i added the choco-coconut sauce to the dough when it had cooled a bit. Then i added the flour, salt and baking powder and mixed more. Then i poured it in my pretty little cake pan (that still seems too big since i eat all the cake myself >.>). Then i sliced the remaining 0.5 banana in slices lengthwise and had it on top before i putted the cake in a preheated oven on 175°C for about 40 minutes.

Like i said, my oven likes to burn stuff xD I also think it wasnt totally baked inside, so maybe check that before eating =p


Some offtopic: I've been waiting 4 months now for nutritional yeast from iHerb (probably it got lost in the mail or so), so i kinda give up on it ever arriving =(( Sooo, anyone know where i can buy nutritional yeast in Leuven? Since i have the feeling that if i try ordering something online again that it will never arrive >.> I also kinda want liquid smoke =D Anyone know if they sell that also in Leuven? I guess the answer is no to both, but its worth a try 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

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

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?

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€)

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.

Sour smoothie ;(

In today's smoothie i added lemon so it's very sour =p I also added basil, so most of the taste is lemon+basil xD

Ingredients:
1 banana
3 (frozen) strawberries
1 ball of frozen spinach
1 orange
1 lemon
1 carrot
0,5 red bell pepper/paprika
2 cauliflower florets
Some basil leaves (maybe 5-10?)

Green smoothie

I like to have healthy smoothies, so i often add some ingredients that arent normal to add =p This one taste very neutral and un-specified (dunno if thats a good or bad thing xD) but i like the color of it! =D It is again very thick consistency, so if you decide to make it and want it more liquid then add more liquid =p

Ingredients i used:
4 (frozen) strawberries
1 frozen chopped spinach ball-thingy
1 orange
1 banana
1 pear
2 pieces of cauliflower (dunno what its called)
4-5 cm cucumber

Blend it and tadaaaa: you got something green drinkable (or eatable by spoon again xD)

Smoothie =p

This smoothie i have for breakfast today =p Very yummy! And nice fluffy consistency (i actually eat it with spoon rofl, since it reminds more about yoghurt than liquid in consistency).

Well heres the ingredients i used, but you can use different if you want ofc! And if you want to drink it instead of eating it with spoon, then add more liquid =p
5 (frozen) strawberries
1 carrot
1 orange
1 banana
1 apple

Then just blend it all together in a blender or foodprocessor (i actually have blender now so i did it in blender ^.^) and enjoy =D

Banana spice cake

I think this is my favorite cake! =D The nice mix of sweet bananas with yummy spices in a delicious cake! =D It had been a long time since i had made this cake, but then i was invited to a party and i had some ripe bananas, and the people hadn't tasted banana spice cake before, so banana cake felt like the perfect cake to make ^.^ Btw the riper your bananas is, the better =p I wouldn't use green bananas for this recipe xD

The recipe i found on vegweb here (english): Banana spice cake

Here's how i did it, more or less following the recipe (best to follow the link for the real recipe maybe =p):

Ingredients:
4 dl flour
3 dl sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 dl mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas, i like to add a bit extra lol)
1 dl soymilk + 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice mixed together
1 dl vegetable oil
2 tablespoons NoEgg eggreplacer
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves

Then i mixed the dry ingredients, and added the wet ingredients and mixed more, and poured into a cake shape (ca 20x30 cm) and baked in oven at 175°C for about 35 minutes.

Banana spice cake is definitely a good reason to stack up on bananas! xD Atm i only have some frozen bananas so i need to buy more bananas soon! xD

Smoothie2

Today i made another smoothie, with a bit different ingredients, so i thought i would post it ^.^

The stuff i used is: 2 bananas, 1 apple, 1 orange, frozen red currants (rips), ice cubes, water

The result was pretty sour, but yummy xD