Swedish Movie Night

On Saturday we had a Swedish movie night with our friends. The Russian movie night couple of months ago was in our home, and this time we went to their home. First we drank snaps, Akvavit of course. But we didn’t sing any Swedish snap songs. Akvavit was very good, it tasted like fennel with a hint of caraway seeds.

After the snaps, we had awesome pea soup. Seriously, it must have been the best pea soup I’ve ever had. Our friend had simmered it 5-6 hours, maybe that’s the secret of her soup. We couldn’t find any mellanöl or other Swedish beer, so we had porter instead.

We also had crisp bread and new Alpro soy margarine.

When we had finished our soup and bread, we watched the movie. Our friends had chosen Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend buying/renting/borrowing a copy. Or if you have already seen it, you can watch it again.

After the film we had the main course. It was pyttipanna made with potatoes, onion, habanero and soy sausages. As a side dish we had cucumbers, which were similar to these Vinegar cucumbers, but they were made only with water, salt and dill.

For the dessert we had coffee and vanilla buns made with a recipe by The Vegan Swedes.

We had great time eating and watching the movie. Now we’ll have to decide which country we choose next. Finnish cuisine is strongly influenced by Russian and Swedish cuisines and all the food we’ve made for our movie nights are commonly eaten in Finland too. Maybe next time we’ll have a country that is not so close to us.

Make Your Own Vegetable Broth

Making vegetable broth is easy. I make broth from vegetable scraps that are usually thrown away, like carrot peels, cabbage stems and herb stalks. We collect them into a plastic bag and keep it in the freezer. You can put there nearly anything as long as it’s not rotten, moldy or dirty.

You can use to make broth: (for example)
- carrot, parsnip, rutabaga and other root vegetable peels (wash them well before peeling)
- cabbage, broccoli, mushroom etc. stems
- parsley, dill, basil and other herb stalks
- apple and pear cores
- onion and garlic peels
- green parts of leek
- slightly wilted celery or other vegetables

Do not use:
- potatoes because of starch
- tomato because of acid
- citrus fruits because of acid
- anything rotten or moldy

Think before using:
- beet, red cabbage or other dyeing ingredients. You may not want to use beets for Jerusalem artichoke soup, but they’ll be fine for borcht.
- cabbage. Use only small amounts, because otherwise it’s taste can be too dominant
- I haven’t tried ginger, chili or rosemary, because I think they might have too strong flavour. On the other hand, they could be good for spicy Asian-style soup.

When you have saved a bag full of vegetable scraps, put them in a big pot and cover them with water. Add 1 tsp salt. You can also add peppercorns, herbs and/or bay leaves.

Bring to boil, lower the heat and slowly boil without lid at least an hour. The liquid has reduced from what you started with and the water has turned into a tasty broth. Strain the vegetables out.

Use your broth for soup, sauce, stew, risotto… This batch was used for soup with carrots, parsnip, potatoes, leek and black eyed beans.

Pea Soup Thursday

This is it. One of the oldest “Finnish” soups to survive to modern day. Originating from the middle-ages, this very filling soup was consumed traditionally on Thursdays, as catholic tradition dictated Friday as a day of fasting. The pea soup followed Sweden (and in turn, most inhabited parts of Finland) into Thirty Years’ War of 1618–1648 and those recruited soldiers from areas not yet familiar with the dish were introduced to its deliciousness. It takes some time to prepare, but it is so filling it’s definitely worth the wait! The usual dessert after pea soup is pancake or crepes. We’ll write more about that tomorrow.

By no means is this an original recipe from the 12th century, but a bit modernised one.

Pea Soup

250 g dried peas
water for soaking

1,3 l water
1 tsp marjoram
scant 1 tsp whole pepper corns
salt

optional ingredients: onion, carrot, seitan, textured soy protein

mustard for serving

Soak the peas in plenty of water overnight. Drain and rinse. Bring 1,3 l water to boil and add the peas. Slowly boil (1-)2 hours. Add carrots, onion or other optional ingredients when the peas have been boiling half an hour. Also add pepper corns and marjoram. When the soup is almost ready, season with salt. You should never add salt in the beginning of boiling any legumes, because the salt makes the cooking time longer. Serve with mustard (and chopped onion).

The Hated Soup

All the kids hate it. Most of the adults hate it. Evil mothers make their poor children eat it. Not really, but Summer soup has that kind of reputation. Anyway it’s true that many people don’t like it and Summer Soup can be one reason why omnis think vegetarian food tastes bad. I, on the other hand, have always liked it, even as a child.

Summer Soup

5 dl water
2 carrots
5 small potatoes
½ cauliflower
2-3 dl peas, snow peas and/or green beans
salt
fresh or dried dill and parsley (and chives)
5 dl soy or oat milk
1 tbsp flour (optional)
1 tbsp margarine

Bring the water to boil. Meanwhile peel and slice the carrots and peel and cube the potatoes. Add them to the boiling water. Break the cauliflower into small florets and add to the pot. Cut the snow peas and/or green beans about 2 cm long pieces and add them to the pot too. Simmer until the vegetables start to get soft.

If you use flour: Add 4 dl milk to the pot and bring back to boil. Mix the flour with remaining 1 dl milk and pour it to the pot constantly stirring. Add rest of the ingredients and simmer about 5 minutes. If you’re not using the flour you can just add all remaining ingredients to the pot, bring to boil and simmer several minutes.

Muffin Failure and Lentil Soup

Finland’s national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg was born on 5.2. and that day has been named Runeberg’s day. All Finns eat Runeberg’s tortes that are muffins with ground almonds and raspberry jam. I had a plan to make them and post the recipe here, but something went wrong. Runeberg’s torte should look like this, but mine looked like this

I don’t think anyone would be interested in recipe, so I won’t post it here. Maybe I’ll have better luck next year. I also made lentil soup, with much better success. You can add couple of garlic cloves if you feel like.

Lentil Soup

1 onion
2 tbsp oil
500 g crushed tomatoes
1 l water
2 dl red lentils
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
0,5-1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
0,5 tsp lovage

Peel and chop the onion. Heat the oil in a soup pot and sauté the onion until its soft and translucent. Add tomatoes and water and bring to boil. Add rest of the ingredients and slowly boil 15-20 minutes. Enjoy with fresh bread.

Broccoli Soup

If you need only the florets of broccoli for some food, don’t discard the stems. It doesn’t matter what part of broccoli you use in this soup, since it will be pureed. The soup is quite simple basic soup, but my friends have liked it a lot. One batch is enough for 4 people if it’s served as main course (with bread and hummus maybe) or 6-8 as starter.

Quick Broccoli Soup

1 tbsp oil
1 onion
800g broccoli
1,2l vegetable broth (water + bouillon cube)
1 tsp lovage
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp basil
0,5 tsp thyme
2 dl oat milk
0,5 tsp black pepper
salt if needed

Chop the onion and cut the broccoli in about 4cm pieces. Heat the oil in a pot and sauté the onion until it’s soft and translucent. Add the broth, herbs and broccoli. Bring to boil and cook 10-15 minutes or until broccoli pieces are soft. Puré with a blender. You can save some florets for garnishing, if you want to. Add milk, heat and season with (salt and) pepper.

German Style Cabbage Soup

We decided to eat soup yesterday without any plans what kind of soup it would be. So we just bought carrots, cabbage and celeriac and thought they’d make a good soup with some sort of protein source, like seitan or beans. Nomad did some research in the Internet and found a German ham and potato soup recipe and we made a vegan version of it.

I made double batch of basic seitan, but used less soy sauce and no vinegar in cooking broth. Then we used the same broth to make the soup. But I think broth from bouillon cubes would be just as good, especially if you have premade seitan or don’t want to make 8 balls.

Red Cabbage Soup with Seitan
serves 8

2,5-3 l vegetable broth + bay leaf + some pepper corns (or use seitan cooking broth)
1 tbsp dried parsley
2 balls basic seitan
3 carrots
6-8 potatoes
about 200g piece of celeriac
1 big onion
half red cabbage head (quarter of a big one)
(salt if needed)

Put the broth (with bay leaf and pepper corns) and parsley into a large pot and bring to boil. Meanwhile cube the seitan, carrots, potatoes and celeriac, chop the onion and cut the cabbage into 5 cm strips. Put everything to the pot and simmer covered 20-30 minutes or until vegetables are soft. Add more water if needed.

Somewhere Deep in The Caribbean…

No rats in the vichyssoise, but a warm and sunny bowl of soup. Pineapplejuice, ginger and chili give this soup warmness, which makes it perfect winter food. The recipe isn’t ours, someone gave it to me couple of years ago, but I have no idea where it has been published originally.

Caribbean Lentil Soup

1 onion
piece of red bell pepper
piece of parsnip
2 carrots
3 medium potatoes
2 dl red lentils
2-3 tbsp oil
2 tbsp grated ginger
pinch of chili powder or some fresh chili
2 tbsp minced garlic
2-3 tbsp tomato purée
0,5 tsp ground allspice
1,5 l water
4 dl pineapple juice
1 tsp salt
0,5 dl lemon juice
cilantro (optional)

Chop the onion and cube the vegetables. Rinse the lentils. Heat the oil in a big pot and sauté the oinon, bell pepper, ginger, chili and garlic couple of minutes. Add tomato purée, allspice and cubed vegetables, sauté couple more minutes and add water and lentils. Bring to boil and simmer 30 minutes. Add pineapple juice and simmer a little longer. Season with lemon juice and salt. Sprinkle fresh cilantro on top and serve.

Mushroom soup

Last year was a great for picking forest mushrooms and now we have lots of pickled, dried and salted mushrooms in our pantry. Funnel chanterelles are excellent source of vitamin D, so they should be eaten often in the winter time. Since we had picked and dried the mushrooms ourselves, this meal was really cheap. We also had some bread that was a bit dry and made croutons: we cubed the bread and fried it in oil with garlic and then served with the soup.

Funnel Chanterelle Soup

3 tbsp oil
2 shallots
2 dl dried, crushed funnel chanterelles + water for soaking
1 l water
1 mushroom (or vegetable) bouillon cube
2 dl oat cream
2 tbsp wheat flour
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried chervil
dash of white pepper

Optional: garlic croutons for serving.

Chop the shallot and soak the funnel chanterelles in hot water until soft. Heat the oil in a pot and sauté the shallots couple of minutes. Drain the mushrooms and add them to the pot. Sauté until the shallots are soft and translucent. Add 9 dl water and bouillon cube and bring to boil. Mix the remaining 1 dl water and wheat flour in a small bowl and pour slowly to the soup, stirring at the same time. Simmer 5 minutes, add cream and season with herbs and white pepper. Bring to boil and simmer few more minutes before serving. Serve with or without croutons.

Soup Is Good Food

It’s time to use the pumpkin we have in our fridge. I used some of it to this soup, but there’s more than a half left, so we’ll be eating more pumpkin in the near future. Soup is nice food on a busy day, because you can just let it simmer while you do other things. This soup is a light meal, so you may want to have a hummus or tofu sandwitch with it. Or maybe serve it as a starter.

Pumpkin Soup

2-4 shallots
3 tbsp oil
2 garlic cloves
1 fresh chili (I used lemon drop)
3cm piece fresh ginger
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1 l water (or broth)
3 carrots, cut in 2-3cm thick slices
2 potatoes, cubed
1 l pumpkin cubes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp lovage
1 tsp dried parsley (or 1 tbsp fresh)
50g creamed coconut

Chop the shallots coarsely. Mince garlic, chili and ginger. Heat the oil in a pot and fry the shallots for a minute or two. Add garlic, chili, ginger, turmeric, cumin and coriander and fry one more minute. Add the water, salt and lovage and bring to boil. Add carrots, potatoes and pumpkin, cover with a lid and cook until they are soft. Remove heat and puré the soup with a blender. Put the soup back on heat, add parsley and coconut and stir until the coconut is melted. Taste and add more salt or other spices if needed.