Yet another Slowfood Sunday

Here we go again with another take on the Slowfood Sunday. Minimal effort, maximum results, just like a Sunday should be. The original recipe calls for a crockpot and labels this as a soup. Well, our version is a stew made in our cast-iron magic pot.

The recipe of the stew is sourced from this recipe at Savvy Vegetarian. Our version substitutes sweet potato with ordinary potato, scallions with onion, and the red pepper flakes with chili. For the chili part we used maybe 1/4 tsp of Blair’s Ultra Death 20/20 and 1 tsp of extra hot chili powder. Since we were out of curry powder, we quickly made some ourselves by using this recipe from Allrecipes.com. A nice basic curry.

The stew took some five hours in 175°C and the results were absolutely fantastic. A nice curried taste complemented by a very subtle sting from the chili. We had to add some water during the cooking process to avoid the food from becoming too dry, so if you’re going to try this out, keep this in mind.

Leftovers in a Pan

Pyttipanna (pyttipannu in Finnish, pannu=pan) is a popular way to use leftovers in Northern Europe. Usually it’s made of potatoes and sausages, but you can use nearly anything. This one is made with potatoes, onion, brown beans and frozen vegetable mixture.

Pyttipanna

Boiled potatoes
Vegan sausage, beans, tofu or seitan
1-2 onions
oil or margarine for frying
salt and pepper
paprika

And whatever you happen to have or want to use: frozen, canned or cooked vegetables, garlic, chili, more spices etc.

Peel the potatoes, onions and garlic. Cube the potatoes and sausages/tofu/seitan (and vegetables). Chop the onion and garlic. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry until potatoes are browned. Add beans and frozen veggies in the end of frying. Serve with ketchup and mustard, and maybe pickled beets and cucumbers or some relish.

Beet Patties

In the 19th century a Swedish person called Lindström came up with beef and beet patties called Biff (beef) á la Lindström. But nobody knows for sure who the Lindström actually was, it might have been Henrik Lindsröm, Maria Kristina Lindsröm or someone else with the same name. Anyway, these patties are very well known in Finland too (we call them Lindström’s Patties here) and I think they can be considered as part of Finnish cuisine nowadays.

I veganized Biff á la Lindström years ago without even realising it. I had made patties using kidney beans and beets many times and once I made them when my sister was visiting us. I hadn’t even thought beans and beets might be like any meat dish until she said my patties tasted like Biff á la Lindström. I think she was right, since the taste of beets dominates both original beef patties and my bean patties.

Our dinner yesterday: Beans á la Lindström, Sweetened Potato Casserole and salad.

Beans á la Lindström
(10-12)

4 dl cooked kidney beans or brown beans (or 1 can)
2 beets
1 onion
3 tbsp chopped pickles (½-1 pickle) (optional)
0,5 dl wheat flour
2 tbsp potato flour
1 tsp marjoram
0,5 tsp thyme
salt
pepper
oil for frying

You can boil the beets first, but it’s not required. Boiling makes them softer and easier to grate. They don’t have to be boiled completely soft, 15-20 minutes is enough, but of course they can be soft too (like if you boil more of them and use part of them for batties and part for beet salad or something). Mash the beans in a bowl until there’s no whole beans left. Or use a blender if you like smoother consistence. Chop the onion and pickles and finely grate the beets. Mix everything together and form round patties with your hands. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry patties on both sides on medium heat until browned.

Special Macaroni Casserole

It’s handy to have some food in the freezer for days you don’t have time to cook or if you don’t have any leftovers to take with you to work. Today we made loads of macaroni casserole so we could have it for dinner and have leftovers to freeze.

Two Macaroni Casseroles

400g macaroni
3 big carrots
2 medium/small onions
1 celery stalk
1 can white beans in tomato sauce
salt, pepper, oregano
vegetable broth
half bell pepper
3 dl green beans cut in shorter pieces
2 garlic cloves
5 dl coconut milk
scant 1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
pinch of cayenne
1 tsp lovage

Cook the macaroni according to instructions on the package. Peel and coarsely grate the carrots. Peel and chop the onions. Take two oven proof dishes and divide macaroni, carrots and onions in them. If one is bigger than the other, put 2/3 to it and 1/3 to the other (like we did). Slice the celery stalk and put it and white beans to one dish. Sprinkle salt, pepper and oregano on top and pour enough vegetable broth to barely cover other ingredients. Dice bell pepper and mince the garlic cloves. Put them and green beans to the other dish. Combine coconut, cumin, garam masala, cayenne, lovage and some salt in a bowl and mix them with macaroni mix. Cover both dishes with lid or aluminium foil and bake in 200 Celsius degrees for 45-60 minutes. Remove lid/foil from the first dish after 20-30 minutes and from coconutty dish 5-10 minutes before it’s done.

Eat Like Egyptian

A while ago I found some cheap dried fava beans, but I didn’t use them for anything right away. They were smaller than fava beans I’ve eaten before and the package said they have exciting taste. Yesterday I thought I’d soak and boil half of them and cook them somehow. The beans tasted as exciting as normal fava beans, but they didn’t have such a hard skin.

I found this Fool Medemmas recipe and decided to try it. I made a bigger batch, since it was supposed to be today’s dinner for two and tomorrow’s lunch for one. It was great with pita bread, and super quick to make. Fresh parsley would probably been better, but we only had dried.

Fool Medemmas

6 dl cooked fava beans
3 small onions
2 plum tomatoes
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried parsley
1,25 dl lemon juice
1 hot (or medium hot) chili
salt and pepper

Chop the onions, dice the tomatoes and mince the chili. Mix everything in a pot, bring to boil and cook on medium heat 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Serve with pita bread.

Cabbage Wraps

These wraps are quicker to make than regular cabbage rolls. We used carrots in the filling, but I think sweet potato would be great too.

Cabbage Wraps

8 cabbage leaves
4 very big carrots
4 big garlic cloves
4 fresh chili pods or to taste
4 dl cooked black beans
1 tsp Moroccan spice mix
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt
1-2 onions

Cut the stems of the cabbage leaves thinner to make them easier to roll. Steam or boil until they are soft, about 5 minutes. Put them on a towel to drain the excess water. Peel the carrots and garlic cloves. Cut the carrots in big chunks and boil them with garlic until soft. Drain, add chilies and puree with blender. Add beans, Moroccan spice mix, lemon juice and salt. Chop the onion(s). Put couple of tablespoons of the filling on each cabbage leaves and sprinkle some onion on it. Roll and serve.

Birthday Party

I had birthday last week and I threw a party on Friday. Friends came to our house and I served potato salad, cabbage salad, rye bread and baguette with garlic spread, mushroom pastries and a chocolate cake. The cake recipe is from a new vegan baking book Puputyttö ja vohvelisankari by Raisa Kettunen.

Here’s everything.

And close up of the potato salad. Chopped onion (or chives) could be used in it too, but one of the guests can’t eat onion, so I didn’t use any. The recipe is for very big amount of potato salad, you may want to half it if you have less than 10 eaters.

Potato and Bean Salad

2 kg waxy potatoes
water and salt for boiling
8 dl cooked black eyed beans
6 pickles
1 dl capers

Dressing:
1 dl oil
0,5 dl red wine vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp dried dill

Boil the potatoes and allow to cool. Peel and cube the potatoes, cube the pickles and combine them with capers and beans in huge bowl. Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a smaller bowl, pour on the salad and mix well.

Puputyttö ja vohvelisankari

Simple and Good

We still have quite a lot of preserved vegetables from last autumn. There’s no need to hurry with the dried goods, but the frozen and pickled stuff should be eaten before next autumn. We needed to make an easy meal from the things we had in our pantry and ended up with this stew. You could use fresh chard and kohlrabi instead of dried and frozen, but then you may need to add them few minutes before adding the beans. In the picture the stew is served with Sriracha, garden cress, black currant jam and sauerkraut.

Barley, Lentil and Bean Stew

2,5 dl barley
vegetable broth or salted water for boiling

2-3 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin
0,5 tsp caraway seeds
0,5 tsp ground coriander
0,5 tsp brown mustard seeds
3 onions
3 garlic cloves
1 heaping tsp grated ginger
7 dl water
1 dl dried chard, thin and about 3 cm long pieces
2 dl green lentils
4 dl cooked (or canned) white beans
1 dl corn kernels
1,5 dl kohlrabi cubes or strips

Optional: Sriracha or other hot sauce for serving

Cook the barley according to the instructions on the package.

Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients. Chop the onions coarsely and slice or mince the garlic. Heat the oil in a pot and fry cumin, caraway seeds, coriander and mustard seeds 30 seconds. Add onion, garlic and ginger and sauté until onions are soft and translucent. Add the water, lentils and dried chard. Bring to boil and simmer 15 minutes. Add more water if needed. Add beans, corn and kohlrabi and simmer about 5 minutes. When the lentils are soft but not mushy, add cooked barley. Let sit couple of minutes and serve with or without hot sauce.

Smoky Patties

I saw this bean patty recipe in Chocochili and had to try it. I did some minor changes with spicing, because I didn’t have cajun spice mix the recipe called, but otherwise I followed the original recipe. We had these with mashed potatoes and cabbage and carrot salad. The leftover patties made a great lunch with home made buns and ketchup, mustard and other burger fillings.

Black-eyed Bean Patties

(makes about 8 )

1 dl textured soy protein
1,5 dl hot water
1 tbsp vegetable broth powder (or 1 tsp lovage + some salt)
4 dl cooked (or canned) black-eyed beans
1 tsp smoked paprika
0,25 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp paprika
0,5 tsp cayenne
0,5 tsp thyme
0,5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp oil + more for frying
0,5 dl wheat flour
0,25 dl dry bread crumbs

Put soy protein, vegetable broth powder and hot water into a small bowl and let sit about 10 minutes. Put the beans into a bigger bowl and mash with fork or blender. Mix everything together and let sit in the fridge for half an hour. Make patties with wet hands and fry on oiled pan until they are golden brown.

A Simple Stew

I wanted to eat tofu and noodles today and went to buy tofu after school, but the lady in the shop told me they were out of tofu and they’ll get more on Friday. So instead of tofu and noodles I made bean and lentil stew and ate it with couscous (and learnt that white plate isn’t the best for taking picture of couscous). You can use kidney beans, brown beans, navy beans or whatever beans you like to make this stew. We buy dried beans and cook them, but canned beans can be used too.

Bean and Lentil Stew

2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin
0,5 tsp ground coriander
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
some chili (optional)
1 big carrot
0,5-1 red bell pepper
1 can crushed tomatoes (garlic flavoured is good)
4 dl water
2 dl red lentils
4 dl beans
salt, pepper
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp basil
1 tsp brown sugar, honey or other sweetener

Chop the onion coarsely and mince the garlic. Cut the carrot and bell pepper to small cubes. Heat the oil in a pot and fry cumin and coriander for half a minute. Add onions, garlic and chili (if you use it) and sauté few minutes. Add carrot and bell pepper, sauté couple of minutes. Add crushed tomatoes and water and bring to boil. Put the lentils to the boiling liquid and simmer 5 minutes. Add the beans and herbs and simmer 15 more minutes. Season with salt (I use herb salt), freshly ground black pepper and sweetener.