Today is the first day of Vegan MoFo 2014. This ‘year we decided to have 7 themes, one for each day of the week:
Moroccan Monday
Tofu Tuesday
Wine Wednesday
Tomato Thursday
Flour Friday
Seitan Saturday
Slow Food Sunday
First Moroccan themed post will follow later tonight.
Nothing special here, just decided to finally change the appearance of the blog. The old theme was only supposed to be a temporary one to get the blog rolling, but suddenly years had passed and the whole visual look was more and more dated…
Of course there’s only so much you can do with the free themes of WordPress.com, but hopefully this new one is a bit more pleasing (and most importantly, less depressingly dark!) than the old one.
Cheers!
This is the last day of VeganMoFo 2013. The month sure passed quickly, and we managed to blog something every day. As you know, we had chosen a region for each week and every day we cooked something from that area. Here’s a map (via Wikimedia Commons) about our virtual culinary travels (click to enlarge):
Week 1 is blue, week 2 is pink (the location of Mari El Republic is estimated), week 3 is green and week 4 is red.
Each week we found something we’ll definitely make again. Some of our new favourites are Jerk seitan, Pumpkin pie of Mari El, Pörkölt, Maqloobeh and Armenian lentil soup. If you try our recipes, please let us know. We’d like to hear how you liked them.
My favourite thing in this mofo has been http://www.randomofo.com. It’s a site that shows you a random blog of a fellow mofoer. Without it I wouldn’t have seen as many great blogs as I did. I don’t know if it will work after this month, so check it quickly!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.
By the time this post is published, we are exchanging promises of love.
We are getting married. No recipe for today.
Sorry, no recipe for today, as WordPress is apparently having some troubles with image uploading.
Here’s a picture of our cats instead:
It’s that time of the year again. Year sure has passed fast, hasn’t it?
Last year was the first MoFo we had a preplanned theme and it worked out awesome. There shall be a theme this year as well. Last time we concentrated on Finnish cuisine, both traditional and contemporary. This year shall be something new, but not necessarily that different from last year. My parents had two old cookbooks in their kitchen, which gave us the idea to use them as a source and adapting the recipes to vegan versions where necessary!
The first book is called “Kansan Kotiruoka ja Kotitalous” (“Folk’s homefood and home economics”) and it’s printed in 1921. I think it used to belong to someone related to the old lady who used to own the farmhouse my parents bought. Half of the books is about the importance of keeping your home clean, eating well and that sort of lifestyle stuff, while the other half is just recipes. Considering the age of the book, the recipes are simple, often lack fancy spices or ingredients, but still manage to result in tasty food. This might be a good book for students, part-time employed and other who might need some information about cheap, tasty and nutritious food in this time of plastic-wrapped microwave foods.
The second book is called “Kokbok” (surprisingly “Cookbook” in English) and it’s printed in 1922. This book was previously owned by great grand aunt and she had actually received this one as a Yule gift from her mother in 1924. That’s a lot of family history in just one book, and I’m proud to be able to utilise the contents for this years MoFo. As it served my family in the past, it will now serve hopefully an even larger audience. Also, it’s written in Swedish, as my family is of the swedish-speaking minority in Finland.
Join us for a trip to the past in this years MoFo!
We spent couple of days visiting relatives and eating. We do love traditional Finnish holiday food, but eating it four days in a row is more than enough. So kidney bean enchiladas for dinner today was a great idea.
Seeing relatives we haven’t seen for a long time was very nice, and we gave and received some presents too. Some of the gifts we got were cooking related. We got a cast iron pot that can be used both on stove and in oven. I think it’ll be very handy. We also got a cat shaped serving bowl (designed by Ylva Olsson) and two cookbooks.
Härkäpapua sarvista is filled with ecological vegan recipes that use ingredients that grow up here in Northern Europe. I’ve already found some interesting recipes: sauerkraut croissants, mushroom roll and hemp and carrot patties sound delicious and I’ll try the recipes in near future. The other book (Jere Nieminen’s Vegaanin kotiruokakirja) concentrates on fake meats, tofu and burgers. I believe the recipes would also please omnivores. I had borrowed a copy of it from local library and have tried couple of recipes, which were great. Both books are available only in Finnish.
Did you have nice holidays?
We’ve been nominated for a blog award by Louise, by Degrees.
The rules of winning this award are as follows:
1. Show your thanks to those who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal 5 of your top picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Enjoy the love and support of some wonderful people on the www!
I chose five blogs I’ve found from the list of Veganmofoers, and four of them are new to me. I hope these awesome blogs haven’t been awarded yet, but if they are, they sure deserve another award. The authors live around the world, but all the blogs are filled with delicious looking vegan photos and recipes.
1. Cooking vegan food up north. Sweden. I’ve been reading this blog since VeganMoFo 2010.
2. Vegan and Awesome. Brazil. Simple and healthy recipes.
3. Triumph Wellness. Israel. Check those Samosa Stuffed Twice-Baked Potatoes.
4. Vasantika. Slovenia. Unfortunately this blog has been very quiet for a week or so. I hope the author will continue posting in English after the mofo.
5. rabbit food. Canada. I think I have to try that lasagna in the near future.
P.S. Have you seen the list of the mofoers sorted by country?
Elitefood 
