Kitri

Kitri is an Indian dish with rice, beans and vegetables. Preparation is simple: throw the ingredients into a pot and cook. There are various versions of this food, some are more risotto like where the rice is first cooked in oil before adding the water, and more simple versions like this. You can use whichever vegetables you like, e.g. cauliflower, zucchini or bell pepper. Use the spices according to your own taste. The chilli I used in making this was a bit too spicy for my taste so be careful with that!

Kitri

• 1,5 litres water
• 2 decilitres whole wheat rice
• 2 decilitres mung beans
• 4 potatoes
• 3 carrots
• 5 tomatoes
• 1 mild red chilli pepper
• a pinch of oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• black pepper
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon turmenic
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

Remember to soak the beans the night before. Bring water to the boil in a pot. Add the beans and the bay leaves. Cook for 20-30 minutes (you can also cook the beans beforehand - in this case add the beans at the same time as other vegetables and use less water). Chop the vegetables and chilli but be careful while handling the chilli (read more about handling chilli here). Add the vegetables, chilli and rice. Check the cooking time from the package to make sure your rice gets cooked properly (if it's quick rice you might want to add it later and vice versa). Add more water if needed. Cook for another 20 minutes or until there is very little/no water remaining. Add the spices and the oil.

A Quick Curry

Curry is one of the basic vegetarian food. Whenever I'm thinking about what to cook curry is the first thing that pops in my mind. It's so easy to make. Just chop the ingredients, place them in the pot, cook, let stew and that's it. You can use pretty much any vegetables so making curry often doesn't mean eating the same food all of the time. This curry is especially quick and easy to make. Apples add a nice sweetness and balance the spiciness.

Apple-lentil curry

• 3 decilitres red lentils
• 2 onions
• 2-3 apples
• 300 grams cabbage (or Chinese cabbage)
• ½ tablespoon grated ginger
• 2 tablespoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder or cayenne pepper
• 6 decilitres water
• salt, pepper

Chop onions, cabbage and apples. Rinse the lentils. Heat a bit of oil in a pot and add the onions. Cook them for a couple of minutes and add the cabbage. When the cabbage is soft, add apples, lentils, ginger, spices and water. Let it stew for 10-20 minutes until the lentils are soft.

Serve with rice or bread.

Date squares

The taste of dates always reminds me of Christmas, and they're healthy too. This baked good is really easy to make. You can leave out the spices if you wish but I think that they add a wonderful taste. The best way is to bake these in a rectangular pan but I unfortunately had only round ones.

Vegan Date crumble squares

Date filling:

• 350 grams pitted dried dates
• 2 decilitres water

Oatmeal crust

• 4 decilitres oatmeal
• 2 decilitres whole wheat flour
• 1½ decilitres cane sugar
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 180 grams margarine
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom

Chop the dates. Place dates and water in a saucepan and cook on medium heat util the dates are soft and have absorbed most of the water. Let the mixture cool down and mix it in your food processor to get a smooth mixture.

Preheat the oven into 180. Place oatmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and cardamom in a bowl and mix. Mix in the butter to get a crumbly mixture. You might want to use your hands or a food processor.

Press 2/3 of the mixture on the base of an oiled pan. Spread the date mixture on it evenly. Sprinkle the remaining dough on top of the date mixture and press to compact. Bake for 30-40 minutes until it has a golden brown colour. Let them cool down before cutting.

Sunday Brunch

Pancakes are the perfect brunch for a lazy Sunday morning. These are extremely easy to make (the batter is made by basically just measuring all the ingredients into a bowl and whisking). Cooking the pancakes can be a challenge for some people. Just make sure the pan isn't too hot or the pancakes will burn before they are firm enough to be flipped around. The smaller the pancake the easier it is to cook it. Also remember to use enough oil!

Pancakes don't sound like a very healthy breakfast but I made these with whole wheat flour and there's only one tablespoon of sugar! The blueberries add some sweetness and also have lots of vitamins. The pancakes do suck in a lot of oil while they're being cooked but vegetable oils have a lot of vital unsaturated fats.

Vegan Blueberry pancakes

• 2½ decilitres (whole wheat) flour
• 1 tablespoon cane sugar
• 1½ tablespoons baking powder
• 1½ tablespoons oil
• 2,5 decilitres soy/grain milk
• 1½ decilitres (fresh or frozen) blueberries

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk in oil and milk. Stir well. Fold in the blueberries.

Drop two spoonfuls of batter on a hot greased pan. Cook it until the pancake is firm enough to be flipped around. Cook until both sides have browned (Remember to add oil on the pan in between cooking each pancake!).

Serve with honey or maple syrup.

Peanut Butter!

Here's another excellent vegan biscuit recipe. These are not chewy like the double chocolate-chip cookies but they have a nice and rich peanut butter flavour. Peanut butter is something that every vegan should at least sometimes have in their cupboards. As a vegan you can't put cheese on your bread to get some proteins so peanut butter is a great choice. It also has vital unsaturated fats and magnesium. Make sure that you choose unsweetened peanut butter. The ingredients list should have the maximum of two ingredients, that is peanuts and salt. So if you happen to have some of this delicious butter in your kitchen cupboard why not bake something with it!

Fruity baby-foods are excellent egg-replacements in baking. You can just as well use any fruit mash but baby foods just come in such good portion sizes (a rule of the thumb is to replace one egg with one small can of baby food). You can choose pretty much any flavour you like but in this recipe I recommend using something yellow, like mango or peach.

Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate-chip Cookies 

Makes approximately 20 cookies.

• 100 grams margarine
• 1½ decilitres cane sugar
• 1 decilitre mango flavoured baby food (or fruit mash)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 1 1/4 decilitres smooth peanut butter
• 3 decilitres flour (I used half whole wheat and half all-purpose flour)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 80 grams dark vegan chocolate chips

Preheat the oven into 175°C. Cover a sheet pan with bakery paper. Beat the butter and sugar with a mixer until it's fluffy. Beat in the peanut butter, vanilla sugar and baby food. Mix the flour and baking soda in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients into the peanut butter-mixture and mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips. If the batter is too soft to form into balls put it in the fridge to cool down.

Roll the dough into approximately 3cm balls. Place them on the baking sheet 5cm apart. Press the balls down with a fork to make a crisscross pattern. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes or until the edges have just slightly started to brown. Let the cookies cool down.

Summer in your mouth

I wanted to come up with some use for the blueberries in the freezer that were picked up last summer. Blueberry muffins are such a classic baked good and there probably are as many blueberry muffin recipes as there are bakers. Even though muffins are easy to make, they are surprisingly hard to get right. They often end up too dry, too fluffy or too sweet. This recipe gives them the perfect texture and a wonderful rich taste. These simply happen to be the best blueberry muffins I've ever tasted. And the best thing is that they're egg-free and can easily be made vegan! Just use soy yoghurt and soy/grain milk. If you use dairy products please choose the organic option. I made a few changes into the recipe but the original one can be found in http://www.inerikaskitchen.com.

You can use either frozen or fresh blueberries. If you use frozen ones don't defrost them! Otherwise the berries will bleed into the batter and the whole batter will turn blue. Take the berries out of the freezer just before adding them. Half of the flour I used was whole wheat and the texture was still great. I also added 70 grams of dark chocolate chips because we just happened to have some chocolate in our cupboard. The chocolate is a great bonus and adds some extra richness to the flavours.

Vegan/ Egg-free Blueberry Muffins

• 4 decilitres flour (I used 2 decilitres whole wheat and 2 decilitres all-purpose flour)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1½ decilitres cane sugar (and more for sprinkling)
• 1 1/4 decilitres soy/grain/organic milk
• 1 1/4 decilitres soy/organic yoghurt
• 75 grams margarine
• 4 decilitres blueberries

Preheat the oven into 200°C. Place 12 muffin tins on a sheet pan. Mix the flour, baking powder and soda in a large bowl. Place the sugar, milk, yoghurt and butter in a bowl and microwave it for one minute or until the butter starts to melt. Whisk until there are only little bits of butter floating in the mixture. Add the blueberries into the flour and toss to coat. Slowly and carefully add the milk-butter-mixture in.  Fold until just incorporated. Don't over-mix! Little streaks of flour are okay. Divide the batter into the tins and sprinkle sugar on top. Bake for 25-28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbles clinging to it and they have a nice golden brown colour. Let the muffins cool down.

A not-so-traditional Italian delicacy

We had some guests coming for a visit and I had to come up with something to bake. We have a several decades old bottle of Amaretto liqueur sitting in our shelf and I decided to give it some use. The result was a bit modified version of the classic Italian delicacy. The cacao-flavoured sugar cake absorbs a lot of liquid so the cake is deliciously moist. The quark adds freshness to mascarpone and the coffee and Amaretto just make it perfect. If you don't want to use Amaretto any almond or coffee liqueur is fine. If you want to avoid alcohol you can also use water and almond extract. 

A word of warning: This recipe is not vegan. Nor is it healthy. But it's so incredibly delicious that it makes up for all that. Because of both ethical and nutritional reasons I use only organic dairy products and eggs. The factory farm cows are pumped full of hormones to make them grow faster and they are also fed with antibiotics to prevent them from getting infections. All of that is in their milk so next time you buy milk think of all the hormones and drugs you're putting in your body. The same thing applies to the eggs. Also several viruses, like the H1N1 spread from factory farms. Using growth hormones and drugs is forbidden in organic farming so at least when buying organic animal products you know what you're eating.

This recipe is a lot easier than the traditional tiramisu recipes but it has the same wonderful taste of Italy. I highly recommend using organic eggs and dairy products to not only make the cake taste better but to also make it better for you.

Organic Quark Tiramisu

Cake:

• 4 organic eggs
• 1½ decilitres cane sugar
• 1 decilitre flour ( feel free to use whole wheat)
• 1½ decilitres dark unsweetened cacao powder (and more for sprinkling)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Moistening:

• 1 decilitre strong black coffee
• ½ decilitre Amaretto liqueur

Filling:

• 2 organic eggs
• ½ decilitre sugar
• 250 grams organic quark
• 250 grams organic mascarpone cheese
• 3/4 decilitres orange/apricot marmelade

First prepare the cake. Preheat the oven into 200°C. Cover a sheet pan with bakery paper. Sift together the flour cacao powder and baking powder. Beat together eggs and sugar until the mixture has thickened and turned pale yellow. Mix the dry ingredients into the sugar-egg mixture. Spread the batter on a sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Lay the cake upside down on a another bakery paper sprinkled with sugar and carefully remove the paper it was baked with.

Now prepare the filling. First beat the eggs and sugar just like you did with the batter. In a separate bowl beat together quark and mascarpone. Add the mascarpone-mixture into the egg-sugar-mixture and mix well. Mix in the marmalade.

Cut the cake in half. Mix together the coffee and Amaretto. Use half of the moistening on one half of the cake. Spread half of the filling on the cake. Lay the second half on top, moisten it and spread the rest of the filling. Sift some cacao powder on top. Let the cake rest in the fridge for at least a couple of hours before serving (you may also prepare it the day before serving).

Read more about factory farming:

In English:
http://www.greathealthconnection.com/2011/meat-from-factory-farms-full-of-dangerous-hormones/

In Finnish:
http://kulma.net/mkevat/hormooni.html
http://www.taloussanomat.fi/ihmiset/2011/02/06/taman-jalkeen-et-enaa-syo-elaimia/20111728/12

A Taste of Childhood

All of us have those foods that just instantly take us back to childhood and to me Karelian pasties are one of those. The rye crust and the soft barley, rice or potato filling just get me every time. It's such a shame that it's so difficult to find good Karelian pasties from the shops anymore. Most manufacturers mix wheat and other grains with rye in the crust and add way too much salt. The filling is often tasteless and the crust isn't crispy like it should be. The reason for this can be found when you take a look at the ingredients of these ready-made Karelian pasties.

Karelian pasties with barley (on left) and potato filling (on right).

Let's take Vaasan's "Isoäidin rukiinen karjalanpiirakka" (meaning Grandmother's Karelian pasty made with rye) as an example. Home-made Karelian pasties have six ingredients: milk, rice/barley, whole wheat rye flour, water, oil and salt. Vaasan's Karelian pasties in the other hand have 16 ingredients. Here's the list:

Water, rice 25%, rye flour, vegetable oil, wheat flour, whole wheat rye flour, vegetable fat, carrot, wheat gluten, sugar, salt (1,0%), glucose, rye malt, milk protein, flavours, colouring (E 160a = beta-carotene). The rye-content is 8%.

The number one thing you should remember when reading ingredients-lists is that the ingredient which was used the most is the first one on the list. Next time you go to the supermarket next time just check how many products have water right at the top of the ingredients-list and you'll be surprised. The reason for this is very simple: the more water there is in the product the cheaper it is to make. Even though the very name of this product suggests that it's made with rye, there's also wheat mixed in. Some things on the list are just confusing. Why is there carrot in Karelian pasties? Or why is there sugar? glucose? wheat gluten? milk protein? colouring? artificial falovours? My grandmother sure didn't need to use food colouring to make her pasties look nice and tasty.

I've actually made Karelian pasties just a couple of times so I'm definitely not an expert. Believe it or not - they're actually pretty easy to make. The only tiring part is forming the pasties since it takes quite a lot of time. If you want to make these pasties note that it takes a couple of hours.

Karelian pasties (or Karjalanpiirakat)

Barley filling:

• 2 1/4 decilitres whole barley
• 3 decilitres water
• 1,5 decilitres oat/organic milk
• 1 teaspoon salt

Potato filling:

• 10 potatoes
• ½ decilitre oat/organic milk
• ½ tablespoon margarine

Pasty dough:

• 2½ decilitres water
• 6 decilitres whole wheat rye flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

• vegetable oil or melted margarine mixed with milk for brushing

Choose which filling you want to use (you can also make rice porrige) or you can make half of each.

Barley filling: Bring the water to the boil and add the barley. When the water has absorbed into the barley, add milk and salt. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for 40-60 minutes while stirring. Be very careful since milk is burned very easily.

Potato filling: Peel the potatos and cut them in squares. Boil the squares for 10-20 minutes until they're soft. Pour out the water. Puree the potatos and add milk and margarine.

Let the filling cool down.

Pasty dough: Measure water into a bowl. Add salt and oil. Start adding the flour. First whip it in but eventually you have to use your hand to knead the dough. Let the dough rest for a little while.

Preheat the oven into 300°C Place a sheet pan into the oven to get it heated as well. This way the pasties will be nice and crispy.

Sprinkle some flour on the table you're using so the dough doesn't stick. Roll the dough into a long "snake" and cut it into small slices. Roll the slices into balls and cover them with plastic wrap so they don't dry.

Use a rolling pin to roll out the balls into very thin disks. Cover the disks with plastic wrapping. Sprinkle some flour on each disk before you pile the next one on top of it so they don't stick to each other. Once the disks are ready, it's time to start forming the pasties!

Spread some filling on the disk. Raise the edges of disks towards the centre pinching with you're fingers to make an oval-shaped pasty. Place the pasties on bakery paper. Carefully take the hot sheet pan out of the oven and slide the bakery paper with the pasties on the pan. Put it in the oven and bake for 10 minutes or until they look ready. 

Brush the pasties with canola oil or milk-margarine-mixture after you've baked them (do the brushing while the pasties are still hot).

Step-by-step pinching:

... We have cookies!

I love biscuits. Who doesn't? But good vegan biscuit recipes are quite hard to find. I love big American-style chewy cookies but in those recipes eggs are often a vital ingredient. These cookies are chewy, chocolaty and absolutely delicious - you wouldn't believe they're vegan! (original recipe from http://www.food.com/)

The dough is quite different from you're typical cookie dough. The amount of dry ingredients seems huge compared to the amount of wet ingredients and you have to use your hand or an electric dough mixer to get all of them mixed in. It's still quite easy to roll balls from the dough. There are no saturated fats in this recipe and even though there's a lot of sugar I used cane sugar which is a bit healthier option. I didn't feel like being a health-freak while baking these cookies but feel free to replace part of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour.

If you want to try something different try replacing the chocolate chips with chopped nuts (any nuts are fine). And why not try using white chocolate chips?

Chewy Vegan Double Chocolate-Chip Cookies  (30-40 biscuits)

• 1 3/4 decilitres canola oil
• 4½ decilitres cane sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar/extract
• 1 tablespoon (ground) flax seeds
• 1 decilitre soy/grain milk
• 4½ decilitres flour
• 1 3/4 decilitres dark unsweetened cacao powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 decilitres vegan chocolate chips

Preheat the oven into 175°C. Cover a sheet pan with bakery paper. If you're using whole flax seeds, grind the seeds in a blender (if you have ground flax seeds just place them in a bowl). Add soy/grain milk and blend/whip the mixture for a little while and set aside. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cacao powder, baking soda and vanilla sugar (if you use vanilla extract add it to the flax-milk-mixture). Cream the sugar and oil in a large bowl. Mix in the flax-milk-mixture. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients. Eventually you have to use your hand to get it all mixed in. You can also use an electric dough mixer to do this. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Roll the dough into balls that have a diameter of 2,5-3cm. Place the balls on the pan and flatten them (diameter app. 4-5cm). Don't place the cookies too close to each other. Bake for 10 minutes. They might not seem ready yet but they are. Let them cool down on the pan for 5 minutes and a place them on a cooling rack to cool down completely.

Chocolate + Raspberries = Heaven

There's just something in the combination of dark chocolate and raspberries. And there's just something about brownies. They're so easy to make and are perfect for satisfying sweet cravings. Usually brownies are made with bleached flour, white sugar and eggs but these brownies are a bit healthier option. They're made with cane sugar and whole wheat flour (I used 1½ dl whole wheat and 1 dl all-purpose flour but you can also use 2½ dl whole wheat flour). Margarine in the recipe can be replaced with canola oil if you don't like using saturated fats (even though margarine is vegetable fat, the double bonds between individual carbon atoms in the fatty acid chain are broken so it is artificially made saturated). The darker the chocolate you use, the healthier yout brownies will be (the chocolate I used contained 50% cacao but you can choose a darker one if you wish). There are also vitamins in raspberries and the cholesterol-rich eggs are replaced with healthy bananas.

Vegan-baking is a skill that takes time to master. It takes a lot of experimenting to find good egg-replacements but mashed fruit is often a really good choise. In this recipe mashed bananas make the browies moist and firm. Apple/pear mash also works well. Use one decilite of fruit mash to replace one egg. You can also use half a decitre of soy/potato starch flour to replace an egg. Soy yogurt works in some recipies as well. Milk is easy to replace just by using soy/grain milk. Gelatin can be replaced by using agar-agar (a gelatinous substance derived from polysaccharides in red algae).

I've made some changes into this recipe but original one can be found in the revised edition of the Vegan Cookbook released by an animal rights organisation Fauna. I got the book when I was in Like publishing company in work practice. That cookbook is what really got me into vegan cooking.

The reason I love this recipe so much is because it's so variable! Instead of raspberries you can use blueberries (I know blueberry brownies might sound weird but they're delicious), cranberries or orange peel and a tiny bit of orange juice. You can use pretty much any nuts you like, hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans etc. If don't like nuts or you're allergic try using coconut flakes or chopped oat/digestive biscuits. Just use your imagination!

Vegan Chocolate-Raspberry Brownies

• 1½ decilitres whole wheat flour
• 1 decilitre all-purpose flour
• 1 decilitre dark unsweetened cacao powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
• 2 decilitres cane sugar
• 2 bananas
• 2 decilitres melted (vegan) margarine
• 100 grams vegan dark chocolate chips

• 80 grams chopped hazelnuts
• 100g (frozen) raspberries

Preheat the oven into 200°C. Cover a sheet pan with bakery paper. Mix the dry ingredients (not sugar). Mash the bananas and mix with sugar and melted margarine (you can get a smooth mixture if you use a blender but you can also mash the banana by using a fork and mix in the sugar and margarine). Carefully mix the dry ingredients into the banana-margarine mixture. Fold in the chcolate chips, chopped hazelnuts and raspberries. Spread the dough on a sheet pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let the brownie cool down before cutting into squares. If you have a big oven you might want to do 1,5x dough and bake it a bit longer.

Spice up!

What's a better food to eat in the middle of a cold winter than chilli? Spicy food makes you feel warm and chilli also has numerous health benefits. The component in chillies which is responsible for the hotness is a chemical called capsaicin. Capsaicin is what causes the wonderful effects chilli can have on your health.

Chilli has been found to lower blood sugar levels.This way it helps to control insuline levels and can be helpful for people who are overweight or suffer from diabetes. Chillies can lower high blood pressure since they are high in vitamins A and C which help strengthen blood vessels. Capsaicin protects your heart by reducing cholesterol levels. Eating chilli can also increase metabolic rates and help you burn fat.

Capsaicin can provide pain relief by targeting pain receptors and inhibiting a neuropeptide, Substance P, which is the key brain pain transmitter. It does this without affecting nerve cells and having the numbing side-effects that painkillers usually have. So chillies have a relaxing effect on your body and can even help with migraines.

 If you have a flu, eating chilli can be benefitial since it opens up nasal passageways (we all know how uncomfortable it is when you order a hot dish in a restaurant and suddenly your nose starts running). Chillies contain loads of Vitamin C (one 73g chili pepper contains 83% of your daily needs!) which strengthens your immune system and helps your body fight off the viruses.

But these are just a few of the health benefits that chillies are recorded to have. There is even some research that chilli can limit the spreading of prostate cancer and prevent stomach cancer! So if you care for your health there are plenty of resons to treat yourself with chilli but for me the taste is a good enough reason on its own.

When you're handling hot chilli peppers (like habanero) you have to remember to be very careful! The chilli oils inside the chilli peppers contain plenty of capsaicin and if you're not careful while cutting the peppers you'll get chilli oil on your hands. The capsaicin is especially dangerous if it ends up on your eyes or mucous membranes. Use rubber gloves since the chillies can sting, burn and irritate your skin. Rinse the peppers and dry them. Scrape out the seeds. After cutting the chili discard the gloves, wash the knife and the cutting board very carefully and wash your hands with plenty of soap. If you didn't use the whole chilli pepper you can leave it to dry for a couple of days and use it for cooking later on. If you get chilli oils on your hands a good idea is to soak your hands with vegetable oil and then wash with soap (instead of rubbing your eyes or picking your nose, trust me). Capsaicin is fat-soluble so by using oil you can wash it off completely.

If you burn your mouth with chilli, drink a glass of cold milk. The protein found in milk called casein works as a detergent against capsaicin and soothes the burns effectively. If you burn your hands soak them in a bowl filled with milk and ice cubes. If there is no milk available rinse your mouth with cold sugar solution until the pain has stopped. I've also found chewing on white bread very helpful. This trick I learned as a kid when I was in Tunis. I was quite young and not used to spicy foods. We were eating out and I accidentally ate too much harissa (very spicy Tunisian hot chilli sauce). Luckily the waiter understood why my face was all read and I was nearly crying so he gave me a piece of white bread and told me to chew on it until I feel better.

This chilli recipe I've come up with by putting together different elements from a few different recipes. You can use pretty much any beans you like. If you're using dried beans instead of canned ones, remember to soak them the night before and boil them before starting to prepare the food (you can find the instructions and boiling times in the packages). If you're not a fan of bell peppers or corn you can use other vegetables instead, e.g. carrots or potatoes (note that different vegetables take a different time to cook). But don't use too much of different kinds of vegetables. Chilli is best when it's kept simple.

Chilli sin Carne (4-6 portions)

• 4 decilitres boiled/canned beans (I used azuki beans but you can use whichever beans you like)
• 1 decilitre (frozen or canned) corn
• 1 bell pepper (whichever colour you like, I prefer the red ones)
• 1 onion
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 habanero chilli pepper or 1-2 mild chilli pepper(s)
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes (à 400 grams)
• 70 grams tomato purée
• 2-4 decilitres water
• 1 tablespoon dark unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar, honey or maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• red bell pepper powder
• herbs (e.g. oregano, marjoram)
• salt, pepper

Chop the onion, garlic and chilli (be careful, especially if you're using habanero!). Heat some oil in a pot and add the onion. Cook it for a couple of minutes and add the garlic and chilli. Be careful when cooking the chilli. You might not want to breath the evaporating chilli oils or you'll find yourself coughing for quite some time. Add the coriander and cumin (since everyone has their own taste, the amounts of spices are just directional). Don't forget to sprinkle some red bell pepper powder and herbs as well. Now add the crushed tomatoes and the tomato purée. Let it stew for 10-15 minutes. Add the beans, cacao powder and whichever sweetener you're using. Add some water if there's too little of it. Let it stew now for 20 minutes but remember to stir it once in a while. Add the bell pepper and corn and sprinkle some salt and pepper. Let it stew for 10 more minutes.
Serve with rice, quinoa, bread etc.


If you're interested in the health benefits of chillies and cooking them you can find more detailed information in the links below.

Sources:
http://www.chilli-willy.com/chilli-health-benefits/
http://www.chilipeppermadness.com/chili-pepper-health-benefits.html
http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/chili-peppers.html
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/how-to-cook-chili-peppers1.htm
http://www.asianonlinerecipes.com/cooking_guide/handling-fresh-chili-peppers.php
http://www.wikihow.com/Cool-Burns-from-Chili-Peppers
http://dave-dewitt.suite101.com/habanero-chile-peppers-used-in-the-kitchen-a109740

Shrove Tuesday Pulla

I finally got to make lakiaispulla (Finnish Shrove Tuesday buns)! Of course it's well past Shrove Tuesday but these buns taste delicious, regardless of the day. This recipe I have learned from my mother. It's easier than most pulla (Finnish Cardamom bun) recipes since in this one you add the margarine into the milk instead of having to knead it in the dough much later on. It's egg-free because we have had egg-allergy in our family. It seems to be a basic assumption that eggs are a vital ingredient in making pulla but that's simply not true. Just try making pulla without eggs and you'll be surprised, it's actually better! The dough is a lot softer if no eggs are used. The surface of the buns cracks more easily if the dough is egg-free but that is a minor issue. Egg-free pulla just tastes better. Period.

You can use organic milk or if you want to make the buns vegan replace it with oat milk. If you're celebrating Shrove Tuesday don't forget the jam, almond paste and oat (or organic) whipped cream! And here's a little tip for eating laskiaispulla: Take the top off and eat it first. This way the filling stays nicely on the bun.

If you want to make cinnamon rolls, roll the dough into a rectangle, spread some margarine on it and sprinkle  with plenty of cinnamon and some brown sugar. Then just tightly roll the dough into a big "snake". You can either make diagonal cuts to cut the dough in triangular pieces and press the tip of the triangle down with your fingers to make ear-shaped buns, or you can just cut the roll in slices and bake them as they are. If you're tired of cinnamon you can use pretty much anything to fill the roll, e.g. apple mash or dried cranberries and brown sugar.

Note that pulla is definitely not the easiest sweet bread to make! It takes a couple of hours and there's lots of kneading to do. But if you have some time and patience it's definitely worth it. If you have an electric dough mixer you can let it do the kneading.

Vegan Finnish Cardamom Buns (or Pulla)

filled with jam, almond paste and whipped cream (aka laskiaspulla)

• ½ litre oat milk (or organic milk)
• 150-200 grams margarine
• 1 tablespoon cardamom
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 1½-2 decilitres sugar
• 12-13 decilitres flour (I used 3 dl whole-wheat flour and 10 dl of all-purpose flour)
• Two bags (14 grams) of dry yeast
• oat (or organic) milk for brushing
• on top: pearl sugar

Filling:
oat/organic whipped cream
raspberry/strawberry jam and/or almond paste

Heat the milk and the margarine in a microwave oven until the mixture is hot, approximately 42° (this means that it's quite a lot warmer than your hand and feels hot). Add cardamom, salt, vanilla sugar and sugar into the liquid. Mix the dry yeast into 10 decilitres of flour. Beat approximately 5 decilitres of flour into the milk-margarine-mixture until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add the rest of the flour little by little. At this point you have to use your hands to knead the dough. Now this is the tedious part of making pulla. You have to knead the dough until it separates from the side of the bowl and your hand (you can also do this with an electric dough mixer, then you just have to try once in a while if the dough is still sticky). Note that when you don't use eggs the dough remains a bit stickier than with the traditional recipe.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave to rise in a warm place until it has doubled in bulk. This takes about 30-60 minutes. My trick is to put the dough in a microwave oven to rise. The microwave is of course not on but the dough rises better in a closed space.

When the dough has doubled in bulk place it on a floured surface and knead well. Knead the dough into a long shaped roll and cut the roll in smaller pieces. Roll the pieces into balls. Place the dough balls on a sheet covered with baking paper. Brush the dough balls with oat milk and sprinkle some pearl sugar on top. Bake the buns in 225°C for 10-13 minutes. Be careful while the buns are in the oven since they burn easily! You know the buns are ready when they have a nice golden brown colour.

If you're making laskiaispulla let the buns cool down before filling them. Cut the tops off and fill them with jam and/or almond paste and whipped cream. Best served after tobogganing.

Pancake Day

Last Tuesday was Pancake Day (also known as Shrove Tuesday), the last day preceding the first day of the Lent. In most traditions the day is celebrated by feasting on fatty foods like pastries, meat, or pancakes. In Finland the day is called Laskiainen and is celebrated by eating a pastry called pulla (cardamom buns) filled with whipped cream and jam or almond paste and going tobogganing. I would have liked to make some pulla but unfortunately I've been sick for two weeks now (even excessive use of honey and ginger don't make this flu any easier to beat). Because it takes such a long time to make pulla I decided to follow the English tradition instead and make some pancakes.

I often prefer to prepare my pancakes vegan. You can easily replace the eggs with soy-yoghurt, soy-flour or apple-mash (or just simply leave it out) and if you're a health-freak like me, you can use whole-wheat flour. Finnish pancakes are similar to crêpes and usually cooked on a frying pan but the batter can also be spread on a sheet pan and baked in the oven (then it's just called pannukakku instead of lettu). I've always been pretty good at cooking pancakes and usually managed to make them nice and crispy but this time something just didn't work. The batter burned on the pan even though I used plenty of oil and the pan wasn't too hot. It just simply refused to adapt a shape resembling a pancake in any way. The result looked like this:

I just had to comfort myself with the fact that I wasn't at home and I had to use the equipment of an unfamiliar kitchen. Because I still wanted pancakes I decided to add ½ teaspoons of baking powder and bake it in the oven. The pancakes did turn out delicious this way, but I would have preferred them fried. So if you want to prepare the pancakes on a pan I suggest you use a little less flour and choose apple smash or soy-flour as an egg-replacement instead of soy-yoghurt to make the batter easier to handle. Or you can just prepare the batter with grain/soy milk and flour without any other ingredients. You have to be careful while cooking to make the pancakes stay in one peace (it's easier if you make small pancakes), but I've done pancakes this way many times and they turn out delicious.

Vegan oven-baked pancake (or Pannukakku)

• 5 decilitres grain/soy milk
• 3 decilitres of (whole-wheat) flour
• 2 tablespoons (app. 1 dl) of soy-yoghurt
• ½ teaspoon of baking powder
• You can also add 1 tablespoon of sugar and/or 1 teaspoon of salt and/or few tablespoons of oil

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and let the batter rest for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Cover the sheet pan with a bakery paper. Spread the batter on the pan and bake it in the oven for 25-35 minutes or until it has a nice golden brown colour and feels somewhat firm. Let the pancake cool down for a while and cut it in squares. Serve the pancake with jam, fruit or berries.

Sweet as honey

 

In the honour of the flu season I feel like writing my very first entry about other ways of fighting those viruses than codeine and paracetamol. One of nature's miracle workers is honey. When you're sick your body consumes a lot of energy so the natural sugars in honey provide a healthy energy boost. The glucose gets your blood sugar up quickly to make you feel better and fructose provides more sustained energy.

But what makes honey so wonderful is not the energy it provides but its antioxidant and antibacterial properties. The antioxidants in honey can destroy harmful chemical agents that cause diseases. The antimicrobial properties of honey are caused by enzymes that prohibit the growth of certain bacteria. So if you have a sore throat why not try a spoonful of honey instead of some codeine-containing cough medicine? Honey soothes your throat and thanks to the antibacterial properties it can actually kill the bacteria that causes the infection.

I've always preferred to sweeten my tea with honey instead of sugar but if you want to get all the health benefits you shouldn't heat it too much. In fact, heating honey to just 37°C destroys nearly 200 components, parts of which are antibacterial, and one of the important enzymes in honey breaks down at 40°C. Heating honey to 70°C causes rapid degradation. The best way to enjoy your honey is room-temperature. So if you feel like you need an enzyme-boost, one good idea is to let your tea cool down a bit before adding the honey. You can also try preparing yourself an easy lemon & honey juice. Lemon provides you with vitamin C which is also vital for your health.

Lemon & Honey Juice

Ingredients:

• ½ (organic) lemon
• water
• (organic) honey

Cut the lemon in half and juice it. If you don't have a juicer just squeeze it with your hands. Add the juice into a glass of water. Sweeten with as much honey as you like. Stir well.

Having a glass of this juice in the morning really gets you ready for the day but I have to admit it doesn't feel as nice in your throat as a warm cup of tea. I do add honey into my hot tea even after reading about how the enzymes break down in honey when heated - I just love the taste of it! My favourite drink when I'm sick is rooibos tea with ginger. It is something you can use to ease your flu symptoms even if you're a vegan. Simply prepare a cup of rooibos tea and add approximately 1-2cm ginger root (grated or cut into thin slices) into the boiling water. If you don't like rooibos just boil the grated ginger in few decilitres of water for a couple of minutes and drink it. The spicy ginger soothes your throat and it also calms down your stomach while rooibos tea is filled with antioxidants that help you stay healthy. After preparing the tea I often sweeten it with honey - but not before taking one spoonful of honey raw to ease my sore throat and fight off the bacteria.

Sources:

http://www.extension.org/pages/44460/at-what-temperature-does-honey-have-to-be-heated-too-too-destroy-the-health-benefits-for-humans

http://www.benefits-of-honey.com/health-benefits-of-honey.html

http://annetterozen.hubpages.com/hub/Top-10-Health-Benefits-of-Ginger