#26: Your Choice of Salad and Wolffie’s Delicious Dressing

My choise of salad contained a few things I happened to have on me: kale, broccoli, red onions and some fresh dill and basil. Result was quite good!

 

#25: Mixed Berry Puddin’

The mixed berries I used in this were blueberries and raspberries. First time I made puddin', I think? :-]

#24: Chunky Corn Chowder

The Vegan Culinary Institutes La Dolce Vegan! challenge continues with Corn Chowder!

 

#23: Kalamata and Sun-Dried Tomato Soda Bread

My loaf pan is in other use so I used my lovely Le Cruset Pan. Baking the bread in a bigger pan, I should've lowered the oven temperature at least 50 degrees and added more time. I guess I baked it in 190'C and after something like an hour and a half or two hours later the bread still wasn't done.. So we ended up eating only the crusts :-( What a bummer!

#22: Kim’s Peach-zza

This receipe created a bottle neck. I've done like 10 dishes from this week and the next, but not been able to blog about them. For some reason I want to do this in the same order as the schedule and had to wait till I did this dish.

I had trouble finding peaches. What's with all of these peach desserts? First I thought I'd make this from nectarines, but ended up using plums! Also I wasn't too excited about this receipe. Now I'm feeling a little silly, because the result was rather nice! It tasted fresh and looked kinda rustic. This receipe has great variation possibilities, the crust is the basic pie crust and I could just change the fruit in order to what I had and needed to use.

This receipe is halved and I substituted half of the wheat flour with spelt flour.

#21: Romaine Lettuce Salad with Caesar Salad Dressing and Frying Pan Croutons

Vegan Culinary Institutes La Dolce Vegan challenge continues!

Caesar Salad must be one of my new favourite salads. Before trying it I had always thought it was sort of greasy and discusting. But what's not to like? Crunchy Romaine - yum! Garlicy salad dressing - yum! Croutons - too yum!

Like Kelley, I did the dressing from slivered almonds, because I thought there was no way my shitty hand blender would survive whole almonds. The result was not smooth at all. But as the Veganomicon Caesar dressing instructions go, the almond flakes give the sauce a parmesan feel to it. The Veganomicon receipe has soft tofu in it and I very rarely like to spend more money on dressing stuff, but I actually liked it so much that I'd rather do the dressing that way. I guess using the whole almonds would have had a different result. In this receipe the tamari gives the sauce a brownish colour, I didn't like that.

The Frying Pan Croutons surprised me! With no added salt in the receipe The No Salt Shaker gives the croutons a really salty taste. So it really works, huh? :-]

#20: Quick Miso Soup for One Dinner Party

Did this soup for my birthday dinner party! We had also chili fried edamame beans and sushi. Yum! Most of my family never had this sort of food and they were very pleased.. or very polite!

#19: Raspberry Walnut Pancakes

I love pancakes! Is it really ok to eat these for breakfast?!

First time I have even tasted American Style Pancakes was when I made them myself. In Finland we don't have a this type of a dish. We have these thin crispy small/big crepe type pancakes 'lettu' (yum!) and a thick oven-baked kind 'pannukakku' (..cake batter gone bad? yuck!) and their not something we would eat on breakfast. And neither usually contains any berries or fruit. I would eat lettu's with sugar and margarine or jam. Pannukakku's.. I would'nt eat but they are often served with jam and whipped cream.

Wikipedia says: "Finnish pancakes greatly resemble (swedish) "Plättar" and are called "Lettu", "Lätty", "Räiskäle" or "Ohukainen". In Finland pancakes are usually eaten as dessert with whipped cream and/or pancake-jam, sugar or vanilla ice-cream. In Finnish, "Lettu" and "Pannukakku" (literally "Pancake") have different meanings, the latter having structurally closer resemblance to hotcake, and baked in an oven instead of using a frying pan."

 pictures: www.savonsanomat.fi and www.saarioinen.fi

This is propably the best pancake receipe I've tried! The raspberries gives such a freshness to it. In these pancakes, I used frozen raspberries, they worked just fine.

 Because I don't own a pancake griddle (is that the right word?), I used cooking rings. The inside of the rings were lightly oiled and placed on my heavy cast iron pan. When the pancakes were flipped around, the rings were easy to remove.

#18: Sara’s Tangy Black Bean Salad

Served this salad on bread. It was super-easy and quick to make, but I thought it lacked a little flavor. With beans, corn and cumin, I felt it could also use some chili so I added a few drops of tabasco. Also instead of green peppers, I used thinly sliced broccoli again (raw broccoli = super good!).

#17: Melissa’s Stuffed Mushrooms

This receipe was nice and simple. I don't have a food prosessor yet, so I used my hand blender and it worked pretty good.

#16: Not A Cherry Cobbler

I thought there is no way I would find frozen cherries or even fresh ones (I've only ever seen fresh cherries here, and only during spring and summer) so I made this from peaches! I am beginning to hate everything baked and containing sugar, wheat and that sort of stuff - so the peach and cinnamon part was wonderful, the batter part wasn't.

#15: Soba Noodle Miso Soup

I did a few adjustements here.

nori -> arame
soba noodles -> buckwheat & sweet potato noodles
tofu -> hemp tofu
pak choi -> ___
gomasio -> toasted sesam oil

#14: Cool Cucumber Salad and Creamy Soygurt Dressing

 This is a great salad: fresh and tasty. Forgot to buy tomatoes, so it really was just a Cucumber Salad. Had this with The Burrito Pie

#13: Stephanie’s Asteroids

Vegan Culinary Institutes La Dolce Vegan challenge continues! And here is a sugar ball receipe number two. I should've read other participants blogs about cutting down sugar in this receipe.. I had to of these in a afternoon sugar craving moment and became a little nausious. But the combination of peanut butter and cinnamon was wonderfull!

#12: Cumin Spiced Brown Rice

I forgot I had cumin seeds and I used ground cumin. Seeds would propably have a stronger taste, I had to ad a lot of the ground cumin for the dish to taste at all.. Had this with Tofu and Kale delight page 148.

#11: Karen’s Mexican Burrito Pie

Doing this dish is something that I've really waited for! And man was it good! The whole idea is sort of genius. It was quick to bake and it tasted fresh, cheesy and spicy. YUM!

#10: Espresso Cake And Chocolate Glaze

This wasn't a total success. The texture was a little too spungy and I guess the espresso didn't taste enough (weak espresso?)

Here is my version of Mobile uploads

#9: Noodle Salad with Spicy Nut Dressing

How often do you have at home all the incredients to a dish ready? Although I substituted the choy with thinly sliced broccoli. It was delish!

This is a new favourite! Going to make it again and soon!

#8: Baby Spinach & Apple Salad with Sweet Red Wine Vinaigrette

 

Atleast for me this is one of those recipes that when you look at the incredience list, you aren't that excited but  then the dish turns out surprisingly tasty! In this recipe I substituted pine kernels with toasted almond flakes.

#7: Blueberry Dilip

Vegan Culinary Institute's La Dolce Vegan Challenge continues!

Oh God I loved this one! Here in Finland were obsessed with blueberries and all other berries! So an easy Blueberry pie type receipe is always welcome. I made only ½ portion of the receipe, because I'm the only one eating desserts in this household..

Yum!

#6: Simple Leek and Potato Soup

All is said in the title.

 Instead of two medium size leeks, I used one huge leek. Also I like to use the whole leek, dark green parts included. Added also some oat cream.

#5 Estrellasoap.com Peanut Butter Fudge Mounds

Living in Europe, this dish does not make any sence to me. What is this mound?

Also I think I might have over-cooked these, as they become too sweet tasting and a bit too dry..

#4: Gerry’s Artichoke Heart and Basil Pasta

What an simple and easy pasta dish! I substituted pine kernels with sunflower seeds, because they're three times cheaper and anyways I really prefer them.

#3: Portobello Pot Pie and All Purpose Crust

Sarah Kramers La Dolce Vegan being one of my favourite cookbooks EVER, I have done this receipe before. This time I used Funnel chantarelle, Yellowfoot, Winter mushroom, or what ever you call it? Here in Finland it's called 'Suppilovahvero' (straight translation would actually be 'Funnel chantarell'). Portobellos can be found in the bigger supermarkets here, but they're a bit pricey.. And I had these dried Suppilovahveros in my cubbard, so I used them instead. Also I added some oat cream, 'cos I had a big cart of it open, and I did'nt have any potatoes so I just left them out. Anyways, this dish was as lovely as ever!

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#2: No Salt Shaker

Being a big salt lover (low blood pressure, u know), these salt substitutes don't really float my boat. On the other hand, I love-love-love gomasio and that kind of things. So, just made this stuff, haven't tried it out yet! Couldn't find any dried sellery anywhere, just made this without it. And substituted paprika powder with hungarian smoked paprika powder (favourite!).

#1: Wolffie’s Banana Blueberry Muffins

Yes! Here we go!

Well. Very excited about this challenge. Though it's not a swell start: I hate bananas. Always have. Their too sweet and they taste and texture's sort of disgusting. I only use them, when I'm making a smoothie or something else where the texture of the banana is important, but the taste of it wont be a thing. Even with my dislike of bananas, these muffins were great! I was wondering why my muffins were very dark colored compared to Ravens muffins but I think it's because I used brown sugar and because I used frozen blueberries that were a little melted? Anyways, here is the picture. And apologies - I'm a chef, not a food photographer :-(