#55: Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

First glancing at this receipe I was rather annoyed. Steaming the cabbage? Nuts in the filling? Cabbage rolls in tomato sauce?! I don't think so!

There is really only one way of doing Cabbage rolls in Finland. Rolls are filled with soy protein (mince meat) and rice or barley. And The Rolls are glazed with dark suryp - broth -mixture and then baked for about 2 hours. And served with boiled potatoes and lingonberry jam. When writing this I thought this was a Russian way to make and eat Cabbage Rolls, but turns out it's a Swedish variation and it's done just in Finland, Denmark and Sweden. Live & learn.

Once I got over the whole messing-with-something-sacred -feeling, turned out I liked this dish. The garlic tomato sauce was delicious!

#54: Maury’s Roasted Root Soup

Couldn't find any yams, so I used sweet potato instead. Looking at the receipe, I was thinkin that finely minced garlic would propably burn after baking for that long. So I grilled the garlic gloves whole, with skins on. Then the inside of the glove goes all soft and its easy to just press the insides out. Doing this makes the garlic taste really different: soft, aromatic and delicious - I love it!

This soup was just wonderful. It got two thumbs up from our household!

#53: Wolffie’s B’Nanner Bars

Feeling that the result would be a little too plain, I added some slivered almonds. Bananas tasted a little through, otherwise these were nice ;-]

#52: My Choice of Salad with Dijon Red Wine Vinaigrette

Vegan Culinary Institutes La Dolce Vegan challenge continues!

#51: Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes with Olivada

 

Doing only a half of a receipe, again, I found, again, that the smaller amount of the filling wasn't so easy to blend with a hand blender. A bit of soft tofu, yoghurt or some nuts would have helped to make it more smooth but I guess a bigger amount would have solved the problem.

#50: Freedom French Toast

Food entry number 50, yey!


First try didn't work out that well..
But then I got the idea.

#49: Raunchy Lentil Soup

Instead of using the tomatoes, I used some tomato sauce that was left over from another dish.

#48: Sesame Bread Sticks

Delicious!

The name of the dish already sounded delicious and the result was too! Onion powder, garlic powder and the nutritional yeast just works! To increase the fibre level I added some rye bran.

#47: Daniyell’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

 

Wanted to be early in posting this entry: it's the sugar thing. I made this receipe a few weeks ago and halved the sugar amount. And the result was still really sugary. Just wanted y'all to know! 

The taste overall was gggood!

#46: Coconut Curried Veggies

 I made this for dinner one night, just picked one easy receipe that I almost had the ingredients to. And I wasn't too excited about it but it turned out really delish! I wanted to use stuff from my fridge, so didn't have to throw them out. Instead of kidney beans and red bell peppers I used chickpeas, cauliflower and cut green beans.

#45: Wolffie’s Magnificent Baked Bean Chip Dip

I don't know about the magnificient part but this was good! I guess the two minutes of draining didn't remove enough of the tomato sauce, which I hate so.. Also if I'd do this again, I would leave out the raw onion..

#44: Hal’s Maple Chocolate Flax Brownies

I made only half of this receipe, thank God!

#43: Perfect Pesto Potato Salad

#42: Spaghetti and Tofu Balls

This was my first succesfull attempt to make Tofu balls. The texture and taste was just perfect! Knowing myself I doubled The Tofu ball part of the receipe..

#41: Wolffie’s Chocolatey Moist Brownies and “Butter Cream” Frosting

These brownies were the best! The Frosting I actually made for The Flax Brownies, not these. I halved the receipe and found the measuring bit difficult - like taking half of 1/4 cup of something. So it was really good, but I think it could be even better!

#40: Cauliflower Potato Soup with Nutmeg

#38: Cranberry Apple Crisp

This receipe wasn't mandatory I know, but I had just been picking cranberries for the very  first time, so I wanted to use them.

#39: Wolffie’s “Pepperoni” Pasta Salad and Sweet Basil Dessing

For this receipe I made The Pepperoni myself,. The receipe was taken from the book Vegan On The Cheap (great book, btw!).  I didn't have tapioka flour, so I used 2 tbs potato flour and 1 tbs chickpea flour. The result was really tasty, but the texture wasn't the best possible, a little too floury. But when the pepperoni is cut into pieces  the texture doesn't bother that much now does it.

#37: Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

The Vegan Culinary Institutes La Dolce Vegan! challenge continues with Hummus!

#36: Not A Edamame & Asparagus Couscous Salad

So um what didn't I change in this receipe? ..The dressing ingredients.

The only place one could find Edamame beans in Helsinki is the Chinatown type of district, and I didn't want to travel there only to pick up this ingredient. I should have, 'cos I love Edamames but this time I used just plain peas.

Second thing is Asparagus. I thought there was no way I would spend something like 5 or 6 euros on only one ingredient. And also because this too would inquire some hunting down all over town - this time of the year. So I used Artichoke hearts.

The Third thing was the Couscous. Trying to avoid all things wheat, so instead I used millet!

#35: Wolffie’s Peach Shortcake

Substituting peaches with plums, again!

#34: Toasted Oil-Free Granola

I love homemade granola. I've been doing my own blend for awhile. Making it oil-free is a great idea! Here I used pecan nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and dryed blueberries.

Fall vacation

Apologies for the silence! I took a few days of to visit Turku archipelago to relax and to pick up mushrooms and berries. Ah, the best time of the year!

#33: Claire’s Macaroni & Cheeze

#32: Nutty Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The Vegan Culinary Institutes La Dolce Vegan! challenge continues! 

#31: Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos

 I never wanted to buy a potato masher, so I've always used a glass bottle or a mug.. This one was a big crowd pleaser on a lazy sunday!

#30: Jay-Lo’s Fried “chicken”

 

I made a double batch of seitan enough for the Goulash and for this. The whole method and receipe was new to me. I'm used to adding some quinoa or chickpea flour into the batter to make it more tender. I don't care for very chewy seitan like this, but I wanted to try the receipe anyhow. Also because the method of boiling the broth all the way down made the seitan really salty, maybe I didn't meisure everything right? Oh well, better luck next time!

#29: Raspberry Apple Crisp

Sorry for the long silence! Here's the first October entry.

One month down!

It's already been one month since me and a few others started The Vegan Culinary Institutes La Dolce Vegan challenge! Wow!

I guess most of us have had a bit of a rough time at least this past week, including myself. Looking at the schedule for October I remember that those two "free" weekends we've had were just to ease us into the challenge and won't be having much of those anymore! So I thought I would share my system and hope that maybe it could help my fellow contestents. And hopefully also others could share their ideas!

Thinking about the challenge in general I thought it would be better for me and my head to just cook. I think there has been maybe one or two days where I've done the receipe marked for that day. If I'd start to think about the schedule and time, I would get too stressed!

I've marked 1-2 weeks receipes (as seen in the picture) and I've first browsed through them every other day and picked a receipe (many days I've done 2-3 recipes per day and then had time to take days off) best for that day. And if I didn't feel like doing any of those recipes or I needed to do a certain kind of a dish or if I didn't have the right stuff to do any of those recipes, I would  just pick some receipe and do it. It feels more free! I also though instead of like buying cookies etc from the store, if I had time I would try to use a random receipe and make them myself.

Being a so-called professional in the food industry I would recommend trying to catch to birds in one stone. For and example boiling a bigger batch of beans or doing a little bigger batch of seitan and putting the rest to the freezer.

Then a few times a week I would empty the camera and later make drafts ready of every entry I had started and add pictures so they wouldn't get lost.

For the most part I've really enjoyed being part of the
challenge. I think it's nice that you have to do some receipes you normally wouldn't. Many of the receipes are also like culturally foreign to me so I think I'm learning a lot!

#28: Sloppy Jane’s

From the thousands of hours of research I've been doing on American TV, I gathered that this dish is vegan take on something called Sloppy Joes? I used cold smoked tofu and also added some garlic.

 

Also I'd like to take this opportunity to brag about my bread making skills! I tryed to explain this to my household, but his enthusiasm wasn't as genuine as I had hoped. This is a better environment! To make a  spelt bread dough with no yeast and no wheat (well, there was wheat in the sour dough I used) and to get the bread to look like this isn't easy! Very cool! Yeah!