Sausages ‒ Makkarat

According to a common saying the most popular vegetable in Finland is sausage. Well, our little household certainly proves the point as we always have soy sausages in the fridge. I never thought about making them myself before I found VeganDad's recipes. And you know what? It turned out to be quite easy. The only real problem with them is that they're too good and I end up eating them all on their own without any veggies or other sidekicks ‒ not such a great idea to fill your stomach with protein only. Ouch.

- 1.5 dl fava beans (or peas)
- 3 dl seitan flour
- 270 g extra firm tofu (or hefu)
- 1 dl tar liqueur
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 1 dose of stock
- 0.5 dl mustard
- 5 red and green chili peppers
- onion powder
- caraway
- salt
- folio
(- rape oil)

Mash the beans. Chop the chili. Crumble the tofu. Mix everything together with your hand. Divide in six pieces and shape into phallic symbols. Wrap them tightly into folio and steam for 45 minutes.

Nutritional values / 1 sausage / 158 g (without the oil and once again, liqueur):
energy 291 kcal
fat 6 g
protein 34 g
carbohydrates 18 g
fiber 6 g

Hefu

I've made tofu from soybeans twice. Coincidentally I've also sworn twice I'll never make tofu again. The amount of work for a small cube of goo seems just overblown. Compared to that making hemp tofu or hefu is a piece of chocolate cake.

- hemp milk

Boil until the hefu starts to separate from water. (About ten minutes, quicker in microwave.) Remember to stir occasionally. Filter through a cheesecloth. (I just use old stockings.) Flavour at this point if you want. You get firmer hefu by placing a weight (for example a pot full of water) on it for at least half an hour (it's a good idea to use a mold).

Hefu can be used just like tofu. So every time I write "tofu" in a recipe you can use hemp tofu just as well as soy tofu.

(In case someone can tell the nutritional values, feel free to post. I've got absolutely no idea.)

Stuffed Turnips ‒ Täytetyt nauriit

Another nice thing to stuff and cook in the grill is turnips. Anything you normally use as a stuffing for baked potato works terrificly with these sweeties as well, only they have more taste of their own. This time I decided to use smoked tofu and tar liquer which both taste like they were designed especially for turnips.

- 1 kg turnips (about 7)
- 270 g smoked tofu
- 1 onion
- 2 dl tar liqueur (or beer and 1 tablespoon dark syrup)
- 50 g soy cheese (or margarine)
- breadcrumbs
- salt
- black pepper
- oil for frying
(fava beans, barley grains, mushrooms...)

Cook the turnips about ten minutes in salty water. Hollow them carefully with a sharp knife and set the scooped out pieces aside. (Some people use them in the stuffing. I find the idea of stuffing turnips with turnips a little dull so I just foil them into the next meal I cook.) Chop the onion and the tofu and sauté them. Add some black pepper and stuck them in the turnips. Pour the liqueur on them. Put a piece of the cheese on each turnip and perfect by sprinkling some breadcrumbs on top. Grill until golden brown.

Nutritional values / 1 turnip (without the liqueur):
energy 154 kcal
fat 8 g
protein 10 g
carbohydrates 11 g
fiber 4 g

Grill Mushrooms ‒ Grillisienet

The past few days have been so sunny and warm it can only mean one thing: The grill season is here! While there's nothing wrong with grilling just soy sausages and bananas it's still sometimes nice to let the culinary inside you take the charge.

An idea I've seen repeatedly in the past few years is to stuff mushrooms with cheese, wrap them into bacon and grill the whole packet. Don't think I've ever eaten pig bacon but I do love the idea of stuffing and wrapping your food. So I thought I'd found out what is the ideal wrapping for mushrooms. I only tried eggplant and tofu but couldn't make up my mind. Both are to drool for. Perhaps I'll try vegetarian bacon next time.

- 200 g button mushrooms (or other stuffable mushrooms)
- 100 g nut cheese or soy cheese
- smoked tofu or mustard eggplants (as many as you have mushrooms)

Do not wash the mushrooms (makes them slimy) but brush off the biggest dirts. Detach the stipes (and foist them in your next meal). Stuff the stipe holes with the cheese. Wrap the mushrooms into thin tofu or eggplant slices and grill until they look so good you can't wait any longer.

Nutritional values / 1 medium mushroom:
energy 87 kcal
fat 6 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 2 g
fiber 1 g

Nut Pate ‒ Pähkinäpatee

This recipe is mostly "brie" from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook (Jo Stepaniak, Book Publishing Company 2003). It hasn't got a thing to do with brie (Still don't understand why nearly every new vegan dish has to be named after a non-vegan one even when there's no resemblance.) but it's still a tasty fresh cheese, especially great on crackers or other toppings or as a starters of a fancy dinner together with some vegetable pâté. (Or are they terrines or timbals? I don't really understand the French terms.) In the oven it gets a nice crunchy surface.

- 3.5 dl water
- 3 tbsp agar
- 1.5 dl nuts (I've only tried this with cashews so far but can't imagine why it wouldn't work with Finnish hazels as well.)
- 100 g firm tofu
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast flakes
- 0.5 dl lemon juice
- 2 tbsp hemp butter (or tahini)
- 1.5 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 0.5 tsp garlic powder
- 0.5 ground dill seed or coriander
- 2 tbsp wheat gem (or toasted sliced almonds)
- rape oil

Oil a round cake tin and dust it with the wheat gem. Mix the agar with the water in a saucepan and boil for five minutes. Combine this with the remaining ingredients and blend until completely smooth. Pour the result in the cake tin. Stick it in the freezer overnight.

Nutritional values / 655 g:
energy 974 kcal
fat 76 g
protein 46 g
carbohydrates 32 g
fiber 12 g

Mustard Eggplant ‒ Sinappikoiso

A little while ago I found a recipe for vegan mustard herring from this Swedish page. I used to love the marinad herring is usually sold in so I thought I have to try this thing out. Well, this didn't go even near that one but it's still really good on rye bread, with mashed potatoes or used in cooking. So here's my English version of it:

- 1 eggplant
- 1 tbsp mustard powder (or non-sweet mustard)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tbsp apple wine vinegar
- 3 tbsp rape oil
- 1 dl oat cream
- salt
- (1 red onion)
- (1/2 pickle)

Slice the eggplant into strips. Boil the strips in salty water until they soften up just a bit (for about five minutes). Spread them on a towel for a moment. Meanwhile, combine the sauce ingredients (mustard, sugar, vinegar, oil and cream). If you're making this for the dinner table (that is, not for cooking) chop the onion and the pickle into small cubes. Mix everything together.

Nutritional values / 600 g:
energy 719 kcal
fat 57 g
protein 9 g
carbohydrates 42 g
fiber 11 g

Chili Peas ‒ Chiliherneet

Think I've found a perfect solution for too quickly vanishing snacks and widening waist. No, it's not abstinence or even buying bad tasting chips ‒ I'm not a fan of christian self-torture. It's making tasty snacks but adding so much chili in them your burning stomach will tell you when it's time to stop!

Though Jere Nieminen's cook book Herne rokkaa (Multikustannus 2008) looked awful at first I'm starting to like it. Some of the recipes are really quite inventive. Like chili peas. Here's how I made them:

- 3 dl dry peas
- 1 dl rape oil
- 3/4 dl graham flour
- 1/2 dl bread crumps
- 4 tbsp potato flour
- 3 tbsp mustard
- 2-3 tbsp your favourite chili sauce
- 4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp paprika powded
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp marjoram

Soak the peas in cold water overnight. Filter. Mix all the other ingridients with the peas. Spread them on a baking sheet and bake in a 250°C oven until they look golden (about 15-20 minutes). Let them chill before serving. Store them in an air-tight container in room temperature.

Nutritional values / 520 g:
energy 2014 kcal
fat 99 g
protein 58 g
carbohydrates 220 g
fiber 34 g

Rievä of Tampere ‒ Tampereen riävä

Not sure why my attempts to make white loaf from levain always end up in the trash can. They're usually just tough, dry and bland. I've already thrown away two baking sheets of rievä, the local soft barley bread (the very name of which means fresh.) Third time I just took a basic recipe that uses a huge amount of yeast but even that didn't go as planned. I kept adding more and more flour to the dough and it kept looking runny enough to be used for pancakes. Comparison between different rievä recipes helped to identify the problem: looks like the amount of water had been doubled at some point!

So I did manage to make edible barley bread eventually. Still, I'm doing something wrong. It's just normal white bread, not that kind of fluffy and soft-textured it's supposed to be. Anyway, here's the edited recipe for you to defeat me:

5 dl lukewarm water
2 tsp salt
70 g yeast
9 dl barley flour
6 dl soft wheat flour (At least I think this is the English term though in Finnish it's called "coarse flour" for a reason unknown to me.)

Dissolve the yeast and the salt in the water. Add the wheat flour and stir even. Keep adding the barley flour until the dough starts to detach from the bowl. Even the surface sprinkle some flour on it and make a cross on it with your fingers. Cover with a towel and leave it in a warm place for half an hour.

Flour the table and your hands. Knead the dough until it feels firm. Form four hemispheres of it, put them on a baking sheet and press them gently lower with your palm. Cover them with a towel and come back after half an hour. (Longer rising time makes them tougher.)

Punch holes on the surface of the rieväs with a fork. Bake them in a 250°C oven for 35 minutes. The orthodox way to eat rievä is with fingers, untouched by a knife. Perfect for a picnic!

Nutritional values / 1 rievä:
energy 815 kcal
fat 5 g
protein 26 g
carbohydrates 165 g
fiber 14 g