This is what we used:

• Bunch of fresh chard (enough to cover two baking sheets)
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Japanese seven spice (shichimi togarashi)
• olive oil for spraying

First we set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then we prepared the chard: washed the leaves, removed the stems, and cut the remaining parts into bite-size pieces. Now we crumpled a baking parchment, spread it on the baking sheet, and sprayed some olive oil on it. Then we covered the baking sheet with the chard pieces, taking care that individual pieces didn’t overlap, and sprayed them with some olive oil. We ground the nutritional yeast, salt and seven spice in a mortar, and sprinkled half of the spice mix on the chard bits. We made two sheetfuls of chips, so the rest of the spice mix was for the second batch.

Now we baked the chard for 7 minutes. They burn really easy, so we started watching them after 5 minutes or so. When they were dry and crunchy, we took them out of the oven. They are best eaten right out of the oven, since they lose their crispness fairly quickly. We devoured two sheetfuls of them in no time – their airy texture and spicy taste is quite addicting!

I find it oddly gratifying that anything baked, using only whole spelt flour, and filled with lentils and quinoa can compare to those deepfried, salt-laden treats – even if the yumminess of my pies is of a different, more wholesome kind. The dough I used was adapted from the recipe I found from the Dog Hill Kitchen blog, and which I used in my apple pocket pies last year. It’s lovely and very easy to work with. This time I actually colored the dough yellow with turmeric, which doesn’t show in the picture much at all – my photographic eye hasn’t gotten used to the bright spring sun just yet!

The Dough (made 10 medium-sized pies):

• 5 and 1/2 dl whole spelt flour
• 2 dl water (cold)
• 5 tablespoons margarine (cold)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
• 1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper

I first combined the flour, salt, baking powder and spices in a bowl, and then mixed the margarine in with a fork. When the dough started to be very crumbly without any large lumps of margarine, I added the water, and kneaded with my hands until smooth, soft and workable. A little more flour or a little more water might be needed, it all depends on how dry the flour is.

Then I placed the dough in the fridge while I made the filling.

The Filling (for 10 pies and some leftovers):

• 1 and 1/2 dl red lentils, rinsed
• 1 dl quinoa, rinsed
• 4 dl water
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• canola oil for frying
• 2 teaspons grated ginger
• 2 dl cabbage, grated
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons mild curry paste (Rajah’s or similar)
• 2 teaspoons curry leaves, crushed
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon chili flakes
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 dl chopped cilantro
• 1 teaspoon veggie broth powder (if needed)
• 1 dl plain soy yoghurt

I first heated the oil in a non-stick pan and fried the onions until soft. Then I added the ginger and fried a minute or two, added the cabbage and fried until a little softened, and then added the following: curry paste, coriander, chili flakes, and curry leaves. After a few minutes I poured in the lentils, quinoa, and water, and brought them to boil. Then I covered the pan and lowered the heat, and let the filling simmer for 15 minutes.

At this point the quinoa was almost done and the filling had a porridge-like consistency. I removed it from heat, stirred in garam masala, soy yoghurt, and cilantro, as well as a teaspoon of veggie broth powder to add some saltiness. It might not even be necessary since curry pastes are often quite salty.

Before the assembly, the filling needed to cool down to room temperature, so it wouldn’t melt the margarine in the dough.

To Assemble:

I divided the dough in 10 equal parts and rolled each into a ball. Then I floured my working surface lightly with some spelt flour, and rolled each ball out until they had the diameter of about 13 centimeters. Now I placed a generous amount of filling in the center of each round, folded them over to form a half-moon shape, and sealed with the spikes of a fork. I also poked a few air vents in each pie with the fork.

Then I baked the curry pies in 175 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. I find that in our climate, these are best stored in a paper bag in room temperature, but we did freeze a few for future lunches as well.

Breading with soy yoghurt was very easy and quite fool proof, and resulted in a lovely crispy topping with a hint of yoghurty sourness. The baked version was definitely lighter, and baking also resulted in a more developed, round flavor.

The Marinade:

• 1 dl red wine
• 1/2 dl soy sauce
• 5 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 teaspoons agave syrup
• 1 teaspoon pink peppercorns, ground
• 1 teaspoon green peppercorns, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, ground

I first pressed my 500 gram block of tofu for one hour – sliced it 1 cm thick, wrapped in cheesecloth, arranged as a uniformly thick layer, and placed a cutting board and a pile of plates on top. Then I just mixed all the marinade ingredients and placed in an airtight container along with the tofu. I flipped the tofu slices and shook the container every once in a while to ensure even absorption of the marinade.

As we found out, the marinating time can be anything between 2 hours and two days.

The Breading for Fried Tofu:

• 1 dl dry bread crumbs
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 3/4 dl plain soy yoghurt
• a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar

I mixed the bread crumbs and the salt and pepper on one plate and the soy yoghurt and the salt and sugar on another. Then I patted the marinated tofu slices dry with some kitchen towels and dipped them first in the yoghurt dish, then rolled them carefully in the bread crumbs.

Then Heikki shallow fried the tofu slices in canola oil until nicely browned on both sides.

We enjoyed our breaded tofu with lemon wedges and a side of stir-fried morning glory – so good!

There are numerous more or less detailed recipes for farinata around the internet, but I mostly relied on the one from The Daily Spud, who got it from a book by Elizabeth David. I added fresh rosemary and garlic for additional flavor. We enjoyed the farinata for dinner with oven roasted vegetables, and had the leftovers for a snack on the next day, when we fried our slices on a frying pan to get the crispiness back.

We both think farinata is a bit like polenta, but has much more flavor than any polenta we’ve ever cooked. Not to say polenta couldn’t be as good as this farinata – we just haven’t mastered cooking it right just yet. Some recipes have up to three times more olive oil in a similar amount of batter, but the 3 tablespoons I used was still enough to make the bottom side all shiny and crispy.

Here’s the short list of ingredients:

• 200 g, or about 4 and 1/2 dl chickpea flour (gram or besan)
• 6 and 1/2 dl water
• 3 tablespoons olive oil (plus some more)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary (optional)
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed (optional)

The farinata batter needs to rest for four hours before baking, so this recipe requires some planning ahead.

First, I whisked together the water, the olive oil, and the chickpea flour, making sure there were no lumps. The batter is pretty liquid, but it sets perfectly in the oven. I covered the bowl and let the batter rest for 4 hours.

Then I preheated the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and brushed a round pie tray with olive oil. I mixed the salt, garlic, and rosemary in the batter, and poured it in the baking dish. Now, I baked the farinata for 30 minutes in 200 degrees Celsius, then upped the heat to 225 Celsius and baked for 15 minutes more.

I think this amount would be enough as a side dish for 2-3. The quality of carrots really does make a difference here – I used a bunch of organic carrots that still had a nice protective layer of dirt on them when they reached us. Root vegetables keep better and stay much more flavorful if they’re not cleaned after harvesting, but unfortunately the supermarkets rarely carry “dirty” veggies.

The chipotle I used in this recipe is the adobado kind. Heikki mashed a can of chipotles in adobo sauce when he made the black beans from Veganomicon, and we still have some of the paste in the fridge. Chipotles are amazing in their depth of flavor, but I’m sure these fries would turn out well with other spices if they are hard to find.

The Carrots:

• 4 large carrots, scrubbed and cut into sticks
• 2 teaspoons mashed chipotles in adobo sauce
• salt to taste
• a dash of olive oil to coat

I cut the carrot into thin fry-size sticks and then tossed them with the chipotle and the olive oil. There’s no need to use much oil, just enough to coat the carrots. Then I spread the carrot sticks on a baking sheet in one layer, and sprinkled them with salt. I baked my carrots in 200 degrees Celsius on the upper rack of the oven: first for 35 minutes, then tossed them around, and then another 10-15 minutes until slightly charred here and there.

The Avocado Dip:

• 1 ripe avocado
• 3/4 dl plain soy yogurt
• pinch of salt
• pinch of sugar
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped

I simply mashed everything together with a fork and chilled while the carrots were baking.

Most tandoori sauces seem to have red food coloring, and that’s not something I wanted to include in this recipe. I added a chopped beet to get a little bit of that red tandoori color, but my endeavor wasn’t a complete success: the result was unevenly colored, partly bright fuchsia, partly yellowish. Now that I think of it, I could have added the beets in when I was pre-cooking the rice, and the color would’ve most likely come out prettier! Another option would’ve been to add some beet juice in the sauce, so that the tofu would’ve had a pink color as well.

This recipe makes a lot of food, enough for about 4 hungry or 6 not quite as hungry eaters. I like to make a larger batch of food once I heat up the oven, so there’s leftovers for the days to come.

The Tandoori Sauce (adapted from this recipe):

• 5 garlic cloves
• 5 cm peeled ginger
• 3 shallots (or 1 regular onion)
• 1 small red chili with seeds
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
• 1 and 1/2 dl plain soy yogurt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon each: ground cumin and turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon each: cinnamon and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon each: freshly grated nutmeg, ground cardamom, and ground clove

Also Used:

• 500 g firm tofu, pressed and cubed
• 2 potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
• 1 beet, peeled and finely cubed
• 4 dl brown basmati rice
• 1 bay leaf
• water to cook rice in
• 4 dl vegetable stock

Three and a half hours before we planned to have dinner we started the preparations. I blended all the tandoori sauce ingredients with our immersion blender until smooth. Heikki pressed and cubed the tofu, and I mixed it with the sauce and put it in the fridge to marinate for two hours (overnight would be even better). I rinsed the rice at this point and let it soak in fresh water for two hours as well.

An hour and a half before dinner time I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then I rinsed the rice, cooked it in ample water with the bay leaf for about 20 minutes, and drained it.  While the rice was cooking, I cubed the potatoes and the beet. When everything was prepped, I just mixed it all together in a large baking dish – tofu with the tandoori sauce, pre-cooked rice, potatoes, beets, and the veggie stock. Now, I covered the dish with a lid, and baked it for one hour.

We thought that the burgers turned out really well. The Indian-style spices, the earthy flavor of the cow peas and the delicate taste of the hemp seeds made a delectable combination. The burgers were served with a side of potato wedges, garlic yogurt sauce and some lettuce.

There are many reasons to use hemp seeds. First of all, they are a complete protein source, just like soy bean and quinoa. Also, unlike soy beans, hemp can be cultivated in Finland too. After making this dish, I realized there’s a third reason as well: Its mild, easily combinable taste makes it a great ingredient in plant-based cuisine.

This is what I used:

• 500 g boiled or canned cowpeas, mashed (about 1 cup or 2,5 dl of dried cowpeas)
• 1 dl ground hemp seeds
• 3 tablespoons gluten flour
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• 2 teaspoons of coriander
• 1 fresh chili, minced (or to taste)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
• ground black pepper to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
• olive oil for brushing

First I set the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. I heated the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and fried the onion until translucent. Then I lowered the heat, added the garlic, turmeric, cumin, and coriander, and stirred them into an oily paste. I continued to fry and stir for maybe a minute more, and removed the paste from the heat.

Next I simply combined all the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, added the paste from the frying pan, and kneaded the mix with my hand for a minute or two, until a delicate dough was formed. Now I spread some baking parchment on a baking sheet, and rolled eight balls from the dough, which I proceeded to tap between my palms into burgers.

I placed the burgers on the baking parchment, and brushed them with olive oil on both sides. I baked them in the oven for 30 minutes, 15 minutes on both sides. Before flipping them over, I brushed them with olive oil again. Together with the burgers I baked some potato wedges on a separate baking sheet, the burgers on the upper rack, and the potatoes on the lower rack.

I combined fresh herbs, my favorite Dijon mustard, and two types of lentils to make a wonderfully aromatic filling for this mild but very pleasing vegetable. Spaghetti squash is not very popular in Finland and in fact I’d never had it before this summer – one of the rewards of growing our own vegetables definitely is that we got to try new ingredients in our cooking.

Here’s what I used:

• 1 large spaghetti squash, halved and deseeded
• olive oil for spraying

I cut the squash in half lengthwise, scraped the seeds off with a spoon, and placed in a baking dish I’d sprayed with a little olive oil. Then I pierced the pumpkin flesh all over with a fork (not breaking the skin though) and baked it for 20 minutes in 175 degrees Celsius.

The Stuffing:

I used a Dijon mustard flavored with bell peppers and garlic, but any kind will work.

• 2 and 1/2 dl dried lentils (I had half beluga half red lentils)
• veggie stock (for the lentils to be cooked in)
• 1 bay leaf (for the lentils as well)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 3 boiled potatoes
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves
• 1 tablespoon chopped Greek basil leaves
• 1-2 tablespoons Dijon (Provencale) mustard
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• olive oil for frying

I started by cooking lentils with one bay leaf in veggie broth until they were all soft, rinsed them, and removed the bay leaf. Then I fried the onion on medium heat until it was translucent, added the garlic and fried some more. Now, I mashed the potatoes with a fork, combined all the stuffing ingredients in the pan, and filled the squash halves. The filling should be pretty salty, since the squash won’t be salty at all.

Topping:

• 1 dl pumpkin seeds, coarsely ground
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon brown rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

I pretty much just combined everything, and then spread the mixture over the stuffed pumpkins.

Now I baked the stuffed squash halves on the lower rack of our oven for about 35 minutes, in 175 degrees Celsius, until the topping had browned, and the squash flesh was soft and could esily be pierced with a fork.

My mom still doesn’t believe the insides of a spaghetti squash can have anything to do with spaghetti, and she’s been using the smaller ones all summer like they were zucchinis. So mom, here! It does look like spaghetti!

The limes in Portugal were actually considerably sweeter than the ones we have around here – they are picked more ripe I suppose – which made me realize how challenging it can be to share recipes internationally. So, in this recipe, you might only need half the amount of agave if you live where the lime trees grow!

These patties were nice with mashed potatoes, and especially tasty squeezed between two slices of rye bread like a “fishy” veggie burger. We enjoyed our burgers with some garlic yogurt sauce, fresh dill, and pickled cucumbers – yum!

The Patties:

• 500 g firm tofu
• 1 dl chopped green onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons tamari (or regular soy) sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• grated zest of 1 lime
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 teaspoon veggie broth powder (or less than 1 tsp salt)
• 1 teaspoon crushed dried chilies
• 3/4 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika powder
• 1 dl gram (chick pea flour)
• some more oil for brushing

First, I set the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and covered a baking sheet with some parchment paper.

I didn’t press the tofu, since the burger dough needs moisture anyway. I just took the block of tofu out of the package and rinsed it, placed in a large mixing bowl, and then squeezed it with my hands until it was all mushy. Now I added the rest of the ingredients in the bowl and mixed the dough with a fork until everything was combined. At this point, I checked the taste to see if the balance of salty and sweet and acidic was right, and it was.

Now, I formed 12 patties out of the dough, each about the width of the palm of my hand, and about 2 centimeters thick. I placed the patties on the baking sheet I’d covered with parchment paper, brushed them with some canola oil on both sides, and then placed the baking sheet in the middle rack of our oven. I baked the patties for 10 minutes, then flipped them with a spatula, baked them for 15 minutes, flipped again, and baked for another 5 minutes until they’d browned nicely on both sides.

Why call it a temptation, you might ask. There’s a Swedish (non-vegetarian) dish called Janssons frestelse, which is a bit similar to this dish, and the name translates as Jansson’s Temptation.

• 7 potatoes, chopped into sticks
• 4 onions, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 liters of fresh nettles (or more)
• 3 tablespoons capers (or more)
• 2 dl oat cream
• dry bread crumbs
• salt
• black pepper
• margarine

First, we chopped potatoes into sticks, and sliced the onions. We fried the onion over medium heat until translucent, and removed it from heat. Then we boiled the nettles in lightly salted water for a couple of minutes, and drained them. Now, we crushed the garlic, chopped the nettles, and fried them lightly on medium heat.

Next, we oiled a 28 x 19 cm baking pan, and started adding layers of potatoes, onions, nettles, and capers, in this order. After each full round we added salt, pepper and bread crumbs. We finished with an extra layer of potatoes, poured in the cream evenly, sprinkled the bread crumbs, and added a few dollops of margarine.

The temptation was baked in 200 degrees Celsius until the potatoes were cooked. In our oven this took 55 minutes. If the potatoes start to burn but are not yet cooked, cover the pan with aluminum foil.

We ate the temptation together with some pan-fried tofu.

Note: When gathering nettles, try to pick up only smallish ones – they shouldn’t be more than 20 cm high. The stalks and leaves of the younger nettles are still soft, and better for cooking.