organic vegan food inspiration, part 9

As usual the recipes (in Swedish, but easily translated) on Årstiderna's website, scroll to find Veganska matkassen's recipes (they're organized per year/week, so it might be tricky to find, if you want any help, let me know!).

The previous plantbased inspiration posts are linked at the bottom of this post.

The dish above is one of my returning favourites from the food box, tarte flambée with rosé onion, mushrooms and cabbage salad with apples. Which is basically a fancy little, French pizza. It was actually meant to be a spread of olive tapenade on the dough, but olives are one of few vegetables I can't stand so I made that brilliant mix of oat/soy cream, nutritional yeast and garlic instead. It gives the best cheesy flavour but with zero of that fatty, unhealthy feeling and texture of cow's cheese. And if you don't want to make your own dough you can always get one of those ready made pizza-sets sold in grocery stores. With a great, simple salad it makes such a simple, satisfying meal!



A very good vegan burger built of aubergine, zucchini, white bean pure, tomato, cucumber and pickled red onion (everything tastes better with pickled red onions).



Here's another one of my favourite returning dishes - okonomiyaki, this time with pickled radish and a quinoa with chili and fresh garlic. Hoisin sauce adds extra deliciousness.



Pizza with caramellized onion, kale and tomatoes. Salad with cabbage and zucchini. Very good. And just like olives, I really don't like kale either. However, it's actually quite good on a simple pizza. Tends to get almost burnt quickly in the oven (as seen), so watch out for that. It's also interesting that with a really great pizza dough, you don't need cheese, fresh tomatoes (not a sauce) and plenty of rapeseed oil is quite enough.



Curry stew with sweet potatoes, peas, onion, tomatoes, cilantro and sunflower seeds served with brown rice. A so-so dish I'd say.



Vegan rendang with mushrooms, lemongrass and broccoli. Didn't like it, the lemongrass didn't work at all, it seems pointless and wasteful to reduce all that lovely coconut milk into nothing, so I let be creamy.



Oven roasted cauliflower and mun bean salad. Lovely and very simple.



Seitan-tortellini with zucchini and point cabbage salad. So so dish imho.



Green thai-curry with broccoli, scallion, spinach, peanuts and turnip topping. Pretty good.



Korean Pajeon pancakes with spring onions served with a point cabbage - carrot salad and soy dip. More work than the end result was worth imho..



Tagine with chickpeas, sweet potato, tomatoes, onion, garlic, carrot, dates and pumpkin seeds. Rather boring dish according to my palate.



Seitan-spinach-tortellini with black cabbage, steamed onion and ovenbaked tomatoes and parsnip. Another boring dish alas. I think tortellini needs a creamy sauce, not something like this.



Spicy samosas with sweet potatoes and peas served with a quinoa salad with point cabbage and cucumber. Ok dish, but as I've mentioned before, I find samosas to greasy, so however tasty in flavour, one or two is well enough for me. But I always love all the different cabbage salads. Very moreish.



Socca with fried chickpeas, carrots, red onion and rosemary and a beautiful salad. First time I ate socca (French streetfood made with chickpea flour) and it was pretty good. Bit dry though, so some sauce is definitely needed.



Oven baked carrots, zucchini and onion served with a bulgur salad with point cabbage and tahini dressing. An average simple dish that fills your tummy, but isn't memorable.



Mexi-hot dogs (seitan sausages) with rosemary potatoes, pickled red onion and salad. Lovely and simple!



Pasta with zucchini, onion and ramson served with a simple salad. Very good, and so simple to make.



Rice-bowl with brown rice, polka beets, edamame, carrots, avocado, cucumber, cilantro and hoisin sauce. I find bowls to be rather boring quite often, but this one was delicious. Just as tasty as it's pretty. A bit of fiddling to get it looking good, but very worth it and taking the time to make food look pretty is rather therapeutic I find.

Previous inspiration posts -

Organic vegan food inspiration 1
Organic vegan food inspiration 2
Organic vegan food inspiration 3
Organic vegan food inspiration 4
Organic vegan food inspiration 5
Organic vegan food inspiration 6
Organic vegan food inspiration 7
Organic vegan food inspiration 8

friday excitement in the time of a pandemic

When we're living in a considerably smaller, constrained world, Friday fun or yay it's the weekend-feelings are also very different for what used to be normal.

What started off like a plan for a walk to the suburb center (where the commuter trains and suburb buses station lays, five minutes bus ride from home, 20-30 minutes walk depending on speed and weather) to go to the pharmacy and do some shopping, turned into a five hour project.



Before Corona-bus was a concept - only five months ago, this was a great option for a bit of everyday exercise. Now it's basically a must, if you don't have a bike or a car. I've never been a hypochondriac, but just the thought of stepping onto a bus, not to mention a train, or someone's car actually, gives me the creeps. So walking it is.

Said and done. Left home at 10.15 am. It wasn't suppose to rain until late afternoon, so we had plenty of time to get there and back until that happened.

Or so we thought. Because 10 minutes later the skies opened, and little mum and I had to take shelter under a roof outside a dentist's surgery. For at least 45 minutes, until the rain calmed down.

When we got down to the center it begun to drizzle a bit again. Popped by the pharmacy - surely there must be something better that will heal that darn armpit-heatwave-induced-fungal-infection-which-stopped-me-using-all-the-pretty-dresses that the initial powder, followed by the same brand cream, haven't helped much after a week's usage? I got another cream, and if that helps as quickly as it's said to, I must wonder why non of the pharmacist recommended that one in the first place... - did some grocery shopping, and then the skies opened again.



Perhaps we could pop by a little cafe for a vegan fika with social distancing? I hadn't been toa cafe since March 13. It was a mixture of anxiety and excitement to step into one again. Can't say I was impressed by neither the social distancing measures the cafe proprietor had taken, nor how the guests behaved. But we managed to put chairs out and create our own little stay away-corner of 2 metres distance. Obviously the vegan options were poor, but the chocolate ball and most of all their own almond hook was really nice.



So we stayed there until the rain had calmed down again. Then headed home. We came half way, at the church, when the skies opened up a third time. And spend another at least 45 minutes under a roof there. (Click on the image to see and hear the rain on Flickr)



Only a marginally less granny toodler style outfit.

On the way home we passed the thai food truck, which apparently now will close for  the holidays until August 9. A plantbased phad thai with tofu was called for. I'm glad the paper bag it came in didn't fall apart until I got home. Because yes, obviously the rain had began pouring down again by then.



It was a lovely lunch/dinner though. After a bit of reading I decided to take a nap. Woke up 4 hours later... Had a cup of tea and sandwiches, watched some TV, went to bed again, read, listened to a guided meditation. And slept 9 more hours. I never used to be able to get to sleep or sleep well after having a nap, long or short. But apparently these are extraordinarily exhausting times. And this was an even more exhausting day. What used to be a simple walk with errands that should have taken about 1,5 hours took 4,5 hours with added angst.



This was also the day when I inaugurated the Marimekko Unikko rain poncho I got a year ago. That's right. The heavy rains haven't been around a lot since then, or I haven't been out in them. It was a good rain coverage (might have been even better without carrying a Kånken and a tote of grocery shopping though...).

Plus I feel a bit like Urcellen Ellen, a cute, educational Swedish children's TV-program for us growing up in the seventies, wearing it. I guess it goes well with the granny toddler style sported these days.

And that's how an exciting Friday looks in the time of a pandemic.

One day at a time, people, one day at a time.

sustainability science here i come!

Today all the people that had applied to university educations and courses got their admission information. I'm happy and proud to say I got a yes on the introduction to Sustainability Science-course part time I applied to in April. At my old alma mater, Stockholm University and its world renowned research Resilience Centre.

As I think that the various Swedish admission rules are pretty... messy, I wasn't 100% sure I'd get in. But apparently it's a pretty certain thing when you have a serious bunch of university points already, like a Master of Law. But well, if there's one thing I've learnt from life, it's to never (ever) take anything for granted...

Apparently, due to corona and many people losing their jobs, many more people applied for uni classes this year. And a lot obviously didn't get in. So I'm even more grateful I did.

This is something I'll do part time from August 31st to February. The rest of the time I do hope, with every fibre of my body, fingers, toes and my beating heart, that I will have met and clicked with my dream job obviously.

Again I have a fine little pile of very interesting jobs I'm applying to this summer. I don't have much choice than carry on applying, looking and hoping - this is how resilience works - but there are really bleak days. Days overwhelmed by worries. Somewhere in between all the NOS I hope to get that glorious YES, from my kind of people in my kind of company.

It's such a waste that I haven't reached that point yet (though at least I'm full of life lessons and close to being transformed a wise ol' owl). It would be a huge relief to breath easy again. Having something figuratively heavy lifted from my shoulders. To feel inspired and energized again.

first strawberries 2020

It took until July 8 until I got to eat my first strawberries of 2020.

Due to corona and bad weather it has been a real shortage of them in Sweden. And as strawberries never have appealed to be in the same way as raspberries (as someone so aptly said, even low quality of raspberries is high quality, the same isn't the case for strawberries. They can be really poor. And expensive nevertheless,).

And as mentioned before, I don't understand the fuss of Swedish strawberries per se. I've had my fair share of awful Swedish strawberries over the years. I wholeheartedly support local production and self-supply. But I prefer organic (which is darn difficult to find in strawberries imho...) and the berries actually being tasty and edible...



I don't know the origins of these though. It was nice to have some, but to be honest it wasn't as good as I had envisioned. I found them more sour than sweet and juicy. (Though not as awful as the sour ones I had in Scotland years ago, where they also boast about Scottish strawberries being THE best. Love Scotland for many things, but they're strawberries are not one. Quite the opposite.)

But at least I can tick that summer box now. Eating strawberries. Had them with whipped oat cream and oat milk. Enjoyed by some kitties too.

55 books

Last year was the year when I decided to join GoodReads. Thought it was a good year to do so since I managed to read 52 books, Which may not be a big deal for you super book nerds out there, but for me, who have struggled with my reading mojo since my burnout (just previous to when I started this blog, which makes it over 15 years...), it's a really big deal.

This year I sat the goal to 55 books being read. I'm 4 books behind schedule, but still, I think 44% ie 24 books read already is pretty good.

Far from everyone has been a good read. But you can see which ones I've enjoyed the most from the stars given on GoodReads. So far I'm especially happy to have rekindled with Haruki Murakami's books. Despite it's 500ish pages, the Killing Commendatore, part I was a surprisingly quick read. I remembered how much I adore his writing style. Begun part II immediately, but I thought I should make it a slower read. And try to finish some shorter books in between.



This book is fantastic too, Norwegian writer Maja Lunde's acclaimed "Blå" (or in English 'The End of the Ocean'). For being such a tough and heartbreaking topic, the progress of climate change between the mid 20th to the mid 21st century. It's impossible to put down. I would actually go as far as to say it's one of the best books I've ever read.



If you want to read up on China, past and present, this is a few recommendations of mine. Jan-Phillipp Sendker's two latest books I've read this year, and am reading, the other ones are old, memorable ones from years ago. Including Swedish Henning Mankell's 'The Man from Beijing' ('Kinesen', you get to understand a lot of what made China to what it is through that book, and yet it's a fictional thriller).



I've also "rediscovered" Maria Lang's suspense novels with the dashing inspector Christer Wijk. I remember devouring them all (I think there's about 45 books by her) when I was a kid/teen. I realised I have 13 books of her's in my bookshelves, so I decided to read them this year. I wish I had them all, but this will do for now. Will have to look them up in thrift stores (whenever that is possible again...) and start a collection. She's Swedish equivalent to Agatha Christie, she lived in the pretty smalltown Nora, so most of her books are set there (then called Skoga) or in Stockholm. They're quite enjoyable, and easy reads, the characters are heavy smokers and the gender roles are rather skewed (written between 1949 - 1990), but  if you're able to look past that because of those times I think you'll enjoy them.



One of the books I'm currently reading is Shinrin-yoku (Forrest Bathing) by Dr Qing Li. Beautiful and fascinating book. I hope to be wiser and more open to using more of my senses when I go for walks in the woods after I've finished it.



You may remember the special relationship I have with the number 55, since 2017. The beautiful Stockholm city library is situated at number 55 by the way. It seem's befitting that 55 books read is a decent goal for a year when so much is turned upside down, I think. So much is about waiting these days, and with no place to go, reading is travelling in your mind at least. Making the slow life more meaningful and enlightening.

What's your book goal for 2020? 
Have you read something amazing yet? 
Or something you find overrated perhaps, or really bad even?

vegan hand creams

Anyone else who has issues with very dry hands, due to this constant handwashing these past five months?

Here are a bunch of vegan hand creams I've enjoyed using. They're all very light, so I suspect they're not perfect for winter use. Stronger stuff is needed then.

I love Molton Brown's, but they're a bit pricey. Adore the rhubarb rose scent, smells like summer and childhood to me. Lily of the Valley and star anise is nice, but turned out Fiery pink pepper smells like spicy, cheap after shave alas.

Body Shop's hand creams are always nice, but I prefer mango and the Christmas scents.

EOS hand lotion with cucumber scent is lovely. Smells a lot like my old body cream favourite cucumber-melon from Bath & Body Works.

Treacle Moon Wild Cherry Magic is a delicious scent. Haven't used it much yet, so I just hope it's as good as it smells.

When you're basically have to shop everything online, it's a bit of a guessing game whether you'll like it or not. I try to keep my shopping down to the very bare essentials these days obviously. (Books are considered essentials, right? Right.)

I remember when all this stay-at-home began, how I would perk myself up with wearing a bright lipstick every time I went out. That only lasted a month. Then it turned out to be so impractical with take away food or nicecream eating out. And you get so used to not wearing it that when and if you do there's a tendency to smear it around the face since you forgot you wore it.

The only makeup I wear now is my must; bare minerals original foundation powder (because of my now dermatologist confirmed, rosacea) for cover. After my twenties I've never been big on makeup (funny how you like to cover up that beautiful youthful skin, but the older you get, the least interesting it gets.), but I enjoy the simplicity of lipsticks and eye pencils. Or at least I used to, it seems kind of pointless now. Life in itself is truly down to the bare essentials I suppose. And that includes good hand creams in the times we are living.

What's your favourite vegan hand cream/s? 

july 2020 tea delivery

I haven't had a soy or oat latte for five months. I've given up trying to make my own lattes ages ago, they're never nearly as good as the ones at my favourite coffee shops. I'm glad I'm an avid tea drinker though, those special coffees are treats, not something regular anyway.

And during these five stay at home months I've certainly gulped down teas galore. So it was hight time to order more, old favourites and new flavours. Given I order so much tea myself, I don't need to co-order with one of the neighborhood dog ladies, to get free shipping, but it's kind of a tradition by now so there you are. These days when you can't pop by the tea shop as usual, this is how we do it.



I placed the order on Thursday, expected it to arrive at the pickup point (my local Coop store) mid next week. Imagine my surprise when the package was sent on Friday and I got a notice it would be ready to pick up on Saturday already!

It arrived at 11 am. But it was raining and I had a very rare headache so I decided to have a very peaceful day, and just rest.

When I woke up this morning it was absolutely pouring down, and it did so for six plus hours, Wonderful news for nature! When the rain stopped I decided to take a walk and pick up that tea box at last. I love to pick up boxes that smell delicious, and so did this one.



One my way home a neighborhood kitty wanted a sniff and a cúddle. Which I never say no too obviously. Got home right in time before the rain begun again. The un-boxing was a delight. And as usual I've got the purrfect helpers.

My little berry Zigne poses with the rooibos tea Trädgårdsbär (Garden berries). And Pelle immediately claimed the empty box as his. Something for everyone in that order.

The flavours I got this time were - Fruitbomb (herbal tea that's recommended for ice tea), rooibos organic vanilla, rooibos wild strawberries elderflower, rooibos winter apple (favourite!), rooibos mango passionfruit (favourite), rooibos strawberry cream and the garden berries.

A great cup of tea really is soothing for a troubled soul. Not just a cliché, it's actually true. I always feel much better and calmer after having one. And right now, many of us need a lot of comforting. Tea is one of my best go tos for that. Alongside cat cuddles. Needless to say.

 

organic vegan food inspiration, part 8

It's been 1,6 years since I last posted one of these vegan food inspiration posts. So about high time! The recipes (in Swedish, but easily translated) on Årstiderna's website, scroll to find Veganska matkassen's recipes. I'd of course be happy to answer any questions if you find the translated recipes weird looking.

The previous plantbased inspiration posts are linked at the bottom of this post.

On top is a glimpse of ovenbaked butternut pumpkin, chickpeas, gomashio salt and kale topping. Not a favourite, too much work for little reward I'd say. And then I'm not a fan of kale either.



Fattoush with fried polenta, tomatoes, sunflower seeds and smoked paprika. Pretty good, but not memorable.



Chili sin carne with amarant, borlotti beans, squash, carrots and spinach. Alas, not a fan. Tomato based dishes rarely excites me.



Beetroot risotto with calcot-onion and yukina. Pretty good. The onion topping didn't add much though.



Samosas with potatoes, peas and onions. Salad with white beans, fennel and tomato (was suppose to be black chickpeas, but I burnt them when I cooked alas). I generally enjoy samosas, but as it's a dish that often returns in the box I've grown tired of them. And I also find that when you fry them they get too greasy, but in the oven not crispy enough.



Spicy sweet potato soup with coconut, carrots, chili, lime with a topping of gomashio salt, tomatoes and pumpkin seeds. Soups are always great dishes, no matter flavour. Many thumbs up. Great comfort food on a cold autumn or winter day.



Crispy springrolls filled with cabbage, carrots, basmati rice, leek, chili, garlic, onion and tamari. Just like samosas, I find they have a tendency too be too greasy when fried. So even if they're good now and then, I don't enjoy them often.



Pumpkin gnocchi with pumpkin cream and a topping of a delicious vegan parmesan topping made with cashew nuts and nutritional yeast. Absolutely delicious. I always love the gnocchi dishes and those cheesy toppings. Brilliant stuff.



Bahn mi with vegan sausage, coriander and pickled winter radish, salad and carrots. Lovely. I'm a great fan of bahn mi-sandwiches.



Oven baked romanesco cabbage on a bed of beluga lentils, carrots and red onion. Topped with tahini dressing. Very good. Although the outerworldy beautiful romanesco isn't really made justice visually in the dish...





Another top notch dish - pita bread with hummus, fried chickpeas and cucumber-tomato salad.



Oven baked purple sweet potato with quinoa-cabbage salad. Topped with water cress and tahini dressing. Good flavours, but a bit too much work put in for the end result.



Quesadillas with kidney beans, carrots, onion, spinach and tomato sauce, served with mashed peas. Delicious!



Massaman curry with coconut milk, potatoes and crispy carrot-turnip topping. Very good.



Pumpkin soup with thyme, hem seeds and fried rye bread. Very good.



Risotto with fennel, peas and a brilliant vegan parmesan cream. Served with a fresh, green salad. Lovely dish!



Rustic Italian bean casserole. Not my kind of dish.

Previous inspiration posts -

Organic vegan food inspiration 1
Organic vegan food inspiration 2
Organic vegan food inspiration 3
Organic vegan food inspiration 4
Organic vegan food inspiration 5
Organic vegan food inspiration 6
Organic vegan food inspiration 7