Plantbased food by Mimmi Kvist
It’s all good that there are meat-free burgers, sausages and chick’n for those summer barbecues, so that more people skip the meat. But sometimes the veggies themselves are good enough.
We used slices of eggplant and zucchini, mushrooms, romaine lettuce, tomatoes and new potatoes and carrots (boiled beforehand until almost soft). Toss the veggies onto the grill, serve it with some hummus and sage, and at last sprinkle it with cashew parmesan.
Oh summer, please come back! I comfort myself with this salad while waiting for the rain to pass. Beetroot and goat’s cheese is a classic combination, but instead I use my favourite – the almond feta. You can find a step by step instruction in my Stories highlights on Instagram! @neverenoughgreens
Cook whole bulghur (or other grain) in vegetable stock and tumeric.
Chop 2 cloves of garlic. Sauté in a pan in olive oil on medium heat together with 1 can of large white beans, rinsed and drained, and a sprig of fresh rosemary. Take aside. Next, heat pre-cooked and quartered beetroots in the same pan.
Serve bulghur, beets and beans together with crumbled almond feta cheese, coarsely chopped almonds and fresh rosemary. Season with olive oil, white vinegar, salt and black pepper.
Who says a sandwich can’t count as dinner? It only depends on what you put in it. If you stuff it until it almost bursts and you have to open up wider than at the dentist’s, I can assure you it’s dinner compatible. This one’s loaded with lettuce, grated carrots, cucumber, almond feta cheese, tomatoes, bean sprouts and beetroot hummus.
This might look like a very ordinary sandwich. But to me, it wasn’t. It’s homemade all the way. Ok, we didn’t grow the grains for the flour or the cashews. But we’ve started the sourdough, baked the bread, made the cashew cream cheese and grown the cucumber and the basil from seeds. And my – didn’t it taste extra special?!
The cashew cream is from when I made the frosting for the carrot cake. I made some extra when trying the recipe out, and took some aside before adding the icing sugar. The texture is so nice and it goes really well with veggies and a pinch of salt on top.
You know the almond feta from the other day? This is what I used it for – a fabulous salad with lots of good stuff.
1 almond feta cheese
1/4 watermelon, diced
1,5 dl red rice, cook as instructed on packet
1/2 cucumber, diced
1 dl kalamata olives
2 dl croutons from sourdough bread
2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
olive oil and white vinegar
black pepper
fresh oregano
Carefully toss all the vegetables with the rice and croutons in a big salad bowl. Season with olive oil, vinegar and black pepper. Plate and top with a quarter of the almond feta cheese. Garnish with fresh oregano.
This is not a copy of sheep’s milk feta cheese. If you expect that, you might be disappointed. But if you – like me – find that cheese is one of the harder things to give up when going plant-based, this is a superb substitute, both savoury and crumbly. It takes a bit of work, but for me it was totally worth it. Recipe from vegetariantimes.com.
Ingredients
3 dl almonds
4 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic
1,25 tsp salt
0,5 dl cold water
1 pod of probiotics (optional)
Bring a pot of water to boil and add almonds. Boil for 2-3 minutes. Rinse in cold water. Remove the peel from all of them. Put the peeled almonds in a bowl and cover with water. Leave to soak for 24 hours.
Rinse the almonds in cold water. Put almonds, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and salt in a food processor of high speed blender. Add 0,5 dl cold water. Blend until very smooth. This will take at least 5 minutes or more. If using probiotic powder, add from the pod at the very last seconds.
Use a cheese cloth or double (clean!) kitchen towels. Spoon the cheese mixture onto the cloth, bring the corners together and twist to form a ball the size of an orange. Place in a small drain over a bowl to allow moisture to drip down. The recipe says to chill the cheese for 12 hours, but I left mine in room temperature for about 8 hours, hoping the probiotics would start fermenting a little bit.
Line a tray with parchment paper and a drizzle of olive oil. Transfer the soft cheese onto the tray and flatten carefully to about 1, 5 cm height. Bake in the oven at 100 degrees for about 40 minutes, until the top of the cheese is slightly firm. Serve warm or refrigerate.
PS. Keep the almond peels. Let them dry, put on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and thyme. Put in the oven while baking the cheese. Makes a nice, crispy little snack!
Pizza without cow’s milk cheese takes a bit more creativity. Without melted cheese the pizza can be a bit dry. But not this one.
I topped my homemade pizza base with a thin layer of mashed sweet potato, some cashew parmesan, a drizzle of olive oil, basil leaves, salt and black pepper. 10 minutes in a hot oven, 275 degrees. Turned out really good, so I say you should give it a try!
I finally tried making cashew cream. I liked the texture of it, but it does need a bit of seasoning. Here’s a cheesy one with a lemon twist that worked well with the asparagus.
Cashew cream
Soak 2 dl of natural cashews for a few hours. Drain and mix with 1 dl cold water, 1 tbsp nutritional yeast, 1 clove of garlic, 2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 0,5 tsp salt. Blend until you’ve got a smooth cream.
Asparagus Pasta
Fry finely chopped garlic with pieces of fresh asparagus, green peas and sunflower seeds. Add a few sliced dried tomatoes. Serve with spaghetti, cashew cream and top with capers and a drizzle of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and lemon zest.
