The last day of the Vegan Challenge 3.0

So it has come, the last day of the Vegan Challenge 3.0. On this final day I won’t give you a recipe or a post about some more or less veganism-related topic. Today I just want to share some of my thoughts with you.

For 29 days, the entire month of February, seven friends and I have been vegan. For some, it has been a challenge I think, for me it wasn’t that big a change from how I ate and lived before. Before this month, I cooked only vegan food at home, but when offered or when eating out I would resort to being vegetarian. I wanted to call myself a vegan, because I believe in what I think veganism stands for, but at the same time I was not willing to entirely give up eating all animal products. I love cooking and baking, and there are few better things than to be able to try new foods and be inspired. I guess that I didn’t want to limit myself by being a strict vegan. Say what you want about how great veganism is, you are limiting the possible food experiences you can have. To me that was hard to give up.

So I didn’t limit myself completely. I didn’t say a steadfast no, but reasoned as I always have that it is what you do every day that matters, not the exceptions. But by not setting any rules, exceptions are way to easy to make. Instead of making exceptions when they were actually meaningful, I found myself following small non-vegan whims in my everyday life. To some of you this might not sound too terrible. Does an egg a week or a cookie here and there really matter? Not really, no. But this made me feel sort of in between. I wanted to be vegan, but at the same time I wasn’t ready to commit.

The foremost reason I believe in veganism is because from what I know it is the best way to make a positive impact on the current environmental situation. What we eat affects climate change more than anything else, but is also among the easiest things to change. It terrifies me to see where we are heading and what we are doing to our planet. It is unfair and wrong in every possible way. The only way we can do something about it is if we change our priorities, turn around and start walking in another direction than where we’re headed now. We all have to act, by taking however big or small steps we can. But each and every one of us has to take a step. For some that step might mean cutting their meat consumption and only having meat a couple of times a week. If everyone did that, it would make an enormous difference. But just because I have no meat consumption to talk about and don’t eat that much dairy it doesn’t mean I can just sit back and feel good about myself. We all have to take steps. For me, I think the next step is to commit and be a stricter vegan. No more meaningless exceptions.

This vegan month has shown me more than the previous ones that there are few things you truly have to give up going vegan. I made vegan pastrami, mac and cheese, the meatiest Bolognese I’ve ever had and perhaps above all, a vegan semla. If a semla can be so delicious and so vegan, anything can. For me there are no more excuses really, for not going completely vegan. Sure, there are some sacrifices, of course there are. But they are for a good purpose. I think we all have to give up some things for the sake of our planet. These sacrifices will be different for everyone depending on where the currently are. And I must say, with all the benefits of veganism, it’s not really about loosing but about winning.

I leave this vegan month inspired. And I hope that the 29 posts I’ve made on this blog have inspired at least someone out there. I fulfilled my goal, I posted something everyday, and even if I don’t know if there’s anyone out there reading this, I am proud of that. I’m going to continue posting recipes and posts on, to me, interesting topic, even though it won’t be once a day. I started the challenge by saying that a month is the perfect time to open your eyes and start new habits, and this time I feel that both writing here as well as being vegan has really stuck to me. So really, this is where my new vegan challenge starts. Thank you for reading.

Exotic adventures and sweet potato & ginger dumplings

The last week my dearest boyfriend has been visiting me here in the Big Apple. We've had a great time so far, mostly just taking it easy and walking around some of the different neighborhoods. I've started to see a pattern in the stops I plan for our explorations though. They are almost always related to food. I find strange small food shops, cafés and restaurants, and of course, multiple exotic grocery stores that are hidden away on shady streets. To me, entering any kind of ethnic grocery store is like entering a new enchanted world. There is so much to see, foods I've never even heard of and have no idea how to use. Our last tour led us to an Asian grocery store where we got the following three things: a box of sweet and strong tamarind candy, a glass bottle of fruit soda sealed by a glass marble that you broke loose before drinking and a big package of dumpling wrappers. Can you guess which one of them is starring in this week's last recipe? May I present: Sweet potato and ginger dumplings with a miso-sesame dipping sauce!

I was surprised by how easy dumpling making was. The filling goes fast to make, as does the dipping sauce. It takes some time to put together the dumplings, but this is a fun project to do together with someone you like. You get the hang of it pretty fast and then you're like a dumpling factory. We pan-fried our dumplings, but if you want to you can steam or boil them as well. A little bit of googling will tell you how it's done. Also, why not check out fun ways to wrap your dumplings on Youtube! If you want to you can be quite the dumpling artist!

Makes about 40 dumplings

The dumplings
2 tbsp. sesame seeds
1 leek, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
260 g sweet potato
200 g firm tofu
1 tbsp. grated ginger
2 tbsp. Chinese soy sauce
2 tbsp. vinegar
½ tbsp. chili sauce, such as Sriracha
2 tsp. mirin or sugar
1-2 tsp. sesame oil
About 40 dumpling wrappers (round, approximately 10 cm in diameter)

The dipping sauce
3 tbsp. Chinese soy sauce
3 tbsp. mirin (you can use sugar too)
1 tbsp. tahini
1 tbsp. miso (I use red)
2 scallions, minced
1 tbsp. vinegar

Mix all the ingredients for the dipping sauce and let it sit so that the flavors can mingle until your dumplings are done.

Roast the sesame seeds in a dry pan over medium heat. Remove the seeds and add a lug of oil. Fry the scallions and garlic until soft. Peel and grate the sweet potato coarsely and crumble the tofu. Add this to the pan. Mix the rest of the ingredients, except for the dumpling wrappers, in a bowl and pour over the filling. Fry for another minute or two, then remove from the heat.

To make the dumplings, place about 1 tablespoon of filling on a wrapper. Wet the edges of the wrapper with your finger and either just fold it over the middle and pinch it together or make nice pleats along the edge. I leave it up to you to use your googling skills to learn more about different wrapping techniques. Place the finished dumpling on a cutting board. Continue until you've used up all filling.

Heat a large pan to medium-high heat. Add a lug of oil and then place the dumplings in the pan as close as possible without them touching too much. Fry for about 3 minutes until golden on the underside. Add about 5 tbsp. of water to the pan and cover with a lid. Lower the heat to medium and steam for 3-5 minutes.

Enjoy your dumplings with the dipping sauce. Eat with your fingers or be proper and use chopsticks.

Sticky, gooey and deliciously not healthy

Many people think that being a vegan inherently means eating only healthy food. Well, they’re wrong. In many cases, going vegan means making your diet healthier, sure, but that does not mean that you can’t splurge. You can make just as good ooey gooey pastries as a vegan, which is just what I did for my roommates and me for breakfast a while back. I made sticky buns, completely vegan, not the least healthy and oh so delicious.

You can use this recipe to make regular cinnamon buns too, simply omit the sticky part and proof them on a baking sheet the second time. The recipe makes about 12 buns, and if you feel that is too much for breakfast, you can freeze half of the rolls before the second proofing. Simply put them on a baking sheet and put it in the freezer. Once they’re frozen you can keep them in a sealed bag. To use them, thaw them out in the fridge over night and then put them in a pan with the sticky topping in the morning, proof and bake. In that case, make half the amount of topping each time

Makes about 12 sticky buns

The dough

3 dl vegan milk

¾ dl vegetable oil, such as canola

½ dl sugar

1 chia egg (1 tsp chia seeds/ground chia + 2 ½ tsp water)

25 g fresh yeast or 1 ½ tsp dry yeast

8 dl all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

2-3 tsp cardamom (2 if ground, 3 if your crushing the seeds yourself)

The filling

2 tbsp. coconut oil

¾ - 1 dl brown sugar

Cinnamon

1 apple, cut into small pieces

The sticky topping

3 tbsp. brown sugar

3 tbsp. maple syrup

3 tbsp. water

3 tbsp. coconut oil

2 tsp. grated fresh ginger

1 1/2 – 2 dl chopped nuts

Carefully heat the milk, sugar and oil in a saucepan until lukewarm (about 37 C for fresh yeast and up to 45 C for dry). If it’s any hotter you’ll kill the yeast. Whisk in the chia egg. Place the yeast, salt and cardamom in a bowl. Pour over the liquid and stir to dissolve the yeast. Gradually add the flour and knead until you have a soft and elastic dough. It should still be quite sticky, as it will become firmer while proofing. If you have a bread mixer, do use it as it will improve the quality of the dough. In that case, wait to add the salt and first knead the dough for a good 10 minutes on medium speed. Increase the speed, add the salt and knead for another 2 minutes. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let proof until it’s doubled in size. This can take 1-2 hours.

Place the dough on a floured surface. Knead it into a firm ball and let it relax for 10 minutes. Roll it out into a rectangle, about 1 cm thick. Spread the coconut oil over the dough and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Leave about 2 cm at the far longer side of your rectangle unsprinkled, that way it will hold together better when rolled up. Distribute the chopped apple on top and roll it up from the longer side closest to you. Cut the roll into 12 pieces.

Bring all the ingredients for the sticky topping but the nuts to a boil. Stir to make sure all the sugar has dissolved. The oil and water might be a bit separated, but never mind that. Pour the topping into a 24 cm spring pan and sprinkle the nuts on top. Place the rolls in the pan, evenly distributed.

Proof for about 30 minutes to 1 hour, until the dough feels soft and fluffy to the touch and the rolls have about doubled in size.

Turn the oven on to 200°C/400°F. When the buns are done proofing, pop them in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, or until they have browned nicely on top. Take out the pan, loosen the sides and turn the whole thing onto a plate while the sticky topping is still warm. Serve warm. 

Hungry for more

Several of my co-vegans during this vegan challenge have told me that they’ve been hungrier than usual since going vegan. I agree with them, vegan food makes me hungrier too, although I see that as a perk letting me eat more often. So why is this? I decided to learn more about what it is that makes us hungry and what makes us feel full, and how our appetite works. And just like with anything else that involves the human body, it is more complex than you’d think.

Before going any further it’s important to define the difference between these terms, hunger, appetite, satiety. Hunger is a physical need for food, our bodies’ way to tell us they need more energy or nutrients. Appetite on the other hand is the psychological desire to have food. It’s related to our behavior and can be triggered by for example seeing or smelling something delicious. Finally, satiety is the body’s way to tell us to stop eating, that it has what it needs for now.

Hunger is a complex thing. Scientist long believed that the only thing controlling our feeling of hunger was the contraction of the stomach. One scientist went as far as to swallowing a balloon connected to a tube to prove this. As long as the balloon was inflated, he felt no hunger. Yet this theory doesn’t hold in the long run, as even people who have had to have their stomachs removed will feel hunger. The body can also signal hunger when its glucose levels are too low as well as due to psychological factors. I know I just said hunger was physiological rather than psychological, but sometimes our minds can play tricks on us. Hunger can be affected by the mental state we’re in, for example if we are stressed. It can also be a learned response, a habit, triggered by our biological clock. You might have experienced that you are hungry for lunch at the same time every day, independent of what you’ve been doing.

How soon we become hungry after eating is largely dependent on our metabolism. The metabolism is the breaking down of food to energy that is needed to sustain the body, even when resting. Different people do this at different rates and need different amounts of energy in their resting state. This is determined by several factors such as gender, age, hormones and muscle mass. More muscles require more energy, even when they’re not active.

At some point after eating, we will become full and not want to eat any more. When this happens is depends on several different factors. The most obvious one of these is the actual volume of the food we consume. The food will stretch our stomach. When eating a large meal, it may have to expand from the size of a fist to a volume of 2 liters. There are masses of nerves in our stomach, and when this stretch happens, they will send signals to our brain telling it we’ve gotten something to eat. These are not the only signals being sent to the brain though. As the stomach is being emptied, the hormone ghelin is produced. When we eat this production lessens, which is also signaled to the brain. It doesn’t end there. Further down in our intestine, in the ileum, another hormone, PYY, is produced once the food as passed through the stomach. This hormone tells the brain to tell us that we are full. You might have heard that it takes 20 minutes to know if you’re full or not, and that is because it takes the food 20 minutes to reach the ileum.

When we eat hormones such as lectin and insulin are produced and they as well can tell the brain that we’ve eaten. They interact with dopamine-producing neurons in the hypothalamus of the brain. This changes the levels of dopamine in the brains reward center, and thereby determines if we want to eat more or not. The hypothalamus is thus the part of the brain controlling our appetite. Appetite is also affected by outside influences, such as colors and images. Seeing a yellow banana can make us hungry. Seeing a red banana on the other hand probably won’t. This is because we are programmed to want to eat natural things that we know are safe to eat. Red bananas are not natural. This is why the color blue is believed inhibit appetite, because few natural, edible things are blue.

So how does vegan food connect to all of this? Why does a vegan diet make many of us hungrier? Well, the main reason is that a vegan diet often consists of foods with a high saturating power but a lower energy content. The saturating power is basically how full a food will make us feel. Proteins, fibers and water have a high saturating power, whilst fat has a low. A vegan diet is often high in fiber, making it more filling. Think about eating a big bowl of kale for example. It is rich in fiber making us feel satiated, but the pure bulk of it will also make us feel full. Still a bowl of kale does not contain a whole lot of calories. After a while the body will realize that even though it thought it had gotten all the energy it needed, it had merely been filled up with a bowl of kale. As our bodies require a certain amount of energy, no matter what we do, it will then tell us to eat more. A vegan diet often not as dense in calories, and we therefore have to eat larger volumes of food to get the energy we need.

If you feel that a vegan diet is making you hungrier, simply make sure to have some good filling snacks around. I must say it suits me very well, since I've always been a good snacker. I rarely say no to a reason to have more food. Keeping some fruit, nuts, good energy bars or a sandwich in your bag or at home might be a good thing, if you find yourself suddenly hungry. 

Making banana pancakes

“But, baby, you hardly even notice

When I try to show you this

Song is meant to keep you

From doing what you're supposed to.

Waking up too early

Maybe we can sleep in

Make you banana pancakes

Pretend like it's the weekend now”

 - Jack Johnson

There is this song by Jack Johnson called banana pancakes. It’s about how he wants his loved one to forget about the life outside their little home, be lazy and make banana pancakes with him. I simply love this song, not only because it’s a great song, but also because it’s about staying in, being leisurely and caring about the important things instead of whatever irrelevant things may be calling in the world outside. And because it is about pancakes.

So here is my recipe for banana pancakes. I find that vegan banana pancakes can get a bit heavy, so make sure to fry them over low heat so that they cook through properly. Also, keep an eye on the consistency of the batter. If it seems too thick, add more milk. Made properly though these pancakes are a filling, hearty breakfast as well as a perfect way to forget about the world outside on a lazy morning.

If you want to be extra luxurious, add chocolate chips or blueberries to the batter (if using frozen berries, sprinkle them over the pancake in the pan) or sprinkle some extra coconut over the pancake before flipping it.

Makes about 10 pancakes

1 chia egg (1 tbsp. chia seeds + 2 ½ tbsp. water)

1 tbsp. vegetable oil

3 dl vegan milk

3 ½ dl all-purpose flour

1 tbsp. sugar

1 ½ tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. cardamom

1 dl shredded coconut

Mix the chia egg in a bowl and let sit for about 10 minutes. Mash the banana in the bowl and then add the milk and oil. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Incorporate the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Heat a pan to low-medium heat. Add a tiny bit of oil and pour in enough batter to make the size of pancakes you like. I recommend not making them too big. Turn the pancakes over when bubbles have started to appear on the surface and it has started to dry slightly. It is key to fry them on low heat so that they get cooked through.

Serve with fresh fruit and maybe some maple syrup. A sprinkle of cinnamon won’t make them worse either, I promise.

Green, greener, greenest - Avocado Pesto

You rarely meet someone that doesn’t like pesto. I don’t think I ever have. The Italians invented something amazing when they decided to simply mix basil and garlic. So simple, and yet so heavenly. Another thing that is deceivingly simple, delicious and also contains garlic (Coincidence? I don’t think so) is guacamole. From the other side of the globe comes this wondrous mash of creamy avocado and garlic that almost everyone enjoys. There are exceptions, but let’s consider them oddities, random errors in the statistics. So what would happen if you mix the two? As you well know, 1 + 1 can equal 3, which definitely goes for this dish.

This avocado-basil pesto is creamy, flavorful and super easy to make. Close to all the ingredients are green, avocado, basil and kale. You can use spinach is the place of kale if you have that at hand. Put it all in a mixer with a lot of garlic and lemon and tadaa! An exceptional pasta sauce! You can add any other green vegetables (or other color) to the pasta and sauce, such as broccoli, asparagus, peas or maybe more kale. It’s up to you! The recipe includes green soybeans (edamame) just because I love them and they look great and boost the protein content. Feel free to mix it up!

Enough for about 3

For the pesto

1 avocado

30 g basil, stalks and all

30 g kale, coarse stalks removed

2 tbsp. lemon juice

Zest from 1 lemon

Salt and pepper

4 tbsp. reserved pasta water

For the rest of the dish

300 g pasta

3 dl frozen green soybeans, frozen

3 tbsp. sunflower seeds

3 tbsp. pumpkin seeds

Heat a dry pan to medium heat and roast the seeds until they start getting golden.

Start heating the water for the pasta. Once it’s boiling, add the pasta. At the end of the cooking time, when about 3 minutes remain, add the beans.

Mix all the ingredients for the pesto except for the water, using a blender. Mix until smooth.

Once the pasta and beans are done, drain and reserve the water. Add water to the pesto, about 1 tbsp. at a time until desired thickness. It took me 4 tbsp.

Mix the pasta and beans with the pesto and half of the roasted seeds. Sprinkle the rest over the pasta before serving! Yum!