Celery root, carrot and apple salad

A few months ago, my food processor broke down and I had to buy a new one. Since then, every time I use my new food processor I always want to give myself a congratulatory pat on the back for choosing this one, because it is so amazing. The first time I used it, I threw all kinds of fruits and veggies in there just to test how long it would take to chop everything into teeny tiny pieces – mostly just a few seconds! Since then, I use my food processor almost every other day – it’s just so easy to just use it instead of grating carrots or other hard veggies by hand.

One of the dishes that are much less time consuming to prepare with my little kitchen helper is this tasty salad. Instead of grating the celery root, apple and carrots by hand, you can just throw everything in a food processor and Tadaa! Instant salad! (Though you can of course also grate the ingredients by hand.) Just make sure to process the apple on it’s own, as it will turn to mush if you process it with the harder vegetables. This salad works great as a main course, and you can also easily transport it to uni or to work as it’s keeps fresh and crisp for a few hours even without a fridge. Just give it a try! 

Sinfully decadent (albeit guilt-free!) carrot cake porridge

Carrot cake for breakfast – who doesn’t dream of this? Though while carrot cake contains, well, healthy carrots, it is also often loaded with sugar and fat, so not really something you could enjoy as a healthy start of your day. Since I am not only a huge carrot cake fan, but also have a soft spot for a bowl of warm porridge in the cold season, I decided to mix the two into a delicious, albeit healthy breakfast dish. I recommend using vanilla soy milk for this, as it is sweet enough so you don’t need to add any more sugar (unless you have a really sweet tooth, in this case you can add a little brown sugar).

Spicy sweet potato soup with peanuts

I case I have never said it before, I love sweet potatoes. Like, LOVE them. They are sweet enough to work as fruit-in-disguise-of-a-vegetable (perfect for desserts), are deliciously creamy when baked in the oven but they still work great in savoury dishes like curries and soups. This soup here is one of my favourites for the first colder autumn days, it’s spicy enough to really warm you from the inside but not as heavy as many winter stews. The flavour of the sweet potatoes blends perfectly with the peanuts and gives this soup a very nice rich, creamy taste. It is also a perfect base to experiment with different flavour combinations, so go ahead and experiment with various spices (how about some garam masala?) to make this soup just a little more perfect for you – have a go at it!

Sushi course part 2: Inside-out rolls with white rice

So, I hope you all mastered part one of my little sushi course and are now experts in making maki rolls? Then it’s now time for a new challenge: inside-out rolls! These are a little more difficult to make (though we will use some kitchen foil to make it easier), so if you want to give them a go, maybe it’s best if you give the maki rolls a try first for practice. Since we need the rice to be more sticky than for the makis, I recommend using white rice for these. You can use whatever vegetable you like for the filling, I used ball pepper, carot, cucumber and beet root for the ones pictures above.

Spicy pumpkin soup with ginger and coconut

Winter is the perfect season for a hot, steamy soup waiting for you for lunch or dinner – either at home or in a thermos container at uni. Some universities even offer microwaves for students to heat their packed lunch! This soup is one of my favourites, it has the perfect combination of spicy curry, slightly sweet coconut and hot ginger to really warm you from the inside. It freezes really well and also keeps fresh for a couple of days in the fridge, so I always make one big batch and feast on it for several days. This recipe makes about 4 servings – though you can of course downsize or upsize it to your liking.

Fried vegetables in peanut sauce with rice

This dish was inspired by the Asian cuisine, but the actual reason that lead to it’s development was the fact that I had bought a way to big jar of peanut butter. Sometimes I just forget the ‘Never go grocery shopping when you are hungry’ rule, and things like this are the result of it… But otherwise, who knows if I had ever created this dish? So I guess there’s worse than getting a little shopping druggy ;-).

Carrot-potato-shallot lasagna

Recently I had a nice conversation in the Best student recipes! Facebook group with Markus Andri Gordon Wilde about one of his dishes: Potato pseudo-lasagne. Since I had some carrots left in my fridge I decided to create my own ‘pseudo-lasagna’ and took Markus’s dish as a starting point. This is what came out:

Mangetouts with ball pepper and a touch of Asia

You need:

• 100g mangetouts
• 1 red ball pepper
• 1 carrot
• 1 small red chili pepper
• 50g basmati rice
• 2 tablespoons of tomato purée
• 2-3 tablespoons of dark soya sauce
• 2 tablespoons of cashew nuts
• vegetable oil
• salt

Cook the basmati rice with a little salt. Chop the carrot in slices, the ball pepper in bite sized pieces and thread the mangetouts and cut them in half. Cut the chili pepper in very small pieces and roast it gently with a little vegetable oil in a pan.  Then add and roast the sliced carrot for a few minutes before adding the ball pepper. After three minutes,  deglaze with the soya sauce and stir the tomator purée in it, then add the  mangetouts and the cashew nuts. Fry the vegetables for a couple of minutes and season to taste with salt and soya sauce. Serve with the rice.

Note: Be careful  with the chili pepper – try a little bit from it before using the whole for this dish to make sure it does not get to hot. If you don’t like very hot dishes, use dried chili pepper flakes. They give you the same chili-like taste (unlike e.g. black pepper), but are less spicy.

Spicy carrot-apricot soup with honey

You need:

• 2 small carrots
• 5 dried apricots
• 1 small shalott
• 250ml vegetable stock
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• 1/4 chili pepper
• vegetable oil
• lemon juice
• salt

Chop the vegetables and the apricots in small cubes. Gently roast the diced shalott, chili pepper and carrots in a little vegetable oil. After a few minutes, add the hot vegetable stock, apricots and spices and boil for another 10-12 minutes. Blend the soup until creamy and season to taste with salt and lemon juice.

Vegetable-curry with banana

You need:

• 100g Basmati rice
• 1 big carrot
• 150g broccoli
• 150g cauliflower
• 2 tomatoes
• 2 small bananas or 1 plantain
• 50-100ml milk
• 1-2 tablespoons of soya sauce
• 1-2 teaspoons of curry powder
• vegetable oil
• salt
• chili (if necessary)

Clean the vegetables and chop all in bite-sized pieces and slice the bananas. Cook the rice with a little salt and heat some oil in a big pan. At first, add the chopped carrot and roast it for about three minutes. Then add the cauliflower and after another three minutes the broccoli and the tomatoes. Deglaze the vegetables with the soya sauce and add the milk and curry powder. Mix it all well and season to taste with salt and – when the curry is very mild – a little chili. Shortly before saving, mix the curry with the bananas and fry the curry until it gets creamy. Serve with the rice.

Note: This recipe serves two persons, but if you leave out the banana, you can also freeze half of it and heat it in a small pot or in the microwave.