I'm spending most my time lately studying for my finals as here in Norway your final accounts for 75% - 100% of your grade. Obviously I need to do well.

I had one last Friday. It was for this class that was an absolute joke. I got a B (Norwegian B) and I'm pretty satisfied, especially considering the effort I put in (virtually none...) I have another one tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.

I have been cooking a lot lately, but not taking many pictures. I've fallen in love with Vive le Vegan. I love pretty much every recipe I try. I especially like the french toast (which I don't have any pics of) because it tastes like the non-vegan one my mom made when I was a tiny tot.

Quinoa is my new favorite grain.
I love spinach and brussel sprouts
I've been craving grapefruit (in smoothies otherwise it is too bitter)
Dates filled with almond butter are my new treat. It tastes sinfull but is fairly healthy
Seitan is the best meat replacement ever. It works with everything and my cat eats it :)

Will post more after finals. Was supposed to go to Rolling Stones concert in Gothenburg but it has been postponed. To all those who are done with school, enjoy your summer. To the rest of us: Good luck

Finals are right around the corner and the weather is beautiful. I'm cooking. My boyfriend and I fired up the bbq this weekend when the weather started getting warm. I made some veggie kabobs. I don't have pics of them, but they were just different veggies. Made a quinoa salad to go with that. It was inspired by VLV's Quinoa Spring Salad, but I added more veggies. I like lots of fresh veggies in my salads. It was all really good. I love the flavor of bbq.

I also made thai curry. It's a recipe of my moms that I veganize. It's sooo good. I don't have a pic of that either, sorry. I can't remember the name of the book, but it's a very good curry. I put cubed eggplant in it and the eggplant turned all buttery and melted in your mouth. My favorite :)

I had squash left over from the kabobs so I decided to use them in a pasta sauce. Pasta is one of my favorite things because it's fast and easy and you can always add a little twist making it a brand new dish.
Here I've crumbled firm tofu. I sauteed the tofu with some onion, a little garlic and the rest of the squash (cubed). I also added "pasta spices" (oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil). Then I added a can of tomatoes and served it all over some penne. It was very good. I like pasta with a little crunch. I also think that the crumbled tofu gives the dish an interesting texture.





Yesterday I decided on Indian. I love indian food, but I find the sauces to be a pain to make so this weekend we got a jar of vegan sauce from the store. Naan is one of my favorite parts of an indian meal so I decided to make that too. Much to my surprise I discovered that naan is full of animal ingredients. There's yoghurt, eggs, milk, butter... the works. I felt stupid, but thankfully I haven't had it for months, only once after going vegan. I decided that I would make vegan naan that would be every bit as good as regular naan. So I used regular vegan yoghurt, soy milk and margarine and flax eggs instead of regular eggs. The naan was great. Even my boyfriend who was super skeptical when I told him I hadn't put eggs in the naan loved them.

You can see the flax (the black things). I also added some garlic to give the naan a little extra flavor. This pic is from before they were cooked, but they looked the same after, if only a little more golden (we ate them before I could take a pic...).

Today I decided I wanted to make Lemon-Herb tofu from VLV. Wow! It was amazing. It was so tender and nice, and the lemon flavor was so delicate.


The tofu before going in the oven. I also liked that the tofu didn't have to be marinated. You just make it and it turns out wonderful. I served the tofu with quinoa with walnut basil pesto, also from VLV. The pesto was good, but it didn't taste like pesto at all. I loved it as a sauce for the quinoa and it was wonderful with the tofu, however I wouldn't make it for when I crave pesto. It was just too different for my taste. I think it might be good as a salad dressing too, but I haven't tried that yet. The recipe made a fair bit, so I now have a jar of it in the fridge. I'll be having it for lunch tomorrow along with the left over quinoa. I intentionally made a lot so that I would have leftovers. I'm going to crumble the leftover tofu, mix it with avocado and tomato and put it in a pita (inspired by Dreena's website).

Walnut basil pesto.

Quinoa with pesto, roasted pine nuts (love pine nuts) and lemon-herb tofu. Mmmm...

Some people don't do things if they feel pressured. I think I might be one of those people. It seems to me that it's been a long time since I've blogged (because it has), yet every time I think about doing it I decide to put it off. I think it's because I feel like I'm pressuring myself. And because I feel like a weirdo when I take pics of my food. But my boyfriend already thinks I'm a weirdo, so it shouldn't really matter... Anyways I decided that I should do some blogging today. I also decided that I can blog about whatever, even if it isn't about food, because I sometimes feel like just writing random thoughts.

First a few food pics I want to share


This is a cross between Peacefrog's artichoke pasta and Gerry's artichoke pasta, both from LDV. I only had some of the ingredients so I put the two together and changed it all a little and the result was Michelle's artichoke pasta. It was very tasty.


I was craving something sweet, but felt like I needed something healthy, so I made these muffins. I know I got the recipe from one of Sarah's books, but I think I might have changed it a bit. I think it might have been a blueberry muffin recipe and then I used whole wheat. I can't remember. These were really good too, although my boyfriend is of the opinion that muffins shouldn't be healthy (when I told him that yes, there was whole wheat in them). They tuned out really pretty too. I was a little worried for a while, because they looked green before they were done.



Another craving. This is peach blueberry cobler from LDV. What I did though was take Wolffies Peach cobler recipe and added some blueberries. It turned purple, but it tasted delicious.




Made the rosted cherry tomato pasta again. I really love this recipe. It's so easy and so good.



I made these yesterday. They are Dreena's chocolate p-nut butter squares. These are so good. You can see the chocolate and peanutbutter layers. The bottom is oatmeal, so the cookies are almost healthy :)