Author: Asli

Phyllo Pastry Rolls With Cheesy Filling

Published by

I absolutely love working with phyllo – and eating pastries made with phyllo – and this easy peasy recipe turned out to be another fantastic pastry feast. First of all, I made these using regular cheese, but you can replace that with dairy-free grated cheese. The butter I used was vegan anyway, and you can use that too. Phyllo sheets are vegan themselves, so in the end, you can easily make a vegan version of these pastries. The only thing you might struggle with is the pesto; however, there are many recipes online if you want to make vegan pesto. Unfortunately, I have never seen a gluten-free phyllo pastry, and I’m too lazy to try to do it by myself, so I can’t give you any clues on making this pastry gluten-free. I used phyllo sheets that I bought from the Turkish market here in Helsinki, in Itäkeskus. These sheets are not frozen, but they must be kept in the fridge. Before using them, you must leave them at room temperature for a while to …

Black Bean Balls And Coconut Milk Rice – A Delicious Lunch

Published by

Here is an excellent lunch menu recipe for you. You can add a light salad to this if you like, and you will be ready to go! I love making bean or vegetable balls. They are some of the best lunch or dinner dishes for a vegetarian. They are filling enough themselves, but in this menu recipe, I also wanted to add one of my favourite rice pilaf dishes, the one with coconut milk. I got the inspiration from two different recipes to make these balls and rice pilaf, but I put my own twists. I used couscous with black beans because I like the texture of couscous in this kind of balls. The gluten-free alternative for couscous can be quinoa or a mixture of almond flour and breadcrumbs. Of course, all these substitutions will result in different textures and tastes themselves. I used parmesan in the black bean balls, but if you want to make it vegan, you can substitute parmesan with grated vegan cheese. I made them once this way, and they were …

Tahini And Molasses Cake – Light And Fluffy

Published by

I’m sitting on my bed, drinking my morning tea and writing this blog post. I was planning to write it last night, but I was a tad too tired, and the pain in my body was too much. I also have pain right now, but it’s slightly better. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia a few weeks ago, and it’s been hard to adjust to it, but then cakes like this one help every once in a while to lift my spirit. About six years ago, I published a very easy dessert recipe, made just by a certain proportion of tahini with molasses. That mixture is so simple to make and has been a part of my childhood so much. This recipe turns that mixture into a light and delicious cake, together with one of my favourite things in the world, black tea. This recipe originates from one I saw on Youtube one day purely by chance. I can’t find that recipe anymore, but luckily I noted it down. I added a bit of my twist, …

A Delicious Fava Bean Spread With Locally Grown Beans From Oma Maa

Published by

This spread is similar to hummus, but it does not have chickpeas. Instead, I used crushed dried fava beans locally grown by Oma Maa food co-op (the beans were a part of the food bag I got from them in December). I’ve been thinking of what to do with them, and finally, I found a delicious use. Being involved with the producer of the food product you use is a great thing. Why? You can, of course, just go to the supermarket and buy a package of crushed fava beans, there are many different brands. However, when you know the producer, you also get to learn how the beans are prepared. Let me tell you. After being harvested, the beans are taken to Oma Maa’s kitchen building, which is slightly farther away from the farm (Lassila Farm in Tuusula). The kitchen building has different rooms: a cold room to keep harvested produce where there is also a couple of freezers, a room full of machines where you can wash and peel fresh produce, crush or …

Blueberry Cake With Lemon And Coconut – Blåbärskaka Med Citron Och Kokos

Published by

Yeah, believe it or not, I started to speak Swedish. I can read articles, magazines… I’ve been studying Swedish as a “hobby” on Duolingo for a few months. I didn’t take it seriously, and I didn’t think I could really learn a language using an app – but, I was wrong! Well, also Swedish is an easy language, especially compared to, cough cough, Finnish… I’m still studying though, so I can’t say that I’m 100% fluent… Anyway, blueberry cake, aka blåbarskaka! This is one of those effortless cake recipes. You mix dry ingredients on one side, whisk the others in a particular order, then mix them and finally add blueberries. That’s it. Easy peasy. I made this cake for the first time about ten days ago, when I was invited to a small dinner gathering with three other friends. We don’t do big dinners these days due to covid. I only meet friends that I trust will be responsible with covid restrictions, and even then, not too big gatherings. So we were four women that …

Vegan Monday: Oat Flatbread With Oat Yoghurt / Tahini Sauce – Cooking With Local Produce Of Oma Maa

Published by

Today’s blog post is full of recipes: a bread, a sauce and a topping idea for the bread with roasted veggies. Most of the key ingredients – except for tahini – came from Oma Maa food bag I received in December. I talked quite a bit about Oma Maa’s food bags in an earlier blog post where I used Oma Maa ingredients again, so I will not write much about it here. But I strongly urge you to go to that blog post and check how amazing the food bag was: https://mydearkitcheninhelsinki.com/2020/12/17/gluten-free-thursday-a-hearty-vegetable-soup-and-food-sovereignty/ Today I actually want to talk about yoghurt. I love yoghurt. I eat yoghurt every day. When I was a kid, I didn’t love it this much (but I never hated it either). As I grew older, yoghurt became an indispensable part of my life. Cheese and tomato are a close second. When I tried the vegan diet a few times before, I couldn’t commit to it because of the yoghurt (and cheese) issue. None of the dairy-free yoghurt options could replace the …

First Recipe Of 2021: Gluten-Free And Vegan Lingonberry Bread

Published by

I’m sitting in my quiet apartment with my blanket on, writing this blog post, while it’s snowing quietly outside. The white winter is here in Helsinki. I don’t complain much, except for this lovely puffy snow turning into ice and becoming a health hazard overnight (unless it continues to snow). If I didn’t write this blog post, I would be doing what, can you guess? Yes, bake! Because baking is cosy and intimate. But instead of baking, I’m writing about it. And I decided to publish this recipe as the first one for 2021. Let’s hope it brings, ehm, luck! So, lingonberries, hmm… This is one of the berries I got to know after I moved to Finland. They are very sour, so they go well with savoury dishes, but sometimes with sweet ones too. It also goes excellent hand-in-hand in a bread dough like this. I saw this recipe in a gluten-free cookbook I’ve had for many years. I finally decided to give it a try, but of course, I had to make my …

Gluten-Free Thursday: Milky Bread Buns With Pumpkin Seeds And The End Of 2020

Published by

This has been a tough year. Not just for me, but so many people around the world. Some people were already in hardship, be it hunger, be it war, be it effects of climate change. They got hit even harder with the pandemic. So today’s post starts with hoping things will get better for everyone in 2021. I don’t believe in god. So I don’t pray for anything. Instead, I wish with all my heart a better future. But of course, we have to work hard for that better future, and we must keep this in mind. I also got some bad news from my family today, so I’m feeling so down. Had to fight an anxiety attack during the day with the news I got. But I am lucky to have amazing friends who are always ready to help and a lovely, sweet man who listened to my anger/sadness on the phone for half an hour, so I calmed down. As I am writing this blog post, I am feeling quite tired mentally. But …

Gluten-Free Thursday: A Hearty Vegetable Soup And Food Sovereignty!

Published by

I’m writing this from my bed right now. It’s 22.33, and I am exhausted. Exhausted, but happy. I’ve worked for two days in a row in Oma Maa / Lassila Farm’s kitchen (check the previous post for Oma Maa) from the early hours of the day until evening. It was quite a lot of work, but it was so much fun, with a bunch of lovely folk from Oma Maa. And today’s recipe is mostly made by using their organic fresh produces from their weekly food bag that I got last week. Now, with this recipe post, I want to talk a bit about food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is a term and movement which advocates for people’s right to make their own food-related decisions and for people taking their food future in their own hands. There are many organisations, farmers, communities working on this topic, fighting hard to change food policies all around to respect this idea. In the local context of Finland, Oma Maa food cooperative is a significant example of a community of …

Green Hokkaido (Aka Kabocha) Squash Filled With Joy – And Aromatic Wheat Rice, Both Locally Produced By Oma Maa Food Co-op!

Published by

A few weeks ago, I published a podcast episode where my guest was Ruby Van Der Wekken from Oma Maa food co-op. About a week later, I visited Lassila farm in Tuusula where Oma Maa produces their products, for the first time. It was both beautiful and informative, and it was very important for me to see all that hard work happening daily in a farm. I will write more about that visit and about Oma Maa in another blog post, but for now, here is a recipe with a cute green hokkaido I got from them last Sunday! So yes, last Sunday I was with Oma Maa folks again, this time only in the big kitchen area where they make products such as different kinds of flours, grains like bulgur, falafel, pasta and so on. I went there to make a test using their beautiful carrots – a miniature amount of which I helped to harvest when I first visited the farm! And before we left, the ever-lovely Ruby told me to pick a …