Vegan Karelian pasties Finnish style

My Karelian Grandmother has been making these every time we visit and they're a true tradition in Eastern Finland. Unfortunately with milk porridge and loads of butter on top. You can replace the milk with vegan milk or just use water as I did this time. To make it fat free you do not have to use any oil either. Enjoy!

Karelian pasties

porridge
- 2 cups of porridge rice
- litre of water
- salt to taste

cover
- 1 cup of cold water
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 1 1/2 cup of rye flour
- 1 cup of white flour
- 4 tblsp oil
- 2 tblsp dark syrup

step 1: boil the porridge
step 2: mix up the cover ingredients until very thick
step 3: spread more rye flour to table and start to mold the mass thin with a rolling pin. Work it until it cannot get thinner.
step 4:  take a jar or so that you can make round shapes with by pushing it to the mass. Repeat step 3 and 4 until there's no more mass left.
step 5 : take the porridge and spread a decent amount on each round base.
step 6: start pinching the mass around the rice starting from the bottom and the top towards the middle.
step 7: bake in 300C for 10 minutes.
step 8: spread some oil on top if you like!

Just fruit it

Self made fresh currant juice!

This time, let's not save on vitamin C and antioxidants :)

Hammock breakthrough

Best night sleep in a hammock? For me definitely. During these super hot summer nights I havent have a sweaty problem. The surface stays cool to lay on. The sleeping posture is comfortable and hammock naturally prevents me from turning into my stomach. I haven't had any neck/back pain and I feel more rested. Plus the little swing from side to side.. No wonder I sleep like a baby. ;)

Fruity

Vegan dinner SMASH

Blackcurrants

How lucky is the one to be able to pick these from her own backyard? :)

Blueberries

As a new londoner you suddenly start appreciating blueberries straight from the forest "quite" much.

Melons

Sweet, delicious, hydrating on a sunny day!

Vegan dinner with sister <3

Carbing up at Nepalese and vegan boat restaurant

Lovely cruelty free tasteness vegan style!

Organic mangoes and melons

Got organic mangoes 30% off from vegan store.  With melons I made a taste comparison ; bigger one is organic, and delicious. Could notice the difference.

Lucky day!

Perfectly ripe organic bananas 50%off!

On the road

The result of vegan food hunt at huge Finnish service station chains.  Quite successful after all,  regarding they only offer a single vegetarian dish there..

Banana-date smoothie

6 bananas,  5 pitted dates, vanilla.  Easy & tasty!

Gluten-free pizza HCLFV

When it's time you absolutely desire some pizza, make some of your own, and make it vegan!
I decided to discover different gluten-free bases and happened to have corn meal in my closet. Honestly I wasn't expecting a result this good, but it worked quite well. The texture was a little "corn mealy" but pretty close to conventional base for my taste. If you like sweetness, you can add chopped dates into the base. What I did the first time was this, plus adding some sliced grapes on top of the pizza and a oven baked banana on the side. I personally didn't like the combination of sweetness and "saltiness" (no salt in this recipe) in this case.
Last time making this pizza my camera was dead so pictures will follow later.

Pizza base

1 cup rice flour
1 cup corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
oregano

---> Mix the ingredients and spread them on the oven pan. Pre-bake in 225C for 8 min and take out to cool.

Pizza toppings

1 cup chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato passata
steamed chopped broccoli
steamed sliced potatoes
sliced red and yellow peppers
(spinach)
herbs of your taste

---> Spread the tomatoes and passata on top of the pre-baked base. Then add the other toppings. Bake for 15 minutes in 225C in the middle of the oven. Let cool down for a while before eating.

Serve with salt and oil-free sweet chilli sauce if you prefer.

Pasta pasta pasta

Yes you can eat as much pasta as you like. No oil, no salt, yes veggies.  About 250grams of dry corn pasta boiled here, all for one.

Bananas!

Rubbish bin at school seemed promising today.  There must me some serious results coming in the library. ;)

Talking bananas

I changed to fair trade bananas from fyffes a while ago and have been quite pleased.  The only issue for me is to buy them ENOUGH to always have perfectly ripe fruit at hand.  Biking around with lots of stuff anyway is a bit of an issue but now I'm about to invest in a spacious comfortable backpack, welcome bright future! Yes, I definitely should order bananas home in bulks..
Anyway, what I wanted to say today is that I had a few fyffes again this morning and could tell the difference.  To me they tasted a bit poisonous. Too bad that eliminating salt makes your taste buds sensitive? At least you know what's the real quality of what you're eating.
Go (organic/fairtrade) bananas!!

Simply potatoes: sliced potatoes with some onion, sweet rice vinegar and sweet chilli sauce

Watermelon season, ahh

Pasta indulge

Having followed raw till4 now for a couple weeks I wanted to share my big bowl of corn pasta.  About 350 g of pasta with some steamed courgette and onion and loads of salt and fat free tomato sauce and sweet chilli sauce seasoned with fresh basil - that's it!  Will certainly make you satisfied!

Breakfast time

So here's my basic breakfast; lots of water, datorade (soaked dates blended with water), bananas, mango and some apricots (espresso not included). Get in the goodness!

Raw Raisin truffles

This is love, guys!
I decided to doze spirulina today to fight against the flu and these babies got their share. Truffles again, but hey, at least they're good!

Raisin truffles

1/4 cup agave syrup
3 tblsp cacao powder
1 tblsp maca powder
1 tsp vanilla powder
1 tblsp spirulina powder
1 cup sliced raisins
4 dried apricots
1/4 cup cacao nibs

Toppings

1 tblsp maca powder
1 tblsp cacao powder
(cinnamon)

---->  mass
Pour the syrup into a bowl and mix all the powders into it.  Then add the rest of the ingredients and stir into a mass.  Mold the mass into balls and roll them on a plate where toppings are mixed. Refrigate for 1 hour.

Raw sesame-cacao truffels