Vegetarian Recipes

Bela Krajina bread What better accompaniment to the Sauerkraut and bean stew below than this cumin and salt encrusted bread. This recipe is taken from the approved specification for Belokranjska pogaca with the recognised designation traditional speciality by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food of the Republic of Slovenia of 28 October 2004 (324-25 […]

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Sauerkraut & bean stew – Slovenian Jota A short borderless drive south-west through Hungary we arrive in Slovenia, famished and in search of a hearty stew. With thanks to Louise for the tip, borne of many trips to her parents’ home country accompanied by Greg, the avowed eschewer of meat. The original Jota contains pork. […]

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Domáce zemiakové lokše – Potato pancakes Deciding to stay in the east, today we are off to the small mountainous landlocked Republic of Slovakia which, according to Wikipedia, is the world’s largest car producer per-capita. Given our location and unwritten brief to avoid porcine products, this is necessarily a potato based recipe. Popradské pleso, Vysoké […]

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Iahnie de fasole (Traditional bean stew) We had a long train journey today, travelling from Europe’s most westerly country to its most eastern. That said, the scenery was beautiful, the trains modern and punctual, and the buffet car well stocked with cheese toasties. I would take the description ‘stew’ with a pinch of salt (and […]

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Cataplana What better way to round up a Saturday than to head south west and spend the evening eating in Portugal, specifically the Algarve. We’ll assume that if you have come here in search of Cataplana (the recipe), you won’t be in possession of a Cataplana (a copper lidded pan traditionally used to cook said […]

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Cheese and potato pierogi And so we reached Friday night, traditional domain of a trip to the pub, chips for the child and a couple of jars of finest pilsner for her and him. That was in the olden days. Now we make our own entertainment; following a conversation on our walk to see the […]

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Spinaziestamppot met ei It’s Thursday night, so time to visit the fifth happiest country in the world, The Netherlands. Incidentally, as I write this the entire Dutch government has just resigned because, as their PM stated, they were not up to standard. Admittedly they had wrongly accused 20,000 families of tax fraud, but step back […]

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Stuffat tal-Qarnit – Octopus stew Heading south to the Mediterranean we are off to Malta. It’s refreshing to be in a country with a coastline as now we can have a break from the root vegetables of the East and enjoy something altogether more fishy, or in this case, tentically. And on the subject of […]

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Trout with Riesling wine In contrast to yesterday’s simple snack, today we’re heading to Luxembourg for something a little more refined. Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. As […]

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Kepta duona – Fried bread with cheese To be fair this ridiculously simple starter/bar snack may not be the best showcase for Lithuanian cuisine but apparently it’s a national institution and turns out to be very tasty to boot. Lithuania is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy, a very high Human Development Index, […]

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Skabenu zupa – Sorrel soup Obviously unless you have an allotment, sorrel is going to be a tricky ingredient to source. If this is the case, substitute with spinach and a squeeze of lemon juice. Latvia is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy and ranks 39th in the Human Development Index. It performs […]

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Pizza Arguably an obvious choice. Undeniably a tasty one. There was mild panic when a trip to Sainsburys was met with an empty shelf where the Mozzarella should have been. Hopefully this was down to an oversight by the manager rather than a consequence of Brexit, but it is too dismal to speculate. On the […]

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Boxty (bacstaí) Friday evening was spent with our nearest EU neighbour, the Republic of Ireland. As a rule the week ends with a dinner which is quick and easy to make and has sufficient heft to soak up the evening’s drinking. Boxty ticks all those boxties. Bullock Harbour, Dalkey, Ireland

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Hungarian mushroom soup (Magyaros gombaleves) with Pinched Noodles (Csipetke) Bags packed, we’re off to Hungary for a bowl of noodled soup. For a relatively small country Hungary has many largest things: largest thermal water cave system and (second) largest thermal lake in the world, not forgetting the largest lake and largest natural grasslands in Europe. […]

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Flammkuchen And so to our spiritual home, Germany. A country that seems to get most things right in the same way we don’t anymore. In 2018 on a visit to Berlin we saw Scritti Politti at an event called ‘Goodbye UK – and Thank You for the Music‘, a celebration paying ‘homage to the extraordinary […]

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Galettes de pommes de terre (Grumbeerekiechle) au chevre chaud – Potato rosti topped with melted goat’s cheese What better way to start a new year than a visit to France, specifically the heavily German influenced region of Alsace. Colmar, Alsace, France.

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Maatalon reikäleipä – ‘Farm hole bread’ And what better to soak up your Lohikeitto than this robust (and novelty shaped) rye bread. Putkilahti, Finland

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Lohikeitto – Salmon and potato soup From Estonia we head north a little bit to Finland, a Nordic country located in Northern Europe. Finland shares land borders with Sweden to the west, Russia to the east, and Norway to the north. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic […]

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Seto Sibulapiirak – Seto onion pie Today we are eating pie in Estonia, a country in Northern Europe which borders the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland. Including more than 1,500 islands, its diverse terrain spans rocky beaches, old-growth forest and many lakes. Estonian citizens receive universal health care, free education and the longest paid […]

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Spandauer – Custard crowns Denmark is a Scandinavian country comprising the Jutland Peninsula and numerous islands. It’s linked to nearby Sweden via the Öresund bridge. Denmark is considered to be one of the most economically and socially developed countries in the world. The country ranks as having the world’s highest social mobility, a high level […]

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Smažený sýr The challenge Yumblog faces as a vegetarian/fish/seafood blog, is that many countries in Project EU lean towards a meat-centric and essentially pig-based diet. Added to this, fish dishes from landlocked countries invariably feature carp – a best-avoided flaccid, grainy creature which tastes of mud and has a texture not dissimilar to tripe. On […]

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Rizogalo After the main course, where better to have puds than 1,898 km away on the sun drenched Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Officially called the Republic of Cyprus (this is probably not the best forum for discussion of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus), it is the third largest and third most populous island in […]

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Škampi na buzaru Our New Year’s Eve dinner found us straddling the 1,898 km between Croatia and Cyprus. Croatia served us the main course of these tasty prawns accompanied by a flat bread called Lepinja, and Cyprus a dessert of light and zesty rice pudding. Croatia is classified by the World Bank as a high-income […]

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