Blueberries, blueberries and blueberries again! I love them and at the moment I really eat them a lot. And as I love to bake, I brought you a recipe for blueberry muffins today. I enhanced it with coconut milk and coconut shreds as well as with a pinch of cardamom. Because since I got to know Korvapuusti, I started to love cardamom :)
Soon I’ll be in Norway for two month. Where did the time go?
And if I think about that, I feel like panicking a tiny bit. Two month here means that more than half of my time here is over. And I don’t feel like leaving now. Especially not to continue studying in my university city which I actually don’t like. Moreover: What is it then: I actually did learn to understand quite a lot of Norwegian by now, I guess, but I can’t speak. And if I’ll leave now, I’ll just forget everything again. I put too much effort in learning the language for that! And I do want to learn the language.
Do you plan to go on holidays to beautiful Finland? But you have no idea how it looks like in Finland concerning the vegan offers?
I always feel somehow connected to Finland. I think that’s primarly caused by some friends of mine from Finland. I had some penfriends from that beautiful country when I was younger (yes, I indeed was writing letters by hand, not with the keyboard of my computer ;)). I stopped writing letters because a lack of time (and somehow also lack of motivation I guess), but I still have friends there which turned out to become not only penfriends.
Since I have been living vegan I haven’t been to Finland anymore. But I’d like to change that someday, so it’s awesome that Sarah Eleni can tell us a bit about living vegan in Finland! She did an internship in the capital Helsinki and gained some experience regarding veganism in Finland. Thank you a lot for sharing that with us Sarah :)
What is this? You might have noticed my blog before, but wasn’t it (at least mostly) in German?!
Yes, you’re right! And there still is a German version, but I’m happy to tell you that you can also find an English version from now on :) And if you’re on my blog for the first time anyway: Welcome! :)
Here I’m mainly writing about travelling, cooking, events (everything connected with veganism) and since I arrived in Norway six weeks ago I also started to write about my life here and living abroad in general. You want to know more about me or why I chose to go vegan? Then have a look here or here.
I guess my last posts about Tromso didn’t sound so positive. (Maybe it’s not such a good idea to refer to a blogpost which is only published in German so far… but I just feel like writing in English right now. And I guess most of my readers will be at least at the beginning from Germany anyway ;)).
Well, you know, while living in a foreign country with a foreign language there are so much things happening in the first weeks. It still feels like being on a rollercoaster. Up and down, up and down, up and ? (Okay, to be honest for this evening it already went a bit down as I wanted to talk to my sister. Which I haven’t talked to since I arrived in Norway. It was planned, but well… let’s leave out the details and just say she can’t anymore. And I’m quite disappointed.)
While I was studying in Latvia, I also had the possibility to discover the neighboring countries Estonia and Lithuania. I already introduced you to a wonderful person from Estonia: Therese. In Lithuania I met the vegan girl Rasa who definitely infects you with her laughing :) When I told her about my Vegan Voices series she agreed on the spot. Afterwards I noticed that the interview became quite long, but there are just so many interesting things she can tell about her home country, the animal rights organisation in Lithuania and about herself, so it’s so much fun to listen to her or rather read from her :)
Enjoy reading and a big thank you to Rasa :)
Did you know that macaroons exist already since the 16. century? And they were already mentioned for the first time in a cook book in 1604!
And I can’t really tell you why, but a few days ago I desperately wanted to eat coconut macaroons. Coconut macaroons belong to the typical German Christmas biscuits. Unfortunately they’re usually made with a lot of eggs. So at first I thought it would be impossible to make a vegan version: But it’s not! Actually it’s very easy, so you should definitely try it!
By the way the word “Macaroon” comes from the greek word Makarios which means something like blessedness. And I felt really blessed when I ate them :)
I like the Italian kitchen! But I guess I’m not the only one =D But really: There are so many delicious italian recipes and moreover a lot of them are vegan or very easy to make in a vegan way. Also this one: Cantuccini! For sure you have already heard of these small biscuits and probably you also tasted them already. This summer I was in Italy and I saw them in every supermarket. Unfortunately always with egg, although there’s absolutely no need for that. But I was happy to eat the Cantuccini a few month later… although it wasn’t in Italy then :)
To increase your general knowledge: Cantuccini are small almond biscuits from the province of Prato (near Florence) in Italy. They are often offered with wine, tea and coffee. The secret of making them is to bake them twice. Once as rolls and later onwards cutted into biscuits.
Ciiiinnamon stars! It wasn’t too easy to find all the ingredients here in Latvia, at least not in the right shape (keyword ground almonds and ground hazelnuts). But I did it! So I could bring a bit more Christmas feeling to Riga and Lithuania. Lithuania because this was the destination for my weekend trip and I decided to bring some cinnamon stars for my couchsurfers there :)
And to be honest I was suprised that nobody in Latvia and Lithuania knows cinnamon stars. And also in bakeries, supermarkets and so on you can’t find them. So I asked Wikipedia which told me: They’re typical German! They come from Swabia, a district in southwestern Germany!
The central market in Riga was sometimes kind of strange: For example just before I left there we’re sooooo cheap avocados and tons of it everywhere. Although it was December and obviousely avocados don’t grow in Latvia. Same with limes. But as I was walking there and seeing all these fruits, I decided to do something with them. And I ended up with creativing a delicious cashew-lime-cake :)