A Day in Riga - Buildings, Berries & Black Balsam

I've decide to take a month off my World Food Challenge on the blog, and instead take an opportunity to share with you some of the photos and experiences I had on my trip to Scandinavia and Northern Europe. I have so many photos and we had so many fun experiences and delicious food while we travelled for almost 6 weeks. One of my favourite days of the trip was the day we spent exploring Riga, the capital of Latvia. 

Latvia wasn't originally on the travel plan, but when I went to book a flight between Oslo, Norway and Turku, Finland, I found that most of the flights connected in Riga. So, instead of picking the flight with the shortest layover time, I picked the flight with the longest so that we could go out and explore Riga. Our flight arrived into Riga at 7am and our connecting flight departed at about 10pm - it was perfect. We got a whole day in Riga but didn't have to think about accommodation. Fortunately, when we arrived at Riga airport we found it very well run, got out of there quickly. The public transport to and from the airport was also excellent: frequent, easy to find, easy to use and cheap. So we hopped off our plane and found ourselves in the heart of Riga in no time. 

Riga is famous for it's outstanding streets full of Art Nouveau buildings, so we took a walking tour (just using the Lonely Planet guidebook) around the streets to admire the buildings. It's not a very big city, so it was quite easy to find our way around and we got around all day just walking (although if you're feeling lazy you can hire a local to pedal you around on a bicycle rickshaw). The buildings didn't disappoint - they were extravagantly decorated with quite unusual and sometimes quite bizarre motifs. They ranged from beautiful classic styles (elegantly draped nude ladies surrounded by peacocks) to darker themes (faces screaming in terror) mixed with highly futuristic ideas including robot-like designs. 

Strolling the streets looking at houses, we also stumbled across stalls just set up along the side of the road piled high with fresh berries for sale. Travelling in northern Europe during summer was particularly good for berries - we had already found wild blueberries growing on a Stockholm archipelago. The punnets of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries were huge and so cheap - we bought a couple to munch on while we walked (more on those berries in a later post!).

We also happened upon an amazing looking bakery with glass counters piled high with the most amazing looking cakes, sweets, lollies, chocolates, biscuits and all manner of sweet and incredibly bad for you things - just looking back at the pictures makes my mouth water!

Having already been travelling in Sweden, Denmark and Norway prior to arriving in Riga, I had been eating a LOT of amazing sweets and I was staring to notice a little extra weight on me, so I showed a lot of self restraint and didn't buy any of them!

So - what did we eat? Well, I can tell you that the food in Riga was amazing. Not particularly vegetarian friendly - but absolutely delicious. Riga has a strong Russian influence to it's cuisine, so I came across quite a lot of food similar to some of my favourite Russian dishes - such as beetroot soups, and a delicious soup made of pickles and barley. We also visited the pancake shop (sadly, not vegan friendly) - a small and cheap place which thrives on it's popularity with tourists, in fact - every other person I've met who has been to Riga said "did you go to the pancake place?".

You can see when you go in why it's so popular, the inside has that quaint and quirky feel which is bound to appear to tourists. The pancakes come in many varieties and my goodness they are cheap! I only managed to snap a few pictures though before I was told firmly "No Photos" (a recurring theme wherever I went in Riga- the locals never smiled, were very grumpy and didn't like me taking photos of anything!).

They had both sweet and savoury varieties plus big vats of different types of jams to put on them. I ordered one filled with sweet cottage cheese, one with banana and one with caramel. My partner went for the savouries - one filled with mushrooms and one filled with smoked meat - and then went back for some sweet ones - 2 apple pancakes with berry jams. We both also had a cup of tea and all up it cost us about $4. The sweet cottage cheese one was particularly delicious!

If you're in Riga for dinner then I can highly recommend Province for hearty, good priced Latvian food. The interior is lovely and the their sweet baked ricotta dessert filled with sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds and served with berry jam is absolutely to die for.

We also indulged in some local beverages with our dinner. Kvass is a popular soft drink in Latvia, it's essentially the colour and appearance of coke but it's made from fermented rye bread. I must admit that it did not sound appealing to me, but I talked my partner into ordering it for the experience (and so that I could try a sip of his). It turned out to be really delicious! It does smell exactly like rye bread, but the taste is mild and sweet and very easy to drink!

The other traditional beverage of Latvia is Black Balsam - a potent brew made with about 24 different ingredients. Here is the explanation on the menu at Province, saves me typing it up :)

It's interesting that amongst all those lovely sounding flavours such as ginger, bilberry, raspberry and nutmeg they list valerian root! Ever had valerian root? YUK! In fact valerian root is infamous for tasting terrible.

When we left the airport at Riga we were met with a huge advertising bilboard which stated "If you haven't tasted Black Balsam then you haven't been to Riga" - an incredibly effective marketing slogan, if you ask me! It really did make you feel as though you had to have some in order to have the full experience in Riga. In any case, we ordered some. Province had 2 varieties - traditional (plain) Black Balsam and Blackcurrant Black Balsam. We ordered a shot of each to share. The best word I can find to describe the taste of the original Black Balsam is medicinal. It was very strong flavoured and very herbal medicine in taste. Drinkable - but not particularly nice. The blackcurrant variety was much nicer, as the blackcurrant smoothed over the more bitter flavours. We found the original Black Balsam went very nicely when mixed with the kvass though!

Black Balsam is available all over Riga, in most bars and restaurants. Some offer different varieties and some bars have cocktail menus using it. It's certainly an experience, but I didn't buy a bottle to bring home with me.

I absolutely loved Riga, and I was so glad to have extended our stopover to spend the day there. I could easily spend more time there and would definitely recommend it to anyone travelling to the Baltic. I'd love to know what anyone else thought of Black Balsam, or what you got up to in Riga when you visited!

Wild Blueberries on the Stockholm Archipelagos

We've just recently come back from an amazing trip in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Riga, St. Petersburg and Tallinn. There were so many amazing food experiences going on in these countries but I have so say one of the most memorable food experiences was the wealth of gorgeous berries growing around. Berries were sold in big punnets in street stalls for very cheap in Sweden, Denmark and in Riga and we are a lot of berries.

On only our second day after arriving in Scandinavia we took a little day trip out to the Stockholm Archipelagos. We only had one day so we picked an archipelago called Grinda which was a quite small island with lots of lovely plants and animals all over it. It took us a couple of hours by ferry to get out there but it was a lovely place to spend the day.

We strolled all over the whole island and had lunch by the water. A couple of little friends stopped to watch us have lunch, hanging around hoping for some crumbs.

After lunch we went on a long walk over the island down a narrow little walking track through forests and over rocky outcrops. But along the way we happened to spy this.... See all those little shrubs growing all over the ground? They turned out to be.... blueberry bushes! They were everywhere, a carpet of blueberry bushed all over the forest floor.

Not only were they blueberry plants... they were covered in little tiny blueberries. They were small and tangy blueberries and absolutely delicious. We ate handful after handful of them as we walked along!

Sweets in Sweden - A Photographic Diary

Coming home from overseas holidays is always a mix of feelings for me. Usually I'm quite glad to get home to my own bed, my own shower, my own kitchen, my veggie garden and my own language. Travel can be so exhausting even when it's the best time of your life! On the other hand when you're away seeing amazing things, eating awesome new foods and spending your afternoons relaxing in cafes watching people go by, it's hard to come to terms with the idea of going back to the old normal and (comparatively!) boring everyday life back home. This trip it was especially difficult to come home - Europe was summery, delicious, full of great people and wonderful things to see. Coming home to winter and all the boring things that so often fill our time ("We'd better go and see the bank about that account", "I really should call that store and chase up that refund they haven't given me yet", "The car insurance is due", "Oh, you've been called for jury duty.....again") was so not appealing - especially as we were having unseasonably warm and sunny weather in Sweden, Denmark & Norway.

But - back I am! It's not so bad, really. I'm actually really happy to be back at work (which some may find it hard to believe - but really I love my job!), the weather has actually been really nice (more like spring than winter) and we're having some gatherings for my upcoming birthday. It's also probably good for my waistline to be home - because oh my goodness we ate a lot of food. The food was so amazing! Particularly in Sweden, Denmark, Tallinn (Estonia) and Riga (Latvia). Yes, we indulged a lot. After all, I'm only going to have the chance to taste all these things once right?

I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who had studied in Sweden when I was doing Swedish Food Month on the blog. She said "the Swedes have an insane sweet tooth - and their sweets are soooo good!". She was right - there were amazing cakes and tarts everywhere you went. I've put together a photographic diary for you.

A quick note: These cakes are not very vegan friendly - but I think every one of them could easily be made vegan (and I'll be giving it a go, you can be sure!). So if you're one of my vegan readers then just imagine the vegan versions and let your mouths water anyway :)

Firstly - Kladdkaka. The classic Swedish chocolate cake. It's name translates as "Sticky Cake" - rich, gooey and absolutely fantastic. I made a vegan version of Kladdkaka for Swedish Food Month and I'm pleased to say the real thing tasted pretty much the same! I ate quite a bit of Kladdkaka during our time in Sweden!

Chokladdbolls (Chocolate Balls) are another Swedish delight which I made for my Swedish Food Month so I was excited to try the real thing when I got there. Of course, mine were a tad differently because I added some aniseed spirits to it, but otherwise they tasted pretty much the same. Although, now that I have seen the real thing I can see that I rolled mine way too small - next time I'll make them at least twice the size! Here are my vegan Chokladdarraksbolls :)

A speciality of Visby in Gotland, this Saffranspannkaka. The name literally translates as "Saffron Pancake", but it's not a great translation because it's not what we would call a pancake. It's more of a sweet rice pudding which is cooked in a pan and served in slices like a cake. Served with solberry jam and whipped cream, it was something pretty special - I'm also thinking it would be pretty easy to veganize!

Another Visby speciality - Wisbytårta (literally "Visby Cake"). Rich and unbelievably delicious, this tart like cake is served in small slices because it's so rich and is perfect with the fresh raspberries on the side. 

In Göteborg, we found the most amazing cake shop. Piles and piles of cakes and biscuits, rows of pies and tarts and pretty much everything you might want ever. It's almost too much, how could you pick what to have when it all looks so amazing?

The same shop in Göteborg.

The same shop in Göteborg.

In Malmö - another tough choice at an amazing cake shop. I had the Pecan Cheesecake: awesome. 

In Malmö.

In Malmö.

Of course, if you're not in the mood for cake there is always plenty of this too:

And just in case things weren't sweet enough around here, I thought I'd share this with you. Check out the pick'n'mix lollies section of a convenience store in Lund. It was actually bigger than this - there was another whole row that I couldn't fit in the picture. Some choice!!

Home Made Vegan Sour Cream

Hello all! After a long period of silence I'm finally back. You may have noticed that June has been a bit of a quiet month on Gormandize. I've been totally overwhelmed by business this month so sadly blogging has fallen along the wayside lately. I've recently gotten a second job which is fantastic for my bank balance but no so much for my time. Secondly I've spent every spare moment I've had this month organising our big trip abroad. We are leaving next Monday!! It's very exciting but it's a big trip, and since we're travelling in peak tourist season (European summer) we've been advised to book pretty much everything in advance!

What a mammoth task it has been - this month I have booked accommodation in 17 different places (shopping around in each place for the cheapest good accommodation to save money!), 2 internal flights, 2 car hires in different countries, 6 ferry tickets and 2 train tickets. Also travel insurance, International divers license and a couple of other necessaries. It's been totally exhausting and it feels like it has consumed my whole life. But now finally it is all in order and this time next week we will be on a plane heading off on a 6 week trip! It is so exciting. So - want to know where we are going? Scandinavia!! Here is a map of our complete trip plan:

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

Looks great doesn't it? I'll do my best to keep posting updates as I go (if I get much time or internet access). I'm also going to schedule some posts so there won't be complete silence on the blog while I'm gone. I've got lots of delicious recipes to share via scheduling and also some absolutely lovely blogging friends who have offered to contribute guest posts which I know you're going to love!

But, what about my featured country for June? Well, I have actually cooked a lot of dishes that I had planned to share with you in June. But as it's almost over, I don't think I'll be able to get through them all before the end of the month - so I'm making my next featured country for June and July. What country is it? POLAND! Oh, yes - very excited about this one because Polish food is one of my absolute favourite cuisines. So I hope you'll enjoy my spread of Polish dishes over June and July!

This first recipe isn't a Polish recipe as such, but it's such a vital ingredient in Polish cooking that it is really where I have to start! It's my home made vegan sour cream. You'll be needing quite a bit of this for my Polish recipes - so I made a double batch and I used it all up.

Vegan Sour Cream

Ingredients
350g silken tofu, drained
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tsp white wine vinegar
4 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp castor sugar
1 tsp salt

To Make
1. Combine all ingredients in a food process. Process until completely smooth.
2. Transfer to a bowl or jar and place in the fridge for at least an hour before using. Should be nice and thick and scoopable.

Use in place of dairy sour cream in any recipe that calls for it!

Makes about 1 cup sour cream.

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Poland.

Check out my other Polish recipe posts:

Pyzy (Polish Potato Dumplings)

Mizeria (Polish Cucumber Salad)

Golabki (Stuffed Cabbage Rolls)

Surówka Z Marchewki

Kluski Z Makiem (Poppyseed Pasta Dessert)
Makowiec (Poppyseed Strudel)

Nutmeat travels though Asia to get to my belly! - A Photographic Diary

I might have mentioned before that a couple of years ago I was living in China, studying and generally experiencing a whole different culture! As I've been posting other photo diaries lately about my travels in relation to food (check them out here, here and here if you like), I though I might share this lovely story with you.

The food in China was very variable - there was a lot of pretty ordinary and not very nice stuff around, but after living there for a while I got to learn what to order and what not to order. After finding my feet I found a lot of amazing food, but living there for an extended amount of time meant you end up just wanting to cook for yourself - some of the basic and staple things that remind me of home, like pasta and minestrone soup!

Luckily we rented an awesome apartment which had a small but excellently functional kitchen! So we bought a couple of pots and pans and started to cook a lot of our own meals, which was nice - and much cheaper overall. My fun flatmate Emily and I were able to buy almost anything we wanted in the foreign section of the supermarket - most importantly pasta! We also experimented with some unusual fusion (like making ravoili with fresh oyster mushrooms and wonton wrappers)!

Our little green kitchen - so many good memories

After almost a year abroad and away from the things I usually eat I started to miss something which I most certainly couldn't buy in China! That was nutmeat. I don't know how many of you know much about nutmeat. My father used to make a fantastic nutmeat bolognaise when I was a kid which I loved more than meaty bolognaise - and now I make it for myself all the time! After almost a year of noodle soups, rice and stir fried vegetables, I just had a hankering for some nutmeat bolognaise!

Luckily my best friend Paul was coming to visit me, and he asked me if I had anything I'd like him to bring over from home. Yes, Nutmeat!

So, Paul (who is awesome) packed himself a tin of nutmeat and took it on a trip through Asia to get to me! He travelled from Sydney through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and South China before meeting me in Hangzhou and staying with us. He carried the nutmeat all the way and boy did that nutmeat get to see some sights!! That tin of nutmeat was more well travelled than half the people I know, and here is a photographic diary of it's journey!

NOTE: These aren't the greatest photos, they were taken with a camera phone along the way. Special thanks to Paul!

Packed and ready to see the world!!

Blurry pic of the nutmeat on the long distance bus

Tucking in for the overnight train

After the Nutmeat finally arrived in Hangzhou, where I lived, we showed it a good time. We took it to karaoke.....

Then I thought I we might actually eat it.....

But then we realised something that temporarily cramped our style.... we didn't own a tin opener! Time to improvise....

Ha! Nothing holding us back! Now to cook it....

And guess what? It was DELICIOUS!!! Yes!!

Yep - you won't find this dish anywhere else in China!! Thanks Paul!!

NOTE: This is not commissioned or endorsed by Sanitarium in any way! But they're welcome to send me some money anyway haha!