Vegan Comfort Food for Autumn | What I Eat in a Day + Grocery Haul

Hi everyone, I hope you're all doing really well. For those of you who don't know me I'm Malin and today I have a really fun what I eat in a day video planned for you. It's gonna be all about comfort food and for me I guess I'm gonna enjoy eating my food. But yes I'm really excited to welcome back iHerb as a sponsor of the channel. I did a video with them back in the summer and I really enjoyed it. I tried lots of new food products that I can't get a hold of here in Sweden so I'm excited to do the same today. And for those of you who don't know iHerb it's like an online health food store more or less. They have more than 30 000 products on the site and they even have a vegan section on the site with more than 7 000 products. So there's lots to choose from even for someone who's vegan and it's not just food. They also have cosmetics and beauty products and hygiene products so it's really versatile. And they ship to over 180 countries which is cool and they do this from climate controlled facilities so you know that the food you're ordering is going to be fresh when it gets to you. And I could choose to have my shift with DHL, UPS or Local Post Plus. Both times I used DHL and it came within a really reasonable time pretty quickly actually and there were never any issues. But if you should have some issues ordering from iHerb they offer customer service five days a week in 10 different languages which I think is really great. And if you are interested in any of the products that I'm going to be using in this video I'll make sure to let you know which products I'm using that are from iHerb and I'll link them down below in the description box for you. But now I'm going to make my breakfast. I'm definitely ready to eat and I thought I'm gonna make some grits. This is inspired by Tabitha Brown who's a really fun vegan profile here on YouTube and I think she's an actress as well. I found her here on YouTube though through a channel called Goodful I think. And I managed to get my hand on these organic corn grits by Bob's Red Mill from iHerb. I've always been curious about making this at home. I had it once in New York at Champs Diner I think the place was called. And I never knew, because we can get polenta here in Sweden, but I think that these are a little bit coarser than the polenta I can find here. So I'm excited to make these as a sort of breakfast porridge and I'm gonna make them cheesy with a lot of nutritional yeast. Because I could get this huge bag of nutritional yeast on iHerb and here in Sweden nutritional yeast is pretty expensive. So it was really great to find such a big bag for an affordable price. So I'll be using this. Also last time when I ordered from iHerb I got this citrus spice blend that was really good. So I wanted to get some more spice blends from the same brand and it's from this Simply Organic brand. So I got a garlic and herb, or garlic and herb as I would say, and pepper and more. I think these are really great for just spicing up anything basically. And if you're not that confident in the kitchen I think spice blends like this really help you out. They make sure food just tastes yummy. And yeah this is another thing that I feel like we don't have so much of in Sweden. So it was really fun to see all these spice blends on iHerb and be able to order them and try them in my food. So I'll be sprinkling these on top later. I'm also going to saute some veggies and this is what Tabitha Brown inspired me to do. Because I am obviously Swedish so grits is not like something that we really eat here. But I saw her in one of her videos preparing her toppings for her grits and she used some vegan sausage, some greens, some onion, sometimes she uses other veggies. But I'm going to use onion, some greens and spinach. And instead of a vegan sausage I'm going to use a tempeh burger patty that I can get a hold of here in Sweden. Because we don't get those like proper meaty sausages here in Sweden really. At least not gluten free. So that's what I'm going to be using. But first we're going to put the grits on to cook and it'll all become clear in a moment. That breakfast was really delicious. I can see why this is such a popular dish and passed down through generations in the southern part of the US. Because it's really satisfying, creamy, filling and the toppings inspired by Tabitha Brown were spot on. I really enjoyed the savory patty, burger patty or if you have vegan sausage that would obviously be perfect and the onion with a little bit of sweetness and then the greens that just bring it all together. And then as you saw I sprinkled that garlic and herb sprinkle seasoning on there and it's super yummy. It just adds a little bit of interest to the seasoning and I used lots of nutritional yeast in the actual grits to make them taste a little bit cheesy. I've seen in other recipes that they actually add shredded vegan cheese as well to make it cheesy but I thought this was plenty cheesiness for me. And I must say that this brand of grits or polenta, Bob's Red Mill, was really good. I think it's the best corn grits that I've ever cooked with. Now I haven't cooked grits like this before. Like I said I think this is a little bit of a different texture to the polenta I've bought before but it made this dish super like pillowy, creamy and corn grits or polenta when it cools a bit it sort of sets. It coagulates or I don't know if that's the right word. I think so. And the polenta I've used before does that so quickly and becomes like very firm and this didn't do that very much at all. It stayed yeah pillowy and yummy and creamy and silky and delicious. Like I definitely recommend it and I will write out all the recipes I'm making in this video in the description box below if you want to make them for yourself. And yeah I also had a kiwi. I always try to eat a few fruits throughout the day and I also had an apple actually before we started filming and it's just such a yummy thing to eat. It has lots of good vitamins and yeah they make me happy. So I had that as well. I had my supplements and now I'm going to get some work done, do some emails all that sort of stuff and then I'm going to see you for lunch where I'm going to make a nice warming soup and I think you've seen from the last two videos that I'm on a bit of a like mushroom cake and also rice cake. So I'm going to make a mushroom and rice soup and yeah I'll meet you in the kitchen to make that in a minute. It's coming up on lunchtime now so I'm back in the kitchen and we're gonna make a soup like I said and for full disclosure we just broke our portable cooker that we usually use to film these videos so that I can stand here in the glorious light and cook. So we're gonna have to use our regular hob which for you is probably like fine you don't mind but for us it's a little spanner in the works but we're gonna do it and it's gonna be fabulous and I'm going to make a mushroom and rice soup like I said. Soup for me is like the ultimate comfort food and rice also has that sort of comforting satisfying feeling for me and I'm going to use this wild rice blend that I got got off of Eyarb from Lundberg Family Farms or I guess it would be Landberg English and it's a rice blend that has wild rice brown rice red rice and I think black rice anyways it's a mix of different types of rice I think there are also like long grains and short grains so I think that will be really nice in a soup that it's a few different textures and colors and I'm also going to be using these which I found on Eyarb which I thought was really fun it's a vegan chicken stock cube and I can't find this type of stuff in Sweden but I've seen a lot of American food bloggers vegan food bloggers use these so I'm very excited to try them and I looked at the ingredients and they're very minimal the only thing that's in there that I don't actually kind of know what it is it's mace I'm guessing it's some sort of herb but we shall see if it tastes like chicken or like chicken seasoning I guess so I'm going to be using those and then I forgot to show you this morning that I also got this avocado oil off of Eyarb and I've never cooked with avocado oil but I see lots of people use it when they are frying and cooking things over heat because it's meant to be good with hot heat not that I'm really like frying anything very hard today but I thought it could be fun to try so I got this I used it this morning it worked perfectly I don't think it had like a distinct flavor or anything but I yeah I would buy it again and then with my soup I'm going to try these crackers or actually I've already tried them for a full disclosure number two but last time I did the video with Eyarb I ordered some gluten-free crackers some Mary's crackers and some from Edward and Sons and I really enjoyed them so I thought I'd try some different brands this time so I got oh that one's back front I got these hue kitchen I think the brand is anyway hue grain free everything crackers and I also got these simple mills almond flour crackers with rosemary and sea salt and like I said I've already tried them and I can tell you that these ones won the taste test the simple mills so out of these two I would recommend these and those will be the ones I'm gonna have on the side of my soup but now let's uh yeah by the way they have lots of gluten-free vegan friendly crackers on Eyarb which I think is really fun because we don't have such a great variety here where I live so I really enjoy trying them out as you can tell and yeah a little side note but now let's actually make the soup and I'm gonna start by just chopping up some veggies to fry off before we add the mushrooms and cook the rice and make the broth soup so I've come to sit here at the table again because I thought we could do a little tea and treat haul and taste test but before I get going with that I just wanted to say that that soup is really yummy I also wanted to say that I don't expect everyone to have time to like spend time in the kitchen to make a soup that takes about an hour in cooking time for lunch I do realize that I have more time to cook than other people but this soup would be perfect to make for dinner the night before and then bring the leftovers to work to have for lunch super super savory comforting dish and those no chicken no chicken what am I doing no chicken stock cubes were really good they just made it super savory a well-rounded flavor and in combination and in combination with the herbs the dried herbs that I added in it was yeah that was one of the best soups I've made I think so I'll like I said I'll leave the recipe in the description box written out for you if you want to try it and I seem to be stumbling on my words and that's because I'm quite tired the it's getting much darker here in Sweden now as yeah the days of October take on and I think it's affecting me quite a lot I feel quite tired but I think I will be cheered up by tasting some treats some more things that I've got of and first of all I got two teas I got this stomach east tea which is a blend of different herbs and spices so it has licorice root cardamom pod coriander seed peppermint leaf ginger root black pepper and I've had this tea before at some point I can't remember where or when but it's I really like it but I don't quite remember what it tastes like so I've made it here and I will taste it and tell you but I struggle with IBS and I find these teas actually help I don't know if it's psychosomatic do you say that or if it's actually helping I do believe that herbs and stuff like that can help for sure but I think maybe it's a combination of the two that it just makes you feel like relaxed and calm to have like a warm drink and then on top of that the herbs do their thing to ease the stomach and another tea that I like to use for my stomach actually also which is why I chose these two to share with you is oops a fennel tea so it's yeah it's just fennel but it's actually really good for your digestion and I really love the flavor as well yeah I really enjoy fennel and licorice and like anise and all these kind of flavors that not everyone likes but if you've not tried fennel tea I definitely recommend it it's tasty and it's good for your tummy and I can't always find it here in Sweden it's not that common so I was happy to see it on iHerb and I also have three treats that I ordered that I thought I could do a little taste test with but first I'm gonna see if this tea maybe wants to be poured I think it's good and this tea is by the brand Yogi Tea and they always have a little quote on the on the tea bag flap what do we call this I don't know and mine just says live consciously today but I think it's a nice little thing they've done this brand for their tea bags to give you a reminder of something to live by or carry with you throughout the day so this was for me today and I'll share it with you if you want to take that with you and then yeah let's just get into the treats now as this cools down because I don't think I can drink this yet without burning my tongue I don't really know where to start but I think I'm gonna start with trying one of these bars so I saw these bars called the yes bar and they come in this packet it has like I think one six six bars in there but I think they're actually more like a cookie to be perfectly honest but I thought they would be good to have on hand for when we don't have time to make snacks or when you're on the go when we're filming recipe videos and stuff like that and you don't have time to do much else it's nice to have something to grab for when you're starting to get hangry that's why I got them but they have well these are first of all macadamia and chocolate flavor they had different flavors on iHerb and these have macadamia nuts, maple syrup, almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, coconut butter, pecans, coconut, it's a lot of nuts basically some dried fruits, a few sweeteners which is why I kind of think of it more like a cookie than like snack bar and some fats like sesame seed butter and coconut butter I'm excited to try it it looks really cute the packaging is very nice and yeah I'm a sucker for packaging so let's see what the actual bar looks like so it is like a little round cookie you can definitely see lots of seeds in there and dried fruit it's tasty you can get some chocolate in there for sure which is nice but it's yeah it's very wholesome tasting but tasty at the same time does that make sense you can definitely taste the nuts and the seeds and the fruits you get a lot of a texture in there crunch and chewiness and gooeyness from the dried fruit I don't know what dried fruit was in here raisins dried apricots dried tart cherries yeah that's really nice you get a little bit of that sour flavor from the cherry so yeah definitely buy these again super yummy I'm going to finish it I'm just going to move on to the next one now so you don't have to watch me chew too much now I'm gonna try the tea because I feel like I need to like cleanse the palate but let's see if I can actually drink it it was drinkable but still too hot um next let's try chocolate uh so I got this hue chocolate you know I had the hue crackers before today and this is the same brand and when Rob and I went to New York for his brother's and his brother's wife's wedding party we had these chocolates and then I remember it being really good but I didn't try this flavor this is a hazelnut butter dark chocolate bar and I'm excited to try another flavor I think I had almond butter or something like that and some other flavor but they have lots of flavors on iHerb I just thought this one sounded yummy it sounds a bit like it's gonna have a little bit of a like a Nutella vibe which I'm always down for let's have a look at it first yeah it's like a nice chunky squares which I think is lovely very decadent and you can see the hazelnut butter running through there as which it looks really good but I have to chew the chocolate now because I don't want you to have to wait for me to talk too long I wouldn't normally do that I think the chocolate is really nice it's 70% so it's quite dark now there's someone driving really fast out there I hope it didn't disturb this um yeah just very nice and smooth chocolate and you get the hazelnuts for sure but not as sweet as like a Nutella kind of flavor but like a more grown-up version of that maybe and yeah I would totally recommend that as well I mean I'm I have a sweet tooth so I'm probably gonna love all of this and if you have a sweet tooth too then I think we're having a good time here so oh sorry I just I just grabbed a sweet I didn't tell you anything about it so I saw these Coco Mel's coconut milk caramels and um I don't know they just look tasty to me I love this packaging as well it's like old school uh toffee wrapping you know when you pull the sides well that one broke you pull the sides and it unravels and it's like a cute little wrapper and these are apparently sugar free so I wonder what they've sweetened it with the ingredients are as follows coconut milk soluble tapioca fiber allulose prebiotic fiber sea salt vanilla extract sunflower lecithin and monk fruit so I wonder if monk fruit is sweet I guess so who knows I don't know what allulose is to be perfectly honest but I'm looking forward to trying these and hopefully it's nothing too scary I keep saying I love the combination of salty and sweet and you get that straight away with these definitely sticks to your teeth gonna take me a while to get through this okay now I've finished my sweet and I don't like things that stick to my teeth but I could totally eat this without chewing it I just wanted to chew it to be able to talk to you but it was very yummy it definitely has a clear coconut flavor along with this sort of sweet toffee flavor and salt so all three of these hit the mark for me so if you do want to order something off of iHerb then I can recommend all three of these if you have a sweet tooth like me now let's have another sip of this tea which has hopefully cooled off a bit yeah I remember liking this tea and I think I like it because it has like an earthy flavor to it it's a bit herbal and earthy and you can definitely taste the licorice root a little bit which I really like being a sweet I love licorice so it's perfect in my book and now I'm just gonna take my started treats here my tea and sit on the couch for a bit and chill before I cook dinner because like I said I'm very tired at the moment so I think I need to honor this and just relax um and I'm watching re-watching actually Mrs Maisel or the Marvelous Mrs Maisel at the moment and I'm really enjoying it it's um it's uplifting and funny and if you haven't seen it I can recommend it but enough talking now I think I've talked for way too long I hope you're not bored but I'll see you in the kitchen for dinner all right so it's time to make some dinner and what's more comforting than pasta am I right I think I'm right and I got this um gluten-free pasta off iherb from the brand jovial I think that's how you pronounce it and it's 100 brown rice pasta in the shape capellini which I've never had before but I think it's just a slimmer version of spaghetti basically so I'm going to be using that and it's autumn so I'm gonna make an autumn pasta but also really simple and easy and lazy pasta so I'm gonna roast some butternut squash and I found these tiny little butternut squashes at the market they're so cute um yeah it just makes me happy that it's small and cute and I'm gonna roast that in the oven and once it's roasted for a bit I'm gonna add some cavolo nero or dino kale into the oven as well so that that just sort of softens a bit so that's gonna do its thing in the oven we're gonna boil the pasta I'm also gonna add some onion to the butternut in the oven and then I'm gonna use a store-bought pasta for flavor and to make it sort of more tasty I guess I think pesto is a great way to make a quick meal pesto pasta it can't go wrong I also have some fresh basil so I might use that and that's the plan let's do it okay so my pasta is done it's a very simple recipe it does take a little bit of time because you need to roast the veggies in the oven and I do that on like 200 degrees celsius so it takes like 35-40 minutes and I just put the kale in for the last five minutes then it's still soft some pieces have gone a tiny little bit crispy but yeah it's really yummy and pesto with this is heaven I forgot though to say when I said that I bought used a store-bought pesto that not all store-bought pesto is vegan so make sure that it doesn't contain any cheese I think it's usually grana padano I think the cheese is called that they put in there or it can be like some sort of parmesan I actually don't know but just make sure that it's free from dairy when you get the pesto in the store or you can make your own of course I can write a recipe out in the description box for you with the other recipes if you want to make your own pesto and I thought I'd do a little taster for you on cam if I can swivel this pasta up we shall see I must say this pasta is really good quality I tried some other types of it previous to this and I really like it for gluten free pasta I'd say it's very legit it's super good and if you cook it right it's yeah I don't think I know this difference but I haven't eaten wheat pasta in a while but I really like it I like that it's slimmer than regular spaghetti and yeah pesto with the sweetness of the roasted pumpkin and the roasted onion it's really good it's a simple meal that I hope you will try anyways thank you very much for watching everyone I hope you enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you next week with a new video so take care bye