10 minutes with... Green Kitchen Stories

Scandinavian couple David and Luise write a vegetarian blog, Green Kitchen Stories, where they create vegetarian recipes with natural ingredients. Digital content producer Hannah caught up with them to talk about their new book.

So what exactly is Green Kitchen Stories?

Luise: We work together – David is the photographer and I'm the nutritionist. We create vegetarian recipes, write cookbooks and write our blog.

And your new book is?

David: Well, there was The Green Kitchen (£25, Hardie Grant) first, then Green Kitchen Travels (£25, Hardie Grant) and now there's Green Kitchen Smoothies (£15, Hardie Grant).

Why smoothies?

D: We spend days in the kitchen cooking and testing smoothie recipes, but what's nice is that everyone can make one. All you need is a blender and you just throw in whatever you want.

L: It's something we do on a daily basis. We'll have a smoothie for breakfast or midday snack, or for when we pick the kids up from preschool.

Do you have any tips for the perfect smoothie?

D & L: It's not very complicated, so you can't really fail, but you can get it wrong colour-wise – a brown smoothie (unless it's chocolate) isn't very appetising. If you were expecting it to be red or blue or green but it turns out brown, it probably means you used too many ingredients with different colours.

Mocha morning buzz from Green Kitchen Smoothies

Why do you think a plant-based diet is so important?

L: Not everyone has to be vegetarian to be healthy or save the planet, but everyone can eat more vegetables and less meat. I eat some meat; David has been a vegetarian for 20 years. The kids are vegetarian, sometimes they have fish but their diet is mostly plant based.

D: I've been a vegetarian for such a long time, I don't even remember how it was before. But I have this image of it where if I have a big steak then I feel tired and bloated. When we eat, it's not always light food, we have lots of proteins and carbs and nuts and seeds and lentils, and it's colourful.

What's your favourite family dinner?

L: Our daughter Elsa really likes broccoli. She's six so she's always changing what she likes. Sometimes she loves avocado on toast then the next day she says she hates avocado. Anything that's hands on, like a build-your-own dinner, salad or pasta salad.

Where do you get your inspiration for recipes?

D: It all starts with the seasons, for example autumn will be mushrooms, berries, apples. Then from there we take inspiration from Instagram, blogs and places we've visited. Sometimes we need to find a solution for something, for example I don't eat a lot of bread but how do I make a sandwich?

What do you replace bread with?

L: We just did a YouTube video for broccoli flatbreads – we blended broccoli or you can use beetroot or carrots. Then mixed it with almond flour and eggs and flattened and baked it and then cut into pieces. We have used different vegetables and it works well. The colours are also really lovely.

You're huge on social media, especially Instagram. Has it changed the way you photograph, cook or think about food?

D: It has definitely changed the way we interact with readers; when they make recipes and tag us in them, it's so interesting to see. Do they fail? Does it look like what we did? Also which recipes are they are cooking? It's nice to see which are the most popular recipes. It's also great to follow our followers and see what happens in their kitchens.

What are the most popular recipes?

D: Breakfast recipes, simple recipes with short ingredients lists. Our turmeric breakfast muffins are immensely popular.

Upside-down breakfast from Green Kitchen Smoothies

GREEN KITCHEN SMOOTHIES: Healthy and colourful smoothiesfor every day by David Frenkiel & Luise Vindahl (Hardie Grant, £15.00) is out now.