honeysucklebeet

best pizza

2012-02-01T00:55:00.003+02:00

No kidding, this is the best pizza I've had. Home made, crisp, delicious, tasty, amazing. If you're looking for a cheese pie, this one isn't what you're after. I like my pizza thin and simple, with long simmered sweet and zesty tomato sauce, olives and vegetables.
The dough is simple enough to prepare, the most crucial part being kneading and rolling. The dough recipe here makes two thin pizza bases. The amount of yeast could be halved, if you decide to do so give the dough some extra time to leaven (about an hour of total leavening time should be enough).

Pizza dough

2 dl (3/4 cup) lukewarm water
25 g fresh yeast
1 tsp salt
a dash of sugar, syrup or honey (may be left out)
2 tbsp oil (olive oil is good)
4-5 dl (1 1/2-2 cup) flour

Pour the water into a quite large bowl. Add yeast, salt, sugar or other sweet stuff and couple of tablespoons flour. Whisk well until mixed and foamy. Gradually add the rest of the flour and oil. Mix first with a wooden spatula, then start kneading the dough with your hands. Knead the dough until it's smooth and flexible. About ten or fifteen minutes of kneading should be enough, but keep kneading until the dough forms a nice and even ball.

Move into a clean, slightly oiled bowl and cover up with linen towel or thin plastic bag (I like to use small fruit bags from the grocery store). Place the bowl in a nice and non-windy spot, like not in front of an open window or porch or something like that. A warm place makes the rising time shorter, but doughs leavened in a semi-cool place tend to develop more flavour. Anyway, let the dough rise until it's about doubled in size.

Push the dough down and gently knead it before rolling. I use a pulikka to roll the dough. (Pulikka is a lightweight rolling pin similar to french rolling pin, made of wood, plump in the middle and narrowing towards the handles. It's easier to handle than heavy marble pins, say, and quite handy too when I want to roll smaller pies and such.) Divide the dough in half and roll it out until it's as thin as you can get. To make things easier, roll it out on parchment paper and move on a baking tray. Roll out the second pizza base too.

Fill the pizza with your favourite toppings. Don't overfill, and don't cover the fillings with an inch thick carpet of cheese of any kind.

I love to use home made tomato sauce, but good quality ketchup is okay too. It tends to be more sweet than the sauce though, so keep this in mind if you're picking wine to go with your pizza. And you might want to add some stronger herbs like sage or thyme to balance the sweetness. I use a thinnish spread of tomato sauce or ketchup, then usually make a combo of some of the following:

*grilled aubergine, grilled zucchini
*beetroot or rutabaga slices
*green or kalamata olives
*fresh red onion rings and sliced garlic gloves
*sliced mushrooms (portobello, shiitake, chantarelle, funnel, black funnel)
*almonds (these soak the moisture from the tomato sauce and tender nicely, hazel nuts or cooked chestnuts would be great too)
*chick peas, soya beans, white beans, any tasty beans

In the spring, try lightly boiled asparagus, sugar snaps, haricot beans and new sweet carrots. In the fall, butternut squash mixed with wild mushrooms would be great!

Add a dash olive oil and bake in preheated oven in 200-225°C (400-450°F) until the base is crisp and toppings are nicely done. Add few thin shavings of soya cheese, drizzle of fruity olive oil, fresh basil (or lovage, thyme, marjoram, oregano, thyme...), salt flowers and black pepper, and munch away while it's hot and crisp.

Goes really well with cold cola, dry cider, or aromatic light white wine.

PS Have been on an unannounced hiatus, now trying to get back to this.

spring burritos

2011-05-10T23:28:00.003+03:00

It's interesting how differently seemingly similar families prepare - or actually fill- their burritos. My folks use cheese and chili salsas and ready-made guacamole sauce, grated cheese and basic minced meat sauce, chunks of fresh tomato, sliced cucumber and lettuce shreds. All quite cheap, and easy to prepare. My partner's folks apparently wrap sweet simmered onions, nuts and fresh avocado dip inside the wheat tortillas. Requires more work, is somewhat more expensive.

Our burritos are a mix of two family customs: we ditched the cheese and meat, added interesting herbs and chopped the veggies finer. Toasted nuts give good crunch, a nice touch against the backdrop of soft avocado sauce, sweet glazed onions and sauteed shiitake mushrooms. Tomato sauce, simmered two hours for the sweetness and umami, is also essential. Other fillings may vary according to what is in season and available. Chick peas, soy beans, fennel and other veggies are great, in the winter root vegetables taste subtle and fine.

Our burritos totally never look like the one above when we eat them casually as a quick supper fix! But carefully plated, not-yet-wrapped burritos like this would sure look good on a more elegant dinner party. Herbs and sliced fresh vegetables can be so decorative and beautiful. There's no need to restrict artful presentation to sweet dishes alone.

Our styling was a bit multicultural, sadly though with no Mexican tableware. The glassware is old: the shape of the goblet reminds me of some Murano glasses. The fabric is from flea market, paisley being quite versatile after all, and the green round thing is the lid of a jar filled with Herbs of Provence-mixture. The boards with paint stains we dug out from the garage.

sun on the plate

2011-04-13T16:59:00.003+03:00

I made this bread and marmalade combo about a month ago. The bread is great as toast, and a little different from any loaves available commercially. It would well suit Easter dinner or lunch, I'd serve it with a dish with some savoury touches, for example a salad with walnuts or asparagus soup, to cut the sweetness of the apricots a bit. The marmalade is just simple, sweet treat to go with the bread.

click to see full view

click to see full view

This bread is a of long scale-treat. On the first day starter is prepared. It rests in the fridge overnight, and on the second day it's mixed in with the actual dough. The most time-taking steps are the ones where the dough is leavened, where it rests under a plastic wrap or moist towel. But it's all well worth the waiting and effort. The crust is crisp, the soft dried apricots add sweetness and the crumb is airy and smooth. Just a touch of white- or black pepper adds taste and zest. Great as breakfast, or as a afternoon snack with black tea or coffee.

The recipe is a slight modification from Glorian Ruoka ja Viini 3/2009 issue. It makes two or three big loaves.

Apricot bread

Day one
1 dl (1/2 c) water
about 2 g fresh yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 dl (4/5 c) wheat flour

Day Two
5 dl (2 c) water
20 g fresh yeast
2 tbsp syrup
2 tsp salt
ground black- or white pepper to taste
about 12 dl (5 c) wheat flour*
100 g room temperature vegan butter

250-400 g dried soft apricots**
olive oil

*I used flours especially designed for yeast breads, they're not as white as usual wheat flours, but a little more whole-wheat
**Used soft dried apricots, moist and smooth but still dried fruit. If not available, use regular dried apricots; soak them in water overnight before using.

Day one
Dissolute yeast in cold water. Add salt and flour, knead until smooth (5 to 10 minutes). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge overnight. Don't worry if the starter dough seems thick and stiff when you start mixing it with the actual dough, it'll be fine.

Day Two
Take the starter out the fridge about an hour before starting.
Mix the yeast in cool (a little cooler than body-temperature) water. Add syrup, salt and black or white pepper. Mix well. Add the starter dough and the flours. Knead the dough well for ten to fifteen minutes. Add the room temperature, soft vegan butter and knead until the dough is soft and pliable.

Chop the apricots into nice small morsels. Mix them up with some flours, and carefully add them to the dough. Place the dough into a large oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap (I re-use fruit- and veggie bags) and let rise for about an hour, or until doubled in size. After 30 minutes or so of rising time gently punch the dough down.

Divide the dough into three parts on a floured surface. Form them into balls and let rest under a kitchen towel ten minutes. Meanwhile, brush three or two (each roughly 1 1/2 liters) with olive oil. Pat the dough into triangular forms and lift into the tins. Sieve some flour on top and let them rise for an hour, until doubled in size.

Preheat oven into 250 Degrees Celsius (480 F). Put the breads in and spray water on the bottom of the oven. After five minutes, cut the temperature in 180 C (350 F) and bake for 50-70 minutes. Open the oven door once or twice during the baking. The breads are ready when they're golden brown on top and sound hollow when you knock the bottoms. Take the finished breads out of the tins and bake them for about five minutes to make the crumb crisp overall. Let cool on a griddle before eating.

Clementine marmalade

This marmalade is del on toasted bread with margarine. It's best when the fruit is in season, but I prepared it in late February and it was just fine. If you buy a lot of clementines or other citrus fruit on Christmas, try making marmalade of the leftovers.

In Finland there's sugar with pectin (natural gelling agent) available, so use the sort if you can. If this sort is unavailable, just go with regular sugar.

The ratio of sugar and fruit is about 1 to 1 (1/2 to 1 for water). I made a smaller batch and used a little less sugar. I peeled some 500 g clementines, removed any white parts of the peel and chopped the fruit. Then I scratched off the white icky parts from a portion of the peel and cut it in thin stripes as the fruit were too soft to be grated before peeling. Some lemon or orange peel can be added to make marmalade more zestful.

Then I poured the peel, chopped fruit, sugar and water in to a kettle and boiled the mixture about 5-10 minutes, until it became jam-like. Any foam that appears on the top should be removed and discarded. I cut off the heat and let the marmalade cool for a while. I heated clean jars in the oven, and poured in the warm mixture. The marmalade should cool well before eating. Store the jars in the fridge and consume within couple of weeks.

I printed the jar labels on note paper, which created nice random lines (the dotted lines are intended).

scraps items

2011-04-01T21:48:00.003+03:00

I rarely buy items at ordinary shops. Shopping at recycling centers, flea markets and second hand shops is a win-win situation to both me and environment. I get storage jars, mugs and photoshoot props at reasonable prices, and lengthen their life cycle at the same time. I found these items at recycling center in Vantaa. The metal jars are perfect storage items for small loose brick a brack hanging around the house. I like the bold stripes of the mug, and the nostalgic cutesy style of the second box. The owl-shaped tins are weird and great.

The tie with a nice weave pattern will be transformed into a bow tie or hair bow.

raspberries and rum

2011-03-29T00:44:00.004+03:00

I made traditional Finnish Runeberg's tortes few months ago. It's funny to see how the recipe has evolved through the years. This time I leafed some old cooking books at my parents place and mixed a new recipe of a few old ones.

Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804–1877) was a Finnish, Swedish speaking writer bloke. Nobody really remembers the books he wrote (aside from the poem which became the National Anthem), but we eat cakes bearing his name. We bite deep into the raspberry jam circled with sugar frosting, crumbly moist cake marinated with rum and remember this man with a sweet tooth, and his wife who prepared cakes of leftover crumbs for the hungry poet.

I altered the customary way of decorating the cakes. Instead of sugar frosting I dropped a dollop of sweetened soy yogurt on the cakes, added some halved frozen raspberries and drizzled on cranberry-cherry syrup. The syrup used is available from Eat&Joy Maatilatori in Helsinki. Regular light coloured syrup or honey (if you use it) works fine too. I also tried making fresh jam, which tasted really intense.

I remember reading somewhere that originally the recipe called for apple jam. Which sounds more reasonable, as in Finland apples are often plentiful and raspberries not so. Runeberg's cakes are made in January, and who would jam the few sweet jewel glistening berries picked laboriously from the prickly bushes in the heat of July? Well, anyway, I have to try to make these with some really fresh raspberries.

(I'm in love with old typefaces. They have funny little details and unique character.)

(click to see full view)

I'm sorry I can't share the recipe, I lost it and didn't have time to test it again. Basically the batter is formed by beating about equal amounts of sugar and margarine/veg butter into a light foam, then adding flour with some baker's powder and a lot almond flour. Then some soy yogurt, soy milk and a dash of rum, (add few drops of almond extract too), so that the batter is not too liquid and not too thick either. The cakes are then baked in special tins or in ordinary muffin tins until golden brown, and decorated with sugar frosting and raspberry jam, or in some other way suitable. Rum or punch is drizzled on the cakes before decorating, and they're eaten with tea or coffee.

My partner had bought this really good green tea "White Monkey" from a tea shop called The Ounce, I borrowed the package for a prop. They handwrite the name of the tea on the paper bag package with old-school fountain pen. The light greenish raku-plate is made by my partner and the wooden B was found inside a vintage filing cabinet we saved from a dumpster.

(click to see full view)

(click to see full view)

Then as a cherry on top a collection of photos of the Runeberg's cakes I've made over the last four years. On the far left is 2008 photo shot with a point-and-shoot camera, then a 2009 shot with my sister's DSLR, on the right 2010 and 2011 photos taken with my own DSLR.
When I get the feeling I'm not going anywhere with my photographing, it's useful to look at collages like this and make a honest comparison. Cakes do change in time.

herb week!

2011-03-21T16:44:00.003+02:00

It's national herb week in Finland this week, so I though I'd post some photos, memories and thoughts of herbs. I've taken the photos over few last years.

Delicate herb shoots look great as cake decorations.

Young birch shoots might taste interesting in salads.

Parsnip soup decorated with red-veined dock and watercress.

Try using strong herbs as a salad base. Store-bough herbs are quite mild in taste, so even sage is great as salad main ingredient. Mix different tastes and textures to find out what you like the best.

Nasturtium flowers are very decorative in salads, especially double-flowered varieties. Try decorating a sandwich cake or sweet cake with the flowers. The whole plant is edible, so leafs can be used in salads or other dishes as well.

Herbs should be used more. Herbs are great. They're oozing different tastes and they're healthy. They look great on food, give unique taste and texture to dishes.

What would new potatoes be without dill, or pasta dishes without basil? Or salads and Thai-inspired food without coriander? Rosemary gives aroma to simple tomato sauce, lovage is amazing in broths. Thyme leaves are so beautiful on top of thin slices of pizza. Food would be boring without herbs, salads would be dull and watery. Not so long time ago herbs were used as medicine, not only as spices but as main ingredients, and instead of salt in foods.

It's great to see new, traditional herbs appear at grocery stores. Lovage for example, it's an old broth herb with strong peppery and aromatic scent, but it has just recently become commercially available.
For people with no opportunity to cultivate herbs on their own stores are the only source of these leafy wonders. I'd encourage stores to stock less of the same product, increasing variety. Herbs are best used fresh, and people buy only herbs that look pristine and frisk. It's unacceptable so much veggies and herbs go to waste before anyone even buys them! And it'd be refreshing to see new choices instead of the usual parsley, dill and basil. Some restaurants are already cultivating their greens in the city area, and urban cultivation is becoming sort of a trend, same as using wild herbs and vegetables.

I've been dreaming of garden lately; must be the summer coming. I'd grow rows filled with edible flowers and various different herbs. For now I have to settle for some pots on the window sill and growing mustard, watercress and sunflowers shoots (all great in salads). I'm planning to forage more next summer; a great number of wild plants are edible and delicious.

christmas booklet

2011-03-16T23:29:00.011+02:00

Me and Q were asked to do the photography and graphic design of Finnish Vegaaniliitto's Christmas booklet last year.

We styled the foods festively but still pretty simply, keeping them easy to approach and homely. Vegaaniliitto delivered the recipes, which were fairly traditional Finnish Christmas dishes, and we designed and executed the visual style for the booklet. It was fun and odd photographing Christmas foods in October!

The booklet may be ordered free of charge (aside from postage) from Vegaaniliitto shop.

lasagna

2011-03-16T20:59:00.007+02:00

Okay this post was originally associated with the silent hunt post last fall, but I failed to produce it right after we went on our mushroom gathering trip, so here it is now. If you picked mushrooms last fall and dried any, you can use them in this recipe, or buy dried funnel chanterelles from a store. If funnel chanterelles are not available, try using portobello mushrooms. The taste and texture are different, but they should be fine. My partner uses dried funnel chantarelles in macaroni casserole mixed with soy protein crumble, and they give nice texture and taste to the pasta.

A word about lasagnas. I haven't really missed the foods I used to eat pre-vegan. Sure, grilled meat smells delicious, but basically I've been okay with my decision, and it's actually odd I haven't been graving sausages or the said grilled meat. I know a lot of people miss the tastes from their childhood, and for me lasagna is one of those.
Lasagna is our dad's bravura, he's the one to prepare it, long scale with bechamél sauce, cream, margarine and green pepper. We kids used to drink Pommac with it (it's a non-sweet fruit lemonade) and the lasagna dinner was always a sort of an occasion. Everyone at the table, being happy together. So for me real lasagna is a family dish, specialty, and I've always frowned on the school cafeteria "lasagnas" and ready made lasagnas. Real lasagna should be firm, thick, delicious, with tomato sauce, green pepper and well cooked fillings. The pasta should be well cooked, but not porridge, and the tastes should melt together softly. Aside this, anything goes, vegan cheese, almonds, mushrooms, spinach, root vegetables.

So, keeping with the long scale tradition, there's quite a lot sauces and steps in the recipe, and it takes a lot of time. But it's definitely and absolutely worth it. This would be a perfect dish for a Sunday family dinner, served with some light white wine or fruit lemonade and crisp herb salad.

Funnel chantarelle lasagna
(recipe by Q)

Bechamél sauce

40 g vegan butter
150 g vegetables and root vegetables, carrots, onions, parsnips, celeriac
30 g wheat flour
1 l (~4 cups) vegetable broth
4 dl(~1 1/2 c) vegetable cream (soy, rice, wheat)

1 Cube the vegetables
2 Heat a 2 liter kettle, add vegan butter. Sauté the vegetables about 10 minutes, don't let them brown.
3 Add wheat flour, and cook few minutes constantly mixing.
4 Add hot vegetable broth. Let boil on mild heat for an hour, mix once in a while. Pour through a sieve and add the cream. If the sauce seems too thin, add corn starch to thicken.

Tomato sauce

3 cans organic crushed tomatoes
1 (red) onion
2-3 cloves garlic
5 dl (~2 c) organic red wine or tomato juice
1 vegetable broth cube (Reformi makes the best)
herbs (basil, sage, flat leaf parsley, lovage)
salt, pepper, sugar to taste

1 Chop the onion and garlic fine
2 Sauté the onions in a medium size kettle until they are translucent.Add the broth cube, crushed tomatoes and the wine or juice. Let simmer on low heat about an hour. Add salt, pepper and herbs. For the best sauce let it simmer about 3 hours, adding more liquid if needed.

Filling

5-7 dl (~2-3 c) fresh funnel chantarelles (when using dried less is fine)
1/2 onion
1 garlic clove
2 dl (3/4 C) textured crumbled soy protein
soya sauce
balsamic vinegar (red or white)
3 dl (~2 c) water

1 Clean the mushrooms and chop large ones. If you use dries mushrooms, soak them in hot water for about 5 minutes before using.
2 Boil the water, add soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and soy protein crumble. Let the liquid be absorbed and pour off excess.
3 Chop the onions. Sauté them until translucent, add mushrooms and soy crumble. Fry for 5 minutes and set aside.

To assemble

lasagna pasta sheets
grated soy cheese (I prefer sheese)
1-2 tomatoes sliced thinly
herbs
almonds (brown, not blanched)

Assemble the lasagna to a greased oven pan. Use either one large pan or many small ones. We noticed that when using small pans it's a good idea to slightly cook the pasta sheets as they don't have enough time to cook thoroughly in the oven. Pour tomato sauce and soy crumble-cheese filling on the bottom of the pan, add pasta sheets, pour on tomato sauce and again with the mushroom filling. Top with bechamél sauce and grated cheese. Sprinkle on herbs and almonds. Repeat until the pan is full. Add grated cheese, almonds and sliced tomatoes on top. Cook in preheated (175 degrees Celsius 345 F) oven for about 1 hour or until baked. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

The Anchor Summer beer used as prop in the photos is vegan according to at least this website listing vegan beers.

(I like the graphic design of the label a lot, it's so simple in colours and traditional)

winter salad

2010-12-20T13:00:00.002+02:00

I've been longing for a winter salad with herbs and root vegetables, especially when in winter times I quite often lack the energy to prepare anything fancy or light. I've been eating a lot of pasta lately. So salads are good change to that. I made this salad at the same time with the chestnut pie of the previous post, using the leftover chestnuts. If you don't wish to spend the time preparing chestnuts, use almonds, pecans or walnuts instead. And if rutabaga is unavailable, carrots, sweet potatoes or parsnips are just great.

Winter salad

1-2 rutabagas, carrots, parsnips or sweet potatoes (or use a mixture of many)
1 ripe avocado
some generous handfulls of
rocket
thyme
lovage...or any other flavourfull herbs you get your hands on
a couple of handfuls chestnuts, almonds, pecans or walnuts
olive oil, salt and black pepper to taste

Prepare the oven roasted root veggies first. Wash the vegetables well and slice them thinly with a cheese cutter or mandolin. Brush a silicone mat or parchment paper on oven tray with olive oil. Sprinkle the thinly sliced veggies on the tray and mix them up with the oil, add salt and black pepper, and some herbs too (rosemary and thyme work well). Roast in the oven in 200 degrees Celsius (390 F) until crisp, roasted and golden brown. Let cool.

Cut the avocado in half and remove the stone. Slice the fruit and peel of the skin. Toast the chestnuts or other nuts on a dry pan. Tear herbs on plates, add avocado slices and nuts. Mix and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve. Perfect lunch.

I found this sand coloured glass plate from the recycling centre. It's a perfect combo of simplicity and decorativeness. The white bowl-like plates are from flea market as well. I've been into coloured glass lately, hunting down unique pieces from second hand shops and recycling centres.

pie o my

2010-12-18T20:37:00.006+02:00

I’m not a religious person, but I celebrate Christmas as a feast of light, as a markup that days are starting to grow longer and we’re heading toward spring and summer again. And of course it’s great to cook and spend time with the family, give and receive presents and just chill out.

This is a pie I’ve been making some years now, it has infiltrated to be one of my Christmas traditions. It takes pretty much time and effort to make, but it’s not complicated. Just a lot of chopping, preparation and mixing. So if you have a family or friends who enjoys helping delegate some of the preparation work to them. As a price you can promise a delicious, tasty and amazing pie. The phyllo pastry creates a crisp crust that is combined with a soft moist filling. The chestnuts have their own spectacular taste, as well as the warm zest of coriander, all smoothed and wrapped together with mild spinach and mushrooms. The long simmered tomato and ginger sauce adds a nice touch of lingering tastiness, with the smoothed spark of sherry adding interest to the flavours.

The original recipe is from a book I borrowed from a library many ears ago. I’ve altered the recipe a bit, sometimes adding raisins or funnel mushrooms, sometimes using all fresh spinach and sometimes deep frozen. Feel free to experiment!

click image to see a larger version

Chestnut, spinach and mushroom pie with tomato ginger sauce

Ingredients for the sauce

¾ dl olive oil (don’t use the super expensive fruity one, super market quality will do just fine)
4-6 cloves garlic
5 cm/2 inch piece of fresh ginger
800 g crushed tomatoes
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp demera sugar
1 ½ dl dry sherry
sea salt and cayenne pepper

Ingredients for the pie

500 g spinach (I used about half fresh and half deep frozen)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions
500 g mushrooms (I used just champignons, but shiitakes and funnel mushrooms are excellent too)
2 tbsp ground coriander seeds
2 tsp cinnamon
3 cloves garlic
400 g chestnuts
2 heaped tbsp orange marmalade
5-7 sheets phyllo pastry
olive oil
sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Making the sauce

Do the sauce first, so it can simmer while you prepare the pie. First peel and chop garlic and ginger. Then heat olive oil in a pan, add garlic and ginger and fry until they start to scent. Add crushed tomatoes, vinegar, sugar and sherry. Let simmer for about an hour, add tomato juice or sherry if needed. Just before serving season with cayenne pepper and sea salt. Blend smooth or push through a strainer if you wish.

Making the pie

Preparing spinach
There’s no need to cook the fresh spinach if you’re using it with deep frozen spinach. If all your 500 g spinach is fresh, they fit better with the other ingredients if you cook it first. Simply boil it in a large kettle, just a little while so it starts to get wrinkled. When you’re using frozen veggies, let them melt in room temperature before using.

Preparing chestnuts
The recipe calls for 400g chestnuts. This is without the brown shiny husk and inner peel. I bough about 700 g chestnuts, and used almost all the fruit in the pie. There are always bad chestnuts even if you check them before buying. If you want to go easy, use canned peeled chestnuts, but it’s not quite the same.

Before cooking slash x-marks on the flat sides of the nuts with a sharp knife.

Bring water to boil in a large kettle and add chestnuts. Let them simmer for about five minutes, cut off the heat and start lifting small portions of nuts to be peeled. Use knife and you’re fingertips to peel the nuts, removing both the husk and the inner peel. Check the nuts, and discard any smelly, ill-looking ones, or remove any bad parts. Peel all the nuts. It’s good to have help here; it’s not a very funny job to do. Measure peeled chestnuts, use any excess toasted in salads, salted as snack or simply add any little excess to the pie filling. Half the chestnuts.

Preparing the Pie
Take the phyllo pastry into room temperature to melt.
Chop the onions, mushrooms and garlic cloves. Ground whole coriander seeds. Heat the olive oil in a pan, add onions, mushrooms, coriander, cinnamon and a little salt and pepper. Let simmer until the vegetables have been cooked and the liquid has evaporated. Add the spinach, then chestnuts. Cook 1-2 minutes; then add marmalade and heat thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste, and set aside.

Oil a 20-25 cm diameter spring form pan with olive oil. Carefully unwrap the phyllo pastry and lift one sheet to the pan. Place it so that it will cover the bottom and sides of the pan, but let the overlapping parts hang around the pan.

Brush the sheet with olive oil.

Place another sheet on top of the first one, so that it covers it up partially. Brush with olive oil.

Cover rest of the phyllo sheets with a damp towel if they start to dry up. Keep adding the sheets, until they cover the pan nicely. If some of the sheets get torn a little don’t mind it. And brush all the sheets with olive oil. Pour in the filling, and turn the hanging edges on top of the pie, covering up the filling.

Brush generously with olive oil. Cook the pie in preheated oven in 180 degrees Celsius (~350 F) for 30 minutes, then carefully detach the sides of the pan. Let the pie cook for about 20 minutes more, until the pastry is crisp and golden brown all around. Let the pie rest for a few minutes, cut it to pieces with a serrated knife and then serve with the warm sauce.

click image to see a larger version

booja and bokeh

2010-12-16T17:50:00.002+02:00

Sorry for the long absence! And sorry it will continue a while. I'm at the moment having a period of practical training, part of my studies at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, and man it takes time and energy to do graphics on computer about 7 hours a day five days a week. When I get home the last thing I want to do is sit some three hours more, so I've been being relaxing, reading, photographing a little. I try to get back to posting now before Christmas and after it too.

I just had to post about the del chocolates we had about a week ago. Q brought home this box of chocolate truffles, totally vegan and delicious. The brand is Booja Booja, and the chocolates were excellent. I like dark chocolate, so if you're a fan of mild tastes these might be too much, but for fellow lovers of dark chocolate these are a treat. The chocolates were a bit rustic, they looked and tasted organic. When organic means full, mellow, strong and rich taste.The fillings were good, tasty and well combined with the dark chocolate. The package was a simple wooden box, no plastic parts inside.

These will definitely be included in our Christmas menu. And maybe some Chjoko chocolates too. Chjoko is a Helsinki-based chocolaterie, selling hand made treats and some gourmet chocolate bars. The people at Chjoko have always been very nice, and their products mouth watering. They usually have milk-free chocolates available, but sadly not always. They do make them to order. Oh, and I really love their websites. It's always great when a good product is combined with beautiful graphics!

silent hunt

2010-10-14T22:00:00.012+03:00

I live very near the Helsinki City center, and there's a constant flood of cars driving past our apartment block building. The noise of the traffic is present night and day. There's lime and maple trees growing nearby, and a nice park too. But sometimes all the traffic gets on my nerves, and I have to get away from it, to walk in the woods, breathing the air filtered through the leaves of firs, oaks and pines. I remember going on a trips to the forests of my mother's family's farm. We went all year around, sometimes made a fire, picked up berries or mushrooms, spend good time in the silence. There's something pure about forests. It's like coming home.

So, we left on a cloudy Sunday morning. Me, Q, my Dad and the dog of my family. We drove to the northern Sipoonkorpi, and spend a fine day in the forest, hunting trumpet chanterelles.

We had salad with us, plus some left over pizza. We also baked bun over the campfire (called "tikkupulla" in Finnish). We made the dough ready home and packed it in a tight plastic box. It rose nicely in the airtight container, and was ready to be used couple of hours later. Bun baked on a stick is a Nordic phenomena practiced quite rarely. One simply takes a thin round strip of bun dough and wraps it around peeled finger thick stick (juniper is good), and bakes the bun over the embers.

The original, here trifle modified recipe is from a book Nuotiokirja (Campfire book) by Jaakko Heininmäki and Jyrki Yli-Uotila, photographed by Sami Repo.

Bun on a stick

½ litres soymilk
25 g fresh yeast
½ tsp salt
2 tsp cardamon
2 dl/ ¾ cups sugar
1 kg wheat flour
100 g melted vegan butter

Warm the milk lukewarm, crumble in the yeast, salt and sugar. Whisk well to mix all ingredients. Add flours and knead the dough until it's pliable, soft and firm. You can use a mixer to help to knead the dough, or do it by hand. Add the butter last, and knead it well in. Let rest about an hour. Knead the dough a little more just before baking, roll it into a thin strips and roll around sticks. Bake over embers, slowly turning the stick around to bake the bun evenly. Delicious on a cold day with hot chocolate or coffee!

It rained a little, just enough to decorate the fallen aspen leaves with water droplets, and to clear the air. Later on sun started to shine. Smoke clang on my jacket and followed me the following days, reminding me of the colours in withered brackets, scent of tar in the pine logs and the wonderful feeling of time not existing in the world.

raindrops on parchment

2010-10-13T22:13:00.000+03:00

I like Jamie Oliver. His recipes are creative, simple and easily adjustable. I like his style, using fresh ingredients and handfuls of herbs, clean and good like food ought to be. Okay I wouldn't buy all his brand products, and as a design student I'm not drooling over all his pans either, but generally the guy is great.

We've been reading his book Jamie at Home: Cook your Way to the Good Life, which is fantastic. I love the photos, the illustrations, the colours and the gardening theme that's carried throughout the whole book. The photos of Jamie's Essex garden make me want to leave the city for a countryside dwelling for good.

The book is printed in matte, thick paper, which brings out the shades of the earthy but bright colours brilliantly. The designers have used a great deal of different colours in the book, but they look very good together, like in a garden filled with different hues of flowers, vegetables and weathered tools. The photos are relaxed, somehow soft but well styled and beautiful to look at. And I especially love the way illustration is used combined with the photos: very simple paper cut style pictures decorate the pages where Jamie describes different kind of ingredients.

As in all other Jamie Oliver books there's a large portion of meaty recipes. For me that's not a big problem since I find a lot of inspiration from the mere photos, not considering the ingredients but instead shapes, colours and textures of the dishes. The emphasis of the book is strongly toward organic produce and growing your own vegetables, quality over quantity all around. There's also a good chapter about the horrid battery farming still practiced in Europe and US. I'm really glad people with influence in the food business make these statements and actually change people's attitudes to the better.

japan package

2010-10-08T23:05:00.001+03:00

A friend of my partner visited Japan this summer, and brought to us a delicious souvenier gift: wagashi, Japanese pastries, or more accurately actually sweets. I'm not an expert of Japanese confectionery, so I'm not quite sure what type they were precisely. Basically they were sweet azuki bean paste (anko) in a dry sweet rice dough, formed in to three different cherry flower motifs. They were delicious with green tea, very different from any pastry found in Europe. It's great and quite interesting they use sweetened bean paste in pastries, that might even work in a western-styled pie or cookie.

The friend who brought them told us she had in the boutique asked if any of the confectionery products there were vegan, and the saleslady had laughed and told her everything in the shop was, expect some one or two products. Sort of a compensation from all the fish Japanese apparently add in most groceries: the sweet side of life seems to be just fine for a vegan there.

What was finest about this gift was the way the actual product and package formed a whole. The minimalistic box, covered with thick fabric the colour of faded hay matched the simple sweets perfectly. On one corner was elaborate embossed logo which I noticed only after a while of eying. The sweets were wrapped in a tad translucent papers with cherry flower motif print, the faded green, pink and hay colours matching the sweets. Perfect balance of decorative and silent elements.

maybe, sugar

2010-06-30T22:22:00.001+03:00

The May Day in Finland is the official day for getting acceptably drunk in public (New Year follows strong). The day is a national holiday, and it opens up the season for outdoor picnics and brunches. Often it’s actually still too cold to enjoy sandwiches and salads in the park, but if there’s no downpour people gather their blankets, tables, champagne bottles and garden canopies and head to Ullanlinnanmäki. The brunches nowadays reach into ridiculous proportions, and the trash people leave behind is as sad as the day’s celebration is joyful. Me and my partner wanted to spend the day in a more traditional way, eating doughnuts and drinking mead, and so we did. Well, we drank some rosé champagne, and there was a modern twist in the nostalgic treats as well. We prepared the mead with limes accompanying lemons, and added coconut to the doughnuts.

My mother celebrates her name day on May day, so it was always a little more special for our family. We prepared mead in an old big kettle which was used only that one time every year (it was too big for anything else). The mead took way too long to be finished, and we impatiently followed the rising raisins in the bottles. On May day we used to decorate the table with colourful paper streamers and balloons, and fry doughnuts. We always prepared ring doughnuts, and at first it was a little odd to eat small spherical doughnuts. The ones we prepared this year are made using coconut cream, and taste great with cold drink.

Lime mead

5 litres water
2 organic lemons
2 organic limes
4 dl/1 ½ cups brown sugar or cane sugar
4 dl /1 ½ cups sugar
½ tsp Fresh yeast
Raisins

Carefully wash the citrus fruit. Grate the lemons and limes, or zest them with a special tool or a regular peeler. Then slice the fruit fine.

Measure the water in a big kettle and bring it to boil. Add the sugars and mix until dissolved. Add citrus zest and slices. Remove the kettle from heat and let it cool in to room temperature. Dissolve the fresh yeast with a small amount of water and add to the rest of the mixture. Leave in room temperate to ferment overnight. In the next day pour the mead through a sieve and bottle in carefully cleaned bottles. Drop few raisins in each and keep in the fridge about a week before enjoying. If the bottle tops are real tight, the raisins in the bottles rise from the bottoms to the surface when the drink is good to go.

I've bought old lemonade bottles from flea markets whenever I've found them. I like the simple, functional design of both the bottle and the cap. Plastic bottles look quite ugly compared to these well aged items.

Coconut yogurt doughnuts
About two oven trays full

4 dl/1 ½ cups coconut cream
2 dl/0,8 cups soy yogurt
50 g fresh yeast
1 tsp salt
1 ½ dl/0,6 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
grated zest of one lime
14-16 dl/6-7 cups wheat flour

1 package of doughnut frying fat or vegetable frying oil

sugar for sugaring

Mix the coconut cream and soy yogurt in a kettle and heat until lukewarm. Crumble in the yeast and whisk even. Add about five deciliters/two cups flour, salt, sugars and the lime zest. Mix with a spatula or large spoon, little by little adding in some five deciliters/two cups more flour. Start kneading the dough and knead until the dough is soft and pliable. Add flours as you knead, but try to keep the dough pretty soft. When the dough is soft, the doughnuts will be fluffy and delicious.

Cover with plastic wrap (I reuse bread, fruit etc. bags as dough covers) and let rise in warm and draughtless place until doubled in size. Take the grease indented to use in room temperature to warm up.

When the dough has risen, turn it over on a well floured surface. Flour your hands before working on the dough. Roll the dough in elongated form and cut in pieces that fit snugly in the palm of the hand, about the size of a golf ball. The doughnuts will be raised again before frying, so don’t exaggerate. Form the pieces into balls and set them on a baking tray covered with parchment paper. Cover with a cloth and let rise until the surface feels elastic and bounces back when poked.

Heat the grease in a kettle or deep wok pan. The fat is hot enough when a dab of dough dropped in fries in a minute. Always keep the kettle or pan cover nearby, and if the grease flames cover it immediately to suffocate the fire. Never use water to put out burning grease! It’s also handy to have a sturdy plate or bowl for the straining ladle, and of course a dish for the doughnuts.

Gently drop three or four doughnuts at a time to fry. If there’s enough room, the pastries turn around by themselves, but you can also turn them around with the ladle. After the first pastries have been turned, add few more to fry.

When the doughnuts are ready, lift them up with a straining ladle and place on tissue paper. Let cool on a griddle.
After done with the frying it’s time to sugar. The doughnuts should be warm when sugared, so quickly microwave them or if there’s more people cooking ask someone to sugar them when they’re cooled off a little but still warm after the frying. It’s easiest to fill a bag with sugar, add some doughnuts and give the bag a good shake. You can also mix spices with the sugar, like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom or citrus peel. Try cane or self made vanilla sugar to add more flavours.

The doughnuts are best eaten fresh and warm with cold soy milk, mead or lemonade, so if there happens to be any leftovers (I deeply doubt) deep frost them for future afternoon tea or breakfast treats.

Both recipes by Q, translation and slight alterations by me.

Including some talk of design and illustration in products. While I love using second-hand tableware in photos and searching new old items from flea markets and recycle centers, occasionally new design strikes a chord.

I'm not a fan of all Marimekko products, but these cups were an instant favourite. The low, horizontal form is somehow very pleasing and it communicates with the illustration well. The cups are part of Oiva "In good company" tableware collection, designed by Sami Ruotsalainen and illustrated by Maija Louekari. I adore the illustration, the black line drawing and bright hand drawn dot of colour. The illustrations bring some works of Kustav Klimt in my mind, it might be teh resemblance created by two dimensional buildings with strong geometrical forms and surreal feel. Anyhow, the cups are great in every day use and look good with easy going picnics and evening settings.

Note about posting so late:

I'm not really sure if it's annoying when I post Christmas, May day or Easter related posts two months late. I'd like to think that I'm simply being a lot more ahead than just plain late, since it doesn't feel good to fry doughnuts a month before May, or make Easter settings in February. I like the feel of different kind of seasons, and blogging is a great way to remember past times and feasts. Going into the fashion world convention of constantly thinking abut the future is not where I'm going. Well, that said, I think I could speed up the editing and writing process a little...

untangling knots: nudel days

2010-06-14T00:49:00.000+03:00

It's been a while again, spring has been busy. The ending of the semester at school and the starting of my job overlapped, so there was a lot of unfinished business and new projects on top of old ones. Pictures have piled up, and it's been a pretty labourious task to go through them all. I have a bad habit of leaving the photos waiting, and photographing new ones at the same time. That's why I have some fashion related images from last fall still in line to be photoshopped.

So, when there's 16Gb of photos to go through, I rely on instant noodles. With very little effort they'll be delicious, and of course quick to prepare.

We usually chop up some carrots into matchstick thin slices, and add some spring onions and maybe broccoli if we have it. Thinly sliced veggies start cooking in the steaming water, but stay crisp. Water boils in electric kettle while we chop the vegetables, then noodles and veggies are placed in a bowl. Seasoning included in the package may be sprinkled on depending on what other seasoning is used. Boiling water is poured on the ingredients, and the bowl is covered with a plate to keep the steam in.

After some five minutes, I might add some rice vinegar, sesame seed oil or soy sauce. The instant noodles we usually buy are good without any extra seasoning though. Add silken tofu cubes, shiitake mushrooms or some beans for a more filling soup, and enjoy with good bread.
Then back to work after a well-earned lunch break.

(The noodle soup shown here was invented couple a weeks ago. It was very delicious at a particularly windy, cold, rainy and overall unfriendly day in the end of May. We're still working on the recipe, so when it's finished I'll post it with some new photos.)

blinis

2010-05-02T17:27:00.004+03:00

It’s been a fresh tradition for me and my family to have an evening of blini in the winter or early spring. Blini is most often considered winter food, but would be very good as a summer treat with for example home made vanilla or coconut ice cream.
It’s very easy to convert the traditional recipe vegan, and the taste doesn’t change significantly. Just be sure to use good quality buckwheat flour for the batter and good vegan butter for frying.

This year me and Q had a good reason to make blini when we decided to invited our families to a get together party. The blini is a perfect dish for these kind of informal occasions where people don’t know each other so well. Sure it can be prepared as real gourmet if served with extravagant sides, but I feel there’s a strong down to earth quality in it. No need to stress about which fork to choose from the set of cutlery!

(The napkins are by Marimekko again.)

We served the blini with fine chopped onion cubes, mushroom salad with Asian touch, canned mini cucumbers, vegan caviar made of seaweed and whipped soy yogurt+cream. The acidity of onion contrasts with the greasy softness of the pancakes, same goes with salty morsels. For dessert blini, serve fresh fruit salad or whipped soy cream. I have a hunch that fresh, little a bit bitter sweet strawberries served with whipped soy yogurt and tofutti would taste very good with blini.

A blin is best eaten straight from the skillet, but if there’s no one who wishes to spend the night frying pancakes while others enjoy them I suggest keeping the blini warm in a oven.

(click to enlarge)

Blinis

3 dl/1,2 cup soy yogurt
15 g fresh yeast
2 dl/0,8 cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp sugar
1 dl/0,5 cup hot soy milk
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp melted vegan butter
1 dl/0,5 cup soy yogurt or cream/ coconut cream

Warm the yogurt and whisk in fresh yeast. Add flour and sugar, set aside for one to two hours, or longer if kept in cool place. The dough may be left to rest overnight in a refrigerator.
The batter should be increased in volume, foamy and bubbly when ready. Whisk in the hot milk, salt and whipped soy yogurt, cream or coconut cream just before using the batter. Fry in hot cast iron or nonstick small skillets with abundant dollops of vegan butter. Add butter and when melted spoon a generous tablespoon of batter into skillet for each blin. Bake both sides until golden brown.

We doubled the amount of ingredients for nine people.

Mushroom salad with Asian touch

shiitake mushrooms
brown or white champignon mushrooms
soy yogurt
thai-basil
coriander
chives
zest and juice of one or two limes
salt, sugar and white, lemon or black pepper to taste

I’m giving no amounts of ingredients here, since it’s best to mix this salad according to the gut feeling.

Slice the mushrooms. We used more shiitakes than champignons because shiitakes often have more taste than the champignons sold in supermarkets do. The mushrooms can be either fried in a drop of olive oil or used raw.
Chop the herbs. Thai or cinnamon basil goes well with lime, but if these are unavailable just use common basil. Mix in herbs, lemon zest and juice, season with sugar, salt and pepper. Store in the refrigerator.

For the whipped soy yogurt and cream, soy yogurt and cream were whipped into light foam and served with other sides from small bowls. For drink we had chosen a dry white wine, Austrian Steininger Riesling. We had some other white and red wines too, but the Steininger was a great contrast for the blini.

***

I'm a part time graphic designer, so typefaces and the way they go with the images are very important things to me. I had some hard time deciding whether I should go for the stylish, elegant and festive nostalgia of Riesling or the more contemporary, contrasting and bold feel of Script MT Bold. After some anguished pondering, I favoured Riesling (it's what we drank too). I'll be definitely using the other type some time soon. Any opinions however, would someone have rather seen Script MT in the first image?

runeberg's cakes

2010-03-31T14:09:00.001+03:00

Runeberg's cakes

The tradition of cakes in Finland is rather sparse, the most memorable cakes being strawberry-cream cakes of summer and different buns served around the year. In February there's Runeberg's cakes available. The traditional small cakes are named after Finland's national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg and officially enjoyed mainly on his birthday 5th of February, though the grocery stores start selling the cakes already in January.

The story tells Runeberg asked for something sweet, and his wife Frederika Runeberg prepared cakes with the ingredients at hand. Originally the cakes were made of wheat flour, cookie crumbles and almonds, topped with apple jam and frosting. The cakes were basically made from leftover ingredients, cleverly used to make something new out of old. Today the cakes are topped with raspberry jam and seasoned with rum or arrack liqueur and most often bought rather than made at home.

I've made these cakes for some years now, and every time altered the recipe a little. This year I made the cakes rectangular (usually they are baked in round rather high tins). Try using different jams, the best are usually homemade. For these cakes I prepared the marmalade from frozen raspberries. And if you have dry leftover bread or cookies, crumb them and use in this pastry.

Runeberg's cakes

1 1/2 dl/0,6 cup sugar
100 g vegan butter

1 dl/0,4 cup almond flour (preferably freshly ground)
1 dl/0,4 breadcrumbs.
about 3 dl/1,3 cup wheat flour
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking flour
about 2 dl/0,8 cup soy milk

almond liqueur/rum for moisture
raspberry marmalade

Beat the sugar and butter into light foam. In a separate bowl carefully mix together dry ingredients and start adding the mixture into the foam. Add liquid and dry ingredients in turns and quickly mix the dough even. Pour in lightly greased rectangular tin or small round tins (muffin tin goes too). Bake in 200 degrees Celsius/390 F from 15 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool and cut in rectangle pieces.

Moisten with a mixture of rum or almond liqueur and water, top with marmalade and decorate with frosting.

I photographed the cakes with "Taika" (magic) mugs by Iittala. The mugs are designed by Heikki Orvola and the illustrations by Klaus Haapaniemi. Haapaniemi's prints and illustrations are a delicious mixture of folklore and contemporary shapes and colours, his images great and admirable inspiration.

The cake forks are from a second hand shop in Kallio district of Helsinki. The Second Hand/Antique shop also has a cafeteria "Cafe 5. Linja" that sadly offers no vegan treats, but has a great mood and beautiful interior.

fruitcake three ways

2010-02-07T11:34:00.011+02:00

Okay this one will be the last Christmas-themed post for a while; but note that these cakes are good as coffee cakes all around the year too.

In Finland like all around the world it's customary to bake fruitcakes before Christmas. My mother usually bakes one that's allowed to rest in the fridge about two weeks to let the flavours develop, and one smaller that is going to be eaten on the same day as a sort of a prelude. We wanted to twist the tradition a bit of course, and made three cakes with a bit unusual flavours; using dried soft dates and figs in the first cake, dried grated coconut meat and dried cranberries in the second one, and almonds, hazel- and pecan nuts in the third. Wikipedia states that the earliest fruitcake recipe included pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and raisins: sounds good and might look really good too, fine inspiration for this Christmas.

Fruitcake base

250 g vegan butter
2 ½ dl (1 cup) sugar
3-4 dl (1,3-1,5 cups) plain soy yogurt
1-2 tbsp dark rhum
4 ½ dl (2 cups) wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder

Whip the vegan butter and sugar to a light foam. Add soy yogurt and dark rhum constantly whipping. In a separate bowl carefully mix baking powder with the flour. Gradually add it to the butter-sugar-yogurt foam and quickly and thoroughly mix with a spatula. Mix in extra ingredients. Pour in greased cake or bread mold and bake in 150-175 degrees Celsius 300-350 F about an hour.

Let cool in the molds, then wrap up in aluminum foil and let rest in the frigde from one to two weeks to let the cakes moisten up and the flavours develop.

Fig & Date

Add two generous handfulls of soft dried figs and dates. Chop up in bite-size pieces and mix them with a little flour to prevent them from gliding to the bottom of the cakes.

Coconut & Cranberry

Add two generous handfulls of dried cranberries and some 1-2 dl (0,4-0,8 cup) dried grated coconut meat.

Nut

Add about 3/4 dl (0,3 cup) of some three different nuts of your choice. Chop them up in bite-size pieces before adding, hazelnuts are good to go without chopping. Whole nuts moisten up nicely when you let the cake rest, and look good in cut cake.

I regularly seek interesting cutlery and dishware from flea markets and second hand shops. The handle of this knife is very well shaped, and the little all important details in the design are fascinating. I'm not sure who's behind the design of this knife or even when it's made exactly, but I'd like to find out about the background of this beautiful, classic piece of cutlery. The plate in the other hand is better known but not manufactured anymore, a classic Clarissa tableware series by Villeroy & Boch.

christmas boxes

2010-02-05T02:41:00.003+02:00

(Q with one of the boxes)

2/3 of my late Christmas posts! We simply didn't have time to photograph before holidays, so I'm posting this afterwards as an inspiration for the next Christmases and why not other holidays to come. We got this idea of festive gift baskets around November last year when we were pondering about Christmas presents to give to our parents. After some search in the flea markets we faced the fact that we would not find baskets beautiful and affordable enough, so we made Festive gift hatboxes instead of Christmas gift baskets.

We made the box edges from 1mm thick cardboard and the bottoms and lids from recycled corrugated fiberboard. Now I'd recommend a cardboard of 2-3 mm thickness for the edges to get 'em more sturdy. We covered the boxes (both inside and outside) with white plain cotton mostly before assembling, just to make them as neat as possible, and clued them up using the sort of glue used in bookbinding. Then we sew bows made of nicely patterned fabric, filled up the boxes with vegan treats we'd prepared and gave them away knowing that our families would finish them in a lot less time that we'd spent preparing them.

I'd encourange people making gift boxes to start well in advance to avoid unnecessery rush. We had a lot to do with the right kind of bottles and jars and graphics, and of course with the food. We naturally made the products that keep well first, but we could have started searching for the jars and boxes as soon as we got the idea of these del boxes. I think next year we'll make few beautiful boxes of handmade chocolates, and start designing the packages in September.

Our gift hat boxes included:
Lemon olive oil
Gloves of garlic in marinade
Dried ground sweet onion
Mustard and cucumber salad
Home-made mustard two ways
Mullet wine (glogg) gingerbread cookies
Fresh ginger-gingerbread cookies
Fruitcake three ways
Toasted muesli
Cinnamon and vanilla rusks
Cherry jam
Black Chokeberry jam

Recipes to some and pictures after the seasonal photography. We had a white Christmas, and after December the winter really got going. We've had the most snowy weather in years.

We had this bottle of mullet wine as a little Christmas gift. Very well composed package and product, beautiful decorative graphics and flavourful drink. Laitila generally has fresh and well composed packages to go with their drinks.

Lemon olive oil

1 litre good quality olive oil*
ground zest of two lemons
(and ground zest of one or two lemons)

Warm up the olive oil with the zest of two lemons in a kettle. Let infuse about half an hour, pour through a strainer and let cool. Bottle in clean glass bottles (preferably dark glass). Add the fresh peel of one or two lemons to the bottles and let the flavours infuse a week or two. For stronger flavor of lemon let the zest lay infuse in the oil longer. Taste the oil while it's being seasoned to get the right amount of flavour.

*we used Creek cold pressed virgin olive oil from a regular grocery store, no need to use any super expensive deli shop oil

Marinated gloves with chili, olive oil and rosemary. Boil peeled cloves few minutes, mix herbs with oil and let cloves marinate couple of days or weeks.

Dried ground sweet onion

plenty of onions
salt
olive oil

Peel and chop the onions fine. Distribute them on a oven tray, sprinkle with olive oil and salt. Roast in the oven in 100-150 degrees Celsius 200-300F until they're dried and crisp. This will take several hours, but you can leave them to dry overnight in mild temperature. But in jars or paper bags when finished. Store in cool, dry place.

Mustard and cucumber salad

I used this basic recipe which I modified to suit my needs. I used canned cucumbers instead of fresh ones, and left out a lot of the salt, sugar and vinegar. Basically the salad is made by mixing the ingredients and cooking it until it thickens slightly. Then it's poured into jars and cooled. Stored in the fridge, keeps about two weeks.

3 kg cucumbers
1 kg onion
1 kg sugar
0,5dl/0,2 cup salt
1 tsp ground mustard seeds
5 dl/2 cups vinegar

Home-made mustard two ways

Hot rhum mustard (recipe adapted from Glorian Ruoka&Viini-magazine 12/09)

3 dl (1,3 cup) mustard flour (ground mustard seeds)
3 dl (1,3 cup) raw cane sugar (or dark sugar)
2 tbsp potato- or cornstarch
1 1/2 - 2 tsp salt
1 dl (0,4 cup) dark rum
1/2 dl (0,2 cup) water
4 tbsp whole mustard seeds

Mix mustard flour, sugar, starch, salt, dark rum and water in a kettle. Bring to boil and remove from heat. Measure the mustard seeds on a frying pan and roast them without oil about 2-5 minutes. Add straight to the mustard mixture, mix and pour in clean glass jars. The mustard sets when it cools. Stores in fridge from 1 to 2 months.

Gentle rosemary mustard (recipe adapted from Glorian Ruoka&Viini-magazine 12/09)

2 tbsp dried or fresh rosemary

1 tbsp olive oil
2 dl (0,8 cup) light soy cream
1 1/2 dl (0,6 cup) mustard flour (ground mustard seeds)
2 dl (0,8 cup) sugar
1 tbsp potato starch
2 tbsp vinegar
(grated fresh ginger)

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the rosemary until it oozes scent. Mix cream, mustard flour, sugar, potato starch and rosemary with the oil in a kettle. Add grated ginger if desired. Heat the mustard constantly mixing until it boils and thickens. Pour in clean glass jars and let cool, store in the fridge. Keeps about 3-4 weeks.

Fresh ginger-gingerbreads

Literally gingerbread cookies.

250 g vegan butter
2 1/4 dl (1 cup) sugar
3/4 dl (0,3 cup) light syrup
about 10 cm (3 inch) long piece of ginger
1 tsp dried ground ginger
1 tsp ground bitter orange peel
dash of cinnamon
1 dl (0,4 cup) plain soy yogurt
1/2-1 1/2 tsp baking soda
6 dl (2 1/2 cups) wheat flour

Melt the vegan butter, mix with the syrup and dried spices. Peel and grate the fresh ginger. Add about half of it to the mixture. Whisk in plain soy yogurt. Mix baking soda well with the flour. If you want flatter, more crisp gingerbreads use less soda, if you prefer puffy ones add more. Sieve the flour-soda mixture carefully and gradually to the syrup-spice mix, beating with a spatula. Mix all flour in to get a rather firm dough. Wrap up in plastic and let rest in the fridge overnight.

Roll the dough into a 3-5 mm thick sheet on a floured surface and cut off gingerbreads with the cookie-cutter of your choice. We made round gingerbreads to go with the designer-spirited boxes but other forms are suitable of course. Off The Beaten Path have pretty impressive range of different cutters. Place the cookies on a baking tin covered with parchment paper and bake in 200 degrees Celsius/390 F from 5 to 8 minutes until crips and golden. Let cool on a wire rack and decorate with powdered sugar frosting. Make the frosting by mixing about 1 dl/0,4 cup powdered sugar and 1/2-1 tbsp water to get a thick paste.

Mullet wine gingerbreads (from Veg'Arome)

3 dl (1,3 cups) dark syrup
2 dl (0,8 cup) brown sugar
1 1/2 dl (0,6 cup) glogg/mulled vine
225 g vegan butter
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
cardamom
ginger
cinnamon
vanilla sugar
cloves
dried ground peel of bitter orange
(add spices according to taste)
1l (34 ounces) wheat flour

Heat mullet wine, suryp and sugar in a small kettle. Add vegan butter and stirr until it has melted completely. Mix spices, soda and baking powder with about 2 dl (0,8 cup) of the wheat flour. Blend with syrup-mixture until even. Gradually add rest of the flour. Blend again and taste, add more spices or flour if needed. Let rest in fridge overnight wrapped in plastic.

Roll the dough into a 3-5 mm thick sheet on a floured surface and cut off gingerbreads with the cookie-cutter of your choice. Place the cookies on a baking tin covered with parchment paper and bake in 200 degrees Celsius/390 F from 5 to 8 minutes. Let cool on wire rack and decorate with powdered sugar frosting.

Toasted muesli (recipe in the second image)

Cherry and black chokeberry jams.

little christmas

2010-01-23T17:44:00.000+02:00

I'm either awfully late or early with these festive posts depending on how you look at it, but folks, next Christmas is only 11 month away! It's never too late or too early to be inspired, so here we go.

Here in Scandinavia we have a custom of celebrating Christmas beforehand, having parties that are rarely celebrated with the family but more often with a larger group of co-workers or friends. The pre-Christmas party, "pikkujoulut" which translates "little Christmas" is often viewed as a great opportunity for people to make fools of themselves, often featuring abundant alcohol intake and social contacts they feel deeply sorry the day after. The custom started from the celebration of the Advents, and was established after the First WW. The party was sometimes referred to as the "porridge fest", as it's a tradition to eat rice porridge cooked with milk in Christmas time. I've never been a heavy drinker, so the idea of typical Little Christmas doesn't inspire me at all. So we had our own Little Christmas served with some selected drinks, good food, gold as an overall theme, music and many good friends. We prepared a lot of dishes the day before, and photographed them in the abundant light and -10 degrees Celsius/14 F temperature of outdoor patio.

Golden Little Christmas

Spiced & roasted chickpeas

Miniature pies with golden Christmas salad (rosolli)

Caviart shots

Miniature Christmas tarts with cloudberry jam

Round marmalades (by Fazer)

Mullet wine gingerbread cookies

Fresh gingerbread cookies

(Trifle with mullet wine jello, gingerbread crumbs and pomegranate seeds)

We asked our guest bring golden candles with them for the table decoration. To drink we had different kind of mullet wines (glogg) and some suitably coloured soft drinks.

Spiced & roasted chickpeas

The scent of roasting chickpeas is mouth-watering. We made a lot of them.

400 g dried chickpeas

Spices: olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, good quality salt, cumin, rosemary, cinnamon etc. Use warm, strong spices and try different tastes and combination to find out what you like the best.

Soak the chickpeas overnight, rinse with fresh water and boil them for about an hour. Pour off excess water, let cool a little and pour on a baking tray. Add olive oil and spices, roast in the oven in 150-200 degrees Celsius 300-390 F until crisp and golden. If you wish to prepare the chickpeas well in advance, let them marinate with the oil and spices some days and roast them just before serving.

Miniature pies with golden Christmas salad (rosolli)

Basic pie crust recipe (via Veg'arome), adjust the amounts of ingredients according to occasion

150 g wheat flour

100 g vegan butter

1 tsp baking flour

50 g Plain Tofutti better than cream cheese

50 g Blue style vegan sheese.

Crumble flour and room-temperature vegan butter into an even mixture. Add baking flour and plain cream cheese. Ground the sheese to the dough and mix the dough even. Distribute the dough in small muffin tins and bake in 200 degrees Celsius 390 F from 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Golden Christmas salad

rutabagas

parsnips

potatoes

Granny Smith apples

Adjust the amounts of ingredients according to occasion. Peel the root vegetables and cube them. Boil the vegetables until they're almost cooked, pour off excess water and let cool. Peel and cube the apples, drizzle on some lime or lemon juice to prevent discolouration. Mix all the ingredients together, add a dash of black pepper and salt if desired. Serve as a starter, with main course or as a pie filling.

The caviart shots are very stylish starters, and easy to make too. You just need plenty of shot glasses, some good rye bread*, soy yogurt and Caviart*.

Caviart shots

Rye bread crumbs (Fro those in Finland: Fazer Real-rye bread is good for this)

Soy yogurt

Lime juice and grated zest

Caviart

Herbs for decoration, flat leaf parsley, coriander etc.

Season soy yogurt with lime juice, taste to get the balance of the flavours right.

Add some bread crumbs to the bottom of a shot glass. Moisten up with lime juice or soy milk, add some seasoned yogurt, and on top of it some caviart. Decorate with herbs. Repeat the whole procedure as many times as the number of the guests you've invited. Store in the fridge before serving.

*If rye bread is unavailable, use some whole-wheat bread instead.

**Caviart is a caviar-like product most often made of seaweed. In Finland it's produced for example by AK Seafood. Similar products exist in other countries too: check the major supermarkets and specialty shops.

Miniature Christmas tarts with cloudberry jam

The Christmas tarts were made of deep frozen vegan puff pastry. We cut the sheets of dough into bite-size pieces, cut ad folded the edged as shown below and filled them after baking.

Trifle with mullet wine jello, gingerbread crumbs and granate apple seeds

The trifle was done in a same way as the one I prepared for Italian inspired dinner. We just made a jello from mullet wine and agar agar to the bottom of the glasses, crumbled on some gingerbread cookies moistened up with more mullet wine. We whipped up the foams spiced with a dash of ginger, assembled the trifles and decorated them with some pomegranate seeds. Miniature versions would work for a larger group of people.

Images from the fest:

Few shots from the day after.

lingonberry bun rolls

2009-12-30T18:51:00.007+02:00

My father is the best baker I know. As far as I can remember he has made the most delicious buns and cinnamon rolls I've tasted. He's also superb with crêpes, blins and other pan-fried treats. All his baked goods have perfect texture and form. Few weeks ago he prepared cinnamon rolls for a get-together, and the rows of perfect buns looked like the easiest thing in the world to make. That's an illusion of course, as I realized when I was rolling the dough and trying to get it neatly filled and rolled up. I cut my first bun roll and it didn't look good, so I simply baked the rolls as they were and cut them up afterwards. I think I'll have ask him to give me a lesson or two about these.

I used frozen lingonberries for the filling, which wasn't good for the rising of the dough. Next time I'll try jam with not too much sugar in it. Toasted almonds might be good too.

Lingonberry bunrolls
makes two short rolls, about 10 buns

2 1/2 dl (1 cup) soy milk
25 g fresh yeast
1 heaped tbsp soy yogurt
3/4 dl (0,3 cup) sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cardamom
50 g room-temperature vegan butter
about 450 g (8 dl 3 cup) wheat flour

melted vegan butter
a generous handfull of lingonberries (partly smashed or whole)
sugar, potato starch

Heat the soy milk lukewarm. Crumble in yeast, then whisk in sugar, cardamom, salt and yogurt. Add some flour and whisk well, then gradually add the rest of the flours constantly kneading the dough. Knead the dough until the texture is smooth and firm, add butter when the dough is almost done. Let rise in warm place about half an hour.

Roll or pat the dough into a rectangle, I cut it in half to better coordinate the filling and rolling. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle on lingonberries, some sugar and potato starch. Roll the dough up, placing the seam under the roll. Let rise in warm place, brush with some melted butter and sprinkle on sugar if you like. Bake in 225 degrees Celsius (430 F) for about 15 minutes. Let cool and cut in slices.

(the same with image)

italian inspired

2009-12-30T14:45:00.009+02:00

I don't borrow cookery books from the library as nearly as often as I did before, but some books I occasionally miss. One is "Italian kasviskeittiön parhaat" (translates "The best of Vegetarian Italian cuisine", original book called Truly Italian) by Ursula Ferrigno. The book is not vegan, but it's a great example of the variety of Italian dishes that are based on fresh vegetables - tomatoes, aubergines, fennels, salads, potatoes, courgettes - and different kind of pasta and breads. One recipe that instantly became a favourite was a fennel risotto, a recipe I have modified to further suit my taste and the ingredients at hand. So, when I wanted to make something for Q in return for all the meals we've shared there was no doubt of what I would prepare.

With the risotto I served another long-time favourite: simple focaccia with rosemary. The bread is easy to make, tastes great with a glass of good wine and serves about six people. For a dessert I made modern trifle with the flavours of Christmas, twisting the tastes a little with vegan blue cheese and white pepper.

For drink with risotto and bread we had white wine, Bucci Verdicchio Classico Superiore 2007, and with the dessert simple black tea.

Fennel and Mushroom Risotto
Serves 2-4

500 g Florence fennel bulbs
6 scallions or 1 big sweet onion
two handfuls of dried trumpet chantarelles (if not available, fresh champions may also be used)
5 heaped tbsp vegan butter
350 g risotto rice (for example Arborio)
1 l good vegetable stock
black pepper, fine sea salt
grated peel of 2 lemons
handful of fresh flat leaf parsley
some grated vegan cheese

Wash the fennels and remove any dried layers. Cut in thin slices, save some of the green parts for decoration. Peel and chop the onions. Soak the mushrooms in warm water until they're soft, squeese off the excess water and slice larger mushrooms.

Melt half of the vegan butter in a kettle, fry fennel, onion and mushrooms about five minutes. Add the rice and mix it in well. Keep the risotto simmering and start adding the hot vegetable stock one scoopfull at a time. Add more liquid after the previous dose has absorbed, and keep adding the stock until the rice is little over al dente. Add any remaining stock and let simmer few minutes in low heat. Season with salt, freshly ground black-pepper, grated lemon peel and parsley. Add the rest of the vegan butter and mix in some cheese. Let the risotto stand for some 2 or 3 minutes and then serve as soon as possible from warmed plates. Decorate with fennel and herbs.

The decorative yet stylish paper napkins are by Marimekko, "Ananas" (Pineapple) pattern designed by Maija Isola. I'm a student of design, and greatly appreciate design that fits in to the everyday life. Many of Marimekko's design have been converted to affordable products aimed for all consumers, bringing beauty to all kind of homes.

Focaccia
makes 1 big loaf of bread

30 g fresh yeast (dried may be used, but I recommend fresh)
2 tbsp honey, light syrup or cane sugar
1 tbsp salt
6 dl (2 1/2 cup) lukewarm water
1 kg wheat flour
1 dl (1/2 cup) good quality olive oil
1 tbsp dried rosemary
1 tbsp sea salt
(100 g olives)*

Crumble the yeast to the lukewarm water. Add honey or syrup, salt and some flours. Whisk the mixture well, then gradually add the rest of the flours constantly kneading the dough. Keep kneading until the texture is smooth and firm. Transfer into a clean bowl, cover up with plastic and let rise in a warm place about an hour.

Knead the risen dough well on a floured counter top. Pat it even and lift it into an oven pan or bread tin brushed with olive oil or lined with parchment paper. With this recipe I usually use a Silverwood brownie pan (about 20,5x31,5 cm or 8x21,5 inch) to get a really thick focaccia, but this bread surely fills up a whole oven pan if you let it rise long enough. Let the bread rise until it's filled up the tin or pan nicely. Mix dried rosemary with olive oil and sprinkle on the bread, add sea salt and optional olives. Bake in preheated oven in 180 degrees Celsius (355F) 15-20 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and crisp. Let cool, cut in squares or thin slices and serve.

*Use good quality olives, the ones you have to pit for yourself are delicious but there's good Greek pitted olives available too. Use the ones you like, or try something else. Sun-dried or fresh tomato is good, so are mushrooms and different kind of herbs. Try sage or parsley for example. Or like myself a friend of simple things, just ground a little black pepper on top.

The recipe for this modern trifle is rough, to give more room for experimentation. A dessert like this is very easy to make; just whip up some foams, crumble the cookies, add tasty moisture and a dash of spices, pile it all up in beautiful glasses and serve.

I made two foams, the other softer and lighter in contrast of crisp gingerbread crumbs, second slightly stiffer to be piped as a decoration. If you have little time one foam will do just fine.

Blue cheese and gingerbread trifle
makes about two trifles

2 tbsp Calvados (apple liquor)
2 tbsp fresh orange or citrus juice
some orange or other citrus fruit flesh
2 dl (0,8 cup) soy cream
vanilla sugar
2-4 tbsp vegan butter
2-4 tbsp powdered sugar
2 tbsp plain tofutti better than cream cheese
blue style vegan cheese
gingerbreads, self made or bought (In Scandinavia; Anna's gingerbreads are vegan)
some round gingerbreads, with a diameter that fits into the glasses
white pepper
gingerbreads for decoration

Mix the Calvados with fresh citrus juice. Whip the soycream, season with vanilla. In a separate bowl, whip together about equal amounts of vegan butter and powdered sugar. Whip in some tofutti. Add vanilla, more sugar, butter or tofutti if needed. To stiffen up the first foam, add a dash of butter foam to it.

Start assembly by adding a slice of orange to the bottom of the glass. Add a generous spoonful of light foam. Drop a round gingerbread on top and sprinkle with Calvados-juice mixture. Add a thinner layer of light foam, and cover it up with crumbled gingerbread. Dripple on a little moisture and cover up with a spoonful of light foam. Add grated blue cheese and more gingerbread crumbs, pipe a swirl of butterfoam on top. Sprinkle on a little white pepper, decorate with gingerbreads.

Luckily for me it was quite warm long in to the middle of December. To catch the light of short winter days, I photograph outside. When shooting these images it was actually warm in temperatures of 0-5 degrees Celsius (about 30 F), especially now when I compare it to the biting frost of -10 Celsius (15 F) during holiday shoots.

sour&sweet potatoes

2009-12-10T19:50:00.004+02:00

I'm not a big fan of potatoes. I suppose I got my fill of them as a kid, where potatoes were served almost every day in various different, uninteresting forms. Potato in itself is a versatile, affordable root vegetable, but the abundant everyday use made it appear dull to me. Frankly, I got bored with it, and when I moved to my own home I rarely cooked potatoes.

Now I think I'm getting over being fed up with them. I've always enjoyed new potatoes, but basic boiling is not in my opinion mouth-watering at all for older vegetables. Few weeks ago at my folks, where there's always a full sack of them, I thought of roasting them in the oven. I had the idea when I recalled a recipe from a Finnish book called Tofukeittokirja (tofucookbook) by Marianne Kiskola and Sanna Miettunen. Potato wedges were served with simmered tomato-sauce with silken tofu blended in.

Using what was in the fridge, roasted potato wedges with sour&sweet tomato dip emerged. There recipe for the dip is extremely rough, as I find it best to taste the dip every now and then to get the balance of the tastes just right. Add more sugar if the dip tastes too sharp, some water if it should be lighter, lemon juice to get the kick. The Peruvian pepper adds a nice touch of colour and distinguished, slightly sweet taste.

2-3 mid-size potatoes
2-3 tbsp good quality olive oil (I used divine Greek olive oil that had a fruity taste and light-green colour)
rosemary, sea salt, peruvian pepper to taste

1 small can (about 140g) tomato purée
sour&sweet sauce, white wine vinegar, water, lemon juice, olive oil and sugar to taste

Wash the potatoes well, cut into wedges. Distribute evenly on a baking tray. Mix spices with the olive oil, brush to the wedges and bake in pre-heated oven in 200 degrees Celsius (F390) for 15 to 30 minutes. When the potatoes bake, make the dip. Mix tomato purée with some sour&sweet sauce, spices and other liquids to get a dip of desired consistency and taste. Enjoy with some fresh crisp salad and drink.

And sorry for taking this long to post! I've been happily buried under interesting projects and works, but as holidays draw closer I hope to post more often.

waffle café

2009-11-15T19:54:00.003+02:00

I'm blatantly copying Q with this post about The Waffle Café or Vohvelikahvila at Tampere, but unfortunately there aren't many cafés in Finland serving as delicious vegan waffles as The Vohvelikahvila - in fact there aren't any other cafés serving vegan waffles at all as far as I know. We often travel together, so it's natural we visit the same places and then wish to share the experiences respectively, so here goes the English introduction to this wonderful café.

The cafeteria is located in the smallest masonry building in town, in a walking distance from the central railway station. There's approximately ten seats inside and about six more outside. In the summer it's nice to sip a cup of tea in the sunshine, but in wintertimes the café easily gets crowded. People come after the relaxed mood, sympathetic interior and del waffles, often bringing their kids along.

The vegan waffles aren't much promoted by the café, but the staff will gladly hand you the vegan menu if you ask for it. There's about three sweet and a savoury option with mixed vegetable cubes, onions and olives. An apple-lover, I usually order the sweet apple waffle: a soft, golden brown waffle with sweet acid apple cubes baked with the batter, soy ice-cream and chocolate or caramel syrup. The savoury waffle I tasted last summer was quite plain, so recommend are the sweet ones as desserts or festive snacks.

(bright photos taken this summer)

The prizes are on the higher side, one waffle costs roughly 5€, and sometimes the small place runs out of vegan batter which is stored deep-frozen, and customers have to wait it to melt and come back after couple of hours. However, the warm atmosphere of the café and the taste of the waffles make up for both the excitement of the attainability and the pricing.

Tampere in general is a great place, the structure and size of the town is just right, and it's one of the few cities I'd consider living in. There's often interesting art-exhibitions around the city, and the industrial background of the town is fascinating: all those old masonry buildings and smokestacks in horizon are to my liking. For vegans Tampere was long a sort of unofficial veg capital of Finland, having the now days deceased vegan restaurant Veganissimo and a history of vegetarian movement. Luckily vegan Tampere is still living strong with restaurant such as Gopal and other veg-conscious places. And naturally whenever we visit Tampere we are tempted to find an excuse to visit Vohvelikahvila again to make our part to keep them making those coconut milk waffles!

pumpkin soup

2009-11-13T16:49:00.007+02:00

Sometimes in the evening I find a green spot in this town
And i hide myself thinking of those circling skies
it takes me back to another time of duffel coats
And drawing lines in the late september evening sand
the pumpkin soup on the table as warm as the evening sun

Patrick Wolf/Pumpkin soup

Another soup. There's nothing more suitable than a hot, creamy soup to warm cold days now that winter is finally slowly arriving. Around Halloween all the stores started selling pumpkins and clearly overstocked them, so discounts were quite good. It has been a tradition for our family to buy one and carve it every year, but this time I didn't bother sculpting but instead

concentrated on roasting the seeds for salads, frying the peel to make decorations and baking the rest to make soup. I made notes while cooking, but they mysteriously disappeared so there might be some roughness in the amounts of the ingredients.

Pumpkin soup

1 small winter squash
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion
1-2 carrots
1 medium potato

1 liter vegetable stock
about 2 dl (circa 1 cup) coconut milk (I used light)
some plain soy yogurt or silken tofu

ground nutmeg, salt and black pepper to taste

Start by preparing the pumpkin, peel it first and save some of it. Cut the vegetable in half and then into segments of reasonable size. Scoop out the seeds, rinse them with cold water and set aside.

Drizzle some olive oil on the segments and peel if desired. Bake the segments and the peel in oven in 200 degrees Celsius (390F) until the flesh is soft and fully cooked. Be careful not to burn the peel, it's ready when it's dry and roasted. Let the flesh cool, then cube it. Keeps in a refrigerator for a couple of days.

Chop the onion, peel the carrots and potato, cube roughly. Heat the olive oil, add onion and fry for a few minutes. Add the carrots and potato, then vegetable stock. Simmer until potatoes are soft, add pumpkin and let boil for couple of minutes. Pour out excess broth into a container and puree the soup smooth in a food blender. Add soy yogurt or silken tofu, blend smooth and add coconut milk. Add some broth if needed. Re-heat, season and serve with roasted pumpkin seeds and good crispy bread.

Roast the seeds in medium heat with some little olive oil until crisp and golden.

I've also made some experiments with apple cheese-cake after nordljus, but it requires a lot more practice to get this just right. I'll try baking it upside down like tarte tatin and also experiment with the cheese layer to get it softer and more like a mousse. Generally, it works, but the nuances are still a bit off. Maple syrup tastes divine with apples, and the cake looks good already. I'm sucker for challenges, as mousse cakes are probably the most difficult cakes to convert vegan if meringue doesn't count. Agar agar doesn't work with foams as well as gelatin and the smoothness of the mousses is difficult to achieve with baked cheesecake, but I'll keep on practicing.

Also, had a little tapas dinner with Q, marinated miniature onions and kalamata olives. Cane sugar and olive oil for onions, cardamom, sugar, anise seeds and olive oil for olives.

borscht

2009-10-18T19:06:00.008+03:00

Quite often the food I think of making is inspired by the dinnerware I find from flea markets or purchase from shops. There's good many second hand boutiques in the area I live, and I stroll around to find unique pieces. I stumbled on this large deep blue and golden CCSS cup, and immediately my thoughts were led to sauerkraut and pelmeni.

I have visited Russia once as a kid, and since I don't remember much of the cuisine I made some research work and ended up using my left-over beets for a soup. The beets colour the entire soup deep burgundy, broccoli buds look like small pearls on the crimson broth and the scent of the beets mixes with the fine aroma of the vinegar and root vegetables. Enjoy with good bread and some soy yogurt on top.

Borscht

1 onion
1 carrot
1 small broccoli
small parsnip
3-4 beets*
1 tbsp olive oil
1 liter water
1 good quality vegetable bouillon cube**
1/2 tsp capers and some 2 tsp of the pickle
2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

marjoram, thyme, black pepper and salt to taste
plain soy yogurt

Chop the onion fine, peel the root vegetables and cube them. Grate one beet instead of cubing to add juice and colour. Slice the broccoli to small buds. Heat the olive oil in a kettle, add the vegetables and let them fry for a bout five minutes. Add water and bouillon cube, let simmer until the root vegetables are cooked. Chop the capers and add them with some of their salty preserving juice. Season with white balsamic vinegar, herbs, salt and black pepper.

*I used fresh beets, but pickled are also a good choice. Add them when the soup is almost finished, and omit the vinegar.
**If you often make your own vegetable broth, by all means use it instead.

green tomato pie

2009-10-18T18:46:00.012+03:00

Why are green tomatoes so much more expensive than the red ones? They're just ordinary tomatoes that don't have time to ripen up, and are sold as they are. Nice change though, bought couple and made a pie. I made the crust from a little vegan butter, wheat flour, water and soy yogurt; basic pate sable, and was too much in a hurry to take notes on ingredient
amounts. So, use any crisp pie crust recipe you have, or buy good quality deep-frozen vegan dough if you're busy.

Green tomato pie

Crisp prebaked rectangular pie crust (app. 20cmX12cm/8X5)
3 to 5 green tomatoes
plain tofutti better than cream cheese
cane sugar
dash of salt and black pepper

Slice the tomatoes thinly. Spread tofutti on the crust, sprinkle with cane sugar and arrange the tomato slices on top. Scatter on some more sugar, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake in 225 degrees Celsius (430F) until the tomatoes are baked and the crust is golden brown.

parsnip soup

2009-10-10T21:05:00.011+03:00

For me autumn strongly associates with soups. My mother used to make excellent smooth potato and leek soup, like vichyssoise but served warm, and in my memories it's always dark, wet and cold outside when we sit around the table and pour hot, golden soup in battered Arabia plates.

Parsnip is one of my favourite root vegetables with its sophisticated flavour and light coloured meat. I've often used it in salads - meaning to post a recipe soon enough - but never as a main ingredient in a soup. Here it's combined with celery, some fennel and soy cream to make a velvety smooth soup, good served either hot or cold. The recipe makes soup enough for about two as a main course, but it's very simple to adjust for larger quantities; simply double or triple the ingredients. I find that soups should also be improvised according to the ingredients at hand, so if you don't have say fennel, use something else, and if you have plenty add some more. If you want to add more flavour, try sprinkling truffle or walnut oil on servings.

With the soup I enjoyed a glass of apple wine made by my father. He's getting really good at making it, the batch we got to drink this years is way better than last time. Fresh, quite smooth and round fruity flavour with no much acidity, medium dry. I reckon a medium-dry fresh white wine would go well with a light soup like this, or maybe even good quality apple cider.

Parsnip soup
serves two as a main

2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 garlic cloves
1/2 onion
400 g parsnip
some four to six stalks of leaf-celery
1/2 of a medium fennel

1 liter vegetable broth, either self-made or good quality stock cube/fond
1-2 dl/3/4 cup light soy cream
3 tbsp plain tofutti better than creamcheese

salt, black pepper to taste

Slice cloves and cube onion roughly. Cube peeled and cleaned vegetables. Heat a kettle, add olive oil and sautée garlic and onion on medium heat. Add the vegetables, let them fry for a minute
and add the vegetable broth. Let simmer until parsnip is cooked. Pour out almost all excess broth, do not discard. Puree with a blender, add a little broth if the mixture seems too thick.

Pour through a strainer if you wish to have very smooth soup. Add the soy cream and tofutti, bring back to heat and simmer until cream cheese has dissluted, whisk to help it mix better. Season with salt and black pepper (I also added a pinch of celery-salt). Distribute to the plates, decorate with herbs - bloody dock and water cress used for the pictures - or with roasted root vegetable slices, nuts, seeds, slef-made crutons, soy yoghurt, thin slices of bread or whatever suitable you happen to have in the cupboard. Good served hot, excellent also as a cold starter.

beetroot passion cake

2009-10-04T17:51:00.007+03:00

October is the time for root vegetables. Carrots are best raw, parsnip is fantastic roasted in salads, but I was somewhat suspicious about beetroot. It colours everything deep crimson, and while is looks good in some foods I wasn't too keen on getting my teeth all red. I then recalled a recipe by Jamie Oliver, where he used beetroots instead of carrots in a coffee cake, and made my own version and recipe of it.
This is a rather simple and affordable cake, spiked up with a dash of dry sherry and the syrup-like strong taste of raw cane sugar. The hardest part is to wait until it cools off, but resist the temptation as the cake is easier to cut and less crumbly when it has set a little.

Beetroot passion cake

175 g raw granulated cane sugar
170 g neutral-flavoured oil

2 tbsp cornmeal (I used full corn)
2 tbsp soy flour
80 g water

275 g wheat flour
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
1 tsp ground bitter orange peel

3 tbsp dry sherry
3 tbsp light soy cream or soy milk

some 100 g fresh beetroot

Peel the beetroots and grate them coarsely. Rinse with cold water in a colander to wash out excess juice.
Beat the sugar and oil in a bowl to form a slight foam. Mix together cornmeal, soy flour and water. Add this into the sugar-oil-mixture still beating, beat until the mixture is even and has a delicate shine.

In a separate bowl, shift together flours, vanilla, baking powder, salt and bitter orange peel.
Shift carefully into the sugar mixture and blend with a spatula. Add the sherry and soy cream and mix smooth. Try not to knead the batter, just quickly mix it through. Last, quickly mix in the beetroot grate. Pour the batter in a rectangular 10cmX30cm (4X12) tin lined with baking paper and bake in 350F or 180 degrees Celsius about 40-50 min, or until golden. Let cool well before cutting and serving. To add a divine finishing touch, prepare a frosting by blending some 200g plain tofutti, 100g powdered sugar and some finely grated blue style sheese, pour on the cake and let set in a fridge before serving.

almond rose cake with raspberries

2009-09-30T18:39:00.006+03:00

I found the original version of this cake purely on random. I was searching for a tartelette pastry recipe, and stumbled on my tartelette - a blog featuring astonishing photography and very creative recipes. The rose cake was so beautiful that when it dawned on me that my sister's birthday would be very soon there was only one cake I was thinking about. I fully veganized the recipe and tried my luck with no-egg, agar-agar and tofutti. Judging on the fact I hadn't done cakes in a long time, I was quite pleased with the result. My entire family enjoyed the cake, the only complain being that there was no seconds.

Deliciously suits vegans, vegetarians, lactose-intolerant people and the ones wishing to avoid abundant cholesterol intake. It took me some three hours to finish the cake to the point where it had to set, and some hour to cut and decorate it. Perfect for special occasions of fine parties, do give it a try!

Almond rose cake with raspberries
serves 5-7

Almond rose dacquoise
150 g almonds
100 g powdered sugar
1 1/4 dl (1/2 cup) no-egg or other egg substitute powder
generous 1 3/4 dl (3/4 cup) ice cold water
dash of vanilla sugar
80 g powdered sugar
2 tsp rose water

Raspberry filling
600 g frozen raspberries
1 1/4 dl sugar
0,6 dl (1/4 cup) water
2 tsp agar-agar powder

Foamy frosting
250 g cubed, room-temperature vegan butter
250 g powdered sugar
600 g plain better-than-cream cheese tofutti
2 tsp vanilla sugar

For decoration:
fresh raspberries, strawberries and blueberries (or any other beautiful berries available), some herbs.

Dacquoise
Grind almonds and sugar in a food processor or with a blender until fine.
Beat no-egg and ice cold water in a large bowl for couple of minutes, then gradually add sugar and vanilla sugar constantly beating. Keep on beating the foam until it slightly stiffens. Carefully and gradually spoon in the ground almond-sugar mixture, adding in the rose water little by little at the same time. Be sure to mix the batter thoroughly. The original recipe calls for a 8x8 or 9x9 square pan, but I used a rectangular 8x12 (20cmx30cm) pan instead. Line the pan of your choice with baking paper and pour the batter in, even out the surface with a spatula and bake in 350F or 200 degrees Celsius for about ten minutes, or until very pale golden. Let cool, then carefully peel of the baking paper from the back and set aside.

Filling
When the cake bakes, start making raspberry filling. In a kettle, mix the raspberries, water and sugar and boil until the berries are completely softened.. If not so, smash the berries with a fork. Remove from the heat and sprinkle in the powdered agar-agar. Let it dissolve, mix well and bring back to boil. Let boil for a few minutes, then pour into a tin similar size with the cake lined with aluminum foil. Let cool until firm, store in fridge until needed.

Frosting
Prepare the frosting. Beat the vegan butter, sugar and vanilla into a light foam. Add tofutti and keep on beating until fully mixed in. Taste, add more vanilla if needed. Keep refrigerated.

Assemble
I find it easiest to assemble a cake in the tin it's baked in. I have a Silverwood brownie tin with a separate bottom, which is very easy to use when it's time to put it all together. Just line the tin with baking paper before starting to keep everything neat.

Cut the cake layer in three smaller rectangles, and set one in the bottom corner of the tin. Cut a slice of similar size from the raspberry filling sheet and place it on the cake layer. Add a layer of frosting, smooth it out as evenly as possible. Add another layer of cake, then the raspberry layer and some more frosting. Finally, place the final sheet of cake on top, wipe off any excess filling, wrap up in aluminum foil and let set in a fridge for at least three hours or overnight. When the cake has set, remove from the tin and add final layer of frosting on top. Cut the cake in narrow rectangles with a sharp knife, smoothen out the top layer and sides. Add fresh berries on top and serve with tea or coffee.

crab apple pie

2009-09-22T11:40:00.007+03:00

I'm very fond of apples. Keeping that in mind, this is very enjoyable time. Autumn is filled with the perfume of ripening fruit, and the mellow fruitfulness of apples lingerers in the air. It's the time of enjoying Finnish apples, seasonal treat over any other. Subtle flavour of cinnamon, the crisp sound of shining skin cracking under the teeth, fresh and slightly bitter zest of the juice; the sound and taste of welcomed fall.

The city dweller I am, I have no garden nor apple trees of my own just yet. Luckily Q's parents' long-time neighbour has been kind enough to let us into his orchards. Fragile lace-like moss covers the shady garden, chestnut tree reaches over the gate and the fallen fruit dapple the deep green ground with shades of vermilion, cream and gold. And the scent! Mauve plums with dark-brown freckles have a scent reminiscent of caramelized honey, apples are made of cinnamon and acid cane sugar sweetness.

We were just quick enough to collect some good two buckets of apples before the downpour which arrived very unexpectedly after a clear, sunny morning. It wouldn't be a autumn I guess, without the rain and furtively tiptoeing coldness.

At home I remembered that in my counter there was already some grab-apples I had discovered earlier, and decided to use them first. Very simple recipe, very simple apple pie, but when the ingredients are this fresh I don't' feel like dashing in too many flavours but instead enjoying the major ones.

I used crab-apples, but any acid apples should do just fine.

Crab apple pie (serves 4-6)

150 g wheat flour
A pinch of salt
1 tbsp sugar
100 g vegan butter
1 1/2 tbsp cold water
5-7 apples
half of lemon or lime
3 tbsp dark sugar
cinnamon

Sift the flour into a bowl with salt and sugar. Cube the cooled butter and add it in, pinch the dough with your fingers lifting it up and letting it fall to form a crumble-like, even mixture. Add the water and mix with a metal round ended spatula to form a ball. Resist the urge to add more water, just quickly and strongly beat the mixture and it'll form a good dough. Store in fridge, let cool for a moment before rolling.

When the dough cools, slice the apples thinly and rub a little lemon or lime juice to prevent discolouring. My apples were so small I sliced them up vertically only, but when using larger ones cut them in half-moon shape.

I used a round app. 24 diameter Teflon coated springform pan, so it wasn't necessary to grease the tin.

Roll the dough evenly on a well floured surface, roll it just big enough to cover the tin and reach well over the edges. Lift the sheet of dough in to the pan and push it to the edges using your fingertips; try not to stretch the dough, let it more likely settle on it's place. Reel the rolling pin over the tin to cut of excess dough.

Arrange the apple slices on the crust, sprinkle with dark sugar and cinnamon. I had ran out of ground cinnamon, so I used grater to grind a cinnamon cane; a lot fuller taste than the pre-ground type has! I added some sour ground orange peel too, some lemon, lime or orange peel would taste great as well.

Bake in preheated oven in 225 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the apples well baked.
Enjoy with tea, whipped cream of your choice or some ice cream.

blueberry cupcakes

2009-09-11T21:37:00.003+03:00

Basic cupcake recipe, added some blueberries and frosting. I wasn't exactly convinced about the taste and there should have been more flavour, the texture wasn't ideal either. Recipe follows when I've improved this to something more delectable and surprising.

sushi of harvest

2009-09-11T21:16:00.004+03:00

Simple sushis in the subtle flavours of harvest. Plain inari pouches, maki sushi with radishes and tofu, sushi rolled up with steamed Milanese cabbage leaves.

coconut sorbet with rhubarb syrup

2009-09-11T19:42:00.006+03:00

I had probably the best sorbet of my life in Montpelier this summer. The heat was staggering, bare walking made you swim in sweat and sun shone ruthlessly from the high light sky filled with swallows and their dry screams. Coconut sorbet from the supermarket's freezer melt in minutes, but it was heavenly, cold and soft at the same time. As if eating cold white silk.
Home in Finland the heat was gone, but the taste of coconut lingered on. I combined the velvety taste of coconut with sharp acid sweetness of the rhubarb, and I must admit the combo is quite tasty.

Coconut sorbet with rhubarb syrup

Coconut sorbet

400 ml coconut milk (I used light one with 6 % fat content)
About 2 dl sugar
1 dl unflavoured soy yogurt

I find that the coconut milk is best when it has settled in a fridge overnight with opened lid and thickened a little, but do as you find best. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and beat well. Taste, add sugar or seasonings such as vanilla or lemon or lime peel. Pour into a deep plastic or ceramic freeze proof container, freeze for few hours. When frozen through, mix strongly with a large sturdy fork to brake the surface and the frozen formation. Freeze again for about half an hour, mix again. Repeat the circulation of freezing and mixing until the structure is soft and sorbet-like. If you have an ice cream machine, use it according the instructions.

Scoop out balls after the sorbet has warmed up few minutes, serve with the rhubarb syrup.

Rhubarb syrup

4 dl cubed rhubarb
1 dl sugar
4 dl water
2 tbsp red grenadine

Measure all the ingredients except the grenadine in a kettle and bring to boil. Simmer on medium heat until the mixture thickens. Pour through a strainer and add grenadine, mix and let cool.

piece of strawberry cake

2009-09-06T20:45:00.008+03:00

About a month ago I was griddling aubergine slices at a family meeting in which Q had made the menu of exquisite tastes. In the busyness of the serving we didn't have a change to photograph the main courses, but literal description should give some inspiration as well.

For starters herb salad with pecan nuts and dried cranberries was served, accompanied by toasted bread sprinkled with citron olive oil. Chilled vichychoisse arrived at the table at the same time. Both dishes were served from simple drinking glasses. Main course was a creamy chantarelle risotto in a pool of well simmered tomato sauce with roasted aubergines on top. As a dessert, individual shortcakes with either strawberry or blueberry filling. For drink there was both white and red wine, mineral water and coffee or tea with the dessert. The sauce made of fresh ripe tomatoes was especially tasty, thanks to the hours of gentle simmering on the stove. The risotto made the main course well filling, and the cakes absolutely satisfied all sweet teeth.

On the following morning we photographed the few cakes that were left.

linzer torte with blueberries

2009-09-06T20:33:00.004+03:00

The season for blueberries is already off, but in case you made jam or deep froze any you might enjoy this pie now when leaves are flushed with dark gold and bleeding deep crimson, summer and the green forests bearing berries soon just a fading memory.

Linzer torte with blueberries

Blueberry jam
1 liter blueberries
1/2 dl water
330 g Jamming- or marmalade sugar
(2 tbsp corn flour)

Crust
200 g vegan butter
1 1/2 dl sugar
Some 2 dl unflavoured soy yogurt and about 1 dl water
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
200 g almond or chestnut flour*
Some 2 dl wheat flour

Make the blueberry jam first. Measure all ingredients to a large kettle and let boil for about 10 minutes, occasionally mixing. Let cool for 5 minutes, then pour into glass jars or plastic containers. Let set in the fridge preferably overnight. To stiffen the jam add 2 tbsp corn flour.

Cover a triangular cake mold (app. 25cmx25cm) with baking sheet. Whisk butter and sugar into a light foam, add soy yogurt gradually and still whisking. In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients and mix them with the foam quickly trying not to knead the dough. If the dough seems too dry, add water or soy milk. Pat 2/3 of the mixture into to the bottom and edges of the cake mold.

Flour a working surface generously and roll the leftover dough into a thin plate. Cut it into 2 cm wide stripes with a sharp knife or pastry wheel. When this is done, spread blueberry jam on the crust. Do not overfill the tart, just enough to cover the bottom entirely and fill it up a little. Then arrange the slices in a grid form on top of the pie.

Bake in 175 degrees Celsius from 40 to 45 minutes or until dough is golden and crisp. Let cool and cut into squares or rectangles, sprinkle with casters sugar or add blueberries on top before serving.

*I find that self ground, fresh flour is best, as the ready ground packaged nut flours are usually bland in taste.

When I was a kid I loved Fazer's small jam tarts with blueberry, raspberry or mixed jam filling. My father used to buy them, and we often took them with us when traveling. I tried to interpreter the idea of those tarts in this one, and I was glad to taste it worked out well.

Excuse me from posting so frequently; I'm trying to catch up with the current moment and post off my summer related images and recipes to make room for the flavours of the fall.

gourmet burgers

2009-09-03T14:23:00.006+03:00

The guest for the best vegan burgers led me and my companion to surrounding towns and countries, tasting now deceased Veganissimo's burgers and feasting in Parisian La Victoire Suprême du Cœur's table. Vegemesta is located nearby and offers excellent burgers. The simply delicious Vegan Schnitzel is warmly recommended.
However, I graved for something more sophisticated. A magazine cover sparked the idea, as well as the desire to improve Veganissimo's somewhat unsuccessful - far too robust and unevenly cut - rootsticks. So, vegan burgers for finer dining, suitable for settings with white tablecloths and silver cutlery. Though it's not forbidden to eat these without fork and knife.
Gourmet burgers

Seitan stakes
(adapted from Chocochili)
2 1/2 dl Wheat gluten flour
1 1/4 dl Graham flour
1 tl Smoked pepper powder seasoning
2 tl Soy sauce
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 dl Water

Marinade
200g Tomato puree
App. 2 cm long piece of fresh ginger
2-3 Cloves of garlic
1 dl Soy sauce
About 1/2 dl oil
Juice of 1 lime
Smoked pepper powder seasoning and black pepper according to taste

Boiling
1- 1 1/2 l Water
1-2 Vegetable broth cubes
Some soy sauce and red balsamic vinegar

Mix gluten flour, graham flour and smoked pepper powder thoroughly. Add soy sauce and water, blend quickly until smooth and firm. Roll the dough into a bar with app. 8 cm diameter and cut about centimeter thick slices. For smaller cocktail burgers, make slices with 4 cm diameter.

Boil the water, add vegetable broth cubes, soy sauce and balsamic. Add the seitan slices and boil them for half an hour. Make the marinade while the slices cook. Peel the ginger and cloves of garlic, chop them fine and mix with other ingredients. Season according to taste. Let the seitan slices cool for a minute, pat them dry and let marinade overnight.

Bread rolls
4 large and several small ones or 5 or 6 large
(modified from Glorian ruoka&viini- magazine 4/2009)

Starter
3 dl water
25 g fresh yeast
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 dl wheat flour

Dough
Dribble of water
5-7 dl wheat flour
1 dl wheat bran

Combine the room temperature water, yeast, sugar and salt. Whisk to mix, add some flour and whisk smooth. Add rest of the flour and beat smooth. Cover with cloth or plastic and let rest at least half an hour or until bubbling strongly.
When ready, start adding flour and some water, then knead the flours in little by little until the dough is smooth and firm. Add wheat bran if you wish.
Roll the dough onto floured surface, knead it smooth and divide into suitable pieces. Roll them round and firm. Consider the size of your stakes when making bread rolls. Cover with cloth and let rise for at least an hour. Bake in 200 degrees celsius about 20 minutes or until crisp and golden.

Root vegetable sticks
Couple of carrots
1 Parsnip
Half of a medium root celery
Olive oil
salt, freshly ground black pepper and fresh thyme to taste

Peel the root vegetables and cut them about 10 cm long thin sticks. Spread them around an oven plate covered with baking sheet and sprinkle with olive oil. Mix to cover with oil all around, season with salt, pepper and thyme. Bake in 200 degrees celsius until soft and starting to darken from the ends. Turn around few times while baking. Serve from a pocket folded from baking sheet, decorate with few branches of thyme.

Assembling the burgers*
Big tomatoes sliced thinly
Aubergine slices, degorged, rinsed and lightly fried
Water crass
pureed tomato or excellent quality ketchup
Mustard-cucumber salad

Fry the seitan stakes in frying pan or in a grill. Keep them warm in the oven, grill or wrapped up in foil. Assemble the burgers in any order you like. Enjoy with cold drink and root vegetable sticks. The cocktail size burgers are great in parties or in a buffet.

*This is only one set of ingredients we found delicious, to variate use vegetables in season or add your favourite flavours.

blueberry tartelettes

2009-08-24T14:26:00.004+03:00

Forests oozing berries, an hour or two and you can make pie for a week.
I made some small tartelettes using basic pate sucre, instead of eggs I just mixed in some soy yogurt. After baking tartelette shells were filled with almond paste and fresh blueberries.

chanterelle salad

2009-08-23T21:04:00.004+03:00

Silent hunting in the forests in the end of the summer may reward you with small golden trumpets. There is something very satisfying and joyous in finding mushrooms, going around in the greenness of forest and searching buttercup yellow chanterelles among the first fallen birch leaves. Rays of the sun turn the droplets of dew in the cobwebs into glimmering strings of crystal pearls, the fragrance of moss is heavy from the early morning's rain and the wind gently brushes treetops above. Chanterelles are excellent in creamy sauces, but I didn't want to use the first and probably only batch of them in something so heavy. Instead, I fried them and served them with other summer's flavours in a salad.

Chanterelle salad
(serves one, easily adjustable to larger quantities)

Couple of handfuls fresh chanterelle mushrooms (If unavailable, dried ones soaked in warm water until soft may also be used)
2-3 Cooked, cooled new potatoes
App. 1/4 of small new cabbage
2-3 Radishes
Some steamed broccoli

2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp white vinegar
Sugar, salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
For this salad, oregano flowers were used for garnish. Chives or basil would also be great.

Brush the mushrooms clean and cut of dried stalks or parts. Cut the potatoes into thin slices. Slice the cabbage and radishes, divide the broccoli into morsels. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan, add mushrooms and fry on moderately high heat until most of the liquid has evaporated. Season with salt and black pepper, set aside. Return the pan into heat, add the potato slices and let them fry for couple of minutes to give them a nice golden shade. Season with salt and pepper.

Arrange the cabbage and broccoli on the plate, add potato and radish slices and the mushrooms on top. Sprinkle with olive oil, vinegar and seasonings. Serve with good bread.

fiddleheads and false morels

2009-08-18T18:06:00.006+03:00

Images and recipe from the spring. I had wanted to try fiddlehead ferns for some years already, my curiosity aroused by VeganYumYum and a side note in a book by Thomas Harris. I knew the right type of ferns was growing in my grandparents woods, so this year I traveled there and made a little tour around the lush riverbanks, collecting uncoiled fiddleheads. I also got dried false morels - no fresh ones appereaded this year - and made a salad with these two ingredients. The taste of the fiddleheads was delicate, somewhat like asparagus but even more sophisticated. Nutty with a hint of bitterness, I found it delightfull. They were good with the false morels (Gyromitra esculenta) I got, but would be even better with real morchellas (Morchella esculenta).

Fiddlehead and false morel salad
Serves one
(amounts of ingredients are rough, adjust according appetite and ingredients)

Couple of handfuls of fresh uncoiled ostrich fern fiddleheads
A handful of dried false morels (if you use real morels, the boiling is unnecessary)
1 dl Round pasta
Some spaghetti

1-2 tbs Olive oil
Pinch of sugar, salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Clean the fiddleheads and cut off any dry parts. Rinse with cold water and pat dry. Bring some water to boil, add fiddleheads and cook just long enought to make them tender, don't let them lose their crispness. Set aside, but don't refridgerate.

Soak the morels in hot water until they're soft. If too big, cut into suitable slices. Ditch the soaking water, add fresh and bring it to boil. When boiled few minutes, ditch the water again and boil the mushrooms one more time in fresh water. Pour out the water, pat mushrooms dry. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan, add the morels and let them fry until almost all the moisture has
evaporated. Season with some salt and black pepper if you like. If you want, fry some garlic or spring onions with the mushrooms.

Cook the pastas al dente, rinse with cold water and arrange them on a plate. Add the morels and the fiddleheads on top. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve with good bread and fresh drink.

If you're using ferns for food, make sure you're collecting the right type. There's numerous poisonous ferns, so be careful especially if you're not experienced in botany. I take no responsibility of any symptoms caused by ferns used as food. And same goes for false morels. They are very poisonous if eaten raw, and should always be boiled about three times in fresh batches of water in a well air-conditioned space before being prepared for food. It's also good to notice that you should not drink alcohol when eating a dish containing false morels, the two don't go good together.

apple pies

2009-08-17T21:05:00.002+03:00

Picture from the early summer. Miniature apple pies made with modified pate sable, just used soy yogurt instead of eggs. VeganYumYum's recipe is also great. Last deep frozen apples of the fall finally used...soon they'll be more!

tiramisu cake

2009-08-07T18:03:00.004+03:00

An old fried of my mother's visited my parents place and left behind a bottle of almond liquorice. It had to be used, so I finally had a change to try vegan tiramisu. The cake base dough is fat free, the filling is made of soy cream cheese, yogurt and sugar. Moistened with extra strong coffee and almond liquorice. I should have drizzled up the cakes with the liquorice even more, this time they were a bit dry. Next time I could also try and make them triangular, so the recipe shall wait to the time when this cake is perfect.

barbeque

2009-08-07T17:41:00.003+03:00

First a lot of garlic, the a barbeque in the balcony, on the menu:

Herb salad (sage, red veined dock, coriander) with pecan nuts
Grilled pineapple, broccoli and onion
Grilled slices of marinated tofu
Champignons stuffed with soy cream cheese
Foccacia with rosemary
served with chilled good rosé

couscous salad and summer light

2009-08-07T17:05:00.005+03:00

This summer I shared a long train trip with Q, railing through Sweden, Denmark and Netherlands to France. We stayed in Paris for couple of days and then traveled on to the south of France. In addition to visiting the house of Q's mother's friends we went to Montpelier and spend few very hot days there. Luckily we found excellent couscous salad from the nearby store, and bought it about three times. At home I wanted to try something similar, so I simply added some dates and fresh, sliced vegetables to cooked couscous mixed with some olive oil. Slightly steamed broccoli, raw bell pepper and spring onion worked fine, but this is the sort of salad you can make with almost anything you have in the fridge. Feel free to add nuts or beans, season with salt, freshly ground pepper, a pinch of cumin and good quality olive oil.
Images depicting the light and shade of the summer were taken in the Helsinki Botanical garden.

rhubarb

2009-08-07T16:36:00.005+03:00

My roots lie in the agricultural grounds, and many of my older relatives still live in the countryside. Every time we visit there we have cucumbers, gourgettes, tomatoes or other vegetables in season to take with us. In the early summer rhubarb stalks are collected and used traditionally in sweet pies. I decided to use an old, good and very simple recipe to make cupcakes.

Rhubarb cupcakes
(makes about 12)
For the crumb dough
4 dl Flour (I used whole wheat)
1 1/2 dl Sugar
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
2 tsp Vanilla sugar
1 dl mild flavored oil

For the base dough
2/3 of the basic dough (about 3 1/2 dl)
1 dl soy milk
1 tbs soy flour
1 dl unflavored soy yogurt

For the filling
1/2 liters fresh rhubarb stalks chopped in cubes
2 dl unflavored soy yogurt
1 dl sugar
1 tbsp corn flour

Combine the dry ingredients of the basic dough and mix them well. Add oil and blend with a large fork to get a crumbly mixture.
Measure the amount needed for the base dough and set rest of the dough aside.

Next, make the base dough by combining soy milk, flour and yogurt with the crumbly mixture. Mix quickly until smooth. Divide the dough into silicon, metal or paper muffin molds and using your fingertips pat it evenly to the bottom. Make the filling by mixing all the ingredients, fill in the molds with the rhubarb mixture and sprinkle the rest of the crumble dough on the top.

Bake in 175 degrees Celsius until golden and crisp. For the frosting I used equal amounts of soy butter and caster sugar, whipped them into a foam and dressed the cooled cupcakes. Soy cream cheese is a good add to the frosting, making the color lighter and giving a nice taste.

apples of the earth

2009-08-03T18:07:00.004+03:00

New potatoes are one the utmost delicacies of summer. Boiled with sea salt, served with a curl of vegan butter on top or -like in this case -with whipped soy cream cheese.

New potatoes, about four for each diner
1-2 tsp Fine sea salt

For the foam and serving
Soy cream cheese
Soy milk
Salt and freshly grind black pepper according to the taste

1 Scallion stalk
Fresh herbs if available (basil, oregano, chive)

Boil carefully washed potatoes in salted water until they're soft yet still whole and firm, some 5 to ten minutes depending on the size. Be careful not to let them overcook. Pour out the water and place the kettle back to the stove for a moment to let the potatoes slightly dry.
Meanwhile, whisk some 100 grams of soy cream cheese and a bit of soy milk to a nice foam. Dice the scallion and chop large herbs into tiny shreds. Using large spoon, divide the foam onto semi-deep plates and add warm potatoes in the middle. Sprinkle herbs and scallion cubes on top of the portions and serve immediately. Delicious with simple green salad and fresh bread or just on own.

I prefer Tofutti cream cheeses. For this recipe I used the herbs and chives flavored one, but it's easy to season the plain cheese yourself if abundance of fresh herbs is available.

liquid

2009-07-30T14:25:00.002+03:00

Images for school's photography course "quick shutter speed".

black tie sushi

2009-07-30T13:48:00.004+03:00

The first time I had sushi I was still omnivorous, and I can't say I enjoyed all the pieces I had. Squid was very chewy while tuna was delicious. I recall the first time making sushi myself as well. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't photograph yet. Couple of years after these first experiences I got the taste when I made sushi with my friends, and gradually learned more about the gentle art of wrapping maki, mixing vinegar to perfectly steamed rice and decorating with fresh herbs.
With Q the progress of vegan sushis continued, we experimented with new ingredients such as strawberries and apples, and her decorating skills were really something I hadn't seen anywhere before. These pictures are from April when we had a culture-filled weekend with emphasis on Japan. We visited Annantalo Arts Centre's Japanese day and an exhibition "Daughters of Sun Goddes-Japanese Feminity" in Sinebrychoff Art Museum.

We had some difficulties to find a wine that would go with both sushi and asparagus, but luckily Black Tie was suitable for the challenging mix of sour flavors.

easter

2009-07-30T13:32:00.002+03:00

Images from springtime. I served bean salad in sweet marinade with red onions and some toasted nuts, self-made whole wheat bread and for dessert pears poached in white rum, served with blue sheese mousse. As a wine we had Golan Heights Winery's Sion Creek White, which accompanied filling yet elegant nutty flavors of the salad perfectly.

splattered lime

2009-07-23T17:37:00.004+03:00

A vegan lime cheesecake made for Q on her birthday previously this year. I used Chocochili cheesecake recipe which I modified quite a lot. Basic baked cheesecake, tinted with some green food coloring, decoration squares cut of sugar dough and then splattered with red food coloring.

pears & blue sheese

2009-07-21T18:05:00.010+03:00

Fortunately, they do make excellent non-dairy blue cheese.

these beginnigs

2009-07-21T17:29:00.001+03:00

This is to be a cuisine and gourmet blog, but not strictly food restricted one. I may include images depicting seasons, nature, tableware etc. Recipes are shared when I consider them inspirational and fresh. Food shown in this blog is generally vegan, since I've been going green for some years now.
I wish you pleasant viewing, feel free to leave a comment or contact me for further information.

Amir Arisson