Beet and Cauliflower Soup

This soup has amazing color to it and is really tasty. Its a puree soup so you can choose how blended you actually want to have it be perfectly smooth or a little chunky.
Ingredients needed:
Olive oil
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
1 medium cauliflower head
4 medium to large beets
½ teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
5 cups broth (about...enough to cover the veggies)
1½ cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Sour cream
Fresh dill

*First step should really be to just get everything (beets, cauliflower, onion, garlic) chopped up into chunks that are about an inch (maybe a little smaller) and set the beet and cauliflower to the side
*Take the chopped onion and garlic and put them in the pan with enough oil to sautee it and turn on the heat to medium. Cook it until the onion begins to become transparent.
*Add in the cayenne and sugar and saute while stirring for about two minutes.
*Add the beets and cauliflower to the pan and add enough broth to cover them. Bring it to a simmer. Keep it at a low boil for 20-30 minutes, basically until the beets get tender enough to be poked through with a fork.
*Once it is cooked take it off the heat and let it cool for about 5 minutes until you can use an immersion blender safely inside the pan.
*If you want it to be a little chunkier I would suggest taking out a couple of ladle-fulls of the whole veggies and set them aside. Blend what is left until it is smooth. **If you want it to be only a little chunky, then when it seems to be about halfway to smooth add in the reserved pieces. Basically when you put the reserved stuff in depends on how chunky you want it to get.
*Once it is the consistency that you want, start adding the milk, salt and pepper to it as well as . You may want more or less, depending on how thick you want the ending soup to be.
*If you feel the need to reheat it, you can do that, but it should still be warm enough to simply serve. Put it into bowls and add a dollop of sour cream and some fresh chopped dill to the top and its ready to eat!

Croatian Sour Soup

This was one of my favorite recent trial recipes that have have done recently. Its hearty and the broth is a really lovely consistancy.
What you will need:
2 medium potatoes
1 large onion, diced
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
2 tablespoons oil
2 cloves garlic
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 bay leaf
1 carrot, diced
1 parsnip, siced
2 stalks celery, chopped (you can include the green stuff on top if your stalk still has it)
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons Cider Vinegar
5 cups vegetable stock
½ cup sauerkraut
Sour cream for topping
Fresh chives for topping

Ok, I realize that looks like a lot, I promise its not!
*First you need to peel and chop the potatoes and start them boiling in some salted water. They need to be partially cooked before they are added to the soup because the other stuff doesn't need to cook for quite as long in the broth.
*As that is cooking put the oil in the bottom of the soup pan and saute the onion and the paprika until the onion starts to soften. Add the garlic and saute a little bit more. This should only take about 5 minutes.
*Add the fennel, bay leaf, carrot, parsnip, and celery and continue to saute them, making sure that everything is coated in the oil and that the vegies have a good start on cooking. Stir every once in a while but not too much. This should take about five minutes.
*Sift the flour onto the cooking vegies. Mixing it in now prevents lumps! Stir it in well and let it simmer a little bit so the flour can soak up the liquid and the oil that is in the pan.
*Add the salt, pepper, vinegar, and vegetable stock and get it up to a simmer.
*Add the potatoes in to cook the last little bit (about 10 minutes) with the other ingredients.
*Stir in the sauerkraut and it is ready to serve.
This is really good with some rye bread (the stuff here doesn't have caraway seeds in it which I don't like) or any of the heavier breads out there. The sour cream and chives are just dolloped and sprinkled on top when the soup is served!

Crepes, wonderful crepes

So here is a quick thing that just takes a little standing in the kitchen mostly, just while cooking the crepes in the pan.
What you need is:
1 Cup plain white flour
2 Eggs
½ Cup water
½ Cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter (melted)
a little oil for the pan

The first time I made this I had a little bit of an issue with lumps in the batter but I worked out that it was a problem that I didn't have enough moisture in the early stages of the mixing. This is the best method I have come up with for making great crepes:
* put the flour in the mixing bowl and make a little dip in the middle and crack both eggs into the bowl
*mix the milk and water together in a cup and then dribble just enough of the liquid into the bowl with the eggs and flour to start the mixing process
*Using a spoon or a silicon spatula start mixing the ingredients
*Continue adding the liquid to the batter until all of it is mixed in
*Using a whisk briskly stir the mixture until it is smooth
¤¤This is the point to add any spices or flavors to the batter if you want to try doing that, in the second picture of crepes that is what I did, I added chai flavors to the batter and it gave it a light flavor that harmonize with the filling I put in it. You don't have to, these crepes are great on their own, but its an option¤¤
*Once the batter is smooth, melt the butter and pour it into the batter along with the salt. Mix them together well.
*Turn on the stove to a medium heat and place the pan on to warm, using a paper towel, spread a really thin layer of oil on it. If you use a non-stick pan you don't absolutely do this but it might work better if you do, it will help brown the crepes. You know its oiled enough when you can see teeny tiny beads of oil on the non-stick pans or when there is an almost invisible layer of shine on a non-stick pan.
*Using a ladle or a cup measure, pour some of the batter into the center of the pan (about 1/3 of a cup is probably enough depending on the size you want, it should be enough to ooze out to a little more than the center half of the pan). Quickly lift the pan and tilt in a circular pattern so spread the liquid out across the pan more broadly.
¤¤IF YOUR CREPE SLIDES AROUND THE PAN SO YOU CAN'T DO THIS YOU USED TOO MUCH OIL, your crepes will be on the thick side and take longer to cook. This is easy to fix, use less oil for the next one!¤¤
*You can tell its about time to flip the crepe when the batter is no longer moist or shiney.
*Once the second side is cooked, you're done! Add toppings or stuffing and you can eat!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Ok I got the chance to make this since we found some green tomatoes for sale at the Herring Market that was happening at Kauppatori this past week. They had some amazing stuff for sale there in addition to the great produce they usually have for sale in the markets.

Ingredients:

Green tomatoes (I got about 10-12 smallish green tomatoes)

1 egg

salt and pepper

Rolled oats (or some kind of Nalle Hot Cereal flakes)

Special tools:

An immersion blender or food processor or mortar and pestle

      Wash the tomatoes and cut them into slices a little over 1cm/.25 inch. Lay them out in a layer on a plate and lightly salt and leave to stand for 5 minutes. While these are resting, use the blender or food processor to lightly grind the oats/nalle. Put the rough powder along with about a teaspoon of salt  and a little ground pepper into a small bowl or on a small plate (anything that is deep enough to hold the stuff in and open enough to not make it hard to flour the tomato slices in it).

     Take a paper towel and daub the moisture off of the tomatoes and get them near the stove in the kitchen. Start heating up the frying pan with enough oil (I used butter for the additional flavor) to lightly cover the bottom. While that heats, get another small container and beat one egg inside.

     Once the oil is hot do a quick assembly line taking each piece of tomato and first coat it lightly in the egg and then in the flour mix and then place it in the pan and do that until the pan in full. Give them a short time on the first side and then turn it over. I like mine pretty well done as you can see, but its up to you what you like and there for how long you give each side.

     Take them out and lay them on a plate with a paper towel to sap away the excess grease and cool while you start the next batch. You can add additional salt and pepper to taste at this point as well. Serve while warm and fresh!

     This is something that I think would be a good thing to try different combinations of seasoning with including some garam masala and cajun spices to make it a little different. So experiment! If you end up with something great that you love. Let us know! Happy Noms!

Fresh Tomato Basil Pasta

     Here is another quick and simple recipe that can be done in no time (and in fact, one I did in 30 minutes after we spent the evening shopping). This is a simple pasta with fresh ingredients tossed in for a flavorful accompaniment/sauce.

Ingredients:
1/2 package of pasta (250-300 grams) We used bow ties this time
7 medium tomatoes (1/3 to 1/2 a kilo)
1 bunch basil
250 grams fresh mozerella
drizzle of olive oil
1/2 lime
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese

Step 1: Start the water for the pasta and while it is heating up, cut the tomatoes in half and remove the seeds from inside. You can keep that little stiff bit that they are attached to, but take out all the watery seeds. Remove the tough bits at the top and set the rest of the tomato aside.

Step 2: About the time that you toss in the pasta to the boiling water, start chopping up the tomatoes into smallish chunks (1 cm or a little bigger than a 1/4 inch) and toss it all into a bowl and set aside. Take all the leaves and tender parts of the stems off of the basil bunch and roughly chop it and set into the same bowl with the tomatoes.

Step 3: Drain the pasta and let stand in the colander for the minute that it takes you to cube the mozerella. Return the pasta to the pan and drizzle olive oil on it. Add the tomato and basil to the pasta and put on freshly ground pepper and a bit of salt to all of it and stir. Add the juice of the lime half to the pasta mix and add the mozerella and give it another couple of stirs so it looks smooth and well mixed.

Step 4: Serve it in a bowl and sprinkle it with grated parmesan and tada, its done and ready to eat!

We had it with a little bit of white wine (Riesling) and some rahkapiirakaa for dessert. Mmmmmm tasty!

Red Root Soup

I made this soup because all things root and tuber seem to be plentiful here in Finland and they are really delicious! This is super simple and I think turned out really well. I actually really liked the color of the broth that is mostly due to the beets. The recipe is really simple and doesn't require specific measurements of the ingredients and can be altered if you have more of one thing or another or just prefer the flavor or texture of one thing versus another.

     Basic ingredients list:

• Onion
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Stock/Water/Stockcube
• Oregano
• Bay Leaf
• Salt
• Pepper
• Potatoes
• Beets
• Carrots
• Parsnips
• Celery
• Crushed tomato

First thing that needs to be done is that the onions and garlic need to be chopped up and sautéed until clear in the olive oil at the bottom of the pan that you are going to cook this all in. This gets the flavor of the onion out and into the oil rather than just boiling off into the water. After that is done, add the hardest vegetables in (the potatoes and the beets) as they will have to cook the longest along with the spices to the pan and add enough water or stock to cover them. The potatoes don't actually need quite as much time as the beets do to be done, but cooking them a little past that lets them melt a bit into the soup. Once those are part way done (should be 10-15 minutes but will depend on the size of the chunks you cut the veggies in) add the rest of the ingredients and cook until everything is done. Super simple and very yummy! This is a healthy and versatile soup that could be changed based on preferences and what you happen to be able to get your hands on.

Lentil Soup with Spinach and Lemon!

So I have been spending most of the last month cooking some tasty, tasty food while trying to get to know Helsinki (mostly from the window of the apartment). I’ve been posting pictures of what I have been up to a Facebook group page and a few of the folks have asked for recipes and been interested in what it was exactly that I have been cooking so I offered to start a blog where people could better get to know what I am cooking and what I have been doing. Plus that way I am not taking over the group with yummy images! Ok to start with this is going to be mostly veggie food! Often the meals that I make would be simple to add meat to or to add a meat dish on the side to go with it, but at least for now most of the foods I am making are vegetarian.

Tonights meal was a tasty lentil soup with lemon and spinach in it. Its pretty simple to make and doesn’t require a lot of complicated steps or huge amounts of attention to be paid to it while it is being made. The spice palate is really fresh and this is a really good both on the first day it is made and reheated as lunches or for later meals. My mom, a wonderful person who is super busy, likes to make this and have it for meals throughout the week as it doesn’t look any of the vivid flavors through refrigeration or reheating.

So here is the dish!

Doesn’t it look fantastic?

Ok here is the ingredient list:

1 1/2 cup lentils 

4 cups water

1 cup chopped tomato with juice (or canned tomato)

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoons turmeric

8 whole cloves garlic, peeled

4 slices ginger (size of a quarter)

1 sprig fresh rosemary

1 bay leaf

10 oz. baby spinach

2 Tblsp lemon juice (or more depending on how much you like lemon)

Salt and pepper to taste

Ok so to start with the cooking you need the lentils and the water. I honestly think that you can use any of the lentil types out there but the ones that you pick will change how long it takes to cook. I made these with the little red lentils and it was a fast cook and turned out well. So put the lentils and the water in a pan and start the heat. Get them to boil. These, like other legumes, have the annoying tendency to over boil if they are left alone for too long and make a mess with that froth they seem to make after two minutes of boiling. Add the tomato, olive oil, turmeric, and the cloves of garlic all peeled and turn it down a little so that it is simmering but not at a rolling boil.

  So the next piece is as complicated as this recipe gets really and its not all that complicated, though it does call for a specific piece of kitchen equipment; the cloth cooking bag! It looks like this but can be replaced with tied up cheese cloth, or any porous material which the ginger, rosemary and bay leaf (of if they are really small, leaves) can be put inside to flavor the soup without the herb pieces floating freely and intermixing with the soup. Just drop it in and let it cook until both the garlic and the lentils are totally cooked and soft, stirring occasionally. This shouldn’t take more than an hour and will depend on what sort of lentils you have chosen to use. With the red lentils it took about 40 minutes after the bag of herbs was added.

Once everything is cooked, remove it from the heat and add the juice of the lemon (fresh is best and I tend to use the whole lemon, I just love how it tastes). Squish the garlic cloves against the side of the pan and stir the paste into the rest of the soup. Finally, add in the washed spinach and let it wilt while you stir it in to mix it with the soup evenly. With the baby spinach being the cute perfect size that it is, there is no need to chop it up as it is already bite sized.

Voila! It is ready to eat! I like to top mine with a little bit of sour cream but there are any number of things that you can add to it as a topping if you have it or like it! We tried a little parsley tonight and it was really great! Hope you enjoy making it and eating it as much as we did!

    K&I