Wild macaroni

Ingredients (x4):
1 small-ish onion
350 g short pasta
around 200 g of champignons
200 g soy sausage (I can recommend the ones by Hälsans Kök for those who live here up North)
white vinegar
olive oil
cream
bouillon
black pepper
(tiny bit of salt)

Preparation:
Cook the pasta al dente and pour the water off it. Chop the onion and cut the sausage into small pieces. Put the onion and sausage into a pan with a bit of olive oil and roast them. Add a bit of white vinegar plus the champignons cut into slices and keep on roasting for a few minutes.



Then milden the heat and start adding bouillon gradually. Cook on mild heat for 15-20 minutes. At the end add the amount of cream that you prefer and add the pasta into the pan of the sauce. Mix them on mild heat for a while. Ready to serve.

Red chickpea soup

Ingredients (x 2-3):
1 onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 carrot
100-150 g frozen soup vegetables
3/4 tablespoon soy sauce
½ tablespoon red curry paste
½ (vegetarian) bouillon cube
3 tomatoes
1 abundant tablespoon of tomato puree
around 200 g of chickpeas
7 dl water
olive oil
salt
pepper
a pinch of paprika powder and/or chili powder, rosemary, basil and oregano

Preparation:
Chop the garlic and onion. Cut the carrot into small cubes. Put these vegetables along with the soep vegetables into a pan with olive oil. Sauté them for a few minutes on mild heat. Then add salt, paprika and chili powders, as well as the soy sauce and the curry paste. Sauté the vegetables for a couple of more minutes.


Cut the tomatoes into small pieces and remove the green part. Remove the conservation water from the chickpeas. Add into the pan the tomatoes, the tomato puree, ½ bouillon cube, water and the chickpeas. Heat until the soup starts evaporating and then cook the soup on mild heat under cover for 20 minutes, mixing once in a while. Add the remaining spices during the cooking time.
It's a good idea to serve the soup with bread or grated cheese.

Pizzoccheri valtellinesi

I haven't updated in several months, but yes I'm still here! I was so surprised when I looked at my blog after a long break and spotted some new followers!
I had a really chaotic stage in life - depression, long work days, trying to decide for good whether to stay in the Netherlands or move back home, and then one day in July I finally decided to leave everything and get back to my old studies here in Turku, Finland. It was tough, but I'm happy with being back in my dear home country again and I really don't regret a second.

I just made pizzoccheri for dinner. That is a traditional potato-based dish from the region Valtellina in the Italian Alps. It is quite a beloved dish in Lombardia, often enjoyed in wintertime. It is quite heavy, but to make it lighter you can retain a bit of the cooking water and use a bit less of butter instead (or use olive oil). The pasta used in it should actually be made of bucketwheat. In Northern Italy they sell such ready pieces of bucketwheat pasta meant for this dish. I don't have any left and I didn't have time to make them by myself either, so I went looking at Stockmann's if they had any but I wasn't lucky, so I used more generic whole-wheat pasta instead.

Ingredients (x2):
150 g of pizzoccheri (or alternatively dark pasta)
70 g parmesan
130 g potatoes
1 clove of garlic
150 g soft cheese (Fontina is the one you can get anyhwere in Italy, in Finland I use Koskenlaskija, in the Netherlands I used Port-Salut... Something soft with some taste!)
25 g butter
100 g cabbage
salvia
black pepper
salt

Preparation:
Cut the potatoes in cubes and the cabbage in slices. Put them into abundant slated water in a pan and add maximum heat. When the water is boiling, add the pasta. Cook the ingredients altogether for 10 minutes. Then pour the water off them.
Put the butter into a pan with minced garlic, pepper, some salt and salvia. Let it melt.
Take a vase or pot that is oven-resistant. Set a layer of the vegetables on the bottom of the pot. Pour a small part of the melted butter on the ingredients. Add some pieces of soft cheese and parmesan. Repeat this scheme some 3-4 times.
It is a good idea to take the dish into the oven at 200'c for around 10-15 minutes, although not obligatory. I like the consistency and the taste the best when the dish has been baked in the oven!

Rice and vegetable wok

This comes nowhere near Finnish or Italian cuisine, but however enjoyes the reputation of my favourite food since some months already :) So I'm writing the recipe here both for you and me!

Ingredients (x4):
1 tablespoon olive oil
2-3 carrots
1 red onion
1 bell pepper
4 tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
2 teaspoons of dried basil
some curry
100-150 grams basmati rice
half a package (or more) of feta cheese

Preparation:
Peel the carrot and cut it into rather thin sticks. Cut the red onion into small cubes. Throw some olive oil on the pan and fry the carrot and red onion for a couple of minutes. Then put the heat rather low while you are cutting other vegetables. Cut the bell pepper into sticks and the tomatoes into (big) cubes. Grind the garlic clove. Add these vegetables onto the pan. Add the oregano and basil too, and mix carefully. Make the heat hotter for some four minutes while mixing the vegetables. Then make the heat low and let the vegetables lie there for the time that you are cooking the rice (but remember to mix every now and then).


Cook the rice in a pan. When you will have poured the water off the tice, dust some curry on the rice and mix. Add more curry until the rice is yellow (but it doesn't need to be deep yellow - it depends on your taste).


Pour the rice on the pan and mix it with the vegetables. Add salt. Let the rice and the veggies accomodate each others' tastes by letting them lie there together on low heat for 10 minutes. Mix every now and then. If you think the wok is getting too dry, add a tiny bit of water.

Cut the feta cheese into cubes and add it into the dish right before serving. You can mix it into the wok or alternatively use it as a topping.

Mokkapalat, coffee brownies Finnish-style

These are the brownies that most Finns know ever since their mum made them (or at least those of my generation ;) : Mokkapalat! The bottom is very airy and the topping is wonderful containing real coffee.

Ingredients (quantities for a small oven):

-for the bottom:
3,3 dl wheat flour
3 eggs
2 dl sugar
1,3 dl milk
130 g butter or margarine
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1,3 teaspoon vanilla sugar

-for the topping:
2/3 package icing sugar
30 g butter or margarine
3-4 tablespoons coffee
1 tablespoon cacao powder
2 teaspoons vanilline sugar

Preparation:
Melt the butter meant for the bottom of the cake. Let it cool down for a while. Add the eggs and the sugar into a bowl and mix them with a mixer until they will have obtained a foamy composition. Take another bowl where you mix the rest of the dry ingredients together.

Take turns mixing gradually the milk and the dry ingredients to the egg-sugar foam. When you are done, mix the previously melted margarine into the foam.

Add baking paper on an oven plate and pour the foam on the oven plate evenly. Bake it on 200'c for around 15 minutes.

Melt the butter or margarine meant for the topping. Mix all the other ingredients together. At the end add the melted butter and mix. Spread the topping all over the cake, and don't be too slow or make pauses, because the topping is likely to become stiff soon.

If you like, decorate the cake with sprinkles.

Finnish-syle hamburgers with vegetarian steaks

This hamburger is inspired by Hesburger, which is Finland's biggest native fast food chain. They have got hamburgers with rye bread, and I remember them, but they don't yet have a rye bread vegetarian hamburger. I created one myself! They turned out so yummy, especially yummy for my Finnish taste. The vegetarian steaks I used I made with this recipe, but you can just as well buy ready made veggie steaks.

Ingredients (x2):
Two loaves of rye bread cut in two halves (in Finland for example Puikulat and Ruispalat work well)
butter
2 veggie steaks
2 slices of cheese
1 tomato
a small part of a bell pepper
salad leaves
ketchup
mayo
black pepper
salt
oregano

Preparation:
spread butter on the breads. Add a slice of cheese on two of the bread halves. Put the breads into the oven along with the vegetarian steaks (since they need to be heated too). Remove the breads from the oven when the cheese will have melted. You may need to keep the steaks in the oven somewhat longer.

Place the breads that have a layer of cheese on separate plates. Stuff first some salad on these breads. Then add mayonnaise evenly on the whole bread. Take the heated steaks and cut them into halves. Place the two halves next to each other on the bread, looking like two consecutive full moons. Now it's time to add a bit of ketchup. Then, cut the tomatoes into slices and lay 2-3 slices of tomato on each bread. At the end add some bell pepper that you have cut into thin sticks. Dust a bit of pepper, salt and oregano over the creations before topping them with the top half of bread. You may desire to serve these hamburgers wrapped into paper in order to make eating easier and more enjoyable!

Vegetable steaks

Nothing keeps you from making vegetable balls instead of steaks with this recipe!

Ingredients (x3):
150 g potatoes
½ or 1 egg
40 g emmenthal cheese
½ bag of deep frozen vegetables including cauliflower, broccoli and carrot
bread crumbs
salt
black pepper
nutmeg
olive oil

Preparation:
Cut the potatoes into pieces. Cook all the vegetables in a pan in salted water on heavy heat for some 10 minutes. When cooked, pour the water off and let the vegetables cool down and release stem for a while. After a few minutes mash the ingredients as if you were mashing potatoes, but don't mash them very fine. Add the cut cheese, the pepper, the salt and the nutmeg. Add the egg (keep in mind that the entire egg may not be necessary) and bread crumbs, until you get an easily manageable dough. Taste the dough to judge if you need to adjust more spices.

Spray some more bread crumbs on your cutting board. Form steaks out of the dough in your palms, dipping the steaks in bread crumbs. Pour olive oil on a frying pan and fry the steaks on rather high heat. Turn them around frequently and keep on frying them until they will have obtained a golden/brownish colour.

You can serve the steaks with for example potatoes or rice and a sauce (The sauce I used in the picture below was made by me ouf of butter, flour, milk, cheese, basil and lemon juice). If you don't mind it being more fast food kind, serving them with rice, mayo and ketchup is also a good idea.

Tagliatelle with mushrooms and gorgonzola in the oven

This was my improvisation for lunch today. It came out perfect!

Ingredients (x2):
1 clove of garlic
160 g table mushrooms
200 g tagliatelle
olive oil
½ dl cream
some milk
basil
salvia
black pepper
salt
80 g gorgonzola cheese

Preparation:
Cook the tagliatelle in lightly salted water. While the pasta is cooking, start preparing the sauce. Cut half of the mushrooms into pieces of approximately 1,5 cm in diameter. Put the other half of the mushrooms into a mixer. Pour a bit of olive oil on the mushrooms that are going to be mixed and add a bit of salvia and basil. Mix until all the mushrooms have stopped looking like mushrooms.

On a pan, heat the chopped clove of garlic with olive oil and let it gain a more golden colour. Add the mushrooms cubes on the pan and fry them on high heat for about 6 minutes. Then add the other half of the mushrooms that you mixed with the mixer, the "paté". Add salt and black pepper. Keep on frying for at least 5 more minutes. Then significantly lower the heat and pour the cream on the pan accompanied with a bit of milk. Let the sauce cook while mixing it for most of the time.

When the tagliatelle are ready, pour the water off them. Add the sauce into the pan with tagliatelle and mix them well together. Check that the amount of spices is right. Pour the dish into an oven plate. Cut pieces of the gorgonzola and place them over the whole surface of the pasta.

Bake the dish in the oven at 180'c for some 7 minutes.

Rosolli

This mix of vegetables, called rosolli, belongs to the Finnish Christmas as tightly as ham.
It is usually combined with other Christmas food.
Some people like to prepare a creamy sauce for rosolli but I prefer to skip that.

Ingredients (x2):
1 beetroot or two if smaller
some white vinegar
1 big carrot
1-2 cooked potatoes
1 pickled cucumber
½ red onion
½ apple
a pinch of black pepper

Preparation:
Cut the vegetables into cubes. Put the cubed beetroot, apple and red onion into a glass and pour some vinegar on them, and mix. After a while pour the vinegar off.
Lay the vegetables on a plate separately or, alternatively, mix them together (in that case the beetroot will colour the whole rosolli red).
Dust some black pepper over the vegetables.

Fusilli with tomato&soy sauce, roasted pine nuts and minced rucola

I prepared this for lunch yesterday and it really made my day!

Ingredients (x2):
160 g fusilli
70 g grinded soy
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
2 tomatoes
1 tablespoon white winegar
50 g pine nuts
30 g fresh rucola
salt
pepper
olive oil
parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Roast the pine nuts on a frying pan if they are not readily roasted.

Chop the garlic and the onion finely. Peel the tomatoes and remove their insides, and then cut them into cubes. Pour some olive oil on a pan and add the garlic. Heat it on relatively high heat until the garlic has gained some colour, and then add the onion. Remember to mix. Soon after lower the heat a bit and add the grinded soy and the winegar, and dust some salt and pepper on it. Mix the soy frequently and let it gain a bit darker colour. Next, add the cubes of tomatoes on the pan. Keep a medium heat and mix the sauce in 5-7 minutes every once in a while.

Cook the fusilli in salted water.

Rinse the rucola and stuff it into a mixer. Add a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Mince the rucola with the mixer.

Pour the water off the pasta. Mix the soy&tomato sauce and pine nuts with the pasta and then (separately) add the minced rucola. Turn the pasta around a bit so that the rucola spreads more evenly. Add grated parmesan cheese on top.

Tunaballs

Here's a really nice Saturday lunch recipe for tunafish balls. I tend to eat them with potatoes and a lemon-ish sauce.

Ingredients (x3-4):
2 cans of tunafish
1 small onion
250 g bread
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of olive oil
bread crumbs
salt
pepper
more olive oil for frying

Preparation:
Open the cans of tuna and press the water off the tunafish. Put the tuna into a bowl. Tear the bread into small pieces with your hands and mix it together with the tuna. Add into the mix the eggs, olive oil, salt, pepper and the finely chopped onion. Mix well. Add some bread crumbs if the dough is still too soft to handle. Spread bread crumbs on the working surface and start to form balls out of the dough with your hands. Roll the balls in bread crumbs.

At the end fry the balls in olive oil until they have gained a bit of colour. Serve them warm.

Pipe rigate with tomatoes from the oven and rucola

This is a very easy-to-prepare dish. It will always come out good, unless you add too much (sea) salt, like I once did and made my boyfriend's heart go too fast... Only a few ingredients and a fresh, warm taste.

Ingredients (x2):
175 g pipe rigate or another short pasta
2 big or 3 medium-sized tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 onion
olive oil
black pepper
salt
1 bundle of rucola
parmesan cheese

Preparation:
Chop the garlic and onion. Cut the tomatoes into slices in shape of a half moon. Lay these tomato slices on each other in domino-like rows on an oven plate. Add the chopped onion and garlic all along these rows on top of the tomatoes. Grind black pepper on top and dust some salt. Pour a bit of olive oil throughout the rows of tomato. Put the oven plate into the oven and bake it for 30 minutes on 180 c degrees. Meanwhile cook the pasta in salted water and rinse the rucola. Pour the water off the pasta when it is al dente. When the tomatoes have been baked, take them out of the oven and mix them with the pasta and add the rucola into the mix. Serve the dish with grated or sliced parmesan cheese.

Soup of beans, leek and potato

Ingredients (x2):
400g green beans
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
1 leek
1 big potato
500ml chicken bouillon
1,5 tablespoons olive oil
salt
(croutons or bread)

Preparation:
Chop the onion and garlic and cut the washed leek into rings. Cook these ingredients in a pan with olive oil and add the beans. Cook this mix of vegetables on low heat for 10-15 minutes. Peel the potato and cut it into cubes. Prepare the bouillon by letting a bouillon cube dissolve in water. Add the potato cubes to the rest of the vegetables and pour the bouillon on top. Cook the soup covered, on low heat, for one hour. When an hour has passed, take your immersion blender and give the soup a puré-like composition with it. Add salt according to your taste. Serve the soup with croutons or bread.


The recipe of the bread pictured above can be found here.

Mushroom fusilli

I have usually been doing this dish with tagliatelle, but due to my boyriend's kitchen experiments of one evening, I didn't have tagliatelle left anymore and I opted for fusilli. It was a good choice (these fusilli here are by a Dutch brand and their shape reminds me more or less of worms ;) I have made this with different kinds of mushrooms. Make sure your mushrooms are not poisonous!

Ingredients (x2):
180g tagliatelle, fusilli or another pasta
2 cloves garlic
300 g mushrooms
olive oil
cream (if you want it lighter, use milk instead)
a tiny bit of peperoncino
salt
pepper
parsley (fresh or dried, but preferably fresh)

Preparation:
Start boiling the pasta in abundant salted water. Chop one of the garlic cloves and cut half of the mushrooms into small pieces. Add the chopped galic clove on a pan and heat it, and soon after add the mushrooms you preciously cut into pieces. Fry the garlic and mushrooms for 5 minutes and add the spices (except the parsley) on the pan. During or after this pour the remaining garlic clove and remaining mushrooms together with the parsley into the mixer, and add a bit of olive oil. Mix these ingredients fine with the mixer in order to obtain a puré. Add this puré to the pan where the pieces of mushrooms are. Fry for a for more minutes. At the end add the cream or milk and lower then heat to below medium. Mix the sauce and take a few minutes of time until the sauce becomes more creamy. Pour the water off the pasta and mix it with the sauce. Serve with parmesan cheese.

Bell peppers with mushroom-leek and soy fillings

I have been completely absent in this blog for several weeks, and I am really sorry about that! I was working a lot of hours each week, and even if I did make yummy food worth posting here and I even took pics of them, I never got down to updating. Now I want to update more regularly again.

So, here goes. This is the recipe of what I made for lunch today, and it was praised by my bf and he smiled for a long time after the lunch. I think that is enough to describe how delicious it turned out!

Bell peppers with mushroom-leek and soy fillings

Ingredients (for 2-3 people):

3 bell peppers (any colour you like)

filling #1:

2,25 dl cooked rice
3,5 dl table mushrooms
1,5 tablespoons butter or margarine
½ a small leek
1,5 dl grated cheese
paprika spice
pepper

filling #2:

1,5 dl cooked rice
150 g grinded soy
1 small onion
pepper
aromatic salt OR salt + half a grinded vegetarian bouillon cube
1,5 dl grated cheese

Preparation:

Cut the bell peppers in halves horizontally. Remove their insides and wash them. Cook the bell peppers in salted water for 8 minutes. When cooked, remove the water from the pan and let the bell peppers vapour.

Prepare the filling #1: Cut the mushrooms into small pieces. Heat the butter in the pan and add the mushrooms into the pan. Fry the mushrooms for 5 minutes. Chop the leek finely and add it into the pan.

When they both look good and and the leek has become more yellow, add this mushroom-leek-mix into the rice. Spice it up and add one dl of grated cheese. Mix.

Prepare the filling #2: Fry the grinded soy on a pan and add the finely chopped onion into it. Add spices. The spicing can be rather abundant. Mix the grinded soy + onion with the rice. Add 1/4 dl of grated cheese into the mix.


Place the bell pepper halves into an oven mould and fill them with the fillings. Add what remains of the grated cheese on the filled bell peppers.

Bake them in an oven heated to 200'c for half an hour.

Salmiakki Swiss roll

Swiss rolls (fi: kääretorttu) are a very common dessert in Finland. The crust can be made brown by cacao powder or it can retain a light colour. The fillings are many and diverse, and this one here is a rarity. A few friends of mine sounded astonished when they heard I was making a salmiakki Swiss roll. Fantasy, however, is a good quality! And since salmiakki (=strong salted liquorice, nh4cl) is inevitably the most fantastic candy in Finland if you ask me, I felt like trying this out! I recommend to use a kind of salmiakki that is easy to cut. Unfortunately I didn't and so I, to avoid excess suffering, left the pieces bigger.

Ingredients:

The dough:
3 eggs
1 dl sugar
½ dl wheat flour
½ dl potato flour
1 tl baking powder
2 tablespoons cacao powder
sugar
bread crumbs
baking paper

The filling:
1,5 dl whipped cream
1,5 dl vanilla flavoured quark (That's Dutch, and it's something like a very thick yoghurt)
salmiakki candies

Preparation:
Cut the salmiakki into pieces. Mix the whipped cream and the quark and add the pieces of salmiakki into it. Put the filling into the fridge to wait for the crust to be ready.
Mix the sugar and the eggs into an airy foam. Mix the flours together and add them carefully into the foam. Pour the dough on baking paper on an oven plate. Bake it in a 225 c oven for 7 minutes.
Take a sheet of baking paper and put it on the table. Dust some sugar on it. Set the crust, on its other side still attached to its baking paper, on the sugared baking paper. Remove the baking paper that was with it in the oven.
Spread the filling you previously prepared on the crust.

Roll the crust into a roll. The result is the best if you let the Swiss roll stay in the fridge overnight and serve it the next day.

Farfalle with soy-tomato-zucchini sauce

Ingredients (x3):
260 g farfalle
1 onion
1 clove garlic
150 g grinded soy
1/3 zucchino
2 tomatoes
4 tablespoons tomato puree
1 tablespoon white vinegar
olive oil
salt
black pepper
parsley

Preparation:
Remove the seeds of the tomatoes and peel them. Start cooking the pasta. Chop the onion and grind the garlic. Heat these two on a pan with olive oil. Pour the grinded soy on them. Cut the zucchino into thin sticks max. 3 cm of length and add it on the pan. Cut into small cubes the tomatoes that you previously peeled. Add the tomato cubes on the pan along with tomato puree. Keep the heat pretty high but not at maximum. Add a tablespoon of white vinegar. Add salt and black pepper according to your taste. Cook on high heat for a couple of more minutes and then let the sauce cook on lower heat for still some minutes.

When the pasta is al dente, pour the water off. Serve the pasta with the sauce and with chopped parsley.

Apple-white chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients (7 cupcakes):

The dough:
75 g margarine or butter
½ dl sugar
1,5 dl wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon vanilla sugar
½ egg

The filling:
1 apple
60 g vanilla chocolate
cinnamon

Short crust pastry on the top:
20 g margarine
0,3 dl sugar
0,5 dl wheat flour

Preparation:
Put the warm margarine and all the other ingredients of the dough into a bowl. Mix them with your hands. Do the same with the short crust pastry ingredients in another bowl. Cut the apple and the white chocolate into small pieces. Form 7 balls out of the dough and settle them on the bottom of the cake cups. Add the pieces of apple and white chocolate into the cake cups. Dust the short cust pastry on top of the cupcakes. Finally add some cinnamon.

Bake in the oven heated to 200'c for about 20-30 minutes.

Serve the cupcakes after having stored them for 1 hour in the fridge.

Potato-bean-tuna salad

Here's a salad recipe that I could think of meeting both in the Finnish as well as in the Northern Italian kitchen. It is served warm and it contains only a little greenery.

Ingredients:
potatoes
tuna fish in water
chives
beans (preferably of different colours)
egg(s)
white vinegar
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preparation:
Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes. Cook them in water. Cook also the eggs in water. Rinse the chives and cut them in shorter pieces and put them on a plate. Place the readily prepared beans on the plate too. Remove the water of the tuna fish and add the tuna in the form of flakes on the plate. Add the potato cubes. Pour a little vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper on the salad and mix. Slice the egg into a few pieces and dispose them on the plate.

Finnish style oat & chocolate cookies

Here's a recipe for cookies including dark chocolate, hazelnuts and lots of oats. They even made me think of how great it would be to eat them along with some hot chocolate, having a view on the lake at sunset. Maybe I am getting Finland-nostalgic.

Ingredients (12-14 cookies):
100 g dark chocolate
50 g hazelnuts
2 dl wheat flour
2 dl oats
1 teaspoon vanilline sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
100 g margarine or butter
1 dl sugar
1 egg

Preparation:
Cut the chocolate and the hazelnuts into small pieces. Mix together in a bowl the dry ingredients. Mix the soft butter with sugar. Add the egg and mix intensely. Finally add the dry ingredients and mix the dough until it becomes uniform. Form a bar 20 cm long and 6 cm wide out of the dough. Cut the bar into 1 cm wide pieces and place the pieces of dough on baking paper on an oven plate. Bake them in the oven heated to 175 c for around 12 minutes (they are ready when they have got some colour).