Dagen efter - Survival food after midsummer party

Best left over food ever - swedish potatoes and sausage with poached eggs! This masculine recipe is perfect for any kind of recovery. After weekend these ingredients are easy to find from fridge and revamp with small tricks. 

This is a traditional Finnish dish but comes originally from Sweden, I guess. My way to do this is the following: 

Swedish Sausage & Potatoes for 4

6-8 middle size potatoes

4-5 carrots

1-2 onions

300 gr sausage (spicy, but can be replaced with any meat basically)

Olive oil

Sea salt

Black pepper

Chives

Chop all vegetables. Fry the potatoes 5 minutes with some olive oil, add carrots after 5 min and keep frying for another 15 min. Add onion and fry few more minutes. Finally add the sausages, salt, pepper and a bit more olive oil. Taste and make sure that the potatoes are fully cooked. Add some chives and prepare the eggs. 

Poached eggs

1 litre water

0,5 dl vinegar

Eggs (one per each)

Heat up the water  "almost boiling" and add few drops of vinegar (0,5 dl of vinegar to 1 litre of water). Make a swirl to the water with a spoon. Drop the egg in the middle of the swirl, close to water. Let the egg boil 4 minutes. Lift the egg up with a spoon.  It is simple, trust me!

Sweet Brown Bread - "Saaristolaisleipä"

This has been my tradition for some years now: to make a sweet brown bread for midsummer fest and for christmas. Looking out from the window I would guess that I am making this for the latter fest. Unfortunately that is not the case: only 8 degrees outside. Hrrr... 

This sweet bread remains days and days - and only gets better and better. It is the perfect accompany for fish. 

Recipe for two breads

1 litre sour milk (piimä)

75 g yeast (hiiva)

3 dl syrup (siirappia)

3 dl malt (olutmaltaita) 

3 dl wheat bran (vehnäleseitä)

3 dl rye flour (ruisjauhoja)

1 table spoon of salt

10 dl wheat flour

2 table spoon butter (for buttering the pans)

Syrup water  (for watering the bread)

1 1/2 dl water

1/2 dl syrup

Warm the sour milk in a casserole. Add the yeast and mix well. Add all the other ingredients: syrup, malt, wheat brans, rye flours, salt, and flour. Mix but don-t bake. Butter two pans or casseroles and divide the daugh into two. Let them rest covered 1 1/2 hours. Heat the oven to 175 and bake 2 hours. After 1 1/2 hours, pour the syrup water over the breads and continue baking another 30 minutes. The breads are best after few days., especially when stored in the refrigerator.  

Just Another Sunday Morning

I just love those lazy sunday mornings, when you can wake up slowly. Mind need something fresh in order to wake up, but body is too lazy to prepare anything. After a light smoothie, it is much easier to ask: what's for brunch honey? 

Sunday Smoothie for 4

Natural or vanilla yogurt 5 dl

Milk 4 dl

Oat flakes two hand fulls

Blueberries one hand full

Raspberries 3-4 hand fulls

Ice cubes (10-12 bits)

Put all ingredients to a blender and pour into big glasses - and enjoy a lazy morning!

Pre-Midsummer Party!

I came across with my sister yesterday and we decided to take a rehearsal for midsummer party. The pool was already warming so I just had to come up with something tasty to eat. 

My sister brought some baby potatoes from farmer's market and I prepared a crispy potato salad out of apples, russian cucumber and dill. It was so fresh, so I added only some pepper and olive oil and made a sauce from sour cream, dill and lime. Fresh and tasty!

Potatoe salad and dill just yelled after salmon, so it was almost obvious to grill some salmon. However my all time favourite with salmon is avocado and goat cheese, so I had to made an extra sauce.  If you have left overs, this sauce is perfect on top a bread the next day.

Recipes for 6

Crispy potatoe salad

2 litres of potatoes (new born)

3 russian cucumbers

3 apples

Dill

Olive oil

Black pepper

Sauce: sour cream, dill and lime, black pepper

Avocado-goat cheese paste

4 avocados

100 gr soft goat cheese

1/2 lime squeezed

Mash and mix all ingredients

Grilled salmon 

Whole salmon 1,5 kg (or 1 kg of fillet)

Sea salt

Decorate with chives

Sweet Friday of Mine

Better not wait too long. My food stories will become live from now on. What would possibly be the best way to offer you a sneak peak to my kitchen - the deserved friday dinner after a long week. Friday dinners are for recovery: easy, fast, but yet delicious. This friday I got inspired by strawberries and decided to give treat for my family.

The dinner consisted of a fresh mozzarella salad, which can never fail. The heart of the meal was a sweet chicken skewer marinaded with honey. This was for girls - for men I prepared pork ribs: cooked one hour before putting them into the grill. The taste was great! Ribs were marinaded with sweet and sour sauce - simple but good!

We don't usually eat deserts at fridays, but today was an exception. I got jealous to Hans Välimäki in yesterday's TV-show and decided to steal his recipe - and better yet - prepare it for friday.  Family was more than pleased. I bought a half litre of strawberries and made a fresh sauce, a melba one could say. I was happy to see myself remembering to leave some whole berries for decoration.

Recipes

Mozzarella salad

Fresh cherry tomatoes

Local cucumber (I got a one from Veikkola's garden)

Baby lettuce

Basil

Mozzarella di Bufala

Olive oil

White balsamico syrup

Chicken skewers for 2

Chicken breast 300g

Sea salt 

Black pepper

Honey

Wood sticks (water before filling)

Pork ribs for 2

800 g - 1 kg

Sea salt 

Black pepper

Vinegar (basically all types work well)

Sweet&Sour sauce

Cook 1 hour before grilling.

Add 0,2 dl sea salt, pepper and 0,5 dl vinegar to the boiling water. 

Coat with sauce during grilling, 30 minutes is enough.

White Chocolate Mousse with Strawberries

1,5 dl milk

Vanilla bean

200 g white chocolate

0,5 litre strawberries

2 dl cream

1 gelatine leaf

Warm the milk and add the vanilla bean. Put the gelatine to cold water. Take the almost boiling milk from hob and add the chocolate in pieces, mix. Rinse the gelatine in your hands and add to the hot mistura. Let it calm a bit. Whisk the cream a bit loose and pour it to the milk-chocolate mistura. Mash strawberries and mix all together. Pour into a nice glasses and let them congeal. Decorate with strawberries and left overs from the berry sauce.