When there’s nothing in the fridge…

..make a pie.  I didn’t have many ingredients, but this is what I did and it turned out alright. The crust was a bit odd, sort of bread-like, a bit spongy, but still tasted good. If you use wheat flour, it might take a bit longer in the oven and you’ll probably need to add some water too.

There’s-nothing-in-the-fridge pie

2 eggs
2 dl grated cheese
1,5 dl flour of your choice (I used half almond and half soy flour)
1 tsp baking powder

Break the eggs into a bowl. Add flour, baking powder and grated cheese and mix together into a dough.  Put the dough into a pie mold evenly and bake in 225C for 10 minutes. When it has rised a bit, take out from the oven to place the topping.

Toppings:

4 tbsp pesto sauce
cherry tomatos
100g feta cheese (or goat cheese would be good too)
black pepper

Spread pesto on the bottom. Don’t worry about the pesto being too oily and making the crust soggy – it actually makes it super crunchy in the hot oven.  Cut cherry tomatos in half and place them on top of the pesto.  Crumble feta cheese on top of everything and finish with a pinch of black pepper. Put back in the oven in the same temperature and bake until the cheese has melted a bit and has some colour to it. Let the pie rest for a while, then eat!

Satu’s Skagen

Yesterday we got together at Satu’s place to work on a school project and of course this also meant food! Satu had prepared us a full three course ‘business/study’ lunch which turned out to be delicious! As a starter we had a toast skagen an originally Swedish treat. What could be more delicious than shrimp mixed with cream and sour cream topped on a slice of freshly toasted bread! (recipe hopefully to follow from Satu)

As our main course we ate a student friendly casserole. Satu first fried some chicken pieces with garam masala. Then put the chicken in an oven dish with cream, sour cream, cauliflower, broccoli and topped the whole set with generous amounts of cheese The dish turned out really good. The chicken remained juicy in the creamy sauce, the veg was cooked yet stayed crisp and the cheese melted into stringy cheesy goodness. I’ll definitely be making this dish at home and I hope Satu will share the recipe on the blog

Dessert was perfect with spring and summer on the way. Satu made a mango lassi (yogurt drink) in her blender and it was a great finish to the meal. My only complaint of yesterdays lunch was that we were doing work all through out the meal such a shame …

I had to rush of straight after the meal for my theory classes. Nope I’m not taking any extra classes in school… I’m FINALLY getting my drivers license (hopefully)! I’m going to have to sign up for the actual driving lessons soon. People of Tampere be wary I’ll be behind the wheel and dangerous in no time

-Laura

A dog, Brussels sprouts and Julia Child

After a walk in the woods with a crazy active dog, I had a nice wintery meal. Brussels sprouts and cauliflower with butter, braised pork and fried apples.

I love brussels sprouts. They don’t only look like awesome miniature cabbages but they also taste great. I have this nice recipe I am going to try soon, with brussels sprouts, cheese, bacon and walnuts. I don’t think there’s anything that can go wrong with that, but I will share the recipe with you when I get to try it.

Also, I finally saw the movie Julie & Julia last night. I recommend it to everyone who still haven’t seen it! I’ve seen a lot of good movies lately, but this movie was something else. Maybe, because I could somehow relate to the stories and characters. Everything was so real about this movie, and all the food.. There’s so much love for food in this movie. Inspired by this, I’ve been watching old Youtube clips of Julia Child’s tv show. She is in fact quite special. Also, it got me thinking I really haven’t done much French cooking since I got out of culinary school and perhaps I should.

- Riikka

A family dinner

After getting home from work yesterday I was truly exhausted and only wanted to sleep until monday. But I did take the train and came to visit my family.  I arrived here at midnight and almost immediately went to bed. It was probably a good idea, since today I have been in such a great mood!

Usually when I visit my parents I always like to cook a proper meal for us with my mom. The kitchen is big, so for me it’s a real luxury.  A friend of my mom’s had given her a piece of moose tenderloin, so we decided to prepare it for dinner. I marinated it in a mixture of olive oil, red wine vinegar, herbs, black pepper and salt for about 5 hours. Before cooking it I let it rest in room temperature for about an hour, then quickly tossed it around in a hot pan and then put in the oven. The tenderloin was quite small, so it only took about 15 minutes in the oven until the inside temperature was the desired 56 C degrees. And the meat was just perfect! We also made some oven baked vegetables and a creamy pepper and rosmary sauce to go with it.

With this dinner we had a bottle of red wine; Castillo de Molina Reserva, a nice warm Cabernet Sauvignon wine from Chile. It wasn’t a very aggresive wine, but had just enough of tannin to go well with the meat. This was a really good match actually!

And for dessert I made a mud cake with one of the easiest and best recipes I know. It’s one part dark chocolate, one part butter and one part eggs. (I used 200g of each ingredient for this cake.) You melt the chocolate and butter together, quickly whisk the eggs and then mix them all together. You don’t need anything to sweeten this cake with in my opinion, because the chocolate is enough.  Just pour the mixture into a mold and cook in oven for about 10-15 minutes in 200C. And that’s it! You can eat it right away but I think it’s best when it has rested in the fridge for a day.

And because a chocolate cake wasn’t enough.. I made a mascarpone cream with mango to go with it, which I seasoned with lemon acid powder and orange peel. Yummy!

I think that’s enough food for tonight! Maybe another glass of wine, sauna and a good movie to top this day..

-Riikka