Filed under: Cakes, Cooking, winter seasonal food | Tags: chocolate cake, garlic, oven roasted vegetables, root vegetable
Two weeks or so ago I went to the countryside in search of some local food with a couple of friends. In the woods we did find lots and lots of funnel chanterelles (Cantharellus tubaeformis) and lingonberries. Picking these mushrooms is very rewarding: first you don’t see them, but then you spot one and suddenly realise they are simply everywhere… Picking lingonberries can be meditative, or boring in other words, but anyway it’s nice to stumble on branches and get your gumboots sucked inside wet moss in the wet forest, in slowly drizzling rain. We also dug up the last root vegetables from the garden and used them and the results of our foraging for a gorgeous meal.
In the woods we encountered a guy carrying a gun, who was in a moose hunting party. It did occur to me that eating a wild moose might be so much more locavorean* than buying some vegan soy products that might have destroyed half a rainforest. I’m generally not against killing, since in my opinion dying is part of the natural world, and an essential part of how the ecosystem works. At least the animals in the wild have had an opportunity to a dignified life, which can of course not be said about those poor creatures who only exist to serve our needs for animal products.
On our way home we also met a woman from a neighboring house, who had a few cows, a horse and a herd of sixty sheep. She told us that when she shears all those sheep and sends the wool to a spinnery, she will either get 120 euros for it, or 4 kg of ready-made wool yarn, which really is nothing at all. So keeping all those animals is just a hobby for her. She was a really shining person, you could see the happiness those animals were giving her, and they way she treated them was loving and respectful. But it is still sad that in order to make any other kind of profit than just happiness she’d have to do her farming in a much more unsustainable way. What could be the solution to this? My dream is that our food could be provided in the ways we experienced on our weekend trip: with foraging, hunting and small-scale farming. What I don’t know is whether this would be effective enough to feed us all on this planet. Probably not, but I still wish it could be possible.
At home we made the all time favourite: oven roasted veggies and funnel chanterelle sauce, with lingonberry mush. I know everyone knows how to make roasted veggies, but it’s such a nice winter time dish that I’ll write about it, just in case you had forgotten the whole idea in this raw food craze that seems to prevail these days. I originally learned the concept of oven roasted vegetables from a cook book by Saara Törmä, called Keittokomero ja huone, which is a great source of simple, affordable, yet delicious recipes. It’s totally out of print these days, sadly, and of course only available in Finnish.
Oven Roasted Vegetables
3 carrots
1 parsnip
2 beetroots
2 onions
2 potatoes
a piece of root celery
a piece of swede
6 garlic cloves
The Dressing
3 tbsp oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp honey
black pepper
1 tbsp dried herbs: thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary, choose your favourite ones
Chop the veggies roughly. There is no need to peel the potatoes, just clean them well. Peel the garlic cloves, and pour everything onto an oven plate. Mix the ingredients for the dressing, and drizzle over the veggies. Roast in the oven for about 40 minutes in 200 ºC.
There was also a cake for Vappu’s birthday the following day. The cake was a vegan chocolate cake, filled with grated apple, lingonberries and frosted with soy cream. It was decorated with lingonberries found in the forest and ancient liquorice found in the cupboard. Very simple, suitable for a country trip.
Basic Vegan Chocolate Cake
4 dl wheat flour
1 dl cocoa powder
2 dl sugar
2 tsp baking powder
0,5 tsp baking soda
2 tsp egg replacer
1 tsp chocolate flavouring
3 dl oat milk or other non – dairy
1 tsp vinegar
2 dl canola oil
Vegan cakes are easy to make: mix the dry ingredients and the sugar. It is a good idea to use a sieve with the cocoa powder. Then mix the vinegar with the milk and add to the batter. As the last ingredient add the oil. Avoid mixing too much! Then pour the batter to a springform pan, 24 cm in diameter, and bake in the oven in 180 °C about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool thoroughly before cutting the layers and filling it. And remember: a cake should always be filled the day before serving!
* a locavore is a person who tries to eat as much local food as possible
It is said that on Samhain the spirits of the dead come back close to our lives. In the agrarian society this time of the year was the end of a harvesting cycle, and the beginning of a new year. I feel like that too, now is for me the time to sow seeds that will sprout in the spring, to dream and envision. We don’t celebrate Halloween in Finland, but on the 31st of October people will remember their passed away family members by bringing candles to the graveyard. Samhain is also a good time to make amends with one’s past, and this is exactly what I did last weekend in the country, with a bunch of cynical, exhausted anti – nuclear activists who had been fighting a nearly impossible cause up in Lapland.
The old moldy house was filled with wood heated warmth and beautiful, dreadlocked, patch – decorated people, some really slow food was made, the slimy – benched sauna was heated up. It was freezing, the grasses were covered in frost and the full moon was circled with a halo. Some people burned things in the bonfire that they wanted to get rid of, or felt that deserved a dignified end (like other people’s love letters they found somewhere). I didn’t bring anything. Though, I had a feeling I was standing in the in-between with the crowding spirits, unsure of my next step. But I guess many of us there felt it: something had come to a close, some era was over. But when a door closes, another one opens up.
But what do the activists eat at a Samhain party? They eat food that they grew themselves, inefficiently, organically, just next to the doorstep. They eat some vegan cookies somebody brought. They eat food that is lovingly foraged from the dumpsters of the local shops, with a hunter – gatherers joy at every interesting find. They eat food that is prepared on a self – made wood stove. They eat from a shared plate, to save dishwashing water that has to be carried from the well. They eat like hungry people, savouring the food, when it’s finally ready after a long and complicated cooking process, which involves several not very well concentrated people
Sorry, no recipes this time (I am trying to get my relationship with food straightened out a bit).
Filed under: Cooking, Salad, autumn seasonal food | Tags: beetroot, black currant, bread spread, dolma, fava bean, grape leaf, mint, sesame
“Hippies are the dolphins of our race, playful, resilient, social, fetished by some, dismissed by others, ” says Chelsea Cain in her book The Hippie Handbook. She was raised in a hippie commune in the 70’s. I was reminded her words last weekend when I was asked to do a cafe for a hippie party, which was held at a yoga school in Helsinki.
I was a hippie myself for many years, and not without a reason! However much there can be bad jokes made of hippies, I think there is still a very important lesson that can be learned from them. Hippies see life as endlessly enjoyable, filled with creativity, beauty and meaningful encounters with other human and nonhuman beings. Of course, also the mainstream western society is generally very pleasure – oriented, but I think the difference with the hippie culture lies in the fact that the pleasure hippies seek is not destructive towards other living things, and generally doesn’t have a high price, to the environment or moneywise. How delicious is organic, vegan food, how pleasurable is a footmassage given by a friend, how much fun can be a drum and a guitar, how nice to spend a summer in a teepee, how delightful to learn new acrobatic tricks… It is so easy to forget the simple delights of communal living, when you struggle for your daily earnings in this society. In the hippie world, there is always enough time, and the greatest achievement of a person is to be present here and now.
So this weekend at the hippie party I noticed we, who had met at some hippie gathering or other a few years ago, had all grown up, and perhaps matured too. There weren’t that many people at the party, and I think everybody had already seen enough life not to be pretentious about being a hippie. So people were laughing when the meditation was supposed to begin, did some really silly barefoot dancing and joked about the Natha – cult instead of a spiritual panel discussion (“hey girls, are you going to the Natha party afterwards? Watch out for the guru!”). Of course there were candles, a big mandala on the wall, some sandalwood incence and soft cushions. DJ Indigo played and we reminisced a little: somebody had decided to start a tribe, another one had been suspicious about hippies but then gone to a gathering and totally become one, third one had caused a major jealousy attack in a Peruvian boyfriend by acting like any hippie girl at a wedding party. Oh sweet crazy youth, I guess it shall never return. Luckily enough, I think I still have my dreadlocks with all the beads and colourful felt hidden off in some cupboard, so if I want to become a hippie again, I can just sew them back on…
I had made some proper hippie food for the party: local, cheap and colourful, and not too fancy. The menu included a platter with a stuffed grape leaf roll, some favabean – blackcurrant hoummus, sesame – marinated beetroots, minty coleslaw and raw chili – apple chutney, with a piece of sourdough rye bread.
Finnish Hoummus
This is my local version of the Arabic classic – I know the ingredients sound weird but surprisingly they work really well together, and the paste actually tastes like hoummus! The purple colour is nice as well (to my taste..)
5 dl cooked favabeans
1 dl black currants
3 cloves of garlic
1 – 2 dl canola oil
salt
Soak the beans overnight and cook for an hour or until they are tender. Drain off the cooking water, add the rest of the ingredients and make into a paste with a blender.
Minty Coleslaw
The mint was somehow still alive in my garden, even if it has been below freezing many nights. This is a cheap and simple vegan coleslaw. You can make it with egg – free mayo too.
a couple of carrots
1 dl sesame seeds, toasted
a handful of mint leaves
1/2 dl lemon juice
1 dl olive oil
salt
Slice the cabbage really thin, preferably with a cheese slicer. Then pound it in order to make it more juicy, grate the carrot, chop the mint, toast the seeds and mix everything. The coleslaw is much better if you let it wait a few hours in the fridge.
Simple Dolmas
This is not how dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) are made in Greece, but if you aren’t a Greek grandmother with five dutiful daughters to help you, this might be the way you want to make them, since this is much faster and easier.
about 50 pieces
50 preserved grape leaves
6 dl brown rice, or preferably spelt or barley if you live in Finland
9 dl water for cooking
3 tsp salt
1 dl tomato paste
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 tsp spice mix that includes dill, chili, coriander leaf and mint (if you have fresh herbs at hand it’s much better)
2 dl olive oil
a packet of preserved grape leaf rolls
Boil the grain and allow it to cool. The dolmas are easier to roll if you boil the grain until it’s quite mushy. Then mix in the rest of the ingredients of the filling, and roll the dolmas. Basically you do the rolling so that you put a couple of teaspoons of filling at widest part of the grape leaf,then fold over the sides and roll the leaf into a tight roll. The problem with the preserved grape leaves is that they often are too small and have a lot of holes, but then you’ll just need discard those and use the bigger ones. Put the ready rolled dolmas on a oven dish, drizzle with olive oil and bake them in the oven in 200ºC for about 20 minutes, or until they have turned darkish in colour.
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih!
When I was in Fifth Grade at school we made a play on the fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dvarves. I played the mean stepmother the queen, and I was quite proud of it. But I don’t think I learned my lesson that time. Would you rather be a wicked witch married to a king, or a timid princess that instead of resolving her problems escapes to the forest and ends up cleaning and cooking for a bunch of lame dvarves, and then has to be saved by a prince ? I think she totally deserves that poisonous apple! As far as I’m concerned, I have been many years that princess with no other means to deal with stuff but to escape, and only now I’m trying to learn the skills of a queen, and help me fate if that’ll end me up as badly as the queen in the Grimm’s brother version of this fairytale!
But that’s the lesson life wants to teach us: to accept that poisonous apple, transform and transcend, and above all, to continue living our lives, instead of hiding in the woods. Any creative work can help with it, since it somehow becomes larger than your life. Sounds like cliche but it’s true, on a bad day this blog can be a hungry child that says to me: I am needy, go on, live your life so that you’ll have something to write about here! And so I’ll need to brazenly face magical mirrors, evil stepmothers and poisonous apples. So this is the little secret i promised you Kamomilla for giving me the Kreativ Blogger Award (thank you!). That when I was drowning this blog saved me, like Julie says in the movie Julie&Julia.
So my dear Snow White, in order to get you finally killed, I prepared this ve – ery nice apple pastry for you. Look at that luscious, red cheeked apple baked in with all this delicious stuff, doesn’t that make you hungry?
Apple and Lingonberry Squares
A while ago Bazu and Luciana, who are vegan bloggers from the States found me on a site of a hospitality organisation, and visited me one day on their way to Vienna. They brought me some amazing vegan goodies from America, like these strange butterscotch morsels that are meant for baking. I have no idea what they do with them in the States, but I decided to use them for apple and lingonberry squares. I simply sprinkled them on top the pastry and they melted in the oven. This type of pastry is actually what we call a pie in Finland, but the idea is quite far from the American fruit pies. Basically this kind of “pie” has a farely thick layer of batter, which is sprinkled with berries or fruits.
Ingredients:
3 dl wheat flour
2 dl whole grain spelt flour
2 dl muscovado sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
3,5 dl soy milk
200 g oil
On top
4 dl sliced apples
4 dl lingonberries
3 dl butterscotch morsels
cinnamon, muscovado sugar
This is very easy: just mix the dry ingredients, and then add the milk and the oil. Pour evenly onto a baking pan covered with baking parchment.Cover with apple slices and lingonberries, and then sprinkle with cinnamon, muscovado sugar and butterscotch. Bake in 200 °C for about 30 minutes.
Filed under: Desserts, Salad | Tags: broad bean, chili, fresh coriander, lingonberry, long bean, mousse, soy cream, soy yogurt
Nowadays we live in an eternal summer of the supermarket aisle. It’s like in paradise, everything is available for us all year round, all different tastes from everywhere in the world, and amidst all that we graze innocently like Adam and Eve, knowing nothing of evil. I would not hesitate calling today’s food production evil! If you have not seen the movie Food Inc, I strongly recommend it for everyone. You may think you already know all that scary stuff about how food is produced today, but honestly, when watching those abundant, lucrative supermarket shelves it is quite easy to lull yourself into a content forgetfulness and just allow yourself to be fed, like at Mother’s breast, with no worries.
I recently heard the Finnish author and passionate vegan, Antti Nylén, talk. He said something brilliant, when asked how he feels about the fact that he voluntarily refuses so much potential delight in his life. He answered: ” Abstinence in itself is a delight”, in the most laconic manner. It was great, and wonderfully true too, though the delights of abstinence are widely forgotten in our society. By this I don’t mean that we should completely refuse some nice edible things, but to perhaps eat them less, and savour more. I should personally really cut down on lemon, since I know somebody probably suffers for picking them somewhere.
I love the fact that there are still a couple of things that you can’t taste year – round. One of my favourites is Finnish early apple varieties, especially “punakaneli”, Malus Domestica ´Koritschnevoje` that is a lovely thin – peeled, sweet, red – cheeked apple that has an aftertaste of cinnamon. None of the varieties of other apples comes anywhere near this one in taste I think.
The other favourite seasonal food of mine is fresh broad beans (vicia faba). I adore broad beans: of course, they are a great local protein source (we don’t have that many pulses growing in Finland), and besides they are simply such a beautiful design. You know, how you open the shell and each one of the beans is nested in this white fluffy padding, in a little hook, like a treasure that they are. I could write a poem on broad beans! You can of course eat them dried too, but that’s a whole other story.
Common for these both things is that besides being seasonal, you need to pretty much grow them yourself in order to get some. The apple variety I’m talking about is very common in Finnish home gardens, but the commercial orchards don’t seem to grow it, I guess since it doesn’t keep very well. Fresh broad beans you might find here in an organic store if you are really lucky, and for them the season is already well past. But they are easy to grow, though mostly not very commonly known among home gardeners.
Spicy Broad Bean Salad
20 shells of broad beans
A handful of long beans
1 red fresh chili bean
a bunch of fresh coriander
cherry tomatoes
a couple of garlic cloves
1/2 dl lemon juice
1/2 extra virgin oil ( I had canola)
salt
I shelled the broad beans and steamed them and the long beans a few minutes. The broad beans only need like three minutes, the long beans a little longer. Then I chopped the chillies and garlic finely, and combined these two with the beans, tomatoes and chopped up coriander. The dressing I made out of fresh lemon juice, oil and a pinch of salt. This particular salad was fiercely hot, but the amount of chilli can be adjusted. I think the taste combination of fresh coriander, chili, lemon and garlic is simply divine, fresh and hot at the same time.
And as dessert another seasonal thing, which is a veganized version of a really traditional Finnish dessert: Lingonberry mousse. Originally it is made with lingonberries (or some other berries), whipped cream and quark. It is very simple to make, and fluffy and delicious. I think my veganized version was surprisingly nice too, since often this kind of stuff just doesn’t work at all.
Lingonberry Mousse
2,5 dl soy cream (I like the brand Soyatoo!)
2,5 dl soy yogurt
1 dl mashed lingonberries
3 tbsp sugar
a pinch of vanilla powder
I whipped up the cream and folded in the rest of the ingredients. That’s it!
Filed under: Cooking | Tags: agar agar, hazelnut, Pietro Leemann, root celery, squash, watermelon
Recently I had the honour to attend a cooking class by Mr. Pietro Leemann, who was a quest speaker at the Megapolis – seminar last weekend. Pietro Leemann runs the only vegetarian restaurant that has acquired a Michelin star, in Milan in Italy. The restaurant is called La Joia. Mr. Leemann has an apparent passion for vegetarianism, besides amazing cooking skills and lots of creativity. He and his wife Rosanna were both charming and lovely people, which unfortunately cannot be said about all chefs…
On the course we (meaning a few people from Dodo, some journalists from different Finnish food magazines, some people from the leading food industry companies and an advertisement agency) cooked a 4 course vegetarian meal guided by Pietro Leemann, and then ate it in candle light with some wine and discussion. The food was awesome, much better than my previous fine dining restaurant experiences. I think that since the western cuisine is so based on animal products, many chefs lack the skills of making interesting flavour combinations with vegetarian ingredients only, but I think Pietro Leemann definitely shows that it is very possible!
On the menu there was Watermelon Carpaccio, False Eggs, ” A Rich, Delicious – looking and Sufficient Meal for Ten People”, which was actually a risotto, and as dessert Knedlitky, which was kind of sweet dumplings with basil cream and a cinnamon sauce. Especially the textures and flavours of the dessert lingered in my taste buds a long time, though I’ll have to put some effort into veganising them. The best result of this cooking class was the fact that most of the journalists promised to write an article on the subject of vegetarian cooking, which would of course be great, since people should in general realise that vegetarian or vegan doesn’t automatically mean boring or tasteless food.
All pictures in this post are a courtesy of Marina Ekroos. Thanks!
Watermelon Carpaccio
Concerning this dish Pietro told that it is one of the few dishes that he makes that plays with the idea of meat. The watermelon with its red and white flesh reminds of meat somehow, and fried and cut thinly it actually looks like a carpaccio. There was some parmesan in this dish, but I think it won’t suffer much if you just leave it out.
300 g watermelon
2 g salt
20 g balsamic vinegar
grape seed oil for frying
chives
different kinds of salad
black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
Peel the watermelon and cut into 7cm thick slices. Leave some of the white peel on. Drizzle with salt and leave for 10 minutes. Cut into really thin slices, and lift them on tissue paper to dry. Fry the pieces in on a frying pan in grape seed oil, until they look roasted on both sides (black!). Lift them aside, on top of some tissue paper and let them drain for a while. Then remove the seeds and cut it into really thin slices.
Mix the oil, a pinch of salt and balsamic vinegar together. Assemble the plates with salad leaves, watermelon slices, cut up chives, dressing and pinch of black pepper.
False Eggs
This dish is also otherwise vegan, except for the fact that since the idea with this dish was to create an “egg” that is really not an egg, it was made into an eggshell. Pietro explained that the surprise between the form and taste was essential with this dish, but if you don’t want to use animal ingredients, you could quite easily make this dish using something else as the form, e.g. a silicon mould etc.
200 g root celery and carrot
50 g squash
50 g hazelnuts
1/4 of an agar – agar bar
20 g summer truffles
salt
First, if you want to use eggs as the moulds, make a hole into the side of eight eggs. It should be so big that your finger fits inside. Then take out all the egg-white and the membranes inside the eggshell, and wash it with warm water that has a some vinegar in it. Allow the eggshells to dry two days in warm place or 10 minutes in a 200°C oven.
Steam the squash, and toast the hazelnuts on a dry pan. Grind the hazelnuts into a fine powder and mash the pumpkin. Blend, and make balls that are about the size of an egg yolk. Freeze them in a freezer.
Boil the root celery in water until it’s soft, and then make a paste out of it using a blender. Add some of the cooking water if needed, the paste should resemble a pureed soup. Dilute the agar – agar into 2 dl of water, and boil it until the water has evaporated so that there is just 1 dl left. Heat up the root celery paste and pour the agar agar into it, using a sieve. Chop the truffles and add them and salt to the mixture. Pour the mixture into the eggshells and add one squash – egg – yolk into each. Let them harden in the fridge a couple of hours.
For serving, peel the eggs, set them on a plate and drizzle with salt and olive oil, and add also some raspberry coulis (a sweet raspberry sauce).
After this cooking class my weekend was full of talk about food at the Megapolis – festival, and meeting interesting people. After that I haven’t been able to even think about food for a while…And the Carrot Mob vegetarian gourmet – brunch was of course a nice ending to the whole process on Sunday. A cucumber shot, jerusalem artichoke puree, pistachio crusted beetroot, and a banana flambe with candied orange and raspberry sauce, free for everyone who managed to be there in time!
For the past few months I’ve been part of an organising crew of a big urban festival and a seminar with the theme of food. What is good food, what is environmentally sound to eat, who produces it, what will we eat in the future? Those questions in mind we launched into organising the 4th Megapolis – festival, called Megapolis2024. Finally, it is getting together, and the next Saturday 26th of September the work of many months will bear its hopefully delicious fruit. If you live in Helsinki or nearby, you should definitely check out the website and come! We will have as our speakers Pietro Leemann, the only vegetarian chef with a Michelin star restaurant, John Higson from Stockholm who has introduced farmer’s markets and other urban projects, Majora Carter from New York Greening the Ghetto – project, and many, many others, in addition to film screenings, hemp burgers and an afterparty with Jimi Tenor. And, as dessert, a free brunch on Sunday, with Michelin star vegetarian food, organised by the Finnish Carrot Mob! Want to meet me in person? I’ll be there, cleaning tables…
Working in voluntary organisations is interesting, frustrating, and often requires patience and a slightly anarchistic mindset. Money is scarce, so personal connections and persuasiveness are put to good use. People get irritated, attracted, form alliances and friendships, or in worst case, stalk off and never return. Issues of control and power are lurking in the background, but we try to put them aside by politeness and understanding. Because, aren’t we all on the same mission towards a sustainable future, and grown up people as well?
While following 50 emails long winding mail – threads, having heated discussions with the lady from the Department of Housing about a truck container – that – actually – is – really – small – sized – container – indeed, and having nightmares about organising something or other every night, it is easy to forget why you actually got into the whole business originally. Then the happening is over, and so what? Did we have an impact, do few more people think at the table and make a better choice? Did they understand that with every bite, they can change the world? Who knows, since we cannot measure these things. We can only hope, and make a batch of super – unhealthy lingonberry squares for the next meeting, to keep our spirits and blood sugar levels up.
Lingonberry Squares
This recipe is basically a traditional Finnish pastry, called Aleksanterin leivos, Alexander’s Tart. I think it is named after a Russian Emperor. I tweaked the recipe a bit with lingonberries and spelt flour, but they are still very sweet, a bit too sweet for my taste actually. Okriina from Kahvila Vegaani made some really nice healthy lingonberry squares that you can check out if you understand Finnish.
The Batter
300 g vegetable margarine, nondairy butter etc.
2,5 dl sugar
2 dl whole spelt flour
4 wheat flour
2 tsp egg replacer
1,5 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
The Jam
5 dl lingonberries
3/4 sugar with pectin
The Icing
5 dl powdered sugar
3,5 – 5 tbsp lingonberry juice
First I made the batter: I mixed the dry ingredients and then kneaded in the margarine. I put it to the fridge to wait, for 30 minutes.
Then I cooked the jam: I put the lingonberries in a cooking pot, and heated it until steam started to rise. Then I added the sugar, and let it boil for some minutes. When it started to look like jam, I took it off the stove and allowed it to cool some time. You can of course use ready made jam as well, you should have about 3,5 dl of it.
Then I assembled the pastry. I divided the dough into two parts, and rolled the other half in between two layers of baking parchment, so that it was about the size of an oven plate (35cm x 25 cm). Then I put in on an oven plate, and covered it evenly with the lingonberry jam. After that I rolled out the other half, which I then carefully transferred on top of the previous one, with the help of the baking parchment. I did have to patch a bit here and there.
I baked the pastry in 200 ºC for 30 minutes. I allowed it to cool, and then made the icing, by mixing the lingonberry juice and powdered sugar. I made also some white icing, with powdered sugar and water, and made some crazy swirls on top of the pink layer (it was late at night…) I didn’t have any juice, so I made some by grinding some lingonberries through a sieve. Finally, when the icing had set after a few hours, I cut the pastry into small squares using a sharp knife.
Filed under: Baking, Drinks | Tags: apple, apple pie, autumn, carrot, ginger, juice
I must admit it: the summer is over. Last week me and my neighbours finally put back the corridor windows that we have been repairing the whole summer (or, to be honest, my neighbours much more than me). The day was warm, but it didn’t feel like the last summer day, but like the first one in autumn. Suddenly, the night fell at half past eight, and it caught me up right when I was picking the apples and plums that lie all over my yard. The neighbours were fixing the last window, and the lights were on in the corridors. I stood in the darkness of the yard, and listened to the crazy autumn wind blowing all over the place, and to the faint traffic noises of my new home city. I am scared of the winter and the darkness it brings, and the long winter nights. How will I deal with it now that I live by myself?
I was trying to cheer up by thinking: Colourful leaves! Lingonberries! Mushrooms! But it didn’t really help. I felt like the Tove Jansson’s Moomin – book character Nuuskamuikkunen, Snufkin. When the autumn comes, he lifts his backback, plays a little tune on his flute and leaves who knows where, to perhaps return with the sun. Don’t we all just love him, we who cannot leave our commitments.
I shivered, even if it wasn’t cold, picked up the bucket of apples and went inside. There I saw my reflection in the mirror: a yellow leaf had stuck into my hair. There was no way but to admit the facts: I went to the calendar and turned the page from August to September, 10 days late.
Apple, Carrot and Ginger Juice
My mom brought me this juicer that I guess originates from the 70’s. It is a funky thing, though notoriously hard to clean. In the apple season I love it, since freshly made apple juice is just so good. This is my favourite flavour combination:
For 1 big glass you need:
1 carrot
3 small apples
2×2cm piece of ginger
Throw it all in the juicer, and then mix the resulting juice with a spoon. No need to peel anything. If you like ginger, you can very well add some. This works really well for that gloomy autumn feeling…
Apple and White Currant Pie
This pie is like the apple pies made in the States, and doesn’t resemble a Finnish apple pie at all, since the Finnish pies are never covered like the American ones. This recipe is a vegan version of this recipe, though since the apples that grow in my yard are sadly not of the tangy variety, so I replaced some apples with white currants, in order to create a similar effect. For jams and similar things tangy and hard apple varieties are most suitable, and of the Finnish varieties e.g. Antonovka is good.
The Pie Batter
150 g vegetable margarine
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
4 1/2 wheat flour
1 dl ice cold water
The Filling:
10 small apples
2,5 dl white currants
1 3/4 dl sugar with added pectin
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp wheat flour
1 tbsp vegetable margarine
First, I made the pie batter. I simply mixed first the dry ingredients and then added the margarine and til last the cold water. Then I put the batter into the fridge for about half an hour.
Then I made the filling: I sliced the apples and removed the seeds. Then I mixed in the rest of the ingredients, except for the margarine.
Then I divided the batter into two, and rolled it out using a rolling pin so that it would fit a round baking tin (24cm in diameter) that I had greased and floured earlier. I had the batter in between two layers of baking parchment, and it helped a lot with the process. Then I filled the pie, added the margarine in a few lumps on top, rolled the other part of the batter, and covered the pie. The edges I squeezed together and then made a few holes on top the pie with a fork.
I grated the pie in the oven in 200°C for 15 minutes, and then lowered the heat to 175°C for 45 minutes.
As a footnote, I ran into this concept in the internet: a veggie trader! Isn’t that a good idea! In the harvest time those people with red currant bushes, apple, plum or cherry trees, or zucchini plants, are usually in trouble with all the produce, like me with the apples. At Veggie Trader you can find people to swap your produce with! We should have that here too, because that is also one way to overrule the wholesalers that dominate our food consumption today.
