Lingonberry chocolate bark

 

The lazy days of experimental cooking and becoming one with nature are over. I have returned to civilisation. And while that brings with it some good things, like being able to charge my iPad, take a hot shower and bake a pie in a proper oven, it also means not being able to watch the sun set over the lake or listen to the sound of absolutely nothing but nature. Sleeping in absolute darkness in ear numbing silence. For me the summer house is a place I enjoy for about a week or so every two years. Any longer would make me go crazy. Although, to be honest the only thing I really can't live without is the opportunity to charge my iPad. And this is not because I would be addicted to my work email or Facebook. In fact, I have very thoroughly ignored every work related email for the last seven days! It's because I have all my books on the iPad, so reading is out of the question without electricity. I'm stuck with reading my Mum's Finnish lifestyle magazines. Which are nice for the first two days, but interior design and life stories soon lose their appeal. Most of all I want my iPad because blogging and photo editing are my favourite hobbies to do in my spare time, and that becomes a bit hard without electricity. Maybe there would be a solar cell iPad charger?

Although the lazy hazy crazy days of summer are no gone, I still have one more summerhouse berry delight recipe to share. And you will have to indulge another "this is so much better in Finland" rant. Possibly the last, although I won't guarantee it. The subject of today's rant is milk chocolate. The best milk chocolate EVER is the Fazer Blue. I'm rather convinced this is not one of those "you like the one you got used to in your childhood" things. If there's one thing the Finns know, it's milk products. And I bet that even in a double blinded placebo controlled tasting, I could pick out the Blue from any other milk chocolate. Now, of course we can get into a lengthy debate of whether milk chocolate is real chocolate at all, and I know there are plenty of "if it doesn't contain 70% cocoa it's not chocolate" people out there. And I love the dark chocolates, and for some things they are the only right option. I would not dare call myself an expert when it comes to dark chocolates, and I have definitely not found my favourite. And the Finnish dark chocolates are not particularly good, I'll admit that. Same goes for white choc, there is nothing that beats Green&Black's white choc with vanilla. But milk chocolate. That I know, and the best one is Fazer. It tastes like proper chocolate, unlike other wannabe milk chocs which are sickeningly sweet and taste of cheap fats and leave a disgusting film in your mouth. I have served Blue to many non-Finns, and either they are all being very polite, but they agree that it's an unusually good milk chocolate brand. So next time you visit Finland, make sure you get a taste of this 90 year o,d traditional delicacy.

So this "recipe" (is it a recipe if it only contains three ingredients and takes two minutes of prep time?) was inspired by my overwhelming love for the best milk chocolate ever as well as my obsession with the wonderful, free and nutrient rich Finnish forest berries. And I had already eaten a huge bar of plain Blue, so I felt like I wanted to mix it up in some way.




Lingonberry chocolate bark

100 g chocolate

1 cup lingonberries

1-2 tsp vanilla sugar

The howto:

Melt chocolate. If you are in an environment where you have access to a thermometer and a device where you can control the temperature (i.e. not a wood burning stove...) tempering the chocolate might be a good idea. Pour chocolate in a container, spread the lingonberries on top and press them lightly into the chocolate. Sprinkle vanilla sugar on top. Let cool in the fridge until chocolate has set. Slice into bite sized pieces. If you didn't temper the chocolate, serve straight out of the fridge.

Non-tempered chocolate and the hot Finnish August sun...

The verdict:

Fazer has quite a selection of flavoured cholocates. In addition to the traditional nut and raisin varieties, there is a range of flavours such as peppermint crush chocolate, raspberry-cranberry chocolate, pear and almond dark chocolate, cookie crumb chocolate, fudge chocolate and this summer's newcomer freeze dried strawberry and vanilla chocolate. And all of them are good (particularly the peppermint crush and strawberry ones). But all add-ons are rather sweet in my opinion. Not saying they are too sweet, they are delicious flavour combinations. But using fresh berries instead of dried ones is soooo much better. And using a tart berry really brings out the smooth sweetness of the Blue. I loved how the lingonberries popped and squirted small sprays of lingonberry juice when I bit into them. With temeperd chocolate it would have been possible to make an even thinner bark, and I think a thinner chocolate layer would have been even better. I think any fresh berry would work well, but like I said, I think the tartness of the lingonberries goes really well with the chocolate. This is quick, simple and delicious. I guess I should add I also "disposed" of it very quickly. Maybe I should suggest this flavour combo to Fazer. Wonder if they would share a bit of the profits with me?

UK meets Finland. A glass of Pimm's by the lake, last night at the summer house.

 

 

 

 

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Finnish bottom-of-the-cauldron pan crepes

 

The perfect golden brown muurinpohjalettu (Finnish crepe)

Given the cryptic title of this post, I guess I have some explaining to do. Some things just don't translate easily, and if Wikipedia doesn't have an English entry, I'm left all alone trying to make up the most ridiculous translations. There are things which are very typical Finnish and have some sort of an English equivalent, but it's just not the right translation. Take the Finnish muurikkalettu. It's a thin crepe, cooked on a skillet and very different from it's American much fatter cousin the pancake. You can get something very similar in many places, including France and Switzerland where it's often flambéd in some sweet liqueur, or in Sweden where it is served with whipped cream and strawberry jam. And in Finland, we have the basic type of crepe as well, it's usually made from a simple batter with just milk, egg, wheat flour and possibly sugar. But then we have another crepe as well, the muurikkalettu or muurinpohjalettu. It is cooked on a huge cast iron pan, sometimes up to a meter or more in diameter. The name of the pan, muurinpohjapannu, comes from muurikkapata which is a huge cast iron cauldron which was used to boil bed sheets (and other laundry) back in the old days. Anyways, the crepe pan resembles the bottom of these big cauldrons and has hence been named muurinpohjapannu, i.e. bottom-of-the-cauldron pan and in some Finnish dialects shortened to muurikkapannu.The most hard-core crepe makers can even use it over an open fire, but these days it is usually used over a gas flame which gives you more control over the temperature of the pan. Think along the lines of a paella pan; big, black and flat.

The muurikka-crepes differ a bit from regular crepes. Usually part of the wheat flour is replaced with barley flour to make the crepes a bit more crispy and give the crepes more flavour. Every crepe maker has probably developed their own take on the batter, depending on their pan and style of making crepes. My mum is the official crepe-master at our summer house, and although we have one of the proper big pans, she prefers to make the crepes in our age old cast-iron pans. This way the crepes don't get quite as big, making them easier to handle (and particularly to flip) and you can fit two or even three pans on the big outdoor wood burning stove. This is of utmost importance as the crepes are usually consumed much quicker than they can be made. And of course, the pancakes taste the best straight out of the pan. I tried to ask my mum for a recipe for the batter, but of course she doesn't use one. She just does it on feel. However the recipes that I have found online all seem to be very similar, so I'm stealing this one from Pirkka which would be the Finnish equivalent of Tesco real food. Usually the recipes there are well tested and use basic ingredients and don't try to be overly fancy and my Mum was guessing this was pretty close to her crepe batter.

Finnish muurikka-crepes (makes about 6-12 depending on the size of your pan):

1 l milk or 1 l sparkling water + 2 dl powdered milk (easier to store at the summer house than fresh milk...)

2 dl barley flour

3.5 dl all purpose wheat flour

1.5 tsp salt

3 eggs (my Mum uses 4 eggs per litre milk)

3/4 dl melted butter or rapeseed oil

(for dessert crepes, adSd sugar to taste (2-3 tbsp) and 1-2 tsp vanilla sugar)

Ideas for sweet fillings:

• Caster sugar, or sugar and cinnamon, or sugar, cinnamon and cardamom
  
• Maple syrup or honey
  
• Fresh berries or fruit
  
• Strawberry or raspberry jam
  
• Whipped cream, flavoured quark or ice cream
• Lemon curd
  
• All of the above

Muurikkalettu with cloudberries

Ideas for savoury fillings:

• Mushroom sauce (sautéed mushrooms and onions with cream added)
  
• Cheese (goats, blue cheese, cheddar, Brie...)
  
• Ham or bacon and mustard
  
• Grilled veggies (we used courgette, sweet peppers, onions and tomato)
  
• For savoury pancakes, you can add chopped spinach or nettles or fresh herbs to the batter.

Our crepe dinner table. Fillings include

roast veg, ham, a big pile of crepes,

five different cheeses and chanterelle sauce

The how-to:


Mix all the ingredients, and let stand for at least an hour, and up to several hours. When cooking the crepes, heat a muurikka-pan or cast-iron pan and add rapeseed oil or a mix of butter or rapeseed oil to the pan. Add batter to the pan, and swirl around to spread the batter to make a very thin crepe. When the batter is no longer runny and the underside is cooked golden, flip using a large spatula and cook on other side as well until golden brown. Serve with sweet or savoury fillings.

Don't worry if all crepes won't turn out perfectly

symmetric, they will still be delicious

The verdict:

These are a summer house staple. There is no way my Mum would ever get away with not serving these crepes at least once or twice when we are staying at the summer house. They taste the best straight out of the pan and my favourite filling is strawberry jam. Although admittedly this summer we were spoiled with ripe cloudberries which were hand picked by my Mum's partner. Cloudberries are one more thing on a long list of things I miss, and which are impossible to get in the UK. To be fair, they are so ridiculously expensive back home as well that I hardly ever ate them anyways. They have a very distinct, almost honey-like flavour and are brightly orange. They are often used to make jam or liqueur, and it's a bit of a luxury to get them freshly picked and not in over-sweet jam but as is with some of their original tangy-ness (yes, of course it is a real word!) still left.

Also, don't think you will get away with serving one or two crepes per person. Well at least motto me. Maybe to a normal person. But I can eat half a dozen. Ok maybe not half a dozen, but at least four. And the left overs are great to nibble on later in the evening either cold or re-heated (the most traditional way is to re heat them in the 'summer house microwave' i.e. on the sauna stove. They get a bit extra crisyp when re-heated and should be torn to small pieces and eaten as is. Well, that's how we do it. They make a great brekkie too.

Chanterelle, goats cheese an blue cheese crepe

This time we served crepes for dinner one day too. We had a huge selection of fillings, starting from a chantarelle sauce and ham, and loads of grilled veg and five (yes, I kid you not) different cheeses. I love to be able to mix and match. Chantarelle and goats cheese with a sprinkle of blue cheese is delicious. Again, Finnish blue cheese is just divine. I know it's just a question of what you have grown up with and gotten used to, and as much as I love any blue cheese (who wouldn't!) the Finnish Aura will always remain my favourite. It's more salty than other blue cheeses and a bit milder than Stilton or Gorgonzola. It's also more crumbly than creamy. The best combo ever is Aura and gingerbread. But only the very thin, crispy and richly spiced Finnish/Swedish gingerbread. Well, I'm sure it would be quite good on the softer, more ginger-y UK type gingerbread as well, but the traditional Anna's papparkakor (I think you can get them at Ikea!) are the original and best.

Ok, that was it for today's rant of Finnish food which is superior to that anywhere else. You have to forgive me, it's just been over six months since I last was visiting Finland, and there are some things you just start craving so bad. And when you finally get them, it feels like you have never eaten anything so good in your entire life. Of course, I'm now on day six of the big holiday binge, and I've stopped wearing jeans. Because I can't fit into them anymore. I can see months of suffering ahead as soon as I get home. Which is why I need to enjoy all of this while I'm still on holiday. Because calories on a holiday don't count. Well at least not until, you get home ad have to work them off. Funny enough, when I get home, it's pretty much one year since I started boot camp. And although I have some serious damage control in the months to come, at least I don't need to lose 6 stone. Thank god.

 

 

 

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Finnish forest berry delights

Ha, I got my iPad battery re-charged at my mum's cousin's place which is only a short 10 minute row from our summer house. So I can keep on writing about my obsession with the fruits of the autumnal Finnish forest. Like I wrote earlier, the forest is currently bursting to the brim with berries and mushrooms. It makes you go totally crazy, you just don't want to leave all those lovely (and free!) berries out there. However there are blueberries and lingonberries in pretty much endless amounts, so at some point you just have to admit defeat and leave some of them out there in the forest. I'm sure all of us at he summer house have had more than our daily dose of all possible vitamins.

Yesterday me and sis headed out, braving the ticks, horseflies and mosquitoes (all of which are way too abundant out there in the forest if I might add) to pick blueberries and lingonberries. This summer has been quite humid which has helped produce an extra good berry yield this year. Blueberry season is already towards it's end, but there is still more than plenty of the purple tiny pearls out there. And these are nothing like the huge water-filled (and watery-tasting) berries you can buy in stores. These are tiny little dark purple berries which are loaded with taste and all sorts of things that are good for you, like vitamins and anti-oxidants. Blueberries are basically superfood, they are so good for you. And I'm sure, baking them in a delicious crust with sugar and butter will just enhance the health benefits!

Lingonberry season is not quite at its peak yet, there is plenty of berries out there but most of them are still a bit white on the underside and they have not quite reached their mouth puckering sourness yet. But I'm only here for a few days, so to cook lingonberry pie, I had to live with the fact that the berries were not quite optimal yet. However, as there were so much berries out there, I tried to pick the ripest and reddest ones, as lingonberries is one of those things you just can't get your hands on in the UK so I rationalised that even slightly under-ripe lingonberries are better than no lingonberries at all.

In my last post I touched on the "limitations" of cookin at the summer house. Not only is there no electricity, everything has to be cooked on wood heated stoves or the barbeque, but also there is (at least for all practical purposes) no oven at all. Well, it's not like this would stop me. First I was thinking of cooking something along the lines of a skillet cookie with berries, I have seen several recipes on Pinterest. But one thing we do have is a fish/meat smoking box. So me and my mum thought if it gets hot enough to cook meat, it would probably get hot enough to cook a pie as well. At least it was worth a try, it's not like berry pie would contain anything that would be dangerous to eat if it didn't cook properly through. The worst case would be a gooey berry mess. So we tried to bake a blueberry pie. Which turned out great. So I cooked a lingonberry-quark pie as well. And a mixed berry pie. I even had a stab at a savoury pie, I made one for my sis and her friends to take along on their four day hike in Northern Finland. It was filled with lamb and ham, tomatoes and carrots and topped with loads of cheese. Even that turned out quite delish looking, at least in my humble opinion. I'm waiting to hear a report back qbout the taste.

The fish smoking contraption. Basically, it's a

box you put on the wood burning stove. It heats

up like a mini oven. If you put smoking chips on the

bottom you get smoked meat or fish.

The savoury pie baked in the smoking box. I used

slices of red pepper to mark the edges of different

fillings so that everyone can get their favourite.

When you do summer house cooking, you are not allowed to use any recipes. Or scales or measuring jugs. It should all be done by instinct, touch and feel. That's part of the charm, you never knowif it will work, not to mention you won't ever be able to replicate any successfull efforts. So there is absolutely no guarantee the recipes below will work. However, if you think you actually want to get things right (thereby taking all the excitement out of cooking) you can always just use your favourite pie crust recipe instead of the one below. And use any berries you happen to have. And if you can't get quark, replace it with creme Fraiche, yoghurt or cream cheese. I'm pretty sure they will all work. If you can't get potato starch, use corn starch. And if you happen not to have a wood burning oven with a box for smoking (how could that be?!?!?), use a regular oven. So basically, the point is you want a crust, berries, possibly some dairy for the filling and some contraption to cook it in. This is what I love about cooking, you can just change things around as you wish, and 8 times out of 10 it will work out rather good, and at least 9 if not 10 times out of 10 it will be edible anyways. Particularly if enjoyed outside while watching the sun set over the lake.

Some sort of berry pie-like thing in a smoking box aka summer house cooking:

For the crust

50ish g butter

1 cup-ish AP flour (or whatever flour you happen to have, I used part whole wheat) + possibly some (1/2 cup-ish) extra flour depending on the consistency of the dough

1/2 cup-ish sugar

1/2 pack vanilla quark (100g)

Filling 1

2 cups-ish berries, freshly picked from your own forest (blueberries and/or raspberries)

2 tbsp potato starch

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

Filling 2

2 cups-ish fresh berries (I would suggest lingonberries as they go really well with the sweetness of the berry flavoured quark)

1 can (200g) berry flavoured quark

1 tbsp potato starch

1 egg

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

Flavoured Finnish quarks. Top left lemon,

top right white chocolate and lime, bottom

left vanilla, bottom right blueberry-raspberry

The how-to:

Go out in the forest to pick the berries, and clean away dirt and leaves. Chop the wood for your wood burning oven, and light it in good time. Wash your fish-smoking box to get rid of as much of the fish smell as you can. When you have a nice fire going, prepare the crust. Let the butter soften a bit, add flour and sugars and using your fingers, mix until a crumbly consistency. Add the quark, mix and add flour until dough reaches a nice consistency where it is crumbly and easy to spread to the bottom and sides of a pie tin or whatever heat resistant bowl you happen to have. For filling 1, mix the sugars and starch with the berries and spread onto the pie. For filling 2, mix everything with a fork except the berries. Place berries on the crust and add quark topping to evenly cover the berries. Bake in smoking box until done (took about 90-120 mintes for me, depending on how much wood you keep on the fire at all times).

Pie in the smoking box at the start of baking.

The verdict:

It's clear that a fish-smoker is a very versatile cooking device. Not only can you smoke fish, you can cook delicious juicy meats (like the garlic butter marinated lamb my mum made the other day), but you can clearly use it to bake pies as well. Of course the problem is that controlling the temperature of the smoking box can only be done at the level of adding more or less wood onto the fire, so you have to accept that sometimes the pies come out with the crust a bit underdone, and other times it gets a bit well done, and sticks to your pie tin. Maybe our guests are just being very polite, but so far they have eaten every pie without too much complaints, so I think they have turned out acceptable. To be honest, I thought the one I would like the best was the lingonberry-quark one, but in fact it was the simple one with nothing but blueberries. However, it might alsobe because that one turned out to have the perfect level of cooking with the crust being firm and crisp without it being burned at all and coming out of the pie tin in beautiful slices. The lingonberry one got a bit too fond of sticking to the tin. The mixed berry one is going with my sis and her friends on the hike, so no verdict on that one yet.

Next time I'm coming here I'll make sure I have thought of some other, even more challenging things to cook as it turns out that after years of thinking cooking possibilities are rather limited, it turns out that with a bit of experimenting you can actually cook all sorts. Maybe next time I'll try souffles! Naah, just kidding. Ok, now I'm off to the forest to get another bucket full of berries, going to make berry quark for pudding. And there might be another berry recipe still coming up some other day, who knows!

 

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Chanterelles as far as the eye can see

I'm at the summer house. And I'm online! The joys of 3G devices. Of course I will only be able to log for as long as my iPad battery lasts, as I won't be able to recharge it. But we might be making a detour to civilisation tomorrow so I might be able to kick some more life in it later.

Anyways, on to more exciting things. Like the Finnish forest. We were doing a small hike around the estate today, and oh my what yummy things we found. Blueberries, lingonberries, raspberries and chanterelles. It has obviously been the most amazing blueberry and lingonberry year, because they are everywhere. In abundance. As are the chanterelles. We had a huge bag full of them in no time. For absolutely free! They are so hard to get hold of in the UK, and if you get them, at least they are ridiculously expensive. And they are my all time favourite mushrooms. Not only are the delicious, they are so pretty too. We didn't even really go out mushroom picking, just went for a walk in the forest and picked up the chanterelles that happened to be on our path. And we filled up a big bag. Too bad there is no way I can bring some of them with me back home. Well, I could if we would get around to drying them, but we are so busy picking blueberries and lingonberries and experimenting with some outdoors cooking to have time to go through the hassle of drying the mushrooms. Some of them will be going into my mum's freezer so I will get some the next time I'm visiting.

Of course, the free mushrooms come with a price. They take forever to clean. After years of using only store bought clean mushrooms you tend to forget that mushrooms grow in a forest and tend to have a lot of dirt and other forest-related stuff all over them. But I guess that's part of the charm, to know you have picked and cleaned the mushrooms all by yourself.

In our family, the most traditional thing to do with the first chanterelles of the season is to make oven baked sandwiches with chanterelle sauce and topped with cheese. However, we don't have an oven here so that was out of the question. Ok, technically speaking we do have an oven, but it's one of those wood burning ones which you heat up for hours with wood and then they give off heat for a long time for baking. But the summer house gets so crazy hot if you heat the oven so we do most of our cooking in this fancy wood burning stove/grill in our out-of-doors kitchen. After watching pictures of grilled cheese on Pinterest for months and craving some, I decided the holiday is the wrong time to worry about calories and nutrition plans so I just went for it and made a creamy dreamy chanterelle sauce and stuffed it with some good Finnish cheese between two slices of bread and cooked it all in a cast iron pan which is probably as old as I am.

Chanterelle grilled cheese (serves 6):

One plastic shopping bag full of self-picked chanterelles (two full pans after chopping)

2 onions with greens (from your own allotment of course)

1 cup cheese flavoured cream (Valio Kippari cream)

6 slices of mature cheese (Valio Black label

12 slices of whole grain bread

Butter

The howto:

Cook mushrooms in high heat in two batches in a bit of butter. Set mushrooms aside while sautéing the finely chopped onions, add in the chanterelles and the cream and cook until the sauce thickens. Butter two slices of bread (the "outside" of the sandwich) and add a slice of cheese and a few tablespoons chanterelle sauce between the slices. Cook in butter on a cast iron pan on medium heat until the cheese has melted and serve immediately with some extra sauce on the side. Repeat for the rest of the sandwiches.

The verdict:

Cooking outdoors - brilliant! Self picked mushrooms - awesome! In cream... With cheese. Seriously, if you don't find that as exciting and mouth watering as I do, then you need to have your head examined. Or maybe come over to Finland and go mushroom picking in case you have never had the pleasure before. We have this thing called jokamiehenoikeus ("every mans's right") which means you are allowed to go into any forest to pick berries and mushrooms, as long as you don't go too close to habitation. So it's perfectly legal to drive out into a forest and start picking. And in fact, if you pick berries or mushrooms and sell them, any profit you make is tax-free. I'm not making this up. Apparently only about 10% of all fruits of the forest are picked and used, so there is plenty to go around for everybody who wants a bite. Or a bucket full.

We served the grilled cheese as a starter at our crayfish party (because, to be honest, you need some proper droid as there isn't too much to eat in a crayfish). And they seemed to go down quite well, even with the non-mushroom loving people.

 

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Reindeer surprise

Holiday!! Holi-holi-ho-ho-ho-ho-hooooliday!! It started over half an hour late, my last meeting at work just went on and on and on and on and on. My brain had already shut off fifteen minutes into the meeting, and as the meeting went on for another hour, I spent quite a long time essentially brain dead. It felt like a century. But then finally it came, that sweet moment of freedom. I wanted to scream "FREEEEEEDOM" and run down the corridor to the door. I did resist temptation. I think my colleagues find me weird enough as it is. 

I had the perfect start to the holiday: an hour of combat. Great class, as usual, great energy. I'm lucky to have such a great instructor. And I got to do my favourite muay thai. Oh my how I love the moments when you stand back, wait, and then get to yell "Hyper Hyper" and get going again. Awesome. The best track ever to get out any pent up negative feelings. Certainly helped me get rid of any residual aggression that I don't want to take along to my holiday. Now I'm totally de-aggressed, exhausted (did my usual 20 mile cycle ride in addition to the combat) and well fed (I made a tomato and bacon omelette and some banana ice cream). Next, I need to pack. Tomorrow I'm off to Finland for a week. Going to go to the summer house for a while, which is why this will be my last blog post for a while. And it's not because there wouldn't be cell phone coverage and I couldn't get online. But we don't have electricity (!). Hard to blog when you can't charge your iPad. Oh well, I will just have to make up for it when I get back home.

I really look forward to seeing my family and Finnish friends. Even better, one of my friends is getting married (which is my original reason of going to Finland). I'm thrilled that I finally get to wear my full length cream dress with red and pink flowers. It's a dress I had been eying out at Monsoon for ages, but of course it was too expensive. Then I stumbled upon it in the end of season sales, so I just had to buy it. It was the will of the shopping gods. But I haven't had an opportunity to wear it until now. I also get to wear my fascinator I bought for Ascot. Oh how I love dressing up a bit. Summer weddings are lovely.

Anyways, now that I have explained why I will disappear off the face of the blogosphere for a while, I'll leave you with one last recipe. And quel surprise, it's a brunch recipe. However, for once it's not from Pinterest (yes, I heard that sharp intake of breath there in the back row). It's actually from the deep dark recesses of my mind. I wanted to empty my freezer before my holiday, so this recipe was part of that effort. Last time I went home I brought some smoked reindeer with me. I still had one pack of it left in the freezer, so I wanted to create a nice brunch using the reindeer. I also had some leftover cheese in the freezer which I wanted to use up. So this just came together. And it gave me an opportunity to try my new pink silicon pie mould. I have big silicon pie pans, but I needed a mid size one for cooking for two. And this was so cute I just had to buy it. Worked picture perfect. And cooking breakfast in the oven gives you extra time to get back into bed and snooze for a while longer, which is always appreciated on a lazy Saturday morning.

Reindeer and eggs (serves 3-4):
100 g smoked reindeer meat (ok, if for some strange reason you are struggling to find reindeer, you could replace with any other smoked meat. If you use bacon, you need to cook it first)
5 eggs
1 shallot
125g grated cheese (I went for a mix of dutch edam and chilli cheddar as that was what I had in the freezer)

The howto:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Finely chop shallot and reindeer. In a bowl, use a fork to mix the eggs to make them fluffy, add onion and meat and the grated cheese. Pour into a pie pan and bake for 20ish minutes.

One serving (a quarter of the recipe) contains  231 kcal (15g fat, 1.4g carbs and  21g protein).

The verdict:
What is it about smoked meats and eggs that go so well together? And especially in the morning? The reindeer definitely adds things to this dish you wouldn't get with regular bacon, it does have a very distinct taste of game. Which goes brilliantly with the onion. This got the approval of my culinary consultant, who had never had reindeer before. So if you happen to be around any places where you could get reindeer, do pick up a pack or two, it's really good! Incidentally, tomorrow I'm off to the land of the reindeers, and incidentally my freezer is empty. Will bring home a few packs of reindeer and pop them in the freezer as I have a list of things I want to use it for. Including my mum's famous reindeer jelly. It's epic. Although I'm not sure if it will turn out the right way with UK cottage cheese, which is not nearly as good as Finnish cottage cheese. Maybe I should just use my home-made farmer's cheese instead. Now there is an idea! Stay tuned. The InvisiblePinkOne will be back in about a week and a half.

Yoghurt oatmeal

Things usually are clichés for a reason. Take the saying "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day". Everyone keeps saying that. Is it really? I have been reading up quite a bit on intermittent fasting, which is basically the idea that you should only have a 6-8 hour feeding window each day, have three meals during that window, which is built around your workout, and the fast for the rest of the day. There is a rather good blog called Leangains, which is written by a guy who is a personal trainer and nutritional consultant. And based on the photos of him, I would say he is definitely doing something right, he looks absolutely amazing and is able to keep to at a very low body fat using intermittent fasting. The conventional wisdom is you neet to constantly eat small meals to keep your metabolism going, but it's clear from looking at this guy, there are several approaches to food and nutrition which will work. I am a strong believer in trying out different approaches and doing what feels right for you. My approach to weight loss was built around strict calorie restriction, four meals spread evenly across the day and very strictly keeping away from starch carbs. However, I did try the intermittent fasting for a while as well, as I thought it really sounds quite sensible. And I don't believe your body will actually care very much whether you eat one big meal a day, or five or six really small ones. It's all about psychology, and what will work for you. Well, let me tell you, the intermittent fasting did not work for me. In theory it sounded very good, and it did allow me to have quite a big meal in the evening, which I really love. Evenings after workout is when I crave food the most, and when I stray off the nutrition plan (which has been embarrassingly often lately) it's always in the evening. So I thought by restricting my eating in the morning and day, when I'm at work and can't sneak away to the fridge, I would be able to eat more in the evening, thus hopefully reducing the risk of slipping onto that slippery path of having treats. First I tried a feeding pattern with pre-workout lunch at 3 or 4pm and then a big dinner post workout. It was a horrible pain to go from 9pm to 3pm the next day without eating. It was totally horrible. Especially on days when I bike to work, I thought I would die of hunger by 9am, and then still had 6 more hours to go. So I changed it up to brekkie at noon, then lunch at 3pm and a post-workout dinner. But I have to say, as much as I really wanted that to work, my preferred distribution of meals is brekkie post-workout in the morning, then a snack at noon, lunch at 3pm and dinner post workout in the evening. I have changed things around thanks to the intermittent fasting experiments as I used to have lunch at noon and a snack at 3pm, but it seems to work out better for me the other way around. The moral of the (disturbingly long) story is that you should be open in trying different things, and see what works for you. So for me, the cliché about breakfast being the day's most important meal is true. And this is when we finally come to the point of this post! (Yes, I can see the relief on your faces).

Once again we have Pinterest to thank for a great idea. I saw this pin with no-cook oatmeal in a variety of flavours, and immediately had to try it out. Technically, oats are not part of my nutrition plan. Neither is dairy. But hey, neither was that jar of Marshmallow fluff I stuffed my face with earlier this week, so on the grand scheme of things, I don't think this oatmeal will be why my ass is constantly in an outward expanding motion. I will try to cut down on sugar. And eventually other carbs as well. But until then, I really wanted to try this out. And I love the idea, basically a combination of oatmeal and muesli. Great to eat quickly before heading off to the gym in the morning, a good fix of carbs with some protein added from the yoghurt and chia seeds. And easy to take along to work or wherever. Works as a snack as well, would probably work as a pre workout snack in the afternoon quite well. Easy and so convenient to pre-make for the whole week at once! And endless options to vary the flavourings, only your imagination is the limit. 

The basic recipe:
25 g (1/4 cup) porridge oats (or other cereal, I use about 1/3 millet flakes and 2/3 oats)
70 g (1/4 cup) yoghurt (full fat Greek is my favourite)
80 ml (1/3 cup) milk, rice milk, coconut milk or other liquid (like left over whey from making cheese)
1-2 tbsp chia seeds (or flax seeds or maybe some other seeds)

things for flavouring, like berries, fruit, maple syrup etc. I made one with blueberries and unsweetened strawberry jam, and another with strawberries, raspberries and vanilla extract.

The howto:
Mix everything but berries and/or fruit in a jar, close lid, give a good shake, add the berries/and or fruit and give another shake. Pop in the fridge at least over night, or up to a few days. The original recipe says she used half pint (one cup) mason jars, whereas I used empty marshmallow fluff jars which are much bigger, I would guess at least a pint or so. At least there is room for more berries that way, and stirring the ingredients is easier when the jar doesn't get too full.

The verdict:
Yet another genius food idea which is fast, easy, affordable and only needs a couple of ingredients. And I really loved both the taste and the texture. I'm a big fan of oatmeal as well, so that might partly explain it. But I would say that even if you don't like oatmeal you should give this a try, as it tastes quite different. Somehow the combination of oats and yoghurt has a good harmony. I have only kept mine in the fridge over night and the oats (I am currently using Tesco Organic oats, which are the hugest oat flakes I have ever seen in my life) have been a very nice texture, soft but with some chew left in them. I don't know if keeping the oatmeal in the fridge for more than one night would make them softer. The chia seeds are very neutral in flavour, basically just consider them a nutritional add on, they don't bring much to the flavour or texture. Also, you might need to experiment a bit with the amount of liquid depending on type of cereal and type of yoghurt used. And on your preference of how solid or runny you like your oatmeal. I used the same basic recipe for my blueberry flavoured batch as well as my strawberry and raspberry one. The strawberry and raspberry oatmeal turned out much runnier, partly I think this is because I used a lighter yoghurt (goat's milk yoghurt versus full fat Greek in the first batch) but also because both berries did release quite a bit of liquid during the night. So with softer berries, I would decrease the amount of liquid or use a heavier yoghurt. But experimenting with these things is half the fun, and both batches did end up tasting really good anyways, so don't be scared, just jump in there and trust your gut. Both for measuring the ingredients and for sampling the results!

The options on how to flavour the oatmeal are endless, this is a perfect time to use your imagination. I have actually gone so far as to consider quite disturbing flavour combos, like throwing in some bacon. I mean, choc chip and bacon muffins or pancakes sound absolutely delish, so why not choc chip and bacon oatmeal? You can swap millet for some other favourite cereal, use your favourite seeds, use any yoghurt (or liquid, I guess you could substitute things like orange juice here as well) you prefer, and the combination of flavourings in endless. There are some brilliant ideas in the post where I originally discovered the idea (from The Yummy Life) and there are more ideas here. The flavour combinations mentioned in those two posts are:

• mango, honey and almond extract
• blueberries and maple syrup
• unsweetened apple sauce, cinnamon and honey
• banana, cocoa powder and honey
• banana, peanut butter and honey
• raspberries, raspberry jam and vanilla extract
• canned mandarine, orange marmelade and honey
• cherries, chopped dark chocolate, vanilla extract and honey
• cocoa powder, espresso powder and honey
• coconut milk (to replace the regular milk), pineapple and honey
• pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, maple syrup (ok, can you get more American than that??? well maybe if you added peanut butter)
• chopped peaches, raspberry jam and vanilla extract
• chopped pecans, cranberry sauce, honey and nutmeg
• dried apricots, crystallised ginger and almond extract

That should be enough to give you some ideas. Basically any fruit or berry you can think of, with something sweet (if you fancy that, although with berries and fruit, I personally don't think it needs any other sweetener than the fruit sugars. I like the slightly sour flavour of the yoghurt to come through). For some reason making this in a jar instead of on a plate (which you can do of course) makes it much more fun to eat. My jars are quite big, so they fit a lot of fruits/berries, it's of course up to you (and your tolerance for added calories) how much you want to add to the basic cereal mix. I can't wait to try more flavours, I bet the banana ones are going to be awesome. I also have some raw chocolate and sesame seed paste which I haven't been able to find any use for, I think it would go great with some banana. I think that will be the next one I try.

I made mozzarella!

This cheese thing is getting totally out of control. But now that I've got started, there is no stopping me. I have a collection of recipes I really want to try. I even found several recipes for Leipäjuusto, a Finnish oven baked cheese which is absolutely impossible to get anywhere outside Finland, and impossible to transport as you would need to keep it chilled during transport so that it won't spoil. Can't wait to try that out! Anyways, after a few successful attempts with the basic easy farmer's cheese, I felt it was time to take things up a notch. Mozzarella. Which requires a bit more than just milk and half a cup of lemon juice to make.

Best friend came over to help me out with this, after all, two PhD brains are better than one PhD brain, right? Well, there is of coure the Swedish proverb saying the more cooks, the worse the soup. But we have both been successful in the lab following very complicated protocols, so we felt like we were up for the challenge. 

This recipe calls for some ingredients you don't necessarily find in your local grocery. However, the wonderful world of internet shopping brings it all to your fingertips at the flash of a credit card. I bought my citric acid off Amazon for just a few quid. The rennet was a bit more expensive, but I should now have rennet to last me at least the next 20 years. Well actually, maybe not if I keep up the level of cheese making I'm currently at. But for a long time nonetheless.

A few thoughts on the choice of milk. The recipe states that you can use pretty much any milk (skim, semi skimmed, whole) as long as it's not ultra hight temperature (UHT) pasteurised. Regular pasteurised will do fine, although apparently raw is best. But hard to get hold of unless you happen to have a cow or two hanging around. I was going to go for whole milk, but then I saw this amazing thing called Gold Top Milk, which has a bit more fat (it's 5.2%). So I ended up buying two litres of whole milk and a litre of the Gold Top hoping it would bring a bit of creaminess to the mozzarella. And yes, I know you should use buffalo milk for mozzarella, but my local Tesco doesn't seem to stock it for some strange reason. So this is cowzarella.

I picked up this recipe from Pinterest (you know, I hardly even have a look on there these days. Yeah right... Way more addictive than Facebook, I'll tell ya). I even have a whole board dedicated just to cheese! The recipe I used is from a blog called The Kitchn and it has some really good pictures and extensive instructions to aid in the loss of your mozzarella-making virginity. And unlike some other recipes I was looking at, this does the finishing steps in the microwave instead of heating the cheese in the whey during the kneading steps, so it was a bit easier and quicker. 

This recipe has quite a few steps, but don't let that scare you. There is no hurry between steps, so you can take your time and read the instructions while cooking. Having an extra pair of hands holding the thermometer is always helpful, but you can manage alone no problem. Just keep your cool, read through the recipe once or twice before starting and then just proceed step by step when cooking. You will do fine, trust me. It's not rocket science. But it's ridiculously fun!

I made it myself Mozzarella:
3l milk (original recipe says a gallon, which is actually 3.7l)
1 1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoon citric acid
1/4 rennet tablet
salt

The howto:
Make sure you also have a cheese cloth (or tea towel) lined colander, rubber gloves, a slotted spoon, a microwave proof bowl and a thermometer. 

Start by dissolving the citric acid in 1 cup of water and the rennet tablet in 1/4 cup of water. 

In a non-reactive pot (see here for a discussion on non-reactive cookware, I used my Teflon lined 5l pot) stir in the dissolved citric acid into the milk and heat on medium while gently stirring until the milk reaches 32 degrees C (90 degrees F).

Take the pot off the hotplate, stir in the rennet. Stir slowly while counting to 30 and then cover the pot and let stand untouched for 5 minutes for the curds to form. After 5 minutes they should look like "silken tofu" according to the original recipe, mine looked like severely thick grainy soup. But it was a bit firmer than the curds from the farmer's cheese. If you feel like the curds haven't solidified to look like the picture, let them stand covered a bit longer.

Using a knife, cut the curds to form squares. Make sure you cut all the way through the curds (which were not quite solid, but the cutting marks stayed in the curds). You can see how the whey is separating.

Put the pot back on the hotplate on medium heat, gently stir while heating to 40 degrees C (105 degrees F). Don't stir too vigorously so that you don't break up the curds too much. Take the pot off the hotplate and continue to gently stir for another 5 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the curds to a microwave proof bowl. Don't worry that there will be quite a bit of whey in there as well. Microwave for 1 minute, and transfer into a cheese cloth lined colander to drain off the whey. Put on rubber gloves, and squeeze whey out of the curds. Transfer back to the microwave proof bowl.

Microwave the curds in 30 second intervals until they reach 57 degrees C (135 degrees F). This took 3x30 sec for me, and they actually ended up much hotter than 135. Don't worry if that happens, your cheese will still turn out perfect! 

Add salt. Wearing rubber gloves, stretch the curds and fold over themselves for a while, they will soon get a nice mozzarella texture. Don't overwork it. When the texture is firm, form into several small balls, one big ball or anything in between. Congratulations, your mozzarella is done. You can eat it immediately, or store it in the whey in the fridge for a few days. 

The verdict:
You know what mozzarella tastes like? It's like little bits of heaven. Well, this mozzarella tastes exactly like mozzarella! And you know how mozzarella feels when you chew? A bit chewy, a slight bit squeaky between your teeth. And you know what, this feels exactly like mozzarella! In fact, this is just like mozzarella. Only better. Because you made it yourself. You cooked the milk, made it curdle, heated it up and worked it until it became mozzarella. Me and Best Friend were giddy, we kept looking at each other saying "We made mozzarella". For some reason, I was convinced we would screw it up. It would turn out weird and not very good. But it turned out exactly like mozzarella! I can't stop saying that, because I still can't believe how amazing it turned out. I worked it with my own hands, I kept stretching the play-doh like cheese mixture in my hands, just because it felt so amazing. Ok, I realise this is probably not comparable with, say, sending men to the moon, discovering the structure of DNA or a finally getting that elusive glimpse of the Higgs boson. But pretty goddamn close.

We ended up enjoying our mozzarella fresh from the oven (well fresh from the microwave) with some juicy ripe tomatoes, basil and garlic butter baguette (you know, the one you buy ready made from the store and pop in the oven and pretend you baked it yourself). And you know what, it tasted exactly like mozzarella! Oh, maybe I already mentioned that. 

Is it easier to buy ready made mozzarella from the store? Oh yes. Is it cheaper? Depends on if you get the cheap stuff or not. Is the home made one better? I would say at least as good as store bought, possibly a notch better, particularly when combined with the sense of achievement this gives you. Will I make it again? You bet your bottom (and my expanding one) I'm going to make it again. After I try to make Leipäjuusto, and halloumi, and ricotta, and cream cheese and mascarpone. And possibly some other cheeses I haven't found the recipe for yet. And no, you won't be able to avoid hearing about my continued explorations into the amazing world of home made cheese. Well, you will if you don't read the blog, but we wouldn't want that now, would we?