Pork and chorizo stew

Culinary Consultant week continues here on the blog this week. This recipe was created and cooked by him with very little contribution from me, apart from taking the photos and typing up this post (although I do take credit for the suggestion of adding chorizo to it). This stew was waiting for me when I got home from work the other Friday. He is much better at cooking healthy food than I am, he seems to naturally gravitate towards rather wholesome home cooked basic food. I'm more about carbs and cheese and chocolate. To be honest, I do wish I didn't have all these crazy cravings all the time and would be happy to just eat basic healthy food. But don't worry, I will be back with some of my very unhealthy carb and sugar loaded recipes soon! To be honest, I may just extend Culinary Consultant week for one more post to show you he does cook puddings as well. 

Back to the star of the day. The combination of sweet and spicy paprika gives the stew just a little bit of a kick, without being too overpowering and the chorizo and red peppers bring lovely flavour. As it's about time to admit it's no longer summer, evenings are getting colder and darker a hearty stew is very appropriate. We enjoyed it with a glass of cider. This makes quite a big serving, but it can easily be frozen for later, and it only gets better when re-heated so a few days in the fridge will only improve it further.

Pork and chorizo stew (serves 8):
2 parsnips
4 carrots
10 medium potatoes (we used Red Duke of York grown in our own potato patch)
1 kg (2.2 lb) pork steaks
1 tbsp olive oil
black pepper to taste
1/2 + 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika powder
1 + 2 tsp hot smoked paprika powder
about 100 g chorizo 
2 medium onions
3-4 cloves garlic
1 sweet pepper (eg. 1/2 green and 1/2 red)
1 sachet of Schwarz Summerset Pork Casserole spice mix (or some other spice mix you like)
1/2 cup dry apple cider 
2 apples

The howto:
Peel and slice the parsnips, carrots and potatoes. Cut the pork into slices. Heat the olive oil in a skillet and cook the pork on medium heat until cooked through. Add a grind of black pepper, about 1/2 tsp of sweet paprika and 1 tsp of hot paprika powder to the pork while it's cooking. When pork is cooked, transfer to a bowl and pour any juices in the pan into a jug. Slice the chorizo and sweet pepper, finely chop onions and garlic. Slowly heat chorizo in a pan until it starts to release fat into the pan, add the peppers, onion and garlic. Cook for a few minutes until the onion starts to soften a little. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C (375 F)

Layer the root veg, pork and chorizo/onion/pepper mix in a large oven proof dish (we used a 4.5 litre Pyrex casserole dish) with a lid. 

Boil a kettle with about 1 litre of water. Add the sachet of spice mix to the jug with the pork juices, and add 2 tsp sweet and 2 tsp spicy paprika powder. Add 500 ml of hot water and mix well. Pour the apple cider and spice mix over the casserole. Add hot water from the kettle until all ingredients in the casserole dish are covered. 

Cook in the middle of the oven at 190 degrees for about 2 hours with the lid on. Peel and slice the apples, layer on top of the casserole and return to oven for another 1/2 hour, again with the lid on.

The verdict:
The Culinary Consultant is a big fan of casseroles (not least because they make a large serving with no need for cooking for days) and he cooks them from time to time. Usually they are made with beef, but I think this is the first one with pork. I thought it was a really tasty and hearty casserole with very well balanced flavours. And I'm not a very big fan of pork, so that should tell you something. I think the sweetness from the apples and the sweet peppers compliment the lovely full flavours of the pork and chorizo very well. This is also turned out to be a rather frugal recipe, we got the pork on a great offer of £5 for a kilogram, the apples, onions and potatoes were from our own garden. The apple cider we used was a ridiculously expensive one (in my defence, I didn't buy it, my Mum did). If you used regular cider, that would take the cost down even more, but I worked it out that the total cost of ingredients (excluding what we got for free from the garden and the spices and olive oil), it came to a total of £9.66 or £1.20 per serving.

Beef and Guinness stew

Saturday morning, 5:20 am. I have survived my first week in the new job, in fact I more than survived it, I had a great time. I was eased in very gently and it almost felt like a holiday with a minimum number of emails and loads of time to read up on background material, a luxury I know I won't have later. But one thing that has been a bit of a struggle has been the early mornings. So I was looking forward to sleeping in today. But as fate will have it, I have come down with a bit of a cold, so I have been waking up for most of the night with a cough, aching sinuses and having to blow my nose a lot. So I thought I might as well get up instead of tossing and turning and constantly waking the poor Culinary Consultant. So I am sitting here in my crafting lair listening to a choir of birds sing outside welcoming the dawn, and sipping a cup of mint tea with honey, made from dried mint from my very own garden. I was really hoping I had managed to avoid the cold, I felt a bit crappy on Wednesday and Thursday with a sore throat, but I went to sleep really early on Thursday night and felt much better on Friday morning so I though I got away easily. Clearly not. But like the model employee I am, of course I got sick on the night between Friday and Saturday so that I can spend all weekend poorly and then be ready to go back to work on Monday morning. But at least I have an excuse to huddle up in bed under the covers for most of the day, and spend the rest of it crafting and blogging. 

Based on the contents of my RSS feed and all the green food that has cropped up over the last few weeks, you can't miss that St Patrick's day is just around the corner (for those of you like me who had no idea when it is, it is in fact on Monday the 17th). So I thought why not, I'll contribute a little something as well. I just pretty much made a regular meat stew as we usually make them, but threw in some Guinness for good measure.

Beef and Guinness stew (feeds 6-8, or 2 people for the better part of a week):
1 onion
1 stalk of celery
2 tbsp oil
800 g beef, diced
salt and pepper
3 giant carrots (probably corresponding to 4-5 regular carrots)
3 large potatoes
3 small parsnips
4-5 large mushrooms (this was what I happened to have in the fridge, you can omit or add more if you want to)
1 can of Guinness
dried thyme
salt and pepper
enough beef stock to cover the veg and meat
4 bay leaves

The howto:
Finely chop the onion and celery. Heat up a large frying pan and add 2 tbsp of oil. Add the celery and onion and let cook for a few minutes. Add half of the beef. Cook until beef is nicely browned on the surface, season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl. Add the other tbsp of oil to the pan and fry the second half of the beef, and transfer to the side as well. If there is a lot of brown goodness stuck to the pan, add a bit of water and let bubble away until the stuff from the bottom of the pan has dissolved into the water. 

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Peel and thinly slice the carrots, spuds and parsnips. Slice the mushrooms. In a large lidded ovenproof casserole, add layers of potatoes, parsnips, carrots and meat adding in the mushrooms at some point as well. About halfway through, add two of the bay leaves, and sprinkle with black pepper and some dried thyme. Once everything is layered in the casserole, finish by sprinkling with thyme and black pepper and add two bay leaves. Pour enough Guinness and beef stock to cover everything in the casserole, and cook with the lid on for about 2 hours and 20 minutes. Then take off the lid to allow some of the liquid to evaporate and cook for another 40 minutes. Serve with mash or sweet potato fries.

The verdict:
We often make a big chicken or beef stew for Sunday dinner and then have leftovers for dinner the next week. It is a perfect way to get rid of whatever meat we happen to have in the freezer, or what happened to be on sale, and also to use up any root veg we happen to have around so there is a lot of variation. You can pour some wine in with the stew, and we are often using different varieties of store bought seasoning mixes for stews to change things up as well. Sometimes we have been able to go all the way to Thursday on one giant batch of stew. If you don't like to eat the same food many days in a row, just freeze the stew in appropriate sized servings and pull out later. After defrosting, you can either heat it up in the microwave, or in a smaller casserole in the oven. Usually the stew only gets better after standing a few days in the fridge so it's perfect food for re-heating. The stew itself was tasty and got even tastier over the next few days. If you are worried that it will taste too much of beer, it won't. If you really want to taste the Guinness, I would add more that one can to the stew, but if you add one can it just gives a bit of warmth and flavour to the stew but is in no way overpowering. I served the stew with oven baked sweet potato fries. Just chop up your sweet potatoes into sticks, coat lightly in oil and sprinkle with your choice of seasoning (I used just a bit of salt and pepper) and bake in 200 degrees C for 45-55 minutes depending on your preference of crispiness.

New Year, New Waistline

And so the misery of yet another year has begun. No more holidays in sight (well, to be honest, I'm jetting away to the Canary Islands in the beginning of February but it's still a lifetime away...), no sugar, no chocolate, no fun. Well, apart from going to the gym. Which is great fun! I just have the best instructors ever, they make me come back again and again, because working out and sharing some of their amazing positive energy is the best thing ever. Healthy life is obviously a balance between eating healthily, enjoying some goodies every once in a while, and being physically active. For me the hard thing isn't the exercise. I really enjoy it, honestly. Well, at least 90% of the time. Sometimes dragging yourself out in the rain and the dark to get to the gym is a bit uninspiring. Especially now that I switched to another gym which is not around the corner like my old gym. But it's totally worth it, the classes are much better, and the instructors are amazing. 

Clearly my problem with the healthy lifestyle is eating healthy. Well, not even that is such a problem really, I like healthy food. I'm lucky that I really love fresh veggies in all forms. It's the part about enjoying goodies within reason that I struggle with. I just can't keep it to a small treat every once in a while. If I told you what I have eaten over the last three or four months, you would not believe it. You would think it would be impossible for a human being to gob down so much food. But trust me, my friends, it is. And that is why I am currently wearing only skirts, as I cannot get the zip done on my jeans. Not even on my fat jeans! The only way to try and lose weight for me is to go cold turkey on sugar in all it's forms. No treats until the jeans fit again. It worked for me a year and a half ago when I got rid of almost a third of me. Part of that has been creeping back, and now I'm taking action again. I'm not going to quite the extremes I did back then (I don't think months of doing three hours of exercise every single day is really a good idea in the long run) but I have to get rid of my sugar addiction. I did it once, so I can do it again.

To keep on the straight and narrow I have decided I will have to give up one of my favourite hobbies. No more browsing Pinterest or food blogs. Looking at pictures of all those wonderful cakes and cookies and chocolates and bars and pies and whatnots is just too painful. Except of course, I have already slipped. However, I can proudly say that what I found was NOT this Oreo cookie bark from Cookies and Cups, but this really yummy looking lentil stew from Chocolate Covered Katie. And this was a great find today as I was going to make a lentil soup. But that was just the same old lentil soup I always make, so I was really happy to run into this recipe. And I had almost all of the ingredients at home. The only thing I didn't have was mushrooms. And having just got home from work, I really couldn't be bothered to go out mushroom hunting, so I decided to finally use up the bag of dried mixed mushrooms that has been living in my kitchen for way too long. And I threw in a handful of dried black trumpets as well, lovingly hand picked straight out of the clean Finnish forests by my Mum. I'm currently trying to use up all the food I have stocked in my kitchen, I have such a bad habit of buying more and more without using up the old ones first, and with a kitchen the size of a shoebox, it might be a good idea to try and keep the food stocks to a minimum. It's not like I'm going to starve, with six (!) grocery stores within a five minute walk. Truth be told, there are a few things I absolutely must have stockpiled in my kitchen. As long as I have onions, chick peas, tuna and tinned tomatoes, I'm ok. I know that's enough to survive on if there was a crisis. Not that I know what kind of crisis that would be, but still. Better safe than sorry.

Well, after all that rambling, I guess it's time to finally get to the good part. This recipe is not only healthy and colourful, but it is also great for using up any left over veggies from the fridge. The list of ingredients may seem long, but at least for me, almost all were things I already had at home. Fresh mushrooms will work as well as the dried ones, the original recipe used fresh mushrooms.

Lentil stew, slightly adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie (serves 6):

40 g dried mixed mushrooms

2 onions

1 tsp coconut oil

2 cloves of garlic

4 big carrots

3 stalks of celery

2 bell peppers (I used one yellow and one red for the nice colours)

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tsp dried cumin

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp dried chilli flakes

2 cups dried red lentils

400 g tinned tomatoes

2 cups vegetable broth (i.e. 2 cups of water and a veggie stock cube)

100 g spinach

grated zest from one lemon (original recipe says 1 1/2 tbsp, but I only had one small lemon at home, so I ended up with a bit less)

According to my estimations, one serving contains 209 kcal (2.7 g fat, 43 g carbs of which 7.9 g sugars and 14.7 g protein).

The howto:

If using dried mushrooms, rehydrate the mushrooms in boiling water for 20ish minutes. Chop onions, finely chop the garlic, and chop the carrots, celery and bell peppers. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook onions for about 5 minutes. Then add the garlic, carrots, celery and peppers and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, vinegar and spices and let cook for another 5 minutes (15 if you are adding fresh mushrooms). Add the lentils, tomatoes and broth, and cook until the lentils are done (for me this was about 40 minutes, and I had to add another cup of water during the cooking, so keep an eye out). Right before serving, add spinach and lemon zest, and cook for 2-3 minutes. 

The verdict:

Food with lots of veggies in different colours is always tasty. It's nice to eat because it makes you feel so healthy. This was a bit different from my usual lentil stew, which was really great, I need to stop cooking the same old things over and over. This stew was nice and warming on a cold evening, and with plenty of lentils it's nice and filling. Also, letting it all slowly cook together really brings out the natural sweetness in the veggies, I think the addition of tomato paste and lemon really enhances this aspect. 

One thing I have always wondered about, is how all the "real" food bloggers always get their food to look so nice. Just have a look at the photos on Katie's blog, the stew looks so beautiful and colourful and appetising. Mine, despite tasting absolutely wonderful, turned out to look like a bunch of red goo. Oh well, beauty is only skin deep. 

Fruit-y lamb with herb-y quinoa

As much as I have whined about missing various Finnish cooking ingredients, this post will be a celebration of something I have been enjoying immensely in the UK. And that, my friends, is affordable lamb. Actually affordable food in general. Every time I go to the grocery store I remind myself of how much cheaper food is in the UK compared to Finland. Back home, food, but particularly meat is crazy expensive. And I know it has only gotten more so in the few years I have been away, so I'm not sure I can ever go back. Also, in the UK the availability of lamb is superior compared to Finland. Several different cuts, sizes and nationalities of lamb. Even organic from time to time. All to reasonable prices. 

I have very mixed feelings about being a carnivore. On one hand, on my current diet plan, there is no way I could get enough proteins from vegetarian food while trying to keep down the calories. And I have some problems with the thought of eating soy, especially as it seems to maybe not be as healthy as has been thought. I don't think getting all your protein from whey powder is a viable option either. This is how I rationalise to myself my carnivorous cravings. At the same time, I'm aware of the horrible way animals are treated, and that is certainly not right either. So while I'm trying to cut down on the amount of meat I'm eating, I'm also acknowledging that I'm being a horrible hypocrite, thinking that basically what I'm doing is wrong but have no intention of changing it. I guess we should all aim, when possible (due to accessibility, economic factors etc) to buy organic meat, or even better, meat from local producers where you can actually go to the farm yourself and see how the animals live their lives. But for now I feel like thats a bit of an utopian thought. 

Well, now that I'm feeling extremely guilty about even thinking of posting this recipe, there is one more point to consider, which should not be important but it is to me. It is just... so... incredibly... tasty! 

This recipe is stolen and slightly modified from Epicurious.

Lamb apricot tagine (serves 4):
300g diced lamb
1tbsp rapeseed oil
salt
black pepper
2-4 cloves garlic
1 onion
ginger root

1-2 tbsp Ras-el-Hanout (I also have used a mix of cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom, cloves, chilli and ground ginger as a replacement)

400g tinned tomatoes

1 chicken stock cube (and 500ml of boiling water)

230g chickpeas
1.25dl (1/2 cup) dried apricots and dried figs
cilantro
150g quinoa
1/2 veggie stock cube
mint 
cilantro

The howto:
If you are not using tinned chickpeas, prepare the chickpeas according to instructions. While chickpeas are cooking, heat oil in a frying pan, season lamb and brown on all sides, working in batches to keep the pan nice and hot all the time. Let lamb rest in a bowl, and fry onions, garlic and ginger. Add Ras-el-Hanout (or mix of spices) and cook for a minute or two. Add tomatoes and lamb, add stock cube and 500ml of water, let gently boil for at least 90 minutes, more if you have time and patience. When the lamb is almost done cooking, prepare the quinoa according to instructions. Finely chop mint and cilantro, and mix with the quinoa when it's done. 

Stir in chickpeas with the lamb, cook for another 10 minutes. Add the apricots and cook for a few more minutes. Serve with quinoa and sprinkle with finely chopped cilantro.

The verdict:
This is a great recipe, I love the mix of spices. I like to throw in a few cloves, some chilli and cardamom even if I'm using the Ras-el-Hanout to make it really spicy as the flavours will get a bit more smooth during the long cooking time. Also, this leaves the lamb succulent and soft enough to crumble to pieces at just the thought of touching it with a fork. The added sweetness from the apricots (I sometimes also like to throw in dried figs) goes perfectly with the spices, and the herbs, particularly the mint, in the quinoa bring a nice freshness to it all. This is a dish I can't get enough of, and every time lamb is on  special offer, I have to get some just to make this. The long cooking time is a bit of a challenge, as I tend to hover around in the kitchen, tasting the stew while it is cooking, as I just can't wait for it to finish cooking. 

Late Friday quickie and a rant

I know it's not Friday anymore, but yesterday evening when I was writing this up, I managed to fall asleep on my sofa. At 9.30pm on a Friday night. Yes, my life is thoroughly exciting. 

So, this lentil stew is the ultimate Friday comfort food, the one that started my obsession of cooking something quick and easy (and sometimes even healthy) on a Friday night. About a year ago, I realised I need to lose some weight. Well, I had actually realised it long ago (like 10 years ago or so...) but last September I finally reached the point where I decided I have to do something about this disaster *now*. And it wasn't enough to lose *some* weight, but actually quite a lot. By coincidence I happened to stumble upon an advert for bootcamp on the for-sale email list at work. I emailed the personal trainer, who offered me a free trial month of bootcamp. Which is probably the only reason I went, I certainly did not believe the promises they made on the website. "Lose a stone the first month or your money back". To me that screams hoax from the start. However, I thought I might as well do the free month, and then figure out what to do next. 

Well, here I am, ten months later, and over five stone lighter. Actually, I got there in about six months, so I did lose about a stone a month. I still can't believe that has actually happened. And yes, it has involved blood, sweat and tears. Well at least sweat and tears, can't remember any blood along the way. The bootcamp involved a total diet change for me, and workouts three mornings a week (at 6.30 am!!). Well, getting up was really hard. Until the weight just started falling off in big chunks. After the first two weeks I had already lost several pounds. That is all the motivation you need. 

So that was a bit of a detour, but I did have a point. In addition to the early morning workout sessions, the bootcamp included a diet plan. I always thought I was pretty tuned in to healthy food. I knew sugar was bad, and fats were bad. Back home the nutritional guidelines are presented as a "plate model" where you will half your plate with veggies and greens, a quarter with meat, fish or some other protein and a quarter with potato, rice, pasta or some other carb. In addition you should eat low fat dairy products and bread, preferably rye bread with "healthy" fats such as margarine (yuck). I had been trying to eat like that, but I just couldn't seem to shift any weight. Sometimes I would lose weight if I just dropped calories to absolute minimum, but it would all come back, and I would feel hungry and horrible. And of course I'm not denying that I love my sugar and chocolate, I'm a carboholic and baby I was born that way, so stuffing my face with doughnuts did play a role at times. An important thing the bootcamp made me accept (not realise, as I have realised it years ago, but to accept that it's the only way forward) was that I'm not on a diet. This is not something that will end. This is a total, and (hopefully) long lasting change.

The bootcamp nutrition plan pretty much was based on two ideas, detox and the idea that "fats don't make you fat, sugar makes you fat". And it's not one of those things where you can just replace carbs with lard, bacon, butter, cheese and cream. It's basically built around the idea that you should prepare your food from fresh, high quality ingredients which don't include things that are bad for your body, such as sugars, alcohol, caffeine and additives. You can have pretty much unlimited greens and veggies and reasonable amounts of lean protein. No refined carbs, no dairy (apart from full fat yoghurt), no starch carbs except post workout (in the form of quinoa or sweet potato). Obviously no sugar or alcohol. And nothing that comes in a jar or tin which contain ingredients you cannot pronounce, or know what they are. Basically just plain good home-cooked food, made from fresh (and preferably organic) ingredients, with all the bad stuff left out. I was a bit worried about some aspects of the nutrition plan, such as the high amount of eggs and the types of fat that were used. We have all learned eggs are bad and increase your cholesterol levels, and coconut oil is the most horrible fat possible. Well, after six months on the bootcamp nutrition plan, I did a health check which included things like blood cholesterol levels, blood glucose levels, enzyme tests for liver function etc. And while I've never had problems with high cholesterol, my LDL (the "bad cholesterol") was even lower than it used to be, my HDL (the "good cholesterol") was also in a very good range, as were all the rest of the tests. So while I will probably redo the blood tests in another six months or so just to keep an eye on the situation, I think I'm genuinely healthier than I have ever been. And I certainly wasn't able to run 20k ten years ago! (Not that running distance necessarily is the best measure for fitness, and in the end 20k is not that much, but for me it's better than I've ever done!). 

While I do believe people have different metabolisms and what works for someone doesn't work for someone else, this was exactly what my body needed. Everyone needs to find the nutrition plan that works for them. But for me, the excess weight just fell off, and I have felt amazing ever since. I do have my bad days, weeks, and lately even two bad months where I have been stuffing myself with sugar, and I can feel it. I got my first flu in ages after being sloppy with my diet, and my workout performance has gone downhill. So it was time to get myself back into gear, and that is what this soup represents. I'm back on the strict bootcamp nutrition plan, and this is my favourite recipe from the bootcamp recipe book. I used to cook it almost every Friday last winter, my ritual after coming home from my weekly grocery shopping trip. I would let the stew cook while I put away my groceries, and then snuggle down on the sofa with my stew and enjoy the feeling of hot comfort food and the joy of not having to go to work for two days. 

I know I won't keep to the super-strict diet for the rest of my life. Once I get my few extra pounds off, I will add a bit of luxury here and there, a weekend brekkie of decadence, some cheese once or twice a week, and some rye bread. And chocolate, of course (although hopefully in smaller servings than before). I am being positive about being able to eat pretty much according the the nutrition plan for the rest of my life, I have once again become passionate about cooking, and love the food I'm eating. Of course there will be some cheats thrown in, but if you are good 90% of the time, being a bit bad every once in a while won't destroy the balance.

Well, I've kept rambling on for way too long, and will now finally get to the good part. Sorry about the soapbox type of attitude, it's just I'm really passionate about this, as I never ever in my whole life thought I would be able to lose that extra weight. I thought I would be carrying around my extra stones of lard for the rest of my life. So all the rambling is just about being relieved that wasn't true, and there are things out there that actually work. Of course they need determination, willpower, sweat and tears. Oh, and about the recipe. I know this looks very simple and unassuming, but be assured, it's yummy. 

Curried lentil stew (serves 4):

1 onion

a few cm of fresh ginger root (or 1 tbsp ground ginger if you don't have any fresh around)

1 garlic clove

15g (about one tablespoon) virgin coconut oil (or your favourite oil)

1-2tbsp of your favourite curry powder (I like to use a mix of Tandoori and mild curry)

2 cups (5dl) lentils (I like to use red ones as they cook the quickest)

4 cups (1l) veggie stock

5 tomatoes (or a tin of chopped tomatoes if you don't happen to have fresh ones)

100g yoghurt (I use full fat organic Greek yoghurt)

coriander

The howto:

Chop the onion, ginger and garlic, and fry in the oil until onion turns translucent. Add the curry powder and let cook for a few more minutes. Add stock and lentils, and cook until lentils are done, about 25 minutes for red ones, longer for green lentils. Add chopped tomatoes, yoghurt and chopped coriander and serve.

One serving contains 300kcal (11g fat, 50g cabs of which 4.5g sugars, 17g protein).

The verdict:

Like I said, I cooked this almost weekly last winter, and haven't since, until yesterday. And I was again reminded why this is my favourite recipe from the bootcamp cookbook. I love lentils in any form, and the combination of lentils and curry just works. I guess you could use a stronger curry mix to spice it up if you like, but I think you need to have some of the mild curry in there to get the right flavour. The yoghurt adds a lovely creaminess, while the tomatoes and coriander add freshness. I admit, this isn't the prettiest food, so probably not something to serve if you have guests, but if you need something healthy and soothing for a lunch or dinner, this is definitely your choice. Also, it is brilliant because all the ingredients are things I always have in stock at home, so this is perfect to cook if it's towards the end of the week, and you don't have time to go grocery shopping. In that case, I often replace the fresh tomatoes with tinned ones. The soup also freezes well, so if you are lucky enough to have a big freezer, just double up the recipe and freeze in individual servings. If you have a shortage of containers for freezing, a brilliant tip I saw somewhere is to line a container with a freezer bag, pour in the stew, let freeze in the container so it keeps a nice square shape, and after overnight freezing, just remove the container and use for something else. This way you get nice, stackable, single servings of food without having to own loads of freezing containers.

School food nostalgia

After making my less traditional version of spinach pancakes, I have been thinking a lot about traditional Finnish food, and particularly food memories from my childhood. I don't know if I'm suffering from an iron deficiency right now, but the two foods that have particularly occupied my thoughts have been liver casserole and blood pancakes. Weird, I know. Oh, and I should apologise in advance, this will be a very long rant going off on several topics. As usual, feel free to skip straight to the recipe at the end.


I guess the first thing I should explain for the non-Finnish reader (not sure if there are any... oh well, I'll go ahead anyways) is about Finnish school food. In Finland, all the way from elementary to high school, you are served a free warm lunch every day. In fact, education in general is free in Finland, which I think is one of the great things we should take pride in, but I won't go further into my thoughts on education policies. I'll just stick to talking about food. So, like I said, free food for everyone. Of course the budget of the school kitchens are not very big, and the quality of school food today probably is not what it used to be when I was a kid. Still, the idea is to serve (relatively) healthy and varied basic food, serving a variety of fish, meat or chicken based food. Interestingly, there was an uproar of protest when the schools in the capital region started to serve only vegetarian food one day a week. Previously there had always been an vegetarian option in addition to fish or meat, but it was seen as totally incomprehensible that growing children were forced to eat vegetarian food once a week. I am rolling my eyes as I write this, I can't understand why at least one day of fully veggie food wouldn't be acceptable to serve in schools, but this was seen as forcing food ideologies on people. Personally, I don't see why veggie food couldn't be a part of a normal diet for everyone, especially since many veggie foods can still be incredibly nutritious but inexpensive at the same time, not to even mention veggie food being the more environmentally friendly option. I think learning to eat and appreciate all different types of food would be important, and if children learn this already when they grow up, where is the harm? Of course families are then free to serve them whatever they want at dinner, if they find the lack of animal protein to be extremely worrying, they can compensate for this at dinner that day. 


I grew up in a really small village about an hour's drive from the capital, and went to a very idyllic small elementary school for the first six years of my education. The school had four teachers and a hundred or so pupils. We used to have two cooks in our own little school kitchen who prepared traditional home-cooked Finnish food, like fish and potatoes, sausage and mash, macaroni and minced meat casserole, meat stews and suchlike. We had green salads or grated root veg every day to go with the food. The principle was that you had to have at least a small taste of everything (a principle I still try to live by). I can remember the two things I really hated was pickled herring with a white sauce with boiled eggs and breaded and fried herring. My favourites, at least the ones I can remember, were oven baked macaroni and minced meat casserole, sausage in tomato sauce, pasta bolognese and blood pancakes. Particularly, I remember that the pancakes were served from the kitchen in aluminum foil tins with stacks of pancakes, maybe six or so to a stack. As the pancakes were heated in the oven, the top pancake got a bit burned and dried out, and it was the most delicious thing to eat.


Inspired by these childhood memories, I realised I have never cooked any offal in my entire life. So I decided I really have to try it out. I can remember my mum making liver casserole when I was a kid, and in Finland it's actually so popular that you can buy microwave meals of it in all grocery stores. To explain the whole thing, I think I have to start by explaining the concept of "laatikko". In Finnish cooking, we have loads of foods named laatikko. The word laatikko in general is best translated to box or container, and when it comes to food, the closest translation is casserole. It refers basically to a food that has been cooked slowly in the oven for a long time. The most common "laatikko" foods are makaroonilaatikko (macaroni casserole), maksalaatikko (liver casserole), porkkanalaatikko (carrot casserole), lanttulaatikko (swede casserole), perunalaatikko (potato casserole), kaalilaatikko (cabbage casserole) and I could go on forever. In my opinion, it's an excellent way of cooking. It brings out more flavour from the foods, and you can use cheaper cuts of meat (most often minced meat is used, as in makaroonilaatikko, it's a mix of macaroni and minced meat). Casseroles with root veggies are often a mix of grated or pureed root veg mixed with rice and cooked slowly to enhance the natural sweetness, often with a dash of syrup and butter added for taste. So the laatikko-foods have a very central part in Finnish cooking, best exemplified by the three classics, carrot- swede and potato casserole which are pretty much obligatory on the Christmas dinner table in Finland. I wouldn't say it's the most gourmet experience Finnish cooking can produce, but it's basic, good, homecooked food at it's best. And you can leave the stuff in the oven for hours on low heat, the flavours just intesify, and you can use your time for something else, like writing a food blog...


Then onto the subject of offal. In general, I'm not a big fan. However, recently I have taken a liking to liver. I had a great chicken liver salad at Carluccio's a few months ago, and absolutely exquisite chicken liver ravioli in sherry sauce at Jamie's Italian, sadly it's no longer on the menu. I was debating between making blood pancakes or liver casserole as my first attempt of traditional Finnish offal. I have to admit I settled for the liver, as I'm slightly queasy at the thought of cooking with blood. However, I like the thought that if an animal is to die in order to feed humans (and in theory, we know this wouldn't be strictly necessary to keep us alive), at least we should use every part of the animal that is edible. I just watched an episode of Two greedy italians where Antonio and Gennaro participate in slaughtering a pig in a small village in Italy. When the animal is actually slaughtered by the men in the village, and it's not done anonymously at some slaughter house far away where you don't have to see the thing actually happening, I think you have a very different respect for the food you get. They really used and preserved every part of the animal, not just the meat (again, meat sounds so much more appetising than muscle now doesn't it...). Bones can be used to make stock, most of the internal organs can be cooked in pies or stews and the blood can be made into a lot of things, like puddings or sausages. Interestingly they used the blood for a dessert called sanguinaccio, cooking it with flour, sugar, milk and cocoa powder. I've never seen anything like that done from blood. I'm not quite prepared to try that out yet, but maybe if I get a bit braver I'll try the blood pancakes. For now, I'll stick to the liver casserole though. Funnily enough, liver casserole was voted by Finnish school children to be their least favourite food in 2011 in a survey of 299 children. The top food was pizza, which was definitely not served at lunch in school when I was a kid. Goes to show how old I am. 


For my casserole, I looked for inspiration from several different recipes, at least these three: Kotikokki, Pirkka and this lovely looking blog called Grandma's recipes. Traditionally, rice is used in this dish, but as I'm going through a pearl barley phase, I decided to replace the rice with barley. I ended up with my own amalgamation of the recipes above: 


Liver casserole (maksalaatikko, 4-6 servings):


200g pearl barley (or rice)
160 ml water
600ml milk
a pinch of salt


1 onion
1 tbsp rapeseed oil


50ml syrup (I used agave syrup)
150g (about 1 cup or 2.5 dl) raisins (or less or none if you are not a fan)
1 egg
white pepper
marjoram
salt
500g beef liver, finely chopped or minced

The howto:
Bring the water to a boil, add barley, and let cook until water is absorbed (a few minutes). Then add milk 100-200 ml at a time, let cook until absorbed and add more milk. When all milk is absorbed, you should have a thick porridge with soft but still a little bit chewy barley. 
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Finely chop the onion and fry in the oil.
Mix the onion and barley, add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Put into a oven proof casserole, and bake in the oven for at least an hour (I baked it for about 90 minutes, first without cover, and after 30 minutes I covered with foil to keep it from going too dark). Serve piping hot with a knob of butter. Traditionally, this dish would be served with lingonberry jam, but unfortunately that is a treat I don't have access to. Hopefully next time I go down to London I will have time to get some from the Scandinavian shop, and enjoy the privilege of paying triple compared to what I would back home. 

Before baking

One serving (1/6 of recipe) contains 450 kcal, 18g fat, 67g carbs and 27g protein.


The verdict:
This is a really difficult verdict to make, as I am so strongly influenced by how I think this dish should taste, based on the store bought one. I know many people think the store bought one (and liver casserole in general) is food which is not suitable for people, but should only be served dogs and cats, but I actually have a soft spot for it. It wasn't something I ate often, but every once in a while I would get a pack as a guilty pleasure.


When my casserole was cooking, the smell spreading into my apartment was exactly right, just the way I remembered it from when my mum was making the dish, or how it smells when you heat the store bought one in the oven (it gets a nicer taste compared ). So that was encouraging. And taking it out of the oven, the look was also right. Tasting it, I was very excited to say, to some extent it was the same. Yet different. In good and bad. However, there are many substitutions I have made to the recipe, so it was bound to be different. One of the most notable differences is that mine isn't nearly as sweet, and I think next time I might add 10 or 20 more ml syrup. And maybe still a bit more raisins, although I have to say my version already contains more raisins that the store bought one. But if you have been reading my previous posts, you know I have a thing for raisins (funnily enough, I needed 150 g raisins for this dish, I bought a 500g pack as that was the smallest one they had at Tesco, and I don't have any raisins left. I think there is  a raisin specific black hole in my food cupboard. Oh wait, why has my butt suddenly expanded to ginormous proportions? No idea...). The other big difference is the liver, as I didn't mince mine, but just chopped it up. I think I actually like my way better, I like the chewy little bits of liver. After already starting the cooking process, I looked online for the ingredients of the store bought one, and it contains a mix of pork, beef and chicken liver. Next time I might try the same mix. On the issue of barley versus rice I'm undecided. I am going through a barley phase right now, I like the texture of the grain better than rice. As the overpowering flavours in this dish are the raisins, syrup and liver, I don't think it matters very much if you use barley or rice, it is only there to add more substance to eat instead of anything else I guess. One more difference is that if I was cooking this back home, I would use a dark syrup, which would be something halfway between golden syrup and treacle and which I haven't seen in grocery stores here. I substituted with agave syrup, which again is very different, but the main thing is that this dish needs a bit of sweetness to work, and I think the more complex flavours of dark syrup are more suitable, but you have to stick to the ingredients you have access to. So on the issue of store bought versus home-made, I think I will settle for a tie, the store bought is sweeter and a bit more moist, this one is drier, but the taste and texture of liver comes through much better. 


Also, this turns out to be a really cheap dish to make. Ignoring the cost of the oil and spices, the rest of the ingredients cost me: liver £0.75, barley £0.36, milk £0.65, raisins £0.46, egg £0.31, onion £0.15, agave syrup £0.5. For me, this amount makes 6 servings, so the price per serving is £0.53. Yes, seriously!! Talk about cheap food. A quick google search suggested that the current price for Saarioinen's liver casserole €2.5, I would say that is 3 servings of equal size making it more expensive at €0.83 (£0.76). And shipping it to the UK in fridge temperature also might add a bit to the cost.

Honey mustard chicken stew with parsnips

After the lovely meat stew my sister made when I was visiting her a few weeks ago, I have had a horrible urge to cook everything really slowly in stew form because it brings out wonderful flavours from the most everyday ingredients. My friend made a honey mustard chicken stew with parsnips, and I watched her eat it at lunch break for a few days and just had to try it myself. But I didn't get around to writing it into a post back when I made it. Today, my mum told me she will get very fresh chicken from a local farm, so I thought now I have to get this down on paper. So to speak... Mum, this is for you:

Honey mustard chicken stew

1 tbsp olive oil 

8 bone-in chicken thighs , skin removed
2 onions , finely chopped
350g parsnips , cut into sticks
300ml vegetable stock
2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbsp clear honey
few thyme sprigs
flat-leaf parsley , to serve (optional)

The howto:
Brown the chicken in 1/2 tbsp oil until golden, then set aside. Do this is several batches if needed.  Heat the remaining oil, then cook the onions for 5 mins until softened. Add the chicken back in the casserole with the onions and add the parsnips. Mix the stock with the mustard and honey, then pour in. Scatter over the thyme, then bring to a simmer. Cover and cook for at least 30 minutes, or if you have the time, up to 90 minutes. Season. 

The verdict:

There is no way this recipe could have disappointed me, as I love sweet flavours in food, and the combination of honey and mustard is a classic. I also love love love parsnips, and the slow cooking really brings out all the sweetness in them. I think using chicken thighs with the bone still in them brings lots more flavour than just using fillets, but I haven't tried this using fillets, so I can't be sure if it's just my imagination. I cooked the stew for 90 minutes, and the meat just fell of the bones. I actually cooked my chicken with the skin on, but the stew got a bit fatty, so I'm going to take the skin off next time. Nonetheless, it was really delicious and I will certainly be making it again some time. As soon as I get to the end of my to-cook list...

Weekend beef stew... Or is it a casserole?

This weekend I have been abstaining from cooking, as I'm visiting my sister up North. That doesn't mean I'm not eating well, as my sister is at least as good a cook as I am. On the menu this weekend, among other things: veggie soup with home baked bead rolls (Sis makes the most amazing bread rolls in the whole wide world, I think they deserve a future blog post of their own), pancakes with chocolate spread and strawberries, meat stew and apple crumble with home-made fro-yo. She even made home-made almond butter which turned out amazingly creamy and much tastier than the store bought one (not to mention cheaper as well). There was a bit of a discussion about the name of the meat dish, is it a stew or casserole? Well. It's a stew, it's cooked in a casserole... Pick your favourite, as I'm typing this on an iPad and typing on the virtual keyboard is a bit of a pain, I'll stick with stew as its quicker to type.

I wonder whether mine and Sis' shared love for cooking is a result of genes or environment. This would be a good tangent to air some thoughts about the whole nature vs nurture debate, but I won't go there. All I can say, in our childhood home almost all food was home-cooked. Both my mum and dad used to cook, with dad cooking if we had pizza, steaks or BBQ and mum cooking the rest. We also cooked a lot with my sister, even as kids. We would plan a three course menu, and then we were allowed to have the kitchen all to ourselves. Our parents always ate everything without complaining, although I'm sure not everything turned out perfect. We had several cookbooks we liked, one was a UNICEF cook book for kids, with recipes from all over the world and drawings of how to prepare the dishes. From that book, one popular recipe on our menu was prawn cocktail and avocado. We also had a Donald Duck cookbook, and our favourite recipe was crumbly raisin cakes that we would make for pudding. We also used to cook Grandma Duck's pork chops, which were oven baked in cream on a bed of sweet corn. And my mum had a black binder full of recipes. Some where cut from magazines, others were just scribbles on a piece of paper. It contained recipes for such 80s classics as mocca squares (I guess only Finns know what these are, they are a bit like brownies, I will most certainly post the recipe sometime) and lime meringue pie. These were often baked and served when my parents would have guests and my mum would cook up a feast. So, we certainly grew up in an environment which encouraged us to learn cooking skills, made us appreciate different kinds of food and above all, think of home cooked food as the norm instead of ready made meals or takeaways.

So, the recipes below are stolen from and cooked by my sister.

 Beef stew (serves 6-8):
800g diced beef
Butter or oil for frying
One big lee
3 onions
3 parsnips
One small swede
4 carrots
1/2 bottle of red wine
2 beef stock pots or cubes
Bay leaf
Black pepper

Roughly chop all the veg. Brown the meat in butter or oil in the casserole (or a frying pan if you don't have a casserole that can be used on the hob). Add the veg, and fry for a few more minutes. Add the wine, stock cubes, spices and water to fill the casserole. Bake in a 175 degree oven for at least 2 1/2 hours, but the longer the better. Serve with salad and mashed potatoes or sweet potato mash.

Apple with a hint of rhubarb crumble (serves 6-8):
10 apples
Rhubarb (we only had 1 stalk, but I bet more will be great)
1tsp Vanilla paste
1tsp ground cloves
1tbsp cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
Crumble:
175g Demerara sugar
150g white flour
200g rolled oats
1tsp ground cloves
1tbsp cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
200g butter

Peel and chop apples and rhubarb, cook them in a little bit of water for about 10 minutes together with the spices. To make the crumble, mix all dry ingredients and spices. Cut butter into small cubes and use your fingers to make a crumbly dough together with the dry ingredients. Use a big ovenproof dish (26-28 cm), place the fruit on the bottom and spread the crumble on top. Bake in 175 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until a beautiful golden brown. Serve with frozen yoghurt and strawberries.

Frozen yoghurt:
950g organic, full fat Greek yoghurt
3tbsp organic honey

Freeze the ice cream maker over night. Mix yoghurt and honey. Chill in the ice cream maker while the crumble is baking.

The verdict:
After a hike in the Peaks, this was the perfect hearty meal to get warm and make up for the calories we shed climbing Grindsbrook, and almost getting blown away by heavy winds on the way back down.

The stew is heavenly, it was cooked for three hours and then left in the hot oven over night to bake. The veg gets really sweet and tasty after the long cooking, and the meat just crumbles. If you like you veg really crunchy, this is not for you, but if you like full flavours and super tender meat, you should definitely try this out.

I usually wouldn't make a crumble myself, and that's one of the exciting things of eating someone else's cooking, you eat things you wouldn't think of doing yourself. I love the combination of hot and cold, so I loved the crumble. Piping hot apples, the sweet crumble adding crispy texture and then the velvety smoothness of the ice cold yoghurt was heavenly. I think frozen yoghurt was a much better choice for this than ice cream, as it wasn't too sweet, and was a great contrast to the sweet crumble. I'm embarrassed to admit my self control broke down completely, and I not only went back for seconds but even for thirds. I can't wait visit this restaurant again.

 

Beauty is only skin deep

They say if you wait patiently the perfect one will come along eventually. I was lucky enough to find the perfect baking blog already a while ago, and I've mentioned it several times in previous posts. This is of course the brilliant Kinuskikissa. Last week, I also found the perfect food blog, Kauhaa ja rakkautta (this is a Finnish pun on the saying rauhaa ja rakkautta which means peace and love, whereas kauha means ladle so it translates roughly to ladle and love). Usually, when browsing blogs you get one or two ideas from each, but then pretty much ignore the rest. For these two, I want to cook every single recipe. I can't choose. I browse the blogs for hours, and am starting to feel like I know all recipes by heart. I guess when you find the right one, you just know it in your heart. As an additional bonus, I found an old blog by the same person who writes Kauhaa ja rakkautta, which will keep me drooling long after I tried every recipe in Kauhaa ja rakkautta.


Why do I keep raving on about these Finnish blogs? Maybe I should read some blogs from other countries as well? I do. There are so many great food blogs out there. But like I said, the ones mentioned above just feel different. I'm not sure why that is though. Many, if not most of the recipes in the blogs are not traditional Finnish, but a mix of many different places around the world. But they have been chosen by someone who shares the food culture with me, so maybe they have picked recipes that are particularly well suited for the Finnish palate.  Maybe it's easier to imagine how things taste when they are made of ingredients I'm familiar with ever since my childhood (especially true for baking, there are several ingredients I need to have imported from back home if I want to bake something a bit out of the ordinary). I'll probably keep returning to this point every time I cook something using Finnish, imported ingredients. I don't think I am homesick much (apart from missing my family and friends of course) and I don't think the UK is a bad place to live or that the selection of food in the grocery stores would be poor. Not at all, I have discovered many new flavours and ingredients here. But at the end of the day, I love to return to the Finnish food blogs, and often end up cooking things from them, with minor or major modifications.


This little dish is quite simple, but don't let that fool you. It's also not the prettiest dish, but don't let that put you off either. It's quick and easy, and only requires a few minutes of hands on time. It makes a lovely meal on it's own, or as the side for chicken, fish or meat. It has a wonderful, warm flavour to it. As an added bonus, your kitchen will have the lovely scent of coconut milk which feels both exotic and comforting at the same time. The link to the original recipe is here.


Sweet potato and lentil stew (serves 2 or 3):
1 onion
3-4 garlic cloves
a few cm of ginger root
1 tsp virgin coconut oil
1 large sweet potato (about 200g)
2 large tomatoes
120 g dried green lentils
400 ml coconut milk
1 lime
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1-2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp black pepper

The howto:
Finely chop the onion, garlic and ginger root. Dice sweet potato and tomatoes. Cook the onion, garlic and ginger root in the oil for a few minutes, add tomatoes and sweet potato, and cook another couple of minutes. Add lentils, coconut milk, juice from the lime and the spices. Cook slowly until the lentils are done, but make sure not to overcook so that the lentils stay chewy. If the stew gets too thick, add water, if it's too runny, cook without a lid for the last 15 minutes or so.


According to my estimates, one serving (half of the recipe above) contains approximately 480 kcal (27g fat, 50g carbs, 11g protein). When it comes to coconut milk, I'm going against my principle of never buying reduced fat products and always go for the reduced fat one as I can't justify the extra calories. I need to get over that, I'm sure the full fat coconut milk tastes much better and the extra calories are nothing compared to the hundreds I ingested in the form of cake, fudge and Belgian waffles over the weekend...

The verdict:
Like I said earlier, don't let the simplicity of this dish fool you. Or the fact that it looks a bit... green. It tastes lovely, the sweet potato and sweetness of the coconut milk go together perfectly, and cooking it all in coconut oil brings the whole coconuttiness to new level. I really recommend making this from green lentils, as red ones would get overcooked and gooey. If you only have red lentils, make sure to add them later, after already cooking the stew for a while as they usually only need 10 minutes or even less. The red lentils would make a more aesthetically pleasing choice, though. But for me, the most important thing is flavour, not looks.