Two more days of my holiday week to go. And the weather is miserable. But I haven't let that bother me, and I might just be imagining but there could be just a tiny sliver of blue sky showing right now. On Monday we finished the move, all my stuff hauled to my new temporary home. And I spent the evening cleaning every nook and cranny of my tiny little apartment. It was quite emotional, thinking of everything that has happened there, and then locking that door for the last time. On Tuesday I returned the keys to the letting agency and felt a bit homeless. But yesterday I had a wonderful day in my new home town. Well, it's not like I wouldn't have known it already, having spent most weekends of the last year here, but it was weird being out on the town without the Culinary Consultant. I ran some long overdue errands, and got my oh-so-long-overdue haircut. Now I feel like a new person. I didn't cut my hair in over a year, and it was disgusting. Now it's back to the bob I have been wearing for a few years. It's so much lighter than the full head of long hair I have suffered from lately. It's quicker to dry after the gym, and it reduces the amount of shed hair in the apartment significantly. Well, probably it doesn't affect the number of hair, but they are shorter and hence make less of a mess. I found a really nice (and reasonably priced!) hairdresser. I also managed to get an appointment to have my eyesight tested, and turns out I need new glasses. Which I was expecting. So I get to do the fun part of trying on new glasses!
On Tuesday I also had my last driving lesson. I decided to take a few driving lessons over here in topsy turvy land, just to be safe out there on the roads. I think I did quite good, and I managed to find a great teacher. So now I can't wait to buy myself a little car and get out there on the roads. It has been many years since I have had a car, and I love the idea of liberty it will give. Right now, if I want to get somewhere, I have to walk or bike. And because my bike is in several pieces right now for storage purposes, I am limited to walking. Or taking the bus. So I think when I get the car, I will drive places just because I can!
Here is another recipe from the kitchen of "use up everything you have stockpiled in your pantry". This time I got another opportunity to work on the several kilograms (yes, really) of pasta that *someone* has stockpiled in their kitchen (and no, it wasn't me!!).
I absolutely love sweet corn, I could just eat sweet corn on the cob every day. It's just so sweet and... well.. corny. Oh, I'm so funny today, aren't I. Ok, I promise, no more attempts at un-funny jokes. So sweet corn. It goes with so many things, and one of them is definitely tuna. I just love the piles of yellow in the grocery store, I can't walk past them without picking up a cob or two. And after cooking, it turns ever brighter. You can't be depressed after having eaten sweet corn. I decided to make a really quick and easy pasta sauce with bright red tomatoes and happy yellow corn.
Tuna and sweet corn pasta (serves 4):
2 sweet corns on the cob
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large red onion
2 tins tuna
1 tin tomatoes (plum or chopped)
150 g garlic and herb cream cheese (I used Boursin)
Black pepper
Pasta
The howto:
Cook the sweet corn in boiling water for about 15 minutes, until it turns bright yellow. Let cool, and cut the corn of the cob. Finely chop onion. Get the water boiling for your pasta. Heat olive oil in a large pan and cook onion on medium heat until soft, about 10 minutes. At this point your water should be boiling, so you can throw in your pasta, whatever amount you think is fit for the number of people who will be eating. Add the tomatoes to the onion, and let cook for another 10 minutes or so, letting some of the juices evaporate. Add the tuna, corn and cream cheese, season with black pepper to taste, and let cook until your pasta is done. Drain pasta and mix with the sauce. Serve with some greens (I had steamed mange tout and green beans) or a green salad.
The verdict:
I love making pasta sauces with cream cheese. It's enough to flavour the sauce really beautifully and you don't need to worry about any other seasoning. The flavours are not too strong to overpower the tuna and the sweet corn, but the sauce is really thick and creamy. Obviously it's not directly health food, but then again, it's pasta so what can you do. We ate this after coming home from the gym, and easily destroyed about two thirds of it right then and there between the two of us. And the Culinary Consultant wants me to make it again this weekend, so I think we have a winner on our hands here.
Card of the day:
These cards are from the archives, as obviously I don't have the space to craft right now. There is one table in the whole house, and it has a bike on it. The Culinary Consultant doesn't have a dining table at all! Talk about bachelor pad... The cards are another attempt at a male card after having some positive feedback on my previous attempt. I used the Hero Arts Sweet Threads Spirals stamp with Tim Holtz distress inks Walnut stain, Vintage photo and possibly one more colour, but I can't remember anymore... sorry! I then stamped the lion from the Tim Holtz Regal Flourish set with Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo and cut it out using a template and scissors. I stamped the sentiment using Distress inks, stamping twice with two different colours. I then used ink blending foam and distress ink around the edges of each of the pieces before matting onto orange and gold paper and attaching to craft card. The photo doesn't quite dot he colours justice, I think they turned out quite fun. I really miss crafting, I can't read any crafting blogs because it just makes me want to get my hands dirty again. I am clearly dulling my pain with shopping, as I have bought a ridiculous amount of crafting supplies on Ebay ever since I had to pack everything into boxes. I should just delete my Ebay account for my own safety. And I got some birthday presents to further fuel my crafting madness. As soon as I finally have my craft room, I won't leave it for days!!
Today, after work, I was supposed to clean my apartment. Vacuum, do the dishes, scrub the ladies room. I was going to do laundry and then read a few papers and edit the book chapter I'm writing so that I could finally send it off to my boss (it's only four days late so far...). And above all, I was supposed to eat healthily. I have been trying to be good all week, but on Tuesday I baked chocolate-courgette bread (which I will post about soon), and yesterday I got a lovely lovely parcel from back home with all sorts of goodies I couldn't keep my hands off. Particularly, I got rye bread, which I have been eating for two days now (with butter, of course!) and Dominos. Dominos are the best biscuits ever! They are like Oreos, but much better. And this year there is a new Domino, the Domino Super, which has more of the white creamy dreamy filling than the traditional one. So of course I asked my mum to ship some over ASAP. And they were pretty much gone at the speed of light.
Anyways, when I got home from work (after biking 10 miles, and doing my weekly grocery shopping and cycling home from the store in the pouring rain for 15 minutes) I ate a Domino, two tablespoons of jam straight out of the jar, dates and a piece of banana cake. Dates are evil! Almost as addictive as raisins. I don't know what evil came over me today at the grocery store to make me buy some. I know I can't keep my fingers off them. Sigh. Oh well, after this, surely I cleaned and ate healthily? Oh, are you kidding me. I did pop a sweet potato into the oven, but they take like... forever... to cook. So meanwhile I just whipped up a batch of creamy lemon bars (which I will blog about next, I promise). Not that I made them for me, I'm seeing a friend tomorrow who likes all things lemony. And surely I won't touch them tonight. Of course not! Well I do have to taste a little bit. But not because I would want to, but just to make sure they are good enough to give to someone else. That might or might not require me to sample half of the batch. But it's important to get samples from all over the baking tin, so that I can be assured the pieces from the middle are as good as the ones on the sides. Anyone know where the closest carboholics anonymous meeting is? And do they serve coffee and doughnuts there? Which reminds me, I really want a doughnut pan, there are so many lovely recipes for baked doughnuts on Pinterest, it's driving me doughnuts!
Ok, so that was today's random ramblings over and done with. So, onto todays quickie. It's just something my twisted mind thought up because I had some left over sweet potatoes that needed to be used, as well as an over-ripe avocado. So I thought a nice oven baked sweet potato with tuna-avocado salad can never go wrong. And because I recently made a lovely soup with roasted cauliflower and roasted garlic (once again something for a future post), I thought while I have the oven all fired up, why not roast an onion in there as well to throw in the tuna salad. Of course the avocado turned out to be so over ripe it wasn't edible anymore (which is so annoying as they are crazy expensive). But this crazy concoction still turned out pretty amazing. And it's quick to whip together, the only thing that takes time is to bake the sweet potato. But you can use the time wisely, like I did by baking something. Or maybe even clean if you are a better person than me.
Baked sweet potato with tuna and roasted onion salad (serves 2):
2 sweet potatoes
1 onion
1 tin of tuna
2 hard boiled eggs
1/2 sweet pepper
2 spring onions
(1 avocado)
black pepper
cayenne pepper
salt
dried coriander (or whatever other herbs you like, dill would probably be great too)
fresh basil leaves or some other herb
(possibly some olive oil if you are not using tuna in oil and not adding the avocado)
The howto:
Wrap the sweet potatoes and onion in foil individually, and bake in 175 degrees for an hour. Meanwhile boil the eggs. When sweet potatoes and onion is baked, unwrap the onion, but keep the sweet potatoes wrapped to keep them warm. Make the salad in a food processor. Start by adding the onion, eggs, sweet pepper, spring onions and spices, and grind until smooth. Add tuna and quickly pulse. If you happen to have an avocado which is still the proper avocado colour and does not collapse into itself when you touch it, add it to the salad, and pulse quickly, just enough for everything to be mixed. Serve immediately.
The verdict:
The whole idea with the tuna salad was supposed to be the avocado, as I thought it would bring a nice creaminess without having to add mayo. However, now I will never know. Well at least not until I make it again. Because I certainly will. Just the baked onion and eggs did add quite a bit of creaminess, and I think next time if I add the avocado, I will only use one egg. I could also imagine replacing tuna with chicken would work quite well. Maybe add some curry in that case to the spices. Not too shabby considering that all ingredients are pretty much things I always keep stocked at home anyways. I think my traditional Friday night lentil soup has got some serious competition.
Last week my mum sent me a big box of goodies from back home. It felt like Christmas had come early. When I started ripping off the wrapping paper, the first thing I felt was the scent of rye bread. It's one of the foods I miss most from back home. So of course, I had to make sandwiches to celebrate the arrival of the long awaited goodies. I also made mayo last week, and still had some left over, so I thought what would be better than a BLT and tuna-salad. BLT on proper rye bread is so much tastier than those horrible tasteless things pretending to be bread in this country. I also use a trick I learned in Italy, rubbing garlic on the bread after toasting, it gives a wonderful garlic taste to the bread. So Finnish rye bread meets Italian garlic and British bacon. The best kind of international collaboration.
Surf and turf on rye (for two, or one really hungry):
BLT
2 pieces of rye bread
1 tbsp mayo
1 tomato
iceberg lettuce
2 rashers of bacon
garlic clove peeled
Tuna salad
2 pieces of rye bread
1/2 can of tuna
1 tbsp mayo
1/4 cucumber
1 hard boiled egg
cayenne pepper
garlic clove peeled
Half a serving (i.e. one BLT and one tuna salad sandwich) contains 370 kcal (17g carbs, 25g fat and 16g protein). This is calculated for a small piece of rye bread (Sinuhe ruisnappi), tuna in sunflower oil and home made mayo according to the linked recipe.
The howto:
For the tuna salad, mix tuna, mayo, finely chopped cucumber, finely chopped egg and season to taste with cayenne pepper.
For BLT, slice the tomato and pan fry the bacon in it's own fat.
Toast bread, rub the garlic clove over the bread. To assemble the tuna sandwich, coat bread with lettuce and add the tuna paste. For BLT, spread mayo over the bread, pile on lettuce, tomato and bacon.
The verdict:
In my absolutely unbiased opinion, there simply is no other bread which tastes as good as Finnish rye bread. Toasted it becomes unbelievably crispy, and the garlic goes divinely with rye. I think the home made mayo is superior to any store brought brand, in this case because it has a fuller and softer taste as I don't use any vinegar or other acidic ingredients. Out of the two sandwiches, if I had to pick a favourite, it would definitively be the BLT. Whoever originally thought of combining mayo, tomato, lettuce and bacon was a culinary genius.
