Berry pie

Serve with vanilla sauce.

This recipe I found more than 15 years ago from some magazine. I guess the secret of this pie is in sugar, cream and butter :D

150 g butter

3 dl sugar

6 dl flour

2 eggs

2-3 dl cream

2 tsp baking powder

Berries

Melt the butter and mix the sugar and flour with it. Take 2 dl of dough on side.

Add the cream, eggs and baking powder to bigger amount of dough and stir well.

Take 2 dl of the dough on the side.

Pour the dough on oven pan and add your favorite berries on it. Here I used cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, boysenberries and redcurrant. On my opinion the pie tastes better when you mix sweet and sour berries. On top sprinkle the 2 dl of dough you put on the side earlier.

Cook for 20 minutes in 225 ˚C.

Sauteed reindeer

Maybe a sensitive topic to write about reindeer dishes so close to Christmas but the fact is that some countries do eat this animal. And the meat tastes good :)

Sauteed reindeer:
400 g thinly sliced reindeer meat
salt
pepper

Cranberry sauce:
3 dl cranberries
3 dl water
1 tbsp sugar
1 clove of garlic
salt
pepper

Cook the reindeer meat on a frying pan  in butter. Taste with salt and pepper.

Place the meat on side while making the sauce. Slice the garlic and lightly cook it on the same pan where you cooked the meat. Add the cranberries, water, salt, pepper and sugar. If you want you can replace 2 dl of the water with red wine. Let the sauce cook until 1/3 of the water has evaporated. Mix with a hand mixer.

Serve with mashed potates. Hint: use sliced onion in the mashed potatoes to get more taste.

Quark with berries

Quark is somewhat similar to fresh cheese dairy product known as "rahka" in Finnish. Taste is somewhat sour and quark suits perfectly to desserts.

3 dl quark
3 dl cream
blueberries, raspberries, boysenberries etc.
0,5 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Whip the cream and mix the quark, sugar and vanilla sugar. Add the fresh berries carefully to the foam.

For healthier version leave the cream out and use less sugar. The taste will be less sweet in that case too.

Haddock in creamy red curry

Instead of haddock you can try any other white fish like
cod or similar.

400 g haddock
8 scampi
2 dl cream
2 dl coconut milk
1 ts red curry
1 red pepper
1 leek
1 cube of fish buillon
1/2 chili pepper

Cut the fish in small pieces. Add salt on the pieces. Cut the leek and red pepper in small pieces and cook them for couple of minutes in oil. Do not let them go brown.

After cooking lightly the vegetables add cream and
fish bouillon.

Add the cream and fish buillon and let it cook for half a minute. Add the coconut and red curry, mix well. Let it come into a boil. Add the haddock, scampi and chili and let them cook slowly for 10 minutes. Do not let them boil in this point. The heat of the stew will cook the fish and scampi.

Serve with rice.

Bon app!

Blueberry pie

This pie is rather easy to cook. I was surprised that it was not that sweet with all that sugar. Instead of yogurt you can also try sour cream.

200 Celsius degrees for 30 minutes.

Base
1 egg
1 dl sugar
2,5 dl flour
1 ts baking powder

Filling
Blueberries
2 dl greek yogurt
0,5 dl sugar
1 ts vanilla sugar
1 egg

Set the oven to 200 Celsius degrees. Mix the sugar and butter. Add the flour, baking powder and egg. Mix well and place it on the oven casserole.

Pour the blurberries on top of the dough.

Pour the blueberries on the base and pour the yogurt mix on top. Cook the pie in the oven about 30 minutes.

Pour the yogurt mix on top of bluberries.

Banoffee pie

Decorate with dark chocolate

This my favorite pie. Maybe the king of pies in my opinion J The pie is done in 4 different layers starting with the biscuits, toffee, bananas and then on the top the whipped cream

Base

125 g melted butter

225 g chocolate chip biscuits

75 g digestive biscuits

Toffee

175 g butter

1,5 dl sugar

400 g condensed milk (1 tin can)

Topping

2 bananas

3 dl cream

100 g dark chocolate

Crush the biscuits and mix together with melted butter. Spread over a pie form and cool it down.

Melt the butter and sugar so that you do not see the sugar crystals anymore. Add the condensed milk and let it come to a boil. After this cook for 30-40 minutes on a lower fire. Remember to mix the toffee once in a while.

Pour the toffee on top of the biscuit base and let it cool down. Slice the bananas and place them over the cooled toffee.

Whip the cream and add some sugar if needed. Spread the cream over the bananas. Decorate with crushed chocolate.

Lemon tart

Main ingredients: washed lemons.

Refreshing taste of lemon – is there any better than that? This recipe is for you who loves the fresh sour taste of lemon combined with something sweet.

Pie crust:

150 g butter

4 dl flour

1 egg

1 tbs of sugar

Filling

125 g butter

3 lemons

6 egg yolks

1,5 dl of sugar

2,5 tbs of cream

4 egg whites

Pie crust:

Mix the butter and flour together into a smooth paste. Add the sugar. Add water. Mix well. Bake the dough into form of a ball and wrap it in plastic foil. Let the dough ball to be in the fridge 30 – 60 minutes.

Let the pie dough to rest in the fridge
for 30-60 minutes.

Set the oven to 230 ˚C. Put the dough on oiled oven pan as thin layer. Stick holes with a fork. Cook the pie crust about 15 minutes or until it is golden brown. Cool down the pie crust before adding the lemon filling.

Cook the crust for 15 minutes or until it is golden brown.

Filling:
Melt the butter and let it cool down. Wash the lemons well and grate the peel with a shredder. Mix the egg yolks and sugar and add the grated lemon peel and lemon juice. Pour the running butter that is cooled down and also the cream. Mix well and after this pour the mix on a casserole where you cook the mix in a low temperature until the mix thickens. Mix the egg whites well into a firm foam and add it to the cooled down lemon mix. Pour the mix on the pie crust.

Mix the egg yolks and sugar together.

Mix the egg whites into firm foam.

Mix the egg whites into the cooled lemon filling.

Leave the tart in a fridge overnight. Serve for instance with vanilla ice cream.

Serve the tart next day after it has been in the fridge
over night.

Pour the filling on the cooled crust.

Forest mushroom meatloaf

This weekday dinner takes more than an hour to make but on my opinion it is worth it to all mushroom and chili lovers J

400 g minced meat (or more)
2 eggs

2 dl chopped forest mushrooms or more

(I used wooden milkcaps)

8 mini pickles

1 small chili

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 dl of breadcrumps

2 dl water

Salt

Pepper

Pepper powder or other herbs you prefer

Tabasco

Worchester sauce

1 tsp sugar

Chop the mushrooms into small pieces. Chop the onion and garlic and cook them quickly in butter on a frying pan. Mix all the ingredients together and season the dough with salt, pepper, herbs, tabasco and Worchester sauce according to your taste.

Depending on how thick the meatloaf will be in the oven pan chosen cook the meatloaf in the oven for 1 hours in 175-200 ˚C. The measurements in this recipe are not that accurate because in a hurry I did not measure anything but just made quick estimations J

Butter fudge filled sweet buns

Enjoy with a good cup of your favorite latte.

Who would not love sweet buns, especially if they are filled with chocolate, fudge, jam etc. This recipe is with butter fudge filling and makes about 20-25 buns.

4 dl milk

50 g yeast

2 eggs

10-12 dl flour 

2 tsp cardamom

1,5 dl sugar

1 tsp salt

150 g butter

Warm the milk in 37 ˚C, the same temperature as your hands. Mix the yeast with milk. If the milk is too hot the yeast will die, if it’s too cold the dough won’t rise. Mix the eggs, sugar, cardamom and salt in the milk. Mix half of the flour to the milk.

Roll the dough into a long bun and cut small pieces of it.

Knead the dough at the same time when adding bit by bit the rest of the flour. Mix the melted butter to the dough. Let the dough rise at least the double of its size.

Take the dough and roll it into a long bun. Cut small pieces out of the long bun and roll the pieces into small balls.

Roll the buns into balls and put fudge in it and close the
bun. Let the buns to rise again under a cloth.

Roll the buns into balls, smear with egg and decorate with
sugar.

In every bun put a piece of butter fudge in, close the dough properly and roll the buns in to balls. Let them rise again for a while before putting them in to the oven. Smear the buns with egg and decorate with sugar.

About 10-15 minutes in 225 degrees should do the trick :)

Let them be in the oven that is heated to 225 ˚C for about 10-15 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Let the buns to cool down because the fudge is boiling hot inside them.

Mushroom salad

I guess mushroom salad is not that common in other countries than it is in Finland, Eastern Europe and Russia. In this recipe I have taken some ideas from Russia adding some pickled cucumber in it.

The ingredients are so easy.

3-4 dl salted woolly milkcaps

½ onion

1 dl of leek

2 dl crème fraiche

1 dl pickled cucumber

Pepper

(salt)

Let the salted woolly milkcaps to be in plenty of cold water over night. This will decrease the amount of salt in the mushrooms. If you want saltier taste have them less time in the water.

You can also enjoy the
salad as such :)

When starting to make the salad squeeze the water out from the mushrooms and chop the mushrooms in small pieces. Also chop the onion, leek and pickled cucumber. Mix all together with crème fraiche. Season with pepper (and with salt depending on how salty the mushrooms were).

Here I think also capers could work instead of pickles.

Serve the salad with meat and mashed potatoes or then just on top of piece of rye bread.

Scandinavian style pancakes

Scandinavian pancakes are much thinner than the American version. So here is the recipe for the Scandinavian version.

2 eggs
8 dl milk
4 dl flour
(0,5 dl oil)
Salt
Sugar

Mix the eggs, add the milk and flour. Season with salt and sugar. I only use sugar in order to get a nice brown color on the pancakes but of course it sweetens the taste too. Oil I use only so that I do not need to use that much when frying the pancakes on a pan. Let the dough rest about 20 minutes before cooking the pancakes.

Cook the pancakes nice and brown from each sides. Serve with blueberry, strawberry or raspberry jam and some ice cream.

Weekend ham

Serve the ham with cream sauce and
rustic mashed potatoes.

This is a simple weekend recipe and the sauce that comes with it is so delicious. Not healthy but delicious J

Ca 2 kg og roast ham with skin

Salt Pepper

Sauce:

Bouillon from the ham

2 dl cream

Mustard

1 tbsp of Maizena

Butter

Cut squares on the skin and rub salt
and pepper all over. Put it in a fridge
over night.

Cut squares on the skin and rub the ham all over with salt and pepper. Place it in the fridge over night. Take the ham out next day for 2 hours in the room temperature. Put the oven to 230 ˚C. Put 2 dl water on an oven pan and place the ham on it. Cover well with tin foil and let the ham to steam under the tin foil 40 minutes. Reduce the heat in the oven to 175 ˚C, remove the tin foil from the ham and let the inner temperature of the ham reach 68-74 ˚C. Take the meat out from the oven and cover with tin foil.

Pour the fat/bouillon on a pan, add the cream and mustard according to your taste. Cook the sauce together so that the amount of it decreases (10-15 minutes cooking time is ok). Mix Maizena in cold water and add it to the sauce mixing the sauce all the time. Do not let the sauce to boil at this point. Add some butter and the sauce is ready. I added also some butter fried false saffron milkcaps in this sauce.

Cook the sauce together.

Let the ham to be under tin foil
before cutting it. In this way
the meat will stay juicy.

Preserving mushrooms with salt

Preserve milkcaps in heavily
salted water in a cool place.

This autumn I found a lot of false saffron milkcaps (lactarius deterrimus) and woolly milkcaps (lactarius torminosus). The latter must be cooked because of its bitter taste. Woolly milkcaps are much appreciated as salted mushrooms and this is a preserving method for them.

For 1 kg of woolly milkcaps you need 5 liters of water. Boil the mushrooms about 5-10 minutes in water. After this wash them with cold water, and squeeze the rest of the water out of the mushrooms. Take a vessel, put salt in the bottom and place mushrooms on the salt. Add salt on the mushrooms and then mushrooms and then salt again. Continue like this until the vessel is full. Pour cold water on the mushrooms and make sure that the mushrooms are covered in heavily salted water. The parts that are not under water will get mold on them so make sure that they are under salt water. Store the mushrooms in a cool place.

When you want to use the mushrooms wash them in plenty of cold water in order to get the salt out of them. It may take 1-2 days to with 3-4 change of water when taking the salt out from the mushrooms. Use the mushrooms to salads, soups etc.

WARNING: If you are not sure what mushrooms are safe to eat, leave it in the forest. Always check and identify the mushrooms again at home. Milkcaps can be recognised from the milk that comes out if you cut or break them. Woolly milkcaps has white milk and false saffron milkcaps have orange or red milk that turns green after some time.

Milkcaps to be cleaned

Woolly milkcap on the left and False saffron milkcap on
the right. You need to cook the woolly milkcaps but the
false saffron milkcaps you can cook on a pan straight
away.

1 kg mushrooms needs 5 liters water.

Cook 5-10 minutes so the taste is not so bitter.

Use a lot of salt when preserving milkcaps.

Finnish style mocha squares

Finnish style mocha squares.

My mom used to make this dessert when I was kid. I don’t know the correct name for these in English so I call them Finnish mocha squares. They were my favorites with glass of cold milk. In my family we always used hundreds-and-thousands for decoration but some use coconut flakes.

This recipe will give you one oven pan:

5 dl flour

2 dl milk

Mix the eggs and sugar
into firm foam.

3 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla sugar

3 tbsp. cacao powder

200 g melted butter

4 eggs

3 dl sugar

Add some flour to the foam...

Set the oven for 200 ˚C. Melt the butter. Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the sugar and eggs into a firm white foam. Here the best result will be if the eggs are warm as room temperature. Add some flour to the foam and then some milk, mix carefully together. Continue like this until you have mixed all the flour and milk in the dough. Finally pour the cooled melted butter in the dough and mix it. Pour the mix on an oven pan and let the cake be in the oven about 15 minutes.

Pour the dough on an oven pan.

...and then some milk and continue with
flour and then with milk etc.

While the cake is in the oven you can prepare the icing. You will need

500 g powder sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

1 tbsp. cacao powder

5-7 tbsp. strong coffee

50 g melted butter

Melt the butter.  Mix the powder sugar, vanilla sugar and cacao powder together. Add the coffee and finally the melted butter.

Put the icing on the cake and
decorate as you like.

Spread the icing on the cake that has cooled down. The icing will get a bit hard when it gets cold so you should spread it rather quickly. Decorate the icing with hundreds-and-thousands.