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.