Last weekend before September

Chanterels

Isn't it autumn already? I love it!! The nights are getting darker and the air smells somehow refreshing, there is something deeply refreshing in autumn. It feels like giving up old leaves and growing on new ones. I think that after all, this is and always has been my favorite time of year. I feel this awesome sensation every year.
We bought some chanterelle, mmmmm. Just simply fried with onion and olive oil until golden brown, and then boiled with some soy cream. Seasoned then with pepper, salt and fresh ground parsley. We ate this with dark rye bread and redcurrant juice. The most simple wonders are most delicious.

Gratinated artichokes with goat cheese-salad

This recipe is from Virginie Besancoies cookbook "Aurinkoinen keittiö", as also the tofu buns. There weren't any artichoke's hearts in the store, so we just used normal artichokes. The artichokes and goat cheese were gratinated in oven 225 degrees, with dried oregano, thyme, pepper and olive oil for about 15 minutes. Then they were setted on different salads. The dressing was basic, olive oil, vinegar, pepper and salt.

Champignons with sesame oil

This recipe was from a book called "Intian makuja". INDIA! Coriander, lemon oil, bay leaf and dried chili were fried in sesame oil for a minute, and then added the champignons for 3-4 minutes.

" Tofu buns"

Cake for the soul

Peary chocolate cake

Made in heaven!! Once again I made chocolate cake, a good habit for the soul, and also a cake of the living nutrition. Both cakes were awesomely delicious, it's the secret spell. The chocolate cake was made with Fair Trade's extremely dark chocolate, 90% cocoa. Very bitter, and gets to shine in baking.

Here is the recipe for the Living Nutrition's Cake :

200 g of dried plums

200 g of dried apricots

1-2 dl of sunflower seeds

1 dl of almond crush

coconut flakes

Fresh berries, fruits

Put the plums and apricots in a bowl, and pour on them 3 dl of water. Let them soak up over night. Next day mince them in a blender, and then add the sunflower seeds and almond crush. This should make a quite firmy batter. Sprinkle the coconut flakes on a cake tin and level the batter on them evenly. Garnish with berries and fruits! Delicious served with vanilla soy cream.

Autumn leaves and so on!

Redberry jam

So autumn is coming! Our backyard has sooo many redberry bushes, and one rainy day I picked one big bowl of them, and still a lot remained to be collected. I guess it requires some good wild imagination where to put all the berries - jam was one thing I had in mind, red-berry juice is awesome too. Our freezer just doesn't take anything in anymore - it is full of cloud-, blue- and strawberries and who knows what else. It's not too big anyway. I guess that some shall be given to friends who would like to adopt some!

The redberry-jam was easy to make, I just made it very simple. I boiled about 2 ½ dl of water and 2 dl of fructose in a kettle, and then added 1 ½ litres of berries. It was boiled with a mild heat for about 25 minutes. The jam was poured into a clean oven-heaeted glasspot (for the bacteria to die - heat the pot in 100 degrees in the oven). It should be then keepen in cold.

Autumnal Mushroom-pie with fennel

Mushrooms picked from the forest, what else makes it feel the autumn is definitely falling? I don't remember what the name of these were, but just some ordinary mushrooms found. The base is consisted of soyflour and margarine, our regular. I wanted to put some fennel in the pie, but I must say, this pie was very mild of it's flavor. But it was good, so it's OK. I guess fennel tastes more "spunky" when served raw.
This was served with salad from the garden and some organic cherry-tomatoes! Yum!

The Base:
2 dl of soyflour
100 g room-temperature margarine

Fiddle into a dough and press in a casserole. Sting with a fork and pre-cook in the oven, heated in 200 degrees, for 10-15 minutes.

1 Onion, chopped
½ fennel, finely chopped
½ litres of mushrooms, pre-boiled and chopped
2 eggs
2 dl of soycream
Fresh parsley
Pepper
Salt

The onion and fennel were sauted in some olive oil. Mix the eggs, soy cream, parsley and spices in a bowl. Pour all these on the pre-cooked base. Bake in 175 degrees for 30 minutes.

Granola cookies

Spinach pancakes

I found some fresh spinach in the local stores. Lovely green ! But I was surprised how I felt, it really didn't taste so much, maybe I've been too used to the flavour of spinach that I learned in grade school - the spinach soup that was never so good, hhmm.

5 DL Soy milk

150 g fresh chopped spinach leaves

2 dl spelt flour

1 dl soy flour

1 tbsp of honey

1 tbsp of oil

pinch of salt

Granola bars

I got inspired by these cookies when a friend served these, "health-granola bars", with chocolate and umm.. so much for the health stuff. These were so good, I just basicly mixed all kinds of stuff I could find that would fit in. The basis is on granola and some room-temperaturer butter. In these I added raisins, chopped almond, sunflower seeds, muscovado sugar, chopped chocolate and some flour.

Chocolate cake with cloudberries

Chocolate cake with cloudberries

I made some chocolate cake for tomorrow to my friends "farewell cafe", who is moving next week. Or tea as it propably will be. I am planning also making some cookies if I have time. Our freezer is so full of berries that nothing else fits in there, so I thought I'll put some cloudberries on this! This is completely vegan cake.

Ingredients:

The Cake:

2 tbsp of Cocoa

3 dl of spelt flour

1½ dl of soy flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 dl sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

1 tsp vinegar

100 g vegan butter (or cooking oil)

1-2 dl of soy milk

2 dl of cloudberries

Preheat the oven in 175 degrees. Melt the butter and mix all the ingredients together. Put the batter in a greased cake tin and bake for 40-45 minutes. Turn the cake around on a plate after letting it cool for a while.

The Frosting:

½ dl of soy yogurt

1 tbsp of soy milk

3-4 dl of powdered sugar

2 tbsp of cocoa

1 tsp of vanilla sugar (or extract)

Mix the ingredients of the frosting together. Pour the frosting on the cooled cake.

Cauliflower soup

I was aching for some soup today! Cauliflower seems to have the tendency to "go indian"... Goes well when planning to travel India.

Golden cauliflower soup (Indian style)

Ingredients:

One cauliflower

1 dl of red lentils
Onion, chopped finely
½ Red chili, chopped

2 tbsp grated fresh ginger

1 Lime

1 tsp of Turmenic

2 tsp of Curry

300 g of Coconut milk (about one can)

Some olive oil

Fresh parsley (or coriander)

Pepper, salt

Wash and rip the cauliflower to small pieces. Heat the olive oil in a cauldron, and add the onion, red chili, ginger, turmenic and curry. Saute for 20-30 seconds. Add water (about 4 dl), the cauliflower and red lentils. Braise for 10 minutes.

Squeeze the lime juice and add it with the coconut milk to the soup. Let it boil for couple minutes and season with pepper and salt. Sprinkle some parsley on top!

And like always when I'm eating something, Nelli came for share! The all-eater kitten. She knows how to appreciate sweet baking.

Thursday potatoes

Today I cooked some potatoes, since there were some in the fridge that had to be used. I'm not really a big fan of potato, but it goes every once in a while. I got inspired by the beautiful big oranges on the table - and this turned out actually quite good! There was no olive oil in our kitchen, but would be good to add... I think this would serve well as a condiment to something, but goes fine alone too.

Herb-potatoes

Ingredients:

½ kg of potatoes
Onion
Orange
Dried provencal herbs
Sea salt
Olive oil


Heat the oven in 225 degrees.
So, I peeled and pre-boiled the potatoes for 5-10 minutes. Slice the onion, and half the orange. Squeeze the juize out of the other half and slice the other half to small chunks. Cool the potatos with cold water and cut into nice pieces. Put the potatoes, onion and orange into a casserole and add the orange juice and some olive oil. Spice with the herbs and sea salt. Roast for 40-45 minutes.

No pictures, just some recipes I want to write up.

Small artichoke-pies
(From the book: Kasvisherkkuja juhlaan, Celia Brown)

Ingredients:

12 slices of toast
Soft butter or margarine for greasing
400 g artichoke hearts (in oil) chopped
55 g fresh, grated parmesan
2 fresh mild green chilis chopped, without seeds
3 tablespoonfuls of mayonese
Pinch of salt
Black pepper

Preheat the oven in 220 degrees. Cut round pieces from the bread with a glass (diameter about 5 cm). Grease the breads from both sides and put on the oven plate.
Mix the other ingredients and share on the pieces of bread. Bake the pies for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown and crispy. Let cool for a while. Serve warm!


Grilled tofu-skewers (for 4-5 persons)

Ingredients

The sauce :
4 tbsp of dark soy sauce
2 tbsp of honey
5-6 drops of tabasco
2 tbsp of lime juice
1 tbsp fresh grated ginger

The skewers :
4 tbsp of flour
300 g tofu
Oil for the frying
1 ripe mango chopped in cubes
10 limecubes

Soak the spits in water. This should prevent them from burning in the grill. Mix the ingredients of the sauce.

Sprinkle the flour on a plate. Cut the tofu in about 20 small cubes and roll in the flour. Heat in a pan a 1 cm layer of oil hot. Fry the tofu in the oil crispy and golden brown. Turn once when frying. Don't let the cubes touch each other, so they won't stick. After frying let the tofu ooze in some kitchen towel and put in some bowl or a plate. Pour the sauce on the tofu, and if you have time let it spice up in the fridge.

Stick alternately mango-, tofu- and limecubes in the spits. I used also some mushrooms. Heat the grill and grill the skewers from each side quickly, since the tofu is already ripe. (Serve with noodels or rice.)

Blueberry-pie

Blueberry-pie

So this pie was made from the first blueberries picked this year. I adjusted some recipes I found and this is what I came up with!

Ingredients:

THE PIE

3 ½ dl flour

125 g margarine

1 1/4 dl icing sugar

½ dl lemon juice

Preheat the oven in 175 degrees. Mix the flour, butter and icing sugar in a blender. Add the lemon juice and quickly stir to dough. Roll the dough to a circle and put it in the freezes for 10 minutes.

Now the FILLING

about 500 g blueberries (I used also some strawberries)

1 tl lemon zest

1 ½ - 2 dl soy yogurt (I used vanilla flavored)

½ dl soy flour

½ dl sugar

I used the soy flour instead of 1 egg - I mixed it with couple tablespoons of water. Blend all the ingredients.

Now take the dough out, and trample 3/4 of it on a circular cake tin (I used quite a large one). Put the filling on it, and then add the rest as the crust. I used a heart-shaped gingerbread mote as you can see in the picture, but I think you can use your imagination.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the pie is beautifully golden brown. (If wanted, sprinkle with icing sugar) Very good with vanilla ice cream! I prefered this better when it had cooled properly.

And of course this pie wasn't about perfection - I used some flow making the pie crust... This was a bit of a different version from the blueberry pie we usually make, very good for a change.