Oatmeal thins

The most exceptional thing (not!) happened one evening: I started to crave for something yummy. But as I was having a bit of a flu and felt tired AND was pretty low on some of my ingredients (no chocolate at home, yikes!), I didn't want to to anything very complicated, just a quick bite of something good. I scanned some of my trusted sites on the internet and came across a recipe for low-fat oatmeal thins. Indeed, filled the spot in me that needed to be filled and to top it all, they were easy, quick, addicting, low in fat and from ingredients I have at hand practically at all times. The recipe in Finnish is to be found here.

They had something to be noted, though, and these I will tell you first.

• The batter needs only a quick stir.
• You should start taking dabs of the batter on the baking sheet right after mixing everything together. The oatmeals should take as little of the liquid in as possible, not swell.
• The dabs should be fairly far from another, the thins will be (surprisingly!) thin and wide, if the batter has not swelled, and if they are too close together on the baking sheet, you'll end up with one big biscuit.
• You can spray or brush the baking paper lightly with some oil, so the thins won't stick. Do this preferably already before making the batter.
• Be careful, when baking. The thins burn easily.

Makes about 30 thins.

No-fat

3 dl / ca. 1.2 cups oatmeals

½ dl /  ca. 1.6 oz flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 dl / ca 0.5 cup sugar

1 egg

100 ml / 0.4 cups orange juice or milk

Mix together the dry ingredients, add the egg and juice/milk, mix smooth quickly. Right after take small dabs of the batter on to the baking sheet well apart from one another. Bake in 225 C / 440 F on the middle or next to top rack for 5-7 minutes.

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Sohwi

Last week I met a few friends from the university in order to have an early dinner. We chose Restaurant Sohwi to be the place. It is located just next to the part of campus where us humanists mostly spend our time. None of us had eaten there before and two not even been there. But as Sohwi has a reputation as students' place, we thought it proper to fill our student duty and dine there.

First of us preferred Smoked Whitefish Pasta over all others from the menu. She said she liked her meal, but would have wanted her fish in larger pieces instead of them dissolving in the sauce.

Another of us chose Chicken Sandwich with a Salad and fries on the side. It also received positive comments. Although it came as a surprise that the citrus syrup, as the sauce of the salad, was indeed syrup, that is sweet, which is something one does not think when one thinks about citrus.

I bravely ordered Giant Burger. The meal was tasty and very fulfilling. The fries wanted a bit more salt, but luckily there was a salt shaker on the table.

The service was somewhat sluggish and brief, which was a thing I would've wanted to change there. Otherwise, it was a pleasant meal and the food was tasty and simple in a good way. I'm not yet sure, if the place impressed me enough to be going there again. That remains to be seen.

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American Dinner

Today I hosted my first dinner party. On a small scale and not a very sophisticated one, though, but you gotta start somewhere, right? Nevertheless, I am feeling a sense of satisfaction, pride and delight that is hard to describe in words, which is very unusual to me. As the aftermath for the evening I am having a warm feeling and am tempted to smile, whenever thinking back how smoothly and perfectly everything went.

A friend couple was invited over for a dinner and a movie (thanks for the company and the visit by the way, we enjoyed having you here a lot!) and to unwind myself from the exam of yesterday (who decided that exam dates ought to be on Saturdays anyway?) I planned and executed an American themed dinner for four with the priceless help of my DH. He helped me through every step of the way, from planning the scheduling of the different dishes and then in prepping, chopping and the actual cooking and baking. How wonderful is he! How lucky am I!

To make it all just a little bit more special I printed out a menu card:

Even looking at the card makes me smile again. Sigh. A little dream come true. And little dreams are just as important as the big ones, right?

Like you can read, for main course we had Sloppy Joes and Coleslaw (recipe courtesy of Simply Recipes, the coleslaw one slightly modified), with Fresh Lemonade by Food Network that you can see a little bit in the glass and jug beneath. The hamburger buns are made with the previously posted recipe.

And for dessert I made Rocky Road Brownies (which I've been dying to make for a while now and I took the opportunity with pleasure and enthusiasm) and followed the recipe by Deborah in Taste and Tell. Messy, but oh so gooey and yummy! A perfect ending to my first dinner party, in my opinion.

Everything turned out very well, even though all of the recipes were ones I had never tried out before. But this definitely was not the first and last time I will make these dishes, as they tasted so good! After eating our tummies full, we continued the evening by watching the movie Up which was sweet and touching, I liked it very much. It isn't too often that an animated film makes you think about things and that's what I liked about it.

After a wonderful, wonderful evening with friends and food I am ready to start the new week with fresh energy.

A little dream come true can sure give one big boost to life.

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Blogloving'

Seuraa blogiani Bloglovinin avulla

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Jamie's Italian

I'm terribly late with this story considering that the visit I am telling about took place in last November. The blog all in all has suffered from my intense work load during the winter. But because I started it mainly for my own amusement and pleasure to begin with, I'm not going to feel guilty about not having time to post as often as I would like. I trust that once my life calms down a bit, it will show as a more active blog as well.


Anyway, last November my husband and I spent a week in Great Britain. Our time was spent mainly in London and during that time we pampered ourselves in the culinary field by dining in the Canary Wharf installment of Jamie's Italian restaurant chain. 

Picture from JamieOliver.com

It was a very pleasant visit. The restaurant was cozy but still afforded a certain Wow factor.

Service and food was excellent and the surroundings of the restaurant were pleasant as well, the modern district of Canary Wharf with its tall, glassy buildings was a refreshing and surprising change coming above ground after traveling on the Tube from the more traditional parts of London.

Picture from JamieOliver.com

           


 The menu was appealing as well and prices affordable for a couple like us, of which the other half is still a student. We both had Jamie's 'flash steak' as a main 

and divided ultimate chocolate raspberry and Amaretto brownie with bourbon vanilla ice cream

and Tuscan chocolate and hazelnut cake served with seasonal fruits for the dessert. 

Everything was very tasty and we left the place our tummies full and perfectly satisfied. We can warmly recommend the restaurant and will definitely go dine there again, if and hopefully when going back to London.

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New York Cheesecake

Here it is... my first cheesecake!

The recipe is from a Finnish blog called Suolaa&Pippuria (Salt & Pepper). It tasted absolutely heavenly! I didn't serve a berry sauce with it, like the blog writer suggested, because having to transport the still warm cake to a friends' flat, where it was eaten in a get-together, was challenging enough. But the cake was just divine even without it! Soft and full-flavored. There wasn't enough biscuit crust, as I used gluten-free biscuits that usually are sold in smaller packages than normal ones, but it didn't make much of a difference.


1 package digestive biscuits
2 tbs butter
2 tbs cinnamon
1 tbs water


600 grams of fresh cheese
400 ml créme fraiche
7 eggs
100 ml (0.4 cups) sugar
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1tbs vanilla sugar


Heat the oven into 150 C/300F. Crush the biscuits in a blender and add melted butter, water and cinnamon. Spread on the bottom and on the sides of a springform cake pan. Beat the cheese soft in a stand mixer (or with a hand mixer). Add créme fraiche and mix well. Add the eggs one by one and mix well in between. In the end add the lemon juice and zest, sugar and vanilla sugar. Pour on top of the crust and bake for 40-50 minutes or until firm. I let it bake for over an hour.

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Strawberry cake with gelatin

First of all, I so apologize for the unforgivable silence. What can I say? I just seemed to need a break. Anyway, I mean to be publishing some recipes in the near future, that have been waiting to be published a long time. And I will probably publish all of them in English. I'm not yet sure, will all my future postings be only in English, but these most probably will. If you have any comments or suggestions to make as to what kind of blog you hope this to be, or to the language it shall be written in, feel free to leave a comment!

This cake I made for a wonderful get-together with friends in August. The recipe is from a Finnish site Pirkka. On top of the cake I have raspberries, I had not looked at the recipe carefully enough before shopping for ingredients and took only a liter of fresh strawberries, which went into the filling. I had some fresh raspberries however and thus I decorated the top of the cake with them.

16-20 servings

Ingredients:

Cake:

2 eggs

100 ml / a bit over 4 cups sugar

3 tbs boiling water

3/4 dl / 2.5 oz flour

2 tbs potato flour

3 tbs cacao powder

½ tsp baking powder

Moisturizing:

50 ml juice, for example blackcurrant

Filling:

1000 ml fresh strawberries (or 500 g defrosted strawberries)

100 ml / ca. 0.4 cups sugar

300 ml double cream

250 g milk curd

3 tsp vanilla sugar

2-3 tbs lemon juice

On top:

ca. 50 ml strawberry jam

100 ml fresh strawberries

150 ml blackcurrant juice

100 ml / ca 0.4 cups gelatin/jelly sugar

1. Heat up the oven to 200 C / 390 F. Grease a pringform cake pan (about 24 cm / 9.5 inches in diameter) and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Measure the flour, cocoa powder, potato flour and baking powder and stir together. Boil the water. Beat the eggs and sugar into a thick light foam. Add the boiling water into the egg foam little by little, stirring the whole time. Sieve the flour mixture into the foam in a few patches. Mix on the lowest speed of the mixer. Pour the matter into the pan. Bake in the lower part of the oven for 11-13 minutes. The cake is done, when it comes off from the sides of the pan.

2. Let the cake cool for a moment and take it off the pan and let cool on a rack. Wash the pan and cut pieces from baking paper in order to line the pan. Cut the cooled cake into two same sized round pieces and lay the bottom part on the bottom of the pan. Moisturize the cake with the juice.

3. Slice the fresh strawberries for the filling. Sprinkle half the sugar on top of them. Let the leaf gelatins soak in cols water for at least 10 minutes. Whisk the cream, add vanilla sugar and put in the fridge to wait. Mix together the milk curd, strawberries and the rest of the sugar. Heat up the lemon juice in a small saucepan. Add the dry squeezed leaf gelatins into the juice and let dissolve. Let the mixture cool down a bit and add into the milk curd-strawberry mix and stir well. Add the whisked cream in and mix well. Pour the mixture into the pan. Place the other half of the cake on top and let set over night in cold.

4. Take the rim of the cake pan away as well as the baking paper piece lining it. Spread a thin layer of strawberry jam on top of the cake. Cover the top with sliced strawberries. Prepare the jelly according to the instructions in the package. Spoon it over the strawberries first little and then as a thicker layer. Let the cake set in a cool place for a little while. Serve.

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BBM: Package has arrived!

This year I participated in the Blogging By Mail event that Stephanie from Dispensing Happiness organizes. The idea is that you send a package to somewhere in the world to another blogger and then you get another package somewhere else. There's usually a theme too. I have seen entries from other rounds of BBM in other blogs before now, but have missed the sign-up time and have only seen participants blogging the content of the packages they've received. It has sounded so much fun and I have been sad to miss it so just imagine my joy when I noticed a post in Dispensing Happiness that another round is coming up! This time the theme was indulgences. 5 items that help you rewind. I packed up and sent my package just before our trip to England and a week after that, this Friday, I got my own.

Nupur from One Hot Stove had shipped her 5 indulgences to me and what a wonderful package it was! And how excited I was to get it!


Inside there was a pretty little Christmas cards that had an explanation for each item in the package. And self-made too, I loved the idea of having paper clips as the skate blades! 

Here's the whole of what came out!

A little glass jar of saffron and a recipe for an Indian dessert that includes saffron. This was a real treat for me as I've never ever before had saffron! I can't wait to try it out the recipe of Shrikhand, it sounded delicious! Plus the glass jar is so incredibly cute! I can figure out uses for that once the saffron is all used up.

Nupur said in her note that she enjoys taking warm showers with a scented good soap. I can totally relate to that! This soap has Christmassy fragrances. This will definitely give a whiff of luxury to my life!

Don't you just love this little woollen sweater with a heart shaped button in front! Nupur had knitted this for me, as one of her favorite indulgences is knitting! Even the thought of this is enough to cheer up on a windy gray day, of which we've had our share of here in Finland. This sweater is meant as a key ring and that function it shall have :)

Oh the chocolate! You could resist these! I really do love chocolate and to have two kinds that I've never tasted before... of the joy! I will open up one or both of these to unwind while...

... reading this wonderful Martha Stewart magazine that was the last item in the package. I've already taken a peek and can't wait to have to time to submerge myself in the different recipes and ideas for decorating and gift packaging!

Thank you Nupur for this delightful package, you don't know how cheerful it made me! And thanks for Stephanie for hosting this great event!

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(Not so) Fast Food

For the last couple of days we've enjoyed the flavors of fast food - sitting at our own kitchen table. Today we made hamburgers and used the last posted recipe to make the rolls. I just made the rolls bigger than last time. On top of the bread I had hamburger dressing, ketchup, salad, pickle, tomato, the meat that cheese and blue cheese on top and a fried egg.



Yesterday's meal on the other hand was a Subway-inspired stuffed bread. Again, the bread was self-made, the recipe from the same book, and it was called rye baguette. Here is my husband's dish that included again hamburger dressing, ketchup, on one side grilled chicken from the fay before, on other ham, salad, cucumber, tomato and fresh pineapple.



4 long baguettes

Rising time: 30 + 50-60 minutes
Oven: 250 C, 10-12 minutes

50 g yeast
500 ml water
2 tsp salt
4oo ml fine rye flour
1000 ml wheat flour (I think I used about 800)
rough rye flour

Crumble the yeast. Warm the water to body temperature, add it in and stir as long as it takes for the yeast to dissolve. Add the salt and the flour. Knead and let rise under a towel for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough in four and form a baguette from each piece. Roll in rough rye flour and place the baguettes on a parchment covered baking sheets, two for both. Let rise 50-60 minutes. Bake the baguettes in 250 C for 10-12 minutes.

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Breakfast rolls

Another recipe from my new cook book. Although name refers to breakfast, I made these on the side of a soup. They are ready pretty fast, as only the dough is let to rise for 30 minutes and the rolls are put into a cold oven. I used dry yeast and it worked well too. They tasted great and were so quick and easy too that I will definitely make these again. If these were made bigger, they would be excellent for home made burgers.


16 breakfast rolls
Rising time: 30 minutes
Uuni: 200 C, 20-22 minutes


300 ml water
50 g yeast
2 tbl oil
1 tsp salt
ca 900 ml flour


Warm up the water to body temperature, crumble the yeast and stir until it's wholly dissolved. Add oil, salt and about 800 ml of flour. Cover the dough and let rise for 30 minutes. Take the dough on the baking table and use the rest of the flour for the baking. Divide the dough into 16 pieces and place the pieces on a baking paper covered sheet. Place the sheet into the cold oven, turn on the heat to 200 C and bake for 20-22 minutes.

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