Category Archives: Food

Chanterelle Soup

Chanterelles are my favorite mushrooms. I like to dry them so I can add them to sauces all year long. Today we bought some chanterelles in a box and there were a lot of small pieces. I decided to make a soup with the small pieces and dry the larger ones.

We used to get a really nice chanterelle soup at the Hotel Grand Marina in Helsinki, but since they let Jamie Oliver into their kitchen, it’s not really worth going there. I wanted to try to recreate that, so I looked for a Finnish recipe. Finns know mushrooms! Feel free to use other mushrooms. I’m just using my favorite.


Gather your ingredients:
4 dl (about 1 3/4 cups) of chopped chanterelles (or other mushroom)
medium onion, chopped
3 tbsp butter
4 tbsp flour
8 dl (3 1/2 cups) hot water
1 vegetable stock cube
1 1/2 tsp salt
black pepper and white pepper to taste
2 dl (about 7 ounces) cream

Dissolve the stock cube in the hot water and set aside. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and add the chopped onion and mushrooms.
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Layered Tex-Mex Casserole

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AKA Lazy Girl Tex-Mex Lasagna. Any time I simplify a recipe, I label it as a “Lazy Girl” recipe. This is one of my favorites. It’s hard to find good Tex-Mex at the restaurants in Finland, so I make it at home. If I don’t want to go to the trouble of making enchiladas, but want something more substantial than tacos, I make this.



Gather your ingredients. You’ll need:
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Plum Butter

We had a a large plum crop this year and I made plum jam and plum butter again. Every time I make plum butter, I have to call my mom and ask her how to do it. I decided to document it this time. Since the measuring is done only when working with the pulp, it’s easy to get started. It was late, so I put the plums into my crock pot and covered them with water. I let them cook all night. The next morning, they were soft and ready to be made into plum butter. You can do this on the stove. Just dump them in a large pan, cover them with water and cook on low for about three hours.

Cooked plums and water.

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Isänpäivä 2009

Today is Father’s Day in Finland. Reino suggested a chocolate cake for Jouni. I wanted something a little different and found a recipe for Chocolate Mousse Cake Roll in a Hershey’s cookbook that my sister sent me.

There's a cake in there!

Rolled up and cooling.


Chocolate Mousse Roll Cake

Filled, rolled, chilled and ready to serve.

A slice

A perfect slice, ready to be eaten by the päivänsankari (day’s hero).

Snickerdoodles!

I just made my first ever Snickerdoodles. I’m a chocolate lover myself, but Reino had these when we were visiting a friend and he really liked them. I thought I’d give them a try and see if he likes mine. I had one and it was really good. Jouni approves, too.

Now I just have to make sure they survive until he gets home from school.

Jarred

The plum butter and plum jam are finally in jars. I’m really pleased with both. Have a look.

The plum and vanilla jam recipe was found here.

The plum butter was an adaptation of a recipe I have for making apple butter in the crockpot. I had forgotten that the crockpot method hasn’t worked for me and I had to transfer the operation to the oven. It still turned out fantastic.



The jars are from Sandy. She sent some delicious peaches a few years ago and I’ve beeh hanging on to the jars. Thanks, Sandy!

Plum crazy!

This is our ninth September in this house and it’s the first time that our plum tree has produced so many plums. We picked them last night and I’ve been doing as much plum work as I can in between the other stuff. Not all of them are ripe, but will be by the weekend. My sink was full!

As soon as Jouni came in with the last of them, he asked where his pie was. I hadn’t even started on it yet, but hurried up with it. I made a tart rather than a pie. If you’re thinking that it looks incredible, you’re right!

I knew I wanted to make plum butter, so that was next. I boiled some plums to soften them then strained out the seeds and skin to get the smooth pulp. I put it in my crockpot with sugar and cinnamon then left it to cook all night. In the morning I took the lid off and am letting it continue to cook and thicken.

I found a recipe for plum and vanilla jam. I happen to have some vanilla beans, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I have canned the jam and heard the first lid pop already. It didn’t make much, but if it turns out as delicious as I think it will, I’ll make more of the jam.

Indiana Jones cake

We had Reino’s 7th birthday party today. Of course it was all about Indiana Jones and we had to deliver a cake that fit the theme. After searching the web, I decided the easiest thing to do was try to duplicate the scene on the Motorcycle Chase (#7620) box. I made a rectangle cake and a round cake. My husband is very creative so of course I consulted with him on the best way to cut and shape the pieces. He had some specific ideas, so I let him do the shaping then I applied the frosting and handed it back to him for decorating.

Here it is, all cut and I’ve started applying the road.


I crushed some packaged oatmeal cookies in the little food processor and used them for dirt on the road. The tree is under some of the cake, so I had to frost around it.

At this point I handed it over to Jouni to finish. He had a vision and I didn’t want to interfere.

The kids loved the cake and thought it looked great. We had the party outside and when I brought the cake out, Jouni played the Indiana Jones theme music.

Happy Birthday, Jouni!

Today is my husband’s birthday and I made him a Black Forest Cake. My own version, of course. It was delicious!

The top.


And from the side. It was tall!

And a delectable slice.

Thanks for looking!