Some espresso

Hello everyone who bother reading this! It's been ages since the last time I wrote anything in here. If you have been following my Instagram you may have seen some of my dishes but I have been too busy to write anything (or too lazy). But here's my first blog update for 6 months.
         I have recently become more intrested in different type of coffees. Cappuccino is clearly my favourite but I also like different types. To make cappuccino you need some espresso and milk. We had had a moka pot for years but I haven't paid any attention to it before. The opening of a new coffee roastery in Jyväskylä has strengthed my enthusiasm to coffees. It's called paahtimo Papu. It's the only organic roastery in Finland. Here's a link to  their website: http://www.paahtimopapu.fi/  (the website is in Finnish).

        I bought some espresso grounds tested to make some coffee. It tasted disgusting. The next time I put some less grounds at it tasted a whole lot better. I also tried to make some latte and it tasted pretty good.

Restaurant Pöllövaari

I just had my 16th birthday and my parents gave me as a birthday present a dinner in restaurant Pöllövaari. It's in the middle of Jyväskylä, Finland. The name is Finnish and means owl grandfather. I ordered a menu called Kotimaan matka. It means a trip around the home country. It included goat cheese and onion as an appertizer, lamb as a main dish and crème brûlée as a dessert. The lamb was very tender and I enjoyed the whole meal.

Ravioli

I made some ravioli one day. It took hours to make enough pasta for my whole family but with a little preparing it won't take long. You can make the dough in advance and freeze it. You can find the recipe from my previous post.

Opening the barbeque season

 We started our barbeque season yesterday by grilling some corn chicken and pork. As you might see, there's still some snow on the ground. But I didn't let it matter. I made the dish in the middle of the plate (under) by putting some soft goat cheese, red onion and some devil's jam on the grilled pork pieces.

Devil's Jam

800g Crushed tomatoes
400g Red peppers
1 Onion
2-4 Red chilis
6-8 Garlic cloves
1 tspn Salt
1 tspn Ground black pepper
1 tspn Oregano
1/2 dl Vinegar
1 packet Jamsugar

Chop peppers and onion and crush the garlic. Add all ingredients except the sugar in a pan. I made two batches of this; other one was hotter, other milder. Stir and let it pour for 30-40 minutes. After that add the sugar, stir and let it pour for 5 more minutes. Let it chill for a minute and bottle. I sterilised the jars by putting them in the oven for about half an hour. I like to serve it with this pig, goat cheese and red onion dish.

Smoked Chili

 My father smoked some salmon yesterday and I decided to try to smoke some chili at the same time. I grabbed a random chili from one of the bushes. I thought it wasn't so hot because it was that big. Nope.

When I put the chili in my mouth, it started to burn almost immediately. The pain lasted for about 10 minutes.
      The upper picture shows the chili before smoking and the lower picture after. We used apple tree and alder chips in smoking.

American Chocolate Muffins

 The best things in American chocolate muffins are the big chocolate chips. You never get bored enough to not eat them. It also took me only about fifteen minutes to put these in the oven.  Here's the recipe:

American Chocolate Muffins

• 6dl Flour
• 2tsp Baking powder
• 0.5dl Cocoa powder
• 1.5dl Brown sugar
• 200g Chocolate chips
• 2 Eggs
• 2.75dl Milk 
• 1.5dl Oil 

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Distribute evenly among the molds. Cook in 200° for about 20 minutes.


 

Smoked Salmon

My father just bought an electric smoker and I couldn't wait to test it. I smoked salmon this time but I'm going to test chili too. Maybe something else later if I get an idea of something.

We used hickory and alder chips in smoking. In the picture (right) those bigger chips are hickory and smaller ones alder. I can't say anything about the taste of the smoke because I have nothing to compare with.

We seasoned the salmon fillets with salt and pepper. The pepper maybe covered a bit of the smoke flavour. So, next time I'll put there a bit less pepper.
 

We put the fillets in the smoker for about 45 minutes.
The smoker was quite hot after that, so we had to use mittens when taking the salmon fillets out. The skin had stuck to the grid and we had to scrape it off.

The salmon was tender and juicy. It had a beautiful brown surface as you can see from the picture in the right. We served it with fresh lime and salad.

Avocado pasta and sun-dried tomato pesto

 One day my mother asked me to make some avocado pasta. She had heard about it on the net. So I decided to make my own version of it. I learnt the recipe to this pesto during my TET-week. So here's the recipe.

Avocado pesto:

Some cooked pasta

2 Ripe avocados

Lemon juice

1 Large onion

Some chili (Preserving chili, 11th October)

Mix ingredients in a hot pan and serve.

Sun-dried tomato pesto

2 jars Sun-dried tomatoes and some oil

10 Walnuts

5 Garlic cloves

Some chili (Preserving chili, 11th October)

Whiz ingredients to make some paste. Serve.

White Chocolate Bread Pudding

 I made this bread pudding a few days ago. It was boosted with white chocolate and raspberries. I used frozen ones because I didn't have any fresh ones. I first forgot to put the liquids (because of small font). Then I put them later. It didn't affect to the taste at all and to the look a lot. So here's the recipe:

    Bread pudding:  

250g White chocolate

25g Salt-free butter

250g White bread or bun

250g Fresh or frozen raspberries

4 Eggs

6dl milk

2 tablespoons sugar

Melt the sugar with butter in a small bowl. Cut the bread into cubes. Put half of the bread into a casserole and pour half of the chocolate mixture on them. Put half of the raspberries on them. Put the rest of the bread onto the casserole and chocolate and raspberries. Whisk eggs, milk and sugar a bit. Pour into the casserole. Let it soak for 20 minutes.

     Cook in an oven in 190°C for about 30 minutes. Let it chill for 10 minutes and serve.