Baking for the breakfast – rolls and bread

Recently I have been trying out baking in the morning, and found these two recipes really, really easy.

Over night rolls

• 3 dl water / milk
• 2 tbs sugar / honey / syrup
• 25 g yeast
• 3/4 tsp salt

• 1 dl sun flower seeds
• 2 dl dark wheat flour
• 2 dl graham flour
• 2 dl spelt flour

• 2 tbs vegetable oil

• sun flower / sesame / pumpkin / poppy seeds

In the evening mix water, yeast, sugar and salt together.  Mix seeds and flours together, and then with water.
When those are mixed lightly add the oil. Put the dough into the fridge, and let it rise overnight.

In the morning make 12 rolls, dip them to the water, and then dip into bowl with seeds.
Let the rolls rise for half an hour over the sink filled with hot water.

Bake in oven (225C)  for 10 minutes.

Overnight bread in a pot

• 3,5 dl water
• 1 tl dried yeast
• 2 tl salt
• 7 dl flour

Mix all ingredients lightly. Let rise in the room temperature for 12 – 18 hours. Pour the dough to baking table with flour, form a ball quickly without kneading.
Let rise for half an hour.  Meanwhile put the cold pot with a lid to cold oven and
heat the oven to 225.  Bake for 30 minutes with the lid and  additional 15 minutes without lid.

You  can use various flours, seeds, herbs for variety.

Serve warm and enjoy.

Roasted new potatoes

Heat oven to 225 degrees Celsius.

Wash 500 g new potatoes, cut into halves if large.

Cut some onion and garlic to taste.

Mix 0.5 dl vegetable oil, 1 tbs honey with potatoes.
Add some salt and freshly ground pepper.

Roast for 20 min in oven and turn them around, roast an other 20 min.
For last 5 min heat up with grill.

Simple and tasty.

 

Avocado Pasta and Tasty Tomato Sidedish

We had so nice  the Witch Kitchen reunion today in Dar Es Salaam and for the dinner we decided to make something simple,  tasty and fast. It’s season for avocados now in Tanzania, and Sanna wanted something simple pasta with pesto, so we decided to combine these two ideas. We googled some avocado pasta recipes  and then made our own version.  So here it is:

• whole wheat pasta
• 3 avocados chopped
• juice of 2 limes
• 0.5 dl pesto
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 dl chopped parsley
• 1 dl grated pecorino / parmessan cheese
• grounded black pepper
• salt

While pasta is cooking prepare the other ingredients and mix them in a bowl, add the hot pasta with the mixture and let it rest for a while. Serve and enjoy.

This time we did not have fresh basil, but that would be a good addition to the dish, well may the next time.  We still have a challenge for making good & healthy lunches, so for tomorrow  we will have this for lunch. It could be served also with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers.

In the witch kitchen we mix and match – and this time we made a tasty side dish to bring more variety,

• 3 tomatoes chopped
• 20 cm of leek chopped
• 10 – 15  green olives chopped
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• grounded pepper
• salt

Sauteed in olive oil for a while. Simple and tasty.

Spinach & Peanut Curry

My friend Pirita said to me one day that she’s found a recipe that might be worth trying…

• 2 bunches mchicha (Tanzanian spinach) or a similar amount of spinach
• 2 onions
• 3-4 tomatoes
• 1,5 – 2 dl* peanut butter (*dl = decilitre = 1/10 litre; 1 cup = 2,4 dl)
• 130 ml coconut milk
• curry powder (*see below)
• chili powder
• salt

 

*We didn’t have curry powder so I checked what it consists of. I found out that there are quite many different variations and I just decided to make my own one 🙂 Grind 1 tsp jeera seeds, 1 tsp coriander, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp mustard seeds, and 6 cardamom seeds. Mix them with 1 tsp turmeric and 1/2 tsp chili powder.

Rinse mchicha / spinach carefully. Chop it (you can use all of it apart from the red coloured roots), and onions and tomatoes. Fry onions in oil with the spice mixture, add tomatoes and mchicha. Let simmer for 10 min.

Mix the peanut butter and coconut milk. Add on the pan. Spice up the sauce with salt. Let simmer for a couple of minutes.

SOOOOOOOO delicious!! Really worth trying!

P.S. You can also first cook the mchicha in salted water for 10 min and then just add it on the pan at the same time with peanut butter and coconut milk. Then you can boil the rice in the water that you used for cooking mchicha and the rice will have a nice flavour. The advantage of frying the mchicha with onions and tomatoes is, though, that its texture remains nicer – a bit more crunchy.

Cabbage dishes in Indian style

Tonight it was time for the Witch Kitchen again, this time experimenting with cabbage. Met with Kristiina in the morning at Design Factory, and it would have been so nice to cook together. Their schedule for the week in so intense, that we might not have possibility for that, but the cheerful spirit of the Witch Kicthen from Dar somehow lingered to my mind, and after long day, I still found energy to cook two cabbage dishes –  one cold and one warm.

I was scouting recipes from Internet and found these to experiment with

• Cabbage Tahir Sadaam from Tamarind Heaven blog – looks like a really interesting blog in Finnish on Indian style cooking
• Cabbage in Indian Style from Makuja.fi – recipe site

Here are the applied versions of the recipes

Cabbage Tahir Sadaam

• some vegetable oil
• 1 tps mustard seeds
• 1 tps jeera seeds
• 1 small onion chopped finely and ~ 300 g  cabbage thinly chopped
• 1/2 tps tumeric   and 2 tbs coconut flakes

Heat up the oil with mustard seeds, until they pop. Add jeera seeds and stirr a couple of times. Add onion and stir, and add cabbage, tumeric, coconut and stir and roast for a while – about 5 min until cabbage is crisp. Let things cool for awhile and add yogurt to your taste. Serve cool.

Cabbage in Indian Style

• 500 g cabbage finely chopped
• 125 g green beans
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 2 tps jeera seeds
• 2  bay leafs
• 1/4 tps red chili powder

• 1/2 tps tumeric
• 1 tps salt
•  1 tps sugar
• 1/2 tps garam masala

Heat up the oil, roast jeera seeds for a while. Add cabbage and green beans. Original recipe had green peas, but since I did not have them, replaced them with green beans.  Roast for a while, add tumeric and chili, roast for 5 minutes under the cover. Add salt and sugar roast yet another 3 minutes. Add finally garam masala and serve.

Both were really tasty dishes, and relatively fast and easy to prepare, yellowish good for Easter time. Luckily my colorful spice selections  seems to cover rather well various dishes. Gradually I have learned to make rather tasty vegetable dishes that also men in our family enjoy.  I have just started a 35 weeks challenge – leaner diet and more exercise. Vegetarian cooking gives good support.

Making blinis – easier than it sounds

Blinis are of Russian origin and they are considered as winter food. It’s currently blini season and this time I decided to make blinis at home. Somehow I had a perception that it was far more difficult than it actually was.  Now we have actually made them twice.

We did not have a special blini pan of cast iron, so I used a pan for small pan cakes and it worked out well.

• 3 dl yogurt / sour cream 
• 2 dl buckwheat flour
• 15 g fresh yeast
• 1 tps sugar

Crumble yeast, mix with sugar, add yogurt (warmed to body temperature) and flour. Let rest in room temperature for at least 2 hours, or preferably over night in the refrigerator.   The taste gets better over the time.

• 1 egg
• 1 dl milk
• 1 tbs butter
• 1 tps salt

Separate egg yolk and white. Mix egg white into foam.  Heat up milk, and butter. Mix all with buckwheat mix.

Fry blinis in a pan with butter. They should be crisp outside and soft inside.  Serve blinis with

• red onion cut into small pieces 
• pickled cucumber cut into small pieces
• fish roe   / caviar – variety  – also available vegetarian varieties made of seaweed
• smoked salmon cut into small pieces  – ok it’s not vegetable, but tastes so good with blinis
• mushrooms
• smetana or sour cream

For sweet blini versions you can use

• honey
• berries
• jam
• nuts

Was looking origins of blini pancakes – and found a good story on Blini – Russiapedia.  It looks like blinis were originally made a lot  thinner. Currently in Finland they are made rather thick. They can be made from variety of flours – originally it was oats, but also wheat, rye and barley and buckwheat.

Blinis were offered in certain time – just before lentil. We were many beliefs related to blinis – this goes well with our Witch Kicthen – “Tradition has it that if a woman prepares many tasty pancakes spring and summer would bring a rich harvest, health and success.”

 

 

 

 

 

Cauliflower-Chick Pea-Lentil-Tomato Caserole

First time Indian style cooking without recipes. I usually come rather late to home, and again I skipped lunch. And this evening I wanted loads of vegetables for dinner and decided to improvise a dish.

• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 tps mustard seeds
• 3 cloves of garlic – chopped into small pieces
• 2.5 cm piece of ginger – chopped into small pieces
• 1 onion – chopped
• 1 large cauliflower – cut into small pieces
• 1 tbs coriander – roasted & grated
• 1 tbs jeera  – roasted & grated
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 can of chick peas
• 1 can of green lentils
• 2 dl water
• 1 tps masala
• fresh coriander

Heat the oil, add mustard seeds until they pop, add garlic, and ginger and a little later onions. Roast for a while, add coriander, jeera and cauliflower. Mix well, add crushed tomatoes and water, mix in chick peas and lentils.  Let boil for 20 min, add masala spice and boil 5-10 minutes. Serve with fresh coriander. Really tasty.

Such a pleasure to notice, that I have learned enough with our Witch Kitchen cooking session, so I’m  able to improvise with vegetables and spices. Yet I still want to try out new recipes as well.

Butternut delights

Sunday grocery shopping had a nice surprise for us – we found a special offer of  butternut squash from France in our local store. It is usually not available in Finnish stores, have eaten in South Africa and in Tanzania with Kristiina & Pepe.

Recipe is very simple

• 1 butternut – cut into pieces 
• 1 tbs olive oil
• sea salt
• spices

Set everything into a oven dish. This time I used some Chinese 5 spice and some Jamaican jerk spice.
Cross cultural cooking, ingredients and inspiration across the world.

Bake about 30 min in 200C oven. A little more time makes even sweeter. Butternut is nice bright orange, really tasty vegetable and I’m planning to grow it next summer. Tomorrow I’ll go to get some more from our local shop and try out some other recipes.

The seeds can be also roasted in a pan. Roast for a while when seeds get some color and start to smell nice, then just add some salt.
The seeds are really tasty as well, and also a healthy snack.

In Finnish butternut squash is called myskikurpitsa or talvikurpitsa. Some nice recipes in Finnish are available here  in the Ekoloinen blog.

Brownie in the Bowl

I have been fighting the flu with dark chocolate – actually don’t know if it helps to flu.
But dark chocolate makes me feel so much better, and that is highly recommended when sick.

So this recipe was inspired by Brownie in the Mug a great simple and fast recipe,
shared a by a friend.

Ingredients

• 0.5 dl  whole grain wheat flour
• 0.25 dl  brown sugar
• 2 tbs organic cocoa powder
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 2 tbs water

Mix well dry ingredients, add oil and water, and mix well again.
Set in a bowl. Microwave for 1 min 40 seconds.

Why to use bowl and not a mug ?

Because  – so you can add bigger portion of ice-cream, and berries and fruit and
nuts and almonds…

Enjoy!

Kasvissosekeitto – pureed vegetable soup

Enpä muistanutkaan miten hyvää sosekeitto on, joten tämä taas muistutuksena itselleni ja ehkä muillekin.

Pilkoin kattilaan porkkanaa ja perunaa ( ehkä 5 porkkanaa ja 6 pienehköä perunaa), päälle vettä sen verran että melkein peittyivät. Keitin sen verran että porkkanat olivat kypsiä ja perunat jo ylikypsiä. Heitin sekaan kasvisliemikuution – tuhma minä, transrasvoja ja kaikkea, mutta laiskotti. Jos olisi ollut soijakastiketta, olisin maustanut sillä ja sekalaisilla yrttimausteilla.

Sauvasekoittimella soseeksi, ja vähän maitoa sekaan kun oli liian sakeaa. Kookosmaito olisi varmaan myös ollut hyvää. Myllystä vähän suolaa ja pippuria. Nam. Annos oli sopiva meille kolmelle, vähän paahtoleipää ja juustoa kaveriksi.

Sosekeitossa toimivat hyvin erilaiset juurekset, kukkakaali ja parsakaali, sipulia ja valkosipuliakin voisi paistella vähän sekaan.  Jos haluaa ruokaisampaa keittoon voi sekoittaa vaikka sulatejuustoa. Jotkut heittävät voita sekaan, tuoreita yrttejä voisi silputa päälle… Hankala saada epäonnistumaan.

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I had almost forgotten how nice a pureed vegetable soup is, so this is a reminder to myself and maybe to others.

Chopped about 5 carrots and 6 small potatoes to a pot, added water to almost cover them and boiled until carrots were done and potatoes more than done. Added a vegetable stock cube – yes I know, bad, transfats and such, but I was lazy. If we had had soya sauce could have used that and dried herbs to season.

Pureed the whole thing with a hand mixer and added some milk as it was a bit too thick. Coconut milk would also have been nice. Ground some salt and pepper to taste. This was a nice dinner for the three of us with some toast and cheese.

Pureed veggie soup works well with different root vegetables, cauliflower, broccoli, also could fry some onion and garlic to add in. To make it more filling, you could add some soft cheese like Philadelphia, don’t know the proper name for that kind of cheese. Some add a bit of butter, you can granish with fresh herbs… It is difficult to really mess it up.