HELSINKI STROLL

Yesterday we went into town for a stroll together with Dag's oldest (half)brother . Which does not happen that often, having a day off and haning it in town, when you spend most of your time way out in the countryside.

Walking in Ruoholahti, which is something I almost never do; walk around in, other than walk just trough. I used to come trough here almost every day when at lunch from the harbour.

Some hundred meters further a whole new part of town has sprung up during Dag's lifetime on parts of what was once the old harbour. It looks different every time I pass. When I left work before Dag was born this was all just one big construction site. (And half of it still is.)

Do you know how many times I stared at those shipyard cranes and the blue dry dock wall opposite of our spot in the harbour? Do you know how many times? Of course you don't, but many, many times I tell you.

 We popped by the flea market. Dag got a red smiling tractor.


Had lunch at Moko market. Salad with kale and marinated carrots and fresh pea puree. Nom.

 Moko is also an interior store, with lots of wonderful useful-and-less usefull stuff, books and some foods as well.


 Moko has a playground space for kids too. Convenient.

I used to go there and shop all the time before, you know, when I had a job with a steady monthly wage and could do shopping just for fun. When you work solely by yourself things are so much more uneven. (I might have to get myself some pineapple and palm tree boxes though. Because they are always good for somehting...)

But I wasn't really there to get anything for myself but to pick up some things for our studio. Which I will get back to later. (And get back to a lot to; you'll see.)

 Later we did some toy shopping -there are a many small misters all turning one year old in August.

Sometimes I wonder how these small stores that are specialized in something can pull trough when rents in town are what they are - I remember thinking so about this toystore too when walking past it before, do people really buy enough to make it go around? But now I get it, in this case at least, I just wanted to buy everything in there.

Then we went to join up with some 15,000 other people at the Citizen's Square. 

The rather impromptu manifestation for multiculturalism and anti-racism; We Have A Dream, took place. It was organised in just a couple of days as a counter-reactions to some writings of a politician and the discussion it sparked.

Then the teenager got tired.

So we had burgers at the new-in-town hipster burger place Friends & Brgrs. (Everything there is made from scratch and with clean ingredients. The queue in the restaurant is thus thereafter. Here's my veggieburger. Approved!)

And strawberry milkshake. Made on actual real berries, not just aromes.

More days should end with strawberry milkshakes.

FOUR THINGS TODAY

 Put on some red and beige and polka dot.

Went to pick up something mint green (alright, sea foam) and very fluffy and flowing.

Made a salad with things from our garden. Goat cheese and red wine berries makes a superb combination!
I mixed lettuce, spinach leaves and rucola,  random veggies (tomato, cucumber, yellow bellpepper) edible flowers, wine berries and goat cheese. Plus a balsamico vinaigrette. Summer points to the max!

Went up the hill to Eddi's aunt. She lives in a small house on top of a hill just nest to the farm house, She had picked berries and baked a blueberry pie with Dag. More summer points! (We need them, the weather is still a huge disappointment...)

A little bonus one still: you can pick cherries right out of her window! Summer points, ca-ching!

SUNDAY BAKING: QUICK VEGAN BANANA CHOCOLATE CAKE

I run one of those households that often (or well, always) ends up with a banana or two turned so ripe they're too yucky to eat. But they can happily go in a cake!

So today we decided to bake one with Dag; a quick banana based chocolate cake that is - for being a cake, -not too unhealhty. Kids can easily participate here as things like getting to mash banana is fun and easy to do, and with a big enough bowl not necessarily even that messy.

It's a cake easily altered, for example, I add some more spices to this during the colder season.

You will need:
3 ripe banans
around 50g of dried dates + a hint of water
1dl coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
1-1,5 dl cocoa
3 dl spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 dl oil  - I use coconut oil
(+ a dash of cinnamon)

Now, to make the easy things hard, or at least a bit more confusing for you: I have made this with four small bananas and with just two bananas and both versions work as well. The more banans the less dates you need, so when I had four banana-nanas I used just five dates. Also adjut the amount of cocoa powder to your own taste; 1,5 dl of cocoa makes the  rather dark and strong so you can go with less if that suits you better. I have also made this without the soda and it turned out fine. I you don't care about it being vegan or not you will get a nice cake by using butter instead of oil too (and you can of course toss in an egg for more fluffyness but then again that is already another cake). For more spices try some ginger and clover and perhaps a little cardamom.

First,  pre-heat the oven to 200c. Chop the dates and put them in a pan with a hint of water so it covers the dates, and heat up. Let it boil for a little while so you get a sticky paste. Add a little water if needed so the dates don't burn.

Mash the bananas with a fork or a masher. Add the sugar and cocoa, then the date-mass, then flour and finally the oil (in a runny state). Put in a greased cake mold (or fold it with baking paper).

I don't think the batter on this one is very good raw (which is a good thing, because that means more cake later) but Dag was eager to lick the bowl.

Bake for 35-50 minutes in 200C, depending on your oven and the size of your mold. Try it with a stick and take out to cool.

You can eat this warm, as it is or with ice cream. I prefer it after a day or two in the fridge.
Pimp it up with salted peanuts (no that's not crazy!), jam or with a bunch of cherries and some chocolate coconut cream  frosting!

RHUBARB CHUTNEY

Rhubarb season is coming to an end over here, but as it has been colder than usually (have I said this already here? How many times now? I feel betrayed by my summer!) you can still collect and make use of the stems, especially for jams and such, as it does not matter if they have turned a little more blah and bitter in their taste when cooked with sugar and such.

Although rhubarb actually is a vegetable, it is pretty much solely used for sweet dishes over here.
But it makes a great chutney for salty treats as well! It's a perfect addition to the bbq dinner. It's really good.

It should be really good with meat; I've had mine with tofu and grilled halloumi for example, but also as an addition to nachos and salsa.

You will need:
500g rhubarb
1 (yellow) onion
2 big cloves of garlic
1 chili fruit
about 0,75 dl honey
2 tbs red wine vinegar
a pinch of salt
1-2 tsp fresh ginger
a little turmeric

(A little embarrassing that we have our own honey but it's not pictured here... there is an old saying here that the shoemaker's kids have no shoes. And we've run out of it actually, so I had to buy some.)


Clean and peel the rhubarb, chop that with the onion, garlic and chili into pieces. Put in a pot together with the honey and vinegar and salt and let it boil together for about 20 minutes into a thick chutney.

Add the ginger and turmeric and pour into a hot cleaned jar.

I want to fill more jars so I double the recipe. I can also recommend to chop some rhubarb and put in your freezer, take it out and make this in winter to spice your dinner up on cold days! Because most likely your summer batch will be finished before the leaves fall off.

AND SO IT WAS SUMMER

Summer had suitable started while I was away so I arrived home to apple blossoms and happy cowns out again after the winter.  Goodbye May and Hello June!

(It also turned out to be the first June in over 50 years when the temperature two weeks in had still not reached over +20 (and even sadly stayed way under), so it has been more jackets and less sumer sandals still..)

Brought my stuff over to the farm and had a couple of days off together with my little soon-to-be-three-years-old-fella.

I made him (oven baked) pancake the first day. That is his absolute favourite. And that little kid can eat pancake I tell you. Several plates!

Picked rhubarb with my eager little helper.


Made, among other things, rhubarb punch. When you make it by soaking and not by cooking you end upwith a beautiful strong pink liquid. I just let unpeeled bits of rhubarbs soak for three days with lemon and a little sugar, then strain and heat up the juice with some more sugar and bring it to a boil (so that the recently added sugar dissolves) and then bottle it.

Summer is so easy! You jsut go out and pick up things from the ground to eat. I made a salad of ground eldre, chives and dandelion leaves from the garden.

And here are some more pictures of the now already faded apple blossom just because.

And an apple tree cat to end this one:

5 x BREAKFAST

For me breakfast is the best meal of the day; my schedule is such that I usually have the most time in the morning.

Apple-banana porridge on oats from our farm with raisins and black currants plus a little bit of almond butter on top. I cook the apple with the oats and put the banana in about half way trough, but the berries and raisins after. A basic porridge becomes more fancy that way, almost like a dessert. A small spoon of peanut butter, instead of almond such, is also good.

But here we have it on bread instead; peanut butter banana sandwhich, an apple and a hot cocoa drink with almond milk, vanilla, charadmom, coconut sugar and some cinnamon.

And peanut butter with citrus! Who would have known those two tastes would blend together so well! Peanut butter banana-.sandwhich with cumqats - I have a little tiny tree in the house and Dag kept picking the fruits off. So they ended up on my breakfast sandwhich.
Also, avocado sandwich with sundried tomato paste and chive, lemon water and some strawberry-rhubarb compote.

First outdoors breakfast of this year! Black coffee and raw bars with berries and cocoa.

(And wowza, now I am totally going to renew myself and add a fifth thing instead of my normal four):
Brekkie no5 is a smoothie made of mango-orange oat milk (oat milk with mango pulp and orange juice in it. Nice in drinks but terrible on müsli. Just sayin'), banana and frozen strawberries, together with some dates with almond butter.

PUDDING

Chia chocolate pudding. The kind of dish (or even, perhaps, treat?) that I am not really sure if it's just kind of edible or actually good.

I've made a few sets of chia pudding, or porridge (or slime) and they have never been much to cheer about. Very 'meh'. So why would I still keep making it? A) Because I still have a lot of chia seeds left over to be used up and B) you know when you sort of get this feeling you should like something (happensa lot with so called "superfoods") because you would like to like it and everyone says it's really good and also good for you? I kind of got that going on with that pudding now.

God damn it a (very) long time ago I used to make a small cup of linseed slime that I tried to get down every morning because it's really good for the stomach. The first mornings it was rather OK but after a while it just got unbearable. I mixed it with porridge but I could still feel the slimyness trough. During the same time I was also drinking apple cider vinegar in the morning (yeah those were the gourmand-mornings of 2001); a couple of spoons in a big glass of water. Cleansing and good for metabolism and all that. So they say. But it was the same with the vinegar, after a while I had to start pinching my nose and thing happy thoughts to get it down. Yuck. But that was then and now is now -I eventually (quite fast actually) gave up on the linseed slime. And vinegar. So one'd think that I now at this age would just forget about any self torment when it comes to what I ingest and move on with my life without any more superfood slime or chia seeds.
But then we get back to point A and the fact that those small little f**ckers don't come cheap.

What I had been missing all the time was of course cocoa.  Because anything related to chocolate makes most things better. And  ta-da, that chia jar of mine is started emptying up and, like I said, it might even be that it does so in a very tasty way.

The chocolate chia pudding (< bolded for those who think there is way much text here by now and just want to know what's in the cup in the picture without having to read it all):
So my chocolate chia pudding consists of chia seeds (surprise!) and vegetable milk. I use almond, but hazel or maybe coconut milk (not the canned one but the runny milky one that for example Go Green sells) is next on the list to try.  Then in with some vanilla powder, cocoa powder (quite a lot) and coconut sugar. I make it semi firm, with the milk covering the seeds well before I leave it to set over night or at least for some hours. I have a jar of lingonberry powder that I also add a little bit of. That gives a some extra sting. You can also add a tiny little pinch of salt.

When the pudding is ready I whip it a bit and mix in black currants and sprinkle coconut flakes on top. This goes well with  banana too, and with some raisins or finely chopped dried apricots mixed in. I am thinking of perhaps running the pudding in the blender when done though, to get it smooth.

Also, I've noticed a lot of small things taste better when served out of a coffee up. How is that one may wonder? The reason is probably the same that makes any beverage taste better when had out of a mason jar (according to the young and hip at least).

Do you have any food or dishes that you can't really decide on, yuck or yum?

QUICK FRUIT ICE CREAM

Every now and then I put together some quick and healthy ice cream as dessert for the kids (not to forget myself) that you basically can put together with two ingredients only. I do tend to add a little extras as well.

You may have read about banana as a magic ingredient for this and that, like a substitute for pretty much everything else than the eggs in pancakes (I tried it, never got it to work, just something that reminded scrambled banana-egg...), chocolate (eaten when chilled/frozen for a while. Or so they said in the late nineties at least. I tried it and powdered cocoa powder on to increase the feel. it did not work. But then again I am very serious about my chocolate) and also as ice cream when whipped frozen. The ice cream I can vouch for!

I am often stuck with over ripe bananas that I chop and put in a box in the freezer for later ice-cream use. (Or, to be honest, sometimes I am just lazy and put the banana in the freezer as it is and then peel it frozen with a knife...) I have made this ice cream with room-temperatured bananas as well and frozen berries as the main ingredient for an instant treat -the consistence getting closer to sherbet then- and also by mixing in frozen pear and pineapple etc.

So, here's how to make a quick two-or-very-few-ingredients ice cream:

Put chopped frozen bananas in a mixer and blend. You can also use a hand mixer.
I used four bananas for five persons.

(Note to self: Frozen bananas waiting to be squished in the mixer don't tend to look very yummy on photo.)

Add a bit of vanilla (or some other spice, like cardamom) and blend until fluffy -you could enjoy it like this already if you'd want to.

I like to add a bit of some plant milk (rice or almond) for an even creamier result, but this time I put in a jar of lemon quark and blend it well.

Time for the berries! Any frozen fruit or berries will do - I prefer sour and add a few drops of lemon juice at this point as well. I added a couple of handfulls of frozen cherries from last summer. Tis time I mixed them a little bit only so the ice cream did not turn red but kept the cherries in bits.

*hint: cocoa nibs are a great extra little addition to any banana-blend ice cream*

But it in the freezer for a while to set for a while -
(I am very aware that this, once again, does not look too yummy. It is, though.)

-or serve right away and it is kind of like soft ice
*hint: from a chilled bowl so it does not get very runny too soon*

You can let the ice cream freeze for a longer time too, as long as you remember to take it out and give it a whip every now and then (it will turn very hard otherwise).

Eat and be happy!