Spicy Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

 This soup has amazing thai-style flavour, a combination of sweet, spicy and acidity that really tickles the tastebuds. It is absolutely great as a starter or even as a light meal on its own, as it is quite creamy and filling. Serve an off dry or medium white wine with it and the flavours will be even more wonderful. I love a good Riesling but I'm pretty sure that a Gewurtztraminer or a Pinot Gris would work as well. Go for something from Alsace and you're at least on the right track.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup
(New food for thought, Jane Noraika)
(Serves 4)

1 onion, finely chopped
sunflower oil
25g of root ginger
2 tsp roasted and ground cumin seeds
1 small fresh chilli (I cheated with jarred chilli paste)
600g sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
400ml coconut milk
750 ml veg stock
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper
fresh coriander

1. Fry the onion in a large saucepan. Add the ginger, cumin and chilli and cook until the onion is translucent.

2. Add sweet potato, coconut milk and stock, cook until the sweet potato is soft.

3. Process with a blender until smooth. Add lime juice and seasoning. Serve with coriander. I also added some crayfish tails.

Sunday dinner with good friends, good food and wine

 When we invited our good friends over for Sunday dinner, I announced that I would like to be cooking it all by myself. This has not really happened much before, as my significant other happens to be a professional chef. Somehow he always ends up taking over in the kitchen whenever we want to have something slightly better than a everyday salad or pasta.

So, I planned ahead for a three course menu which ended up looking like this:

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup with Crayfish

2009 Schloss Johannisberg Riesling, Rheingau, Germany

Parcels of Beetroot, Green Lentils, Mushrooms, Spinach and Mozzarella served with a Salad of Rocket, Fennel and Parmesan

2008 Krug'scherhoff Pinot Noir, Rheinhessen, Germany

Banoffee Pie

 The wines were bought during our Berlin trip in August, I liked the Riesling a lot but as I tasted the Pinot Noir I started dancing and laughing, I absolutely loved it. Beautiful berries with cherry, cranberry and strawberry aromas, velvety lightness and balance, no tannins. Match made in heaven for the beetroot and lentils. I am not ashamed to say I was proud of myself today, definately the best dinner I have ever cooked, without any help. Need to do this more often!
Next some pictures of the night, I will be posting the recipes in the next few days when I am less tired.

 

Fresh!

Spent two hours walking in the fresh snow today. It was beautiful! Finally a proper amount of the white stuff, and the days are getting lighter as well. What follows are some pics from the walk and a lunch salad idea - recipes for salads are a bit pointless, aren't they?

Vanhakoski rapids

Pihlajamäki skatepark

Vantaa river

The reward

Lunch today was a fresh salad of crayfish, avocado, cucumber, pink grapefruit and green herb marinated olives dressed with lemon pesto and extra squeeze of lemon. Add mayo if you like!

Red peppers & Almonds

 I must admit I am inspired, the moussaka was so delicious that I couldn't wait to cook the next recipe from "New food for thought". I think I should try to make an effort at the beginning of every week to cook one more substantial dish and one soup, which will last for many more days during the busy week, and even longer when frozen.

This is part of my effort to try and change my habits of nibbling unhealthy foods and not planning ahead on my meals. Also by freezing individual portions in the right size will reduce the temptation to take seconds, one of my many bad habits.

As I am trying to find a more sensible attitude to eating you might find me writing more about that aspect of food on the blog as well. Any discussion and tips are certainly welcome! Now, to the recipe of

Red pepper and almond soup
(serves 4 according to the original recipe)

Olive oil
700g red peppers, cored, de-seeded and cut in half
2 onions, finely chopped
4 sticks celery, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp paprika (I used smoked cause I love it!!)
400g tinned tomatoes
100g ground almonds
600g veg stock
salt & pepper
fresh basil
roasted, flaked almonds for garnish

1. Roast the peppers under a hot grill until lightly charred. Peel off the skin and discard.

2. Fry the onions, celery, garlic and (smoked) paprika together with the olive oil for 5-10 mins until soft.

3. Add tomatoes, ground almonds and roasted peppers. Continue to cook another 3-4 minutes. Add the stock and use a stick blender to mix until smooth.

 4. Season with salt, pepper and the fresh basil. Bring gently back to boil. (Might want to use a bigger saucepan than me, I nearly had the soup all over the stove.)

5. Serve with the roasted almonds.

Vegetarian moussaka

 So, we have a pretty good selection of cookbooks but we rarely pick a recipe and follow it. I am on a mission to change this, and started with Jane Noraika's "New Food for thought". Food for thought is a lovely little vegetarian restaurant in Covent Garden of London, which I used to regularly visit when I lived over there in 2004-2005. It was also the first ever restaurant I took my meat eating boyfriend to, with success I think. He took me to Pizza Hut. :D

He gave me this book around 2006 (we can't agree on the year...) but not many recipes have been followed, as I said. I browsed through the book and decided to start on Moussaka, as it is most certainly apt food for the dark cold wintertime.

 MOUSSAKA
(Serves 6)

Tomato sauce:
Olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sticks celery, sliced
1 carrot, grated
tinned chopped tomatoes, 400g
2 tbsp tomato puree
splash of soy sauce
bunch of fresh basil, chopped

White sauce:
50g butter
50g flour (2tbsp in the original recipe, found that it wasn't enough)
pinch of nutmeg
150 ml milk
100g cheddar (think I nearly doubled this...oops)
(original recipe adds a beaten egg white but I gave it a miss)

Vegetables:
100g green lentils (bought mine ready cooked)
675g potatoes, cooked and then sliced
2 aubergines (aka eggplant), sliced
275g mushrooms, cut into quarters
1 red pepper, de-seeded and sliced into thin strips
450g FRESH spinach, washed very well

 1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Cook lentils if didn't buy them ready cooked.

 3. Place sliced aubergine on a large oven tray with plenty of olive oil. Add pesto if you want extra flavour. I used the new Pirkka lemon pesto, which is nice and fresh. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes until tender, stir every now and then.

 4. Stir-fry mushrooms and peppers, set aside.

5. Cook the spinach quickly in a saucepan in olive oil and butter (no butter in the original but I think spinach needs it) until it's wilted. Squeeze extra liquid out.

6.In a large saucepan fry the onion, garlic, celery and carrot in olive oil until soft. Add tomatos, tomato puree and soy sauce. Bring to the boil and season with basil, salt and pepper. Let it cool down for a while.Combine with lentils, mushrooms, peppers and spinach.

The best ever white sauce I ever made! (Might be the first one too...)

 7. In a small pan melt the butter with the nutmeg. Lower the heat and stir in the flour slowly. I needed much more flour than 2 tbsp like the original recipe suggested, almost the same quantity as butter. Cook until the texture of the roux changes to breadcrumb-like. Slowly add the milk and stir vigorously all the time to avoid lumps. Stir in the cheese and season with salt and pepper. Stir until the cheese is melted.

8.Cover a deep dish with half of the tomato mixture, layer half of the aubergines on top.Add half of the potatoes on the aubergines. Repeat, and cover the final layer of potatoes with the white sauce. Add extra cheese if you're as greedy as me.

9. Cook in the oven at 200-225C for 20-30 minutes until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling.

10. Serve with something green and ENJOY!

I look forward to making more yummy vegetarian recipes from this book. I really need to experiment more with pulses and stuff to get more vegetable proteins, I eat too much fish for my liking at the moment. I'd like to eat soups more regularly, so the next recipe might be a red pepper and almond soup. And we are hoping to visit UK at some point this year, maybe it's time to visit the good old Food for thought again...

Too-good-to-be-true Muffins with Red Onion Jam and Blue Cheese

 Ha so only about a week later than planned I finally have made my muffins with the glögi-spiced sweet onion jam and blue cheese. So tasty I have already had three...

 I am taking part to Chocochili's food challenge with this recipe. The challenge was to use glögi (mulled wine) in a recipe or create a recipe for glögi. I came up with the idea of using glögi in red onion jam, and asked my boyfriend for instructions when I made it. I made mine quite sweet and fruity with the glögi and cherry liquor and it tastes great just with a piece of cheese on it's own.  He traditionally makes an onion jam for Christmas but I think my version is much better. Don't tell the chef that though...

For the muffins I used Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's savoury muffin recipe as a base and added my own ingredients. I have made muffins before with this recipes and they always turn out delicious! I like my muffins savoury and cheesy.

Red onion & blue cheese muffins

makes 12

Use baking paper to make cups for the muffins. Cut/ rip squares that fit your muffin tray, use some warm water and crunch to soften them and place in the muffin tray ready for the dough mix. (Can use ready made cups or just pour the dough straight onto a buttered tray but these look more rustic and save you from a mess)

Ingredients:

250g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
80g butter, melted and cooled
200 ml buttermilk
2dl of Red onion jam
150g blue cheese, preferably crumbly
(I added some grated cheddar on top)

Mix together the dry ingredients.
Mix eggs, butter and buttermilk together in an another bowl.
Combine.
Fold in onion jam and blue cheese carefully, not too much to make sure the muffins come out light.
Spoon the dough into the muffin cups.
Bake for 18 minutes in 200C degrees.

Enjoy!! Best muffins ever!!

Red Onion Jam with Mulled Wine

December's blog challenge is so interesting I have to take part again! This time with something a little more challenging than my mom's macaroni soup. Congratulations to Chocochili who won November's challenge, her blog is one my favourites, not least because of her amazing food photography! Her choice for the challenge was glögi, Finnish version of mulled wine. The idea was to share your glögi recipe or use glögi in cooking. We start drinking glögi as soon as it arrives in the shops in September, so by December we're already quite fed up with it. I decided to make up something different, and spent a few days thinking how to use glögi in something savoury.

Red onion jam is made in our kitchen a few times a year and so I thought I would make a more Christmassy version of it, finally making some savoury muffins with the onion jam and blue cheese. I'm making the jam tonight and the muffins (which will be the challenge recipe) tomorrow. The jam takes a couple of hours to make and it's simmering as I write this post.

Red Onion Jam with Mulled wine
Measurements are estimates, add,change or reduce to your liking!

6 large red onions, finely chopped
A bottle of readymade mulled wine or glögi (I had Kaskein Marja Juhla glögi, 0,75l)
1 dl Berry liquor (I happened to have some Estonian Cherry liquor in my cupboard)
1 dl Port wine
You can use what you happen to have, or buy some cheap, full bodied red wine, but remember to add more sugar
3 dl  Brown sugar
Couple of dashes balsamic vinegar
Star anise or other spices used in mulled wine, that you like. Star anise is my favourite

Assorted liquids found in the cupboards

Lotsa onions!

Mix all the ingredients in a big pan, bring to simmer at medium heat and keep simmering until the liquids have evaporated and the onions are soft and sweet. Ready!

Serve with cheese, in a sandwich, fill a quiche with it or as a side dish with anything you think it would go with. You can also fill some cute little jars with it and give to other foodies as a gift. Keeps for a couple of months or so in the fridge.

I will post my muffin recipe tomorrow, with which I will be taking part to the monthly blog challenge.