Great-Grandmothers Salmon Soup

Great.Grandmothers Salmon soup

 This recipe is my favourite of all that I have done, ever.

It brings me childhood memories and it has great story behind.

Most important, My dear dear Grandmother taught me how to do this, as I have been cooking this so many times with her, and she had learned it from her mother, Aina-Augusta Lindgren, who was daughter of fisherman born in Jyllviken, small island on front of the Ekenäs, in south Finland. 

Here is my Grandmother Helvi 

My Great-Grandmothers mother has made soup same way,  and has cooked even for P.E.Svinhufvud (he was later President of Finland) who returned from  imprisonment in Siberia, after “February´s Revolution. He returned to Finland on March 1917 and train that brought him back home, stopped at Riihimäki, city near Helsinki, where he was received home as a hero, and welcome dinner was cooked by my Great Grandmother, Aina-Augusta. Young Swedish speaking Aina-Augusta made Fish Soup for him and what I heard from my Grandmothers stories, he was moved to tears from such a great food.  He thanked my Great Grandmother in person, giving flowers that where laid on the table and said: I don´t have anything else to give, but these flowers and my humble gratitude, and bowed to her.

It has been great story, but also amazing dish in my family and here is the recipe!

You need;

 Big Saucepan!

8 big potatoes

3 big carrots

1 big onion

good bunch of dill

5dl Double cream

2 Fish Stock  cubes( I used 2 stock cubes)

Salt

Whole Black peppers

Butter

Fresh Salmon ( I normally by half a fish, big filet)

1 small pack of Cold smoked Salmon ( those thin slices that are sold in supermarkets)

1. Peel carrots, and cut them in to thin slices/coins, (about 5mm thick max.)

put them in to BIG  saucepan and put just that much water that carrots are covered and let them boil in mean while , when you do next step.

2. Peel potatoes and cut them in to nice “mouthful” size of pieces.

Add them in to water where carrots have been boiling for a while already.

It is important you add  everything in given order as some of the ingredients needs longer time to be done.  Add more water,  try to use as little water as possible meaning: use just that much that all the veggies are under water, not more.

3. Peel onion, and cut it in to think rings and spread on top of the other ingredients, add  1 Fish stock cube first, about 8 whole black peppers, or more if you like peppers, and cut small pieces half of the dill you have. ( save other half for later.

4. When potatoes are starting to be done, you add first those thin slices of cold smoked salmon, to give your soup lovely smoky aroma ( that is key ingredient in this soup) and then, add salmon, that you have cut in to nice size pieces, that are nice on a spoon, with piece of potato or carrot when you eat..

5. Add in good big spoonful of salted butter and, whole of the double cream.  

Let the soup boil as long as potatoes, and  salmon is cooked, serve  with fresh dill on top.

TIP

Waitrose is selling thing called “Finn Crisps” they go really well with the soup, just add salted butter on top!

Nice Crip whitewine goes really well with this creamy soup.

Serafiina´s Apple Cake

 Serafiina´s Apple cake

You need:

3 eggs

1 cup of brown &white sugar

1 cup of white baking flour

Small tea spoon of ground cardamom

Small tea spoon of Vanilla sugar

Half a tea spoon of Cinnamon

Grated lemon peel, as small texture as possible.

2 big apples.

These type of tools I used.. 

Peel the apples, cut first one in to thin slice to put on top of the cake, and cut the other for thin slices by using the peeler, these thin slices you are going to hide in to cake.

Take a cake mold, and depending on what material it is, pre prepare it well, so that cake does not get stuck on it.. I use silicon mold and add little bit salty butter in to it, it gives a cake nice taste without extra fat on it. 

Put oven on, pre heat it to 160c

Take 3 equal drinking glasses.

-Brake 3 eggs to glass and note how much eggs do you have in glass. 

( idea is to have equal mount of everything..)

-Brown sugar, white caster sugar to second glass.

- Fill  your third glass either  with Self raising gluten free flour of normal white baking flour if wish add pinch baking powder

( I did not  as I use d gluten free flower.. )

-Whip the eggs until they are nice light foam, add all sugar in and whip until nice light brown foam and add all spices in, as well as grated lemon.

Then pour in the flower, and just fold it in, try not to work the dough too much as other wise it will loose it´s nice and fluffy texture.

Pour half of the dough in to mold and add those thin slices in to cake that you have cut with peeles they are filling if the cake,  there should be cake dough inbetween each slice so don´t fill it in too much.

Pour rest of the dough to cover all the apple slices that you have put in earlier.

Decorate your cake with nicely cut Apple slices, sprinkle cinnamon and Caster Sugar on top and put in to oven. 

Bake until no dough get´s stuck to your “test stick”!

Tastes great with tea or coffee! 

Enjoy with great appetite, and share with your friends in good company. 

Autumn, and it´s inspirations

Ah, how I LOVE Autumn, it is nice and dark and yet not too cold.
I can burn candles and eat soups and winter foods, and do my hand crafts, without feeling that I am forced to enjoy "nice sunny weather".
In the end I realised that I am not big fan of heat.. some how this summer was just too much for me.
15 weeks of at least +24c and our bedroom was like stove.
No, I don´t like it.

I feel very inspired, not least because of pinterest, that is my new addiction.
I have found some great crafts I want to try out this winter, but it has also given me a great ideas and itis amazing source of inspiration, my word of the day.

Knitting, sewing, painting and also dog collar making, cooking, baking, writing, and learning music and teaching. This is what my winter is made of.
This will be nice winter as my good friend from Finland has rented an apartment with her husband from our area, it feels cosy that I can walk and pop in with fresh made cup cakes and have a cup of tea and chat like back at home in Finland. She is also musician and loves hand crafts, so we will see what kind of crazy ideas we get together and start doing things in here.. we never tend to calm each others down.. opposite. If one get´s some rather bold idea, we encourage for more!

We have also plan to put together such a stage show that never seen before.. that will still be secret what it is but more will follow.. as well as Christmas decorations.. those will be coming too!

So, keep eye on my blog!!

Would you like recipe for rhubarb pie?? 

Organic Beetroot Soup

I LOVE AUTUMN!

It really is my favourite time of the year, and I like soups.. and they go well together.. Will show you few nice ways to make easy home made soups, and.. they end up being organic if you use organic veggies, and what ever you need for cooking. 

Beautiful beetroots! 

You need: 

Disposable gloves

5 Good size raw Beetroots

5 Good size Potatoes ( there should be just equal mount of potatoes and beetroot, what ever the size..) 

1 Vegetable Stock cube

Small chunk of salted butter

Black pepper

Salt

2dl Cream

Junk of Goat Cheese

1) You start with peeling the beetroots and Potatoes and cut them in big chunks so that they boil easier. 

If you boil them in whole it takes whole lot longer.. use disposable gloves for your own comfort.  

2) Put them all in to kettle and fill water about 1cm above beetroots and potatoes, add pinch of salt, black pepper and add in Vegetable stock cube. Let them boil un till beetroot is also soft, and not much water left. be careful that you don´t bake them in kettle.. Add Butter.

3) When they have cooled down a little, use Blender to smash everything in to smooth nice puree, and add Cream in, and use Blender again. 

4) Heat the soup again, so that it is boils ( carefull not to burn it now with cream) 

Look at this amazing colour! 

Serve hot, with crumbled Goat Cheese and use some herbs as a decorative element. 

I like Basil and Mint! 

Beautiful food. 

White wine is a good companion with it, and nice bread with garlic and herbs! 

Organic Cabbage Soup

In my last posting I told you that we visited our friends who has amazing Kitchen garden.
We got an amazing gift from Jonathan and Christina when we left home on monday, Bank Holiday.
Bags full of crop from their garden.. ah I am just planning what all I will cook from all beautiful things that I have sitting on my work top now!

My forever favourite autumn and winter food is:

Cabbage Soup

It always reminds me about my childhood in Karelia, eastern Finland. It is still warm and nice weather but I will give you recipe for this easy and amazing soup so that when weather get´s soon cooler, you know what to do!

You need:
1kg Cabbage chopped very thin slices and those slices cut on size that is easy to eat.. ea. fit in to your soup spoon..
800g Lean mince meat ( beef or even better lamb)
1 big Onion
2 Beef stock cubes.
1 vegetable stock cube
3l of Water
5 Garlic cloves
Salt
Black pepper
Parsley

You can use normal green Cabbage, I use red as I love colour and got this as a gift!

Put big kettle on gas, add stock cubes, chopped garlic cloves, and some black pepper already in to water.

Chop Cabbage in to think slices, and chop those slices in to nice size so that soup is easy to eat.. if you have too long cabbage slices it will be difficult to eat with spoon if you see what I mean..  when chopped, add cabbage on to water that has already some spices, and stock cubes etc. let it boil when in mean while you deal with mince meat.

Fry Mince meat on a frying pan, add chopped onions, again tiny bit of black pepper, salt and fry it well with salted butter.

Add fried mince meat in to kettle ( see it has to be big to accomodate all this!) and add also good junk of salted butter in to water, and let it boil as long as cabbage becomes soft. Try the taste, you might need more black pepper or salt.

You might need to add water in the middle of everything.. as we are trying to do very thick soup here.. There should be liquids more than cabbage and mince meat in the end, so that liquid levels comes above them, but not so much that there are few sad peaces of cabbage and mince meat in one HUGE bowl of water..

Some people like adding also one carrot sliced for "coins" in to soup, to give it a colour, but as I had red cabbage I wanted to keep colour theme simple.

Put on your plate, decorate with parsley, and enjoy!

This is real food.. can´t get any better, and all from organic materials. 

"This soup is especially great on cold autumn and winter days and is very typical traditional dish in eastern Finland, where I come from. "

Bank holiday weekend with friends

We are blessed to have such a wonderful friends that they invited us for long weekend at their house at the countryside.

I was waiting  this weekend a lot, as first of all it is heart warming to see Christina and Jonathan,  but to also enjoy their beautiful surroundings, and amazing food that Jonathan tends to cook when we are visiting.

..and one important thing.. Sauna. I miss it so much from Finland that it was wonderful to get to go there, use all my hair masks, face mask and what ever silly ladies secret beauty regime you can think of, and step on a readily laid table to enjoy beautifully done food, wine and jolly company.
Perfect eh?

Next day we helped at harvesting at our hosts Kitchen garden. (It was just excuse to get to hold Jonathan´s girls, like he calls he´s  chickens, and I was so besides my self about it that it is almost embarrassing.. I will torture you all with few photos of me doing so...)
It is amazing with all the wonders that is growing in there. Pears, peaches, melons, apples, different kind of berries, tomatoes ( that where so sweet that they are almost like berries) onions, and most of them in several different variety, like Chili, Tomato, and oh so many things that I can not even remember everything.
You must go and see the great blog that Jonathan is writing.
 I really enjoy reading it. It is especially nice for me when I have seen "The Kitchen Garden" with my own eyes and got to put my hands on soil and help. It was great all and all.
Here are some photos, hope you enjoy!

And..don´t forget to go and see "THE BLOG" that Jonathan is writing, here is link:
http://kitchengardenblog.co.uk/blog/

Melone

This one was HUGE! Pumpking

Dark Brown ones where perfect, and very very tasty!

Deep yellow colour was amazing, and they tasted beautiful

These where interesting, fresh and little citrus like

You just MUST love them.. they are so sweet

Pear giving a crop too

Girls are broody, so we lifted them out from their hut

I understand why Dovager Duchess of Devonshire loves her Chickens so much.

Look how beautiful they are

In perfect order

Very curious

One just thought: I´ve had enough of this and left.. 

Pretty girls

Secret photo of gardener him self

what an beautiful colour of onions

I was amazingly happy to get to harvest some of the tomatoes to take home.. 

Beautiful 

Everything just grows so healthy, and big.. Organic garden.

THIS is going to be my food next day

My hubby in black and Jonathan in red shirt. Harvesting

House in Hampstead

Dear friends we have moved now and as we don´t live by the river anymore
it felt off to keep my blogs name.. A House by the Thames

So here we go:

HOUSE IN HAMPSTEAD

Not difficult to guess where we live now..

Our move was disastrous as we moved to smaller space.. and we had some challenges to get everything in. In the end we had to sell our lovely furniture that I had bought, not all of them but my favourite Chesterfield chairs and many others..
This is somehow dull in color in many ways, so I have struggled to find my own thing with this place.
It has taken ONG time.
We have lived here now 2 months and things are still not in place.. endles mountains of books that used to have little library room are now spread all over the house and my beautiful home was just memory..
Un till I bought bucket of Laura Ashley´s Paint, called Pigeon Grey..
It has taken over pretty much everything and I have never lived in home, so light in colours..

I will try to keep you with me on this journey in our new home!

This is the dull room where we started.. after red walls this felt like hospital.