Ready-made

Pretty quiet in this blog lately. I know. Reasons are various, but basically I've just had like zero time/energy to cook and bake at home. Yesterday I did make this deliiiiicious apple pie, but you can guess if I remembered to take any photos. My mom came for a visit and we all pretty much just focused on eating it. Good it was.

And yes, I love preacing about the fact, that these ready-made meals are just full of crap. Stuff that you just don't need. Preservatives, food colouring.. you name it. But still there are days, when you need to rely on this "factory mums made this for you" food. And actually (just checked it out) this soup doesn't even have too many extra ingredients - yippee!

Rooibos tea, an apple (no kidding..), chocolate oat milk and a shrimp soup.

Little trip to Tallinn

We had a very special little weekend trip to Tallinn. Here are some food shots. For this very special reason we unfortunately do not have much photos of our dinner in the lovely Ribe. Anyhow, a place to recommend!

Sushi Café. We were attacked by a heavy rain and a killer wind, so we had like a minute to spot a place for lunch. And to remain at least somewhat dry. And boy did we find a good one! This place served such a good sushi at a good price. And the miso soup was the best miso ever. Hih, can you guess what is my favourite nigiri?

Cafe Josephine. This cafe is my favourite of all the cafees in the world! Or at least the best in Tallinn :) The deco is so cute and their chocolates are to die for. We both had a serious overdose of chocolate love.

Vapiano. Well, it was nicely located on the way to the hotel to pick up our stuff before heading to the boat. And reminded me of my time in Berlin. Ganz gut pasta mit ganz gute preise. Mine was pasta pesto rosso. Sehr gut.

Thank you lovely Tallinn!

Cheer me up breakfast

You know those mornings, when you need a little something extra? When the world you live in just seems to be a bit too tough and unfair.. Pancakes cannot make it all better, but it's almost like the warm hug you need to get the day started.

Spelt-buckwheat pancakes with banana and agave syrup. Banana-blueberry smoothie. 

Spelt pancakes (today's recipe)
1 egg
1,5 dl oat milk
1 dl whole grain spelt flour
1 dl buckwheat flour
touch of salt
real butter for frying

ps. was still a bit sleepy when making these.. so the amounts are very much approximate..

Super power porridge

Muesli-porridge with oatmilk and yellow kiwi. Orange juice.

Raw dinner

This recipe was originally published here, and it looked quite tasty, so I gave it a go. A little hint: soften the carrots and zucchini by mixing them up with some lemon and salt, and let it stay in the fridge for a couple of hours. I wasn't patient enough, so the result was a bit too crunchy. And also I do not own the machine for making "vegetable pasta", as you can see...

Had a chocolate soya pudding as a dessert and gosh, you know when sometimes you wish you hadn't found something from the store, because you are convinced that product just stole a bit of your heart. This dark chocolate soya goddess did it. The only minus was the enormous amount of sugar stuffed into it. So, to be completely honest, my own raw chocolate mousse still takes the winning place, hihi. 

Raw lingonberry apple pie

Raw lingonberry apple pie
(one very small pie)

The crust: 
1 dl sun flower seeds
1/2 dl cashews
1/2 dl walnuts
1 tablespoon lucuma
1 tablespoon carob
a touch of salt
1 dl raisins
3 dates
1 tablespoon coconut oil

The filling: 
2-3 dl lingonberries
1 small apple
1-2 tablespoon lucuma
2-3 tablespoons organic sweetener (like agave or such)

+ coconut flakes

If you have a good blender just throw all the crust ingredients in and blend. In my case, I had to grind all the nuts and seeds first in a mortar. Well, you gotta work for your sweets! I also soaked the dried dates and the raisins for a while before mixing them in. Form the crust on a plate and place it in the fridge.

Smash then the ingredients for the filling in the best way you see it happening. Add the sweetener or honey the amount you find fitting your taste buds best. This pie is not even supposed to be super sweet, just to point out.

Introduce the crust to the filling, let it stay a bit more in the fridge (if you have patience) finish with coconut flakes - and enjoy with love and warm tea <3

Chunky monkey business

This is by far the best milkshake you can have. No question. Found the recipe a while ago and have adapted it case by case (read: what happens to be available). The original name was chunky monkey business and couldn't be much more fitting. Have a happy milkshake y'all!

Chunky monkey business
1 banana
1 tablespoon raw cocoa powder
1 tablespoon carob powder
1 teaspoon lucuma
1 tablespoon peanut butter
honey
milk (get organic milk, it's better for you :)

You can also just use 1-2 tablespoons of raw cocoa powder, I just mix (or replace) it sometimes with carob powder, because carob is even more nutritious and has less fat in it. And I like the taste as well! Also you can easily leave out lucuma and use just a bit more honey instead. It's not that serious.

Just shake it all up in a blender, sing some funny song while waiting and enjoy with a big smile on your face.

Spinach salad

Spinach, tomato, red sweet pepper, avocado, feta cheese, olive oil

Everybody knows it's good for you to eat fruits and vegetables. From these two, vegetables have way more nutrients, meanwhile not having any sugar. From vegetables, all the green ones are specially good for you, since they hold the leaf green, that interestingly has almost the same chemical structure as hemoglobin, so it has great power in it. It has been proven to cure inflammations in the body, to help the cell metabolism, strengthen the resistance, remove the toxins from your body.. the list goes on and on. And the greener the veggie, the more leaf green - the better!

The normal light green salad is kind of ok, but for more green power, choose something like spinach, parsley or broccoli. And if you want to get the full effect, drink your greens. The greens are a bit tough for the food digestion system to exploit, if you (like most of us) tend to eat a bit too fast, without chewing your food properly. So, blending your greens into a smoothie makes them twice more easily absorbed and you are sure to get all the benefits!

Here was the basic recipe for a green smoothie. Try changing the raspberries for example mango and throw some seeds into the mixture, or make your own variation!

Beetroot chevre salad

Rucola, beetroot, chevre (goat cheese), onion - topped with nuts, honey, olive oil and salt. 

Saturday breakfast

Banana-lingonberry-smoothie, organic rye bread with peanut butter and banana. 


ps. who would have thought rye bread and peanut butter are a perfect match?? The non-existance of regular butter led me into making this invention! And also, seems to be that after a year of being rye bread banned (snif..) I can finally eat rye bread as long as it is organic! Super!

Energy Refresh

I love the taste of coffee, but because of my tiny heart issues, I cannot handle any coffein. I think this is also a bit of a blessing, because coffein is really addictive and doesn't really do your body any good. In the afternoon or after lunch, when I need a boost of energy, I usually go for green/herbal tea (and dark chocolate). This Teekanne-tea is really good for lifting up your energy levels.

Energy Refresh (honeybush, peppermint, verbena, cinnamon, liquorice roots, lemongrass, marigold flowers)

Rainy day breakfast

Rainy day - blurry photo :)

Yogi tea (pure) - this morning's "wisdom" was: with understanding comes love. I kinda feel it's the other way around, but better not to argue with yogi tea.
Oat-walnut-bread (with butter and cheese) - so in love with it! I'm only gonna bake nut-breads from now on.
Banana-blueberry-smoothie: half a banana, half a bag of frozen blueberries and some oat milk.

The best salad in Helsinki

When out in the city and feeling like having a salad for lunch/dinner, I have a place to recommend. The cafe is located in the 5th floor of Aleksi 13, (still) can't remember the name of it, but it has the best salads in Helsinki. With the same price as everywhere else, you can choose SIX different ingredients. And it's also kind of fun, that when you start to assemble your salad, you never know how the end result will look like (unless you are some super minded engineer with supernatural future visionary skills).

Mine had king prawns, wine leaf rolls, artichoke, mushrooms and different seeds on top. Yammy! And the size of the salad is huge! Still managed to eat it all. Good girl!

Salmon soup and homemade bread

We are having a bit of a traditional food weekend. Yesterday I got to enjoy the best ever macaroni casserole, or what ever "makaroonilaatikko" is called in English, made by my boyfriend. The absolute best! And yeah, the real traditional version is of course made with minced meat, but since I'm a vegetarian, this one was made using soya. And with a lot of cheese! Enjoyed with even more lot of ketchup! And a glass of cold milk. 

Today I made my first ever salmon soup. Very traditional. Took the recipe from a very traditional Finnish household magazine, but kind of forgot to buy some of the ingredients, so improvising we went. The result was amazingly delicious. 

I also baked some oat-walnut-bread, that came out quite perfect. Didn't have any recipe. It went something like this: 

2 dl milk

1 dl water

0,5 dl rape oil (my gosh, is rypsi really rape in English, someone correct me if I'm hideously wrong!)

dry yeast

salt

spelt flour

mixed flour

oat brans

oatmeal

sunflower seeds

walnuts

Let it chill for a half an hour before baking in 200 celsius for 30 minutes. 

Sunny Sunday morning

Blueberry-banana-smoothie, bread with butter and tea. 
Note to self: if you bake your bread using buckwheat, trying to cut it into slices very likely ends up looking like this, hihi. Taste was great anyways!

Kladkaka

A little Swedish word play in the subject - the word for mud cake is really kladdkaka, but for a long time I thought it was kladkaka, which translates into "happy cake". I feel it describes the result much better.

I baked a happy cake yesterday for friends that were coming over to watch japanese movie and to have a little delayed birthday fika. Oh you Swedes, all the time having the nicest words. Fika = have a coffee/tee/cocoa + little something sweet or salty to eat. Fika.

The recipe is from here.

Pancakes for breakfast

Buckwheat pancakes with peanut butter and pear, decaf coffee with oat milk.

Raw rum raisin ice cream

Ok, I have always been a ben-n-jerry's kinda gal. Or maybe HäegenDazs. So if someone would have told me that there is a chance that a heavenly ice cream without sugar, fat or milk exists, I would have gotten a serious laugh attack. But then I found raw ice creams. Oh heavens. So good, I cannot describe!

Raw rum raisin ice cream
1 dl soaked cashew nuts
1 frozen banana
1 tbs lucuma
1 tbs honey
rum essence 
raisins

Take the frozen banana bits out of the freezer 10 minutes before preparing this treat. Half of the raisins you might want to mix in the blender and add the other half before serving. If you want a silky smooth texture, grind the nuts before blending. I don't mind the chunks and bits. Just like with Ben&Jerry's :)

Raw banana porridge

My absolute favorite raw breakfast. Banana porridge with black currants. So simple and so good!

Raw banana porridge

1 dl almonds (soaked overnight)

1 dl sesame seeds / barley grains (soaked overnight)

1 banana

1 tsp lucuma

(coconut oil)
plenty of cinnamon

water
a tiny bit salt

Just blend everything into a delicious porridge and pour it over the black currants. Oh, throw out the soaking water of almonds, but do use the other soaking water. Can't remember why that was, but that's just how we roll :)

Carrot bread

Carrot bread

2,5 dl milk

2,5 dl carrots

1,5 tbs syrup 

1 tsp salt

1 dl oat bran

1 bag of dry yeast

3 dl roll flour

3 dl all purpose flour

0,5 dl oil

Blend the carrots, syrup ( I used honey), salt and oat bran into hand warm milk. Mix the yeast with roll flour and add to the dough. Add all purpose flour until the mixture is done, and finish with adding the oil. I kinda added the oil in the between.. just used to doing it like that. 

Let it be for an hour before baking in 200 celcius for 30 minutes. 

The recipe from here. 

Thai salad

Thai salad
cucumber
coriander
red onion
tuna


lime
chili
fish sauce


+ cashew nuts on top


And a cup of matcha latte <3

Pears

This morning: fresh pears, quark (thinned with milk), cinnamon, honey, raisins and almonds. And tea.
Too bad I still usually remember the photo taking only when I'm half way thru my eating... It did look nicer before I mixed it all up..

Cayenne Chocolate

Uuuh, I found the best ever chocolate from the supermarket. Note; best from the supermarket, meaning that homemade is still the best best :)

Vegan, organic, glutein free, made 100% using renewable energy, no milk or even a smell of nuts (for those with allergies) - what more can you wish for?