The Last Gifts of the Garden

The autumn came fast once the summer started to fade away. The trees are starting to have lots of yellow leaves and this week is supposed to be the last warm week when the temperature hits 20 Celsius degrees. The air is wonderfully fresh and the early mornings are starting to be a little nippy.

The last week I have been very busy with  harvesting and even though the carrots and potatoes are still on the ground I was very busy with the pumpkins and courgettes. Today I picked up the very last ones. Still left the plants be since some autumns the weather warms just enough so that we will get one or two pumpkins more. Not huge ones but still food from our own garden. When the frost bites the plants for the first time I do the rest of the garden work. Then I will be sure that there is no more harvest to get.

Last week we got apples from my husband's  parents. This week I have been slicing and drying those apples for the winter. We use them mostly on homemade  muesli but they are also great for the kids to eat instead of candies. More healthier too! And now that  I am writing this our house is filled with a wonderful scent of apples drying. Most fruits and herbs do give that wonderful scent while drying. Makes you love the autumn.

Needless to say that baking has been very limited. I have only made the daily bread and that's it. No cookies or cakes since harvesting and my little one has taken all my time. But we have had much fun too and some unforgettable moments - like when he said mother (äiti) for the very first time. :)

Next week will be different too since then my husband will go back to work after his wonderfully long summer holiday. This was great time in many ways - mostly because this was a fist time in a long time that he was able to have this long summer vacation.

In a way it's a little sad that he has to go back to work. I know that the children will be sad too - it has been nice to have dad around this much and after the vacation it's back to more or less insane working hours. But this is how life is and we need to get by with the things that are our life. We all do our share.

In the following weeks I still need to dig up the potatoes, carrots, pick up the rest of the beans (I saw small ones hanging in the bushes) and I might dry some more herbs since those little treasures have already grown up again. Last gifts of the garden before the autumn really arrives.

Rough week

This week has been extremely busy one and the last couple of months have been like that.

I am a mother of two special needs children and our third one just started the speech therapy. Also my husband's father has been on and off hospital the whole summer and right now my husband is there to see him. Things look really serious at the moment. We are very worried about him.

This week has been filled with one of my children's school things and plans for this autumn's SI-therapy. The support system at school needs to be planned with the teachers and SI-therapist so that my son's days will get easier. Things seem to start rolling nicely now but there are still tons of things to do before it's all planned and scheduled.

And since there simply isn't enough in these things we are about to start a roof renovation and that will last a few weeks. That simply has to get done before the roof starts to leak and things get even worse. I can only imagine how much noise that will make and how difficult it will be with the child/children who are very sensitive to such noises. The daily routines became even more important.

I have been extremely happy about a certain organic store which has home delivery. That makes our week so much more easier since all those hours of  running around the stores are mostly  saved for something else which is simply great. I started ordering from there during the summer and now I think we could not live without it. It truly is a life saver. Last order looked  so delicious! I am also extremely happy that the beetroots had the root part too and not cut away like they do in the supermarkets and such. I just made a new order and it will arrive next week since weekend deliveries aren't available. But I knew that and planned accordingly. :)

Life is a bit rough at the moment but it will pass eventually. It always does. You just need to remember to smile. :)

Forest biscuit - Mettäkakko

Forest biscuits are something that people who lived in northern Finland used to take with them when they
went to work in the forest. Just by looking at the recipe you can tell it's old one since nowadays no one uses that much butter and sugar since it is considered unhealthy. Mettäkakko sure was a calorie rich eating! And it needed to be since the work at the forest was hard and lots of calories were needed. This was also easy thng to take with you and it preserved  for a long time. Sometimes it was made by using sour milk or mix of cream and milk (half and half). I made these by using milk.

These cookies are sort of mix between Finnish pulla and biscuit. It's crunchy like biscuit from the outside and inside it's beautifully mellow and when the first bite melts in your mouth you simply got to have another one. Surprisingly the biscuit is not overly sweet. I would have thought that with this much sugar in it it would be disgustingly sweet but it's not. And that's a good thing. Store them in an air tight container.

People used to bake a big batch of these and the dough was not divided in order to make a smaller portion so I made a big portion too just for the old times' sake. :)

1 kg ( 2.205 lb) milk
500 grams (1.102 lb) butter
1 kg ( 2.205 lb) sugar
2 kg (4.409 lb) all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder

1. Heat the milk and melt the butter and sugar in it. Don't let it boil. Mix the flour with baking soda and baking powder. After the it has cooled a little add the flour mix and knead it into the liquid.
2. Let the dough cool in the fridge over night and bake in the morning.
3. Roll out the piece of dough and roll it into 0.5 cm (0.2 inch) thick sheet and take pieces by using a drinking glass as a cookie cutter.
4. Put them on a papered baking tray and bake in 225°C (450°F) for about 10 minutes or until they get a tiny bit color.

Traditionally these are made without sugar or almond toppings but I wanted to try out those too - just for a change. :)  Either way they are nice.

Please, forgive me

First of all let me say that I am terribly sorry and I hope my mistake has not destroyed any ones baking. Please, forgive me.

Last night I discovered something extremely terrible and have been trying to sort it out somehow today.

I have a cup measurement set. So I started to bake and  I added flour according to one of my converted recipes and it was all wrong! But when I checked it from the source I used for conversions for the blog it was right. The problems is that my cup set says that 200 grams of wheat flour is about 1 cup and different conversions sites say it's something like 110-150 grams!!!! If the variation is that huge the recipe cannot simply work!!!

I mostly bake by using weight measurements since I think it's the only way to get really accurate results so I have been thinking about changing those darn cups into ounces and pounds. Does that sound good? Let me know and I'll fix the problem during this week. And again - please accept my sincerest apologies. I am so sorry.

Courgette pies

 Courgettes are great but when you are starting to drown into them the situation becomes desperate. There is a fine line between having enough of them and having way too much of them. Currently we are dealing with the last option so I needed to dig up my old and trustworthy courgette recipe I came up with several years ago during a really courgette filled summer.

I usually make 12 small ones and one larger one (appr. 20cm / 8 inch)

My children simply love this pie and they are not big fans of courgettes so it's good that there is at least one (real food, chocolate cakes are not counted as real food even though chocolate is almost like real food but don't let my children know what I just said...) recipe that they think is actually delicious. I am happy about that too!

I guess I need to prepare this recipe a few times more this year before we run out of all the courgettes in the vegetable garden. But it is just good that you get food from your own garden. Cheaper and healthier. :)


Filling:
1 kg (2.205 lb) courgettes
500 grams (1.102 lb)  red bell peppers
130 grams (4.586 oz) leeks
appr. 3 tbsp dried dill (fresh goes well too)
3 eggs
black pepper
salt
appr. 200 grams (7.055 oz) feta cheese

Goat cheese (or some other cheese) for grating on the top of the pie.

The crust:
460 grams (1.014 lb) barley flour
200  grams (7.055 oz) water
1/2 tsp salt
olive oil


1. Mix the barley flour, cold water and salt. Mix well. Add the oil. Add as much as you need to get all the still dry flours into the mix. If it gets too wet add a bit more flour. This dough is usually always made by how it feels and looks like. The measurements are not exact - especially the water.

2. Wash, trim and chop the courgettes. Put them on the hot pan with olive oil. Season with salt, peppers and dill. Let them simmer there until they become quite soft and they change color. Don't let them burn though.

3. Wash, trip and chop the bell peppers and leeks.

4. Mix the courgettes, bell peppers and leaks in a bowl. Add black pepper and salt. Add the crumbled feta cheese.

5. Butter the muffin holes/pie pan and spread the dough quite thinly onto the *muffin pan* / pie pan by using your hands. This dough is pretty difficult to roll but if you want to you can put it between two baking sheets and roll. I just find it easier to do with my hands. Once the dough is ready spread the filling on  and grade some goat cheese on the top.

6. Bake in 200 °C (400 °F) for about 25 minutes when using muffin tray and about 45 if making a bigger pie.

I usually use onions and not leeks but I had leeks and needed to use them. If you want you can substitute the leeks with onions - just add a bit more of those and fry them with courgettes until they are transparent. Onions make a filling a bit more sweeter.

Finnish Blueberry Rooster - Mustikkakukko - Rättänä

 Mustikkakukko (Mustikka=blueberry, kukko=rooster) is a traditional Finnish dessert from the Savo region.  It is also called Rättänä which is totally impossible to translate! It's very simply and only a few ingredients are needed. In other words: a perfect dessert for busy people. What's great about it is that no wheat is needed either. The almost only "bad" thing for you in it is the sugar...well OK maybe a bit much butter too...  I know that some people make it without the sugar and they use 50 grams less butter so if you want a version with a little less calories, feel free to cut down the butter.  I could see it working like that too. But I still added the sugar and the whole amount of butter! :D Serve this fresh from the oven with whipped cream, ice cream or vanilla sauce or eat it just like that. Delicious in every way!

For the crust:

250 grams (8.819 oz) butter

140 grams  (4.938 oz) sugar

300 grams ( 10.582 oz) rye flour

1 tsp baking powder

For the filling:

250 grams (8.819 oz) frozen or fresh blueberries

80 grams (2.822 oz) sugar

(2-3 tbsp potato flour)

1. Melt the butter.
2. Mix the flour sugar and baking powder and add the little cooled butter with them. Mix well.
3. Take 8 ramekins, butter them lightly and cover the bottom and the sides of the ramekins with the dough. Don't add too thickly.
4. Mix the blueberries and sugar. If using frozen blueberries add 2-3 tablespoons of potato flour and mix. Add the blueberry mix on to ramekins.
5. Sprinkle the rest of the dough on top of the little "roosters". (I added a tiny piece of butter on top of each one before I put them in the oven.)
6. Bake in 200°C (400°F) for about 25-30 minutes. Or if you make one large one appr. 22 cm (9-10 inch) diameter then you need to bake it about 45-60 minutes or so.