Fruity Summer Salad ‒ Hedelmäinen kesäsalaatti

All my main course salads basically consist of three parts: the green, the red and the brown. They don't necessarily need to be of the colour mentioned. The green part refers to the stuff we normally think when someone mentions salad: leafy vegetables like lettuce, salad rocket or endive. In this case I used the wild vegetables I happened to find along a short walk in the forest. The red part means juicy vegetables like tomato, cucumber, radish or in this case, fruits currently being sold on the market square next to me. This part is the most versatile as you could also add some cooked oat, fried bread, olives or sun dried tomatoes into it. The brown part refers to protein, which might come in the form of tofu, beans, nuts, sprouts or in this case, pea tempeh.

You could also turn this into a side salad for a summer evening's dinner by just leaving the tempeh out. Or skip the need for a kitchen stove by using extra firm smoked tofu instead. As a perhaps interesting side note, I thought I had made a mistake counting the nutritional values since the protein amount seemed quite high. It wouldn't be the first time I've made mistakes so I checked where it comes from. I quickly noticed that chickweed was responsible for the second biggest part of protein and though I must have values wrong somehow since it's just a simple, neutral-tasting weed. But googling a bit I found out that no, it really is that surprisingly rich in protein, consisting 15‒24 percent of the stuff. Nice.

- 300 g tempeh
- 300 g strawberries
- 300 g cherries
- 300 g water melon
- chickweed
- fireweed top leaves
- young dandelion leaves
- 3 spring onions
- pineapple weed or lemon balm
- oil for frying

Wash the onions, the weeds and the leaves and cut them into mouth-fitting pieces. Cut strips from the tempeh and fry them lightly from both sides.(At this point you can also apply some spices to them if you wish.) Cube the watermelon, half the cherries and slice the strawberries. Jumble up.

This doesn't necessarily require any added dressing, but if you wish for one, choose an equally fruity type. For example, some puréed raspberries from the freezer with a little bit of oil and vinegar added.

Nutritional values / 1480 g:
energy 1109 kcal
fat 51 g
protein 82 g
carbohydrates 170 g
fiber 40 g

Cherry and Dark Chocolate Ice Cream ‒ Kirsikka-tummasuklaajäätelö

Being a child of warmness and light, I love the way how these nightless nights try their best to compensate the darkness and heaviness of winter. It's no accident that the more north you go the more metalheads there are. It's a bit disturbing sometimes to realise that the Portuguese guy dressed in black and chains, who you just met, is really a representer of a scared and ridiculed marginal group, when you're used to this stuff being completely mainstream. This applies inside Finland too: there are more dedicated metal music listeners in Oulu than there are in Helsinki.

But for me, heavy music is an inseparable part of the light of midsummer too. I've spent most of my adulthood midsummers in a heavy festival Nummirock, held in the middle of nowhere by the village's farmer society, because the atmosphere is the friendliest and most peace-loving I've seen in any mass event, coming from both the audience and the workers, who tend to overlap. So this morning I had to put on some black metal.

The plus side in listening the stuff at your own home is that you can have dark, homemade ice cream while you're at it! This time I tried making the base from nut cream for the first time, but this would work just as well with oat or soy cream. Also, this was the first time I tried my flatmate's ice cream machine instead of making the stuff by hand like I normally do. The plus side was of course that it happened more quickly but on the other hand, the stuff never ended up as cold and thick as I had hoped for. From what I've gathered from different net forums, apparently if you're going to use a machine for the job you should buy a good one, good in this case meaning expensive. But can't whine, all of this disappeared quicklier than you can growl the name.

- 4 dl cashew nuts
- 2 dl water
- 300 g cherries
- 2 dl cherry jam or puré (or 1 dl sugar)
- 100 g dark chocolate
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder

Blend the nuts together with the water. This works easier if you've let them soak for the previous night. Mix in the jam and the chocolate powder. Chop the chocolate. Remove the cherry stones and quarter the cherries. You can add the cherries and the chocolate now or at the very end of the process. Pour the stuff into your ice cream maker and follow its instructions.

Enjoy while listening to this for it's no light treat. Only cold.

Nutritional values / 1076 g:
energy 2503 kcal
fat 144 g
protein 63 g
carbohydrates 236 g
fiber 17 g

Cherry Sage Sausage ‒ Kirsikka-salviamakkara

As a kid I used to climb in the two cherry trees of my family's front yard all the time. They have those famous white flowers that only last a moment and later during the summer, sour berries with a wonderful aroma. Cherries don't occur naturally in Finland but in my heart there will always be a certain place for them with rowans and poplars (after one of which I cried bitterly when my parents decided they have to cut it down before the roots take over the house). Finns are often called the people of trees so maybe this explains my fascination for Japanese culture as well.

The cherries sold in stores here are never like those I've come to love. They're sweet instead of sour and taste watery instead of, well, cherries. And yet, once again I bought Creek cherries when I saw them sold on a pedestrian street. After a few disappointing bites I decided to dry them in the oven and use in the recipe I had seen in the lovely cookbook Vegan Brunch (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Da Capo Press 2009). It sounded plain weird but then again, after initial disgust, I've come to love even a sausage brand that uses orange and melon as spices. These too came out pretty great, though next time I'd like to try them with sour cherries.

I followed Isa's instructions more than my usual sausage recipe and ended up doing it like this:

- 1 dl dried cherries
- 2 dl cooked white beans
- 4 dl gluten flour
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons tar liqueur (that is, all I had left)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 small punch of fresh sage
- ginger
- allspice
- black pepper
- vegetable broth (approximately 2 dl)

Mash the beans with a fork. Throw all the ingredients together, adding just enough broth to make a dough. Divide the dough into four parts. Mold into phallic symbols (don't worry too much about the shaping part since they'll snap into shape) and wrap inside a tin foil. Steam for 40 minutes.

Enjoy right away or even better, grilled over a campfire.

Nutritional values / 1 sausage / 188 g :
energy 371 kcal
fat 5 g
protein 50 g
carbohydrates 28 g
fiber 10 g