Clover Balls ‒ Apilapyörykät

I could swear I've seen a recipe for red clover balls somewhere but can't find it anymore. Now I just had to guess what would make a fitting base. Instead of just adding the flowers to my classic soy balls I decided to use raw nuts and prepare the balls like raw foodies do. With spices I thought it best to be careful and only use couple of my favourites. Oh well, I'm assuming the original recipe was published in the beginning of the last century so it wouldn't have helped me in deciding the spices anyway.

This small test batch of mine turned out nice (especially with a spicy dip sauce) but not good enough yet for me not feeling the urge to fry them on a pan. Feel free to add all kinds of stuff you need to get rid of. Carrots, leek, champignons or rye bread should fit to suggest a few, and of course your favourite spices.

- 2 dl red clover flowers
- 2 dl hazelnuts
- 2 garlic cloves
- smoked paprika
- salt

Soak the hazelnuts in water overnight if you have time. Wash the clovers. Make a paste out of all the ingredients. Add water if you need to. Check the taste.

Roll into balls and dry them up. In most kitchens this is easiest done by turning your oven to a low temperature (I use 50°C), possibly keeping the door just a little bit ajar and turning them around couple of times. The problem with this method is that it takes some time, about 2 hours depending on the moisture of the paste.

(This time I'm leaving out the nutritional values since I wasn't able to find any source for the flowers and it doesn't make sense to count the nuts only.)

Flower Marmalade ‒ Kukkamarmeladi

Smart people get their inspiration to make dandelion jelly when dandelions are at their full blossom and it takes ten minutes to pick them. Well not me. After seeing this article I got a desperate urge to try it out myself. So instead of the few withering dandelions I saw I picked some mouse-ear hawkweeds (that at least look like dandelions) and red clovers. What ever edible flowers you happen to have in hand, see that instead of a terribly intense flavour (like yarrow) they taste juicy and sweet.

- 4 dl flowers
- 4 dl water
- 2 dl sugar
- 2 tablespoons grapefruit juice
- 1.25 teaspoons pectin (or equivalent amount of other gelling agent)

First, the hard part. You don't want the green stuff into your marmalade so you have to pick out the yellow or red parts. This is most easily done by pulling them out with your fingers. (You can also use scissors but that way you'll only get the tips of the petals.) Put on your favourite record and sit down. This will take a while but can be quite meditative.

You should end up with about 2 dl petals. Boil them in the water with a lid on for about half an hour. After that you can either fish them out or leave in the jelly. Add the pectin, then the juice and last, sugar. Let it come to a boil and stir until it turns syrupy. In case a foam should emerge skim it out.

Pour into a glass jar and let it cool down a bit before refrigerating. Use like honey.

P.S. I have a really hard time trying to understand how the algorithm of that "Related" box works. A nice feature but most of the time rather, well, random.

Nutritional values / 570 g:
energy 680 kcal
fat 0 g
protein 0 g
carbohydrates 169 g
fiber 0 g