Yellowfoot Pyttipanna with Carrot Ketchup ‒ Suppispyttis porkkanaketsupilla

(First of all, sorry about the terrible photo. This is why you should always prepare dinner at noon.) Yellowfoot might just be my favourite mushroom. Partly because hunting them is so full of feelings. First you gaze into the ground, lift trunks and are certain you'll never going to find a single one. But after that one dead leave turned out to be a yellowfoot you have to sit down to pick them. At the end you have to stare at clouds to get out of the forest, because hey, you can't just leave them in the there alone in case you see more of them. They rarely have bad parts or maggots, the whole cute little mushroom is about the curly but sturdy foot which hides half into the ground. The taste and structure are so pleasant they'll fit into pretty much every dish you can think of.

In case you haven't noticed already, I rarely have the patience to follow recipes thoroughly. I use them more for drawing ideas and in case of baking, for proportions. Saara Törmä's recipe's often make important exceptions. They're homestyle and simple but have that certain twist that makes them special. This one is a variation of pyttipannu she's written for the Green party's newspaper. The name sounded fun and so followed it almost literally, only adding a can of beans into it. I even decided to try the recommended condiment too, although it sounded a little odd. A little googling revealed to me that indeed, the word ketchup doesn't imply tomatoes, it's just that we're so used to the tomato version. Somewhat surprisingly ketchup's origins seem to be in 17th century Chinese fish sauce and the tomato version was only developed in the 19th century USA. Anyway, the carrot version here fits pretty great with the rest of the meal, not to mention adds to the foliage colours.

- 1 l yellowfoot
- 1 kg cooked potatoes
- 2 onions
- 0.5 dl rape oil
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- 2 tsp curry
- 1 tsp thyme
- black pepper
- salt

The ketchup:
- 500 g carrot
- 1 onion
- 1 dl broth
- 1 dl farin sugar
- 0.5 dl rape oil
- 0.5 dl balsam vinegar
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tbsp salt
- 0.5 tsp cayenne

Start with the ketchup if you plan on preparing them both. Peel the carrots and cook them. Save a decilitre of the broth. Chop the onion, heat up the oil and sauté. Combine all the ingredients and purée smooth. Let the ketchup simmer on low heat for half an hour. Cool down.

Fry the mushrooms until the extra liquid has vaporized. Move aside for a moment. Cube the potatoes. No need to peel them unless you want to. Chop the onions too.

Fry the potatoes alone for couple of minutes. Add the onions and the mushrooms. Turn around. Add the spices. Keep frying until the onions are soft and the potatoes have acquired a pretty colour.

Enjoy with the carrot ketchup. The leftover ketchup stores for about a week in the fridge but you can also store it longer by freezing.

Nutritional value / 1835 g (the pyttipanna):
eneergy 1247 kcal
fat 48 g
protein 32 g
carbohydrates 163 g
fiber 29 g

Nutritional value / 850 g (the ketchup):
energy 730 kcal
fat 46 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 70 g
fiber 15 g

Cream of Fireweed Soup ‒ Maitohorsmasosekeitto

As you may remember, I'm not especially fond of bouillon cubes that don't seem to give any taste to the dishes you use them in besides a little saltiness and sometimes a remotely industrial aroma. Every now and then I like to make my own stock bases from stalks and remains and store them in the freezer. Miso, some curry pastes and most seaweeds can give a nice base to a soup, but they don't really fit terribly well into most European-style dishes. Besides the water where rutabaga and cabbage have been cooked for a looong time, lovage makes a nice quick option. Just put a sprig of it into the soup or sauce right in the beginning of the process.

- 1 l fireweed shoots
- 4 carrots (or potatoes)
- about 6 dl water
- 2 dl oat cream
- 1 lovage sprig
- 1 tbsp rape oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp apple wine vinegar 
- tarragon
- salt

Rinse the fireweeds. Lightly sauté them in oil. Add the spices, carrots in small chunks so they'll cook quicker and enough water to just about to cover the veggies. When the carrots feel soft, blend the soup smooth. If you don't like the additional mouthfeel you can also filter out the remaining bits and pieces. Add the cream just before eating.

This makes a nice starter or a lunch together with those lovely Scandinavian-style open sandwiches.

Nutritional values / 1480 g:
energy 603 kcal
fat 38 g
protein 124 g
carbohydrates 50 g
fiber 33 g

Sun Rolls ‒ Aurinkosämpylät

We've had an exceptionally cold spring this year, but now it finally looks like the snow has withdrawn (at least for a while). To get to enjoy wild veggies quicker, I tried to lure out the Sun from behind those clouds with these rolls I made for a housewarming present.

Rolls like these are usually among the first things Finnish kids learn to bake on their own. Still, I've been looking for the perfect recipe for most of my life. They didn't rise at all, they became too dense, they tasted like sugar buns. Eventually I've come to the conclusion it's not really about the recipe, it's about the touch and some basic rules you need to learn by experience. This is why I tried to include some tips I've found helpful in the recipe, so the instruction part may seem a bit complicated than usual, though it's not really.

- 10-12 dl flour (mostly white wheat flour, but do try experimenting with adding different full corn flours, wheat germ or such for less bun-like results)
- 5 dl water (some use oat milk or such but I wouldn't bother)
- 50 g margarine
- 50 g fresh yeast (I've found dry yeast harder to control)
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- salt
- 2 carrots
- 1.5 dl  sun flower seed
Make sure all the ingredients are room temperature. Dissolve the yeast in water (which doesn't need to be warm). Add the syrup, the salt, part of the flours and the margarine. Keep kneading with your hand while you add flours little by little. Optionally, crate in the carrot and the sunflower seeds too.

Add flour just enough to get the dough to detach from your bowl but see it still sticks to your fingers. Using more flour than you absolutely need just gives you hard buns. Also, if you're using old flours you'll need less than fresh ones. Knead at least ten minutes more to make sure you get long, pretty strings and gets some of that seitan-style structure. Smoothen the surface of the dough, cover with a towel and let it rise until it's doubled its size (should take less than an hour).

With a sharp knife, take fist-size pieces of the dough and carefully roll a bit between your hands. If you wish, decorate by cutting a cross (Sun symbol!) on them and sprinkling some more seeds. Place the rolls on the baking sheet, put the baking sheet in a warm place (like over a sink filled fit hot water if you don't have any better place) and cover again for half an hour. For a bit nicer colour, spray a little water with a spray bottle.

Bake in 225°C for 8-10 minutes. If you let them be a little longer you'll get crunchier surface. When they come out of the oven, instantly cover them with a towel to keep them soft longer. These are at their best on the same day.

Nutritional values / 1505 g:
energy 3426 kcal
fat 97 g
protein 116 g
carbohydrates 525 g
fiber 43 g

Carrot Casserole ‒ Porkkanalaatikko

A year ago I posted two of the four essential casseroles of Finnish Yule table: potato and raisin. This time I thought I'd continue with the carrot version. Like so many traditional dishes, this is most often made with rice which at some point was though fancier than home-grown grains, mostly barley. Some like it plain carrot, without any grains. As a halfway solution I use just enough semolina to keep it nicely together.

- 1 kg carrots
- 1.5 dl oat cream
- 2 tbsp dark syrup
- 1 dl semolina
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ginger
- 0.5 tsp nutmeg
- breadcrumbs and margarine

Peel, cook in small amount of water and puré the carrots. Save 1 dl of the broth you used for cooking. Add it as well as all the other ingredients with the carrot mash. Butter a casserole (or six oven-proof coffee mugs as I did) and pour the carrot mixture in it. Top with breadcrumbs and margarine pieces. Put into a 175°C oven for an hour.

Nutritional values / 1300 g:
energy 993 kcal
fat 30 g
protein 19 g
carbohydrates 158 g
fiber 32 g

Pumpkin Soup ‒ Kurpitsakeitto

Couple of weeks ago I accidentally got a huge, home-grown pumpkin. Some of it I stuck into a rye lasagna, some of it I used as an extra spice in my signature tar turnips but most of it was still left. People often make a soup out of it so I decided to try one as well. Now pumpkin is an odd vegetable to me and its taste seems rather faint so I spiced it with exotic spices which I rarely use otherwise, in the same manner as I've previously done to a carrot soup.

- 1 kg pumpkin (or carrots)
- 1 leek
- 1 l water
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 2 dl coconut milk (or oat cream)
- 200 g red lentils (or horse beans)
- 1 lime
- 1 tablespoon dark syrup
- 1 dose of stock
- 1 chili
- ginger
- salt

Peel and chop the pumpkin. Don't remove the seeds. Cut the leek into circles. Soften the veggies on a frying pan with the oil. Put them into a pot with the water, the lime and the spices. Cook for about ten minutes. Blend smooth. Add the lentils. The soup is ready when the lentils are done.

Nutritional values / l:
energy 1429 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 67 g
carbohydrates 173 g
fiber 48 g

Summer Soup ‒ Kesäkeitto

Kesäkeitto, literally 'summer soup', is a dish that all Finns have strong childhood memories about. For me it reminds me of my mum and careless, sunny days. For others it brings in mind school canteen and sadistic teachers forcing them to eat the stuff with tears in their eyes. But if you've never even heard about this soup before, consider yourself lucky: you'll get to base your opinion purely on it's humble taste. Here's how I prepare it:

- 2 l water
- 500 g new potatoes
- 1/4 cauliflower
- 2 carrots
- 1 dl fresh peas
- 3 beanstalks
- 2 dl soy cream (oat cream is probably fine as well)
- salt
- whole black peppers

Wash the potatoes well and remove the bad parts but don't bother to peel. Let them simmer in salty water until soft. Chop the veggies and add everything into the pot. The soup is ready when the carrots are - in less than ten minutes.

Garnish with fresh herbs.

Nutritional values / 3080 g:
energy 831 kcal
fat 36 g
protein 20 g
carbohydrates 98 g
fiber 16 g

Turnip Porridge ‒ Naurispuuro

I know I just posted a dish combining turnip and barley but they happen to work so well together. Besides, I had to use the rest of the turnips somewhere so one of the numerous Finnish root vegetable porridges felt appropriate. This very same breakfast meal is just as often done with potato but you might also want to try carrot or rutabaga. The relation between turnip and barley varies quite a lot in different recipes; I prefer mine with more turnip and less flour.

- 700 g turnips
- 2 dl barley flour
- 7 dl water
- salt

Peel and chop the turnips. Cook them until soft. Puré with the water. Add more water if the result looks too thick (sometimes beer is used but in that case you should be very careful). Sift in the flour and the salt. Simmer for another 20 minutes. Eat while still hot!

Nutritional values / 1530 g:
energy 575 kcal
fat 5 g
protein 18 g
carbohydrates 113 g
fiber 23 g

Sweet and Salty Winter Salad ‒ Makeansuolainen talvisalaatti

Everyone hopefully knows by know what a wonderful pair raw carrots and salted nuts make. Well, I was chopping carrots for a soup on the other day and thought I'd make a hi-fi version of the theme while I'm at it.

Once I remember seeing a satay carrot salad recipe I thought awesome but can't find anymore. The carrots were first grated the way Finns normally serve them but then the cold salad was garnished with hot and sweet nuts. I had been thinking a way to variate the idea without making it too similar to this hot and sweet salad. Then I saw Kahvila Vegaani's excellent selection of winter salads where the idea was to marinate (and raw cook) root vegetables and then combine them with vinaigrettes made of fruits. The combination of hot and cold fits salads well and combining sweet and salty at the same time gives it even more twist. I'm sure I'll be trying more of these.

- 300 g carrots
- 0.5 dl black currant juice (non-sweetened)
- 2 tablespoons spruce syrup
- aniseed (or star anise or liquorice)
- 0.75 dl hemp seeds (sprouted if you have time)
- salt

Peel and shred the carrots. Put them into a bowl, add the spruce syrup and sprinkle with a fair amount of aniseed. Pour the juice over the carrots and turn them over a bit. Refrigerate the bowl and forget it for a night.

Arrange the marinated carrots on your serving plate. Gulp down the remaining juice. Roast the hemp seeds on a dry pan. Salt them well. Place over the cold carrots while still hot. Serve immediately.

Nutritional values / 389 g:
energy 351 kcal
fat 17 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 39 g
fiber 19 g

Rosolli

Happy Winter Solstice!
Well, actually that was yesterday but I was celebrating it in Estonia. That's when the holiday starts for me, lasting all the way to Talvennapa (January 13th), supposedly the coldest day of the year. Meanwhile, the Sun is sleeping so we have to light candles instead and feast.

One of those dishes that really make my Joulu is rosolli. Think I could eat a whole bucket of it. Rosolli or sallatti is a simple beetroot salad known in all of northern side of Europe from Netherlands to Russia. The name rosolli comes from Russian rosol, meaning salty. Of course everybody uses a bit different amounts, some leave apple or onion out altogether and some even put salted herring in it. But here's a recipe to start with.

- 4 beetroots
- 3 potatoes
- 3 carrots
- 1 apple
- 1 onion
- 2 pickles

Cook and peel the root vegetables. Cut all the ingredients into cubes. Mix. Serve cold, possibly together with whipped oat cream coloured and spiced with the vinegary pickling juice of beetroots.

Nutritional values / 1350 g:
energy 475 kcal
fat 1 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 96 g
fiber 25 g

Karelian Pasties ‒ Karjalanpiirakat

Yesterday was Finland's Independence Day. In most countries, that's a lively carnival. In Finland it has evolved into a more dignified, even pious day, largely consisting of remembering World War II and honouring the veterans who ‒ as the only nation ‒ managed to fight back against Stalin's invasion. For my generation which doesn't even remember there ever existed a place called Soviet Union it's more about gathering together some friends, burning candles, eating well, talking about new laws that threaten our freedom of speech or right to privacy and of course, laughing at the dresses of the president's ball that YLE broadcasts every year.

While others played a game where you get a point every time you know a name of a ball guest and another one from knowing the reason they're invited I pinched up some Karelian pasties. From numerous hand-size Karelian pie types these are the ones that have an almost iconic status so I thought they'd make an appropriate snack for Independence Day. They have a thin rye crust and just about anything as a filling. Nowadays rice porridge is the filling number one and potato second but barley, talkkuna, buckwheat, carrot or rutabaga would make them a bit more "authentic" (what a terrible word). They can even have a sweet berry porridge inside. This time I used a simple turnip filling and a crust recipe straight from a flour bag.

The crust:
- 5.5 dl sifted rye flour (if you can only find normal kind you should replace some of it with wheat flour)
- 2 dl water
- 2 teaspoons salt

The rest:
- 1 kg turnip
- white pepper
- 100 g margarine
- 1 dl oat milk

Cook the turnips. Peel and mash them together with the pepper and half the margarine. While the filling cools down, mix the crust ingredients together with your hands. Roll the paste into a thin layer (use extra flour generously so it won't stick). Take circular pieces from the layer with the help of a floured water glass.

Now roll each circle into an oval. Lay a spoonful of turnip mash on it and fold the edges with your index finger and thumb, from both sides simultaneously, pinching "wrinkles" on the filling as you go along. Bake about fifteen minutes in a 275ºC oven.

Melt the rest of the margarine and add the milk into it. Butter the oven-fresh pastries from both sides and lay them into a bowl over each other. Cover with a towel and let them soften up for about an hour.

Serve hot or cold, perhaps together with tar syrup.

Nutritional values / 1785 g:
energy 2084 kcal
fat 82 g
protein 48 g
carbohydrates 284 g
fiber 78 g

The Weirdest Glögis

A punch of friends invited themselves at my place to throw one more pikkujoulu party. We listened to the greatest Christmas songs (like this or this) and tried the weirdest glögi ideas we could find. These are starting to get pretty far from any definition of glögi but what matters most, all turned out surprisingly delicious. Exceptionally, I'll write just one long post about them.

Carrot Glögi ‒ Porkkanaglögi

This one sounded like the most awful one so we started with it. But the drink came out quite yummy and didn't taste healthy at all.

- 1 l carrot juice
- half a lemon
- 1 tablespoon cloves
- 2 dl vodka (the bottle in the photo actually isn't vodka)

Wash and grind the lemon half (don't peel). Put the lemon and the cloves into a kettle together with the juice and let it simmer for a moment. Filter out the bits and pieces. Pour into mugs. Finalize with vodka.

Beer Glögi ‒ Olutglögi

I bought three bottles of Sinebrychoff's excellent porter for this and felt so bad in advance for having to ruin it. But no, this came out good as well though there was a bit too much ginger in relation to cinnamon.

- 1 l porter
- 2 dl water
- 1 piece of fresh ginger
- 5 cinnamon sticks

Peel the ginger piece. Let the ginger and the cinnamon sticks simmer in the water until you've caught their taste. Combine the liquid part with the beer and warm it up. Be careful not to boil the beer since it turns bitter quite easily. Beer glögi is best enjoyed while still hot.

Snowball Glögi ‒ Lumipalloglögi

The last one was the winner. There are quite many flavours in this drink but they all seemed to stand out. Sadly, the snowball itself melted all too fast.

- 1 l soy milk
- 2 dl water
- half vanilla pod
- green tea (I used a variety spiced with fruit pieces)
- spruce syrup
- 2 dl whipped oat cream
- cinnamon
(- brandy to taste)

Let the vanilla and the tea simmer in the water. Add the syrup and the milk and warm up the whole thing. Filter into mugs. Pour in some brandy if you wish. Let your guests crown the drink with a cream snowball and cinnamon.

Sea Buckthorn and Carrot Sauce ‒ Tyrni-porkkanakastike

There are some ingredient combinations that are like made to fit together and bring out the best from each other, like turnip and tar, dark chocolate and red wine, strawberries and rhubarb or rye and bilberries. Well, the consort determined for carrots in the beginning of times is apparently sour berries. Sea buckthorn and rowan berries of course have a different taste, but with carrot they work the same way.

An ideal place to take advantage of such unions are often sauces. This one tastes rather sweet-and-sour and needs something with more substance than plain pasta to work, for example this.

- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 4 dl water
- 0.5 dl sea buckthorn (or rowan) berries
- 0.5 tablespoon apple wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons brandy
- 1 tablespoon potato flour (or other thickener)
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- salt
- aniseed

Mince the onion and sauté it in oil. Slice the carrot and add into the kettle. When the carrot slices have softened, add the rest of the ingredients. Sift the potato flour so it won't clump. The sauce is ready when it thickens up.

Nutritional values / 5 dl :
energy 225 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 21 g
fiber 6 g

Pine Nut and Root Vegetable Mash ‒ Männynsiemen-juuressose

Potato mash is one of the standard sidekicks in Finnish cuisine. I often like to tune it with beet or spinach but seeing this I knew I have a sidekick to offer even when Tarja Halonen shows up for a dinner.

The original recipe didn't give any amounts so I tried to document what I used. The oat cream however, wasn't such a good idea since the mash turned a bit too runny. Oh well, the taste is what matters and I already have a long experience of claiming my beet mash is meant to be a puré soup. Next time I'll just replace the cream with some margarine and perhaps roast the pine kernels a bit before marinating them.

EDIT: Yeap, as you can see from the new photo, this turned out just perfect without the cream. Didn't even replace it with anything. Roasting the kernels was also a good idea.

- 2 large carrots
- 4 potatoes
- 1 small rutabaga
- 1 dose of stock
- 1 dl pine nuts
- gin (about 1 dl)
- spruce syrup
- salt
- white pepper
- 0.5 dl oat cream

Put the pine nuts in a mug and pour enough gin on them to cover them. Peel the root vegetables and cook them in water with the stock. Pour the water away and mash them. (If you're really clever you can save the water to make a sauce for example.) Spice with spruce syrup, salt and white pepper. Add the cream, the soaked nuts and as much of the gin as you wish. Let the mash marinate at least for an hour before serving.

Nutritional values / 1080 g:
energy 1197 kcal
fat 61 g
protein 21 g
carbohydrates 99 g
fiber 19 g

Beer Pots with Potato Crust ‒ Olutruukut muusikuorrutteella

To make the best of those awesome colours of the trees right now I tried to imitate them for the perfect autumnal Sunday dinner. I've never really learned how to use pumpkin so I was going to put some into this. However, I only managed to find huge halves that cost about 10 euros a piece. That's a bit more than I'm ready to pay even for domestic veggies. So instead, I bought 3 kilos of rutabaga with one euro. We'll see where I manage to cram them.

Oh, by the way, the colours of these couple of last photos aren't that awesome. That's because I thought I'd just use my camera's inbuilt flash and filter the ugliest direct light with a yellow dishcloth. Getting the white balance even close to natural after that took me longer than preparing this dish. Maybe next time I understand to fetch a real flash even if the Simpsons is about to start.

- 1 small rutabaga
- 1 large carrot
- 1 celeriac
- 10-15 brussels sprouts
- 0.5 l beer, for example Sinebrychoff Porter or Fuller's London Porter
- 2 dl seitan flour
- 0.5 dl rowan berries
- 1 chili
- 1 dl nutritional yeast
- 1 dose of stock
- white pepper
- 4 potatoes
- 1 dl oat cream
- dragon's wort

Squash the rowan berries and the chili. Make a paste of them and the seitan flour. Add some as well water if needed. Cut the seitan and the vegetables into strips and sauté them. Add the stock, the yeast and some white pepper.

Cook the potatoes. Mash them together with the cream and the dragon's wort. Never apply a blender or other sharp blades to potato unless you want to get glue.

Next you'll need four small oven pots. If you're going to use normal mugs, first check that they're meant to last in the oven. Unfortunately, cheapest ones rarely are. Portion the veggie and seitan mixture into the pots. Pour the beer on them. Scoop the mashed potatoes on top. Put the pots into a 175°C oven until the potato mash starts to turn golden from the edges (about half an hour).

Serve with pickles and lingonberries.

Nutritional values / 1 pot:
energy 357 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 24 g
carbohydrates 36 g
fiber 8 g

Potato Soup ‒ Perunasoppa

I often find it easier to make one big portion than several small ones. This is a nourishing basic soup that lasts for a couple of days even in our voracious househould. It's one of my first cooking bravuras and one of the first applications I've learned to use tofu for.

- 8 large potatoes
- 270 g firm tofu (or more)
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 rutabaga
- 1/2 cauliflower
- 1 chili
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1.2 l water (increase if your soup starts to look like a stew)
- 2 dl stock
- 1 dl red wine (sweet dessert type fits best)
- 1 tbsp miso (dissolved in water)
- 1 tbsp curry
- oil for frying

Chop the tofu and the onion. Fry them with chili and curry. Chop other veggies as well and put them in a cattle with the rest. Cook until potatoes are soft (approximitely for an hour). Enjoy with rye bread.

Nutritional values / 1.5 l:
energy 1159 kcal
fat 39 g
protein 64 g
carbohydrates 119 g
fiber 26 g

Carrot Spread ‒ Porkkanalevite

Another tweaked spread idea from Monipuolinen kasvisravinto (Kaarina Virtanen, WSOY 2006). Although this sounds suspiciously healthy it got a lot of praise.

- 500 g carrots
- 100 g margarine
- fresh leek
- fresh thyme

Cook and mash the carrots. (I cooked them in the stock pot to add a little flavour.) Whip the margarine until it foams. Chop the others. Combine all.

Nutritional values / 650 g:
energy 695 kcal
fat 61 g
protein 4 g
carbohydrates 28 g
fiber 14 g

Stock ‒ Liemipohja

One characteristic feature in Finnish cuisine is soups. They aren't just appetizers or snacks but quite often very filling main courses of the day. And all the cooks in the world know that the secret of a good soup is the broth, which is why they keep their special stock recipes secret. You should always have couple of different kinds of them available cause otherwies all your foods start to taste the same. Cooking a stock is all very easy but if you make a larger portion at once it quickens things up for busy days.

Some general guidelines:
1. Making a stock is a perfect way to recycle all the vegetable leftovers like peels and heads. If you use whole vegetables wash them normally and remove the clearly rotten parts but don't bother to peel. Remember you're not going to eat them.
2. Try to add something from all the basic tastes (except fat which has also got into this category lately): bitter, salty, sour, sweet and savory (aka umami).
3. Keep fat out of this since it doesn't store well. You can always add margarine or cream to the soup itself to make it richer.
4. Many alcohol drinks like wines or brandies fit this purpose well. But as much as I love beer this isn't the place for it since it turns bitter when boiled (as I learned when trying to make beer soup).
5. Don't exaggerate with any of the ingredients. If you want your broth to taste like white wine add white wine to the broth itself. Try to keep the stock well balanced and multifunctional.
6. Frying the veggies isn't necessary but it adds to the taste. The one you shouldn't fry is garlic since it may turn bitter.
7. If you for some weird reason want to clarify the stock use for example a clay called bentonite which is widely sold for winemaking.
8. When you're using the stock remember to let it come to a boil to get the taste out of it.
9. How much you should use the stock at once depends on your personal likings, the amount of other spices you're going to use and the denseness of your stock (aka how tighly you concentrate it). It may just as well be 2-3 ice cubes or 1 dl at a time.

Just to show you a couple of examples, here are the recipes for three stocks I've made so far. Next time I might try for example yeast pate (for example Tartex), cider, laurel, lovage, juniper berries or birch sap. Perhaps even a hint of strong tastes like salmiakki (Ammonium chloride), tar or horseradish might work.

Hearty stock:
- 0.5 rutabaga plus the skin and the head of the other half
- skins and heads of 500 g carrots
- skins and heads of 500 g beets
- 1 onion
- 1/2 garlic
- 1 punch of dill
- 8 whole black peppers
- 0.5 dl dark syrup
- 0.5 dl miso (dissolved in water)
- 0.5 dl apple wine vinegar (more aromatic than apple cider vinegar)
- 1 tsp monosodium glutamate
- 1 tsp salt

Zesty stock:
- leftovers from 1 white cabbage
- leftovers from 1 cauliflower
- cores and peels of 3 apples
- 1 sheet of algae (nori)
- 2 tsp dried yarrow flowers
- 2 dl white wine
- 0.5 dl lemon juice
- 0.5 dl mustard powder (Remember mustard condiment also contains oil and sugar.)
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp monosodium glutamate
- 1 tsp salt

Spicy stock:
- 1 leek
- 500 g tomatoes
- 1 bell pepper
- 1 chili pepper
- all the dried herbs I had in the closet but couldn't recognize anymore
- 2 dl red wine
- 0.5 dl mämmi
- 0.5 dl sea buckthorn juice
- 1 tsp monosodium glutamate
- 1 tsp salt

Chop and fry the veggies on a dry pan. Put them in a cattle with the rest of the ingredients and 1.5 litres of water. Let them simmer without a lid. The stock is ready when at least half of the liquid has vaporized and the veggies have turned mashy (after approximitely two hours). Filter the stock, pour it into an ice cube tray (if you've saved plastic soy yoghurt cups or such they're also ideal for this) and freeze. The part that didn't fit there stores a few days in the fridge.

Carrot Bread ‒ Porkkanaleipä

All the people I know to bake their own bread are relatively young, in their twenties or thirties. Older people seem to assossiate it with poorness and not being able to simply buy ready-made bread from the stores. The situation is probably similar to that of the 70's when all those beautiful, energy-saving fireplaces were torn down from the houses. "Look everyone: we can afford a central heating system!" Even my own home used to have them in the 20's, sadly no more.

But back to the beef: Thought I could follow the example of my friends at least occasionally, enough to see how hard a job baking your own bread really is. After all, it's cheaper, has no additives or other unwanted substances and most of all it tastes a million times better. The last part is actually the problem too. Fresh bread is so good it just vanishes though I'm not even hungry.

This was my opening receipe. Basically it contains what I happened to find home. That's the beauty.

- 5 dl water
- 30 g baker's yeast
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- 3 dl graham flour
- 3 dl oat flakes
- 6 dl dark wheat flour
- 3 dl grated carrot
- 2 dl sunflower seeds
- 3 tbsp rape oil
- 1,5 tsp salt

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water. Add the other ingridients in the above order. The salt should be left last since it prevents the yeast from working. (Actually, I got better results by forgetting it altogether.) Knead the dough until it doesn't stick to the bowl anymore. Let it rise under a towel in a warm place for approximitely half an hour. Knead it again on the table (with more wheat flour if it still seems too loose) and shape the breads as you wish. (I made three baguettes) Cover with a towel and let them rise another half an hour. Moist the surfce with water and decorate with seeds if you wish. Bake in 225°C for half an hour. Try not to eat them all at once.

Nutritional values / 1 baguette / 370 g
energy 1205 kcal
fat 43 g
protein 41 g
carbohydrates 165 g
fiber 26 g