Black Trumpet Sausage ‒ Mustatorvisienimakkara

Mustamakkara, literally "black sausage" is very likely the most famous speciality of my home city Tampere. It's basically a groat sausage which gets its Gothic colour from blood and is usually served with lingonberry sauce. For years I've had this weird urge to make a vegan version out of it (Hey why not? Edinbourgh is full of pubs serving vegan haggis.) but had absolutely no idea what I could use in it.

As I've mentioned before, there are several traditional Finnish sausage types with no meat in them. I was especially delighted to find a recipe for a mushroom sausage that is otherwise vegetarian but uses real intestines as mold. I wouldn't know how to get those even if I wanted to, but this gave me an idea of using black trumpets when mushrooms are called for. They should naturally make a black sausage, so this might be an idea in line with the name. My version is a bit different though, containing gluten flour for added firmness and fillingness.

I've never actually tasted the blood version so I did some questioning among my friends who had. Apparently some versions do taste like blood while others don't. That sounded like a relief. While you could easily add an effervescent tablet to bring the iron taste into this, it doesn't sound like something I'd really like my sausage to taste like. Especially when black trumpets have such a discreet taste on their own.

- 300 g salt-pickled black trumpets
- 5 dl water
- 4 dl gluten flour
- 2 dl oat cream
- 1.5 dl whole barley grains
- 100 g fresh soy cheese
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp canola oil
- white pepper

Cook the barley in salted water. Mince the garlic. Rinse and drain the mushrooms couple of times, then cut them into smaller pieces. Mix all the ingredients except the gluten flour. Start kneading the flour into the rest by your hand, a small amount at a time, to get it evenly mixed with the rest of the sausage. If there seems to be too much of the dry stuff, add a dollop of water, but carefully, since you don't them to become too soggy.

Take a fistful of the mass and roll into a bar. Wrap into folio and roll some more. Repeat for the rest of the mass. I got myself six large sausages from this amount. Bake in a 175°C oven for an hour. Enjoy as a snack or on the dinner, preferably with lingonberry or cranberry sauce.

Nutritional values / 1 sausage / 242 g:
energy 308,5 kcal
fat 11,5 g
protein 29,3 g
carbohydrates 22,5 g
fiber 4,5 g

Lingonberry Rönttönens ‒ Puolukkarönttöset

Back to Finnish pie specialities. Before I've written about "regular" Karelian pies, with turnip and a more modern filling idea. I've also written about vatruskas of Ilomantsi, supikases and lihapiirakkas. But there are numerous more of them to go.

This has been a bad berry year. Normally there's an overlap of bilberry and lingonberry season, but this time bilberries vanished before I really picked them and lingonberries haven't really appeared either. I hear my friends in the western coast hoard buckets of them though, so perhaps I'm just going to the wrong woods. now that my spouse's mum sent us some of the lingonberries she had picked, I thought I'd finally try making rönttönens.

Rönttönens are considered a speciality of the Kainuu region. They resemble Karelian pies a lot but are rounder, larger and their crust nearly always contains wheat flour besides rye. Typically the filling is made of potato and lingonberries. In the traditional version they are sweetened naturally with low heat with the same method as tuuvinki or mämmi, which together with lingonberries produces a unique flavour for sweet and sour lovers. These days the sweetening is usually done with added sugar like in this quickie version. I got 15 pies from this portion.

The crust:
- 5 dl rye flour
- 2 dl wheat flour
- 3 dl water
- salt

The filling:
- 6 cooked potatoes
- 7 dl lingonberries
- 2 dl rye flour
- 0.5 dl sugar
- salt

For buttering:
- 100 g margarine
- 2 dl oat milk

Knead the crust ingredients together. Cover with a towel and leave to rest for 2–3 hours.

Mash the potatoes and the lingonberries. Mix all the filling ingredients. Roll the crust as thin as you can, flouring the surface so it won't stick to the table or rolling pin. Take circles of about 15 centimetres in diameter from it. Pile them with flour added between them to prevent from drying or sticking together.

Spread a thin layer of the filling on each circle. Lift about a centimetre of their edges and make wrinkles between your fingers so they'll hold up.


Bake in a 250°C oven for 15 minutes. Melt the margarine and mix with the milk. Grease each rönttönen when they come out of the oven. Cover with a towel when they're still hot to help them soften.

Enjoy with hot coffee or tea.

Nutritional values / 1 pie / 149 g:
energy 220 kcal
fat 6 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 36 g
fiber 7 g

Mushroom Hunter's Bread ‒ Sienestäjänleipä

At some point this morning I noticed I had accidentally published a completely empty draft with this headline. That was embarrassing. Apparently it had gained 30 views before I noticed anything. Sorry if you were one those people who clicked in vein. Here's the real post.

In the 70's cafés and bars served warm sandwiches instead of hamburgers. To modern reader those classic recipes may sound somewhat dull or not-so-nutritious but then again, that does apply to most hamburgers too. They can be rather filling evening snacks or lunches even today, especially if served with a side salad. Mushroom hunter's bread is my adaptation from a classic called metsästäjänleipä or hunter's bread, consisting of a meat steak or patty and mushroom sauce.

- 4 rye bread pieces
- 4 basic soy or pea patties
- 0.5 l mushrooms of your choice (I used sheep polypore)
- 2 dl oat cream
- 1 onion
- 1 small punch of fresh parsley
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- black pepper
- salt

Chop the mushrooms and sauté on a dry pan until the extra juice has vaporized and they've even caught some colour. Add the oil and the onion, chopped as well. When the onion has become translucent, add the cream and the spices. Let the sauce simmer until it seems thick enough. Finalize with parsley.

Toast the bread slices. Place a soy pattie on each of them. Pour the sauce generously over them all.

Nutritional values / 1 bread / 343 g:
energy 379 kcal
fat 16 g
protein 19 g
carbohydrates 41 g
fiber 10 g

Soy Lihapiirakka ‒ Soijalihis

This is a bit of a deviation from the "seasonal" theme since lihapiirakkas are sold rather evenly around the year. The name literally means "meat pie" which gave me some trouble naming the soy version since I don't think anyone would understand if I just called them soy pies. You do see a lot of naming variance like "meatless pie" or "soy meat pie", but I decided to go with a shortening in Finnish and keep the English name intact since it's already detached from the original meaning. Anyway, they're deep-fried pastries made from a doughnut type of dough and filled with rice and minced meat. Or, in the vegan version, usually rice and TVP.

Lihapiirakkas are an extremely popular fast food in Finland. You can find them cheap from practically every food store's convenience food section. Non-chain-owned street kiosks sell them even in the smallest villages with one shop and no restaurants, along with french fries and hamburgers. In bigger cities you have a chance of finding them all self-made and vegan. Quite often they're cut in half and filled with things.

When I was a teenager, a friend of mine ate at least one of them every day after school, filling them with ketchup and liver sausage, along with a glass of cold cocoa as the drink option. To her and her parents' defence I have to say my diet at the time wasn't exactly from the healthiest end either.

The regular kiosk filling includes what I like to call "the grill spices", the holy trinity of ketchup, mustard and cucumber relish. In case of cheap cucumber relish raw onion is also often added for crunchiness. With a little extra fee the fillings may include different meat products, but nothing stops from using the same forms made from plant-based ingredients, like bean patties, chickpea omelettes or soy weeners. The kiosks often serve their own specialities and understanding the subtle differences takes a real connoisseur. For a little vocabulary, these have become regional dishes known nation-wide:

Atomi and vety (Lappeenranta): "Atom and hydrogen". Vety includes a boiled egg and ham, atomi either one of these.
Hotsi (Hämeenlinna): It's role model probably being hot dog, hotsi is filled with half cut lauantaimakkara or "Saturday sausage", a certain thick and floury sausage type. In Forssa two wieners are used instead.
Möttönen (Helsinki): An especially big and thick lihapiirakka which were originally sold at the main train railway station.
Riihimäkeläinen (Riihimäki): Includes a fried egg and a minced meat patty. In Rovaniemi the same version is called ropsilainen after the local football team.
Lörtsy (Savonlinna): The good people of Savonlinna are probably going to hang me from balls for implying these are the same thing, and I do need to write a separate post about them sometime later. I haven't been able to find a recipe for lörtsy or any "official" difference in their dough, but lörtsys are about twice as large and always flat. They're one of the oldest variants and have been around since the fifties. Originally they had an apple jam filling instead of meat but nowadays you can find them in all possible sweet and savory flavours.

The dough
- 14 dl wheat flour (many prefer a version where some of this is graham)
- 6 dl oat milk
- 50 g yeast
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- 1 tbsp salt

 The filling
- 2.5 dl soy crumble
- 1.5 dl barley grains
- 1 dl roasted onion
- 1 dose of stock
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- 1 tbsp apple wine vinegar
- smoked paprika
- white pepper
- salt

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water. Add the oil, the syrup and the salt. Knead in enough flour to achieve a consistency that doesn't stick to the bowl but still feels a bit runny. Cover with a towel and let rest for an hour.

Cook the barley. Soak the soy crumble in water where you've added the stock. Fry on the pan, adding the spices as you go. Combine the barley, the soy and the onion.

Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Roll each of them round between your hands, flatten and roll into a disc of about 15 cm in diameter. Keep more flour at hand to help the dough from sticking. Scoop a spoonful or two of the filling in the middle of the disc. Fold one edge on the opposite one and press it to keep it closed. Secure the edges by pressing with a fork.

Deep fry from both sides until golden in neutral tasting oil that is fine with high temperatures, for example non-virgin rape oil.

Nutritional values / 1 lihapiirakka / 114 g (before deep frying):
energy 299 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 10 g
carbohydrates 48 g
fiber 4 g

Stuffed Black Currant Leaves ‒ Viinimarjanlehtikääryleet

I'm a bit of a fan of making "Finnishized" versions of dishes normally attributed to whole different nations. You take the basic idea of the dish but swap the main ingredients into some local ones. Often the result is closer to the original idea than the hardcore versions that count on finding preserved but hard-to-acquire ingredients in the place of fresh ones.

Last summer I got a packet of grape leaves so we made a large pot of dolmades, a Greek dish where rice is wrapped inside the leaves. They were great though I still don't know what grape leaves really taste like since those were heavily preserved in tartaric acid.

This year I thought I'd localize the recipe. Black currant leaves are very aromatic and currants in general are called "wine berries" or viinimarja in Finnish so I thought they'd work great in this type of a dish. Seems I'm not exactly the first person who's used them this way so I took some model from this recipe which also uses rice as the stuffing. Whenever a recipe calls for rice I usually apply oat but it tastes a bit mild. So this time I thought I'd try processed spelt for a slightly nuttier flavour. Most recipes seem to call for a really long list of spices which to me sounds like they're not sure to what direction they want to take it, so I went with a fairly simple list instead.

- 40 large black currant leaves
- 2 dl pearl spelt
- 0.5 dl pine nuts
- 1 small punch of fresh mint
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- cinnamon
- clove
- salt

For the broth
- 1 dl rape oil
- 0.5 dl lemon juice
- 1 dose of stock
- 2 tsp brown sugar
- salt

Cook the spelt in salty water for about 20 minutes. Roast the nuts on a dry pan a bit so they'll get colour on their cheeks. Mince the garlic and the mint. Mix the stuffing ingredients together.

Cook the currant leaves in plenty of water for about five minutes to soften them up. Take two leaves at a time. Cut their stems off and place them on each other so they'll overlap in the middle. Scoop a teaspoonful of the stuffing in the middle. Fold the edges of the leaves on the stuffing and roll them into small cigars. Place each cigar carefully but tightly into a casserole.

Mix the broth ingredients and pour over the casserole. (Add some water too if the amount of liquid doesn't seem enough.) Place in a 150°C oven for about an hour. You can eat them right away, but if you have the patience you can wait a day or two for them to juice up in the fridge. This is also the reason why it's a great idea to make a big portion of them while you're at it.

Nutritional values / 628 g:
energy 2371 kcal
fat 192 g
protein 43 g
carbohydrates 149 g
fiber 30 g

Kale and Fava Bean Dip ‒ Lehtikaali-härkäpapudippi

I've had this wonderful sounding spinach dip in my bookmarks, waiting for me to do it with fresh nettle. There are some new shoots growing now, but since I have a lot of kale and green fava beans waiting I thought I'd try something similar with them instead. I did add some dry nettle from last year though.

The amounts in the original recipe are in those archaic measures that are a pain to convert into SI-system (I know, you doing the conversions the other way around end up with just as cumbersome fractions). Since this type of dish doesn't really call for specific amounts like, say, cookies would, I just added things with a freehand style. This base I developed would call for more liquid, but I have absolutely no complaints about the taste. It goes best together with rye crisps, corn snacks, veggie sticks or other such stuff with a more flavour and toughness than your average potato chip does.

- 200 g kale
- 200 g soy cheese
- 3 dl cooked fava beans
- 2 dl cashew nuts
- 0.5 dl lemon juice
- 0.5 dl dried nettle
- 0.5 dl  nutritional yeast
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp rape oil
- 1 tbsp pesto
- salt and pepper

Soak the nuts overnight or boil for about 20 minutes (this "quick-soaking" must be among the best kitchen tips I've heard for a while) to soften them up. Blend all the ingredients together, but save some of the cheese to sprinkle on top.

Bake for 15 minutes in a temperature of 175°C. Serve as a hot dip sauce or use between sandwiches.

Nutritional values / 969 g:
energy 2105 kcal
fat 139 g
protein 94 g
carbohydrates 119 g
fiber 32 g

Kale Chips ‒ Lehtikaalisipsit

My MoFo month is starting to become a series of "what new ingredient did I try today" posts, but it's not that bad. That can happen during autumn if you're curious to try out new stuff. Much worse thing is that I got along this hyped idea for a snack only now. I've often seen kale being praised and it's especially unavoidable if you follow any American cooking blogs. But it's not too commonly grown in Finland though it would manage long into autumn, even through a little frost. I haven't seen it sold anywhere until yesterday, right at the market square in my neighbourhood.

I got so excited seeing those huge dark green bushes sold with three euros I didn't even realize they were still attached to their roots. Not until the seller lady started wrapping the rather large growing pot into a bag, that is. At the moment I'm not quite sure whether I should eat or cherish my baby. But the first thing I wanted to do in any case was to try out this all-too-healthy sounding snack. As with raw porridge, the result was really worth all the hype.

- 100 g kale
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- salt (and other spices if you wish)

Tear the kale into mouth-size pieces. Sprinkle with oil and salt. Spread on a baking sheet and cook for about ten minutes in a 175°C oven. Notice these will probably disappear before you have the time to start the movie.

Nutritional values / 127 g:
energy 279 kcal
fat 28 g
protein 3 g
carbohydrates 4 g
fiber 2 g

Green Fava Bean Toast ‒ Härkäpapupaahtoleipä tuoreista härkäpavuista

Today I got to taste fresh fava or horse beans for the first time in my life. They're one of those plants traditionally grown in Finland, which have almost been forgotten from the way of imported goodies, along with other such nutritious and tasty plants like hemp, turnip and buckwheat.

I do understand why restaurants don't want to use these fresh. Processing just a small patch like this meant several hours of work - and by work I mean the actual active time I did something with my hands, not just waiting while it cooks. But you never see these sold fresh either. This rare chance was all thanks to us planting and harvesting the beans ourselves in our small allotment garden.

So why is it such a hard work? Well, first you have to peel the beans out of their pods, then boil in water for 3-5 minutes and then individually pop them out of their skins as well before continuing to the actual cooking part. Of course, one way would also be to just serve them with greasy sauce and let the eaters peel the skins off. They're not related to new world beans in any way, so they're not poisonous to eat raw, just a bit unpleasant unless really young and small (in which case it's OK to use the pods as well). It's enough to cook them lightly so the aromas don't get waisted and the structure doesn't go mushy.

I wanted to try a rare treat like this really simply, so I used this recipe from a Swedish book Smakernas återkomst: när maten följer årstiderna (Ordfront förlag 2011) by a reporter Mats-Eric Nilsson. The instructions were a bit vague so I'll just tell how I did them.

- 5 dl precooked fava beans
- 6 slices of white sour bread
- 2 shallots
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- basil (I mostly used dill since we happen to have lots of it fresh)
- salt

Mince the shallots and sauté them in olive oil. Add the beans. Fry a few minutes more. Sprinkle with salt, basil and more oil. Move aside. Toast the bread slices on the pan as well.

Scoop the beans on the bread slices and enjoy on the spot.

Nutritional values / 790 g:
energy 1319 kcal
fat 44 g
protein 56 g
carbohydrates 173 g
fiber 32 g

Apponens ‒ Apposet

My spouse doesn't really care for fresh peas, and even I have to admit those things you can buy from the market square in our neighbour aren't nearly as good as the ones we grew in our backyard in my childhood home. These are less sweet and the pods so woody they're practically inedible. Guess we just picked them before they were fully developed.

This time of the year you can get them really cheap, so I like to make something out of them. This way they get soft and sweet again. But warning: they get devoured fast too. This is about the amount you should reserve for each eater:

- 1 l sugar pea pods
- 1 l water
- 2 tbsp sea salt
- 50 g margarine

Add the salt into the water and let it come to a boil. Throw the peas into it for about 15 minutes. In the late summer they might need more boiling to become soft but if you boil them too long they'll brake down, so keep checking the situation. Fish them out and forget the water.

While they're boiling, melt the margarine and pour it into a tall shot glass. It's easiest to give every eater their own. (I've also tried adding some nutritional yeast, but the two don't seem to mix. If you don't mind the unaesthetic mess, it does add some great taste though. Horseradish is another option.)

When the peas are done, it's time to eat. Grip a pea from the stem end and dip it into the margarine. Place the whole pod into your mouth. Now pull backwards while closing your teeth around the pod. The soft parts should now be left in your mouth but the woody ones in your hand. Discard the gutted carcass and help yourself to the next one.

Nutritional values / 450 g:
energy 483 kcal
fat 35 g
protein 12 g
carbohydrates 32 g
fiber 12 g

Omelette in Bell Pepper ‒ Paprikoitu munakas

Quite a while now I've had this idea of cooking pea omelette inside circles (or whatever their shape is) cut from bell peppers. I've waited patiently as it hasn't been the right time for bell peppers. I even had to try whether this would work with tomatoes and grill first, but I missed the fried surface of the omelette part and the tomatoes of course needed a folio around  them since they went all soft before the omelette batter managed to coagulate at all.

Chickpea omelette makes a perfect quick meal for a lazy day. Adding the bell peppers around them doesn't give much more trouble than that but it's a change to adding them into the omelette, and besides looks nice on a dinner with friends. Usually I've made them with chickpea flour only, but this time I added some tofu to make the structure thicker and softer. For a fluffier structure, I also used sparkling water as the liquid and added a teaspoon of baking powder, but they're not necessary. Spicing them well is, since they can quite easily remain a bit lame.

- 4 bell peppers (you can be more adventurous than me and use different colours)
- 300 g silken tofu
- 3 dl chickpea flour (also called gram flour)
- 3 dl sparkling water
- 5 spring onions
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- 1 tsp baking powder
- cilantro leaves
- mustard powder
- turmeric
- salt

Cut circles of the bell peppers. Save the tops and bottoms to be used later. Blend the tofu. Sprinkle the flour with it little by little, stirring while you're at it. Add the spices, the baking powder, the water and the onions too. Mix well.

Heat up a frying pan. Apply oil, place the bell peppers and pour the batter inside them. When the omelette has coagulated, turn around and cook from the other side as well. Serve with a zesty and fruity sauce.

Nutritional values / 1458 g:
energy 1323 kcal
fat 47 g
protein 72 g
carbohydrates 146 g
fiber 44 g

Beggar's Nettle Purses ‒ Kerjäläisen nokkosnyytit

My spouse loves making crepes although I need to watch his back since he can get quite picky on which ones looks absolutely perfect and which ones he tries to dump into bio waste bucket. It usually falls into my responsibility to decide how to top them. This time the fresh nettle leaves I had just been picking  were the oblivious choice.

I do fully admit using nettle inside crepes is really just another variation of making classic nettle pancakes. But it's a nice one, no way around it. And wrapping the crepe around the filling into a surprise package does give it a whole new touch. Somehow wrapping thing inside each other always feels more exciting than just placing them next to each other on the plate. The original beggar's purses are mini-size appetizers filled with caviar so for these more filling versions, I came up with the idea of using beluga lenses which are sometimes called "vegetarian's caviar".

The crepes:
- 1 litre oat milk
- 3 dl barley flour
- 3 dl wheat flour
- 1.5 dl melted margarine
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- oil or margarine for frying

The filling:
- 1 l fresh nettle leaves (or 150 g blanched and frozen)
- 2 dl beluga lenses
- 2 dl oat cream
- 2 tbsp tar liqueur (or 1 tbsp dark syrup and 1 tsp liquid smoke)
- salt

For decoration:
- Spring onion stalks

Whisk the flours into the cold milk little by little. Add the rest of the crepe batter. You can also sprinkle a little bit of turmeric Leave alone for an hour or so. Heat up the frying pan and make sure you're using enough oil to keep the crepes from sticking. Pour a ladleful of batter evenly on the pan. Tilt the pan to make sure it spreads evenly but thinly. When the edges start look golden and the center also holds together. Loosen with a spatula and turn around. When the other side is done as well, move aside and add more oil before continuing with the next crepe.


Rinse the lenses. Wash the nettles, cut out bad parts or stalks and chop the rest into smaller pieces. Put all the filling ingredients into the same pot and add enough water to almost cover them. Cook until the liquid has absorbed and the lenses are done. About 30‒40 minutes should do.

For the serving, place a spoonful of the filling on the crepe. Collect the edges into a perfect looking package.and tie carefully together with a string or a spring onion stalk.

Nutritional values / 2337 g (without the frying oil):
energy 3671 kcal
fat 149 g
protein 114 g
carbohydrates 452 g
fiber 68 g

Wiener Rolls ‒ Nakkipiilot

I was born in a completely different world than where I now live. It's not just in the 80's there was no WWW or mobile phones, no one cared whether the environment was being destroyed or not and people lived in constant fear of nuclear war that would destroy the whole planet. Also, Finland was much poorer, closed and conservative place back then. You couldn't import vegetables that were cultivated domestically, which basically means there was no watery Spanish tomatoes during winter. No one had heard of mangos either, and wild veggies were something you wouldn't feed even to your pet rabbit. Perhaps this already explains why there was no vegetarian restaurants either.

Though I wouldn't want to return to that time when I wore diapers, I still have this weird nostalgic affair with 80's recipes which sound just as awful as the clothes they wore back then. These once so popular party snacks are called Wiener Hideouts in Finnish. And yes, that sounds just as suggstive as it does in English. Someday I should really try to make the basic flaky pastry myself, but right now the store-bought just felt too cheap, easy to find and nearly always vegan.

- 250 g flaky pastry (or puff pastry)
- 1 package of gluten-based teeny-weeny sausages (they're called prinssinakit or prince wieners in Finnish)
- 0.5 dl ketchup
- oregano

Roll and cut the pastry into as many squares as you have wieners. Apply spices if you wish. Place the wiener in the middle and close the pastry around it. Place it on a baking sheet with the seam side down. Cook 10‒15 minutes in a 225°C oven.

Nutritional values / 460 g:
energy 1363 kcal
fat 85 g
protein 73 g
carbohydrates 74 g
fiber 4 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

Greenish Karelian Pies ‒ Vihertävät karjalanpiirakat

I feel people are often way too conservative when it comes to dishes where the whole idea is that you can stuff them with anything at hand. For karelian pies this nearly always means rice porridge. My personal favourite is still a rather classic turnip filling, but this combination has also managed to attract praises. Couple of times I've run out of the filling though there was still crust left, so if you want to play safe increase the amounts in the stuffing part a little.

Basic crust recipe

With a modernized filling:
- 200 g frozen peas
- 2 dl hazelnuts
- 1 lime
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- white pepper
- salt

If possible, let the nuts soak in water the previous night. Make the crust as usual. Mash the peas and the nuts together. Wash the lime, crate some of the peel and squeeze the juice. Mix with the pea and nut mash together with seasonings.

Stuff the pastries with your filling and continue to heating the oven and wrinkling and as usual.

Nutritional values / 1152 g:
energy 2503 kcal
fat 124 g
protein 68 g
carbohydrates 276 g
fiber 89 g

Lettuce Wraps ‒ Salaattikääröt

I've sometimes thought about ordering tempeh fungus and try if it would work with peas as well. Turns out someone else has thougt about that as well and succeeded. You can now find domestic pea and lupine tempeh from Finnish stores. Apparently, horse bean tempeh is also possible to make. Next time I feel like a chemistry project, this is very likely the way to go. In the meanwhile, I can recommend at least the lupine version. In this case it's made of blue lupins grown in Lapua.

The package was rather small, so I had to come up with a way to incorporate it into a bigger dish without losing the tempeh taste in the mix. So I tried using salad leaves as a wrap like I've seen done in raw food blogs. On paper the combination sounded great and fresh but in practise these started to turn me off quite soon. Perhaps I shoul've used some less bland type of lettuce or collard than an iceberg head. Or maybe I shouln't have used that virgin oil when making the mayo since it tends to have much too strong a flavour. Nevertheless, this combination was clearly missing something. Perhaps this combination was a bad one all in all. Still, I'm going to write it down to hopefully give you guys better ideas.

- 1 lettuce head
- 150 g lupine tempeh
- 2 dl hazel nuts
- 1 dl mayonnaise
-  240 g canned artchoke hearts
- 1 tbsp mustard
- oil for frying
- black pepper
- salt

Blend the mayo with artichoke hearts and mustard. Slice the tempeh and fry lightly, seasoning only with salt and pepper. Crunch the nuts.

Carefully peel the lettuce leaves off. Fill them with a spoonful of artichoke mayonnaise, tempeh pieces and nut crunch. Wrap the edges on each other so the fillings will keep inside. Enjoy fresh.

Nutritional values /  1144 g:
energy 1575 kcal
fat 125 g
protein 52 g
carbohydrates 62 g
fiber 29 g

Red Onion Scones ‒ Punasipuliteeleivät

I often have a hard time deciding how to translate dish names for this blog. Teeleipä, meaning tea bread in Finnish, is a small, savory and rather flat bread that doesn't need to be knead and is leavened with a baking powder. Sometimes they're said to be a form of Scottish scones, but after looking what they typically look like and contain I thought calling them scones would mislead a bit too much. Since they fit in the definition however, I eventually decided it would be wiser to use a familiar name and just explain that these are Finnish-type scones.

Scones are something most Finns have made in school during the home economics class and never touched since. But I think they're so simple to make I rather mix a batter than leave for a store just because the bread happened to run out. The beauty of them is that you can stuff them with nearly anything you'd like to get rid of ‒ meal remains, herbs about to die or those seeds you've had in the closet for a year now. One of my favourite fillings includes crated carrot, garlic and green olive slices, but this time I crowned them with red onion. Also, you can swap the flour types and other such dry ingredients to fit your closet, as long as there are about 4 dl of them altogether. As the name implies, they're a perfect evening snack with a cup of nice tea. On top they're supposed to be a little crunchy but soft inside.

- 2 dl oat meals
- 2 dl wheat flour
- 2 dl water (or oat milk)
- 2 tbsp oil
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 0.5 tsp salt
- 1 red onion
-  black pepper
-  marjoram

Cut the onion in semicircles and sauté lightly. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the wet ones as well. Cover with a towel and let it swell for a while. Portion spoonfuls on a baking sheet leaving a lot of room between them to spread. Bake about 15 minutes in a 225°C oven. Serve fresh and hot with a good evening tea and some simple bread spread.

Nutritional values /  677 g:
energy 1030 kcal
fat 35 g
protein 32 g
carbohydrates 145 g
fiber 18 g

Chocolate Waffles with Talkkuna and Berry Sauce ‒ Suklaavohlut talkkuna-marjakastikkeella

This isn't really a recipe but just a quick post about my evening snack on the other day. Funny how you get this squirrel mode on when it gets all dark and cold (I think -21°C on Monday was the record so far). I'm currently addicted into all things hot and filling, even overly sweet things which I don't care so much during summer.

The waffles in the photo are made with my basic rye waffle recipe, except that this time I added a few spoonfuls of cocoa powder and extra sugar. The real star was the sauce however. It consists of berries, sugar, some runny yogurt and about 1 dl of talkkuna, all blended together. As always, the berries are what ever I happened to grab from the freezer: sea buckthorn berries, lingonberries, bilberries and strawberries.

These paired rather nicely with the Swedish policeman Kurt Wallander (who has by the way taught me such wonderful expressions as "Finnish suicide").

Rowan Fudge ‒ Pihlajatoffee

This time of the year you really notice how many rowan trees there are in the city center as they all bear loads of delicious-looking (and very bitter) red berries. Too bad there are almost as many cars so we can only use the berries for throwing them at friends or admire them with dignity. Luckily this pet of the Finnish thunder god grows in some more peaceful places as well. After all, it is the first tree you should plant on the yard of a new house.

The recipe is an adaptation from the lingonberry fudge in the cook book Härkäpapua Sarvista (Irina Somersalo & al., Multikustannus 2007). The amount of brandy I added is so small you can't really taste it but this is easy to fix if you wish. And with the same basic method you could prepare salmiakki fudge or even garlic fudge which was also suggested by the book.

- 2 dl oat cream
- 3 dl dark sugar
- 2 tablespoons margarine (or coconut oil)
- 1 dl rowan berries
- 1 tablespoon brandy

In a saucepan, heat up the cream, the sugar and the margarine, stirring often until the basic fudge mass is ready. It may take some experienting to figure out the right time between caramel sauceness and lollipop hardness. After about 40 minutes it should have turned into a dark brown pile of thick bubbles. If you drop a bit into a glass of cold water, it should form a firm bullet but not become rock solid yet.

See all your berries are clean. Crush them a bit and add into the mass in small batches. Add the brandy as well and let the mass come to a boil once more.

Spread as a thick layer into a casserole covered with parchment paper. Let it cool down and refrigerate for a few hours. Cut in pieces.

Nutritional values / 547 g:
energy 1381 kcal
fat 41 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 244 g
fiber 5 g

Tomato Morsels ‒ Suupalatomaatit

These are very simple cocktail bites to emphasize the pour goodness known as cherry tomatoes. I was pondering what to use as the filling when I came across this blog post. I guess you could grill them while you're at it but why bother?

- 250 g cherry tomatoes
- 2 dl thick nut yogurt (I used macademias)
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (or herb of your choice)

Mince the thyme and mix with the nut paste. Hollow out the tomatoes. (Use the insides later in a soup or a sauce.) Refill with the nutty sourness.

Enjoy with black currant jam.

Nutritional values / 310 g:
energy 461 kcal
fat 44 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 17 g
fiber 9 g

Rhubarb Sandwiches ‒ Raparperileivät

It's too hot to cook or stay inside. But when I come home I need something easy to prepare. This combination is one of the results of me trying to find new ways to utilize rhubarb. It's a surprisingly new species. It didn't become wide-spread before 19th century in Finland and wasn't even considered edible at first. Most Finns still don't like the overwhelming sourness as such but it's perfectly possible to prepare it in ways that don't ruin the characteristic taste and this doesn't always mean sweet dishes.

- 1 small rhubarb stalk or a piece from a bigger one
- 2 rye bread slices
- 2 slices blue-style soy cheese
- 0.5 tablespoons margarine
- 1 teaspoon dark syrup

Cut the rhubarb in pieces. Toast the bread slices and butter them. Arrange the rhubarb on the slices, pour the syrup on them and top with soy cheese. Heat just enough to warm the toppings.

Nutritional values / 132,5 g:
energy 253 kcal
fat 12 g
protein 7 g
carbohydrates 27 g
fiber 6 g