Ice Cream for Troll Winter ‒ Jäätelö taikatalveksi

Forecasts promise -11°C for New Year's Eve and I'm making ice cream! Yeap, I know that sounds idiotic but I just bought a pile of Christmas presents for myself, including a cook book about tofu. It made me realize you can make ice cream from soft tofu so I had to try. Of course I knew puréed tofu gives soups and smoothies a fantastic silky structure but somehow I had previously assumed you'd need cream to make ice cream.

First I thought I'd use glögi spices but then those more ethereal flavours drove over. There's no point in repeating the same things you have in the gingerbread crumbles. Think this is a wonderful dessert option for all those heavy chocolate boxes everyone has lying on the table this time of the year. And actually, a pretty healthy one as well.

The name refers to a book of Tove Jansson where Moomintroll wakes up in the middle of his hibernation, feeling all cold and alone. I can so relate to that. I'm almost certain that I ought to hibernate during wintertime but the society forces be to stay up.

- 200 g lingonberries
- 3 tablespoons lingonberry jam
- 400 g soft tofu (If you're making hemp tofu for this just forget the pressing part.)
- 3 dl gingerbread crumbs (The lovers of the unbaked paste can try rolling small balls out of raw gingerbread.)
- heather flowers
- lavender flowers (Just a hint since their scent unfortunately associates with perfume and you wouldn't want to eat perfume. It's the same problem with spearmint and tooth paste.)

Leave the frozen berries on the table for a moment to soften them up enough so you can crush them. Whip everything but the gingerbread crumbs together and stick the bowl into freezer. (Don't press the tofu even if you normally would.) Stir occasionally to break down any forming ice crystals. When you start to have hard time with the stirring (after about five hours) throw in the gingerbread crumbs and freeze one more hour. Serve with a hot drink.

The freezing of tofu ice cream seemed to be taking longer than normally and then again, it seemed to freeze really thoroughly. (This may be just due to the berries.) So thoroughly that if you don't eat it right away you have to leave it on the table for about an hour before serving in order to scoop anything out of it. The partly frosted, partly melted structure on the other hand is just heavenly.

Nutritional values / 690 g:
energy 512 kcal
fat 16 g
protein 25 g
carbohydrates 66 g
fiber 16 g

Beetroot and Pea Loaf ‒ Punajuuri-hernemureke

We usually spend the Yule eve at my spouse's mum since his siblings gather there as well and then go to see my parents on the Yule day. We don't buy much gifts but think it's nice to bring something special for the dinner table. Knowing his family, my spouse convinced me we should make them a seitan roast, along these lines. After all, the only hardcore carnivore on the table was his big brother, the chair of the local hunting club, but even he hadn't eaten pig for a year. And to my surprise, instead of thinking seitan as a fake ham they seemed to like it, even though I myself thought there was too much spices and the experiment with rye flour had made the structure rather sandy.

My parents on the other hand have a history of being much harder to please. I'd like to think they've stopped mocking my vegetarianism cause they now realize I'm a responsible grown-up and have started enjoying my dishes since I've become a better cook but actually, think the change happened when I dragged home a 34-year old, hairy, oveweight and loud guy who refused to eat meat. The power of example is amazing. Still, for them, I thought the beetroot and pea loaf from the book Härkäpapua sarvista (Irina Somersalo & al., Multikustannus 2007) would be a safer option.

Last time I tried something like this was a fiasco (lacking of taste and crumbling apart) so this time I wanted to follow a recipe rather faithfully. The medley of different herbs is naturally very dominant, and since there are so many of them you can't really put your finger on any specific one. Somehow I thought they made the loaf taste more like summer than Yule but liked the result anyway. It doesn't make a centerpiece for a dinner table but it's a good sidekick on the fancier side.

Pea layer:
- 1 dl crushed peas (or 3 dl cooked peas)
- 3 dl water
- 2 potatoes
- 0.5 dl buckwheat flour
- 2 teaspoons dried marjoram
- 0.5 teaspoon ground coriander
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon herb salt

Beetroot layer:
- 2 large beetroots
- 1 potato
- 0.5 dl buckwheat flour
- 1 onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 0.5 teaspoon dried sage
- 3 teaspoon parsley
- 0.25 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon herb salt

Cook the peas with the two potatoes in scarce amount of water. Let them cool down. Then mash and mix with the other ingredients of the pea layer. Cook the beetroots with the potato (again, with minimum amount of water so you won't have to waste any taste into the sewer). Cool down as well. Mash them smooth with the rest of the beetroot layer ingredients (you can either smooth down the onion in a blender or such like the rest or just chop crunchy pieces out of it).

Butter a mold. Pour in the pea layer and spread it even. Pour the beetroot layer on the pea layer and spread even as well. Cook 40 minutes in a 200°C oven in a water bath (this can be achieved by placing the mold into a larger casserole where you pour some water).

Serve cold. Enjoy with some perky sauce or slice on crackers.

Nutritional values / 1055 g:
energy 771 kcal
fat 2 g
protein 33 g
carbohydrates 149 g
fiber 24 g

Barley and Raisin Casserole ‒ Ohra-rusinalaatikko

Happy Yule! The Sun has born again! You can clearly see how the day is now longer again... Well, at least if you use a lot of imagination.

One of the four classic casseroles of the Finnish Yule table is liver casserole. That's something bound to divide opinions even amongst meat eaters. Some get repulsed by the sheer idea of eating organs while I remember loving it as a child. One person I know even explained she's a vegetarian most of the time but has this perversion (that's the term she used herself) of eating a whole liver casserole once a year.

Making a vegan version without that dreaded body part isn't complicated at all but it's much harder to make up the name. Yeast is what gives a special flavour into this but using it in the name has the same problem as its predecessor: doesn't sound too appealing, no matter how quickly the stuff tends to vanish at our home. So instead I named this after the other distinctive ingredient, raisin though I think I could try some dried berries next year instead. Feel free to suggest a better title.

The original version of this was posted here.

- 2 dl barley grains
- 2 dl soy crumbles (TSP)
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- 1 red onion
- 1 dl raisins
- 2 dl oat cream
- 2 tablespoons dark syrup
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 1 teaspoon marjoram
- 100 g yeast paté (for example Tartex or Marmite)
- 2 tablespoons margarine

Soak the raisins in water. Cook the barley. Chop the onion and sauté together with the soy crumbles and soy sauce. Mix all the ingredients in a buttered casserole. Top with margarine pieces. Bake 45 minutes in a 175°C oven. Enjoy with lingonberry cram.

Nutritional values / 800 g:
energy 1613 kcal
fat 73 g
protein 55 g
carbohydrates 180 g
fiber 37 g

Tuuvinki

There are four standars casseroles in the standing Finnish Yule table: carrot, rutabaga, liver and potato. The idea is to take just couple of spoonfuls of each so they'll form a colourful medley of tastes. They're designed to get better and better when rewarmed again and again during those magical days of night.

My definite favourite of these is the potato version tuuvinki that is sweetened naturally. Some people just use dark syrup or sweet potato instead of waiting but I call that cheating.

- 1 kg potatoes (floury variety)
- 4 dl oat milk
- 2 tablespoons wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons margarine

Cook and mash the potatoes. Add the wheat flour (as well as some water if the potatoes seem dry) and pour the mashed potatoes into a casserole. Leave to sweeten in a warm place for a night. If you don't have one set your oven to the lowest temperature possible and keep the mash there for a few hours.

Taste. If the potatoes haven't sweetened enough on their own (= the place you chose wasn't warm enough) you can pour in a tablespoon of dark syrup at this point. Stir in the other ingredients as well. Top with margarine pieces. Bake 3 hours in a 150°C oven.

Nutritional values / 1451 g (also see Fineli):
energy 1033 kcal
fat 25 g
protein 22 g
carbohydrates 174 g
fiber 20 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

Yule Bread ‒ Joululimppu

As I've mentioned earlier, here in western Finland soft bread or limppu used to be eaten only couple of times a year. One such important holiday was ‒ and still is ‒ Joulu or Yule. My idea of a proper joululimppu involves black skin, softness, sweetness and a lot of spices. Such taste needs some time to evolve.

My inspirations for this creation come mainly from mustaleipä ("black bread") of Åland islands and fairer looking but spicier joululimppu recipes. I also thought about throwing in some dried cranberries or nuts but totally forgot. Well, it's not like this would exactly need them. Ideally the bread should be baked couple of days before the actual eating but guess if I could keep my hands off for so long.

- 4 dl oat yogurt (or soy yogurt ‒ anything goes as long as it's sour)
- 3 dl rye malts
- 0.5 dl dark syrup
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 dl rye flour

- 25 g yeast
- 3 dl wheat bran
- 5 dl dark wheat or spelt flour (This is how much I counted I'd need based on other recipes but it seemed to take quite a lot more. Next time I make this I promise to update the amount.)
- 3 tablespoons rowan jelly (just for the flavour, this can be dropped out if you don't have any)
- 1 teaspoon fennel
- 1 teaspoon anise
- powdered bitter orange peel
- some mixture of dark syrup and coffee for buttering

Mix together the yogurt, the malts, the syrup the salt and 2.25 dl rye flour. Sprinkle rest of the rye flour on the composition and cover with a towel. Leave in a warm place for a day (or two if it seems to bubble lazily).

Dissolve the yeast in a drop of lukewarm water. Add the yeast and the rest of the ingredients into the fizzy drink you made yesterday. Cover with a towel again and let it rise for 6 ‒ 8 hours.

Knead it into a semicircle or an oval. Let your loaf rise under a towel for ten minutes. Bake it 10 minutes in a 200°C oven. Butter with the syrup and coffee mixture. Bake 10 more minutes and rebutter. Wrap the loaf into folio, turn the oven to 150°C and leave the bread in there for three hours. Turn off the oven and take the bread out when the oven has gone cold.

Nutritional values / 1150 g:
energy 2705 kcal
fat 23 g
protein 77 g
carbohydrates 537 g
fiber 64 g

Red Onion Sauce ‒ Punasipulikastike

This quick sauce seems to be on everybody's Christmas dinner list in this animal rights forum. And no wonder. Oat, syrup and red onion form a pleasant, sweet trinity where the spices bring the final kick.

- 2 large red onions
- 4 dl oat cream
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 2 teaspoons dark syrup
- 2 teaspoon paprika
- 2 teaspoons milled black pepper
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon tomato paste
- 1 good punch of fresh parsley

Cut the red onions into semicircles. Sauté in oil. Pour on them everything but the parsley. Let the sauce simmer for 5 ‒ 10 minutes. Remember to stir occasionally. If your sauce looks too thick add water, and if too thin add potato flour.

Chop the parsley and sprinkle on the sauce. Enjoy together with casseroles and other Joulu dishes.

Nutritional values / 4 dl:
energy 862 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 14 g
carbohydrates 80 g
fiber 9 g