Easter

Ah, Easter. ♥

I love spring therefore it's logical that I love Easter! I wish I had had the time and energy to decorate (crochet pastel eggs, make an Easter tree, grow some wheat grass decor, dye a million eggs), but alas, this just wasn't my year!!

I did make some really tasty food... and these narcissi torment me daily with their beauty... It's like they're yelling "take more photos, take a million more!"... is it just me who hears flowers begging to be photographed? LOL!

So here is the picture tour of my Easter... and we're off!

Appetizers were corn bread (gluten free) with boiled eggs. I tried dying them with carrot tops, but only got this light green color... I need to do more research! 

 

Lunch was lemon garlic chicken with oven roasted potatoes and carrots. Um yes, delicious! 

 

Oh! And the salad! I made a vinaigrette and tossed the salad in that. Perfect! 

My mama brought over those super cute little green hens... Love them! 

 

Dessert was this carrot cake (gluten free)... However, shortly after snapping this picture, I cut the cake up and tossed it in a bowl... 

I was a bit dumb-dumb and totally forgot the even the cake out before stacking and filling etc... I baked this in a 9x13 inch pan because I don't have a circular cake pan (wooot?!) and I just cut it in half and layer to make a 2 layered square cake. Sounds about right, right? Well, wrong when you aren't thinking things through! Argh, the cake ended up being so unstable that it was either cut it up and make a "trifle" or just chance it falling all over the floor when moving it... Trifle it was!

Note: when looking for a recipe to use for the cake, I found this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker. She had a mishap with carrot cake and made a trifle. I stole the idea shamelessly, but in my defense, I think reading about it jinxed me!

That black stuff there is called mämmi, it's a Finnish Easter tradition. I like it with vanilla cream sauce. 

What Easter could be complete without jelly beans?!

 

Ah, Easter, wonderful! 

Blizzards, cake, and pups

WOW!

We had a friggin' blizzard yesterday!! It snowed ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT... a total of 25-30 cm by this morning apparently. RIDICULOUS! 

 (early evening)

 

I guess Mother Nature didn't get the memo about it being April! She's making up for the lost time last fall and our not white Christmas, I guess. 

(Night... and yes, the bunting is still up! Lol! Oh, and this is the sixth floor for those who didn't know.)

 

Let me tell ya, walking the dogs in dunes last night was no picnic for any of us... Manta had to be carried out to her favorite pee spot and after doing her business she came back over to me practically asking to be picked up. Being about 20cm tall is not fun in that weather, poor thing! ...And this morning...! Oh word! I walk to the hospital I'm doing my clinical training at (going surprisingly swell so far btw!) and some parts of my journey I had to trudge through knee-deep snow!! Thankfully, the trek back was a lot easier and the glorious spring sun is shining down, trying its hardest to melt the 30cm away. Lol! 

Going back in time... Here are a couple pictures of a walk I took on Saturday. 

Here is a view of the cute colorful summer cottages. It's a little cottage community (aka garden allotment?) in town, where they have these tiny cottages and gardens to cultivate (wikipedia info here). I want one! SO CUTE! 

And spring pussy-willow.

I baked this delicious coffee cake on Sunday. My good friend was coming over for coffee and was bringing her Frenchie, Elvi, for a play date. 

This is a bundt version of my late godmother, Cookie's, famous lemon bread.

I tweaked it though and used orange instead of lemon, it's just what I had on hand at the moment!

This is a contender for Easter brunch (the real deal lemon bread) so I think I might jot the recipe down here to share, too. 

I think Cookie would have been tickled. :)

(And no, her name wasn't really Cookie, it was Louise, but she was big into cooking and baking so you get the idea of her nickname I'm sure..)

Here the "kids" are, having a grand old time being wild. 

And Elvi is forever my photography challenge. I love when she comes over and I manage to get a picture of her that isn't blurry, under/over-exposed etc. You teach me so much about my camera, Elvi!! Thanks!

 

St Patrick's Day festivities

Wow! What a party!

I felt exhausted after everyone left, but kept on trekking and cleaning so I could enjoy my Sunday morning in peace... I must be getting old because everyone left for the bars at 11pm and I was so happy to just curl up in bed and go to sleep! Lol!

Don't get me wrong though, I had fun!

But I do think the best part of having a party is the planning and preparation bit when you get to be creative and decorate and bake and arrange... It's just in my nature...

So here is a little photo journey of the party.

The cake batter than I could have eaten by the spoonful... I really really really wanted to!

  ...But I was smart and not so selfish and actually made a "sheet cake" with it... This is the cupcake recipe from Annie's Eats. I love tried and true recipes... I would have made my usual Busy Day Chocolate cake, but we didn't have enough vegetable oil. Annie's Eats came through for me again though, I really love this recipe! 

I made little pastry bites with puff pastry again. I brushed the dough with egg yolk and then put a dollop of herb cream cheese and a little piece of pepper on top. Baked until golden brown... Anything bite-size and made of buttery pastry is always a party favorite. 

These are also good for budget parties because the 1kg of dough only cost (I think 3e) and I got 80 squares out of it. Add about 2e for the cream cheese and about 1-2e for the pepper and you have a nice little savory appetizer for a decent crowd for only a max of 7e! I like! This is also so versatile, e.g. I made blue cheese apple pastries for new years the same way.

I was soooooooooo happy with the decor!!! I seriously don't want to take down the little squiggle streamers and especially the bunting!

 Here are the savory bites set out before folks arrived... 

I always serve carrot sticks as an alternative to dip (dips not shown...) and other on-sale vegetables... They are cheap, tasty, and everyone loves them! It also ensures that there is something for everyone, since not everyone wants buttery pastries and greasy chips... Yeah, weird, I know!

We popped the popcorn ourselves stove-top style. I think it tastes the best (plus we don't own a microwave). 

To flavor it, we made a chili butter by adding hot sauce to the butter as it was melting. Then we tossed it in the bowl! 

The green herb popcorn was made by adding a green herb spice mix (it has everything in it!) to the melting butter and then tossing it in the bowl. 

We have been making a lot of popcorn lately because it's also such a blank slate, and cheap too!

Right at the bottom of the picture above is the caramel corn we made on Thursday. This little bowl was all that was left after 2 days munching on it. OMG, delicious! Recipe is from none other than Annie's Eats. Hey, I like that site!!

With all the bars I have been making lately, it was only natural that I make one for the party as well. So I made up a recipe inspired by this recipe. Well, I used that recipe for the crust because it is a really good crust for these types of things (believe me, I have tried a few). 

But the topping or filling if you will, is made with:

200g Finnish rahka (could be substituted for really thick Turkish yogurt?)

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

lemon zest of half of a lemon

juice of one lemon (about 1/2 cup)

1 tsp vanilla

Mix and then pour on top of the crust (that has been in the oven for about 15min per the linked recipe) and then bake again for about 25-30, until it's set but not burnt or brown. (Wow, great discription!)

I topped it with the leftover 7 minute frosting from my cake and then put the extra lemon zest on top with some kiwis (which were great with the lemon and brought the added bonus of being green!) 

And last but not least, the cake.

As I just said, it's covered in a 7 minute frosting (more like 15 minute frosting) which was a new baking challenge for me. (By the way, I halved the recipe and still ended up with a lot).
I liked the frosting, but I didn't like it. I don't know, the jury is still out on it, I guess.

I made the green swirls by taking my Wilton's green coloring gel and dropping individual drops all over. Then I took a toothpick and swirled it around in the frosting back and forth, kind of connecting the dots.

It was FUN!

Like I said, I love having and planning parties.

I love the excuse to bake new things. 

This was a fun one to have the green theme!

Thanks for reading, hope you are enjoying a relaxing post-St Pat's Sunday!

December food catch up!

I have so much to catch up on! It's been so busy here lately, I have been wishing for 30 hours to the day so I can get it all done! Fortunately, now on the eve of THE Eve, all the presents have been taken care of and some even given away. Food is in the fridge and awaits preparation. Music is a-playing. My parents and their dogs are here and Christmas can begin! 

I have quite a few pictures that I have taken over the last week or so, therefore I have thought it best that I split my going-ons into different posts. Ya know, I love organization! :)

Here is the food we've been eating.

Jalapeno popper dip. Recipe here.

Salmon with oven roasted veggies. 

Homemade lasagne, completely from scratch. Ok, well the tomato sauce came from a can, but nothing else! :)

I baked this Finnish spiced cake for a little get together between friends last night. This is always a big hit! It's like a moist, light, gingerbread-y cake. Mmm...

Sadly my gorgeous pink hyacinth looks like this now. The snow I spoke of in that post has done a coming and going number. The weather can't make up its mind; rain, ice, snow, rain, melt snow, rain, snow, ice...!

...But it was replaced for a while by this gorgeous white one, which was actually a gift from a patient on my last day of clinical training! 

Here is a colorful picture of the fruit we have for the holidays. This family is BIG into fruit! I should have taken a picture of the fridge -- it's bursting with meat, vegetables and dairy! :) I love it!!!

Halloween baking

I had a day off yesterday and now only 2 more left of my clinical training. One could say, I could be happy.

I devoted yesterday to cleaning. Yep, cleaning. That meant: vacuuming, washing the boat load of dishes even though it's not my turn (! why can't we have a dishwasher!?!), picking up, dusting...ya know. (No laundry though!! Ha-ha-ha!)

We also had to clean the aquarium. The shape it was in was shameful. Words cannot describe how much we loathe cleaning it, but if you are going to enjoy the beauty of the creatures in it, it's gotta get done! I always feel so much better about life when the aquarium is clean. Weird.

A few of my friends came over yesterday evening to enjoy what the title of this post is about. Halloween baking. This was the best part of my day. Or well, it was the best part of my morning! By 10:45 a.m. I had everything in the oven...and by the evening completely assembled.

The cake inspiration came from pinterest (of course) but I have only one can of pumpkin left and that is for the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie...

Instead I made a chocolate cake using the black magic chocolate cake recipe from Hershey's.

The buttercream frosting is from here. I just added orange food coloring (ahem, ok - yellow and red)

And the glaze was from here...

And finally my favorite part of this cake! The meringue ghosts! I loooove meringue, we have had a serious relationship ever since my pavlova summer. These were so fun to make, I've never piped meringue before so it was nice to try something new. Cute, doncha think? :)

What a frankenstein of a cake! I didn't realize I needed so many recipes just to make what I had in mind! Lol! It turned out great and was DELICIOUS, too!

Since I had such a halloween baking theme going on, dinner unfolded as a ghost shaped pizza! The dough was made from scratch and we put some ground beef, onion, jalapeno and tomato on it -- and lots of cheese! :) If you hadn't already guessed, I was inspired by pinterest for this pizza, too!

Aah, good food, friends and clean house! A perfect Friday!
Thanks for reading! 

Wishing you a Happy Halloween and fun weekend! :)

This and that -- AND CUPCAKES!

We've been up to a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Ya know, life. 

Fall is in full swing; complete with cold walks with the dogs followed by hot tea and crochet time. It is typical as well that I have an awful cold. 

"Will jump for treats...or stand"

One of the houses I wish I lived in...

I have been baking. As one does with looooots of time off. I should have been studying, but I am facing the usual lack of motivation as I do every fall. Something about this weather, the end of summer, crocheting, artsy-ing it up and all that -- it just doesn't want to make me study or work on my bachelor's thesis! There has been a lot pinteresting stuff going on too. ;) I love to be lazy! 

I baked these cupcakes (recipe here) with plain cream cheese frosting just to test out the recipe and just because I felt like baking. I love those days!

 Then I made them again for our housewarming party this past Friday! That time though, I made them with orange flavored cream cheese and they were a HIT! We only had 2 left out of about 30!! These were too easy too, I have a new party food favorite!

We also served a bacon pasta salad, dips with chips and carrot sticks and nutella meringues. Somehow this seemed to be enough and it wasn't even that expensive! 

 I've been spending time with my Kissa. She is just so darn pretty! However, she has been naughty as well this week...and a cliche with the whole cats and yarn thing... I wasn't happy but I couldn't help but laugh! 

 

 It was wrapped around the fish tank, couch, table legs, chairs and back again. Multiple balls of yarn...

Be jealous. (and yes, I agree, we do have hideous floors!)

She's been cute and cuddly as well, too. :)

We are also pretty darn excited about our trip to the US -- NEXT WEDNESDAY! Woohoo, that means we just have to get through today, Monday and Tuesday -- then we are ooofffff! :) I am so excited, haven't been back since 2009! We're only gone for a really quick week, but we have all kinds of stuff planned, family time, a wedding, shopping and my most favoritest thing ever (other than family of course): EATING! :)  

The only sad thing about the trip (other than the length) is that our fuzzy ones are going to be at their grandparents' and I am going to miss them sooooooo much!

I am looking forward to being a tourist in my old hometown. It's always interesting.

That's it for me folks. Thanks for reading, have a LOVEly Sunday!