whipped lingonberry semolina pudding & sunflowers

little did i know, you don't cook up a porridge out of semolina, it's called a pudding, i stand corrected. i whipped up a pudding out of semolina and lingonberries yesterday. that pudding was my childhood staple, and probably thousands' of others as well. it's very easy to make, provided there are lingonberries where you live. you might be able to make it out of lingonberry jam but that might be awfully sweet, at least to my taste. if you're feeling experimental, i guess there is no reason why you couldn't try this with any berry.

i halved the recipe on the box of semolina and cut down on the sugar, the full recipe calls for:

1 liter of water
4 dl (or approx 200 gr) of lingonberries (or red currants)
1½ dl semolina
1½ dl sugar
pinch of salt

you start by boiling (medium heat) the water and berries (some mash the berries a bit, some cook them whole, i use mashed) for approx 10 mins. after that you add the semolina, stirring it in well in order not to have lumps. turn down the heat to medium low, and cook for another 10 mins. turn off the heat, add sugar and salt. as of rule, i don't put salt to my porridge, so i don't put any in this either. the amount of sugar is totally up to you, i have some sugar in my lingonberries so i used only 2 tbsp for the half recipe, and i don't like this very sweet.

this is how it looks like bubbling away after semolina has been added. some strain the liquid before adding semolina to get a very smooth pudding, but then you loose those valuable fibers







the whipping part comes next, you'll need to cool the pudding down to lukewarm. then take your hand mixer and whip the pudding for 3 to 5 mins, or until it turns pale pink, like here







i eat mine with very cold non-fat milk, any milk (or whipped cream, if you want to go fancy) will do, or none at all. this company makes semolina in finland, but i'm sure semolina is available anywhere. after i'm sone with my box of wheat semolina i am going to switch to oatmeal semolina 'cause it has more fiber. while googling semolina and found fineli, i'm not going to freak about my food but i'm going to check, from time to time, what it says about the food i'm eating







i associate sunflowers with summer, like most people do, right? well, this summer, and spring and the start of autumn for that matter, have been weird, at least in finland. like in the spring we (at the shack) lost almost all of the apple blossoms and now have next to nothing in the trees. i got my first sunflowers (all four of them!) on the second week of september, and this is not your "late" variety... this wall at the shack gets a lot of sun, but look how twisted these came out







the bigger one got little help from me to "pose" for this picture. there won't be that much to eat for the birds coming winter and i so need to find another spot for sunflowers next summer