pork medallions, garlic & a weasel

i took littlest niece back home on tuesday and went back to cottage to spend few more days with my parents. mom says dad waits for my visits to cottage because then he can have "decent" food. well, there are dishes i won't do at cottage because mom makes them better, like mashed potatoes. also, my father is a very well fed man nonetheless... you see, when mom cooks there is always plenty of it.

we had pork medallions and mashed potatoes with a leek twist for lunch on wednesday. mom made the mash, i was responsible for the leek twist. i used a 15 cm piece of leek (white & light green parts) that was chopped into quite fine pieces. i sauteed the leeks in 1 tbsp of rapeseed oil on medium heat until soft and wilted but not mushy soft. the leeks were then mixed into the mash.

for the pork here i quickly browned the medallions in batches in oil on a hot (wood burning) stove. when all were browned, i took the pan off heat, put 1 tbsp of dijon mustard and ½ dl of cream and mixed those well before adding 1½ dl more cream. then i returned the medallions to pan for a 10 min simmer. oh, i did add something else to the cream before the medallions went back... and it is totally optional, 2 tbsp of cognac (or brandy). after 10 mins of simmer i added some sugar ('cause i think a sauce always needs some sugar) and black pepper







plated with mashed potatoes, the sauce was quite nice (i think i soaked 3 pieces of bread in it...)







whilst shopping earlier in the week, i saw some garlic and decided that i needed to try them baked... the stove would be burning at the cottage most of the morning anyway so there'd be long gentle heat to bake them. i cut the tops off, placed 1 tsp (ok, 1 tbsp) on butter and pinch of salt on top







garlic at it's finest here







wednesday was also a baking day... here is a leek-chanterelle-salmon-cheese pie/tart. there was some left-over leek, frozen chantarelles, cold smoked salmon and castello white cheese that went in with sour cream and eggs mixture seasoned with white pepper








cranberry vanilla coffeecake that i've made earlier and that mom seems to like very much... there is something to this recipe that isn't always right, i'm beginning to think it's me and not the recipe, it's not the taste but rather the texture. but, i will get it right one of these days, i have plenty of cranberries is the freezer!







this little white and fast creature is a mustela nivalis also known as least weasel. it has been showing up at the cottage for a while now, maybe because dad always leaves the fish parings out for nature's waste management to take care off...







this little weasel is very brave, but i'll tell you about that later...