flank & tosca

certain someone was going to the market hall to get some bones for the dog so i asked him to bring "a flat piece of meat". he responded by asking "you mean like a flank steak?", he used that exact word...seems he's been reading my cooking magazines...

we had decided to grill the flank steak despite the fact that it's been raining for 3 days. the grilling was somewhat wet business...anyhow, here's the final result, delicious if i say so myself... 

i marinated the flank in soya sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, lime juice, grated garlic & ginger, chopped lemon grass and chili. sorry, there really isn't a recipe here, little of this, little of that...

i use a sturdy plastic bag, the clean-up is so much easier this way. had it marinating in the fridge for 6 hrs, took it out 1 hr before grilling. it's best to scrape off as much of the bits and pieces so that they don't burn on the grill...

for the salad "bed" i used shredded cabbage, sliced carrot (this slices with a peeling knife), ride noodles (with sesame oil), sauteed sweet onion (pictured here)...

...and blanched runner beans and sweet corn.

for the dressing i mixed soya sauce, sesame oil, lime juice, grated ginger and garlic and chopped chili and some sugar. firery stuff, but in a very good way.

whoa! obviously i didn't all the bits and pieces off. the flames did tame off, grilled the meat approx 4 mins per side.

let it rest for a while...

...before slicing part of it...

...to top off the salad, added lots of cilantro and parsley. we pigged out, the was only a tiny portion left of the salad, and about half of the meat. leftover meat will make great sandwich filler.

whilst doing whatever else i cooked up a veggie stew with roughly chopped onions, thinly sliced carrots, chopped celery sticks, chickpeas, crushed tomatoes, chopped zucchini and bell pepper and rye pasta (yep, there is pasta with 24% rye in it, very tasty), added some chicken stock for more flavor. this will make several lunches and/or dinners for both of us to take to work.

i (gasp) bought a tosca cake few weeks ago and although it was very good it seemed to fall short on what i'm used to. there was a time in the good old olden days when my mom made tosca cake very often. it's relatively easy to make and when it's perfect it's divine... but what you'd expect with all that butter, sugar, almonds and cream.

despite having well over 100 cookbooks i didn't find any "good" recipe for a tosca cake in them. i also searched the internet, but most of those recipes seemed to be just semi-clever variations of the real thing...so what is one to do? call mom...i have no idea where she has picked up this recipe:

for the cake:

4         eggs
2.5 dl  sugar
5    dl  all-purpose flour
3    tsp baking powder
200 gr butter, melted and cooled
1    dl  cream (or milk)

beat eggs and sugar until fluffy, add flour+baking powder mixture alternating with butter and cream. pour batter into two 20cm round loose bottom baking tins (or one 20x30 cm deep baking tin) and bake in 175C oven for 15 mins (until browned a bit and almost set in the middle)

for the tosca topping:

100 gr     butter
2     dl     sugar
2     tbsp all-purpose flour
2     dl     cream (or milk)
200 gr     sliced almonds

place all ingredients in a heavy bottom pot (i used a frying pan), mix well and let simmer for a few minutes until the mixture thickens a bit...

cakes are ready to be topped with tosca...

after dividing the topping between the two tins, they were baked for another 15 mins in 175C oven. as i forgot to rotate the pans mid-baking this one remained a tad undone in the middle and the tosca caused a sinkhole in the middle...but not to worry, it's still very, very delicious.

this is how both of them were supposed to look...

next time i will halve the amount of butter in the cake part. don't get me wrong, not trying to lighten this up, just think that smaller amount might do the work quite sufficiently. i will have some for breakfast tomorrow...

chocolate peanut butter cheesecake

yep, all that in one glorious cake. the recipe is from nigella lawson, but it's not because of her recent troubles that i wanted to make it. i saw one of her shows sometime in april and decided this something one must try. but, can you believe, peanut butter is not a staple at our grocery stores, nor are chocolate chips! i managed recently to make a trip to behnford's to stock up some of these rarities.

cast members

not pretty, but once the machine had done its work the smooth silky ooey goodness...seriously, it was so good ate some just as is (ok, maybe a tiny bit more than "some"), definitely made sure there was something left in the bowl to be licked...

the recipe calls for one 23cm/9" tin, but i had planned to take some to work, leave some for certain someone and send some to his mom, so i divided the batter into 3 15cm/6" tins.

it had been a good idea to taste some of the filling as there was plenty for the smaller tins, and there was going to be a topping as well

did shorten the baking time a bit, this is after the first bake sans the topping.

the topping...yep, needed to lick this bowl too...

after the second bake. the smell was amazing but the cakes needed cooling down and a night in the fridge...

this one was left with certain someone, he had some with coffee from his favorite mug (from fishs eddy).

the cake needs refrigeration and therefore maybe isn't the best of summer treats.

i want to say something to the weather man. if you say it's going to be a rainy day, you better make sure it's a rainy day and not sunny and well above our normal summer temps. only a crazy person (or someone with air-conditioning) would heat the oven on a 27C/80F day. the indoor temp ended up being 31C with no relief from keeping the windows open all night. 

torta con amaretti & banana bundt cake

torta con amaretti has been in the making for a long time*. i got the recipe almost a year ago when we were in malcesine and staying at the hotel internazionale. they had a nice breakfast buffet that always included something sweet.

one morning during our stay in the hotel i decided to have a taste of this particular tart, and after the first bite i knew that, while i don't enjoy amaretti, certain someone would love the tart. he did, so much so that i ended up asking claudia (her family runs the hotel) for the recipe. she says, modestly, "oh, i just whip it up".

a few days later she did give me the recipe, which goes:

ripieno
200g ricotta
1 uovo
2-3 cucchici latte
200 g amatetti (bisquit)
50 g zucchero

impasto
300g farina
100 g zucchero
1 bustina lievito
100 g burro

mettere in forno a 160C per 45 mins

i had assured claudia that i would know what to do if i just got the ingredients...

...measuring everything was the easy part...

...the machine did all the hard work, mixing the dough...

...at this point i was a bit hesitant as i had no clue as to how the dough (=crumbs?) should look.

went ahead by mixing the filling...

...well, the machine did.

i chose a loose-bottom tart pan that was closest to the size of claudia's tart and divided the dough in half, pressed the first half on the tart pan...

...spread out the filling (the aroma of amaretti was substantial!)...

...spread rest of the crumbly dough on top and baked in 160C for 45 mins. i have no idea if i should have done something else with the dough, like press it into two disks, or something...

...the baked tart smelled amazing.

i have to say that while i don't enjoy amaretti, nor almond liquor, this one was very tasty. i took some to work and it disappeared pretty fast, certain someone still loves it. i will make this another time, but in a square loose-bottom pan and cut smaller "slices" as they would make great tiny mouthfuls "of something sweet" with coffee, or as dessert. one thing is for sure, if you love amaretti, you will love this tart. i managed to do it with a finnish-italian dictionary, it goes to show that this is a fool-proof recipe. there are, however, several recipes (both in english and in italian) for this kind of tart if you wish to have a more detailed recipe.

banana bundt cake from myllyn paras (recipe in finnish). i baked this recipe for the first time at my brother's house a while back. they had a pile of bananas that were badly bruised, i knew none of the kids (including my brother) would eat them, and as it's always better to bake a cake than to toss food...

banana cake is always best when done with very ripe bananas. in addition to this recipe being very forgiving as to measuring (gotta love that!) it requires minimal mixing, hardest part is probably mushing the bananas.

you'll need

5 dl all-purpose flour
2 dl sugar
2 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 dl cream (i used sour cream)
3 eggs
2-3 dl mushed bananas (2 to 3 large ones)
1 ½ dl liquid margarine (you can use melted butter but cool it before adding to batter)


start by preparing a 2 liter bundt pan. don't even think you might get away with a smaller pan, because you won't. i've had my share of banana vulcanoes in the oven, they are such a mess and the smell isn't nice. use a large pan, ok?

i couldn't find cinnamon (tragedy!) so i used the spice tree's sweet mystery dessert mix that has cinnamon in it.

next mush the bananas, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then add the liquid ones including the bananas and mix well...

...and pour into the prepared pan and bake in 175C oven for 50 to 60 mins. now, if i hadn't cleaned so many burned banana vulcano lava-blobs (all that burned batter on the bottom of the oven is wasted cake!), i'd think the pan was too big. don't make that mistake...

...see how much it rises? most banana cake recipes call for baking soda, which i think is the main culprit for the volcano effect, but baking powder can be potent too. cool the cake in the pan for the first 15 mins.

then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely, with the pan on. the cake keeps well and will improve spending a few days in the fridge (wrapped tightly). sprinkling of powdered sugar will make the cake festive.

(* long time because i "lost" the recipe, or rather, misplaced it. i was looking for it several times and was always sure that i had put it in one particular cupboard with other recipes on the wait list. but it was nowhere to be found, until a few weeks ago when i was browsing thru martha's cooking school looking for something completely different and found the recipe between the pages of that book. how it ever got there...)

kittilä, lapland, medley of this and that

this picture was taken on new year's eve at 1.19 pm at kittilä airport, the sun had just set and we are waiting for the bus to take us to town.

when in lapland, you gotta try reindeer stew with obligatory mashed potatoes and lingon berries, the pickle is optional.

a birthday happened while in lapland, this was the first cake of 2012, lactose and gluten free. the recipe is on the package of cornmeal that was used as "flour". lactose is for some reason problematic for many in finland therefore we are fortunate to have all sorts of dairy products from which lactose is removed. most hard cheeses are lactose free anyway, but there is chocolate, yogurt, buttermilk, cream, ice cream and whatnot.

i was surprised that this turned out quite tasty, but a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream would have...well, made me eat more of it! will try to find the recipe online to post it here later.

the birthday girl aka the little monkey seemed to enjoy the party, too.

certain someone skied for two days...

...she is still learning...

...i spent my time just monkeying around. there was no way i was going to to ski in the slopes, too many daredevil (read big money will buy the best equipment but no skills) skiers from an unnamed country, and it seems that close to 20 yrs has passed since i last tried cross country. it looks easy enough, but once you're laying on the ground with your feet up and skis in a tangle...not funny, besides, i'm so tall that it really hurts when i fall down.

traditional type ski lodge, costing a lot these days...

these holiday makers learned the hard way that the sauna really isn't for drying your clothes...

they maybe could have used this felted angel...

skis used to look like this when i last owned a pair!

shame this boutique was closed, i eyed that cape...the one pictured was way too small for me but they seemed to have adult sizes as well. maybe sew one myself?

along one street in levi there were numerous shops selling everything lapland, some very touristey. this particular one, the wood jewel had several interesting pieces. all these earrings are made of wood.

the wood jewel had also a handsome display of knives. the sami knives look really good, but there really isn't that much use for it in the city, and in the city you'll be fined for carrying one...

we wanted to get to the kittilä airport in time to avoid a herd of tourists from an unnamed country, they still have to learn what a line is. we did avoid the herds but ended up spending 4 hrs at the airport, fortunately my laptop was fully charged.

some of the souvenirs, the reindeer droppings are very tasty (liquorice covered raisins), crowberry jam and roseroot syrup, which will keep my stress levels down. the latter will be much needed as i went back to work last week...

earrings from taigakoru, model "kuu" (moon)

ring from ainut. model "aurinkuu" (sunmoon). the sami have unique designs, as have all other indigenous people.

i've been in lapland twice in my life, including this trip. the first time was about 10 yrs ago when we drove thru finnish lapland to norvegian sea in june. there was snow on the ground and smaller lakes were still (already?) frozen, because of snow there were no mosquitoes! i really, really don't like mosquitoes as they get everywhere in a flash. you make the mistake of opening your mouth to speak and your mouth is filled with daily need of protein in the form of zillion mosquitoes. let me be clear, i don't like mosquitoes. so basically, there is no way i will ever go there in the summer.

winter then, with snow, for one hour around noon it's bearable. i have known all my life that it's dark in lapland in the winter and yet the darkness took me completely by surprise. i need light, there was no light and at 5 pm i was ready crash to bed only not to be ready to get up at 9.30 am...

so then, if i ever go there again, it needs to be at a very specific time in the autumn. late enough so that all the mosquitos are gone, early enough that there is still some light during the day, to a destination that isn't a tourist trap.

thank you P for having us!