Sunday brunch

How I love slow, lazy Sunday mornings.

When we're all home, and there's no rush to do anything or go anywhere, it's nice to take the time and prepare a proper breakfast or brunch.

Bread rolls, sauteed kale, bacon, fried tomatoes and scrambled eggs. And freshly squeezed juice. And coffee.

Perfect start for a lovely day! Have a sunny Sunday!

The better pasta

Pasta bolognese is something we make quite often, but normally it's our fast food. Minced beef & canned tomatoes and it's ready. This is the better, slower version.

It's still nothing more than chopped onions and garlic, seared minced beef, seasoning (salt & black pepper, beef stock cube) and tomato pulp, but it has simmered for two hours in a cast iron pot.

Well, I loved this, but the thing about living with a two-year-old is the immediate feedback. And apparently this time it wasn't good. See, no sauce.

If you'd like to take my word, and not the two-year-old's, for it, here's the very simple recipe for this very tasty bolognese.

700 g minced beef

1 medium sized onion

2 garlic gloves

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp butter 

1 can of tomato pulp

beef stock cube

salt, black pepper

1 tbsp chili seasoned olive oil, optional

Peel and chop onion and garlic. 

Heat your cast iron pot on the stove, add (both) olive oil(s) and butter and let butter melt. 

Add onion and garlic and sauté for a few minutes. Mix so they don't burn. 

Add minced beef and quickly sear it. Season with salt and black pepper.

Add the can of tomato pulp and half a tomato can of water. 

Throw in the beef stock cube and mix until it dissolves. 

Reduce heat to low, cover the pot with a lid and leave to simmer for 1,5 to 2 hours, stirring occassionally. 

 

Coconut chicken

Super easy, super tasty, kid friendly, healthy. My criteria for everyday food. And this coconut chicken ticks each box.

This recipe makes enough for three (the kid eats as much as I do) and you'll probably have enough left overs to make a small lunch salad the following day.

i n g r e d i e n t s

500 g chicken fillets

2 dl flour

2 eggs

2 dl coconut flakes

paprika

garlic powder

Heat the oven to 200 C degrees.

Cut the chicken fillets into 1 cm thick strips. 

Place flour, paprika and garlic powder into a bowl and mix. 

Break eggs into another bowl and whisk to mix the yolk and the white.

Place coconut flakes into a third bowl.

One by one, dip the chicken strips into the flour & spice mix, then to eggs and then to coconut flakes. In each bowl, make sure that the chicken gets completely covered. 

Place the strips then on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Cook in the oven's middle rack until coconut has turned golden and crispy (approx. 15 minutes).

Serve with rice and veggies.

I often get asked if I make simpler versions of these dishes for the kid. I don't. This particular recipe would go down well with any kid, I'd imagine, but whatever I cook, the kid eats the same as we do. Only he eats it from an Angry Birds plate.

My sous chef

The kid loves taking part in, well, everything. So we give him little things to do, like taking napkins to garbage pin and carrying socks from the dryer to the closet. But what he loves is help with cooking.

I hate mess, so for me it's an effort. To keep myself from telling him what to do or what not to do, not to make mess, to be careful, and so on. And yes, there's flour EVERYWHERE, but if I focus on the kid's happy face, it's okay. And actually, he's pretty careful and precise in his actions.

I've decided that Saturday's are pizza days. After a working day I just don't have the energy for cooking anything fancy but still, it's weekend, so I'd like to put something nice and tasty on the table. I just need to come up with new recipes as in my pizza the only thing that's ever different is whether I top it with parmesan or mozzarella.

Enjoy your weekend!

Celebrations

It's not typical Finnish food but still not too bad for Finland's Independence Day celebration dinner.

Salad was kind of an accidental creation but turned out to be absolutely yummy; romaine lettuce, spinach, canned peaches and fresh persimmons, topped with roasted chevre and balsamico syrup.

Happy Independence Day Finland.

Chili con carne

Your everyday, super simple version of it.

In an ideal world, I would make this out of finest beef which I'd mince myself and use only fresh ingredients. In reality, I don't have the time nor the money.

So your busy-but-poor-working-mum-recipe is as follows:

In a cast iron kettle, sear 400 g of minced beef.
Add 2 dl of canned corn and 2 dl of canned kidney beans (remember to rinse well!).
Add 1 can of tomato puré and 1 dl of beef broth.
Season to your liking with paprika, chili, garlic powder and taco seasoning.
Mix well and let simmer on low temperature, under a lid for about 30 minutes.
Serve with boiled rice and top with corn kernels and avocado cubes.

Someday I WILL make a fancy version of this. Maybe on my next vacation.

Sunday roast

I want to create routines, habits and traditions which the kid, when he's grown up, remembers as something we always did when he was a child. Those kind of memories are the fondest to me from my own childhood.

Sunday dinner is one of the things that I want to be special. Sometimes it means we eat take-away on the sofa while watching sports. Usually, however, it means I cook something that takes a bit more time and effort - and tastes a bit better too.

Pulled pork is one of the favourites. We make burgers and pizza with it, or we eat with fries and veggies.

Sunday dinner, though, is never anything fancy with white linen on the table. Because what I most want the kid to remember, is that Sundays were always fun days.

Retro dining

This is a dish from my childhood. I see it as retro, some as vintage. And if you ask my husband, he'd say it's antique. Funny guy.

I guess you could say it's a pie. A puff pastry pie filled with minced beef. The original, as I recall, had beef, onions and boiled egg in it. I added some kale too.

Puff pastry dough is store bought. You need 500 g of it. Let the frozen pastry sheets melt in room temperature for about 30 minutes and then roll them into two bigger sheets. If you're a superhuman, make your own dough.

FILLING:
Sear the minced beef (400 g), chopped onion (1 medium sized) and minced garlic (2 gloves). Season to your liking - I used salt, black pepper and paprika. Add shredded kale and cook for a few minutes.
Mash two hard boiled eggs with a fork. In a bowl, mix together the eggs and the beef, onion & kale mixture. Check the seasoning. At this point, I added some sweet chili sauce.

Lay the other sheet of dough on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Spread the filling evenly on top and cover with the remaning dough. Pinch the edges so that the sheets stick together.

Bake in 175 C degrees oven until golden (35-45 minutes).

Easy, quick and tastes good. My kinda food.

Roasted chickpeas.

I've been trying to come up with something to make out of chickpeas. Something that tastes good.

You see, I have tried, for example, chickpea burgers which did NOT taste good. They were, in fact, terrible and I have been banned from ever making them again. EVER.

But these turned out quite nice! I used dried chickpeas; rinse them, soak them overnight and pat them dry. Place in a bowl, add two tbsps of canola oil, three tbsps taco seasoning mix and mix well. Spread onto a baking tray and toast in a 150 C degrees oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

Not a bad snack for a Monday night movie!

Tortilla pizzas

A very quick dish which we actually make quite often.

These, and pizza in general, in our household serve one purpose only. Hide the veggies.

The one with the salami strips is actually for the vegetable-fobic kid. Again, the purpose is to hide the veggies.

Still, here's the OMG I JUST ATE A BROCCOLI - face.

In general, it goes down well. It also goes into his hair.