Creamy Carrot Soup

This is possibly my new favourite soup - a filling, creamy, totally yummy dish. Did I mention it's vegetarian? :-)

Creamy Carrot Soup with seeds sprinkled on top. 

Ingredients:
3 medium-sized potatoes
4 carrots
2 small onions or 1 big one
1 clove of garlic
250g reduced fat Mascarpone
1 spoonful of seeds (to sprinkle on top)

To taste:
Salt
Mint (either fresh or dried)
Oregano (either fresh or dried)
White pepper
Salt

Price Tag:
About £5 to £10, on the cheaper side though.

Instructions

1. Cube the onion and chop the garlic into as-small-as-possible pieces.
2. Fry in a spoonful of Olive oil and set aside. 
3. Peel and cube the carrots and the potatoes. 
4. Add the carrots and potatoes to a saucepan and cover well with water. 
5. Bring to boil on moderate heat. 
6. When the carrots and potatoes are soft (after about 15 minutes), pour out half of the water.
7. Add onion and garlic and with a mixer staff, gently mash the vegetables.
8. Season the mash to your taste. 
9. Finally, add the Mascarpone and mix well. Check the taste. Add a bit of water if you think the soup is too thick.
10. Pour to serving bowls and sprinkle seeds on top.

Åland Oven Pancake

Sweden and Finland are pretty big on their oven pancake (pankaka or pannukakku). To me, the variant originating from the Åland Islands of Finland is the best one and the ultimate evening sweet treat. So here is the recipe for your enjoyment :-)

A serving of Åland Oven Pancake with Raspberry Jam. 

Ingredients
1 pint milk
1/4 cup semolina*
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 teasp. ground cardamom / seeds of 10 cardamom pods
1 teasp. salt
1 teasp. cinnamon
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
Butter (for greasing the pan)

Price tag
About £5 to £10.

Instructions

1. Bring the milk to boil in a pan.
2. Add the semolina and simmer until the mixture thickens.
3. Let the semolina porridge cool down for 30 minutes. 
4. Preheat the oven to 200C.
5. Grease a baking pan with butter (or use a pan covered with baking sheet).
6. Add the sugar, spices, egg and flour** to the porridge and mix well.
7. Pour mixture to the pan and bake for 30-40 minutes.
8. Serve with fruit jam and/or whipped cream.

Wonder where one slice disappeared to... ;-)

Doll's Tips
* You can replace semolina with pudding rice and make the pancake from rice pudding instead of the semolina porridge.
** Some people add 50g of melted butter to the mixture as well but I don't think it is necessary. The pancake in the pictures was made without it but you may want to try it.

Sources
Valio - Ahvenanmaan pannukakku (in Finnish)

Coconut Curry Soup

This is a large batch of soup I cook occassionally on Sundays for work lunches. This one batch provides about 5 large servings, or more, depending on how hungry you are :-)

Melly-Sue's coconut curry soup with chicken.

Ingredients
4 carrots
5 small potatoes
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1/2 red pepper
300g roast chicken
1 tbsp. green curry paste
1 cup coconut milk (or 2 tbsp. coconut milk powder mixed with 1 cup warm water)
1 chicken stock cube
Black pepper

Price Tag
About £5 to £10.

Instructions

1. Peel and chop the carrots and potatoes.
2. Add them to a soup pan with a stock cube and cover with water. 
3. Bring to boil, and while boiling...
4. ...chop the onion, garlic cloves, and red pepper.
5. Add to the soup and boil for a further 5 minutes. 
6. Chop the chicken and add to the mix.
7. Add the green curry paste. 
8. Mix the coconut milk powder with warm water and add to the mix. 
9. Boil until the vegetables are soft, season with black pepper. 
10. Mash the soup using a mixer, if you want. 

Soup before mashing.

Ryebread Rolls

This is by far the best recipe for bread rolls that I have found. It is not my own (it's actually from a Finnish recipe website), but I just have to share it as it worked like a dream, even in a British kitchen! The recipe makes about eight big babies. 

Ryebread rolls. 

Ingredients

2 cups water or milk

2 cups wholemeal flour

1.5 cup rye flour

0.5 cup rye bran

0.5 cup oat bran

1 sachet dry yeast

2 tbsp. honey

2 tsp. salt

0.25 cup oil

Seeds (Sesame, Golden Liseed, Sunflower or Poppy)

Price Tag

Under £10.

Instructions

1. Heat the water or milk. It should be slightly warmer than the temperature of your hand, around 40-50 degrees. 
2. Add the honey, salt and dry yeast. Mix well. 
3. Add the flour in batches by kneading the dough.
4. Add the oil and add more flour. Be careful not to knead for too long: when the dough is one big lump and steers clear of the sides it's ready.
5. Drizzle a bit of flour and cover the bowl with a cloth. Place in a warm, draft-free place to rise for about 45 minutes. 
6. Split the dough and form two baquettes. I split each of them into four pieces, and then rolled each of them between my hands to form tidy rolls. I then dipped the roll into a little bowl with seeds and placed on a baking tray. 
7. Cover the rolls with cloth and let them rise for another 30 minutes. About 20 minutes in, pre-heat the oven to 225C.
8. Drizzle some water on top of the rolls (one tablespoon per roll).
9. Bake in the lowest shelf of the oven for about 12 minutes.

Breakfast roll with poached egg, spinach and peppers.

Sources
Rukiiset sämpylät - Kotikokki.net (in Finnish)

Melly-Sue's Seasonal Pie

This is my own recipe for the most amazing pie-crust I know. I usually top it with 3-4 apples, but this time, I used local plums and strawberries, as they were readily available. 

Seasonal pie with Strawberry/Plum topping*

Ingredients
225g butter or margarine
1 cup brown soft/muscavado sugar
1 cup flour
0.5 cup milk
1 large egg
1 tsp. baking powder
(+ 300-400g fruit or berries and sugar for the topping*)

Price Tag
Under £10.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Melt the butter and mix with sugar.
3. Add the flour, followed by the other ingredients. Mix well.
4. Pour the dough into a buttered pie dish. It should be quite runny, it's not your regular, hard crust. 
5. Add the topping* you want. 
6. Bake for about 30 minutes. 

Fruts and berries!

*Strawberry/Plum topping

Zest of half a lemon

200g strawberries
200g plums
Sugar to sweeten

1. Remove the stones from the plums and slice them.
2. Remove the straws from the strawberries and half them. 
3. Add half of the fruits to a bowl and mash.
4. Squeeze in the zest of lemon to the bowl.
5. Add sugar to sweeten. 
6. Spread the mix evenly on top of the pie crust. 
7. Decorate the topping with the remaining strawberries and plums. 

Enjoy!