Taita ja Nauti

International Knit in Public Day was June 11, so Niko and I grabbed some yarn and needles and found a bench and just sat and knit. It was nice weather and quite relaxing to just sit outside and knit. I ended up finishing the Taivas Varjele shawl later that afternoon, which had been in progress for over a year.

Every month our local supermarket chain puts out a 35 or so page booklet that you can pick up for free at the entrance of the store. Inside are recipes, specifically ones that use the Pirkka brand, which is found all over the store. On many of the recipes is a date stamp. And if you turn on mtv3 everyday at various times of the day, you will find a show called Mitä Tänään Syötäisiin? (What can we eat today, loosely translated).It's a five minute show and in it, the guy picks a recipe or two from the booklet and shows how to make them. While you can't make a meal in 5 minutes, you do get to see the cooking techniques involved, which tools are needed and the show pictures of the ingredients so you can find them on the shelves. And lately I have actually managed to watch a few of the shows and made a few of the recipes.

For starters there was a watermelon ginger drink.

Then I made a pesto-egg spread to go on top of Karjalanpiirakka. These little pies are traditional Finnish food and often topped with munavoi, an egg and butter combo. But the pesto variation was also quite good.

And lastly, I made some Hedelmäropposet, which I will extremely loosely translate as Fruit Tarts. They are pastry dough covered with a cream cheese-vanilla-nectarine combo and topped with strawberries. These are quite good.






One interesting food item we bought this week was Pullava. The word pulla is a general term that means some sort of dessert bread. It can be as simple as a bread roll with cardamon or can also have fruit with it. But this Pullava is a specific brand item from Fazer and has individual pieces you can break off and eat. On the top is some sort of fruit on one side and a custard on the other. If that wasn't exciting enough, the edge pieces are also filled with custard.

 

 In other news, Niko and I had an offer on an apartment which we accepted, so we now know where we will be living in August and beyond. It's a nice 3 story building, centrally located and has a little market right behind it. And of course, it has sauna. It is Finland.

Until next time...

t. Kati