Cannelloni with Ragu Bolognese

Cannelloni is not as complicated to make as one would think. It might take a few times to learn it just like learning to do anything else.

We often have spaghetti Bolognese for a meal and on Sunday I wanted to make a bit more special dish as my sister and brother-in-law were coming over for lunch.

For 8 people you will need
Meat sauce: 400 g minced meat, 2 tbsp olive oil,  2 large onions, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 carrot, 2 dl beef stock and 1 dl red wine. Salt, pepper and thyme.
One packet of cannelloni, 2 dl grated Parmesan, 2 dl rocket, one can of crushed tomatoes, 2.5 dl boiling water, salt and pepper

Chop the onion, garlic and carrot, and saute in olive oil. Add the meat and brown it. Add the beef stock and 1 dl red wine. Let simmer and add salt, pepper and thyme.

Grease an oven pan and turn the oven on 175 C. Start filling the cannelloni tubes with the meat sauce and place them in the pan. Once the pan is full, cover the cannelloni with rocket and spoon the crushed tomato on it. Add the grated cheese. Pour over some boiling water.
Cook for 25 – 35 minutes. Enjoy!

 

#38 Fragrant Chicken Tagini

A packet of chicken fillets in the fridge and a tin and another in the pantry. Additionally an unopened jar of Ras El Hanout spice that I had never used before. This was the start for this new concoction, a fragrant chicken pot with Moroccan inspiration.
For four portions you will need
Olive oil, 500 g chicken, 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves, 2 cm of fresh ginger, 10 pitted dried dates, 3 dl water, 2 tbsp ras el hanout, 2 canned grilled sweet peppers, and a handful of chopped mint and parsley, salt.
Chop the onion and sauté it in olive oil in a tagine pot. Add the chicken and fry until golden brown. Add the spices and pour in the water. Add the dates and diced sweet pepper. Simmer under lock for 20 minutes. Add the herbs before serving.

Taste and add salt if needed. Serve with couscous and baby spinach.

#36 No-fat Apple Pancake

This is another dessert or breakfast dish with apples.

The French call this cafoultis and we call it oven pancake, pannukakku in Finnish. The recipe is very similar, we don’t use vanilla in Finland.

for a small pancake you will need

an oven form, the size of a bread loaf

2 eggs, 2 dl milk, 1.5 dl flour, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 apples

Pre-heat the oven to 175 C. Beat the eggs, add the milk and flour. Line the oven pan with baking paper and put apple slices on the bottom. Sprinkle with sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour in the pancake batter. Bake for 25-30 min. Serve with sugar and apple jam.

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#35 Pancake Breakfast with Dried Apple

First morning frost and it is only the 2nd of October! We were working hard in the garden yesterday. I was wondering how low the temperature would sink during the night. All the plants that I decided not just yet carry inside look all right. I’ll have to find place for them today.

Yesterday was a wonderful sunny autumn day. The leaves and acorns from the oaks in the park next to us are all over the pavement and the wind blows them into our garden. It’s truly a never-ending story. We raked,  picked apples, potted plants, put furniture in the shelter, mowed the lawn with leaves to give the lawn extra strength and finally planted tulip bulbs I bought in Amsterdam a month ago. Let’s see if the rabbits get best of them!

Sunday has been a pancake morning for us but it’s been a while. It is not too much of an effort and still extra special since you don’t have to rush anywhere. Today I made traditional Finnish pancakes and served them with dried apples. They were not actually totally yet since I cut them and set to dry only yesterday.

Finnish pancakes for two: 2 eggs, 2 dl milk, 4 tbsp flour, pinch of salt and sugar. Blend well and set aside for 30 min. Fry in butter or coconut oil.

Apple-carrot-ginger juice: 10 small apples, 2 carrots and a thumb-sized chunk of ginger. Put all the ingredients into a juice maker. The juice will keep 2-3 days in the fridge.

#34 Apple Cake with Almond Flour

Apples, apples and apples everywhere. This year the harvest is so abundant.

Friends have come over to pick them and we’ve made juice, cakes and pies, jam and puréed  them, put them into pots with pork and baked with vegetables. This is a new recipe I tried, the almond and the easiness attracted me. This originates @lantlivet, a Swedish lifestyle magazine.

for a cake you need

75 g butter, 1 dl sugar, 1 dl brown sugar, 1 dl flour, 1 dl almond flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 eggs, 2 apples and cinnamon

Peel and cut the apples into wedges. Sprinkle  with 2 tsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp brown sugar. Pre-heat the oven to 200 C. Grease a cake tin. Melt the butter. Mix together all the dry ingredients. Mix the butter, dry ingredients and the eggs.

Pour the batter in the cake tin and place the apples wedges on the top. Press them into the batter. Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve with ice cream. This is so yummy! Even the batter is delish and I’d be happy to eat a bowlful .

#33 Lamb in a Pot

Found this wonderful packet of assorted lamb cuts t the local grocery store on Friday. I had been trying to decide what to cook and was lacking inspiration. This packet solved it all …and I knew I would have the time to make this slow cooked pot on Saturday.

For a meal for six you will need: 

1 kilo of lamb cuts, 2 tbsp butter, a twig of rosemary, a handful of thyme, 0ne onion, two carrots, one parsnip and 3 cloves of garlic, 2 dl red wine, 1.5 dl water, 0.5 dl espresso

Chop the meat into large chunks. Peel and chop the vegetables. Melt the butter in a pan, add half of the herbs and the garlic. Brown the meat and place in a pot. Sauté the vegetables in the butter and pour them over the lamb. Add the wine and water on the frying pan, let come to boil and pour into the pot.

Cook in 160 C for three hours, half the time with the lock and half without.

Serve with roasted vegetables – butternut squash, carrot, parsnip and potato.

#31 Filled Zucchini Flowers – Fiori di Zucca Ripieni

Zucchini flowers are my favourites and I order them when they are on the menu. Unfortunately the Finnish grocery stores and markets seldom offer them. Hence I was delighted to find an abundance of them when on holiday in Tuscany in early July. They were I season and ‘our local’ Hipercoop had the in a splendid display (see the pic).

I filled my zucchini flowers (8 pieces) with a mixture of Parmesan (1.5 dl) and Ricotta cheese (1 dl, a 75 g packet) with a bit of rosemary. I started with making the filling. Next I checked that the flowers were ok. Then I took out two plates and poured a beaten egg on one of them and some bread crumbs on the other. As we were on holiday and there was no pantry to dig into in the house, the crumbs  were grated of yesterday’s bread.

This is the place in Tuscany where we have stayed many times. A lovely and peaceful place in the countryside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I filled the flowers with a teaspoon or two of the filling. You can close the flowers by twisting the, to keep the filling inside. Once all the flowers were filled, I soaked them in the egg and turned in the bread crumbs. Lastly, I fried them in a pan with olive oil until golden brown.

I removed the fried flowers from the pan and placed them into a large one that is on low heat. When preparing these, you can add some salt and pepper if you like. The Parmesan is quite salty and this is why I skip the salt.

The ones in the picture below are of the very first ones I’ve ever made.

#21 Caramel Ginger Cookies

This is the finest and easiest cookie recipe and it is from a Swedish magazine a couple of Christmases ago.  They are quick to make and taste -oh, so gooooood!!!!!

For a panful you will need

100 g butter, 1 dl palm sugar, 2 tbsp agave syrup, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp ground fine ginger, 2 1/4 dl flour, 1 tsp vanilla

Mix together the butter and sugar. Add the syrup. Add the flour – mix the other dry ingredients with the flour first.

Bake out into one big sheet on a baking sheet. Bake in 175C for 10-12 min. Let cool for a minute or two and cut into small pieces with a cookie/baking cutter.

Spring Waffles

Come Easter Monday and lovely sunshine. The long lunch was quite much yesterday and I was yearning after something lighter. I did not even have breakfast, only some coffee and juice.

After a run in the muddy surroundings and an attempt to run in the woods and at lunch time, I was craving for lots of protein. I decided to give the gluten-free waffles with white beans another try. This time I improvised the recipe. This is what I accomplished:

This yields for four large waffles:
2 eggs, 1 dl soy milk, 1,5 dl oats flour, 100 g white beans, 1 tsp psyllium fibre, 1/2 tsp baking powder. Mix all the ingredients into a smooth batter. Make waffles with a waffle iron and use coconut oil

Enjoy with sweet or savoury toppings. We enjoyed our waffles today (see the pic) with baked salmon, spinach, cucumber, salad greens and salsa verde (from yesterday; basil, parsley, peppermint, capers, olive oil and anchovy).

#12 Blini Feast for Everyone

 

February with carnivals is time to enjoy blinis. Yesterday it was my husband’s turn to try the cooking part, and I was in charge if the toppings.

You can find the blini recipe in another blog post that I’ll reblogging in a while. We had vegetarian and non-vegetarian toppings, even a vegan one. In theory I detest all products made for vegans or vegetarians in attempt to imitate carnivore meals such as soy Bolognese or frankfurters. Despite of this I have found and quite like the vegetarian seaweed roe (caviar). The taste is salty and good. However, I compare it with the taste of roe. The other vegetarian alternative was a sauce with chanterelle and onion, which was actually the best ones.

The traditional toppings are caviar and other fish roe, chopped onion, sour cream, Russian pickled cucumber and honey. Many recommend champagne and quite many have a vodka schnapps. We did not have either yesterday.