"I Love Juice" or I really love juice

The Old Town of Bern is awakening from its static tradition and on the brink of being boring glory into a more vibrant existence. The kilometers of beautiful arcades are lined with several antique shops, designer furniture, various ateliers and small galleries, a marionette shop, a hunting shop, florists, watches and jewelry, hairdressers, restaurants, a horse meat delicatessen, a cheese shop one can smell from a block away. The rows of these boutiques have tattooed themselves in memory over the years. They have always been there as long as I can remember and I bet they were there decades before I first moved here. The shopkeepers as well as their customers have probably grown old running and visiting these places. Until now!

The UNESCO cultural heritage protected Old Town .has opened a new cafe here, a new Turkish or a sushi restaurant there. A couple of clothes brands have appeared. On the window of a hipster atelier a poster printed in a very modern font is inviting for a sewing course. Even a muesli boutique has recently made its debut. A wine bar on corner has closed down. Change is in the air. I am weighing the probability of the reasons for these new places opening up. Is it because after all these decades the shopkeepers have retired or have they gone out of business?

There is a lovely little juice bar between Münster and Kulturcasino. "I Love Juice" is another invigorating discovery and promises an immediate fix to anyone suffering from the winter fatigue. Cold pressed unpasturised juices, fresh salads and soups made from locally grown vegetables and fruits are there to pull anyone out of vitamine drained winter weariness. The juice menu is encouraging with a variety of choices for different tastes. I can feel how the "young glow" is making my "heart beet". I discover that my own current favourite juice is called Flying Dutchie at "I Love Juice" and wonder if it is so because of the beta-carotene or the Dutch connection of the people running the place.

Even though the juices are inviting to inject a cannonball of health into my veins, I feel like experimenting and opt for the more adventurous create -your-own smoothie.

The friendly and glowing bar girl guides me through the steps of the creation process. Select the base liquid from orange juice, almond milk, coconut or filtered water, choose the fruits, herbs or vegetables and add a touch of sweet or sour. My smoothie ends up green and is a mix of almond milk, apple, mint and lime juice. I get a full glass and later on a top-up of another half. I skip the lunch as after the smoothie the hunger doesn´t return until later in the evening. 

My almond, apple, mint and lime smoothie

During the week there is a lunch offering of a soup, salad and a juice. There is a rainbow of colourful bottles, larger and smaller, lined up in the fridge. Juices, smoothies, soups, salads can be enjoyed in the bar, grabbed as take-away or even have them delivered to your home or office. 

And the top-up

I can see how in summer the place will be swarming with tourists and local regulars looking for a refreshing cold energy booster and a shelter from the heat. Perhaps "I Love Juice" will add fruit and berry sorbets to their menu in summer.  Until then I´m going to get some more of the Young Glow and enjoy the Boostylicious as I really love juice in the otherwise traditional and slow paced Old Town in Bern.

Website: www.ilovejuice.ch/
Address: Herrengasse 10, Bern

Cucumber and radish salad

Radishes are bitter, you say? Indeed, on their own they can be. That bitterness can bring a blessing when combined with other ingredients that are mild and benefit from a stronger companion. One of such ingredients is cucumber. Garlic, red onion, mint or radish render a supporting arm to the slender cucumber in popular salads.

When I was a child, the radishes were more of a late spring and early summer vegetable. Further into the summer they developed a bitter taste that no one enjoyed. The weather or the varieties of those days somehow were not suitable to grow a young second crop. Now one can find the young radishes at the market almost throughout the year.

On a hot day cucumber is an additional source of hydration thanks to its high water content.

Breathing in the smell of freshly cut cucumber and eating a cold cucumber soup or salad refreshes like a gust of cool mist bursting from nozzles onto sweating customers in a terrace restaurant on a piazza in Italy in the August heat.

Cucumber and radish salad

Ingredients for 2-3

1 long salad cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced

1 bunch of ca. 10 radishes, cleaned and thinly sliced

a few sprigs of fresh dill, chopped

(optional: young dill flowers)

Sauce

1 tsp honey

1tbsp (Dijon) mustard

1 tbsp apple vinegar

3-4 tbsp rape seed oil

salt

freshly ground black pepper

Place the cucumber and radish slices into a bowl.

For the sauce  mix all ingredients together until a thicker sauce is formed.

Mix the vegetables and dill with the sauce. 

Leave to marinate in a fridge for 5-10 minutes.

Or serve separately as I have done here.

You may also like:

Roasted radishes

Cucumber and melon soup

Cucumber salads and chilled soup
Chilled cucumber and strawberry soup

Fresh Juice Cocktails: Apple - Cucumber - Celery

After a period of contemplation whether I need another kitchen gadget I took the decision to invest in a juicer. I had managed through a couple years making smoothies with my all purpose hand blender and another kitchen machine seemed unnecessary. I thought, not yet.

At the start of the winter, if we may call the slightly colder weather a winter, my mind kept turning around carrot juice. I had developed a craving for carrot juice. The hand mixer is of no use for hard carrots or apples for that matter. My foodie friend Mark advised to get one that is able to crush and squeeze hard veggies if I decided to spend the money. I waited until the department store had another day of -20% discount for membership customers and tried to pick a juicer to fit my needs. The young salesman was not very confident in the technical capabilities of the machine, but he was very helpful in carrying about three kilos worth of my new equipment to the cash desk. I concluded that people must buy a lot more cheese fondue sets than juicers in Switzerland. I´m sure he would have given me an in depth induction into caquelons and rechauds.

My new kitchen toy has served me well through all winter and is here to stay. 

Combining fruit with vegetable juice makes a refreshing and satiating cocktail. More and more supermarkets are offering fruit and vegetables that are a bit deformed in shape but otherwise perfectly fine in nutritional quality. They are perfect for juice making.

In winter combine apple and cucumber with a knob of fresh ginger to heat up inside. In spring replace the ginger with a stalk of green celery.

Freshly Pressed Apple - Cucumber - Celery Juice

ingredients for 250ml

2 apples

1/2 salad cucumber

1 stalk of green celery

Wash and cut the fruit and veggies into suitable pieces for your juicer and extract the juice.

Serve and feel the vitamins and minerals boost your body.

Wild Garlic and Broccoli Dip

Spring began this week. I noticed this at the market because the wild garlic had arrived. I also noticed that in a small supermarket where I and my colleagues sometimes buy soup for lunch a new spring selection included wild garlic soup.

Wild garlic is also known as ramsons but as I understand not many people know what ramsons is (are?). Let´s stick to wild garlic in English then. In Estonian as well as in German this green garlicky leaf is linked to bears and is called "karulauk" (Est.) and "Bärlauch" (Ger). In fact the question is why in English it is not relating to bears? The Latin name of wild garlic is "Allium ursinum" where "allium" is leek and "ursus" is a bear. In Finnish it is called "karhunlaukka", in Lithuanian it is "meškinis česnakas", in Polish "Czosnek niedźwiedzi ", all include a mention of a bear.

In Danish it is "ramsløg", in Swedish "ramslök", in Norwegian "ramslauk", all have a similar word root of "rams" as is found in the English ramsons.

So here is my personal etymological theory, the vikings from Scandinavia knew wild garlic and while they were ravaging on the island now known as Brittain around the 8-10th century somehow perhaps seasoned the game they caught with ramsons that they knew from back home.

In many other countries on the European continent the etymological linkage must have spread from German, Latin or Slavic languages where this forest herb is mentioned in relation to bears who after waking from the winter sleep are looking for the wild garlic bulbs in the forest. And bears in these countries are common forest inhabitants.

Enough of etymology, now back to food...

Wild Garlic and Broccoli Dip

Ingredients:
1 broccoli head
a small bunch of wild garlic (ca. 20 leaves)
3 tbsp crème fraîche
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
salt
pepper

Ciabatta or sliced bread, toasted
Extra virgin olive oil

Cut the broccoli into smaller pieces and steam for 5-10 minutes until soft. I recommend steaming to boiling to avoid that broccoli becomes too watery. Let it cool down or quickly cool it by dipping it into ice water and pat dry.
Place the broccoli, wild garlic, crème fraîche, lemon juice, salt and pepper into a food processor and crush the ingredients into a smooth spread like paste.
Taste and season as you and your fellow eaters please.

Instead of broccoli kohlrabi or cauliflower can be used as well.

Serve it with toasted slices of ciabatta or any bread.
Sprinkle a little olive oil on the bread and either spred the dip on the bread or just dip pieces of bread into the dip.

New potato salad with avocado-mint sauce

New potato salad with fresh mint-avocado sauce

The new potatoes have appeared on the farmers´market. The imported new potatoes from Israel or North African countries have been on the shop shelves for months as their winter harvest is already in January-February, but it isn´t until the local new potatoes appear that the full flavour of the new potatoes will bring the knowing "Ahh!", "Oooo" or "Mmmm" over the lips.


Select the small ones with the flaky peel curling off their bald bodies.
One farmer had these new potatoes the size of marbles. I must go back on Saturday to get a pound of these buttons for a salad or toss them around in butter for a warm bite.

The potato salad is a summer classic always present at a BBQ either in a creamy mayo sauce or a lighter mustard-oil based sauce.
A creamy variation is easily made with avocado. The taste can be pimped with some fresh mint.

New potato salad with avocado-mint sauce
Ingredients for 2
500g new potatoes, washed, not peeled
4-5 sprigs peppermint
1 avocado
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp Greek yoghurt
1 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

Cook the new potatoes with some fresh mint and salt

Bring the water to boil, add potatoes, a good pinch of salt and a couple of mint sprigs. Cook until just soft. Drain.

Scoop the avocado into a bowl and crush with a fork into a paste. Keeping the stone in the bowl in the mix prevents the avocado turning brown. Add lemon juice, yoghurt, olive oil and finely chopped mint leaves. Season with salt and pepper. Combine well.

Drizzle some olive oil and add flaky sea salt on top for a little extra.
Serve separately or mix together with the potatoes as a light lunch on its own or as a side dish.

New potatoes sauced with creamy avocado and fresh mint

Cold cucumber and strawberry soup

A refreshing soup in the strawberry season

I had an eye-opening moment this May when I realised that the lunch take-away places had stopped serving soup. I checked out all my regular soup places and sighed my way out shoulders sinking lower at each door. It seemed like all of them had agreed to stop serving soup as of first of May. It slowly sank in it that this must be the normal practice. Soup is served in winter and replaced by green and mixed salads in summer. OK, makes sense.

The thing that didn´t quite make sense was the fact that this year the whole May was an extension of winter. The maximum day temperatures swinging between 8-13 degrees Celsius. Far from the weather that calls for a cooling salad. Moreover, the prepared towers of salad boxes did not seem to be selling as fast as oven warm bread at all. But rules are rules or traditions are traditions. No soup after 1st May regardless of the outside temperatures.

The other thing that didn´t quite make sense for me, an eager soup fan, was a selfish question of what if I wish to eat soup all year round. The answer to that would be to make your own soup or go to a sit-down restaurant as they still serve soups all year round.

I can hear the nutritionists in the West, East and ayurvedic rush to explain that the hot weather requires cold or moderate temperature foods. Fair enough. In summer, there is a place for cold soups.

Gazpacho in Spain, šaltibarščiai Lithuania, cold beetroot and buttermilk soup in Estonia, a chilled cucumber soup or a highlight last summer a cold lemon confit soup at Le Pré Verre in Paris,  all a blessing in the heat. These are just a few that immediately flash through my mind when I think of cold soups.

Ingredients for the cucumber-strawberry soup

Cold cucumber and strawberry soup
Strawberries go well with black pepper and peppermint and let combine in a savoury dish equally gracefully.

Ingredients for 2 portions or 6 small appetisers
half a long salad cucumber, peeled and cut into small pieces
250g fresh strawberries, green tops removed, cut into small pieces
1-2dl tomato passata or any tomato sauce a nature
1 small clove of fresh garlic, chrushed
a small bunch of fresh thyme, finely chopped
a small bunch of fresh Moroccan peppermint leaves, finely chopped
juice of half a lemon
salt
black pepper
1 tsp sugar
extra virgin olive oil


Mix the cucumbers and strawberries with herbs and seasonings

Mix the cucumber and strawberry pieces with the tomato sauce, garlic, thyme, peppermint,  salt, black pepper, sugar and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.

Purée in a blender or with a hand mixer until smooth.
Taste for salt, sweetness and spice and ajust if necessary.
Keep refrigerated until serving. Serve with some extra virgin olive oil sprinkled on top.

The soup has low calories, however does fill the stomach quite well.



Cold soup of cucumber and strawberry served as a small appetizer

Carrot and Rutabaga (swede) soup with lime

Carrot and yellow rutabaga (swede) soup with lime

I am a big fan of winter vegetables. Carrots, beetroots, celeriac, rutabaga (aka swede in Europe), potatoes, salcify, ... In European climate they store well either in the cold stores or in some countries even in the ground. For example in the UK where the climate is milder carrots can be stored in the ground over winter. In Estonia it would not be the case as the temperatures fall and stay well under zero (Celcius) and the fields are covered in snow for weeks if not months in good winters.

These days the farmers´market on the main square in the Swiss capital has been pushed to one side making room for a temporary skating rink. In very cold days some of the farmers don´t come out and in their usual places under the arches of the market streets would be a few yawning gaps. Still there is plenty of choice to fill up each basket and trolley bag with winter vegetables, a wide range of apples and pears, fresh eggs, cheeses, butter as well as fish and meat.

Behind one of the vegetable counters is a couple, perhaps in their fifties. The man, always in winter wearing a blue knitted hat that stands up like an Egiptian pyramid on his head, his ears reaching above the rim of the hat keeping the pyramid steady on both sides. He is very energetic and talks funny in a loud voice, often measuring the vegies by eye or a feel of their weight by hand. My pound of potatoes turned out to be just over 600g when I weighed them at home. The funniest part is getting the change back, some of it is "for the taxes", the coins often "for a cup of coffee" or some other treat. :-) I bet his wife is having a laugh at home like their customers are entertained on Saturday mornings.

Carrot and yellow rutabaga (swede) soup with lime
Ingredients (for 4 as a starter or 2 as a supper)

2-3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium shallot onion (ca 50g), sliced
3-4 garlic cloves
1 rutabaga (ca 200g), peeled and cut into cubes
250g carrots, cut into cubes 
800ml vegetable stock
1 stalk of lemongrass
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 tbsp desiccated coconut
salt, pepper
1 tbsp cream or coconut milk  
1 tbsp lime juice
1 green onion stalk, finely chopped 

Carrot, swede, onion, ginger, garlic, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass

Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onions until glassy, add the garlic and cut vegetables. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes before adding the stock, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, desiccated coconut. Bring to boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes until carrots and rutabaga are soft. They both have similar cooking time.

Purée with a mixer, add the cream and season to taste with salt, pepper and lime juice.
Serve hot with green onions.

Swede and carrot soup seasoned with lime and lemongrass

You may also like these soups:
White swede (rutabaga) and celeraic soup (with fish)
Spicy sweet potato soup
Leek and potato soup with blue Stilton
Carrot soup with courgette (zucchini) and fresh salmon 

Carrot soup with courgette and salmon

Carrot soup with courgette (zucchini) and salmon

It finally hit my brain when I was walking around the farmers´market that the summer is gone. All signs were there: quince had appeared on some counters, the choice of tomatoes had more than halved, winter cabbages like cavalo negro and kale were on sale, at one stand I heard the saleswoman explain to a puzzled customer that "the season for basil is over"....How did it happen that the basil season totally passed this year before I had stocked up with fresh pesto? Oh well, the supermarket sells basil all year round and that will get me through winter ...probably at the cost of a higher carbon footprint.

Quince, an autumn and winter fruit

The shoppers were trying to fit under the roofs of the stands with their umbrellas and apologising to the other dripping customers. It was pouring for hours and the amount of daylight stayed below 5 on a scale of 10 the whole day.  I was looking forward to a lazy afternoon in front of the telly and the 5-DVD set of a Danish thriller I borrowed from my friend last weekend.

Kale, only available in autumn and winter at the market

At that dismal, sort of Wagnerian Melancholia market I was thinking Soup! Something bright and orange. I had bought 2 kilos of bio carrots at a good deal earlier in the week. Perfect starting point for my new favourite soup of this autumn. A bowl of carrot soup with courgette and salmon is a low fat but belly filling option for lunch or supper for the days when you just wish for a soup that you can bite into. I am a great fan of smooth cream soups, but equally on other days the soup just needs to be a bit more solid.

And a little fat must be. I am glad that fat helps me to get the vitamin A out of the carrots into my body but more importantly the small golden shiny bubbles that glisten on the surface act like a promise of a great meal and produce zillion of happy hormones before I have even taken a bite. The soup is ready in about half an hour. I can manage that after a long working day and still have a freshly made great tasing meal.

Carrot Soup with courgette (zucchini) and salmon
Ingredients for 2

500g carrots, cut into cubes
0.5l stock (or water + 1 cube bouillon)
1 whole yellow peperoncini or a chilli pod
0.5 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 medium courgette, cut into cubes
250g fresh salmon, cut in 2 cm cubes
2-3 tbsp fresh cream

Bring the water to boil, add the bouillon, carrots, peperoncini and grated ginger. Cook on medium heat until the carrots are soft. Take a few table spoons of carrots out and put aside for later. Remove the peperoncini. Purée the carrots. Taste for salt and spice. Add the courgette cubes and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the salmon and cream. Continue cooking on low -medium heat for a few minutes. Be careful not to cook too long as the salmon will become chewy and courgette too soft.

If you don´t have fresh fish, try frozen white fish filet. Cut into cubes and add to the carrot purée before the courgette but still be caucious not to over cook the fish. Adding the frozen fish would cool down the soup, so bringing it to boil and then adding the courgette for a few minutes more on the heat would be about right.

Carrot-courgette & fresh salmon soup

Related posts:
Caldo Verde, an autumn soup
Buying carrots

Cold cucumber and melon soup with a hint of chilli

Cold soup of cucumber-melon with a hint of chilli

This summer’s version of a cold soup is cucumber-melon-chilli.

The 30°+C temperature during day and night in Switzerland is a nice finish for the summer despite all the sweating, complaining of how hot it is and it is impossible to sleep due to the heat. Typically there is no air conditioning in Swiss houses and appartments, and it is good so. I can’t really complain too much knowing that many of my friends in Estonia would give anything for this heat. It has been 10-15 degrees (Celcius) colder over there these couple of weeks. On the other hand many have their own saunas, something that the Swiss don´t have.

96% water is what cucumbers and melons are. In between the liters of 100% H2O that is consumed to keep hydrated, a chilled soup is a guaranteed refreshment.

Best if the cucumber and melon have been in the fridge for a while to keep the soup cold.

What I like in a cucumber soup is that it somehow manages to fill the stomach for quite a long while. Normally I wouldn’t believe that water could do that, but I have tested this on myself and some friends and the results are convincing.

Ingredients: (For 2)

 

1 long salad cucumber

0.5 melon
0.5dl milk
A pinch of salt
A pinch of chilli powder or flakes
A pinch of peppermint leaves, thinly chopped (optional)
Juice of a slice of lemon or lime
 
Crème fraîche or sour cream

Cut the vegetables into small pieces, add the milk (and peppermint) and purée with a hand mixer or blender until smooth.

Season with salt, chilli and lemon or lime juice to your taste.

Serve cold. If you are in a hurry and have used the veg at room temperature add a couple of ice cubes to chill the soup just before serving.
 

Cucumber-melon soup

 

Related posts to cold soups:

Cold cucumber-mint soup

Le Pré Verre in Paris where a cold lemon confit soup was served

Simple Breakfast: Pan con tomate or tomato bread

My tomato bread breakfast in Barcelona or Burgos

“Never go out in the morning without having eaten something.” My Mom used to say this and now I live by this credo of common sense. Thanks, Mom, for the habit of eating breakfast that helps me avoid the blood sugar and brain first aid kit of energy snacks.

I recently attended an Awards dinner where the company recognises the outstanding achievements in Making a Difference for people either within the company or in their communities. My colleagues from the UK won an award for establishing a charity that supports breakfasts for children in their community. A lot of children didn’t eat breakfast and were behaving badly at school, they were not paying attention and their learning suffered. Not only did their own results suffer, they also disturbed their classmates. A proper breakfast changed that. 

Roma tomatoes (the bigger ones) and date tomatoes (the small oval), cherry (the small round ones)

It is summer time in Europe and depending on where you live the tomatoes either are or will become ripe soon. My best holiday morning in Estonia would be to wonder around in the glasshouse and pick a few warm tomatoes (thanks, Dad, for all the hard work), smell the tomato leaves on the fingers and make a nice tomato sandwich with rye bread, butter and tomato with salt and pepper for breakfast. We call it “tomativõileib” or “tomato butter bread”. Like that…

Tomativõileib - tomato bread in Estonia

In Catalunya and Spain my favourite breakfast is equally tomato bread or “pa amb tomaquet”, “pan con tomate “. Tomato, olive oil, bread, that’s it basically. At home I use varieties with fewer seeds like Marzano or Roma.

A bit of fat is good with tomato. It helps the body to make use of the vitamin A from the tomatoes.

4 tomatoes

Pinch of sea salt

0.5 tsp sugar

Black pepper

3-4 tbsp olive oil

Take the skins off by cutting crosses into the top and bottom of the tomatoes, placing them into a bowl of hot water for a minute or two. Then drain the hot water and peel the skins off.

Grate the tomatoes on the side with the largest holes.

Season with salt, sugar, freshly ground pepper and olive oil.

Pa amb tomaquet in Catalan or Pan con tomate in Spanish

Serve with toasted bread. I prefer thicker more robust slices of bread to the regular toast. The slices of bread can be toasted in the oven or in the toaster.

A question on my mind: why is the tomato often very pale in the hotels in Spain where I have eaten pan con tomate? Is it because the less ripe, 2^nd class tomatoes are crushed for this dish or is there a special paler flesh variety they use?

Enjoy your breakfast, the most important meal of the day!

Quinoa Salad, Gluten Free

More and more I hear about gluten intolerance and celiac disease. Fortunately for those intolerant of gluten more and more gluten free products appear in the food stores, more often I’ve seen “gluten-free” on restaurant menus and more and more food blogs are devoted to gluten free cooking. Here are two that I like and that most optimistically show that there is pleasure in eating for those who can’t eat wheat, rye or barley:
http://glutenfreegirl.com

http://www.babycakesnyc.com/

Dry quinoa on the left, cooked on the right

My sister acquainted me with quinoa last year. I’d seen it on the shelves of a top end supermarket, but never cooked it myself. There are different kinds of quinoa, white, red or black are what I’ve seen and recently a new tricolour product appeared in the supermarket. Quinoa is sold in the Swiss supermarkets as a bio product, in Estonia one can also find it in organic or bio food shops but is seems to be more expensive there.

Quinoa is not really a grain, but seeds of a leafy green plant. It originates in South America where people have grown it for a few thousands of years. No wonder because it has high nutrition value. It can be used in salads or eaten warm as a side or it may be an ingredient in a main dish. I do wonder how the Incas ate it…

For a healthy lunch here is a very easy quinoa salad for two.

Ingredients:

150g of quinoa

0.5 l water

Half a cucumber cut into small cubes

Half a red paprika/bell pepper cut into small cubes

5-10 sundried tomatoes cut into thin stripes

Sauce:

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or rape seed oil

Juice of a quarter of a lemon

A pinch of sugar or honey

Salt and pepper

Bring the water to boil and cook the quinoa until the little tails emerge and the grains are soft for about 15 minutes (check instructions on the pack too). In the meanwhile cut the vegetables and prepare the sauce by mixing the ingredients.

When the quinoa is soft, rinse with cold water and leave to cool. Mix the vegetables and the quinoa and the sauce. Garnish with chopped parsley or chives. The salad is ready to serve. 

Quinoa salad

Variation: add some smoked trout for a more substantial meal or mix any other ingredients you have at hand (sliced black olives, capers, scallions, roasted pumpkin, etc, etc).

Beetroot soup with sauerkraut

I was making some Spanish potato omelettes earlier today. When the tortilla stuck to the pan and the result was not what I wanted I first was surprised with horror. What happened? I have made the Spanish tortillas many times before and was looking forward to another glorious result. I then thought it must be the pan that for some reason has changed its quality. I was disappointed with the whole thing.
Like I hadn´t had enough, soon after I found myself experimenting with pumpkin. Again I had pictured something else and felt more disappointment sneaking upon me. Pumpkin is a tricky vegetable for savoury dishes. I started off with a pumpkin spread for toast for tomorrow´s breakfast, then changed part of the mix and moved on to frying pumpkin-potato cakes on a pan (another, non-sticky one, this time) and eventually will end up with pumpkin soup from the same roasted pumpkin for dinner tomorrow. In summary the Sunday in the kitchen went from high expectations to horror to disappointment to curiosity to annoyment to keeping going... Next time it will be better! Next time it will be beetroot. Beetroot never let´s me down.

Red beetroots growing in my favourite garden - July, roots still small

 
Beetroot Soup with Sauerkraut

1 small onion
1-2 tbl spoons oil
1 big potato
2-3 medium beetroots
1.5 l water
salt or 1 cube of bouillon
black pepper
100-150g Sauerkraut, pre-cooked
sour cream or creme fraiche
onion seed sprouts or chopped parsley


Chop the onion and fry in a little oil in a pot. Cut the potatoes and beetroot into small cubes. The ratio should be 1:2 of potato to beetroot. Add the water to the glassy onions and bring to boil. Cook the potato and beetroot with some salt until soft. Purée the vegetables with the mixer or blender and return to the pot.
If the sauerkraut is too long, cut it into more bite sized length and add to the puréed soup. Bring to boil.
Taste and season with salt and pepper.
Serve hot with sour cream and onion sprouts or parsley.

Beetroot soup with sauerkraut

Homage to Cranberry: Cranberry Dessert - Pink Semolina

My grandparents had 6 children. My Grandfather knew and got by in three languages without having studied the foreign languages at school. He just picked them up from newspapers and people around. Due to the political situation these languages that life presented to him were Estonian, Russian and German. A sentence spoken at the wrong time or in the presence of wrong audience brought him to prison and eventually my Grandfather was lost in the devastating hurricane of the war. I admire my Grandmother for bringing up her six children alone. These were not easy times.

No matter the hardship of the time or the (un)availability or (un)affordability of food, children always want something sweet. Here is how the cranberries come to play and why I would like to pay homage to this red berry from the moorlands.

After picking cranberries drying on a towel. Easier to clean out the dry debris

Firstly, picking them from the nature was and still is free.
Secondly, they are easy to preserve. Since sugar was less available in the first half of the last century it was not always possible to preserve berries and fresh fruit in jams and marmelades as these required a lot of sugar. There weren´t any freezers around like now to store fresh berries for months. Cranberries are easy to preserve in glass jars (3 liter, 5 liter or even 10 liter jars) in water in a cellar.
Thirdly, cranberries are full of vitamin C and massive other useful elements.
Fourthly, most importantly, cranberries make an excellent dessert that is very popular in Estonia. It has many names: "jõhvikavaht" (literally cranberry foam), "mannavaht" (semolina foam), "roosamanna" (pink semolina), "roosapuder" (pink porridge), got to be more... Given that the Estonian language is not extensively rich in synonyms (unlike the English language for example) the fact that this dessert has more than one or even two names speaks for itself.

To add to its popularity I have to mention a tool that existed in the old days and was used to make this dessert and maybe also to beat eggs or something else. It was called "püürüs" in the South Estonian dialect. "Püürüs" is a stick with three or four "branches" at the bottom, made of wood, suitably from a branch of a tree. Yes, a whisk, as it would be known now. The one that my other Grandmother who lived in the countryside had and made the cranberry foam for my father and his two siblings still exists in the "family museum".

So this dessert was one that was inexpensive, could be made fresh also in winter when no cranberries were available from the nature, and did not require a lot of sugar, but still provided the much desired sweet joy and happiness to the post war children.

Measuring cranberries - 2 large handfuls for 1.5l water

This dessert has stood the test of times and has not gone out of fashion. It is well loved by Estonian children and grownups. The real foodies and fans of fresh home cooking still go and pick the cranberries themselves in the moor in autumn. The easy alternative is to buy the cranberries on the market or in winter in the frozen form. It can even be bought ready made portion-wise in the supermarket.
This dessert is best served with cold milk poured on top of the pink semolina foam.

Cranberry Dessert  - Pink Semolina Foam Recipe
1.5 liters water
300-400ml cranberries (two large handfuls)
280-300g sugar
80-100g fine wheat semolina

Heat the water in a pot, add the cranberries and cook until the cranberries start to pop open. Use a lid to avoid spillage on your apron. Cook for about 10 minutes. When the berries are soft use a wooden spoon to press them against the side of the pot to get out as much juice as possible.
Pour the juice through a sieve and again press the berries against the sieve.
I put the skins back in the pot and bring to boil with a little water to rinse them through once more.
Sieve the second juice as well. Discard the empty and dry skins and return all the juice into the pot.
Add the sugar, let it melt. Taste. If not sweet enough add more sugar.
Slowly spoon the semolina into the juice stirring all the time. Bring to boil, then turn down the heat. Cook till the semolina has thickened the juice. It should be medium thick (slightly thicker than liquid honey).
Taste again.
Take off the heat and let it cool to luke warm. If you are in a hurry cooling the pot on the balcony or in a cold water bath will help speed things up.
Now take the hand mixer (electric is best or you need strong hands to make the next step with a whisk) and mix it until the semi-hard semolina porridge turns its colour from red to creamy pink, sometimes even almost whitish, the volume doubles and it takes a thick foamy consistency. (I had to stop and cool my mixer a couple of times)
Leave to cool (in the fridge) overnight or at least till completely cold. When it is not cold it tastes more sour. Serving it with cold milk is the traditional way, but could be eaten without milk should you be allergic to it.

 Cranberry Dessert: Pink Semolina Foam With Milk  (Jõhvika-mannavaht)

Cool as a cucumber in 30C degrees in shade: Cucumber soup and salads

It´s been a hot weekend here with the thermometer showing 30+ degrees or more Celsius. Too hot to even eat. Drink, drink, drink, but eventually the stomach is asking for more. Cucumber with its 90% water content is a great source of hydration for a thirsty body. Often eaten cold the cucumber is the main ingredient for refreshing salads and cold soups.

In Estonia typical hot summer food is boiled early potatoes with dill and butter and cucumber salad with dill and sour cream. If this is not enough, some BBQ from a huge choice of ready marinated meat or endless line of sausages on offer is made quickly.

Cucumber salad 1:

Cucumbers cut into thin slices, add salt, chopped dill and some sour cream. Mix and taste.

Cucumber salad 2 (my own favourite):

Cut one long salad cucumber into thin slices,

add 1-2 tablespoon of salad vinegar,

some salt to taste,

0.5 teaspoon of sugar,

1 -2 tablespoons olive or rapeseed oil,

some black pepper and thinly chopped dill.

Mix well and leave to marinate for min 30 minutes or overnight.

My alternative to gazpacho is 

Cucumber soup (2-3 portions):

3 long salad cucumbers, cold from the fridge

1 tablespoon salad vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

150ml unflavoured yoghurt

3 big leaves of peppermint, thinly chopped

or for a more northern taste instead of peppermint leaves add

a tablespoon of chopped fresh dill

Peel the cucumbers, cut out the seeds, cut into slices. Add the vinegar, salt, peppermint, yoghurt and purée with a mixer or blender. Taste for salt. Season more if necessary. Leave in the fridge to ensure the soup is refreshingly cold before serving.

Cool Cucumber Soup with Mint

A delicious cucumber soup was served at Neumarkt restaurant in Zurich, my current top favourite restaurant in the old town, with a great summer garden, very fast and professional service and most importantly very good local seasonal food.

Chicken and dumpling soup: Estonian “kana-klimbisupp”

Every now and then my friends in Estonia say they want some soup. The craving for some good healthy broth is strong, especially in colder days. On the other hand there are people who always prefer solid food to liquid. This one is a favourite of many Estonians. I like soups that have pieces of the ingredients in them. Puréed cream soups are great as well but every now and then I want to be able eat rather than just swallow my soup.

The dumpling soup is quite thick and serves as a full meal, especially at home with more than one helping. When I was growing up we never had to eat up what someone else put on your plate if we did not want to. Everyone took as much as they wanted and if on occasion what you had put on your plate was too much there was no obligation to eat up. Even if it meant that one mouthful was too many. I have always followed this principle. One’s stomach will tell when it is full, also a child’s. I guess for an adult the problem is not to want too much and recognise the moment of fullness. Soup is healthy, therefore two helpings are perfectly all right for a full meal. 

Chicken soup is well known for the healing properties against a cold. It certainly has helped me through some colds. Many cuisines make use of dumplings, German for example, being one of the closest influencers of the Estonian. The exact making varies, a mixture from old bread or flour, a combination with potato, gnocchis.

Ingredients for the chicken and dumpling soup:

Chicken Stock:

1 chicken

1 onion

Celery leaves or a good chunk of the root

1 carrot

1 teaspoon of salt

2 bay leaves

5 grains of black pepper

Soup vegetables:

2 bigger carrots

2 medium potatoes

Dumplings:

1 ladle full of stock or milk

1 egg

1.5 cups plain flour

Finely chopped dill or parsley

Put the chicken in one piece into the pot with cold water enough to cover the chicken. Bring to boil and wait till the foam starts to form. Cook for a few minutes and keep removing the foam. It is important to remove the foam to get a clear stock.

Throw away the water after the foam has been removed and start again with filling the pot with enough cold water to cover the chicken. Now add the cleaned onion, in one piece, as well as the carrot, celery leaves or root. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, the pepper and the bay leaves. Bring to boil at high temperature, then turn the heat down and simmer till the meat is totally soft and comes off the bones easily, 45-60 minutes. Turn the chicken once in a while and taste for salt. Some prefer to add the salt at the end, however I like the meat to take up some salt during cooking as later on it is difficult.

As the chicken is cooking prepare the carrots and potatoes. Peel and dice them into 1 cm cubes.

When the chicken is soft take it out on a plate and clean the meat off the bones discarding the skin. Remove the carrot, onion and celery from the stock.Put the shredded meat back into the pot.

Take a ladleful of broth into a bowl and let it cool a bit. Add half the flour into the lukewarm broth. Mix thoroughly. Beat an egg and add to the mixture. Add more flour till the dough is quite thick (feels heavy and drops from a spoon slowly). No need to add salt if your broth had enough already. If you make the dumpling dough with milk instead of the broth, add some salt to the dough.

Add the carrot and potato cubes into the stock and cook for 5-7 minutes.

Take two teaspoons and start dropping the dumplings into the soup by wetting the spoons in the broth, taking a small quantity of dough onto one spoon and turning it around on the other to push down into the boiling soup. When the dumplings have come up to the surface the soup is ready.

Garnish with chopped dill and/or parsley.

Serve with dark rye bread, white bread or without any bread.

Chicken -Dumpling Soup / Kana-klimbisupp

Vegetable Soup of Love or Hate, the Estonian “piima-aedvilja supp”

There are some foods or ingredients that one can either love, adore even, or hate, such as marmite, liquorice, coriander/cilantro,…, you know the kinds. The end of June, but mostly July is the time when families in Estonia either unite in praise or split at one summer soup. This is the time when the young vegetables strive in their adolescence. The fresh adult vegetables in August or September make a good soup too, but the very best is the “sweet sixteen” in the middle of the northern summer. This July I had the opportunity to once again sing the ode to this very special soup with my family. Fortunately all of us belong to the adorer group. I have friends who hate it. If you belong to the lucky ones with a functional hobby garden and can add the picking of the vegetables yourself to the cooking process, congratulations! In our family this soup is usually cooked in a relatively big pot and all of it gets eaten in one meal by the people around the table. This usually means more than one already generous helping...

Ingredients:

A bunch of young carrots

A bowl of new peas

A good palm full of new potatoes

A medium new cabbage or cauliflower or broccoli

Water to cook the vegetables in

0.5 -1 l of milk

Salt

Chopped dill and/or spring onion

Cut the carrots and potatoes into small bite size cubes and cook in the boiling salted water for 5-10 minutes, add the chopped bite size cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli and peas and cook until everything is soft but still with a bit of bite left. Assess the quantity of the liquid you wish to have in the soup. The final liquid should be roughly half water, half milk. If there is already too much water in the pot, take some out before adding the milk. Bring the soup to boil. Taste for salt. Finally add the chopped dill and/or onion greens. Serve immediately.

Estonian vegetable soup / piima-köögiviljasupp