Cauliflower and chèvre mash

Rabbit legs have been somewhat of a long term cooking plan for me. My sister's husband once sent me an inspiring image of a skinned whole rabbit that my sister was going to cook for them for dinner. My sister doesn't send images or really communicate in any modern form whatsoever. I am sure there are a few messages in bottles on their way to me floating in the North sea. Hence the brotherly-in-law intervention.

I bought these two rabbit legs from Harrods a year ago on a shopping trip with girlfriends who rolled their eyes and went for the handbag department leaving me queueing for my mallard and rabbit legs.

I've never cooked rabbit before, so it's taken a while to pluck up the courage. Last week I finally decided I have to do this (because I was struggling to fit all my freshly acquired Finnish moose meat and other goodies in the freezer). So I decided to make a wonderful rustic rabbit paella for our Friday night dinner. Kind of like Paella Valenciana but without the snails. I can't cope with the tentacles, they freak me out. I once had a bit of a Julia Roberts moment with a pan of snails in a restaurant.

I was further inspired by a visit to the Borough market and the Spanish delicatessen Brindisa. The one that Barefoot Contessa visits in her London adventures I think - I couldn't find the episode in YouTube, just a weird Irish sounding unfunny guy in a wig pretending to be Ina and making fun of the American pronouniation of herbs.

I can live with erbs, but I do take issue with Aluminum.

Heirloom carrots at Borough Market

Pretty multicoloured heirloom tomatoes

This time I got lots of spices and herbs from Spice Mountain, mostly for my sister who I'm going to see shortly and who as indicated earlier is also crazy about cooking, and some for myself. From the gorgeous veggie stalls I got some girolles, heirloom tomatoes, funny coloured beets (Jamie Oliver always has them), some plump dates for husband and from Brindisa a couple of packs of chorizo and calasparra rice.

I thought the rabbit legs woud not cook to be nice and soft in the time it takes to cook the paella, so I decided to braise them ahead and then just take off the bone and cut and add to the paella on the night. So I braised them in herbs and white wine, cooled and put in the fridge to wait for our paella night. The next day in the office I saw husband coming home at lunch time in my spy family security app, which is not at all creepy, and didn't really think much more of it. In the evening I asked him if he'd found anything to eat for lunch. "I had the nice chicken", said husband happily.

Oh well, at least he enjoyed it. He was a bit appalled when he found out that instead of chicken I had fed him a small fluffy animal. I tried to argue my case and questioned how he can eat cute little chickins and cuddly baby lambs, baaa? "No problem", said husband.

Herb and white wine braised rabbit legs

2 rabbit legs
1 small yellow onion
1 clove of garlic
1-2 stalks of celery
A couple of sprigs of fresh thyme
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
A handful of fresh sage leaves
(or teaspoon of dried thyme, sage and rosemary each)
100 ml white wine
1 cup of chicken stock
water

Preheat oven to 175C

Pat the rabbit legs dry and season with salt and pepper. Pick the leaves of the herbs and chop. Chop the celery and onion and mince the garlic.

Heat a tbsp of oil and a knob of butter in a ovenproof lidded pan or Dutch oven. Brown the legs for a few minutes on each side on high heat until nicely browned, transfer to a plate.

Lower the heat to medium and in the same pan sauté the onion and celery for a few minutes. Add the garlic and herbs and continue sautéing for another minute. Add the white wine and let it reduce for a minute or two. Return the legs and any juices in the pan and pour in chicken stock and add water so that the legs are 2/3 covered.

Bring to boil. Cover the pan and place in the oven for about 45 minutes to an hour until the meat is tender.

You can sieve the sauce and thicken it a little or use as it is. Either serve the legs as they are with the sauce and or use for a pie or a paella.

I have to write about this. I have stayed quiet long enough. I can't keep it in anymore. You know "Something borrowed, something new"? The award winning (probs not) TV show where the brides bring a yellowed family heirloom wedding dress to be whitened and remade into an amazing modern unique piece and where they then choose between that and a new off-the-rack wedding dress. And they always have a sob story about that heirloom wedding dress that belonged to their mother who died saving orphaned puppies from being made into fur coats before the bride was born. Or it's a dress with lace made by greatgreatgrandnonna Giuseppina who lost her arms in a horse cart accident when she was a baby so had to make all that lace with her toes. And how much it would mean to them and their family if they wore the dress and then they all go for the something new and choose the same bloody strapless mermaid gown. It does my head in!


The other thing that has been stressing me out this week is being between notebooks - you know at work when your notebook is full and you need to start a new one and then lug them both around because so much irreplaceable wisdom has been doodled on the pages of the old notebook. Like this:





So it's been quite demanding. I'm sure you can see why I'm in desparate need of a holiday, so lucky then I am taking a few days off to visit parents and recharge.

I've been doing a bit of freezer clearing because my parents' annual moose has been delivered by the hunter dude and apparently about 150kg of meat is still after some initial distribution waiting in my parents several chest freezers. Coinicidentially (or not) I had this trip planned and will also coincidetally have quite a lot of space in my suitcase to bring back any random souveniers.

I decided to use my last portion of ground moose to make a wonderful warming soup for husband to heat while I'm gone. This was originally my mother's recipe or actually something she copied from a magazine ad for cream cheese.  I've modified it a bit and you can use any veg you have in hand. I think the key is ground meat, tomatoes and cream cheese. A super easy and tasty weeknight meal.

Ground moose or beef and vegetable soup with tomatoes and cream cheese (serves 4)

Oil
1 yellow onion
2 carrots
1 celery stalk
2-3 garlic cloves
2 potatoes
1 red or yellow bell pepper
300-400g ground beef (or venison)
400g can of tomatoes
1 can of water (or enough to cover everything)
beef stock pot (or a tbsp of game fond)
salt
black pepper
100 g cream cheese (Philadelphia)
fresh herbs

Chop all the veg and mince the garlic. Heat a tbsp of oil in a deep non-stick pan. Add the onion, celery and carrots. Saute for 5 minutes on medium heat, don't let the veg brown, although if that accidentally happens when you are simultaneously packing your suitcase, it won't ruin the soup.

Add the garlic and continue to saute for a few minutes. Add the ground beef and continue to cook breaking the meat down with a spatula until the meat is lightly browned. Add the potatoes, bell pepper, tomatoes, water, stock and seasoning. Bring to boil and leave to simmer on low heat until all the vegetables are cooked. Add water if necessary and add the cream cheese and mix well until cheese is incorporated. You can add some fresh herbs if you have any - I had some parsley ad basil.

Serve piping hot with fresh bread.

We were planning to visit this interesting Central London eatery Texture, an Icelandic slash modern European fusion restaurant, for our wedding anniversary in August. Or rather I was planning for us to do this, husband is not a planner of romantic gestures per se. Not that he doesn't do any, he just doesn't plan them ahead and they are much more personal and creative than a dinner in a Michelin starred restaurant.

He for instance surprised me coming back from a service station shop with a pretty, bejewelled Route 66 baseball cap for me when my large and very white Nordic forehead was roasting on the way from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon on our recent American road trip. If that isn't a loving and romantic gesture I don't know what is.

He has also surprised me with a pair of beige Birkenstocks, a fruit bowl, a windscreen wiper and a recycling bin just to mention a few. All thoughtfully timed and beautifully in context for maximum romantic impact.

OK maybe not the recycling bin, but it has made a marked difference in my everyday life.

So orginally I was thinking of booking us a table for our wedding anniversary in August, but there was so much holidaying to do that we just couldn't fit it in. So finally last week I got my act together and booked us a table for Saturday night.

Texture, headed by an Icelandic Chef Agnar "Aggi" Sverrisson, is a Michelin starred restaurant so it is not cheap. Starters are around £20 and mains around £40. They apparently have a fantastic wine list and they all are expensive. Luckily husband doesn't like white wine and red wine gives him heartburn. I'm just generally thrifty, so we opted for the  rosé which happened to be the only reasonably priced wine on the list.

The restaurant is of course beautifully designed with some interesting Nordic touches like birch trunks. Not bamboo, as husband suggested. It's clean and light without being cold.

We chose the normal tasting menu (£89), they also do a vegetarian and fish tasting menu. This is what we ate:

Home made crisps with a yoghurt dip

Very crusty and tasty, particularly the sour dough brown loaf.

We went through a couple of these bread platters as after a couple of courses we started to panic slightly at the miniscule size of them. We were initially quite hungry, but shouldn't have worried. The portions are very small, but in the end we were both full. But not uncomfortably so, which I believe is Texture's philosophy. They avoid things like butter and cream, which also helps in keeping the dishes light.

Very tasty pumpkin soup with peanuts to give it lovely texture.

I would like to write something about this soup because it was really lovely. But I'm not sure what to say other than it was really lovely and I will be putting peanuts in soups from now on. I think it worked really well.

Pretty heritage beetroots with snow

I was googling for recipes for this traditional Finnish almond caramel cake which I've known all my life. We call it Tosca cake, because we are very sophisticated like that. Operatically and classical musically. You know, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Pekka Kuusisto and Jean-Pekka Sibelius. No, not really. Just Jean.



Even our metal heads, many of them also called Pekka, are classically trained like the ubercool Apocalyptica who I am dragging poor husband to see next spring when they are playing Metallica on their cellos in Roayl Festival Hall.

But then, what did I see. Lots of links to Swedish Tosca cake. Did they have to steal this too. Was it not enough they took our meatballs and cinnamon buns. And Marimekko. Arja Saijonmaa we don't mind, they're welcome to her.

Anyway, we are used to this of course, the Swedes always getting the better deal, bluer eyes, longer legs and blonder hair, better pay and bigger cars, happier marriages and healthier coronary arteries, more internationally successful pop-bands, although some slightly less rock'n'roll than ours as helpfully demonstrated below.

The Herreys from Sweden - see what I'm saying - even their shoes are golden. Apparently diggiloodiggiley everyone is looking at them (a Finn's nightmare) as they dance with wings on their backs on the streets in their golden shoes while the heavens are opening and the whole world is smiling. I can't see that happenining to a Finn, much more likely to be hit in the head with an empty beer bottle and a dead pig while queueing for their antidepressants.

Apocalyptica - I quite like a man with long hair and a string instrument.And if someone's not wearing a shirt,  I'm not going to hold it against them. It's not like they have golden shoes and stuff.  BTW none of their songs contain words starting with "diggi".

Of course it's not a competition and we are brothers and all that and we do think the Swedes are awfully cute with their happy tunes and pastel colours.

So Tosca cake then, I wanted to make this for a charity bake sale at work. I don't always get my act together to participate, but this time it is in memory of a colleague, so I wanted to contribute. I made three of these Tosca cakes (I doubled the recipe and used slightly smaller pans than in the recipe. And I made a Finnish bundt with Christmas spices, I think it's high time we start to celebrate Christmas.

For both I made little tasting versions for husband because I don't want him to feel left out, and also I wanted him to be the judge as to whether they are good enough to burden my very lovely colleagues with. I don't want to eat a lot of cakes myself because I just bought a lovely pair of very tight trousers, which I very much would like to be able to wear without looking like a pig on two legs, which is what one of my brothers used to call me, the psychopath, so this is where a husband comes in handy. Not only does he eat the cakes, but also loves me as I am. I think he even loves me more if the pants are a bit on the tight side.

And I am not a thoroughly reliable baker, so it's important to include some quality assurance in the process, I remember producing a completely flat green buttermilk cake for my Dad's work bake sale once. I still don't understand how it could turn green. Not just  slighlty greenish but lurid fluorescent green.


The beauty of the Tosca cake is of course the gorgeous topping, which is added during the baking so it seeps into the cake and forms a fantastic shiny slightly crispy layer on top. The cake also freezes well. It was a huge success at the bake sale, all three gone in no time. The Christmas spiced bundt was fantastic too apparently.

I focused on the savoury stuff and got the biggest and baddest scotch egg I have ever had made by one of our lovely warehouse guys. It was made with a pickled egg inside, I love pickled eggs! The whole thing was the size of a large baby's head. Burb.

The egg inside is normal size so it gives you and idea of the amount of saausage surrounding it. Can you hear the egg screaming for help? Lemme out!

Finnish Tosca-cake (recipe from valio.fi)

As it's a Finnish recipe the measuments are metric.

Cake:
2 eggs
1 ½  dl sugar
2 ½  dl plain flour
1 ½  tsp baking powder
½  dl milk
150 g butter (melted)

Topping:
50 g butter
75 g flaked almonds
1 dl sugar
½  dl cream
1 tbsp plain flour

Butter a 22 cm loose base cake tin and cover the base with round piece of baking sheet.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until they form a light foam. Mix the flour with baking powder, and mix the milk and melted butter and pour both in while lightly continuing to whisk
Pour into the cake tin. Bake in 175C for 25 minutes.

Add all the topping ingredients in a saucepan. Mix and let bubble slowly until the mix thickens a little. Take the cake from the oven and spread the topping on the cake.  Continue to bake in 200C for 10 minutes until the top is nice and light brown.

This very easy, healthy and absolutely delicious turkey taco soup was inspired by a lunch we had on the last day of our American road trip in the little San Francisco bay town Sausalito after thoroughly photographing the Golden Gate and ourselves from all angles and a drive around the Marin Headlands. Husband had had quite enough of my driving by then, so I was able to have a lovely fresh margarita. With my tequila I had a chicken taco soup which was really lovely with lots of vegetables, shredded chicken and those fantastic Cal-Mex flavours.

Our road trip was quite brilliant, but it was the first holiday of that kind for us so there were some hairy moments useful learnings that I thought I’d share so that anyone planning a similar adventure can avoid some of the pitfalls, disappointments and moments of tension we experienced.

10 top tips for an American road trip

1. Be aware of mobility incompatibilities between travelling companions, i.e if you are married to the world’s slowest moving particle and you’re of slightly impatient constitution, you might want to consider other holidaying formats. But whatever you do, do not rush him, because he will just shut down and pull into his shell much like the tortoise whose speed he successfully emulates and you will definitely not make it to the pool in your new fake tan at the swanky Las Vegas Casino.
2. If you agree with your travelling companions to take a hop-on hop-off open-top bus tour, make sure travelling companions understand that like the name suggests this includes open-top busses and hopping on and hopping off before you spend $200 on the tickets. 
3. If you are planning to visit Grand Canyon make sure the travelling companions know it is not Monument Valley or Antelope slot canyon, but just a “hole in the ground” to avoid disappointment amongst those of the group who clearly must have seen some bloody impressive holes in the ground not to be impressed by this one. 
4. If you get lost in Mojave desert… Actually, don’t get lost in Mojave desert. But if you do get lost in the mind blowingly large Mojave Desert, blame it on the husband for extra fun. When you are literally dying of starvation and husband is considering eating his own children and you finally find a grumpy, wizened man and you think he says 18 miles to next stop with food, it's actually 80. Miles.  
5. Steel yourself to the fact that public parking costs $20 pretty much anywhere in LA and don’t do a prolonged bitch about it every time to the parking attendants and your wife, because surprisingly none of them gives a shit. They all want to be on the beach photographing their toes for social media rather than in a garage discussing the unfairness of parking policies in large cities.
6. The squirrels up at Big Sur are really tame and cute and don't mind a bit of chilli in their pistachios.
7. Don't lock your children in the car at 40C temperatures. American cars have some kind of annoying alarm system which will set the horn blowing when the children start to bang on the doors from the inside. Very embarrassing.
8. Yucca Valley sounds exciting, but is not. Even the town residents with defeated looks on their melancholy faces admitted: “We’re a pretty boring town”.
9. If you want to walk from Fisherman's wharf to Golden Gate, take into account that the distance is about 94 miles.
10. Americans may occasionally come and talk to you even if you don't know them. They may even speak to you in a lift, sorry elevator. One extreme older lady came knocking at our car window to ask HOWDEEDOO, HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR SANTA FE? At first I thought it was the throat-biting and wall-climbing Gladys from the horror film Legion. But it wasn't. It was just someone who was thinking of buying a Hyundai Santa Fe and wanted to know what we thought of the car. So don't be frightened. All this effervescence is hard for us reserved Northern Europeans, but they are not dangerous or mentally ill. It must have to do with their fearless pioneering past.

This little feller has more balls than husband when it comes to spicy food

It's a magnificent hole in the ground but they really should build a gondola thingy to get you to the bottom.

Mojave Desert is a vast area with lots of sand and Joshua Trees and very little food or fuel

There are people with slight obsession with this bridge and  they seem to need to photograph it from all possible angles. Repeatedly saying to them "It's just a bridge" is not going to make any difference so you might as well just go with it.

Easy turkey taco soup (server 4-6)

Oil
400g boneless turkey breast cut into strips
Salt
Pepper
1 red onion
2 small carrots

Enjoy with a bottle of Corona or a Margarita.

Mexican cuisine is not my natural cooking habitat. I love Mexican food, particularly tequila. Did you know that if you drink only tequila (you can have it with mixers, but don't mix with any other alcohol) you get into this really fun state of tipsiness. This life-changing insight was delivered to me and a friend of mine on the all-inclusive Club Med beaches of Kemer, Turkey by a French man unimaginatively called Jacques. Jacques with crazy Brian May hair was from Amiens and kept going on about their Cathedral until he'd had his daily fix of tequila tonics after which he became a lot more interesting. Or I think maybe the tequila made us think he did. One evening we ended up sitting on the beach with our tequila tonics singing Tomber la chemise and thought it was the funniest thing ever. Which in retrospect clearly it wasn't, but that's tequila for you. It might even make an Adam Sandler film seem funny.

Husband is ok with the occasional tequila, but has an unfortunate crybaby attitude about chillies and a paranoid schizophrenic relationship with coriander, so that's why I rarely cook Mexican food.

But we are flying to California tomorrow with the kids for an epic road trip. How very epic you will find out later or if not at all epic this is the last you will hear about it. So to get us in the mood I made a Cal Mex inspired dinner for us. It was a long day in the office with head ache inducing pharmacy pathway discussions and bundle pricing calculations, which I never thought would happen to a marketer. But there you go, there is always a  finance business partner lurking behind a corner just waiting to ruin your day. And after work there was packing to be done as well as hair removal, fake tan application, eye brow plucking, tooth whitening, toe nail varnishing and other harvesting and caretaking that holidays and visiting sunny climes impose on women. So it had to be someting relatively straight forward.

I do realise this is actually probably no more Mexican than my mooseballs, but it is easy, tasty and comforting. Husband's summary was "that was a very good lasagne" before he went to the bathroom to colour his beard, remove nasal hair and whatever else it is men do to make them the shiny beautiful things we see before us.



Chicken enchillada lasagne (serves 6)

Oil
800kg boneless chicken thigh (or breast), cut into strips
zest and juice of one lime
bell pepper, cut into strips
1 or more fresh chillies (to your taste), finely chopped
Kernels of 2 cobs of corn (or half cup of frozen corn)
1 large or 2 normal yellow onions, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 tsp dried oregano
2-3 tsp cumin
salt
pepper
400g can of chopped tomatoes
1 cup chicken stock
400g can of black beans, drained
fresh coriander (I substituted with parsley), chopped

8 corn (or other) tortillas
200 g cheddar cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 200C

Heat a splash of oil in a large frying pan. Fry the onion on medium heat for a few minutes, add the garlic, bell pepper, chilli and corn. Continue frying for another couple of minutes, remove to a large deep sauce pan.

Season the chicken strips with salt and pepper. Add oregano and cumin. Use the same frying pan to fry the chicken. Add oil if necessary and fry in batches until browned.

Add the chicken to the onion mix, add the tomatoes, chicken stock, lime zest and juice and coriander. Bring to boil and let simmer for 10-15 minutes, add water if it seems too dry. Add the beans and cook for another couple of nimutes. Check seasoning and adjust.

Assemble the lasagne in a large baking dish. Start by ladling some of the chicken enchillada sauce onto the bottom of the dish. Add two tortillas on top. Add a layer of chicken enchillada sauce, some shredded cheese and cover with another layer of tortillas. Repeat twice and then spread the rest of the sauce and a good sprinkling of grated cheddar on top.

Bake in 200C for 20 minutes or until it's bubbly and brown on top.

This is an interesting little potato salad recipe. There are lots of different ways to make a delicious one. I like a simple warm new potato salad with just some dressing, spring onion and a sprinkling of dill and feta. This one's a bit more complicated as potato salads go. So not that complicated. But I had never thought of putting artichoke hearts in a potato salad until my blinkered eyes were opened by this blog post.

I love potatoes, that’s no secret. I even sang a potato song in the Finnish Liberal People’s Party Christmas do when I was about 5. My father the Liberal is nowadays more of a corservative stickler of dinosaurian proportions than a beacon of progress or a radical reformist, but his liberalism must be seen against the backdrop of 1970s Cold War as an enlightened man's fight against the Finlandization of the Finnish govenment marionetted by the Soviets. (Apologies for the unsolicited political tirade in the middle of an innocent potato post.) He was briefly active in local politics and as a dutiful politician’s daughter and a budding anti-Soviet campaigner I threw my talents onto the altar of freedom. The song went like this (sorry about the lack of rhyming in the translation, I just thought it might be a bit of a waste of effort as it's never going to be Shakespeare exactly, rhymes or no rhymes):

Potatoes are round
Potatoes are oval
Potatoes are the right and proper food.
When you put the potato in your mouth
It starts its long journey
Belly is the best place for it, innit?
Eating potatoes
Will grow our strengh
The little potato will help us grow big!
Hip hip hurrah, potato!

There was also a spellbinding hand choreography to go with it – you can check it here. (I did it a lot more athletically and precisely than this clueless bunch of potatoes. Although even I can see they are quite cute in their weird potato hats. I was also cute, no weird hat though, but a purple two-piece trouser suite!)

That was the height of my career both in politics and as a solo singer. I did go on to study classical singing and a less root veg related song repertoire in my teens for a few years until the teacher told me that my vocal cords would need surgical intervention. Encouraging.

New potato and artichoke salad (serves 4 as a side)

I had a bit of a mustard disaster but at least got rid of any unnessessary nasal hair. Note to anyone who has run out of Dijon mustard and wants to substitute: English mustard IS a lot hotter than Dijon. After some dilution action all was fine in the end.
500g new potatoes
Bunch of spring onion (original recipe says pickled onions)
Jar of marinated artichoke hearts in oil
20 green or black olives
Handful of capers (optional, but will add a nice zing particularly if not using pickled onions)
1/3 - 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
2 tbsp crème fraiche (optional)
1 tbsp of Dijon mustard
Generous handful of chopped fresh parsley and fresh chives
Salt
Pepper

Wash the potatoes and cook them in boiling salted water until they are just done. Use new potatoes with very thin skin, so there is no need to peel them.

While potatoes are cooking chop the spring onions and drain and chop the artichokes. You can also halve or slice the olives.

Prepare the dressing by mixing the mayonnaise, mustard, herbs and seasoning. Check the taste and adjust. I also added a couple of spoons of crème fraiche because I made the salad ahead and new that the potatoes would soak some of the dressing.

When the potatoes are done (fork goes in easily, but they are not breaking yet) cut them into whatever size you like and mix everything together. You can serve immediately while the potatoes are still warm or let it sit for a few hours in the fridge and serve cold.

Rhubarb and strawberry sangria (serves 4 or maybe just 2, makes 2 large pitchers)