Skipping the winter?

 I've tried to find time to write a blog post. Once I've made part of the text, cats start a fight od 'Suma needs to go out. And when I', able to continue, I've lost the plot, I had no idea what I was going to say 😆

I've had an interesting winter workwise. I've written an article with my colleagues on a real magazine (about my work)!!! Need to add that to my CV. I've got three more years in the EU commission work, and it means I need to travel abroad. I don't like flying...

The weather in this winter has been miserable. Wet, grey, soggy, lousy. Thick clouds all the time, we haven't been able to see auroras, or full moons or planets. Next week forecast says 20cm snow. Oh NOW it will snow when spring has been here for weeks?

I haven't put any seeds to germinate, because I'll be on work trip next week. After that I might be able to do something with all the seeds I need to get growing. Papricas, chillies, tomatoes, maybe ocra. No aubergines though, our summer is way too short and cool for them.

But the big news!  My sister gave a birth to a number three January, so now she has been stuck to sofa with the baby 💗  The baby is growing fast, weight gain is about 500g per week!!!

No pic of number three, but here is my field last weekend:

Polytunnel is still a skeleton, sunny parts of the village are bare, my field has some 10 to 30 cm of snow. Tractor tracks go to our forest, it's time to do next winter's firewood.

Snowstorm, so soup it is!

It's been snowing 7 hours. Forecasts say it will be snowing until tomorrow noon.

So soup.

We had one and a half cervelat-type sausages in the fridge (local basic sausage). Not my favourite, but hb likes it and it IS cheap. And I know how it's made, because I've been in most sausace factories here. I fried it before adding to the soup -not necessary step, but it tastes so much better.

It looks like any other potato-based soups I make these days, because I have a lot of beets and everything cooked with beets gets red. Ok, someone might call it a stew, whatever. This is how my grannies made this ❤️

1,5€ for the sausage, 0,2€ for spices and stock cube, max 1€ for vegetables (carrot, swede, beet, potato, peas). So pot full of soup less than three euros, less than 50 cents per portion.

Hello darkness, my old friend....

 As a child I was afraid of dark. While walking to school I frantically squeesed my flashlight. It wasn't very powerful, it was 70's anyway.

Now the darkness is my friend. It's a good thing that we have formed a friendship, becaus during cold seasons there's not much light. It's dark when I wake up. It's dark when I take 'Suma for a walk. It's dark when we leave home when I take ys to school (no public transportation here, school trip is 14 km one way). And of course it's dark when I finish my work, at four pm. Yay.

But it's not pitch dark, there is tones in darkness. Last weekend there was more than enough light - full moon at it's brightest illuminated even forest floor. And if there's clouds, nearby town sheds enought light to shatter it from the clouds so I can walk safely without having to worry about stumbling. It WAS darker in the 70's. There was energy crisis (oil crisis) so street lights in the town  were off, if there even were any. It was 70's, not a modern day light pollution era.

And if I don't use any extra light, I can see everything around me, with flashlight I can see only what's in the narrow beam of light. And if there's too dark that I can't see - well, nobody else can't see me neither! So it is safe to walk in the darkness in the countryside.

Cities are totally different. I've never seen so dark shadows like there are in cities - darkness is a deep void, not a soft and comfly blanket like it is in the countryside.

Chocolate semolina pudding

I usually cook one porridge a week. And when I say porridge, I actually cook something rest of the world calls as pudding. 

Today was porridge cooking day, as it is Sunday. On Sundays I try to make something that can be easily eaten during the week as a snack, breakfast or when you are hungry but have no time to make a sandwich!

Favourite is, of course! Semolina chocolate pudding. Chocolate semolina pudding? Chocolate porridge 😁

I'm cooking on the woodstove now. It keeps the house warm and save electricity.

Once cooked, you can see separate semolina grains. This time I used a small amount of polenta, too. I'm the only one liking polenta, and we were given one package. I'm not wasting any food!

You can buy semolina grains with cocoa and other stuff, but it's quite expensive - at least I think it is. It's easy to mix yourself.

1 l milk

1 dl semolina

1 dl sugar

(1 tsp vanilla sugar)

1/4 tsp salt

I cook this in bain marie/double boiler pot, because I just can't cook milk in normal pot without burning it...

I mix everything but salt and let it cook in double boiler for half an hour or longer. In normal pot it takes only 10 to 15 minutes. Once it's cooked, I add salt.

This is very good hot and cold. You can have it with  milk, cream, vanilla custard etc but I just eat as it is. It is very sweet! But this is how we like it.

I also made a sort of Yorkshire pudding. We eat it as a sweet dessert with jam.

I use pizza cutter to make slices, I forgot to take a picture before I sliced this. (and someone had already took a slice or two)

And it's October

I don't know how days go past so fast - or rather weeks. It was August, and September somehow just rushed by, waved and puff! it's October.

August and September were exceptionally warm months, summer didn't want to leave. And then in one morning it was autunm, trees went yellow and red overnight, grass turned golden yellow just like that.

Now we have had frosts - few years ago frosts were here in the end of August, not in the beginning of October...

I'm quite confident we will have winter very soon and without any warning. Bugger.

I've been mushrooming, today we were in our forest, me, my sister, Number One and 'Suma. In 45 minutes we picked our bags full of mushrooms, and we hardly touched the edge of the mushroom harvest there. I still need few bags more mushrooms to freezer. It's going to be an expensive winter, I think.

At least I managed to pay off one car loan, and another has only one half payment left. Then all vehicles are our own again! And it gives me a small extra sum of money to build up an emergency fund. For now my emergency find is my Master Card, which is not good. I have still money reserved for some specific purposes, like sys's drivers licence...

Since beginning of covid our money situation has been tightening and tightening - we are not buying anything more than before, but everything is so much more expensive. We have less money to spend with higher prices. I don't get paid more if I work more, I could have the hours off, but will not get any extra money. Hb is working only day shift, so no extra money from night shifts either.

But we'll manage, I just need to cut all extra spending (not much there) and be wary of any pitfalls. Few more years and our mortage is completely paid off. Hb might get a small amount as inheritance once hir parent's house is sold - but it could take two or three years before that happens, and keeping up the house costs us around 200 euros per month! I have suggested that the house be put up for rent, but it's too much effort, they say (hb and his siblings).  Oh well, it's only money 😡

Overcompensating?

I might have mentioned this is very difficult year financially. Not only for our family, but in general. Even my aunt, who's been retired about 20 years said such. And she's not in debt, she has a steady stream of pension every month and she's ablebodied and ableminded. She's not so much worried for her own sake, but for others. And so am I.

Funny thing I've noticed: when I'm skint (for any reason) I cook and bake. A lot. I just made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, a batch of Thrifty Lesley's red lentil nuggets and there's two huge tubs of rice pudding in the fridge, as well as big container of pre-cooked mushrooms for tomorrow. And on the stove there's a rather big pot full of boiled potatoes (hot, can't put them to the fridge yet) and half a frying pan of fried cabbage/zucchini (the other half is eaten already). And I'm planning on baking buns tomorrow (I don't usually bake bread/buns, but this last month has been really really expensive and I had some flour bags that really needed to be used (best before date last year...). Yesterday I made pickled cucumbers and zucchini fritters. On top of regular cooking. And yes, I put the soaking liquid of lentils aside for the buns, as well as the liquid from yesterday whe I grated zucchinis and drained it with salt.

It's like I'm trying to cook and bake everything before I run out of money/food/change to forage...

Rowans are overcompensating last year's complete lack of berries. I'm trying to find reciepes other than jellies and liquor. Maybe I just put them in the freezer and I'll figure out later what to do with them?

Blue cheese quiche

 I need a lunch to take with me to the office tomorrow. I didn't have any leftovers in the fridge - I mean I didn't have anything leftovers I can take with me, those who stay at home tomorrow will need them. I've been fancying a quiche for some time, and at some point during the weekend I noticed a packet of blue cheese in the freezer. I knew I had a some margarine left in the fridge. I usually use only butter or oil, but I baked some dairy free things before summer. It was really time tu use up that small parcel!

Quiche is in the oven now - a bit late, but I went mushrooming with 'Suma and then we had sauna night.

Blue cheese quiche

Crust:

100g fat (butter, margarine)

3 dl flour - I mixed 1 dl of rye flour and 2 dl basic white wheat

1/2-1tsp salt

1 egg

2 tbsp cold water

Work soft fat, salt and flour into sand-like mixture, add egg and water and mix into a smooth dough. Oil the baking dish (24 cm round or similar size square)Pat the crust evenly into baking dish, lift the crust against sides ot the dish. No need to put this on the fridge or blind bake it. Put oven on, 200C.

Filling:

3dl cream or 2dl creamy yoghurt + 1dl milk

2 eggs

salt, pepper

1,5 dl / 100g grated mild cheese

half a packet of blue cheese

Crumble the blue cheese

(I'm allergic to onions as well as leeks, but I've heard caramellized onions or leeks work lovely with blue cheese)

Mix dairy and eggs, add seasoning. Grate cheese. Turn blue cheese into crumbs and spread them evenly over the bottom of the crust (and onions/leeks)
. Sprinkle some of the grated cheese on top of the blue cheese, the pour the filling mixture in. Add rest of the grated cheese.

Bake about 30-40 mins in the middle rack of the oven. Timing depends on the oven, mine bakes very unevenly, so I turn everything 180 degrees in the middle of baking.

I'll have a piece of this with a simple tomato-cucumber salad.