The Finnish-American-Greek Feast

And then it was time for dinner. There was Greek salad, and home-made (by the Finn's Mother) rye bread, which they ate with margarine,
the smoked salmon of course,
and the mushrooms and steamed vegetables. Everyone had a ton of the main dishes and then it was time for dessert. For dessert, the Baker had baked her famous cinnaminnies. There was also 'bread cheese' (which squeaks in your mouth) and cloud berries (a Finnish specialty that only grow in swamps and must be harvested by hand.) These were all served with a vanilla cream sauce.
Suffice to say that after this meal, the Baker and the non-baker were both very happy and very full of delicious food. It was a perfect last meal in Finland.

The non-baker cooks

Since they were having a feast, the Baker and the non-baker decided that they should each contribute something to the meal. Since the non-baker is often an unambitious cook, she decided to cook her go-to meal, reduced vinegar mushrooms.

She bought some button mushrooms at the Finnish supermarket. They were huge, especially in comparison to American button mushrooms, which are much smaller.
She cut them up, poured some olive oil in a pan, warmed up the pan and took all of the mushrooms and placed them in the pan. After they had warmed for a bit, she began pouring in the vinegar.
Then she let the mushrooms cook, occasionally, and as need be, adding more vinegar to the pan and letting it reduce - coloring and flavoring the mushrooms.
After cooking them with more and more vinegar for 40 minutes or so, they had turned a beautifully dark color and were quite delicious. And, at this point, they were ready to be eaten.
The perfect side-dish for a Finnish-American-Greek feast.

Smoking Salmon

So, on the last day that the Baker and the non-baker were in Finland, they (and their hosts) decided that they should have a wonderful meal. So the Baker offered to- what else- bake and the non-baker offered to cook one of her specialties.

But they weren't the only ones contributing food. The Finns decided that they would have smoked salmon and, being Finns, that they would be smoking it themselves. The first step of this process was to soak the pieces of raw salmon in water that was 10% salt for six or so hours so that the salt would disperse evenly on the fish.
Then the fish was ready to be smoked. So, the elder Finn's boyfriend filled the smoker with wood chips (a particular sort that are good for smoking fish.) He also added a few sugar cubes in order to color the salmon.
Then, they put the salmon onto aluminum foil and onto a grill and into the smoker.
Then the Finn's boyfriend broke up some kindling in the outdoor woodshed and put the kindling underneath the smoker and lit the wood with some bark scraps which he lit to start the fire.
The wood burned up, creating the smoke that would smoke the salmon. And once the smoke had cleared, the Elder Finn's boyfriend carefully pulled the smoker off of the bricks and opened it.
Then, carefully the Finn's boyfriend pulled out the hot smoked salmon.
It looked fantastic, but this was only one of the courses that the Baker and the non-baker would have for dinner that night.

Eating Traditional Finnish Food (in a restaurant)

So, after a bit of pestering, the elder Finn said that she would take the Baker and the non-baker out for a traditional Finnish meal. Neither the Baker nor the non-baker is particularly familiar with Finnish food and so they did not know what to expect. But the elder Finn had read an article in The Helsinki Times on this very subject and so had picked out a restaurant to go to. They were all willing to share food and so the Baker and the non-baker let the elder Finn order appetizers and main dishes for them in Finnish and were ready to be surprised. It was a wonderful decision on their part because the food was delicious.
The Elder Finn had ordered a trio of appetizers. (From right to left): First there was a dark rye bread with a sort of mushroom potato salad on top and then some very thinly sliced reindeer, which the Finn insisted that the Baker and the non-baker try since they had never eaten reindeer before.
Then there was a Finnish sausage of venison with a bourbon mustard sauce and reduced vinegar on the plate.
And lastly there was a flat white bread with whitefish, sour cream and dill. After that they had their main dishes, which they also decided to serve in small portions so that everyone would get to try some of everything that the Finn had decided to order.
(From right to left): The first dish was sort of complicated. It was a light rye bread with a salad underneath, shrimp, whitefish and salmon on top with baby tomatoes and slices of cucumber. There was also a cream sauce on the side as well as a wonderful (though unexpected, as it did not show up in the description) poached egg.
Next there were cabbage rolls. These were pieces of cabbage stuffed with mushrooms. And they were served on top of a bed of boiled, sliced beets served with a cream beet sauce.
And, last, but certainly not least there were traditional Finnish spiced beef meatballs. They were served with a brandy cream gravy, mashed potatoes, more sliced preserved (pickled) beets, and pickles.
Then they were all full with the warm food. And so they got the check. However, unlike in America, where the Baker and the non-baker reside, chocolates are provided with the bill instead of mints. The Baker very much approves of this way of ending a meal.

Baking without recipes (like she does anything else)

So, at the non-baker's suggestion, the Baker decided to make gluten-free cookies, but as usual she didn't use much of a recipe, nor did she write down what little of the recipe that she could remember. After the non-baker asked for the recipe but to no avail, the Baker finally gave her a list of the ingredients that she had used to make the cookies (without amounts of course.) Although she was willing to tell me that she had put strussel on top of them.

Recipe:
an egg white
Flour: rye or rice (one in each of the types of cookies)
white sugar
baking soda
salt
oil
vanilla

Strussel: what she normally puts in her cinneminies and coconut

The Baker thought that the gluten free cookies were ok, though not great, as she was not as fond of the flavor. The rice ones, when she was mixing them was sticker, and post-baking was a little bit sweeter. The rye ones, on the other hand were more crumbly and tasted, surprisingly, like rye.

Eating Abroad

So when the Baker and the non-baker were little, their parents wanted them to see the world. As a result, their parents decided that the best way to do this was to switch homes with other families with somewhat similarly aged children- usually, for around three weeks at a time. So the Baker and the non-baker have wonderful memories of living in other people's homes over the summers. And, this summer, when they decided to take a vacation together, the Baker and the non-Baker decided to re-visit some of those families- specifically the ones in Finland and the Netherlands. Once they arrived they ended up doing a bunch of what they consider to be traditional Finnish activities- going in a sauna, walking around Helsinki, and enjoying the company of the two Finnish sisters whose home they had lived in so many years before.

And this morning, the elder Finnish sister treated them to some fun traditional Finnish breakfast foods (though they ate them after they woke up at 1pm or 13 hours.) They had toasted dark rye bread, with margarine, cheese, turkey and tomato.
They also ate some Karelian pies (a traditional Finnish treat that is made with rolled out rye dough, rice porridge, and a little bit of beaten egg on the top to make it brown nicely in the oven, though theirs were store-bought and warmed at home.)
However, they didn't have them plain. Instead, they went all-out Finnish and had them with chopped up hard boiled egg and lox on top. They also tried some Finnish sweet egg bread (which to the Baker and non-baker tasted like a Rosh Hashanah challah.) Yum. Along with breakfast the Baker had coffee and the non-baker tea, both of which were served in Moomin troll cups.

Creating from scratch

So while it is de rigeur for the Baker to make all of her baked goods from scratch, this story certainly raises the bar as far as all of that goes. She wanted to bake a cake- simple enough, though this is a polenta rather than a regular cake. However, she also wanted this cake to be covered in fondant. Granted this would be a little trickier. And, instead of deciding to go the easy route and buy her own fondant, she decided to make her own. This, knowing the Baker, is not really surprising. The trouble was that fondant requires high fructose corn syrup, something that the Baker would not want to buy because as she doesn't really like it, she'd be unlikely to use it again. So instead she figured out that she could use a mixture of vegetable shortening (which she already had) and simple syrup (which she could easily make) to make fondant. It's the stories like this which, at least in my mind, make her completely awesome.

Here's a version of something that is kind of like the recipe (according to her she may have forgotten ingredients):

The cake:
less than a cup of polenta
half a cup-ish of flour
3/4 cup-ish of sugar
some baking powder
less baking soda
less salt
an egg white or two
vanilla

Now, the for the fondant:

1/2 cup simple syrup
1/2 cup veggie shortening (as she puts it- aka oil)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
1 pounds confectioners sugar

But of course this just left her with a fondant covered cake. Hardly a good enough end product. So she decided to cover it with a mixture of peanut butter, Bailey's, chocolate and coconut. And of course letters with the recipient's name and more decorations, as the simplicity that the baker desires for her own desserts translates into elaborate elements on cakes for others.

Cooking instead of Baking

So, this is one of the few times that the Baker sees something that she likes on television and actually follows the recipe, rather than modifying it. (The recipe was borrowed from the Food Network and so it won't be posted here.) She's more liable to do that when she's cooking since almost all of her baking is all about experimentation.

The Baker decided that she wanted to make oxtail stew, and the picture below is the result.

Of Odd-Shaped Cookies

So now the story of the cookies from beneath the muffins (from last time.)
The Baker decided to make cookies to go with her muffins. But of course they could not be ordinary cookies, what would be the fun in that? So, she decided to make them shofar shaped.

As per the usual, the recipe is an approximation of the amounts of each ingredient added.
2-3 oz cream cheese
a couple of table spoons of butter
half a teaspoon or more of vanilla
a pinch of salt
a pinch of baking soda
2-3 cups white flour
2/3 cup-ish white sugar
half a teaspoon lemon zest
between 1/4-1/2 cup of lemon jusice

bake at 340F for 8-10 minutes.

The Baker notes that they are lemon short bread cookies and kind of remind her of her dad's rugalach because of the cream cheese.