Sunday, April 26, 2015

SPRING SOUP

ASPARAGUS+FENNEL+NETTLE

Asparagus+fennel+nettle soup photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
If you have seen my Instagram feed, you know that I've chosen to be a cook for a whole weekend. My husband had a birthday on Friday so one part of his present is to let him just enjoy of eating - not making it. He likes to cook a lot but you know who wouldn't like to just sit at the readymade table?

I found great inspiration from Green Kitchen Stories blog. You can find the original recipe there.  Actually I saw their delicious pic in IG. Surprise! It really looked very tempting. 

So I made it. But I made some changes to the recipe. I changed spinach to nettle, because you can find it almost right next to our door this time of the year (yay!...and it's free ;) and it is also very healthy. Second change was replacing lemon with buckthorn juice. I can't eat citrus fruits so I used very scandinavian choise that is quite similar or at least a bit close ;) and garnishing with goutweed. That you can also find from garden (too) easily.

What can I say. It tasted heavenly. Very good and the toppings! I haven't thought it well before that you really can do amazing things with toppings. You don't have to eat so much bread (expecially if it have to be gluten free) you can eat some really nice things with your soup like here: lentils, asparagus, parsley, green chili, pumkin seeds and cashew cream. So this recipe is also totally vegan too.

One big nod to David and Luise for this beautiful and tasteful recipe. I had to write it down to my vintage (straight from the seventies - it has only plastic artifical food things in it's cover) recipe book and that is a book where we only write the best ones.

Have a tasty Sunday!

xo
Kreetta

ps. I took this photo with my husband's camera because I was too lazy to take my camera home and yesterday when I made the soup I just had to photograph it. He has smaller and older Canon and the lens was Voightländer 90mm and with cropped sensor it's really tele...and only manual focusing...it's always a bit uncomfortable when you don't have your own gear and well, you have to work a bit more with making one pic, I say.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

COOL DIY - MARBLING

PAPER AND RIBBON WITH NAIL POLISH

If you have old nail polishes hanging around in your beauty box or in a fridge like I have - now you can get rid of them :) Many years ago someone told me that it is good to keep your nail polishes in fridge. They last longer. So I did. I think oldest nail polishes I have are from the beginning of the 2000's. 

DIY marbling photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com

This is fun. Marbling. You need:

water 
plastic or glass pin (at least size of your paper) 
nail polish (few colors)
paper ( I used aquarelle) 
cotton ribbon
some kind of stick (like those you get from chinese takeaway)
plastic gloves 
nail polish remover (for cleaning up) 
GOOD VENTILATION - expecially the older nail polishes smells strongly

...and then you should cover the table with newspapers or something else because there will be a bit of mess and nail polish isn't water soluble.

DIY marbling photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
How to do it?

Thursday, April 16, 2015

PANCAKES PANCAKES

ONE BANANA, EGG AND BAKING POWDER

banana pancake photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com


What do you think? Easy is hard to resist. Only three ingredients and you have a tasty dessert there. Or even lunch like I had. I think the most important is what you eat with them. I candied almond and walnut in indian sugar and canola oil. But surely it is worth to test coconut oil - it might be even better. Then I had fresh mango. Yummy. Almost healthy?

I do have made these before but this time I saw some nice pics in IG and decided to have a very easy lunch. It's a bit challenging to fry them because banana pancakes burn quite easily. So remember not to hurry too much :)


Banana pancakes for one - gluten and dairy free

1 banana 
1 egg (maybe 1,5 - frying is easier when there is more egg)
less than 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
oil (what ever you choose) for frying

with almond+walnut+fresh mango

You can fry nuts in sugar+oil mix and add a bit water after few minutes so you get a bit nice sauce too.

I say delicious!


xo
Kreetta

Sunday, April 12, 2015

TRENDING FOODIE

LIVING IN A HOT SPOT

foodie in the garden photo:Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
It feels hot in my fingertips. But I just can't wait. I want to eat it now! Street food for hungry foodie. Going to celebrate friend's birthday. It have to be something special. We choose restaurant. Middle East Cuisine is trending. Special food for special people. I have to avoid certain ingredients. They make me sick. I want to eat healthy way. Different kind of diets makes the cuisine's of the world going upside down. Vegan is not the curse word anymore? Random thoughts of food.

grilled  photo:Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com

Food is everywhere. It is overheated phenomenon. 

grilled  photo:Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
Yesterday I saw 2 great television programs in channel Teema. Both of them was about food. The first one was a document of jetset foodies who travel the world to go best restaurants. They want to taste the best food in the whole world. No matter how much it costs. It was called Foodies - The Culinary Jetset. It was made in Sweden 2014. After that channel Teema showed a film Babettes gæstebud. In Finnish it is Ranskalainen illallinen and in English Babette's feast. Babette's Feast was the first Danish cinema film of a Karen Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. I think it was charming film. A bit like a fairy tale. 

grilled  photo:Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
These two films together were thought provoking. I've been planning to make a project about the food and now I really have to begin. Originally I had a plan to start it in January 2015 but I've been too busy to begin...or lazy, haha.

These pics are from the last summer. We usually grill a lot during summer and we eat it in our garden. Yesterday we made our first grilling this year but it wasn't enough warm to feast in the garden. Yet.

As I wrote before...these were random thoughts of food.

Have a great Sunday!

xo
Kreetta

Thursday, April 9, 2015

BRAIN FOOD

I need proper food. I have missed my favorite nuts: almond and walnut. Maybe that's why I haven't been feeling well. But today we went to get our precious nuts from - our best local grocery shop ever - Liike51. It is the superb grocery shop of local, organic and French delicacy.

brain food photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com

Well, when we went there I found the most beautiful pomegranate, pears and mango. I had to photograph them because you have to see them too! So this picture is called Brain food. Actually in Liike51 one customer saw our shoppings and she said "Hey that is brain food!" She was right :)

xo
Kreetta

Monday, April 6, 2015

EASTER EDITION

INDIAN CUISINE MEETS FRENCH KITCHEN WITH SCANDINAVIAN TWIST

Easter dinner photo by Kreetta Järvenpää blog:www.gretchengretchen.com
I love to work with intuition. When talking about food I often have certain taste in my mind what I would like to eat and of course when I'm cooking I try to reach that.

Easter dinner photo by Kreetta Järvenpää blog:www.gretchengretchen.com

But have to admit I don't always get there, haha. Today I wanted to make some strong flavors with little twist of something that is new to us. 

Friday, April 3, 2015

LAZY DAY GOOD FRIDAY WITH AVOCADO SOUP


cold avocado soup photo by Kreetta Järvenpää blog: www.gretchengretchen.com

Have you waited eagerly the Easter vacation? I have. Lazy Friday is the best what you can have. I hope you have a lovely long weekend ahead of you. I have had a very interesting week. So many things has happened. Or maybe not yet happened but many ideas were born and I can't wait to get making them! We also have a small kitchen facelift at our workspace going on so I can't wait to see it ready!

cold avocado soup photo by Kreetta Järvenpää blog: www.gretchengretchen.com
This week I had a guest from Berlin. Pauliina is a journalist and blogger behind the food blog Boiling Under. We decided to try cold avocado soup while having very interesting conversations - so interesting that time just ran out and we had to hurry to airport :) and the rest of her travelling is history. Awful storm in Berlin brought the plane back to Finland after 2 aborted landings. People was sick of fear. But they are safe now. 

Well, back to the avocado soup. Recipe was from here. It is in Finnish and it's a very very basic recipe so we changed and added some ingredients. I think you can do the soup without recipe only by knowing the ingredients. We made dairy free version of it so we used oat iMat fraishe from Oatly. We tested the soup with soy yogurt too but we liked the oat better. I also changed the lemon to sea-buckthorn juice because I can't eat lemon or other citrus fruits. So we made two versions of the soup :)

Ingredients you need:

avocado
cucumber
garlic
some water
lemon or sea-buckthorn
Turkish Yogurt or oat iMat fraishe
salt and pepper

...we added fresh coriander and I think that was a very good choise. If we have had time a bit more I would have toasted seeds like sunflower or pumpkin. You just blend all together with hand blender. Very easy and of course you have to taste when the soup is ready. I also think one should try this soup with adding a bit chili there...

And yes we had to photograph it :) It was cold already so it was ok to shoot some time. Of course fresh coriander start to wilt.

sweet with tea  photo by Kreetta Järvenpää blog: www.gretchengretchen.com



Later that evening I made tea and ate delicious cookies I got from Pauliina. She had bought them from Cafe Suvanto...I think. Evening light was beautiful too.

vintage props photo by Kreetta Järvenpää blog: www.gretchengretchen.com
On Wednesday we were working in the workspace's kitchen and yesterday we started to paint it and I also made something I had planned for awhile. I visited great vintage/antique shop in Hyvinkää. I have this thing calle vintage madness or something like that ;) I found some treasures as you can see. Props for food and lifestyle pics. Now I also have the official espresso cup, haha. It is the blue and white mocha cup and the plate in picture. Actually it is very old and it's  made by Arabia. Design is called Maisema - Landscape. It is made in 1930-1940's - my newest treasure. You can't find these very easily. I also bought some old fabrics and yesterday evening I went through Pinterest to get some ideas to make something.

So here we are back in this Friday. I wish you a very calm and beautiful Easter days! Let's hope we see the sun too :)

xoxo
Kreetta
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