A wednesday supper

Life is busy at the moment. The days at work are getting longer and I was caught out this morning sending an e-mail before 7am. Still I came home prepared for tomorrow as opposed to running to catch up. So once home we made a simple midweek supper. I hope you like it.

Salmon with Red rice and vegetable medley
Serves 2

The idea with this dish was to have sort of Miso crust on top of the salmon and if I'm honest tonight's effort represented the first attempt. If you follow the instructions below you will get the miso flavour but not the crust. I need to work on in but I thought you should know. It falls nicely into three parts.

Salmon steaks deboned
Mixture of wild red rice and basmati rice 400g*
Garlic 2 cloves finely chopped
Half a pepper cut into strips
3 sticks of celery chopped
2 large mushrooms finely chopped
Miso paste
Soy sauce
Chinese rice wine
Vegetable oil 1 tablespoon

1)
Put the one and half times the volume of water in a saucepan with the rice.
Put on a ring and bring to the boil.
Boil hard for 3 minutes or so
Simmer on a low heat with the lid on for just over 10 minutes
Take off the heat, do not touch the lid and leave for about 15 minutes.

2)
Heat the oil in a pan, add the garlic, celery and fry gently. Add the mushrooms. Add a dash of soy sauce and rice wine.
When cooked remove from the heat and set in a bowl.

3)
Spread some miso paste on the side you want to be the presentation side.
Make sure the pan is very hot.
Put the salmon in miso side down and cook quickly.
Turn over and allow to continue cooking.

Just before the salmon is finishedon down add the vegetables and rice together.
Serve the salmon on the bed of rice.

*The reason for so much is the leftovers create a handy lunch.

*****
We also made some lovely chicken stock out of the bones from the chicken the other night which ended up as roast chicken with cheesey mashed potatoes, pesto and roast tomatoes. It was lovely. We used most of the chicken leftovers in a tasty minty meal last night but still have enough for one more meal. So one chicken has made 3 meals and provided stock for a lot more. That's the kitchen working the way we like.

*****
I have finished reading my book and enjoyed it very much. I look forward to putting some thoughts up here soon.

There's a beer festival in Helsinki on Saturday and I am very much looking forward to it.

Until next time, waste nothing, learn Finnish and play guitar.

A river runs

News from New Zealand this morning on how small Neil Finn really is seems to be the perfect way to start the day. Yesterday we were in the company of good friends and the the day and the night flowed in a slightly offbeat fashion and I had the chance to let my more surreal view of the world out to play. I mentioned in a previous posting (here) that I had the first sentence to a novel in a dream. I think the humourous motif that ran through the day gave me a bit more of the story. Now I have some research to do. Then maybe one day I will write it.

We saw three football games, a grand prix qualifier and an ice hockey game almost simultaneously yesterday which may explain the enormous quantities of bad beer that was consumed. We also ate out at Dong Bei Hu and I enjoyed my food although I was told in no uncertain terms that it was not authentic enough. The, obvious, result of this disappointment was that a plan was hatched to take over my boss' flat (we need a gas stove and currently it's the only one we can get access to), heat a wok up to a temperature that will cause any alcohol vapours to ignite spectacularly and then cook the dish properly. It involves sustaining this kind of heat for 15 minutes. Even today the Kitchen thinks this is an excellent way to proceed short of going to China for 3 weeks which was also discussed quite seriously last night. I look forward to the results and keeping my eyebrows.

Finally we retired to the comfortable surroundings of Teerenpeli and talked life, love, movies, music and the universe until we all turned into pumpkins. Oh & I promised to take the boss to see the Boss much to her apparent disgust. I think she's going to have a great time at that Bruce Springsteen concert.

Today the Kitchen is meant to be cooking a whole roast chicken with pesto butter served with sweet potatoes and oven roasted onions and tomatoes.

However given our current energy levels this may not be a realsitic option and despite the rain I think we may go for a walk in the city centre. However I will have some preparation to do so here are is what I'm going to do with tomatoes:

Oven Roast Tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 120C

Slice the tomatoes in half and deeseed

Place on a tray and lightle oil and season

Roast for about 3 hours.

A salad for the day after the night before

This may seem obvious, it may not so I offer it here on it's own merits. When preparing your food think about how you want it to look when it is all put together and set on the table. Tonight's supper was a simple affair, the first salad of the spring and very lovely it was too. What elevated it over the humble was me thinking about how the ingredients were working out with each other.

I started out with the basic idea of doing something with Basil, Tomatoes and Mozarella. I knew that I was going to slice the mozarella and the tomatoes and once it grew into a bigger salad than that I knew the other elements should not compete with the big milky whiteness and the tomatoes. Make it and enjoy!

Various salad leaves
Tomatoes sliced
Mozarella sliced
Red Onion finely diced
Cucumber finely diced
Mushrooms extra finely diced
Parmesan - small shavings
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Salt
Pepper

I don't think I need to go into the intricacies of how to put this together but this dish lends itself to more or less love depending on your energy levels. I was out at the excellent Tapista last night and consequently wasn't feeling the most energetic. However I know that the mushrooms could be fried, bacon could be added, the oil and vinegar could be worked up into a real vinagrete. Let your imagination work wonders for your fridge.

*****

Spring is here and I enjoyed the long walk from the central railway station to the British embassy to lodge my passport application. The weather was glorious and to just enjoy the sunshine and look at the buildings was a treat. I was really struck by the number of buildings in Helsinki adorned by carvings of animals and I wonder whether there is a maybe a photographic project here for me. So many creative things going on at the moment is extremely exciting, a little hectic and a good sign about where life is.

*****

Tomorrow is football, beer, ice hockey beer and beer in town. Should be fun, I'm not a football fan but there will be good people there and that is good enough for me. I'm even going to miss American Idol for it. They must be good people!

Waste nothing and love living in Finland.

Coming out of the closet.

I am in a confessional mood this evening. The Kitchen has been wrecked by my recent rampant workaholism and I have been bad at finding time to cook. I did however manage to make a quick pasta supper this evening which went down well. To make this really good I recommend that you make your own sausage meat. This is a lot easier than it sounds and I will get round to posting on this in the future.

Sausage and creamy tomato sauce with Pasta

Olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 dried chilli
300g sausage meat
1 400ml tin of tomatoes
1 red onion
100g mushrooms
75ml double cream
Pasta
Parmesan
Salt & Pepper
Thyme

Heat some olive oil in a pan.
Chop the garlic and the chilli and fry gently.
Add the sausage meat and red onion.
After a few minutes add the tomatoes and the cream.
Season with salt, pepper and thyme.
Cook gently for 10 minutes or so.
Put on a pan of salted water and when it is at a rolling boil add the pasta. I like to make this with penne but can you go with whatever works for you.

Mix and serve with parmesan and pepper.

This dish is a great base for midweek suppers. You can speed it up or slow it down according to your evening. It is also very forgiving with other ingredients: peppers and mushrooms especially but I can imagine some black kalamata olives adding a nice bite or some spinach wilted into this working really well.

******

Lots of things have been keeping me out of the Kitchen recently besides work including reading "If nobody speaks of remarkable things" by Jon McGregor, writing some fantastic songs for the new Pebble album, learning Finnish and going back to the confessional mode that started me this evening(what is about blogging that encourages this?) my burgeoning addiction to the latest season of American Idol and Bones.

******

No movie night tomorrow night as I'm taking my team out for a thank you meal and boy have they earned it. I intend to drink a glass of red wine and relax and Friday is a free day and Saturday we are going to make an unusual foray into the world of premier league football. We have been promised beer which should work as a lovely sedative. Next week is the Helsinki beer festival and they will be featuring Danish Microbreweries which should be an excellent day.

Waste nothing and learn Finnish

Australia

I am sorry to report that the film adaptation of Love in the time of Cholera was as bad as feared.
No make that it was worse than feared. I know it is hard when a book that is special to you is turned into a film. There is always a danger of disappointment. As an optimistic person I always hope that a film like this will turn out like the film another one of my all time favourite books: The English Patient. Alas it was not to be and I could not wait for the film to end. C'est la vie and in a bizarre twist of fate I am looking forward to rereading Love in the time of Cholera as an act of claiming it anew.

The world is growing lighter and in a nod to that Saturday turned out to be a beautifully relaxed day dictated more by the enjoyment of spending time with friends and drinking a beer (or two!) than doing the jobs than needed doing. We introduced a good friend to Black Door and enjoyed a pint of real ale. Can I please go link crazy and suggest that everyone in the known universe checks out this page The boss & I ended up having a Chinese lunch/dinner at a place called Long Wall which was an OK experience. I think we ended up eating from the chinese menu and it was certainly a spicy experience. One I would think about returning to.

Today I have been at work which is boring but despite the rain this morning I decided to cycle. Now these days dressing in my cycling gear resembles the process a NASA astronaut goes through to prepare for a zero G space walk. I decided it was time to further complicate this process by adding my iPod to the mix. It was a great ride in (slightly more sedate on the way home) but made memorable by the inclusion of this gem from the Manic Street Preachers. I love the way that you can mishear lyrics, but that is another post.

Finally, the Helsinki beer festival is coming up and I'm looking for willing victims (I mean friends) to join me...you know who you are, get in touch and the Monkey House Kitchen will do the rest!

Hija de la fortuna

I have finally finished this book and while I love to read I find myself somewhat frustrated by it. It started with some kind of Gabriel Garcia Marquez magic and became a linear story that invested time in creating charcters and yet ultimately left them hanging while it tried to get itself to then ending that it had already signposted. However, I think it is very easy to use strong words to convey an opionion on a book and maybe it is better to speak with a softer voice.

This novel is unapolegetically episodic and is written strongly enough to propel the narrative to a conclusion. It is an enjoyable read. It would be a good holiday read. However it's problem is that it seems to be punching above it's weight as a piece of literature. It creates fantastical situations but does not invest time in making them wonderful. It is as if it is somehow a better book in a hurry. It seemed impatient to get to it's ending. Or was that me? If I can give an example, the Sommer's house in Chile seemed like a checklist of a fantastical south american house: English spinster with mysterious past - check. Indian cook whose cooking is amazing - check. Lead character who cannot be tamed - check. This kind of writing by numbers unfortunately comes off as sloppy when compared to the giants of the genre. The images it conjoured in my mind are stock hollywood cliches, which while revelaing a lot about my mind makes me realise that this book feels like it was written with a screenplay adaptation in mind that would create and oscar winning epic. That is perhaps a bad thing to wrtie about a book that entertained me. I should say that I never regret reading a book, however much it may annoy/challenge me (take a bow Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain) and this is no exception. However I am not drawn to read another one of her books on this experience.

My next read was a recommendation from a friend and I am very curious to see what it brings. I have in turn recommened Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. We are going to see the movie adaptation of the book on Thursday night and I am worried. I fear that it will be bad enough to destroy my friend's temptation to read the book. I am, definately, fearing the worst.

Indecision

Where to begin?

Maybe with the confession that I started watching Norwegian seasame street last night after the kitchen closed up? Or should I talk about how that led me to finding REM's legendary performance of Furry Happy Monsters? I want to talk about how we've been out walking on a frozen snow covered lake under beautiful blue skies? I want to mention Moro, who provided the basic recipes for yesterday's gathering. And yet, and yet...I am going to go and play my guitar and finish writing these songs that have been sitting there while I've been lazy and doing other stuff.

What I will say is that we have a load of left overs from yesterday and I've had the idea to curry them up and we have some assorted vegetables in the fridge and it's going to be a good feeling to know that nothing will be wasted.