The Taste of Christmas. Part 2.

So we baked the ginger bread today. The dough had been over night in the fridge and was perfect. I had to sprinkle some flour on the table and the rolling pin to prevent it from sticking. They turned out so good, so good. The recipe is in the previous post. Try them also with blue cheese!

I took also a few Christmas photos of decorations at our home. Recycled snow flakes as you can see! :)





Soon I will post photos of the new massage space I am renting with some other massage therapists. It turned out beautiful.

The Taste of Christmas.

This week I have been decorating for Christmas, just a little bit. Candles, a white Christmas star light in the window and we made some decorations with my son - white snow flakes to the window and little red gnomes. The cold and rain is helping me to get in the Christmas mood too, a break in the California sunshine.

Tonight I made a Finnish ginger bread dough while sipping Scandinavian Christmas drink Glögg I bought from Burbank's Ikea. Ikea's Christmas section made me so home sick. The Swedish Christmas decorations look just like the Finnish ones. Tomorrow we are going to bake ginger bread. I want to share the recipe with you. It is not mine, it is an old traditional recipe (Paraisten piparkakut) that I have used since I was a child. They are not healthy, they are not sugar free, they are not vegan but they are the best ginger bread cookies I have ever tasted and they taste like Christmas.

Finnish Gingerbread (Paraisten piparkakut)

1,5 dl (0,65 cups) dark syrup or molasses
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground allspice or black pepper (I prefer allspice, the so called Jamaica pepper, which is also good for fish soup :))
A dash of salt
0,5 tbsp orange peel
250 g / nearly 9 oz butter (or vegetable margarine suitable for baking), take out to soften some time before you start baking
2,5 dl / 1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
8-8,5 dl / 500 g / 3,5 cups white flour or whole wheat pastry flour

Measure the syrup or molasses and the spices in a pot, bring it to boil and let cool down. Beat the butter and sugar to a fluffy mixture. Let the syrup and spice mixture cool down and then slowly mix it to the butter and sugar fluff. Stir well in between. Add the eggs one by one stirring well in between. Mix the baking soda in the flour and add the flour to the dough. Let it set overnight in the fridge.

Baking tips: Roll out small batches at a time, it doesn't stick to the rolling pin and table as much if it is cold. If you roll it over and over again several times, it gets warm and starts to stick to the table and the pin. Use flour to prevent stickiness. Don't try to make it too thin, although I prefer thin ones, they are crispy.

Bake the ginger breads in 350 F (175 C) for 10 minutes or depending on the thickness less or more. Be careful not to burn them!

Happy December to everyone!

Sirpa

PS. Look how the ginger breads turned out from here.

Sneaky veggie pancakes.

 
(the photo is old, we were so hungry today that there was no time for taking photos.)

I am not sure if I really believe in sneaking in vegetables for the picky, oh no, sorry I meant to say selective little eaters because do they really learn to eat the vegetables then if they don't taste or see them? I still do it though, I am not going to lie. I sneak in garbanzo bean powder to tomato sauce, grated zucchini to lasagna and so on.

These spinach carrot pancakes we made today could be categorized in the "sneaking in the veggies" group but the veggies can be seen and tasted too so they are a good bridge to healthy eating. They don't have any sugar either and I serve them with unsweetened apple sauce. My son absolutely loves them. I didn't tell him though that they are spinach carrot pancakes but "space pancakes with green and orange spots". The pan cake recipe is from Finland, and can be made without the veggies too. The traditional recipe is with only spinach, I added the grated carrots for extra color ;)

The pan cake dough is thinner than in the American pancakes and the pancakes are fried bigger and thinner too.

Space pancakes with green and orange spots

A handful of frozen or fresh spinach (I cut the fresh spinach in tiny pieces with scissors and boiled in a small amount of water for a minute or two before adding it to the dough)
One carrot, grated
1-2 eggs
2 cups milk (you can also use soy or rice milk)
1 cup or little bit more flour (the amount of flour depends also a bit of the amount of veggies, you can substitute some of it with whole wheat, oat or even rye flour)
(1 tbsp oil)
1/2-1 tsp sea salt
butter or margarine for frying

Mix the thawed, fresh or boiled spinach, grated carrots and eggs in a big bowl. Add milk, flour, salt and oil. Mix well and let it sit for a few minutes, it thickens if you let it sit. Or you can just add a bit more flour. Do a tiny test pancake to see if you need more flour or liquid. It should be thin enough that it spreads on the pan to a thin pancake, not quite as thin as crepes but something like that. Fry on both sides in butter on a frying pan. I use a steel skillet because I don't like nonstick pans. For crispy pancakes, add the dough on an already heated pan (little bit over medium heat should be good, if it is too hot it will burn) and use your spatula or wiggle the pan to spread the dough evenly on a larger area.

Serve with unsweetened apple sauce - or for a real Scandinavian effect with lingonberry preserves (in the US you can buy lingonberries at least from IKEA). You can also fill them with something. I filled the pancakes once with shredded cheese, alfa alfa sprouts and unsweetened apple sauce and for myself sometimes with feta salad.

Soon-to-be massage therapist reporting

I have been so busy that it is not even true! But I have good news. I will graduate from massage school this week and I rented a massage space from Montrose, CA together with some other therapists. We will need to get the paperwork for state license finished and paint and decorate the room first but soon we can start taking our first clients.

The massage school (Hands on Healing Institute) has been life changing experience for me. Further understanding the connection of body, mind and spirit, how to help the body heal itself and increasing my own body awareness has been an amazing experience. Learning Swedish massage has been wonderful but I think I will also take a lot more electives in other modalities. I am now taking myofascial release, aromatherapy and craniosacral therapy classes first and probably some more later.

I also figured out a way to combine the crafts with the massage business. Kaiku Lifestyle will offer holistic bodywork services and natural recycled and handmade crafts, but maybe with a slight emphasis on heat therapy wraps and possibly some other therapeutic products in the future. I will open the Etsy store soon when I have everything set up.

We are definitively enjoying our new home and life in California although I find moments when I miss my other homes in Finland and Louisiana too.

Stamp stamp stamp!

 

We are getting settled in our new home. There is still a lot to unpack, but you can't unpack all day so today we made potato stamps. We made these a lot when I was a child. I didn't have any rubber stamps at least early in childhood but we had always potatoes.

Basically you just take a raw potato, cut it in half and carve a shape on it. I carved the outlines of the shape first with a knife and then cut the outsides of it off. But you could just leave the outsides too and carve from the middle (look at the photo below to understand better what I am trying to explain). Dip the stamp in paint, or paint the shape with a paint brush. We used poster paint and it was a bit thick for this purpose so next time I will mix it with water. You can also use water colors.

When you get bored with the shape you carved, just cut a layer off and make a new one. You probably know this already but boiled potatoes you can use as a non toxic "glue stick"! Try also what kind of stamps other cut vegetables make.

(My son has a phase in which he only paints with red paint!)

New home and other kind of handicraft.

We are back from our vacation in Finland. It was wonderful to be home again. I enjoyed the familiar food, walking everywhere and the public transport. And the nature of course!

Meanwhile my husband moved our stuff to Los Angeles and now we are living in the middle of boxes. I don't have much time for unpacking, or for my Etsy shop for that matter (I opened it again though, but there aren't any new products right now), because I started my massage therapist course! I am very excited. When we get settled in, I will resume my sewing again.

Talk to you more later!
Sirpa

Gone to Finland.

We are almost finished packing and on Wednesday I will fly to Finland with my son and leave the rest of the move to my husband. I closed my Etsy shop temporarily because I can't ship orders while I am on vacation. I will open it up again latest in July!

My son has been asking for Finnish oven pancake today and I am so glad the recipe was in my blog because I had packed my fridge magnet with my favorite recipe. I added blueberries we picked last summer because I need to empty my freezer. It was soooo good.

I don't know if I have a chance to update while in Finland, if not, see you in July!

Sirpa

Play dough!

 

The internet is full of play dough recipes and all that I have tried have worked well. I made somewith my son today and we used Kool Aid for color (I would never let him drink it though). I am planning to make pink play dough by boiling some beets and using the water instead of Kool Aid or water and some artificial food coloring. Boiling spinach might work for green, haven't tried it yet. Tea for brown, but who wants brown play dough? Do you have tips for making natural dyes for play dough?

Play dough

1 cup flour
1 cup water / Kool Aid / other naturally dyed water
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon oil
1/4 cup salt
(food coloring)

Mix everything and put on medium heat mixing constantly until it thickens. Let cool down before using.

Moving from LA (Louisiana) to L.A. (Los Angeles)

Hi!

I have been so quiet for a long time because I have been occupied with our move to the Los Angeles area. I haven't had time to sew as much as I wanted either and I miss it dearly. I have been sewing desperately needed items like a pouch for the navigator when my husband left with it to France (and he lost it of course, I refuse to make a new one) and a pouch for my new iPhone I got after I had put my open SIGG water bottle in my purse with my old phone. It really was an accident!

Today I made a custom order purse which turned out really nice. It will be hard to part with it (as usual...). The customer said which colors she likes, size etc. and otherwise I had complete freedom. I enjoyed the bag creating process immensely. I really like to work like that, that when I start, I am not sure how the end result will look like.


It is reversible. Fabrics are all recycled. The turquoise with flowers is from a vintage table cloth, the solid color turquoise is from a cotton linen dress I shortened. The yellow-orange fabric is a thrift store find, maybe a table cloth (the tag said: "Made in Hawaii"!)



We are now packing like maniacs and in two weeks me and my son will fly to Finland for a holiday and my husband will see that our stuff gets to California. We will get a moving service and he will fly because it is a very long drive from Louisiana to California. I will close my Etsy shop for when I am out of the country because I won't be able to ship anything in three weeks and where I am staying there might not be internet connection. But I will open the shop in the end of June again.

With love from the middle of the boxes, trying hard to be present and not to worry,

Sirpa

Kaiku Lifestyle's most popular item until now!

Kaiku Lifestyle's most popular (most sold / requested) item this spring has been this cell phone cozy, made with vintage fabrics. The cover fabric is from an old curtain and the lining is from an incredible yellow quilted robe. Both fabrics are most likely to be from 1960's or 1970's.



The phone cozy is available through my Etsy store ($15)

Built a house.

I got a big cardboard box from a friend and made a house for my son. It was such a fun project because we painted it together. It has a window and a door. And when we don't want it anymore we can throw it away! Or patch the window, close the door and use it for storage. I love it.


Sirpa

Cute cute phone cozy.

I made these cute cute cell phone / iPhone cozies with a wonderful vintage fabric I bought the other day from Goodwill. The fabric is from an old jacket that looks like it might have been part of medical scrubs. The fabric is rather interesting blend of cotton and polyester and 1 % stainless steel! Lining is made of white recycled fabric, interfacing is new cotton flannel. Velcro fastening inside.


 

Available for sale at my Etsy store or through custom order as long as I have fabric left. I tried the cozy for my 3G iPhone and it fits well (without any extra shells, skins etc. at least).

Oooooh, 70's fabrics.

Yesterday was a good day. I found beautiful fabrics from a thrift store not to mention outfits for next week's 70's party.

I am so deeply grateful to someone who in the seventies bought all this fabric (yards and yards of it). Maybe his or her intention was to make curtains. But it never happened and the fabric ended up 30 years later to a thrift store. It was a bargain too, 15 dollars for maybe around 10 yards. I have no idea what to make of it yet! It would be so good for many things, curtains, pillows, bags and so on. Look, here is a close up below.

 

And some other fabric finds.

Cabbage casserole helps a Finn in homesickness.

When I am homesick, I often make Finnish cabbage casserole. The smell of the food fills the whole house and it smells like home. Today I just made it because I had a cabbage in my fridge and remembered to start cooking early enough before dinner time. Cabbage casserole takes a long time before it is ready.

The traditional one has meat in it but I make it with soy. Here is my recipe. I rarely measure when I cook so I can't say exact measurements, but you can't really go wrong with cabbage casserole.

KAALILAATIKKO, Finnish cabbage casserole

1 head of cabbage
Approximately 1-1,5 cups of barley (if you don't have barley, you can use also rice
1 package of some kind of soy crumbs or equivalent amount of dried crumbs soaked in water (or I guess some kind of meat will do too)
Butter
Water
Vegetable bouillion cube
Pepper
Salt
App. 2 tbsp of dark syrup (I use in the US the one from IKEA, because it is most like the Finnish dark syrup, it is made of sugar beets, but again I am sure molasses will work fine)
Bread crumbs
(Cheese, grated, optional)

Boil the barley or rice tender or almost tender depending how much time you have to keep it in the oven later.

Cut the cabbage in small pieces, I prefer short and thin strips. Fry it in a big sauce pan small amount of butter, mix well so it won't burn. Add the soy crumbs (if they are from the freezer or cold section you don't have to do anything to them, but if they are plain and dry, soak them in water and some spices like soy sauce and paprika and after that fry them separately). Add also a bit of water, not much, 1 cup or so, just so that the cabbage and soy won't burn. Add vegetable bouillion and put the lid on and wait until the barley is done too. Mix them all together and add syrup, salt and pepper.

Grease a baking dish, big enough to fit all this in. Pour the mixture in the pan and put (grated cheese and) bread crumbs on the top. On top of everything, drop a few little lumps of butter. Bake in the oven in about 350 F for an hour or two. If you have a lot of time, you can keep the oven on a very low temperature and keep it there for hours. The better the taste. I usually turn off the oven after an hour or so and let it sit in the warm oven until we get too hungry.

Keep an eye on it though while it is in the oven. If it gets too dry, add a bit of water. Don't let it burn either. If you are in a hurry, you can bake it in 400 degrees and it will be ready in a little bit less than an hour.

Serve with lingonberry preserves (I buy mine in US from IKEA) and finely grated carrots (add a bit of orange juice and raisins if you wish).

Eggplants from heaven.

My blog friend who lives in Israel has this amazing eggplant recipe on her blog. I have been planning to make this for ages and finally I had all the ingredients at the same time (well, almost, I didn't read the whole recipe and I didn't have fresh tomatoes so I replaced them with canned diced tomatoes, probably not as good as the real things). This was so good that my husband was speechless. The recipe behind that link above is in Finnish so here it is in American:

Eggplants with yoghurt-tahini sauce

2 eggplants
1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)
1/2 cup greek plain yoghurt
juice from 1 lemon
3 crushed garlic cloves
salt
pepper
2 tomatoes
1 tbsp olive oil

Cook or actually blacken the whole unpeeled eggplants either straight on top of your gas stove in the flame or in the oven under the broil until they are soft inside and black outside.

Mix the sauce. Mix tahini, yoghurt, garlic, lemon, salt and pepper. Grate the tomatoes.

When the eggplants are ready, cut them in half lenghtwise, top with the sauce, tomatoes and olive oil (and some fresh thyme if you have some).