Sunday Gourmet news

Last sunday we had japanese dinner - sushi of course and a salad. As you can see we skipped the dessert this time - beach season is not far away.... The salad was quite usual but sushi was inspiring. I didn't imagine it's so easy to prepare. But it was.
And so we had sushi again this saturday at home.

Japanese girls - Luna and our Head Chef

Today it was italian evening. I must say, once again, that italian kitchen is by far the best. Althoug we didn't have either of my two favourites - pasta and pizza (that would have been too "everyday") it was still one of the best dinners ever. In my opinion the appetizers are always most interesting and tasty part of the evening. Today we had three of them - crissini with parma ham and melon, bruschetta, and cheese souffle. Divine! Main course was pork chops in blueberry sauce with green salad.
And dessert was Triin-made ice-cream. It had some fancy italian name that I don't remember. But it was so good, mmmm... I didn't even think about the beach season.

Luna doesn't particularly like italian...

And I will not tell what Tristan did later that night...

Blondes have more fun!

Holiday season 2011

This Christmas I happened upon a really big bunch of santas helpers, one of them very special, flying one. 

I guessed it's a good sign and I was right. I got soo good presents, a lot of them. Kindle among the others - I'm a bit more modern person now. No more waiting for the books for several weeks to arrive per post. Although it seems that lately I have less and less time for reading. It has to do with the one special elf, apparently.

                                                                    
The lookalike  babies - 11 years apart. I made some christmas presents for my mother and MIL, using the new and old baby pictures. Isn't Luna a copy of Tristan, huh?
















We had russian dinner at the boxing day. Blinis with sour cream and caviar, mushroom soup and honey cake. Quite good and I'm proud to say quite authentic. The latter cannot be said about our New Year's dinner what was supposed to be french. We had some french dishes but also many others. So I guess we have to repeat this one sometime.



But anyhoo,  have a good 2012!

I joined a club.

Actually, to be precise, I cofounded a club. Due to the lack of better name I call it the Sunday Gourmet Club. The story behind it is that one sunday evening we had a dinner at our friends, a little pre-christmas thing with typical Estonian christmas-new year food and somehow we came to an idea that it would be fun to have a dinner together every sunday. As to make the experience as well educating as tasty we decided to choose a different country cuisine each time.

So the first one was Georgia.
As appetisers we had khachapuri - breads filled with suluguni cheese. I quite liked them. http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/hatsapuri.html
The main course was Chakhokhbili  -  a chicken with herbs in tomato-onion sauce. Served with rice. Well I adore tomatos and the onions are my friends as well, so that was definitely a good choice from my point of view:  http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/kana-tsahhobili.html 
As dessert we had georgian nutcake :) I don't know the fancy name for that one. The recipe was found in a blog of a georgian girl. http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/gruusia-pahklikook.html The cake seemed to be ok at the dinner but it was really superb next day.

Of course we had georgian wine and music. The only thing we did not prepare, I'm deeply ashamed to say, were the famous georgian toasts. I hope the gods of wine forgive us. There's always room for improvement...

****

Today was the second gathering and the theme was Mexico.
Appetizer: nachos with cheese dip, salsa and guacamole, the latter prepared by me (it's the proud moment now). And chili-lime potato chips. And of course Corona beer.  I must admit, all that was a bit boring and predictable choice. But we all loved it, so there!
The main course was mexican baked salmon with taco seasoning, accompanied by the pico de gallo salad. Hot, hot, hot! So good! Even Tristan cleared his plate without any grumble. And that's a real compliment.  http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/mehhikoparane-lohefilee.html
The dessert was flan - very big thing in Mexico. Basically it's baked custard with caramel topping. It looks really good and sunny. Taste is ok too, but nothing too special. Even a bit boring. I personally liked the georgian cake better. http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/flan.html
And mojitos, original or virgin (there were children in our little company... and myself providing fresh gourmet milkdinner for my baby girl).

We also drew the lots for the next time. The system namely is that everybody at the table names a country or two who's dishes she or he would like to eat. All of those are written on scraps of papers and then somebody draws one from the bowl. Today little Luna did the honors and Russian kitchen was chosen. Not particularly exiting as this theme is a little too familiar for us here in Estonia, but as it will also be our christmas party I'm sure we'll come up with something interesting. At least usually the russian dishes fit one of the christmas dinner conditions - you cannot move yourself after eating them for a good while. And I can sing at least one russian christmas song :) Be afraid, be very afraid!

Pumpkin gourmet...

... or what to do with the leftovers of a jack-o-lantern vol 2.

This is the pumpkin we carved this year.
The seeds from it now belong to our miniature hamster Totoro. He can enjoy them until spring I guess or even longer. But what to do with the juicy pumpkin itself?
Last year it was the pumpkin pie - big disappointment. So no pie this year.

Let's try soup:
1/2 kg of pumpkin
3 carrots
3 potatoes
1 onion
1 garlic clove
cut all of this into pieces.

Saute them in a a spoonful of butter and splash of cooking oil, then add appr. 1 dl of water and half a bouillon cube (f.ex chicken flavored). Let it boil for ~20 minutes until the veggies are tender. Then transfer them to a blender in small patches and process until smooth.
Add 2 dl milk and appr. a cup of grated cheese to the soup. I used smoked cheese. Add also some salt (not much as the bouillon and cheese are already salty) and pepper. Heat until almost boiling. Then remove from the stove. Serve with homemade croutons. Accept the praise :)
Not a single drop was left over. Soup beat the pie big time.

Best things in life

I discovered that I haven't written anything almost for a year, as if nothing important has happened. The truth is quite the opposite - amazing and life-altering things have been going on. I'm now the happy mom of two. Additionally to my terrific son I now have most adorable little girl.
She is already 3 months old now and so perfect in every way. It's kind of frightening, the responsibility. I remember the feeling from the time 11 years ago when my son was born. The fear that I cannot give him or now her the world that they deserve. That I somehow ruin this fragile perfection, this trust and belief in me. The world just seems to big and bad. But I guess I have to try my best and hope that it works out somehow...

Today as I watched her waking up in the morning - the streching, yawning, rubbing the eyes with tiny fists... for some minutes. Then suddenly two round blue eyes opened, looking around. And when she spotted me, a big smile came - I cannot imagine sweeter way to begin a day.
Oh well, I guess in 11 years she too will probably too roll her eyes and say "jeeezh" on every second thing I say but I still will remember this smile. I just know.

Wicked Appetite

I finished the book yesterday and although I'm sorry to say it, Janet Evanovich being one of my favourite authors and all, but I was really disappointed. I didn't laugh out loud even once, like I usually do reading her books.
I liked the between-the-numbers quite well before. I also liked Diesel and Carl in Plum books, but this one...
Firstly, the main character.... Lizzie?... was really boring. If I should describe her, the only thing I remember, would be that she made good cupcakes. She was not funny, not especially smart.... too sensible and average to be the protagonist at least in a Evanovich book. Throughout the book I was not once worried that something might happen to her - just didn't care.
There was one character though that I really liked - The Cat. She (he?) was great - mysterious and with attitude. Great pet for unmentionable series. But I really didn't see why Carl was dragged into this book at all. He had no role to fulfill. He only ate, went "eep" and gave finger on every second page. It grew tedious quite quickly.
I also liked Diesel better before. Here in this book he was pretty much just an average cute guy. Almost nothing left of his quircky humour and cool attitude. The chemistry between Diesel and Lizzie seemed to be very bland too. Maybe I just liked Diesel more with Stephanie, them both being sarcastic and quick-witted. There wasn't that kind of spark present in Wicked appetite.

I borrowed this book from a friend and I'm sad to say that that's the first Evanovich book (except the early romances) that I don't feel that I need to buy for myself for occasional re-reading . But I guess I will read the sequels in the future though... If nothing more then for Cat's sake.
And let's be honest, even mediocre evanovich is better than most of other authors' best books.