Now that is a good directive!  Yes, please.

Today I read an article on Mashable.com titled Plastic-Eating Fungi Found in the Amazon May Solve the World’s Waste Problem.  

“A group of students and professors from Yale University have found a fungi in the Amazon rainforest that can degrade and utilize the common plastic polyurethane (PUR).”


This is good news for us, who live in a world where PUR is one of the largest forms of waste – filling our ditches and our oceans, our beaches and our forests with waste.  But the bigger problem still lies at the source of PUR:  You and I as consumers and the companies from whom we buy our goods who tend to prefer plastic products or products wrapped in plastic over other methods.  Even products that arguably don’t benefit the user in any way by being wrapped in plastic:  individually wrapped bell peppers (paprika for some of you), parsnips, plastic tubs for tomatoes, styrofoam (plastic) wrapped packages of beans, apples individually wrapped in styrofoam netting…this is just the beginning of the waste.  Even my flowers often come tucked in plastic.  Or how about any electronic item you’ve ever received – I sometimes wonder how long it takes the assembly line workers at the electronics manufacturers in Asia to wrap the cables and metal ends and boxes in plastic, and shrink wrap and cardboard and more shrink wrap.  Why?  Some manufacturers are moving away from plastic and using recyclable cardboard instead, and I commend this.

I wait all winter for these happy buds to bloom!

When summer comes and I do a happy dance because it means I can shop at the market.  There I see towering piles of fruits and vegetables – which are not wrapped in plastic – in fact, they are usually arranged in reusable wooden or cardboard boxes.  And when I buy them, I receive them in paper, not plastic bags, which I can then recycle.  Yes, some plastic can be recycled.  But the rules in so many parts of the world are complicated, and not all plastic is created equal.

In the beginning of summer

But we don’t have to wait for summer.  If you are buying a nice, long leek (purjo) in the winter, does in really benefit you to stick one end in the plastic bag, slap the label you’ve just printed on to the bag, and have the other end sticking out?  Or put bags around all of the other produce you buy?  Or opt for plastic at all when you are at the grocery store – there is usually a paper option.

And many stores around the world have started to make us pay for the bags we use at the checkout to pack our groceries in if we don’t bring our own.  I’m plenty guilty of reaching for another plastic bag, and the 25 cent fee for it doesn’t slow me down at all.

So yes, it’s great news that there is fungi out there growing in the Amazon that may help us get rid of the plastic that already exists.  And though this blog isn’t designed so that I can stand on a soap box and tell you to change your ways, I can’t help but note the irony of such a discovery by the same humans who caused the trouble in the first place.

With that, I bring you my recipe for today:  Spring is arriving slowly in Finland, as these spring onions attest.  Let the (plastic free) celebration begin!  And I’ll get better at bringing my own bags food shopping.


Blue Cheese, Roasted Tomato, Spring Onion Quiche

Kale…and just a little plastic

Filling

Whisk together, then set aside:

4 eggs

1 cup milk

Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Heat for 30 seconds, then add:

3 spring onions, sliced thinly into rounds

Cook until onion softens, about 3 minutes.  Then add:

1 cup oven-roasted cherry tomatoes

Just before roasting – love the ray of sunshine!

Cook 3 minutes longer to heat tomatoes thoroughly  Remove from heat.  Stir in:

1/2 cup blue cheese, chopped into small pieces

1 cup mild cheese, shredded (mozzarella or edam work well here)

Stir mixture to combine, and pour into the prepared crust.  Pour the egg mixture evenly over the top, and bake in oven for 30 minutes  or until the top puffs slightly and the quiche is a dark golden brown.  Let rest for 10 minutes.  Serve with green salad.

Serves 6-8, depending on how hungry you are.

Preserved Lemons in Spring Sunshine

Three weeks is a long time to wait for food.  Of course I’ve had other things to fill my plate with along the way, but for weeks now, I’ve been alternately admiring and shaking a jar of preserved lemons sitting on my countertop.  Seems everyone is making these lemons – they are in nearly every food blog.  Since I found and excellent recipe and instructions from Alana at Eating from the Ground up, I’ll direct you there to make your own.  Just keep in mind as you read this recipe, though, that if you didn’t get caught up in the fun before I did (you may have a jar sitting waiting for this recipe at your house too – that would be perfect!), then you will need to wait three weeks for your own lemons, or get yourself off to a grocery store that sells them.  And please, please use organic lemons.  You’ll be eating the peel.  You don’t want toxins and bug killer in there.

That isn’t the only thing that inspired this recipe though:

1)  I have jars full of dried mushrooms that I picked during last year’s bountiful fall:  Porcini (Herkkutatti), Black Trumpet (Mustatorvisieni) and Yellow Foot (Suppilovahvero) – not to mention the ones sitting in my freezer, filling up 1.5 drawers in there.  It’s a good problem to have, it really is, but…summer is coming.  Which means more mushrooms and berries, and other good stuff from the Finnish woods around here, and I know that at the first sign of a ripe, edible anything out there, I’ll be out of the house with basket in hand, collecting like a pilgrim for the long, cold winter ahead.  This long cold winter is ending – Finally!  Time to use up some of those beautiful porcini.

Porcini, Yellow Foot, Black Trumpet Mushrooms

2)  Homemade Bouillon!  Expect a theme for a while on this.  I can’t get over how good this stuff is.  If you haven’t tried it yet, please do yourself a favor and go make some.  I have the ingredients for another batch in my fridge, and will get it in the freezer as soon as possible.  Seriously – it is so easy to do, and you can’t believe the extra flavor it adds to your meal.

3)  Fresh Mozzarella.  Enough said.  Even more to smile about if it had been Bufala Mozzarella, but this stuff worked just fine

4)  A cupboard full of rice – brown rice, jasmine rice, red rice, wild rice, arborio rice… um…make that two bags of arborio rice.

Risotto is perfect for a sunny winter day.  I hope you’ll enjoy it.  The recipe doubles easily, especially since I halved it so that there wouldn’t be leftovers and I’d have an excuse to make something else tomorrow…  The lemon flavor is quite prominent in here – it sings way out in front on a bright note so that the mushroom flavor sits deeply in the background and supports the lightness of the lemon.  If you don’t like a strong lemon flavor, try using half or two-thirds the suggested amount of preserved lemon.  If you don’t have preserved lemon, leave it out (I don’t suggest using fresh lemon – but I’ll leave that up to you).

Risotto with Porcini, Mozzarella and Preserved Lemon

Risotto with Porcini, Mozzarella and Preserved Lemon

1.  Measure out 1/4 cup of dried porcini mushrooms/herkkutatti into a heat-proof bowl and cover with bowling water to just submerge them.  Set aside.

2.  Prepare the Homemade Bouillon from my previous post, or use 4 cups of vegetable broth from your preferred source.  Bring it to a simmer in a separate pot and allow to continue to simmer while you cook the rest of the risotto.

3.  Putting it all together:
     1 shallot, peeled, halved and sliced thinly
     1 garlic clove, minced or diced very small.
     2 tablespoons olive oil
     1/4 preserved lemon, fruit scraped away so just  the peel remains, diced small

Heat the olive oil in a (6 quart/6 liter) pot over medium heat.  Add the shallot, garlic and lemon and stir until the shallot and garlic are tender and translucent; 2-3 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon or your fingers, take the mushrooms out of the water (save the liquid) and add them to the pot with the shallot mixture.  Stir and cook for 1 minute.

Add:
     1 cup of arborio rice

and stir constantly for 2 minutes until the rice is lightly toasted.  Add the reserved mushroom liquid all at once, bring to a simmer and cook gently over medium heat (the mixture should bubble slightly and constantly.  When the rice has absorbed nearly all of the liquid, add another cup of liquid.  Allow the rice to absorb most of the liquid once again, stirring frequently.   Repeat 2 more times, until you have 1 cup of liquid remaining.  The mixture should begin to look quite creamy and thick.  Add the remaining broth, 1/2 cup at a time.  Taste the rice – it should be al dente, that is, feel slightly firm to your teeth when you bite it.  This is perfect.  Remove it from the heat and add:

     1 cup mozzarella, chopped into cubes.

Stir thoroughly so that the mozzarella melts and incorporates into the risotto.

Serves 2 for a main course or 4 as a side dish.

We followed this with lemon tart that was in the freezer left over from this adventure.  The perfect bright flavor at the end of a wonderfully satisfying meal.   Yes, the three week wait for those preserved lemons was more than worth it.

Summer is coming!

Oh…the joy of a deleted post.  Let’s try this again!

I discovered something this weekend that made me very happy:  Homemade Bouillon.   It is simple, easy, and so much better than the canned stuff – which I dislike – or the homemade vegetable broth I had relied on up to this point.

Carrot Ginger Soup with Rye Crackers and Tete de Moine cheese

Why do I care about Homemade Bouillon so much?  I love to make soups and stews and risottos, and other dishes that start with a broth of some sort.  When I get home from work on a week night, the last thing I want is a dried up bouillon cube or a broth from a can or jar – generally full of preservatives and E-codes and dubious sounding ingredients.  My growling stomach is definitely not going to give me peace long enough to spend 90 minutes making homemade vegetable broth either.  I usually have chicken broth, because I make and freeze it by the 1/2 liter every time we have roast chicken (often!).  But sometimes I want a purely vegetarian dish, or else the flavor of chicken doesn’t suit what I’m making (hello beef stew!).  Homemade vegetable broth didn’t have the round, full flavor I was looking for in a soup either, but was the best I had up until yesterday.

Enter 101 Cookbooks and the recipe for Homemade Bouillon.  The blog author Heidi listed the ingredients by weight, but I knew I wasn’t going to be happy doing that.  I am willing to weigh ingredients for jam and baking, but not for this.  But, she also assured her dear reader that the Homemade Bouillon is highly adaptable to what is in my fridge, and that one should experiment, so off I went.

One note:  the salt volume will seem extremely high in this.  Keep in mind that it is heavily diluted with water when you actually cook with it so there isn’t that much salt in an individual batch of the finished vegetable broth.  You can make it without salt, but if you do so, freeze in ice cube trays or individually on a pan which you then put into the freezer, otherwise it will be extremely difficult to use.  If you do use salt, you’ll find the bouillon doesn’t freeze solid, so you can scoop it out of the freezer container when you are ready to use.

This is so easy to use and makes such a great base for cooking.  I just made this yesterday afternoon, and have already been inspired to make 2 soups.

Chopped and ready to use

Homemade Bouillon
adapted from and inspired by the 101 Cookbooks blog

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped
1 leek, white and light green parts only, halved and chopped into half moons
2 celery ribs, chopped (if there are leaves, add those too)
3 shallots, peeled and halved
4 garlic cloves, halved
4 sun dried tomatoes, preserved in oil
Rosemary leaves from two large rosemary sprigs
1/2 cup loosely packed parsley leaves
1/3 cup peeled, chopped turnip (nauris)
1/3 cup peeled, chopped celery root
4 Tablespoons olive oil (or oil from the sun dried tomato jar)
125 g sea salt (this is the only thing I weighed.  If you insist on not weighing it, it’s approximately 3/4 cup)

Mix all ingredients except the olive oil and salt in a large bowl.  Working in batches, pour the vegetables into a food processor and chop until they form a fine, rough, paste.  Transfer vegetable paste into another large bowl and repeat until all vegetables are chopped into a paste.

To the vegetable paste, add the olive oil and the salt.  Stir well to combine.  

Reserve some paste to store in the refrigerator for immediate use – it will last about a week.  Store the rest in freezer containers and freeze to use as needed. 

To use:  Heat 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in a pot or pan.  Add 1 heaped Tablespoon of the Homemade Bouillon and fry until the vegetables are soft and fragrant.  Add 2 cups of cold water and heat to a simmer.  Your vegetable broth is ready to use!

Can you feel the sunshine?

Carrot Ginger Soup
you won’t taste the potato in this soup, but you need it to create the thick smooth texture.

2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 large potato or 2 small potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 cups vegetable broth, see above
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.

Put all ingredients into a suitable sized pot.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium low and simmer until vegetables are fork tender, about 20 minutes.  Puree with an immersion blender or in a stand blender until smooth.  You may need to add water to thin soup and make it easier to blend. 

Serves two.

for Turnip Soup:
omit carrot and replace it with 1 1/2 cups chopped, peeled turnip.  Omit the ginger.  Proceed as directed.  Turnip soup has a sharp flavor that I love.  If you’d prefer it less sharp, add a teaspoon of creme fraiche or sour cream to each serving.  I also recommend topping it with a fresh grinding of black pepper

Turnip Soup with creme fraiche and fresh ground black pepper