The Unexpected Meal

This weekend our evening together came with a rather short notice, and only late on Saturday evening did we decide to start cooking. Inconveniently, proper stores were already closed here in Finland at 19.00, so we had to settle for the selection of a local kiosk, which was not too luxurious. Overall, we still managed to create a splendid, multicultural meal. Due to the lack of ingredients that the original recipe suggested, and also a sudden boost of creativity, we again ended up improvising in the recipes. Cooking is an art, and what is an art without expressing yourself?

We found a very interesting idea in another cooking blog, where was a recipe called "The Mexican dip". When you look at it, it seems more like an actual meal, but it's eaten with chips. Sounds extraordinary, and instead of asking why, we asked why not? We also, of course, made a dessert, for which we got a recipe from N's mother. The original recipe required some ingredients that aren't even sold in Finland, so even if we wanted to we wouldn't have the chance to make it exactly the same. Here are the results of the evening's work.

400g minced meat
~ 200g cream cheese (we used sour cream, since the kiosk didn't sell cream cheese, but I believe the result would be more "dense" with the cheese)
390g pack of crushed tomatoes
blue cheese
garlic
Taco spice mix
fresh chili
herbs according to mood
any cheese of your choice, grated
olives

Mix the taco spice mix with the cream cheese/sour cream, and spread it on the bottom of a wide pan. Then cook the minced meat on a stove, add all the other ingredients in apart from the grated cheese and olives. Poor the meat sauce on the cream cheese in the pan, and spread olives and the cheese on top. Bake in 225C for around 15 minutes, or when the cheese on top gets some nice color.

Serve it with chips that you like. Preferably nacho ones, but again, the selection from which we had the opportunity to choose from didn't contain those, so we settled with normal ones spiced with chili.







Apple surprise cake with ice cream
3 eggs
160g sugar
160g flour
50g butter
1 tsp baking powder
3 apples
100g (or as you please) chocolate-fudge cookies (or any cookies you like)




Mix the eggs, sugar and flour together in a bowl with a mixer until smooth. Melt the butter and add it to the dough. Peel and chop the apples, and crumble the cookies, and add them to the dough with baking powder. It's better to leave the pieces quite big, since it's nice to be able to taste the cookie and the apple properly. Poor the dough to a buttered oven pan and bake in 170C for around 40-50 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream, the contrast between the hot cake and cold, creamy ice cream is delicious...

Thank you for reading! 

Post by K&N

Romeo & Juliet

We were celebrating our 11 months together by how else, than cooking together and enjoying a good movie. The atmosphere was quite romantic, I should say, and we ended up watching the Baz Luhrmann's version of Romeo and Juliet after dinner. What we cooked was chicken filled rolls with spicy chili-parsley soup, accompanied with some dark grapes and champagne. Felt truly like a celebration. And what would be a proper meal without proper dessert: Ben&Jerry's "Nordic Water Peace" ice-cream. We both tasted it the first time, and it was delicious.Mm... The cookie parts. All in all, the night was quite a success! And now to the point, which is of course the recipes of the evening. 

Chicken rolls

500g frozen puff pastry 

400g chicken 

0,5 dl sweet chili sauce (or however you like it) 

lime juice 

Seasoning: garam masala, basil, pepper, salt 

1 egg and sesame seeds on top 

Cook the chicken on a frying pan until half done, and mix with the chili sauce, lime juice and seasoning. 

Take the puff pastry and make it into thin sheets of around 5x10 cm, or how big you like them to be. Fill the sheets and roll them up. Lastly, cover them with egg and sprinkle sesame seeds on top to make it look pretty. Bake in the oven for 15 min or until the surface is golden brown in 225C. 

Chili-Parsley soup

1 chili (turned out to be quite spicy, if hot foods aren't to your liking, we recommend you to use just ½)

fresh parsley 

lime juice 

0,6 l  chicken stock 

Chop the chili and parsley to fine peaces and add them to warm chicken stock. If it turns out too hot because of the chili (as happened to us...) we suggest you to add some cream or milk to neutralize the burn. 

Posted by K.