Lithuanian Cuisine

We were inspired by N's earlier nationality, and decided to prepare a two course Lithuanian dinner. We wanted to make foods that he would have lovely childhood memories of, and so chose kibinai and tinginys.

Kibinai is a salty pastry which is filled with meat. Us not being so handy with our hands, didn't make it exactly as it's supposed to look like, but according to N the taste was exactly as it was supposed to be, which we're both proud of. 

The original recipe which we used can be found both in Lithuanian and English from here. We didn't touch the recipe of the dough but tried to follow that as closely as possible. The only change we made was dividing the amounts in half, because they sounded way too large for just the two of us to eat. 

In the filling we used minced pork meat, onions, pepper, salt and some herbs.

Kibinai is commonly served with a soup. We made it from vegetable stock and a bunch of fresh parsley. Simple, but fits really well.

Then the tinginys. A dessert which will silence the cravings for sweetness and chocolate immediately. It was a bit difficult to try to find the proper recipe for it in English. Finally we ended up in a forum where we could find the translated and an authentic one.

I read that condensed milk can be produced at home easily, it's just quite time consuming. It's as easy as pouring milk into a wide based saucepan (preferably teflon) and leaving it on the stove on low heat for a few hours to condense/evaporate. So if you're feeling like being a true homemaker, go ahead. We just bought a can from the store. If you're unfamiliar with this ingredient and are wondering whether to buy the sweetened one or the other one, we recommend the other one. The unsweetened one is already so sweet that you can eat only a few spoonfuls. 

We used half the amount of nuts and half the amount of biscuits that the recipe suggested (because the packages I bought were too small...) but it turned out amazing nevertheless. This way it just turned out more chocolaty, which is not in this household considered a minus at all. 

Lastly, if you're busy or just feeling an uncontrollable desire to eat the dessert already, it's possible to reduce the freezing time by instead of a fridge putting it in a freezer, where it will turn good in about an hour already. If you'd ever decide to make this, we guarantee, it's totally worth it (especially because it's really easy to make) if you love sweet things. 

Posted by K & N

First Year Anniversary

Hello everyone, N&K are back! 

We're deeply sorry for this break of two months without a single post, but we've been too busy to write it. Though that doesn't mean that we would've been too busy to cook!

 A couple months ago we celebrated our 1st year together. Our goal was to make it fancy, and that succeeded perfectly. We got each other presents on this occasion also. N gave me a photo frame with a picture of us on our holiday trip last summer, with a box of self made chocolate truffles (can be seen in the picture). I couldn't have been more impressed and delighted about a gift! I gave him a CK perfume. Dressed up in a suit and a dress we prepared together a three course dinner for two.

We started off with a sure-to-succeed appetizer, something that we  recommend for everyone, in case they want to make an elegant and fancy evening with almost no effort (when there's not a lack of money): All different kinds of cheeses with crackers and grapes. It looks beautiful and smells absolutely gorgeous when served. There's of course no recipe for this, just buy the cheeses that you enjoy the most, or some new ones if feeling adventurous. We recommend at least blue cheese, strength depending on your personal taste. At least if you choose to go with something as strong as Roquefort for example, it would be a good idea to take milder cheeses on the side to balance it out, such as creamy French country brie.

We were hungry and impatient and almost filled ourselves up with the starters. Elegance is a skill to practice for the future, with some self control... But that did not steal the enjoyment of the main course: oven baked salmon and rice served with creamy and fresh lemon sauce. The salmon was prepared the way I've been used to in my childhood.

A salmon fillet is placed whole on an oven tray. Some lemon or lime (or both) juice is sprinkled on it. If available, you should also try some whiskey too, it gives a nice flavour. Unfortunately we didn't have any. Next, some salt. You shouldn't use small grained salt, it may ruin the texture of the fish. Large grained sea salt is traditional, but to our delight I had some Himalayan salt (somewhere also known as rose salt, due to it's colour that is finely red/pink). The salt is followed by lemon pepper and dill. Then it's put in the oven in about 200 C or less, for about half an hour, depending on the size and thickness of the fish.

The sauce was composed of the following:
- vegetable stock
- lime juice
- cream
- a couple of table spoons of wheat flour mixed in water (to thicken the texture to "sauce-like")
- dill
- pepper
- and lastly, I just can't remember whether it was blue cheese or goat cheese that I took from the remains of the cheese plate, but use the one you like the most, both fit excellently in my opinion

For dessert, we prepared pannacotta. There are different ways to make it, but we chose the one without gelatin, since that ingredient seems to have some personal issues with me. So our recipe was the following:

2,5 dl cream (or milk, or both)
1 dl jelly sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Mix all ingredients in a pot, heat until boiling, and let the mixture boil for around half a minute. Poor into glasses from which they'll be served and take them to cool down in the fridge. We recommend you to make these already the day before. We didn't, but let them be in the cold for only 2-3 hours, which left them still runny. It didn't matter though, it tasted great still! Decorate the portions with any fruits or berries of your desire. Chocolate(sauce) could also fit, but if and only if the meal before the dessert was not too heavy. Pannacotta is very sweet and surprisingly filling, and so some berries are a good way to lighten it up and make it "easier to eat". As you can see from the picture, we used strawberries. Unfortunately fresh and good ones weren't available in the winter here in Finland (oh how we love the arctic conditions...) so we used ones melted from the freezer.

After a good and huge meal, the best thing to do is to watch a great movie. After a romantic meal would've been too syrupy to watch some boring 100 times seen romance chick flick, and we chose to see the Naked Gun 2.

Posted by K&N

Valentine's Day

Hmmmm, what a better way to spend a Valentine's day then making some delicious burgers? No really, it's a great way! This Valentine's day started of with the exchange of some gifts, which we got for each other. One received freshly baked chocolate cupcakes with a delicious sugar topping and the other a box of Belgian chocolate.. so much chocolate.. don't you think? We had no idea that we will still cook something today, yet at the last moment we decided to spend this Valentine's day (a weekday) and night together. What now? That's right, now it's time to cook! Not feeling like something too fancy? Maybe the amount of time isn't appropriate. Well, I think it's safe to say, that burgers will save you. And as a remark, nothing is impossible; burgers can also be made delicate and fancy ;). Here's what you'll need:

Your favorite bun recipe
Minced meat (the amount depends on you, yourself)
An egg
Blue cheese
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Cheese
Spices and herbs (whatever you're feeling like)
Some sauce (this time we used sweet chili sauce, surprisingly delicious)

First of all bake the buns! Follow your favorite recipe! Mix the minced meat with one egg. Season it. Add some blue cheese, you won't regret it. Mix and form it into meatballs. Size doesn't matter ;). Chop the tomatoes, cut the cheese. When the buns are done take them out and cut into two halves. So what goes inside? First of all the sauce (in this case sweet chili sauce), then one hot meatball. Lettuce goes next, followed by tomatoes and finally some cheese.  

Doesn't it just look beautiful? We suggest you enjoy with someone special, don't forget to add a pinch of love, and some romance ;) 

Thanks for reading! We hope you've enjoyed your Valentine's day, keep up on the love guys!

Posted by N.

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.