Cauliflower Cheese Pie

The Cauliflower Dream.

Gloomy morning everyone!

At least it is here where I am sitting. Just gloom, gloom and more gloom. Wah.

BUT on a brighter note, I have a warm puppy and a warm cup of tea to keep me company this gloomy Wednesday :) AND I have a yummy recipe too! Cauliflower Cheese Pie.

A few weeks ago I got this sudden hankering for cauliflower! I'm just the kind of person who dreams of food and when I wake up I just HAVE to have whatever I was dreaming of and I do believe I dreamt of cauliflower. Weird, I know. Anyhoo I felt like it was time to do something about it! So I googled up some recipes and I found a delicous cauliflower cheese pie which was super easy to make and yum yum yummy! So here I am sharing it with YOU!

Ingredients:

For the Potato Crust:

3 fairly large potatos, shredded
1 medium sized onion, grated
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp salt
1 tbs all-purpose flour
A bit of vegetable oil

For the Filling:

Oil, for frying
1 medium sized onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp paprika
salt & pepper to taste
1 head of cauliflower, chopped into small pieces
1 1/2 cups of cheese, grated
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk

Instructions:


1. Preheat your oven to 200C / 400 F.
2. Grease a 9 inch pie pan and set aside.

For the Potato Crust:

1. Using a cloth or your hands, squeeze the liquid out of the shredded potatos. (I used my hands as I am lazy and impatient person!!)
2. In a mixing bowl, combine the potato, onion, egg, salt and flour.
3. Mix well and transfer to the pie pan. Pat it down so that it is flat, using a spatula or your good ol' fingers.

4. Bake for about 20-30 min
5. Take out the pan and brush the top of the crust with alittle oil and return to the oven for another 10 min.
6. Take out the crust and reduce the temperature of the oven to 175C / 350F.

For the Filling:

1. In a large frying pan, heat the oil until very hot.
2. Reduce the heat to medium and saute the onion, garlic, thyme, paprika, salt & pepper for about 8-10 min.
3. Stir the cauliflower into the mix and let it cook for about 15 min.

The Assembly:

1. Spread 1/2 the grated cheese onto the crust.

2. Spoon the cauliflower mix next and sprinkle the remaining cheese over that.
3. Beat the milk and eggs together in a seperate bowl and pour over the cauliflower and cheese.
4. Sprinkle a bit of paprika over the mixture

5. Bake for 35-40 min or until the pie is set and the top is slightly browned.

This is a perfect recipe for those of you who don't eat meat and it's extremely filling! I hope you try it and enjoy it :)

Love,
Keshi

P.S: Did you know that 100g of cauliflower contains only 26 calories?? AND it is super packed with minerals and vitamins! Eat more cauliflower everyone!

Honey Chicken Salad

So, What's For Lunch?

So today is Saturday aka PJ Day. Today Juho and I have decided to do nothing, absolutely nothing, after a hectic week of moving and busy-ness. After dwadling in bed and finally crawling out of it around noon the next question was what's for lunch?

It may be hard to believe (after going through this blog) but Juho and I are trying hard to eat healthy on a regular basis, minus the little evil cupcakes we gobble down once in a way! Thus salad is a very important part of our diet. So we thought we will share our simple, unsophisticated Honey Chicken Salad with you.

 Today's salad consisted of:

- Salad
- Cucumber
- Cherry Tomatoes (as I truly dislike the big plumpy ones!)
- Olives
- Sunflower Seeds

That topped with some honey chicken and herbal bread, was filling, delicious and a guilt-free meal! Oh and wrap it up with a hot, minty Green Tea. Mmmmmm...

And with that I shall go back to doing absolutely nothing. Yay!

Enjoy this beautiful Saturday!

Love,
Keshi

Sri Lankan Fish Patties

Well hello there! Today being a fine sunny day and all (at least here in Helsinki!) what could be a better day to make the famous Sri Lankan Patties!

For those of you who are not from Sri Lanka, this is a classic little munchie in Sri Lanka and they are quite the yummy treat. I particularly missed these when I came to Finland so I found an excellent recipe for them and here I am sharing it with you from the goodness of my heart!

The pattie looks sort of like a brown sea shell. It's got a soft outer layer and the filling is pretty much optional. You could make fish patties, vegetable patties, beef patties, chicken patties. It's really up to you! I went with fish patties...and here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

Patties:

2 cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
120g butter, cut into small pieces
5-6 Tbsp milk

Fish filling:

370g tuna (two small cans)

4 boiled and mashed potatoes

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

salt & pepper to taste

½ tsp lime juice 

For the filling, just mash everything up and mix it using your hands. Keep it in the fridge for about 15 min before you use it.

 

Instructions:

1. Combine well the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl.

2. Add the pieces of butter to the flour mixture 

3. Add the milk, one tablespoon at a time, and mix well by hand until it can be formed into a ball.

4. Flatten out the dough on a well floured surface and roll out into thin sheets.

5. Using an inverted cup, make medium sized circles on the sheet and cut them out.

 

6. Put a small amount of filling (Eg: Table spoon) on to the middle of the round shaped dough.

7. Pull one side of the circle over the other forming a half-circle shape.

8. Seal edges by pinching with a fork.

 9. Repeat with the rest of the dough and fillings.

10.  Arrange the Patties on a lightly greased tray and brush the tops with egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tsp milk).

11. Bake in oven for 15 minutes at 190 C. Remove and serve either warm or cold and they are perfect to dip in some sauce.

So be daring and try this and enjoy a little taste of Sri Lanka!

Love,

Keshi

"The Beef Thing"

Ok so I tried to make something like this but it failed. It ended up being like this:

Despite the strange looks of the end product the taste was really nice.

Easy to make, delicious to eat. This recipe can be used for meatballs, patties, meatloaf, those kebab things etc.

Ingredients:

400 g of minced beef
120 g of bacon
3-4 gloves of garlic
2 small onions
1 egg
100 g of creme fraiche
½ tsp of dried chillie flakes
½ tsp of chillie powder
½-1 tsp of pepper mix
½ dl of breadcrumbs
1 tsp of olive oil
1 tbsp of BBQ sauce

Instructions:

Cut the bacon into cubes (I, for some reason, prefer the 1x1cm size...) and fry them on a pan until ready. Put a serviette on a plate and let the bacon cool down on the serviette (you get rid of most of the oil).

 

 

Mix creme fraiche, egg, finely chopped onion and garlic and the spices in a bowl. Add the breadcrumbs and mix, let stand for few minutes letting the breadcrumbs soak.

Add the beef and the bacon and mix well but gently. You don't want to mince the beef any more but you want to keep the air in it.

Heat a pan (without oil, there should still be plenty in the mixture...) and place the desired amount of the meat on the hot pan in the desired shape. Cover with a lid. Let it fry for about 3 minutes on both sides or until thoroughly cooked.

Serve with pasta, potatoes, vegetables, salad, the Potato salad or with anything really. By the way, sweet thai chillie sauce and creme fraiche went very well with these!

- Juho

Godhamba Roti and Spicy Chicken Curry

Spice Spice, Baby!

So after coming to Finland, one of the things I craved for was Spicy Chicken curry and Godhamba Roti. For those of you who are not Sri Lankan, this is probably one of the things you HAVE to try because it's just DELICIOUS! Especially if you like spicy food!

We've made this twice already and here are the ingredients for both...

Godhamba Roti

 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt 
• 3-4 teaspons olive oil
• 1-2 cups warm water
• Extra olive oil 

Instructions:

• Mix the salt & flour well in a large bowl.
• Add 3-4 tbs olive oil. Mix well.
• Add warm water gradually while mixing the flour to form a dough that does not stick to the sides of the bowl.
• Knead the dough for a few minutes until soft.
• Make into small balls, according to the number of roti you desire to make
• Slightly flatten the balls and generously coat with olive oil, leaving it in the mixing bowl.
• Cover the bowl and let it stand for about an hour.
• Grease a frying pan with a little oil and heat.
• Meanwhile, take each ball of flour and flatten it to a thin circle or square. (the thinner, the better)
• Put it on to the hot frying pan and cook, turning on both sides.
• Serve with hot curry. 

Anddddd guess who made the Chicken Curry? JUHO. Yes, the Finn made the spicy curry which was quite up to standard, I must say! So here is Juho's recipe for it :)

Chicken Curry

 

Ingredients:

• 400g of chicken
• 2,5 dl of water
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 4-6 gloves of garlic
• 2 medium onions
• 1-2 cm of fresh ginger
• 1 tsp of turmeric
• ½ - 1 tsp of dried chillie flakes
• ½ - 1 tsp of cayanne pepper
• ½ - 1 tsp of roasted curry powder
• ½ tsp of red chillie powder

 Instructions:

• Chop the onions, garlic and ginger into fine, paste-like structure and fry it on a hot pan together with the olive oil.
• Add the chicken and fry until the chicken is properly done.
• Add the spices and mix well.
• Pour in the water and keep mixing until the water boils. Turn the heat low and let simmer for couple of minutes before taking off the heat. Best if served immediately.

And there you go! Have fun spicing up your life ;)

Love Juho&Keshi

Omelette Curry

Omelette...curry. Wait what?

So it's Saturday and I was craving for something Sri Lankan, spicy and yummy. We didn't have much in our fridge (basically, nothing -_-) except a few eggs. And I wanted to do something different with eggs so I looked up a recipe for Omelette Curry. Now for those of you who are not Sri Lankan, you must know that we Sri Lankans love to make curry out of everything but you need to try this. I mean it's ridiculously easy to make and it's filling and quite healthy. Not to forget, it's delicious!

So here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

For the Omelette:

5 Eggs
1 Onions, finely chopped

A bunch of Green Onions

3 cloves of Garlic

100g of Mushrooms
1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp cayanne pepper

Salt to taste

* You can really add anything you want, like ham etc. This is not set in stone :)

For the Curry:

1 Tomatoes, sliced
1.5 Cups of Fresh Milk
1 teaspoon of Salt
1/2 tsp of Turmeric (Kaha kudu)
1 tbs of Red Chillie Powder
2 tbs of Roasted Curry Powder

Instructions:

Omelette:

1) Beat the eggs until frothy in a bowl. 

2) Add all your ingredients and mix well. 

3) Heat the oil in a frying pan, pour the egg batter when oil is heated enough

4) Lower the heat to medium and let the batter cook. 

5) Fold the omlet into three (flip one side to the middle and flip the opposite side over the fold) let it cool. 

6) Cut into squares of your desired size.

 Curry:

 

1) Put the oil in a saucepan and cook the tomatos.

2) After a minute add the chillie powder, turmeric and salt and cook for a few minutes.

3) Then add the milk and curry powder

4) When it starts to bubble add the omelette pieces, salt to taste and let it simmer for awhile and serve. 

 It's great with rice and once the curry is drained out, it's even yummy in a sandwich. So go into your kitchen and do this right now! And enjoy!

Love love love,

Keshi

Potato, Egg & Ham Salad

 Have you ever had those previously cooked, cold and dryish potatoes in your fridge and didn't know what to do with them? They're not good when you heat them in the microwave, and only slightly better when you cook them on a frying pan. This is what I did with them.

First I came across this salad when dating Keshi and her mother did this salad. I remember liking it but I had never done it myself. Yes, I have had potato salad before but the commercial one you get in Finland is totally different. So I took the basic potato and egg salad of my mother-in-law's and tweaked it a bit. Here's the result and let me say, it was good!

Potato, egg and ham salad

 

5 medium potatoes (cooked and chilled)
3 hard boiled eggs
5 slices of ham (~50g)
5 tbls of mayonnaise
1 tsp of mustard
pinch of salt
½ tsp of (black) pepper
a clove of garlic
½ tsp of olive oil

1) Boil the eggs. I would recommend you to boil them like this: put the eggs into a saucepan and cover them with cold water. Bring them to boil and turn the heat off, leaving the eggs to be in the hot water, covered with a tight lid. Keep them covered for 20 minutes. Of course you can cook them however you want but I found this to be a good way to cook them. The yolks didn't dry up.

2) While the eggs are cooking, peel the boiled potatoes and cut them into cubes of desired size. Don't cut them too small 'cos we don't want mashed potatoes. Size of about 1 cubic centimeter should be fine (no ruler required).

3) When you're done with the potatoes, chop the garlic into very small pieces. Then cut the ham into nice bitesize cubes. I used sliced ham and I just cut it smaller as seen in the picture. Put it then into a small bowl and mix it together with the olive oil and chopped garlic. Leave to marinate for a little while.

4) Now your eggs should be cooked. Keep them under cold, running water so that they'll cool down. Then peel them and cut them like you cut the potatoes.

5) Mix togeter the mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper. Put all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and carefully mix everything together. Be gentle because you want the eggs and the potatoes to remain as cubes.

6) You may serve this immediately, although it'll be better if you let it set in fridge for about 30 minutes before serving.

This would go great with sausages. I actually graved for some spicy sausages like Chorizos to go with this but unfortunately they weren't available :| better luck next time!

- Juho

Keshi says: IT WAS SO UNBELIEVABLY GOOD. That is all that can be said! :)