Confessions

Saara, who blogs in Finnish about gardening, life and everything in between, has most kindly and flatteringly given me a picture and, apparently, a task to confess seven things. I actually hesitate to post these sort of things (not that I've had the occasion to before) because then I'll have to pass it on and suddenly we're at confession number one, which has a lot to do with my "comment on blogs you read week":

1. Reading other people's blogs makes me feel like a sweaty, creepy stalker.

Because I don't have many real life friends who blog, I have two options: One, pass this on to someone with lots of readers, someone who's probably already sick and tired of all memes and thinks "Oh dear lord, who is this nobody who thinks I actually care? Obviously my blog is great." Two, pass this on to someone with few readers, who will think "Jeebus, what is this pervert doing, reading about my life like this? We've never even met!" And I guess three, some sort of a combination of the two. You see? Awkwardness all around. The whole COBYRW was pure hell. It was like having to go through the entire neighborhood in your underwear, knock on every door and sing a song to them. I'm never doing that again!

Yet I guess I have no choice but to choose one of the above, because all other options - not accepting the acknowledgment or not passing it on - would just seem snotty and/or self-congratulatory. You just can't win. So how about I just tell you my favorite blogs and leave it at that? I don't actually have to go and tell them I creepily talk about them here behind their back, do I? Good.

JaanaMaa blogs about knitting, sewing and thrifty things in Finnish. She is so pretty and makes such awesome, inspiring things that when I found her blog I read it all in one sitting. Creepy, huh?

Needled belongs to a wonderful, wonderful knitting designer and I always feel refreshed and inspired when I read her writings about knitting history and hiking or look at her gorgeous photographs. I actually have a room in the basement decorated with pictures of her with her SO's face scratched out. (Too much?)

Okay, so there. Go stalk, it will be worth your while. On with the confessions, then.

2. I really, really, REALLY hate cooking.

I've tried the whole cooking, healthy eating yada yada thing. Okay, I lie. I've thought about trying it. But the truth is I'm more of a frozen pizza girl. If it wasn't for my finances, I would stay on that beautiful, greasy, carbohydrated path. Because of said finances, once again I've been forced to make food in my kitchen, the place I most like to use for watching other people make me food.

So I hate cooking, but baking bread, making hummus and eating all that with some smoothie? That's not remotely the same thing. I could easily blog about baking, but for some reason I find it really boring. Writing down instructions and recipes is so mechanical and rarely anything groundbreaking. Yet I just have to tell the world that I finally managed to bake the perfect ciabatta. 

I made these! Can you believe it?

I used this recipe (actually half of it) and I think I have now discovered the secrets of ciabatta:

1. Mixing the yeast in with cold water

2. Leaving the dough very soft

2. Putting a bowl of water on the oven pan with the loaves

Cold water means that the yeast does not really spring properly to life until in the oven. I let the dough leaven for two hours and it had maybe added a half to its volume. There were bubbles in it, but not many. Yet the loaves doubled in size once in the oven. I hesitate to add the softness of the dough to the secrets because I don't know how important that is yet, but that's another thing I did differently this time around. My previous attempts have resulted in very flat, dull loaves, nothing like the crispy plumpness of these specimens.

Srsly guys!

Another kitchen discovery this week has been the perfect flapjack recipe. (See? If I just link to other people's recipes, I don't have to write them out!)

3. I am not a morning person.

I wish I was, I really do. I'd love to be one of those people who rise and shine with the sun and get all sorts of shit done before the birds finish singing, but I'm not. I'm grumpy and slow and I'd rather sleep an extra half hour than, say, have breakfast. Enter flapjacks. I first encountered their chewy goodness during my studies in Wales. Packed with life (read: sugar), they are just the thing I like to stuff my face with on the train in the mornings. Or afternoons. Or nights. The recipe above made twelve separately packed snacks, enough for a week's worth of missed meals. I used butter instead of margarine, just cheap porridge oats and added some leftover chocolate muesli plus a pile of dried and chopped dates, apricots and goji berries. Delicious!

"We are food! No, really we are! Truuust uuuus!"

It's a beautiful evening outside, so let's save the last four confessions for another time. I want to get some gardening done before sunset.

They call me the pie master

I watched Twin Peaks for the first time in its entirety last year with my flatmate, who cooks. It started with brie and butter baguettes. Then came the donuts. Soon enough we were stuffing our faces every other night and dreaming about the perfect cherry pie. Apple, bilberry, pumpkin too, but especially cherry. I'm a sucker for that poisonous essence found in canned cherries, Dr. Pepper and arsenic.

The reason it took me about eight months to actually get around making said pie was that it's impossible to find fresh or even frozen sour cherries in Finland and even canned tend to be hard to find and expensive. Miraculously at least Citymarket now carries huge jars of both sweet and sour cherries, and this pie is made with the latter.

Damn good pie, this is. Glossy, too!

I have to say, I am extremely pleased with this pie. I don't know what the secret is because it was all very simple, but let me take you through the process so that I, or you, can maybe replicate it later and pinpoint the source of fabulousness.

The crust

5 dl flour
225 g cold butter

All crumbled together. The secret to a nice flaky crust is to handle the dough as little as possible to keep the butter from melting. The consistence should be teensy crumbs of butter encased in flour. I am now dreaming about a good pastry cutter, but a kitchen blender should do the job as well and I just pinched little cubes of butter in the flour with my fingertips until it was suitably crumbly.

Now, for a regular shortcut pastry you usually just mix a small amount of water in with the butter-flour mixture. Apparently you can replace some of the water with vodka, which will then evaporate from the pie and result in a deliciously flaky crust. The recipe I used contained a small amount of vinegar, which I suspect works in a similar manner. I added

0,4 dl water
0,1 dl vinegar
0,75 egg (I mixed the yolk with the white and left a little in the cup for later)

I then smoothed the pastry into a lump, divided it into two (I even used a scale to do it!), wrapped the halves in cling wrap and put them in the fridge.

The filling

1 jar (350 g) of sour cherries + about half the liquid
3 dl brown sugar
a healthy dose of cinnamon
1 dl flour

All mixed together. Now, this is the point where I took a two-hour nap, so I let the filling stew and the pastry cool in peace. It's imperative to keep the pastry cold, but who cares when you combine the filling ingredients, not me.

After I woke up I took one half of the pastry out of the fridge, sandwiched it between cling film and proceeded to roll it into a thin, pie dish sized shape, readjusting the cling films every now and then to avoid wrinkles and stickiness. I let the bottom cool off in the fridge while I rolled out the other half and cut it into the lattice strips. Then I brushed the bottom with the remaining egg, added the filling, made a pretty lattice top, brushed it withe remaining egg remains and baked the whole beauty in 220°C for 35 minutes. Let it cool for a bit and served with ice cream. OMG perfect! For the record, there was no cherry essence taste: apparently adding a little almond extract makes it even more delicious. I couldn't use it because of an allergy, but do try it if you will! And the vodka crust, too. Just don't eat it raw too much.

Om to the fucking nom nom!

In other news I've been more inclined to start projects than finish them. There's a pair of wool pants on the needles that will probably only premier next winter because it's most definitely spring now, commission hats are waiting to be cast on, a sock pattern awaits proper inspiration, I think I promised to make two pairs of socks for different people... but most excited I've been about Geodesic cardigan (links to Rav, here's the link to Interweave store).

I'm at the first tucks, how exciting!

I was originally going to splurge on some Malabrigo lace for it, but in some fit of common sense decided on this mystery laceweight wool I found from a thrift store. A bit disappointingly the first of two skeins had numerous cuts here and there, but no trace of any animals and all my yarn is nowadays safely tucked away in ziplock bags so I decided not to worry about it. I ended up with two bigger balls and several tiny ones. But hey, 150 g of laceweight for 2 euros, what am I complaining about? It's a very pretty purple, too.

I've also been on a cross stitch highway. I decided way before Yule while making the kitty-vomit-thing that I needed motivational sign myself. Something like a motto I could live by, that would inform anyone visiting my home of the values I live by. Something pretty, sophisticated and subtle. Something like...

The antique frame compliments these delicate stitches perfectly.

The font is from freepatternsonline.com and two of the birds from tipnut.com. The frames and the bird on the bottom left I designed myself. As before, the picture below should be big enough to work from. Because I know what's been missing from your home decor.

You're welcome.