The baking frenzy begins...

Im about to shop all ingredients for the baking of several different yum-yums in a christmasy cathegory. I am thinking to make a smal ton of the different sorts, and give them away to friends and aquaintances. Shh! it's s-e-c-r-e-t!

And one thing that is shocking each year(why do I always forget this??), is the price of almonds. Almonds is in almost every recipe for christmas cakes/candy/goodies that you can find. At least here in Scandinavia. 17-25€/kg has been the prices I've seen so far. Is it always so much?? And for a decent "kransekake" (=norwegian almond cake) you need at least 1 kg. Right? Because its never enough with the 18 rings on top of each other, you have to have the pieces stashed around it on the plate. Myabe I'm over shooting. We ARE after all just two people in this household. But we are having a 26th december family gathering...so...

And I want to make the English christmas cake! the gorgeous savoury fruit magnifience that has been a tradition on my aunt Trude's christmasparty many years. But as many good things, it costs so much for the LONG list of ingredients, and I think its only me that likes this in here, so I rather skip it. And leave time for the making of all the other stuff. We havent even had time for making our fantastic piparkakkutalo (gingerbread house) that we have planned!

But now, the gifts to Norway is sent, so that time-consumption is over. The quewe in the post office went all the way out from the store and alongside one wall! Lucky they are indoors in the mall now.... Poor guys working front desk postal services today must have quite the stress! But they kept on smiling=) good work!

My bestest candies!

My yummy jam

For some time now I have tried very hard to empty our freezer so that it can be defrosted. Too bad tho, that now what is left is small portions of stuff that dont go well together(yay me I managed to get some of last years mixed mushrooms out from layers of "snow" and put it into todays moussaka).
Yes, snow in freezer=has been too warm... we had an incident of slightly open door-syndrome and we don't know for how long that day it happened.... Hence the panic for getting it all out from there.

Well anyho, this is one of the best outcomes from freezer-emptying.

Apple-rhubarb-ginger-cinnamon jam.

it tastes so good you want to have it all at once. its like candy!

so here is(what I remember to be the recipe....*start-writing-stuff-down!*)
1 part finnish apples, chopped, peeled, pitted
1 part rhubarb salvaged from the freezer, defrosted peeled chopped
1 part hillosokeri(which is basically a mixture of normal sugar and pektin, unsure of its actual ratio sugar/pektin)
1 lime or lemon, but only its juice
1 stick of cinnamon (mine came all the way from Egypt, transported in Annes luggage, almost a meter alltogether in length!!)
1 length of ginger, peeled nicely

So;

1. Put the fruit and the sugar so it makes a sticky porridge(maybe this happened only because I saved it all in the same bowl that the rhubarb had defrosted, so much liquid/rhubarbjuice had gathered there), and squeeze the lemon/lime juice over. The citric acid in the juice act as preservative. Although im unsure for how long, since its added before the boiling takes place, it may not keep its abilities after this process. To be sure you can add the juice ALSO after the boiling is done, because who wants brown looking apple jam? Alternatively add citric acid bought from farmacy/store according to package description(which is about 2g/kg).
   
2. Keep it in the fridge for some hours-whichever fits your timetable
   
3. Glop it all into a pot and add the ginger and cinnamonsticks. I used a fairly large piece of ginger, mostly because I like ginger alot. This is now going to start boiling, and when it does, let it simmer for a while. maybe 15-20 minutes.
   
4. Pick out the ginger and cinnamon(they are now washed off and sit in my fridge, awaiting another task before I feel it proper to toss them) And while the jam is still steaming, poor to hot jars(over 60C) to the rim, close lid and set to cool upside-down.

Voila! it is so good, you have to hide some of it in secret locations if you are one of those that like to nibble yummy stuff. Or if you have kids or spouse that do.

food ingredients

When living in another country, the questions about what kinda food or stuff from the store is often raised. Since Finland is not that far away from Norway, culturally,the huge Oops'es has been quite avoidable in daily grocery shopping. But when it comes to names of fish, parts of meat, berries, mushrooms and to simply ask from a customer service counter(those that serve you the x amount of that particular fish or breadtopping you want), has made difficulties.

Most people here know what salmon is in three languages, and so do I. But when it comes to all the other fish-speices we norwegians have on our plate, I have come short with both my english skills, and the clerks.

Many other funny mishaps have happened when talking about and describing berries(simply because in this home we have no clue what the berries are called in English...well, most normal ones we know okay), like "you know that purple eyeball berry" (turns out they are gooseberries in english.)
Or when describing fish speices, like "um, you know that silvery one that can get really big, not shark, but the other one?" or "the one that looks like the one that killed Steve Irvin, but only much smaller and not really like that anyway but its flat atleast."
Or when describing what part of the animal you want, in a butchershop(like this last christmas, when I made traditional lambs-roll thingy from Norway), constantly pointing to ones limbs, telling and almost bringing along a chart to point at.

My help has sometimes been to check this marvelous list of anglo-finno-russo-scandinavian list. But most often I have been in the store, staring at the fish filléts on the ice, wondering and damning myself for not having a copy of most used glossary in my wallet.