Red Lentil Curry

you need:
1 cup red lentils (peeled)
3 cloves of garlic
1 piece ginger root
2 shallots
1 large carrot
3 sticks of celery
1 red bell pepper or red pepper
1 cup canned tomatoes or tomato sauce
2 tablespoons of red curry paste
1 cube vegetable stock
¼ teaspoons of cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon of garam masala
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon of curry powder
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
a pinch of salt
2 cups of water or milk
3 tablespoons greek or turkish yoghurt to serve

Mince the peeled shallots, garlic and ginger and fry them in a Dutch oven or large pan with a lid on low heat. Add diced carrot, celery and red pepper and let soften for a few minutes. Then add red curry paste, cinnamon, garam masala spice, turmeric and curry powder and stir well. If you like your curry very spicy, add chili powder or additional chopped chili peppers.

Pour in the canned tomatoes or tomato sauce, add the vegetable stock, sugar and salt and stir for a minute. Finally add the lentils and water or milk, stir once again and cover with a lid. Let simmer on low heat for at least half an hour (check occasionally if you need to add more liquid).

Transfer portions into small bowls, top each with a tablespoon of yoghurt and serve with warm garlic naan and/or basmati rice.

thursday breakfast: homemade scones

Fresh mini scones. In my opinion a much nicer option than pancakes. Just pop them in the oven and wait for the magic to happen (or make some coffee and set the table). Today's batch came out perfect. Here's the recipe:


Creme fraiche scones
makes 10 regular sized or 16 mini scones

2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of baking soda
3 tablespoons of sugar
a pinch of salt
5 tablespoons of very cold butter
150g of creme fraiche
5 tablespoons of milk
optional: 1/2 cup of dried fruit or berries chopped into small bits, or 1/2 cup of chocolate bits

Mix together flour, baking soda, sugar and salt. Add the butter to the mixture and blend it in. This works best with a kitchen machine or a pastry blender (if you don't have those, use two knives). Stir in the creme fraiche (leave out a teaspoon for glazing the scones) and milk using a fork or a spatula. If you want fruit, berry or chocolate bits in your scones, throw them in now. Don't overmix - the ingredients should be just combined! Pour the mix onto a lightly floured table and knead the mix for ten seconds or until you get a very sticky ball of dough. Patt the dough down on a floured surface until it's about 3cm thick and either cut out circles with a 4cm (mini) or 6,5cm (regular) cookie cutter or simply cut into triangle shapes. Brush a wee bit of creme fraiche onto the scones and bake them in the pre-heated oven on 190 degrees celsius for about 10 minutes or until the scones are slightly browned.

Invite your friends over for breakfast and enjoy!

the best lemon pie

I just need to share this great great recipe for lemon pie with almonds. it's simple and delicious and i make it at least every other week.


for the small oven dish i used only a quarter of the recipe below


French Lemon and Almond Pie

shell:
1.5 dl flour, 1 dl powdered almonds, 3 tbs sugar, 50g butter, 1 egg

filling:
100g melted butter, 1.5 dl fresh lemon juice, zest of two lemons, 2.5 dl sugar, 0.5 tbs vanilla sugar, 150g powdered almonds, 4 eggs

1. Mix all ingredients for the shell in a large bowl and spread in an oven dish lined with baking paper. Pre-bake on 200C for about 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Mix lemon juice, zest, sugar, vanilla sugar, butter and almonds. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs until very foamy. Carefully mix the eggs with the other ingredients and pour into the pre-baked shell. Bake for about 15 minutes. Let it cool down completely and sprinkle some powdered sugar on top. Enjoy!

sunday lunch: creamy mushroom soup

It's still quite cold here, so a nice hot soup makes just the right lunch for chilly a sunday like this one.

Ingredients:

500g mushrooms
2 large potatoes
1 shallot
2 cloves of garlic
1l of vege stock
butter
150ml of light cream (i used 15% fat cream today)
salt & white pepper
if needed potato starch

Instructions:

Peel and slice potatoes and boil them in the vege stock for about 20 minutes. Chop the garlic and the shallot and fry in butter until soft. Add chopped mushrooms and fry the mix for about 3 minutes or until the mushrooms are soft and brown. Add the mix to the vege stock and potatoes and let boil for around 15 minutes. Add cream and blend with a hand blender until smooth. If you like the soup thicker, blend in a bit of potato starch. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with fresh bread.

I made this recipe for two today and we still have leftovers, so i reckon it's enough for 3 to 4 persons.

an early sunday walk

We live a five minute walk away from the baltic sea. today we took out the chicken and the macro lense for an early walk.


the chicken exercising


our breakfast. coffee and delicious voisilmäpulla from the little café at the seashore. if you want to taste these buns yourself, here's a recipe.


i love the colours of the winter.