New soapmaking stuff

Finally I did it. Ordered soap stuff from abroad, that is. A few different fats, e-vitamin and rosemary for preserving stuff and mineral colours. I also bought a surprise package of 10 different soap moulds and I got everything from Christmas moulds to basic square moulds. Have to try them next time!

I've been having soap making evenings for my friends at my home, and you wouldn't believe the urge I get when I look at other people doing soap... Cause naturally, I cannot do anything myself when I'm controlling and checking that the first-timers do everything right. The next day I have usually been very productive. :)

Whipped coconut lotion

I wanted to try to make a bit of a lighter lotion for summertime and wanted to use some aloe vera in it as well. I found a recipe for whipped coconut oil lotion with aloe vera which I decided to try. In recipe there was a liquid oil as well, I chose hempseed oil because it is supposed to be so darned good for skin, antiaging etc.

My recipe:

1,25 dl coconut oil, solid, not melted

2 tblsp aloe vera -gel

1 tblsp hempseed oil

5 drops of lavender essential oil

3 drops of tea tree essential oil

2 drops of liquid E-vitamine

a good dollop of lime-perfume oil

Mix the solid coconut oil with an electric whisk. Add aloe vera and liquid oil and continue mixing. Add the essential oils and perfume if you want to. Put in jars (glass, I heard that plastic jars should not be used with essential oils as they can do something to the plastic, but have not tested it :) ) and use to get lovely skin!

I thought I could modify this for summer by adding a tablespoon or two of zinc oxide to get a natural sun screen. Coconut in itself has already a SPF of 2-8 and hempseed SPF 6, but the natural SPF only protects against UVB-rays and zinc would help protect from the UVA-rays as well. Will try that as summer proceeds!

Tar soap

I love the smell of tar. It reminds me of Finnish summer, sauna, relaxing by the lake in the light summer evening with a can of Lonkero... Tar soaps seem to be disappearing (some EU-legislation that's come in the way) so I decided to try to make my own. I got a big bottle of tar as a Christmas present, 100% tar from pine tree. Googled a bit for a recipe but could not really find one, so I made up my own. Just cut the soap log, it was sticky as h**l but smells so lovely. Tar is a sticky thing in itself and a messy one, it messes everything that it touches, so next time I will just pour the tar from the jar (oh, that rhymes!) and not measure it with a measuring spoon or two...

190 g water
68 g lye

290 g canola oil
150 g coconut fat
30 g castor oil
30 g peanut oil

1 tbsp tar
11 drops of Savuyrtti-fragrance

Soap looks more like chocolate pudding

Interesting surprise when I cut the soap, whole soap had marmorized itself

Facial cream and lip balm

I made my first batch of facial cream and lipbalm a couple of weeks ago. I don't even know why because I really do not need facial cream, and if I feel a bit dry I dab on a bit of oil. Anyway, wanted to try and it was way easy and fun. I used olive oil in which I had infused some plantago major to add some healing power (antibacterial and it is used to heal wounds). I also dropped in some tea-tree oil to treat my acne-prone skin.

Facial cream
1 dl oliveoil (infusion of plantago major)
0,25 dl grapeseedoil
0,25 peanutoil
40 g coconut oil (extra virgin)
20 g beeswax
1,5 dl water
a few drops of tea-tree essential oil and rose perfume oil

Cook the water. Melt all the fats in water bath. Pour melted fats into a clean bowl. When fats and boiled water have about same temperature, pour the water into the fats, mixing with an electric mixer as you pour. When consistency is right, pour the mixture into cleaned (preferably sterilized) jars. You can at this stage drop in essential oils. When the cream has cooled down, close the lid and store in fridge. In a cold place will hold a month or two.

Lip balm
10 g beeswax
5 g coconut oil (extra virgin)
2 tbsp (18g) almond oil
(a few drops of peppermint extract, this was a food grade aroma and does not smell in the finished product, but I tried it anyway since I did not have any essential oils of the kind at home :( )

Melt the fats in water bath. Drop in essential or perfume oils of your liking, if you want to. Pour into sterilized jars. Put the lid on when cooled down.

A week without meat

We are already in the 9th day of the meatless month. So far so good! Yes, I have had my cravings but I have come over them. On the Monday evening I was visiting a friend and got a task to help fixing the food by laying out all the meat products in a lovely way. Oh, the smell of airdried ham and salami.... But, I kept myself in leash, just smelled the thing but did not taste. And I ate salad only while the others were feasting on the lovely meat products.

I have learned during the first week that cooking vegetarian is more timeconsuming than cooking "normally". First you have to really think about what to make and then you have to rinse and chop like everything you want to use, while normally you just throw the meat into a pan and fry it (quite a simplistic view, but still). Or maybe it just feels like that because I have not gotten used to it yet. The good thing is that this way I have to find new ways of eating and trying new foods. Soy beans for example, for the first time in my whole life I have tried those. And chick peas, I have bought those previously but never used them (right now they are actually boiling...).

Another (down?)side in this vegetarian food is the calories. I even normally eat quite little, and now without meat at all I get even less energy. I have counted for a couple weeks everything I have been eating, and it has been a crushing news. Everyday I get minuscalories, everything from 1300 to 1900 (and this is not just on the lowcaloriedays of the 5:2-diet). Yeah I know, that is almost a whole day's consumption for a woman who is doing no physical work. Someone here might think that well that's good, I could do with some weightloss, but it does not seem to go there. A body needs energy to keep it going and it turns to "safetymode" if for too long not getting energy, instead it starts to spare everything it gets and the best way to store it is in form of fat. So, this is not getting me thinner. I have GOT to start adding cream, cheese and fats into my diet. And i really do not know if this vegetarian thing goes to combine with the 5:2.... gotta find a balance!

Many people in the facebookgroup said that they are feeling a difference, they are much more perky and energetic and can do with less sleep. I am feeling the opposite. My colleagues have been saying that I look very tired, and I feel that way too. It must be the fact that I am not getting enough energy and still I am trying to exercise as usual. So, fats are now on the top of my menu!

Finally, some pictures of what I have been eating.

Soup with soybeans, mushroom and cauliflower (31kcal/dl)

A saturday night treat, tried to get all the calories during the week in this.. this was so good!!! The crust could have been a bit thinner, but I had too much dough which I noticed when I had rolled it into a size of the pan and didn't want to start from the beginning.

Pizza vegetale quattro formaggi (look, I know Italian!)

mushroom

red pepper

feta cheese

mozzarella cheese

two different grated cheeses

tomato pure

I met some friends in Liseberg amusement park on Sunday, and we went to have a hamburger. I was positively surprised, this was not bad at all.

Burger King's Veggie Burger

I was exercising yesterday and even though (or because) I had beansoup for dinner I was hungry in the evening. So I made this, a frittata with cottage cheese and cucumber.

Frittata with mushroom, leek and red pepper

Socks

I have been in a certain noninspirational period. Probably due to summer and having other things (=motorcycling) to do. So I have been knitting the simplest of all but always so needed garments, socks. The funniest thing was that I was not in any way trying to match the pattern in the two first socks, but it just happened by itself!

Basic socks, size 32

Yarn: Novita Nalle Kukkaketo orvokki, Novita Nalle Solid grey, did not weigh the final product so do not know the yardage

Needles: 3,0mm

Basic socks, size 30

Yarn: Novita 7 Veljestä Polkka candy, 75 g

Needles: 3,5 mm

Basic socks, size 36

Yarn: Old leftover yarns

Needles: 3,5 mm

Third day without meat

The meatless month started quite nicely. Even though I got awful cravings when on the first day I saw McDonald's advertisement about BigMac's birthday party and sooooo wanted to have one... But didn't! I have also been counting my calories even though I was supposed to do it only for my 5:2-days, and it seems that I am staying way under my daily need with this food...

On the first day I made lentilballs. It is a bit of a trial and error now trying to cope with vegetarian dishes. I could not get the dough to stay together, finally I put an egg into the dough to help it a bit. Even though they do not look like balls, more like patties or some clogs from outer space. I was so hungry when they were ready that I attacked the food and did not even think of taking a picture of it. The portion looked pretty ok, when the "balls" here (after being frozen) look a bit weird. Some of them are a bit well done, but it just made them taste better! :D I served these with rice, cucumber and coleslaw (it was ready in the fridge from last weekend's BBQ).

Lentil balls

red lentils

carrot

red onion

garlic

tomato pure

roasted sunflowerseeds

salt

olive oil

(egg)

Cooked lentils are stirred together with sautéed vegetables. Mix with a handblender into a pure. Crush the roasted seeds into a bit smaller pieces and add into the mixture together with seasoning and some olive oil to try to get the dough stay together. After frying a few balls I decided to add one egg to the mixture. Helped a bit the dough to stay together. Fry in a mixture of oil and butter.

Here is what I ate yesterday. A combo of things I could find in the fridge served with rice from yesterday and cucumber. This was so good, I couldn't believe it, I used only some soya to season it!

Janna's veggie wok

mushrooms

carrot

garlic

bamboo shoots

avocado

pineapple (canned, a bit of juice and a bit of fruit)

soya

Chop all the ingredients into convenient pieces. Fry in a bit of oil. Finally add soya and a bit of pineapple juice to taste. Serve with rice and sweet chili sauce.

Meatless Month

I stumbled across an event on Facebook that was named Lihaton Lokakuu (Meatless October, in Finnish). Because I am a bit of an "yllytyshullu" (does not have an exact translation to English, I'm afraid..), I decided to go along. Me, alltime meatloving me. Well, my challenge is not to totally end eating animal products but to diminish the amount. I will not, for example, stop eating milk and eggs. Just because coffee with any other milk than cow milk tastes s**t (have tried when breastfeeding my youngest) and because egg is such a good source for protein (don't start with me here about soja!). But, the meat I eat or buy I will try to diminish. Starting today. This blog will probably turn into a dieting blog now! :D

There must be something foodwise going on. I decided last week to try the 5:2-diet, before I knew about this meatless challenge. These pair quite fine, I think, this fasting has made a good starting point for the no-meat-season. Here is my dinner last Thursday, containing bulgur, mushroom, carrot and salad. A few hundred calories and so full I was!

My dinner yesterday, also a fasting day meal. With meat, though... Salad, cauliflower, carrot, red paprika and minced meat. The portion was huge even though only around 350 calories.

Soap

I've been making soap. Yes, right from the scratch. I became addicted after the very first batch, it is so fun and easy and it is absolutely rewarding to see how the end product becomes. I made the first batch a month ago, so now it is about time to try out the first one. They will still need more time to become more gentle and better, but I cannot wait to try..

If someone else interested in trying out soapmaking, here are some links that I have found useful (not in English, I'm afraid). And of course, Google is our friend here as well. :)

In Finnish:
Good ideas and recipes
The best guide for beginners can be found here
In Swedish: Gorgeous pictures and lovely ideas

From upper left corner: hairsoap with birch and argan oil, olive oil soap with green tea, kiddie soap (the white stars and flowers), and coffee and chocolate soap

The first soap I did was the olive oil with green tea -soap. I made some minor changes to the recipe, that is that I used green tea instead of chamomile tea. And I sprinkled some green tea into the dough before pouring into the moulds. This soap was easybeasy to do, it contains so much liquid fats and water that it is easy to handle.

Kiddiesoap looks fantastic, so lovely white and the seeds make a nice touch. The original recipe can be found in Finnish under the name "muksusaippua". I made some changes and had lard instead of "munkinpaistorasva" and different seeds, because I did not have poppy seeds home. :) Here is my version.

300g Olive Oil

100g coconut fat

50g lard

50g Canola oil

-> all the fats are put into SoapCalc, which counts how much water/liquid and lye you need.

Finally adding to the dough:

1 tablespoon potato flour or corn starch

1 tbsp linseeds

In Finnish recipes you can very often find "munkinpaistorasva", which is a solid mixture of vegetable fat for frying doughnuts. There is no exact substitute for it in Sweden. We have here "frityrolja", which means oil for frying, but it is liquid and the contents are not the same (I suppose, am not sure because I could not find ingredients for munkinpaistorasva, even though rumours says it contains mainly palm oil and palm oil is used for it in SoapCalc). But, what we have here in Sweden in all regular grocery stores, is lard. I noticed (from SoapCalc) that the qualities for palm oil and lard are almost exactly the same, so I have been using lard instead of doughnutfat. The difference is of course that if you want 100%vegetable soap, this won't work, but I do not mind using animal products. I love animals so why not use them to the full and make soap out of them as well! ;)

I'm so excited about this and would love to buy loads of soaprelated stuff (in the net there are loads of lovely places you can shop in...), all exotic fats and lovely scents and colours. The postage is usually so huge that I have so far refused myself on making an order. Maybe someday...

Peacock feathers

After finishing the previous project I had no idea of what to do so I decided to use leftover sockyarn and make an easy scarf. This will probably become a gift to someone.

 Model: Ruffle My Feathers (RavLink)

Yarn: Novita tico tico, 71 grams

Needles: 4,0 mm

Baby sweater

I knitted a sweater for a friend's baby girl. It has been ready already a couple of months but still not delivered. Hope it fits the child when it gets home... The mother bought the yarn and the sheep-button. Crocheted flowers of purple and white Muskat.

Model: Baby Jiffy Knit Sweater (RavLink)

Yarn: Drops Muskat, 290 grams
Needles: 4,0 mm

Summer garments

Updates to the blog have been scarce (=none) during the summer, but I have still done something. Here is a collection of some of my summer handiwork.

Model: Ruffled Summer Top (RavLink pink, RavLink variegated)

Yarn: the left one Novita Puro Batik, pink 180 grams, the right one Zettl Nina Cotton/Wool Sock (yarn held double), yellow-green-red 250 grams

Needles: 3,5 mm and 4,0 mm

Model: Dune hat (RavLink)

Yarn: Anttila Sofie, colour beige, 100 grams

Hook: 4,0 mm 

 Model: Bronze Beauty Top (RavLink)

Yarn: Drops Paris, 6 skeins

Hook: 6,0 mm

Model: Tilda / Garnstudio (RavLink)

Yarn: Drops Fabel, colour Blue Sea, 2,5 skeins

Hook: 3,0 mm

Five hour sweater

I have a great-aunt living in Germany, and she has a granddaughter (my second cousin, right?) who has two sons, one of them born in the beginning of this year. My great-aunt was talking to my mother and asked if I am as good a knitter as my grandmother (great-aunt's sister, that is) was. My mother had answered without a doubt "Yes, and maybe even better". Well, I don't know about that, my granny was ossom in knitting in a way that I would probably never be. She had such a patience to do wonderful patterned knits in thin yarn which would take me ages to knit. But anyway, the point is that great-aunt wanted a knitted sweater for the newborn boy.

Her wish was to have it ready as soon as possible. Yeah, always a good beginning for a project... So I chose the five hour sweater for the pattern (it will take just 5 hours to make it, right? fast enough?), the one withouth the "girlish holes" in it. I just happened to have a skein of Finnish wool yarn in brown and green which I thought would make a nice cardigan for a little boy. I also made a hat in the same yarn (had to buy another skein) but right now cannot find a picture of it. I was little wondersome about the size whether it would suit him, I made it according to measurements for a 6mth old, but babies are always unique in sizing. I do not even know if they have gotten this, since my mom was supposed to send it over.

Model: Five hour baby boy sweater

Yarn: Novita 7 Veljestä Nostalgia, colour green-brown, 1 skein

Needles: 5,5 mm

Warm cardigan for ME!

A longtime dream has been to make myself a nice, warm cardigan. It came off the needles a few weeks ago, and has been actively used ever since. The sleeves came out a bit too long, but better to turn them than to have too short sleeves. I made an I-cord for belt instead of the ribbed belt in the pattern. Very warm, very soft, lovely cardigan!

Model: From Garnstudio

Yarn: Novita Puro, usva, yardage 1000m

Needles: 5,0mm and 6,0mm

Baby knits

Some baby knits have come from my needles. First a hat for friends' newborn baby girl, ordered by a common friend of ours. 

Model: Aviatrix

Yarn: Novita Wool Sävy, pink

Needles: 3,5mm, 4,0mm

Then a cardigan for my second cousin's baby boy. My mom's aunt ordered this, she said she wants it quickly, but is probably not going to pay any more than the yarn used for this + postage. It might be that the yarn cost quite a lot... ;) I modified the pattern a bit, made garter stitch edging to the bottom and to sleeves, which I knit in the round and made three button holes.

Model: Baby boy sweater

Yarn: Novita 7Veljestä Nostalgia, 200m

Needles: 5,5mm, 6,0mm for the sleeves

And something for my little princess! I started this last summer and it was meant to be ready before summer holiday, but not quite... Finalized it until her birthday last September. This is one of the few patterns I have bought at Ravelry, and must say that the pattern is very good. It has several different sizes for different yarns. Versatile, that is!

Model: Zippy

Yarn: Sandnes Garn Mandarin Petit

Snowwhite mittens

I have again been a bit lazy about updating the blog. Here we go, again...

I knitted mittens for my boyfriend's niece. She chose the colour herself, which is white. I did not have any white yarn at home, so when I came across a bag of white fluffylooking yarn at Lidl at almost no price, I went for it. Stupid me! The yarn was too chunky to be knitted in the first place, and it was half acrylic (well that one could be read from the package, and it was actually ok for an acrylicyarn. Anyhow, I needed so big needles that it was difficult to knit and the result was not so beautiful.

Model: Rocky Mountain Mittens (ravelry)

Yarn: Zettl Scarf Yarn, 64m

Needles: 8,0 mm

In search of a perfect dough

I love joulutorttu. It is a traditional Finnish pastry that is eaten at Christmas time. A very simple thing, consisting of a butterdough and a drop of plum in the middle and shaped to ressemble a star, or a windmill, or whatever. You can buy readymade dough for this (in Finland and in well-equipped stores in Sweden also), but since it is quite hard to get a hold on here and I've heard that homemade is better (as usual..), I wanted to try to make my own dough for these Christmasstars.

Many have praised a butterdough made with quark, so I decided to give it a go. Very simple to do, but the result, well... Everyone said that these will taste better and of course have less fat, yeah maybe they do that but the consistency really was not as a joulutorttu should be. First of all, despite the baking powder the dough really does not rise, and joulutorttu should be puffy. The dough burns quite easily (because of the quark, I've heard), so it was difficult to get the dough cooked before the ends of the stars started to burn. I actually think that this dough is better off for savoury filled pastries (which I also did, and the dough worked way better in those).

I forgot my camera in Finland, so I have no pictures of these to show you. Maybe better that way, because the result was, hmmm, somewhat pitiful and nobody wants to see them. The taste is ok, but the looks ruined the whole thing.

Anyway, here is the recipe:

Joulutorttu made of quarkbutterdough

250 g quark

250 g butter or margarine

4 dl wheat flour

1 tsp 

baking powder

Plumjam /-marmalade

Mix the margarine, flour and baking powder. Add the quark. Blend until smooth, but avoid kneading.

If you want the dough a little puffier, pat the dough into a thin plate and keep it in a cool place for a couple of hours. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, fold the sides of the dough into the middle (you end up with a dough one third of the original rolled-out size). Twist the dough 90 degrees and do the rolling and folding -procedure a couple of times more. Put the dough back in the refrigerator, covered, for about 30 minutes. (This was in the original recipe, but I do not see the point of rolling and folding because it did not produce a puffy result.) Or just roll out the dough and make the stars.

Cut the rolled-out dough into rectangles and make small diagonal cuts in each corner. Put some plumjam into the middle and turn every other corner in the middle, squeeze them together so they won't open. (You can also turn the corners first and then add the plum, this way it definitely won't open in the oven). You can also make other forms but the star is the most popular. 

Bake in the oven in 175-200 degrees (depends on the oven and size of the torttu and the amount of plumjam) for about 15-20 minutes. 

Haahaa!!! The Google Translator version of the Wikipedias article on joulutorttu can be read here. :D :D :D Oh my, WHERE do they get the translations from? Mince pie???? What the heck has this to do with mince?!?! :D

Gustav II Adolf -cake

On the 6th of November is the day to celebrate the king Gustav II Adolf, the founder of the city of Gothenburg (among many others..) and a great war-hero. (And at the same time in Finland the Swedish day is celebrated.) I browsed through the Internet for the recipe, and I found many different recipes with totally different kind of ingredients. I read somewhere that originally the cake was made of sugar cake and filled with chocolate- and lemon buttercream. The cake is always decorated with the head of the king made of either chocolate or marzipan (these you cannot buy in a grocery store...). Based on these specifications I designed my own version of the cake.

Bottom:
3 pcs eggs
1.5 cups granulated sugar
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon water

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Beat eggs and sugar until white and fluffy. Mix flour and baking powder in a separate bowl and then turn it down in the egg mixture with water. Pour batter into a roasting pan lined with waxpaper. Bake for 5 minutes and then let the cake cool.

Lemon butter cream:

125g softened butter
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
juice of ½ lemon

Beat the egg yolks. Beat the butter with icing sugar and vanilla sugar. Mix egg yolks little by little. Beat well with electric mixer.

If less lemon flavor is desired (for this gives a lot of flavor to the cake) just use the rind of the lemon.

Chocolate filling:

2 - 2 ½ dl whipping cream 

100 g cream cheese

130 g chocolate 

Whip the cream until stiff. Stir in the cream cheese. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or on the stove over low heat in a water bath. Add the chocolate to the foam and mix until smooth. 

Frosting:

200 g white chocolate

0,5-1 dl cream

(butter)

a bit of melted dark chocolate

Melt the chocolate in the microwave oven. Warm up the cream and stir the chocolate in the cream. I used first only half a desilitre of cream but the mixture was too stiff so I added some cream. Add butter to the warm mixture for more shine, but remember to whisk it heavily.

Assembling the cake:

Bake the bottom, devide in two halves. Make the fillings. Spread the lemon filling on the other cakehalf. Spread the chocolate filling on top of it. 

Put the other cakehalf on the top.

Pour the frosting on the cake and spread it evenly with a spatula. Decorate with dark chocolate stripes.

Baileys cheesecake

We went for a visit at our neighbours and I decided to make a cake to take with us. I chose Baileys cheesecake, because I thought it would suit adult taste quite good and because the Baileys-filling I used in a filled cake earlier was scrumptuous. The recipe is (again) from Kinuskikissa. The edges of the cake are made with melted chocolate, my first try but it was very easy.

The bottom and edges: 235 g oatmeal cookies 125 g margarine

Filling: 4 leaves of gelatine 2 dl whipping cream 1 ¼ dl powdered sugar 500 g mascarpone cheese 3 egg whites 1 dl Baileys liqueur

Cover a 24 cm -diameter springform cake tin with baking paper and brush the edges with cooking oil. Crush the oat biscuits with rolling pin or blender. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the crushed biscuits. Press into the bottom and sides of the pan using your fingers.

 Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water. Whip the cream. Add the icing sugar while whipping. Mix the whipped cream with mascarpone cheese. Beat egg whites until stiff and add to the cream mixture.

Bring the liqueur to a boil and melt the gelatine into the warm liquid. Stir in the liqueur-gelatin mixture in a thin string into the filling mousse. Pour into the cake pan and smooth the surface. 

Refrigerate for three hours. Remove from the pan and put on a serving plate. 

Princess cake

We went to see a friend's baby for the first time (a little girl), and what is more suitable to take with you than a princess cake? This time I even used a bit of raspberryjam, which actually makes this an Operacake... The topping of green marzipan was a ready-rolled cover which I spritzed with dark chocolate.