This is the last Wednesday of the month and I am posting what I was up to that month for the past five years. I hope you enjoy the trip down the memory lane with me.
2004, Tallinn/Stockholm
2005, Stockholm
2006, Dublin
Sewing and attending SCA events
2007, Dublin
I made a book for a friend's knighting.
2008, Stockholm
I was working on Pratchghan squares and had a trip to Ireland.
Some of my friends came over for a dinner party on Saturday. This time I chose to cook Russian food which none of them had had before. Similar, yes, but not exactly the same.
On the menu were: filled eggs with spicy sprats, pelmeni with two sauces, quark cake, and tea with baranki.
Filled eggs with spicy sprats
Take hard boiled eggs , cut them in half and carefully remove the yolks without breaking the whites. Cut a sliver off of the bottom of the egg white so that it's stable. Mix the yolks with a little mayo, sour cream, salt and pepper (add some sprat liquid if you wish) and mix into an even paste. Spoon the paste into the egg halves, arrange them on a plate and decorate with parsley or dill.
Remove the heads, innards and tails from the sprats, and de-bone them. Slice some lemon and arrange the sprat fillets with lemon slices on the egg plate.
Pelmeni are filled dumplings similar to Chinese jiaozi and Japanese gyoza. The main difference is in the filling ingredients, although the dough can vary as well.
They are something that I have not been able to find here in Sweden and have eaten every time when I've been back to Estonia. I've been talking about them a lot and I also wanted to share one of my favourite foods with my friends.
There are several different varieties of pelmeni, I made the simple "home" variety with minced beef and pork, onion, salt and pepper. Me being me, I added some garlic too.
Pelmeni are simple, if somewhat time consuming to make. I'd spotted a package of frozen dumpling skins in an Asian grocery store so I used those instead of making the dough myself. Next time I'll buy thinner ones, these looked right, but didn't cook quite through. I also used store bought mince because I don't have a meat grinder.
I grated a medium onion for half a kilo of mince (shall use half an onion next time), and chopped two cloves of garlic (shall use one in the future). Oh the tears! My tear ducts got a serious workout grating the onion. Much worse than chopping it, but I didn't want any onion bits in the filling.
Mixed everything thoroughly, put a spoonful of filling on a thawed dumpling skin and crimped the wetted edges together. Then I laid the dumplings on a freezer tray and put them in a freezer. One can cook them immediately, but I prepared them a day ahead to save time before the party.
When it was time to eat, I put the frozen pelmeni into a pot of boiling water and boiled until they rose to the top, and then some. The boiling time is usually 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the pelmeni.
When they were done, used a slotted spoon to put the pelmeni on plates and served them with sour cream sauces (dill and garlic) on the side.
Quark cake
I made my own quark following these instructions and used this recipe for the cake only omitting the cinnamon and using vanilla sugar instead of vanilla essence.
I served it with sour cream and blackcurrant jam. It was one of the most delicious cakes I've ever had. There was nothing left of the cake, we ate every last crumb. I must make it again soon. All the waiting and making my own ingredients is so worth it!
There is no one blend of black tea that is Russian, any black tea (ONLY black) tea will do, but not all of them will be good. Tea in Soviet Union was mostly grown in Georgia, although there were some imports from China and possibly India as well.
One can add lemon, jam, sugar, milk or vodka to one's tea, for some variation, or one can enjoy one's tea as is. None of that makes tea Russian, what makes tea Russian is the way it is brewed. First you make a tea concentrate, then dilute it to your preferred strength with hot water in your cup. Samovar would have been good for that, but we made do with a simple tea pot and a kettle.
There are a variety of baked goods one can enjoy with tea. I wanted to serve pryaniki, but the ones my Mum so kindly sent me turned out not to be good. Fortunately she also had sent me some baranki with poppy seeds and those were good.
It was lovely to have the friends over and I'm glad I got to share some of my favourite cuisine with them.
I promise this is the last post on Ikea greatness. For a while, at least.
The "Bedroom" Colour Conundrum
I had become increasingly tired with the navy blue bedspread that also didn't fit the bed right, but I couldn't pick a new colour scheme either. Green? Blue? White? Brown? Purple? I even considered lilac in desperation, but vetoed that instantly. Until it hit me that I can go grey-scale and choose any shade between white and black. Bingo!
So now I have black curtains tied into a knot over a white one, a black bedspread with white lines embroidered on it and bedding in black print over white base. All from Ikea. What I actually had had in mind were steel grey curtains and bedspread, but there were no grey ones to be had and black actually worked out better with what I already had.
I'd brought back one black crocheted doily from my collection in Tallinn and had it under the lamp even before I decided on the shades of grey scheme. (Should have taken a clue ages ago!) I also had been at a loss with how to store my dark grey sheepskin I bought for SCA purposes. It became the rug in front of the bed.
This time the bed corner actually looks polished, all the elements have come together and complement each other. As a finishing touch I want to put up a couple black and white photos on the wall to tie it all together. I'm holding off with the art, though. I want all the furniture to be in place and in the right colours before I start banging holes into walls.
All this black coming from a girl who had previously decided not to carry over her love for black colour to interior decoration. Well, never say never...
When I did the original shopping for moving in I had to buy lots of things because I had nothing to begin with. Some of these I bought knowing full well that I'll replace them soon, or as soon as I could. The sofa was a kind gift from a friend, but only a place holder for the One Sofa.
The Sofa Dilemma
The One Sofa was supposed to be big enough to sleep on and also have an accompanying chair. I shifted the current one around until I found the best layout and went looking for the One Sofa and Comfy Chair that Fit Together. And looked ... and looked, and looked.
I looked at Ikea, Mio, BQ Sweden, Swedese, Italian, French, British, Estonian and other Swedish places, even American. Nothing. No thing. Not a single one. How hard is it to make a sofa and a chair set that have clean lines, are chunky and come in chocolate or white? Impossible, apparently.
So I gave up, decided to toss the current one, and build a sort of sofa out of the two mattresses that are taking up space in the attic. It would have problems (low, no armrests), but at least it would match my style. Then I gave up on that idea too because I want things that I buy/make now to be things that I really really like.
The dilemma was: should I buy/make a non-matching sofa and chair or hold out until I find what I like? And the answer is: neither.
I've completely scrapped the sofa + chair idea and will get two chairs instead. Which, incidentally, Ikea has in the exact style I want.
I puffy red <3 Ikea. Seriously. I decide on a new colour scheme or furniture style, check out a few places and what do you know? Ikea has exactly what I like and/or need.
That humidifier problem? Solved. Sofa dilemma? Gone. Need a new bedspread? Ikea has it. I might as well just give up and accept that my flat will stay filled with Ikea furniture.
The Humidifier Problem
The air in my flat is very dry in the winter. So dry in fact that I get mini-nosebleeds during nights. This is very common in centrally heated houses here in the north. Some places are worse than others and my flat is the driest place I've ever lived in.
Last winter I did some research about humidifiers, but the only ones commonly available were electric ones. I didn't want to buy another gadget to take up floor space, use more energy and require constant maintenance all the while polluting the air with extra microbes. The simple radiator tubes, that I remember from way back, are apparently not "in" in Stockholm.
So I gave up on humidifiers, put some wet towels on the radiators and cringed, but at least I wasn't oozing blood any longer. Then Spring came and I put the towels away. Now it is Winter again and the dryness wasn't a problem until mid-January when the weather became colder.
As I started my search again I decided to take a look in the Ikea catalogue. And there they were — ceramic jars with a flat back and a hole for hanging. Exactly what I'd been looking for. As of yesterday I'm a proud owner of a pair of beautiful humidifiers, even though Ikea thinks they sold me two kitchen cutlery jars. The bonus is that they are white, which makes them very unobtrusive on a white radiator under a white curtain. Perfect!
For those who wonder how World of Warcraft, that I talk about once in a while, looks, I am pleased to present The Craft of War: BLIND.
There is a whole back story to this, but it's only interesting to those who fancy Warcraft lore. I will only say that the city is the human capital Stormwind and the attacker is a Blood Elf. I'll gladly talk your ears off if you want to know more.
