My friend's family's cottage on a small island. I've quickly grown to love the place. (So I did take my camera with me after all. Here's to a great summer!)

This is where I'm going. I'll listen to the wind play in the trees, make pancakes outside on the open fire and sleep in the yellow little house (the one in the picture is just the outhouse!) or one of the granaries. We'll also continue on our summer house project I suppose (and at least test the new sauna!) and I'll go check on how the red and black currants are doing after last summer's pruning. Read more about the summer house project from two years ago and from last summer. (It's my dad's old home we're slowly making into a family summer house.)

I have a radical feeling I'm leaving my camera at home for the trip (I'm still a little smitten with my new phone and its camera and how easy it is to bring everywhere) which means I won't be blogging until I come home again in some weeks. But welcome to follow me on Instagram! (And I'll also come to Oulu, let's get together sweethearts!)

Have a beautiful, blessed July peeps!

Love people. Love them if they deserve it, love them if they don't. Make space in your agenda for them. Think of ways to give. You'll be blessed as you do; there are so many fantastic people out there! Get to know people you wouldn't normally spend time with; your world will expand and so will your heart! Look people in their hearts. What do they love? What makes them happy? What makes them laugh? What's their favorite memory? What are they passionate about, what are their dreams?

Loving looks different to different people. To me it can look like baking a loaf and taking it to a neighbor who's stuck at home with a broken leg. You could clean someone's house or car, volunteer to babysit their kids, listen to someone with a heavy heart or invite them over for dinner. Go wild and invite a stranger who has no one to invite them. For love sees people. Love trusts them and has faith in them.

"Love comes from God" (1 John 4:7). And 1 Corinthians 13 breaks it down more: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."

Get out there. Give time. Find a new best friend, who knows.


(I am very inspired by this article.)


(photo by dad: me and mom all matchy-matchy back in 1986)

I love this season I'm in. I've got so much time in my hands: time to listen, time to rest, time to heal, time to dream, time to be with friends and family, time to eat breakfast slowly, time to try out new recipes, time to make music all day if I want to. I really try to savor every day; I know that in time I'll have my hands full again!

In the summer I tend to not add any dried fruits in my granola because I love having it with fresh berries or fruit (strawberries and nectarine are my favorites). I tweaked my basic granola recipe (coming here as well) a little yesterday:

CRUNCHY CHIA GRANOLA

800ml rolled oats
300ml buckwheat
200ml coconut flakes
200ml almonds
75ml cocoa nibs
50ml sesame seeds
50ml chia seeds
0,25tsp salt
150ml sunflower oil
2 heap tbsp honey


In a big bowl mix all the dry ingredients. Heat up the sunflower oil in a kettle, add honey and mix until they merge. Pour the mixture in to the dry ingredients and mix well. Line an oven tray with baking paper and bake the granola in 150 celsius for about 20 minutes; after baking for 10 minutes mix a few times to bake evenly. Let cool completely before storing.

I sit on my windowsill a lot, marvel at the sky, dream of summer cottages and eat lots of granola. (New recipes on the way!)

 

COCOA BUCKWHEAT GRANOLA

(adapted from My New Roots)

300g rolled oats
200g buckwheat
75g coconut flakes
100g hazelnuts (or any nuts really; hazelnuts are the crunchiest though)
30g chia seeds
0,5tsp salt
35g coconut sugar
100ml maple syrup
100ml coconut oil
1tsp vanilla powder
150ml raw cocoa powder


Chop the hazelnuts roughly. Mix oats, buckwheat, coconut flakes, hazelnuts, chia seeds, salt and coconut sugar in a bowl. Melt coconut oil in a saucepan and add maple syrup, vanilla powder and raw cocoa powder and mix well. Pour the cocoa mixture in with the dry indredients and mix thoroughly. Line an oven tray with baking paper and bake the granola in 150 celsius for 15 minutes. Keep baking, mixing every few minutes, for 10 minutes more (or more, depending how dark you want to roast it. Taste a hazelnut to test if it's done to your taste). Let cool down completely before storing. Serve with milk and e.g. fresh strawberries, nectarines or banana.


This granola is seriously addictive. Just saying.

My time in Stockholm consisted of lots of walking with Eva and Avon, good, genuine talks on just about everything in our lives, good food and lots of coffee. I was so at home in my friends' cozy little home and they took such good care of me! My favorite café find was Pascal (picture 4) which had only just opened in March. The place was a mixture of funky, charming and cozy, their coffee very tasty and service heartfelt. They serve coffee from small Swedish roasteries (Da Matteo, Love Coffeeroasters, Koppi Roasters) and you could pick what you liked for your V60. Drop Coffee (picture 1) was as good as I'd expected it to be. (I'm all inspired; I want a small Kalita!) Another nice find was Snickarbacken 7 (picture 7), a beautiful café in an old garage. Their coconut brownie was just too good (and I kind of fell for kardemummabullas..) On Saturday night I grabbed a lamb burger from Vigård barbeque, and had it by the sea. Not bad at all.

Tack Stockholm, vi ses igen!

(For more pictures from the trip check out my Instagram; it appears I only took my proper camera out in the cafés..)

I am off to Stockholm for a week to spend time with Eva and the boys, yay! Last week was terrific with new friends made and also new recipes discovered but we'll get to those later!

And! You can now follow me on Instagram!

I am truly blessed to have a friend like her.

It is so beautiful when two people love each other so much that they want to spend each coming day together.

I'm off to Turku to celebrate Helena and Stephen and their love!

He will stay faithful to his promises.

Spinach mushroom omelet and long-awaited visitors

Helena and Stephen found a little time in the middle of their short visit to Turku and all their wedding preparations to come to Helsinki, ah! We had breakfast, went to Suomenlinna with friends from here and there, burned in the sun, had some seriously inspiring and heartening conversations, ate at Street Gastro.. On the morning before they left omelette tasted especially good so I thought I'd finally share the recipe (though I never had one).

SPINACH MUSHROOM OMELET

(serves 2-3)

6 organic eggs
6 tablespoons milk
about 200g fresh spinach
150-200g fresh mushrooms
salt
black pepper
lemon pepper
coconut oil for frying (gives such a lovely, subtle taste)
parmesan


Cut mushrooms into halves if their small and quarters if they're big. Fry them on a dry pan on medium heat until they've lost much of their liquid. Sprinkle with olive oil and lemon pepper (Santa Maria has got an excellent lime pepper!) and fry until golden. Set the mushrooms aside to wait. Crack the eggs in a bowl, pour in the milk and mix lightly with a fork. Rinse the spinach well in a colander and fry on a dry pan on medium heat for a couple of minutes or so until the spinach has wilted (become soft). Season generously with salt and a touch of black pepper. Turn the heat up (you want to fry the omelette quickly so it won't dry), add coconut oil to the pan and pour in the egg mix. Season with salt. Let the omelette fry a moment without stirring until it sets just a little, then push it around gently with a spatula. Turn in big chunks. The omelette is ready when it's just set (but of course you can let it get all brown if you like it that way). Throw in the mushrooms and serve straight away. Grate parmesan on top if you like.

Good friendship is like fresh water, like a coat that fits well, like coming home.

Oatmeal raisin cookies

I went to visit old workmates at the theatre yesterday and since I'd been craving oatmeal raisin biscuits for days, I made them some. On the way home I went to GLC for a double espresso and got Suke Quto from The Barn, my lucky day!

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES

(makes about 24 small biscuits)
(adapted a little from Smitten Kitchen)

115g soft butter
125g muscovado sugar
1 organic egg
120g rolled oats
95g flour (I used light spelt)
0,5tsp baking powder
0,5tsp cinnamon
0,5tsp salt
0,5tsp pure vanilla powder
70g raisins
40g chopped dark chocolate


Cream together the soft butter and sugar. Add egg and mix. In a separate bowl combine oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients, raisins and chocolate to the sugar butter mixture and mix with your hands to have everything well combined. Scoop the dough onto two sheets of baking paper and roll them tightly and place in the fridge for half an hour or so. When chilled, cut the rolls into biscuits, divide on two baking sheets and press each a little to flatten them out. Bake in 175 celsius for 8-9 minutes, until golden at the edges but still pale on top. (We're aiming at crunchy edges and soft, chewy middle. Chilling the dough makes the biscuits a little thicker and chewier; a warm dough bakes faster and spreads more.). I made small biscuits (about 5cm) but next time I think I'll go for proper cookies and make bigger ones. Baking time will vary a lot depending on your oven, how big you make the biscuits and how cold the dough is. Just do as my grandma always did; bake a test biscuit or two first!

I highly recommend muscovado sugar! (This is the sugar I use the most. In Helsinki you find it in Ruohonjuuri and other organic stores.) Muscovado's got a lovely, subtle caramelly taste. Since it's less processed than white sugar it still has some nutrients in it and is easier for your body to digest. Of course you could make these biscuits with any sugar but you will miss a little in flavour if you use white sugar.

The little things.

INSPIRED/ Kuuma

I'd been hearing about a new café, Kuuma, on Pursimiehenkatu 12, and finally went today. What a lovely place! The sisters behind the counter clearly love what they do. They serve raw cakes, freshly made smoothies and juices, etc. And good coffee (from Johan&Nyström). I had a double cappuccino (the ratio of milk to coffee was perfect and the espresso just right) and orange blueberry raw cake, yum. The place was small and welcoming, a cozy and buzzing meeting point. (The only downside of the place is that it's not in my neighborhood.) I left feeling so inspired!

(On the way home I stopped to take a picture of my future house, ah.)

It's really the little things that make life exciting, like fresh strawberries in your porridge in May!

I might be a little late but now I've got basil, arugula and chives on the way. Let's see how it goes; me and basil go a long way but the others..

This salad is a new hit in my kitchen.

Remember my lovely neighbor shop? Well Cilla asked me if I'd like to decorate her shopwindow and I jumped at the chance! (There have been so many good surprises lately!) I had a blast designing the window with such lovely materials: she had just gotten new beautiful stuff from Mateus and Renée Voltaire. Inspring, to say the least!

(But really, it looks so much better live, go see it!)

INSPIRED/ Rivers and roads

Three days in Berlin. I'd figured I'd have coffee at The Barn (best coffee in town) on one of the days but we actually ended up there on all three (and even got to participate in a cupping on Saturday)! Happy days.



I didn't have a long list of have-to's but Katies blue cat and Almond toffee crunch was one of them. And strolling along the canal. This was my first time in Berlin in the spring time and oh, how lovely and green and blossoming it was!


We were in town for our uncle's wedding so it was lots of good family time!





Roamers was a new find, and a good one! I had poached eggs and Bircher müsli for breakfast, yums. (That guy working there has officially got the coolest tattoos.)





The party was held at Hütten Palast, a funky, cozy hotel in Neukölln. I stayed in the Heartbreaker caravan (picture above).




The day after we went out for falafel (apparently the best in town) to Babel (Kastanienallee 33). I had falafel and baba ganoush. Oh my. Need to figure how to make such heavenly baba ganoush!


What a weekend. Such lovely, unexpected encounters. (Danke Schön.)