Cold Avocado Soup with Prawns

One evening I was invited to my best friend's mum's house for dinner. We were about to plan my friend's wedding but it's always nicer to do that on a full tummy. I always love being invited for dinner and especially at mum #2's house 'cause that just brings back memories from being a kid.
This recipe is now my version of what we got as a starter. I just happened to have all the ingredients at home so it was just a natural choice to try to make it myself and put my ripe avocado to use and also the rest of the ingredients. This soup is really simple to make and kind of is just a looser version of a guacamole. So if you love avocados and guacamole then this is a perfect soup for you. It needs no cooking so it's perfect for a day when you're in a rush. Also this is definitely going on my list of foods to enjoy on a hot summer day.

All you need is:

1 Avocado
1 Orange
1 chili
Turkish yoghurt
cream (optional)
prawns
coriander
vegetable stock

Put the avocado into a blender together with the yoghurt, orange juice and yoghurt. Blend together until soft. Add the stock/fond to thin it out if necessary and to add a bit of flavour. I personally only used a tablespoon of cream just cause I wanted to get rid of the small amount in my fridge but honestly I wouldn't use it next time. Season with salt.

Pour into a bowl and add the prawns on top. I put a small spoon of extra yoghurt on top to add contrast. Grate some orange zest and sprinkle the chopped chili on top. Decorate with Coriander.

Apple pie with Almond Paste

Autumn is around the corner and however much I love the summer I really look forward to all the seasonal produce. This time of the year the apple trees are filling up with beautiful red and yellow fruits. One of my favourite things are definitely apple pie with lots of cinnamon. The tree we have in our garden usually blooms quite late but already a few apples have dropped so I decided to do my favourite but with a new twist. I had some leftover almond flour and almond paste so I didn't want to waste them and included them into my recipe. I had tried some apples at my friend's mum's house and really liked the combo. I think this pie became now my new favourite and will definitely make it again.

You will need:

For the crust
170g butter
55g almond flour (I had made my own)
190g all purpose flour
85g sugar

Filling
250g apples
75g almond paste (grated)
10g sugar
2g or more of cinnamon
zest from half a lemon
Almond flakes

Pinch together the crust ingredients until combined. It's like making a crumble but will become more smooth due to the amount of butter. Spread into a pie form. I ended up having a bit of leftover dough. Some of it I used to sprinkle on top of the pie but with the leftovers I made 4 small cookies.

Peel and slice the apples and place around in a circle filling the whole surface of the dough. Sprinkle with sugar (especially if your apples are a bit sour), cinnamon, lemon zest and the grated almond paste. Add a few sprinkles of the dough. I topped it of with some sprinkles of almond flakes just so you can see that almonds have been used in the pie and to add a bit of extra crunch.

Bake in the oven 175° for approximately 30 mins.

    Serve with vanilla sauce or ice cream :)

Summer salad with Fennel, Cauliflower, Crown dill and Peas

During the summertime there's no better place to shop than at the outdoor market. I love all the fresh Finnish vegetables that are in season. I'm always inspired by the abundance of fresh veg and colours to make what I simply just call Summer salad. There are no rules in making salads...just mix and match whatever looks good. This time I started off by seeing these wonderful local fennels and started picking the ingredients from there. You can't go wrong on this.

It took me a while to get this recipe posted so I'm not sure it's really summer here anymore but right now you can still find these wonderful cauliflowers and crown dills in the shops and of course fennels too. And what better to use up your leftover dill from a crayfish party than this :)

You will need:

1/2-1 Fennel (I used 110g)
1 Purple Cauliflower (I used 75g) can of course be substituted with a normal white cauliflower.
10 peas on the pod (100g before taking out the peas...I think I had 40g peas)
1 bunch radishes (I had 110g)
1 granny smith apple (okay I know these aren't local :)  but if you have crisp and sour apples from your own garden then use those) I had 80g
Crown dill (these we usually use when cooking crayfish) I used 10g
1 lemon or lime (just to squeeze some acidity to the salad and also preventing the apples to turn brown)
salt
olive oil

Why not serve it with some Fish  and freshly picked mushrooms :)

Visit St. Petersburg

From Helsinki you can easily jump on a train to St. Pete and it only takes a few hours. If you haven't been to Russia before this is one of my favourite Russian cities. It's such a beautiful city by the sea with decorative buildings that almost make you feel like Alice in Wonderland due to their ginormous size.
I was in St.Pete for only a couple of days but still had time to experience a lot. The weather was beautiful so I headed out for a long walk by the sea and headed towards the Hermitage museum which looks so candylike with it's vibrant minty green facade. I've been to St.Petersburg before but had never been inside the museum, so this time I didn't want to miss my chance. The queues can be really long, however, some hotels have a deal with the museum so you get to cut the line which is perfect.

I don't know how long it takes to go through all the rooms at the Hermitage but after a couple of hours I had had enough. It's really interesting at first and worth the visit....but to look at all the old Tsars and jewellery and millions of gold-plated items it's a bit too much for just one day...atleast for me.

By now, I was more interested in going to look at one of Ginza's sushi places Ginger. The restaurant is quite small but I liked the interior. The food was not too bad either. However there was a band doing sound checks in the restaurant next door and they were sooooo loud. If it hadn't been for the terrible thunderstorm outside and the fact that I was famished I probably would've left and maybe come back another time.

After my sushi the sun came out again so I continued my walk and headed towards the Nevsky Prospect (the main shopping street) to the Singer café. I just wanted to go there for a tea or something just because it's the touristy thing to do...however, I do not really recommend it. It used to be nicer before and the building just looks beautiful from the outside. Just pop inside if you are in need of a bookstore or a toilet :D

I then walked to look at the colourful domes of the Church of our Saviour on Spilled Blood.

After this I started to head back to the hotel but my trip took quite a long time since most of the time the rain showers were so heavy that I had to run for cover. Luckily I was able to keep dry, all except of my Mousey shoes...they had been swimming in deep puddles of water.

Since my way back took so long I was hungry again and headed to another restaurant by Ginza called Pryanosti & Radosti on Vasilievskiy.
Although I'm not usually a big fan of chain owned restaurants, Ginza tends to surprise me due to their quirky interior. The food is also quite okay.

I visited a pub called the wild duck.....Oddly enough they actually have a wild duck inside that feels a bit intimidating when it comes really close :D It's funny to see it goes crazy when the staff take out the mop...seemed like it liked to take a free ride when they were cleaning the floors (probably liked the wet feeling of the mop on it's webbed feet). I kind of felt sorry for the duck though and really hope they take good care of it.

Finally back after a long day of atleast 18km of walking and my feet looked like a  homeless...full of blisters and black from the shoes being wet and colouring the soles of my feet.

Day 2: I went out to enjoy the sun and headed to the Peter and Paul fortress. Just nice to take a walk there. I was even happy to find a bunny statue that I've seen a lot on the web. Atleast now I know where it's from.

For a late lunch I found this beautiful small restaurant called Buter Brodsky in Vasilievskiy. Only once I looked at the menu and the interior, I realized a friend of mine had told me about this place.
This place is perfect for drinks or snacks. I didn't try their main courses so I can't tell you about them but I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this place and their snacks called smushi (mini smørrebrød).
I Will definitely visit again if I visit St.Petersburg again.

For dinner I met up with some friends. We went to a Georgian restaurant close to Buter Brodsky and my hotel. The look of the place is really not that nice and I probably wouldn't have chosen this place based on the looks. The food was really good though and cheap. If you haven't had Georgian cuisine before I do really recommend you try.