Christmas eve dinner, umpth cassarole

Åj. It was a nice Christmas dinner, partly planned and partly improvised. Beetroot sweet potato cassarole (umpth version, we've been preparing several from several ingredients) with blue cheese and layered salad. Plus all the extras, cheeses, pickles, breads, wine. Meateaters had meat and fish but that's not interesting at all. Plus sweets, chocolate, salty liquorice, gingerbread, cookies, cookies. And did I say cookies?

Plus two presents, more on the way still!

Christmas decoration

My Christmas tree decreased to some branches in a vase, but it is still green and spruce-ish. The decoration is 1/2 of origami diamond, folded from metallic candy wrappings. Looks like small trees, doesn't it? 

Plums, processed

A bag of plums from a friend has been converted to compote and liqueur during the autumn months. This is the sweet result, ready to be distributed as gifts.

Trad.

On Finnish independence day last week I baked trad. finnish pastries riisipiirakka. Rice porridge inside a thin rye tortilla-ish flatbread, baked in hot oven and served with mashed eggs+butter. Along with pastries we prepared an almost trad. finnish root veggie casarole. Not the spiciest or most exotic combination of the culinary world, but sweet and homelike.

Lady of shallot

Another dinner, another winter salad. I'm becoming a pro. Honeyroasted beetroot, lovely shallots, root parsley and pine seeds on spinach bed. Radishes and goat cheese on top.

Hot drink made of cranberry juice, sweet red wine and spices. Some ginger and lemon to tame excess sweetness. And as dessert warm dumplings with blueberry sauce.

I got a little carried away with the pretzel deco... Also NB the blue potato chips, they were hued nicely with the blueberries.

Winter italian

Finding delicious sweet tomatos in December is difficult. I didn't manage to do it so my italian(ish) tomato soup was also about canned whole tomatos and dried tomatos. With lentils, basil and cream.

Having only two pots sets some limits to dinner serving,  mushroom-olive and pepper-mozzarella bruschettas were prepared in oven so there was another pot available for apple-saffron mulled wine. Nothing even remotely italian about that but hey, it is cold outside.

I had high hopes for the dessert and I wasn't disappointed: 2 kind of chocolate truffles, 2 kind of cookies, 3 kind of pastries. And dark chocolate.

Who says salad is only for summer

Cold weather is a great excuse to devour hearty food. Salads fatten up too, I really enjoy making different mixtures of warm salads. First some sturdy robust greenies on plate, covered with something warm. Whether marinated pasta or potatos, roasted veggies, gratinated cheese. Sprinkled with sauce, nuts and seeds and a whole winter meal is ready. (oh how cookbookish that sounds)

On the pictured salad version first one with beetroot, butternut squash and goat cheese, other with superyummy roasted red pepper, avocado and radishes. Not forgetting home made mustard mayonnaise.