Easter Dinner Menu

This year for Easter we combined some Finnish and American traditions. Our Easter Dinner Menu included:
Spinach Soup with half of a boiled egg on top of it. It's the appetizer my Grandmother (Mummo) served at Easter time in Finland. The recipe is:
Melt 3 tbp. margarine in a sauce pan and add 5-6 tbp. flour. Bring to a boil and simmer gently for a few minutes, but do not let it brown. Add 8 cups milk or meat stock and 1 1/4 cups frozen finely chopped spinach. Simmer for about 15 minutes and season with salt and a little sugar. If you want a richer soup, beat 2 egg yolks and 1/2 c cream in a bowl and slowly stir into the soup.


Leg of lamb with Garlic Yukon Gold Potatoes with drippings from lamb which my Grandmother (Mummo) used to serve each Easter in Finland.
Steamed carrots and Asparagus
Cucumber Salad 1 large cucumber, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp salt, some fresh or dried dill, 1 cup vinegar, 1/4 c water. Wash the English cucumber, leave the peel on, take a fork and break the skin of the cucumber all the way down with it. Slice the cucumber thinly and place in a container. Cover it with the sugar, salt and dill. Put the lid on tightly and shake it vigourously for a couple of minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Leave it marinate. Add the vinegar and water to taste. Garnish with dill when you serve it. Keeps for days in the refrigerator.
Jello Eggs on a bed of jello grass that the kids helped Dad make from a variety of flavors you can probably guess from the colors and pureed fruits.
Crescent Rolls
White grape juice with ginger ale and cherries
and an Easter Bonnet Cake my Mother used to make most Easters. It's 2 angel food cakes with a whipped cream topping and a heath bar grated on top and decorated with feathers.

Bundt Cake, Sokeri Kakku (Sugar Cake)

It's fun when your kids start doing the baking and cooking. Here they successfully made a favorite cake of ours, one my Mother frequently made as a gift to give to a friend or neighbor for their birthday. In Finland they call it Sokeri Kakku or Sugar Cake.

I also have made hundreds of these. The kids did a great job decorating it, don't you think? Recipe below:Bundt Cake, Sokkeri Kakku (Sugar Cake)
1/2 lb. soft butter
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
Crumble together.
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Stir together.
3 beaten eggs
1 can evaporated milk
2 tsp. almond or lemon extract
Beat well. Grease and flour pan well. Bake 350 degrees for about an hour.
Variations:
Marbled -- Save out 1 cup of the batter and add cocoa to it. Stir it in as marbling.
Spiced -- Add 5 tsp. cinnamon, 3 tsp. cloves and NO extract.
Fruit -- Add gum drops, raisins, nuts, etc.
Decorations:
Powdered sugar with fruit as pictured above.
Powdered sugar only
Powdered sugar glaze, especially with lemon extract in both cake and glaze.
Try a cinnamon glaze with the spice cake.
Great without any glaze or decoration.

We made Mummo's porridge for Mummo

My mother is staying with us for a few days while my Dad is away and the kids wanted Mummo's Porridge which is really known as:
Marja Puuro (Berry Porridge)

8 c cranberry juice
1/2 c sugar to sweeten.

Bring to boil and then slowly sprinkle in 1 cup of instant cream of wheat with a wisk. Lower the heat, but still let it bubble. Cook for 10 minutes with a lid on.

Now, pour it into a large pyrex type bowl. Place the bowl in a pan of cold water. Beat the mix until it's much lighter in color. My mother used to tell me to stick out my tongue and when it looks that color, it's done. Keep it on the counter top for at least an hour and then serve with milk or half and half and a sprinkle of sugar. It goes especially well with Finnish Pulla bread.

My mother served this combination upon arrival of many guest in our home, especially each time a new group of Mormon missionaries on their way to Finland came to our home for an evening of Finnish cuisine and culture.

Our kids now call this Mummo's Porridge and plain cream of wheat or farina Papa's Porridge because it's what each often made for them when we'd visit. My Dad makes breakfast, so we'd have his then and my Mother did the rest of the cooking, until her health prevented her from her passion of cooking. We still asked her lots of questions while we were making it, since we don't make it too often and wanted to make sure we did it correctly since it was being made for the expert.

Now my kids especially like it on Valentine's Day since it's pink. I didn't get it made this V-Day since I didn't have cranberry juice on hand, so we did it today.

Snap, crackle, pop -- rice krispie (treats) save the day!

15 minutes before the rest of the family was leaving for a neighborhood skiing party I wasn't going to, (sore back) I remembered the flyer said, chili will be served, but bring a treat to share! No time to be creative, so I quickly grabbed my sister-in-law's Rice Krispie Treats recipe and made a batch.

Rice Krispie Treats
1/2 c. butter or margarine
5 c. marshmallows
7 c. rice krispies

Melt butter a little in microwave. Add marshmallows and micro about 2 minutes. Add rice krispies and stir. Pour into lightly greased 9x13 pan.

PHew! I handed them the pan as they walked out the door! No time to cut them, so I sent a knife along and knew that the 20 minute ride, would be enough for the rice krispie treats to set up. If I had gone along, I would have been balancing the pan on my lap as I cut them into squares just before arrival. It'll take longer to write and edit this blog than it did to make those treats last night!!

I did not grow up making or eating rice krispie treats. I did grow up eating rice rispies and listening quietly for snap, crackle and pop to speak to me at breakfast. Thanks to my brother's wife's recipe and my husband's family making/serving "rice berry chickies" as one of his brothers called them as a child often, we occasionally make them, like last night and for chocolate fondue.

Recently we were invited to another family's for a potluck and games. Santa brought our family a chocolate fountain fondue for Christmas, so we took it and brought various items like strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, pretzels, chunks of bite size pound cake, etc. to hold under the flowing chocolate (chocolate chips with a little bit of oil). The hostess was serving rice krispie treats and everyone ended up using them in our chocolate fondue. It was perfect! Rice Krispie Treats in chocolate fondue are much better than pound cake or marshmallows alone, so now we serve them instead or in addition. Strawberries are still hands down everyone's favorite with chocolate! One of our children can hardly wait to try white chocolate next. Do you have any ideas to share?

For those peanut butter lovers, who want a twist to Rice Krispie Treats, here it is. Since 1 family member doesn't like the site or smell, let alone taste of peanut butter, we don't make the recipe below very often. Funny thing, I love peanut butter, but while I was pregnant with this child, I didn't like peanut butter either! Don't count on making this one in under 15 minutes from start to finish and out the door!

Peanut Butter Rice Krispies with Chocolate
3/4 c peanut butter
1 c corn syrup
1/2 c brown sugar
Melt these together.
2 T margarine or butter (optional)
5-6 c rice krispies, add, stir.
Pour into a lightly greased 9x13 pan.

Top with:
1 c semi sweet chocolate chips
1 c butter scotch chips
melted together.

Enjoy!

Making Doughnuts

Title: Raised Doughnuts

Description: My cousins make these doughnuts every year near Christmas (usually Christmas Eve) and deliver them to friends and neighbors. You can see them delivering donuts by bike and making them in their new aprons December 23, at www.ciresplace.blogspot.com.

My cousin said, "Our family tradition came about because on a very snowy Idaho Christmas in the late 50's or early 60's they were homebound. No one could travel to see us or we to see them. Velva announced, "We'll still have fun. Let's make doughnuts" (she actually said, 'spudnuts', which is what you would make if you were in Idaho!) So we made this delicious treat on what became a memorable Christmas Day. . . We now have friends who eagerly await their doughnuts each year."

Ingredients:
2 packages or 2 Tbsp. active dry yeast
4 cups warm water (110 degrees F)
2/3 cup powdered milk
2 cubes butter or margarine, softened
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. salt
12 - 14 cups flour

Directions: Add warm water to mixer (I use my Bosch.) Add yeast and part of the sugar. Let sit for five minutes. Add powdered milk, butter, sugar, salt, and eggs. Mix slightly. Add three cups flour, mix together, then while mixer is on slow sped, slowly add remaining flour until dough begins to leave sides of bowl. Knead dough for 3 - 5 minutes.

Place in large bowl and let rise until finger leaves an indentionPunch down and take about 1/4 of the dough and roll 1/2 inch thick. Cut with doughnut cutter (or we have also used a drinking glass with the top of the salt shaker for the hole :) (We used a medicine measuring cup to cut the center.) Let rise until doubled. Continue cutting doughnuts adding scraps to the new dough.

Fry in deep hot oil (375 degrees F) until browned, turning just ONCE. (We used our electric fondue pots and set our temp at 325 degrees.) Test the oil with a doughnut hole to make sure temperature is right. If you try to fry too many at once, the oil cools down too fast. My cousin says they fry outside because that fried oil smell isn't the favorite in the house. Drain on paper towels. While warm, dip into glaze.

Glaze: 1 cup water to each pound of powdered sugar. Place in a deep pan and heat until dissolved. Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract and 1 tsp. mapleline flavoring. Glaze doughnuts on both sides and place on a rack over cookie sheet to drain.

Our family decided to make them last night as part of a birthday celebration and for a fun treat to eat. One of our kids said these are as good as Krispy Kreme which is saying a lot from them. My husband said they used to make doughnuts growing up too, so he enjoyed making these as well and said it's a great recipe.

We did share some of these doughnuts because this made 4 dozen and that is just too tempting for us. I'm sure we'll make them again and again. I want to thank my Arizona cousins for sharing their Christmas tradition with the rest of us. The cousins use www.myfamily.com to share recipes, photos, news and to just stay in touch between family reunions.