Helena-Reet: This how was our the 103rd anniversary of Republic of Estonia + three wonderful recipes!

Helena-Reet: This how was our the 103rd anniversary of Republic of Estonia + three wonderful recipes!

NordenBladet – This year everything has been different (corona pandemic restrictions and many twists in my own personal life). Even Estonian Independence Day* was completely different. Although me just as well as many other fellow inhabitants of Estonia spent an indoorsy peaceful day. The table full of flowers – Valentine’s Day roses and tulips from February the 22nd (a secret landmark which will remain undisclosed at this point). Probably for the first time in my life I didn’t switch on the TV-set during the entire day, to watch the country’s anniversary celebrations (actually I am not even sure if those were held this year). Commonly I have been closely observing the president’s reception gala (along with the so-called “penguin parade”).

MORNING
The day began when the smartphone began beeping and all over many greetings, texts and memes arrived. Quite some time passed as I scrolled the phone to go through the messages and my friends’ social media posts. I noticed that there were very many delightful images and recipes of various dishes. For example I saved one recipe of a black bread cake which I definitely intend to try. Similarly, in my mind I “saved” the idea that next year I wish to gather and dry cornflower blossoms, since it is cool to garnish the dishes with those! After that I looked out of the window and gosh what a hideous-tailed fox was wandering in our garden. I googled for some time to find out what could be the problem of the fox – most likely it was either stress, rabies or scabies. A very bold fox that was indeed, circling the corners of our garden for at least an hour.

Breakfast was very simple and ordinary – coffee, tea, egg, sandwiches. I skipped the sprat sandwich or any other sprat dish, just didn’t feel like it.

LUNCHTIME

Dinner was jolly – I made potato pancakes (Latkes), with pearl onion, tomato, olives and sour cream, and for dessert I made oat cookies.

Recipe 1 – potato pancakes
You will need:
1 kg potatoes
2 large onions
50g flour
2 tablespoonfuls of baking powder
3 large eggs
Salt, pepper

Preparation:
Clean/peel and grate potatoes and onion (you may even choose to liquidize). Whip the eggs, stir while pouring flour, add baking powder, salt and pepper. Pour egg mix on potato-onion mix and stir both together. With a spoon, place portions of pancakes on the frying pan and fry from both sides in hot oil until they are golden brown, 3-4 minutes each side. Serve with sour cream. The dish matches well with onion/pearl onion, olives, dill, green onion.

Recipe 2 – oat cookies
You will need:
500g whole grain oats
300g flour
200g sugar
200g Taluvõi butter
4 eggs
2 tablespoonfuls of vanilla sugar

Preparation:
Melt butter and mix with sugar until the mass is uniform. Add eggs, vanilla sugar, oats and flour. Bake at 180-200 degrees Celsius ca 15-20 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown on the outside.



EVENING
For dinner I made heart-shaped potatoes and minced meat-bolognese sauce, serving it with Letšo salad that I had made in late summer for winter time, and with the pumpkin that I got as a present. For dessert there was vanilla curd (Tere vanilla curd paste), with frozen berries (blueberries and raspberries) and with warm fresh butter cookie.

Recipe 3 – butter cookies

You will need:
250g Taluvõi butter
80-100g sugar
250-300g wheat flour
4 tablespoonfuls of vanilla sugar
(you may choose to add 1 egg, this time I did without an egg)

Preparation:
Melt the butter and stir with sugar, vanilla sugar, flour. Should you desire a harder, cookie-shaped cookie, then add the egg (without the egg the result will collapse out of concrete shape as can be seen on the following picture. That would be good when you head for crushing the cookie to get tiny pieces for coating.



It was EXTRAORDINARILY slippery outside, thus no more outdoorsy action except for fetching the newspapers. The day was spent indoors and in a cozy manner – cooking, dining and reading books. Oh how good it feels to just lay down to read! I read through J.K. Rowling’s children’s book “Ickabog” and browsed, but now reading MJ DeMarco’s “The Millionaire Fastlane“. We talked a lot, and watched a movie (evenings we are re-watching via YouTube the “Magnificent Century” 😀 iccc). Ivanka Shoshana was in Mõigu with her grandma and grandpa and posted to me via WhatsApp two of her lovely drawings – the Sipsik and the Snow White.

Hugs!



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* Estonian Republic’s anniversary is February 24th, which marks the declaration of the Estonain Republic back in the year 1918, on February 24th. On that day in Tallinn the “Manifesto to all peoples of Estonia” was launched, announcing the country to be an independent and democratic Estonian Republic. February 24th is a national holiday in Estonia and is our independence day. Independence Day traditional events begin with festively hoisting the Estonian tricolor flag blue-black-white to the top of the tower Tall Hermann. During the post-Restoration of Independence time the tradition of the initial Independence Day parades by the Estonian Defense Forces has been revived, as they are common in many countries. Also there is the tradition that the Estonian president holds on our independence day a festive reception gala, where national decorations are awarded to people whose names have previously been published in the media.

Do read also my previous blog posts (all posts are available in four languages – Estonian, Finnish, Swedish and English!)


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