NordenBladet – Monday and Tuesday passed quickly. On Monday I ordered a new set of E&S loop-eyed visit cards that are great for adding to the gift packages, and I did some work on developing the ElishevaShoshana.com web store. The plan is to introduce new payment options besides PayPal (for example several bank links and card payments) and an automatic parcel machines selection system (Itella Smartpost, Omniva, dpd, etc.).

The website does require investment of working hours – new goods and items must be added, several notifications must be translated into six different languages (Estonian, Finnish, Swedish, English, Russian, Latvian) and decision must be made which service provider to join from among those that offer online shopping payment solutions. I need the webstore to run smoothly in the Nordic as well as the Baltic countries, where the majority of our clients dwell. Yesterday also accommodated some other events – the visit to Laulasmaa SPA (luckily it has not yet been closed due to coronavirus pandemic), and a little photoshoot with Ivanka. At least once every week we visit Hestia Hotel’s Aqua- and Sauna centre, due to the convenient location this destination functions as our so to say “home spa”.

Today I woke at about 6.30. Ivanka Shoshana still attends school this week, but Estella Elisheva already started remote learning this week. In the morning I did several sets of laundry (I have no idea how there can be that lot all the time!), then I went to settle some business in the municipality and thereafter set up to prepare the lunch. I made a wonderful meat dish in a delicious cream cheese sauce. Just like many of the meals that I prepare, I get going with a fantasy recipe based on the products suitably at hand at home. Today’s casserole came out so delightful that I made notes of the recipe for my own sake, to come back to it at a later time. It just tasted so good that you don’t say 🙂

MEAT DISH IN DELICIOUS CHEESE CREAM SAUCE

What you need:

1 kg tenderloin
5-6 potatoes
2 big red onions
1 average size ice salad
200g vegetables (frozen wok mix for example)
400g Farmi “Kitchen Cream Cheese”
500g sour cream
300g milk or coffee cream
100g grated cheese (I used E-piim’s Lepasuitsu cheese)
2 tablespoonfuls of flour
Spices

Preparation:
Place chopped meat, ice salad, onion, potatoes and vegetables on the oven plate. Cover with sour cream and cream cheese (cream cheese is non-fluid so it can be added in bits), mix flour with milk and pour over the covering. Then season the dish (I added thyme, oregano, dill, sweet pepper powder, several peppers, dried garlic, coriander, mustard seeds and salt) and then sprinkle on top the grated cheese. The dish takes 200 degrees and 1.5 hours in the oven to finish.

In the evening I went for a tiny shopping-walk, since some of the gift bags still had some space left. I was at Hortes and as it has been so pleasantly decorated then I spent as many as four hours there. The sign on the door welcomed visitors with the announcement: In the fairy-tale forest you are likely to meet a fairy! Just that was the feeling I got! Whoever might be the decorator/artistic director of that store definitely gets a 5+ from me! Hereby I add a few pictures for the blog post for you!

See you tomorrow! Hugs!

NordenBladet – The weekend has passed under the subtitle of cooking and enjoying delicious food. On Friday I made some tasty wok dish and we ate the rhubarb-almond cheesecake that I has made on Thursday. Along with it I prepared the wonderful meadsweet tea (which naturally was prepared from the herbs gathered and dried by myself). My new favourate is Felix’s tomato-chili sauce, it is a great match to accompany the fresh salad as well as the heated wok dish.

Mostly I take frozen vegetables to make the wok dish. It tastes lovely when you mix Härmavili’s “Wok mix” (400g product contains carrots, mungoa sprouts, red sweet pepper, green peas, black mushrooms, leek and pea pods) and Maahärra “Vegetables with Asian spices for frying” (400g product contains generally the same ingredients as the wok mix). It is a simple food to prepare, when you look for low calories (100g will give just 33kcal) and wish to have the food on the table in an instant.

The weekend menu also included a Tortilla pizza. The preparation of that is also incredibly easy and the food is ready indeed in a few minutes. For the pizza base I used Santa Maria “Tortilla Original” wheat flour bread and on top of it I built a covering from what the fridge had: a bit of Felix tomato ketchup, Rakvere traditional salami, black pitted olives, Sunfood pickled cucumber, red sweet pepper and plenty of grated cheese. I seasoned everything with fresh oregano and dried dill and thyme. Then for two minutes to the microwave oven -et voilà- the pizza was ready. Yummi…

On Sunday the house was packed with guests and for that occasion I prepared lasagne (which is Ivanka’s current favourite), fresh salad, and Napoleon cake. I made the grown-ups’ table in the kitchen and the youngsters’ table in the living room. It was a wonderful day! Estella Elisheva played Telemann’s Fantasy No4, first part on the violin and compiled a grand exciting four-section quiz that covered questions about sport, cinema and music, nature, and general knowledge. We talked, enjoyed the food, lit Hanukkah candles every night, and feasted.

To wrap it up, I quote a great idea from UT Clinic Children’s foundation’s “Jar of good ideas”, which I drew from it yesterday: “Do not follow the path well-treaded. Instead, take another direction and make your own path!” Isn’t that a positive and lovely idea to begin a new productive week!? Hugs!

NordenBladet – Yesterday was the beginning of Hanukkah*, one of my favourite holidays. This time, instead of potato latkes -or potato pancakes- I prepared fried sweet potatoes, onion sauce, beef and fresh pesto salad. For dessert I made some rhubarb cheesecake with almonds! In the evening we lit the first Hanukkah candle! Below you can see pictures depicting my cooking merit and our holiday table. Since Hanukkah lasts for as long as eight days in a row (this year from 10 to 17 December, or according to Hebrew calendar from 24.Kislev to 02.Tevet), then in the kitchen there is a lot of cooking and there will be many a feast.

Here is a recipe of a delicious plate cake!

Recipe:
RHUBARB CHEESECAKE WITH ALMONDS

You will need:

500g pack of Selver layered dough
300g pack “Tere” vanilla curd paste
100g “Farmi” creamy kitchen cheese
200-400g chopped rhubarbs
50g wheat flour
250g “Taluvõi” butter
100-200g almond flakes

Preparation:
Underneath goes the puff pastry (roll it evenly across the plate), then spread over it the curd paste and the creamy cheese. While the creamy cheese is thick then just measure little portions with the tablespoon to be dispersed over the surface. Then add the rhubarbs and season the cake with cinnamon and vanilla sugar. On top of everything make the classical powder coating (chop butter in a bowl and mix with flour) and on top of that in turn pour some of the almond flakes. The cake will be ready after half an hour in the oven at 200 degrees. It tastes wonderful while still hot (then it is slightly liquid) or the next day served cold! Yummi! Bon appetit and season’s greetings!

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*Hanukkah (/ˈhɑːnəkə/ HAH-nə-kə; Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה‎ ḥanuká; a transliteration also romanized as Chanukah, Ḥanukah, Chanuka, Hanuka) is a Jewish festival commemorating an early victory in the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire: the recapture of Jerusalem in the year 164 B.C.E. and rededication of the Second Temple. It is also known as the Festival of Lights (Hebrew: חַג הַאוּרִים‎, ḥag ha’urim).

Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. The festival is observed by lighting the candles of a candelabrum with nine branches, called a menorah (or hanukkiah). One branch is typically placed above or below the others and its candle is used to light the other eight candles. This unique candle is called the shamash (Hebrew: שַׁמָּשׁ‎, “attendant”). Each night, one additional candle is lit by the shamash until all eight candles are lit together on the final night of the festival. Other Hanukkah festivities include playing the game of dreidel and eating oil-based foods, such as latkes and sufganiyot, and dairy foods. Since the 1970s, the worldwide Chabad movement has initiated public menorah lightings in open public places in many countries.

NordenBladet – Lately the kids do not want to eat in the morning anymore, sometimes they do but not always, because at school Ivanka Shoshana has three meals during the day and Estella Elisheva has two. However, I still enjoy starting the day in a relaxed manner and this will always entail coffee (my favourite is Löfbergs Lila french press) and either porridge (mostly oat or buckwheat with cottage cheese and boiled grated beets) or I make some sandwiches (my favourite is salmon toast with avocado, dill, and oregano, or seed bread with cheese). In case I have baked a cake or pie the night before (which happens now and then), then that will also be a welcomed good in line with the morning coffee.

I bake and cook quite a lot, rarely less than an hour daily, usually 1-2 hours a day will be invested preparing the meals. I enjoy preparing a lovely meal, it means a lot to me that the dishes are pleasant to look at (we use ceramic dishes made by myself, the sets made by Ivanka Shoshana, or also commercial pottery). When laying the table I like to place the pots, pans and cooking utensils on a hot-base right on the dinner table so that it would be convenient to eat, and the napkins are also always on the table. I enjoy purchasing and changing the napkins. It has also become a tradition to photograph the food, yet posting the pictures (blog or Instagram posts) remain infrequent, mostly I send them to my sisters via WhatsApp.

Since we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas then all of December is the time for presents and cooking. Last week Ivanka Shoshana wrote a letter to the Christmas elves, in order to explain what she desires to find from the windowsill slipper. Among her favourite sweets right now are Oreo cookies, Mesikäpp cookies and Marabou chocolate chip cookies, very much does she also love cheese popcorn. This year she discovered that the Christmas elf had hid the big sweets bag under my bed and wrote cleverly what she desired most. Several Kinder chocolate eggs are the most common sweets among what the elf brings to her. However, it is not allowed to eat the sweets right in the morning, thus the egg remains to be eaten after the school day when the proper meal has already been eaten.

Last week I rearranged Ivanka Shoshana’s room once more (I do so every month, I like to rearrange the furniture) and I also built a log pile near the house. This year I bought dried spruce from Puu24. Some people say that fir trees would ooze a lot of resin, but I adore the wonderful smell filling the room that stems from heating with the spruce. I have also found from Osta.ee with a discount the cool vintage sewing machine legs and to accompany these I bought from Laagri Bauhof the light veneered sawdust plate. The result is a nice self-made desk onto which I placed two handmade ceramic vases along with an own handmade tray (onto which I added tangerines, but by the time of taking pictures those had already vanished).

My cooking inclination (which I have caught from the great food guru Estella Elisheva) has now also begun to bloom in Ivanka Shoshana. Ivanka came to me with a recipe that she had found on the internet and the two of us baked some chocolate pie. The recipe, by the way, is extra simple, when you prepare it from layered dough. Melt the frozen puff pastry, roll it nice and thin with the rolling pin, then cut beautiful quadrangles, chop or grate plenty of chocolate, mix it with sour cream and lay on the dough. Wind the dough into a nice roll or just fold the dough, and put the pie into the stove at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.