Rauhallista Joulua (Merry Christmas)

Taas on melkein vuosi 2020 vierähtänyt ohi ja tuntuu, että ennen joulua päivät vain menevät entistä nopeammin. Tänä vuonna Suomen pimeys ei ole masentanut minua kuten aiempina vuosina. En tiedä mistä tämä johtuu, mutta aiempina vuosina olen välillä kokenut todella raskaaksi sen ettei päivänvaloa juuri ole. Ihaninta on kuitenkin se, että heti joulun jälkeen alkaa huomaamaan päivien jo hieman pidentyneen. Tämän jälleen kerran vähälumisen talven jälkeen alan entistä innokkaampana odottamaan kevättä ja suunnittelemaan mitä yrttejä ja kukkia ostan meidän aurinkoiselle parvekkeelle, jossa muuten omat kissamme viihtyvät jo alkukeväästä niin hyvin ettei niitä meinaa saada edes illalla sisälle!

Uusi vuosi on melkein ovella ja uusi blogi teksti tulee tuttuun tapaan joka toinen perjantai eli noin kaksi kertaa kuukaudessa. Jos et vielä ole ottanut sähköpostimuistutusta käyttöön, niin kirjaudu nyt, sillä saat sähköpostiisi linkin uusimmasta blogikirjoituksestani heti kun se on luettavissa.

Ensi vuosi tuo hieman myös muutoksia blogiini. Olen suunnittellut uuden kirjoitussarjan, joka ilmestyy ensimmäisenä mahdollisena perjantaina joka kuukausi. Tämä kirjoitussarja ilmestyy vain kerran kuukaudessa ja kestää koko ensi vuoden. Olen aika innoissani tästä uudesta sarjasta ja hieman pahoillani etten voi paljastaa tätä vielä sinulle, mutta aivan kohta odotus palkitaan sillä ensimmäinen uudenvuoden blogikirjoitus ilmestyy 8. tammikuuta!

Työmatkoillani olen saanut ihastella ihmisten jouluvaloja, jotka ovat valaisseet ihanasti
tätä pimeää vuoden aikaa. Tämän tonttu kuvan otin juuri ennen jouluaattoa. Oli mielestäni
niin ihanasti laitettu tontut tikkaille, koristeltu havunoksilla ja valoilla 💕

Vuosi 2020 on ollut hyvin poikkeuksellinen ja harmillisesti monet myyjäiset myös peruuntuivat koronan vuoksi. En tiedä mitä odottaa ensi vuodesta, mutta toivon sen olevan parempi kuin tämä vuosi. Toivon kaikille terveeyttä ja voimia, sillä tämä on vuosi on ollut monintavoin haasteellinen ja vaikea.

Rauhallista Joulua, Pysy Terveenä & Onnellista Uutta Vuotta 2021!

~ Minna 

Again the year 2020 has almost passed and it feels like the days before Christmas are just going even faster. This year, the darkness of Finland has not depressed me like in previous years. I do not know why but in previous years, I have experienced it truly heavy that there isn´t enough daylight. However, the most wonderful thing is that right after Christmas I start to notice that the days have already lengthened a bit. After this  snowless Winter, I start to wait bit more eager for Spring and plan what herbs and flowers I will buy on our sunny balcony where our cats enjoy to be as well. They liked to watch and sleep there starting from early Spring and they don't even get inside in the evening!

The new year is almost at the door and a new blog text comes in as usual every other Friday, about twice a month. If you haven't yet enabled email reminder, sign in now, so you'll receive a link to my latest blog post in your email as soon as it's available.

Next year will also bring some changes to my blog. I'm planning on writing a new series, which will appear first possible Friday of every month. This writing series appears only once a month and will last for the entire next year. I'm pretty excited about this new series and at the same time feeling bit regret that I can not disclose this to you yet, but very soon the wait will be rewarded as the first New Year's blog post will appear 8. January!

As work trips I have admired people's Christmas lights which have lovingly shed light to this dark seasons.
I took this elf picture just before Christmas Eve. I thought it was so lovingly placed gnomes on a ladder and
decorated with conifer´s branches and lights 💕

The year 2020 has been very exceptional and unfortunately many sale events have been canceled due to the COVID-19. I don’t know what to expect from next year but I hope it’s better than this year was. I wish everyone health and strength as this year has been very a challenging and difficult in so many ways.

Merry Christmas, Stay Health & Happy New Year 2021!

~ Minna

Getting Prepared For Xmas, Part 3

Can’t believe how fast this December has gone. Next week is long waited big Holiday at least for me. I love Christmas time — all the beautiful Christmas lights, snow ☃️ Candle lights, candies, yummy foods and decorations.

My Christmas foods are very traditional Scandinavian foods. In Christmas morning I always make rise porridge in the oven 🥣  I find it very easy to make in oven since it rarely burn. I also love to

make different casseroles like rutabaga casserole, sweet chili potato casserole and carrot casserole.

Quorn is a perfect choice if you’re vegetarian  and still eat 

milk products and eggs

Many years I made with my roommate mashed potato casserole but it wasn’t our favorite so we made only for tradition until I decided to replace it with sweet potato casserole with some chili 🌶 it’s very yummy with ham. My roommate have been vegetarian past five years now and she had to replace the ham with Quorn roast which taste pretty good actually.

In this post I liked to share recipes of my Christmas foods and hopefully it will inspire you to make and try something new this year 😉

Oven Rice Porridge 

1. Heat oven up to 200 Celsius (325 Fahrenheit)
2. Take bowl that tolerate the heat of oven
3. Spread lightly margarine or butter in bottom of the bowl and edges too
4. Measure 2 deciliter (0.85 US cup) porridge rice in the strainer and rinse the rices under hot water until the water is clear
5. Pour the rinsed porridge rices in the bowl
6. Add 1 teaspoon salt
7. 1 liter (4.5 cup) of any kind milk and pour it until the milk is cover the rices (you can also replace few deciliter/cups with water too if you need to save milk)
8. Stir the rice, salt and milk with spoon and put bowl in the oven

Stir the porridge about every 20 minutes. Be careful so you won’t burn your fingers!

Rice porridge is ready when it’s have been in the oven about one hour and milk is completely absorbed.

Serve the rice porridge with some cinnamon and sugar. You can also pour some milk too in the porridge if you want.

Rice porridge in the oven saves time when you don’t need to be in the kitchen all the time and stir the porridge since all milk based foods usually burn easily if you don’t stir them constantly. The rice porridge is good for breakfast and dinner too. Many eats this near in Christmas time but it can be eaten around the year too.

Sweet potato-chili casserole 

This casserole has become our favorite Christmas food. It’s new food our Christmas table but I love

how it taste first bit sweet and then chili kicks in and aftertaste is nicely chili but not too much. I want to share this recipe with you and I hope you enjoy this casserole 😛

1-2 sweet potato that weight about half kilograms (it’s okay if they weight little more than that)
Water
Salt
1/2 deciliter light syrup
3 deciliter cream, any type that suit for food making. I usually use one whole package
2.5 tblsp breadcrumbs
1-2 tblsp Margarine
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp chili
1 egg

🍠 Peel sweet potatoes and cut them in large pieces so they will cook faster
🍠 Boil sweet potatoes in salty water
🍠 Combine cream & breadcrumbs
🍠  Pour carefully water out from sweet potatoes & mash them
🍠 Add margarine, egg, breadcrumb-cream mix and seasonings
🍠 Mix all together & check the taste

🌶 Take oven dish and spread margarine all over it lightly including the edges too. Pour small amount breadcrumbs in the oven dish and spread it all over the dish

🌶 Pour the sweet potato-chili in the oven dish and sprinkle breadcrumbs in the surface. Take tablespoon and press lightly some patterns in the surface

🌶 Heat oven in 175 Celsius degree (350 Fahrenheit degree)

🌶 Casserole is ready after about 1 - 1.5 hour

I hope you enjoy these Christmas foods and feel free to leave your comment or questions about recipes. I’m happy to help you anyway I can.

~ Minna

Getting Prepared For Xmas, Part 2

Christmas is always the busiest time of the year. I always feel like first there’s plenty time to do everything and suddenly the Christmas Eve is just around the corner and need to multitasking everything. Does this sound familiar to you? If yes, continue to read how to avoid Christmas hustle and stress.

In my childhood, my mother were always so stressed out because of Christmas especially if relatives were coming visit. She had to cook all the Christmas foods, clean whole apartment, do grocery shopping, wrap all the gifts etc. I usually tried to helped her with everything that I can. I loved to baked gingerbreads and edges of star tart (I literally translated the word from Finnish language). Our star tart are usually pinwheel shape tarts that have plum jam in the middle. Really tasty 😋 

Nowadays, I don’t have Christmas hustle because I plan everything in forehead. So how you can avoid Christmas stress and spend it more relaxing way?

1. Keep your home basic clean

I know this sound so simple but many start to clean more better when year’s biggest Holiday is coming. Vacuum daily especially if you have pets and even if you don’t have any pets. Those furry friends leaves mess of their own behind. My cats always like to dig up all wooden pellets out from their litter box. Wash floors once in every month and take your rugs outside to tamp them. I don’t how common this is elsewhere but here in Finland we like to tamp our rugs and leave them little while cold weather so they will more fresher when you bring them inside. Also if you live in place where snowing, easy way to give quick refreshment to the rugs is throw them in the snow and cover the rugs with snow and brush them. The rugs are much refresher afterwards. This is old Finnish way to clean rugs during Winter. 

2. Start putting Holiday decorations earlier 

When December start, I always look for our Christmas decorations. I plan what curtains I like to put this year and do I need to buy some new Christmas decorations. Changing curtains takes unbelievable time especially if you wash the windows in the inside like I usually do. In my sofa table I have tea light candles that usually have small seashells within in the Summer but when Christmas time is coming, I like to change it too and put there fake snow with some glitter coated pine cones. You don’t need to put all Holiday decorations in place but some that are also suitable for Winter season too ❄️

3. Shared grocery shopping list 🛒

If you need to do every year same Holiday time shopping, it’s more time saving to save the shopping list than write every year new one. Once you have written it, you can printed it out and laminate it. That way it cannot get wet if there’s rainy weather. I’m not usually use my iPhone for any notes but last couple years, I’ve saved our Holiday time grocery shopping list in the phone. It’s so handy especially when you can share it between your family. That way, the Holiday time shopping isn’t just your responsibility and whole family can buy thing or two from the list. 

4. Buy Holiday foods earlier 

I usually do this every year. I buy frozen things as soon as they arrived in the grocery store. Usually it’s end of the November and people haven’t waken yet for upcoming Christmas so you buy frozen pastries etc. in time without rush. When buying things earlier than needed, make sure they will preserve until you need them and you don’t need to worried if they are gone. 

5. Saving money and wrapping gifts

If you have big family and lots of friends who you need to buy a gift, you can save money by buying gifts around the year and keep an eye when stores have good deals  like Black Friday or Cyber Monday or any other offers. If you like to stay organized, take cardboard box and put name label on it, so you can gather gifts there for specific family member or friend. Also plastic bag will work too if you attach name tag in it. That way, when it’s time to wrap the gifts, you don’t need to sort them out and worried later if you accidentally mixed them. 

If you have a lot gifts, it will be exhausting to wrap them all in once. So I highly recommend that you start to wrap as soon as possible one or two peoples gifts per day that will leave you time to do other things and more important, time for yourself too. 

I hope my five time saving tips will help you to have more relaxing Holiday time and time to enjoy the Holiday itself 🎄

~ Minna