Asian-Styled Chicken Sauce

Like the title says. I give you two versions.

VERSION I
INGREDIENTS
300 gr Chicken (ALTERNATIVE: Any white-fleshed fish, Turkey, Tofu)
2 dl Light Cream (ALTERNATIVE: Coconut milk)
Water
Ground Ginger (ALTERNATIVE: Chopped ginger)
Curry
Chilli powder (ALTERNATIVE: 1 red chilli, chopped)
Soy Sauce (ALTERNATIVE: Teriayki-sauce)
Ground Black Pepper
½ tsp Sugar (ALTERNATIVE: Honey)

1. Fry the chicken in a fry pan
2. After completing the 1st step, pour water over the chicken (this actually do make it taste bit better) - so tha the chicken is about half way covered. Add seasoning NOW. (water helps the chicken to absorb the flavours.)
3. Let the water simmer completely off, before applying the cream. Mix it up, and taste - and it's done.

VERSION II
INGREDIENTS
300 gr Chicken (ALTERNATIVE: Any white-fleshed fish, Turkey, Tofu)
200 gr Cashew Nuts
100 gr Water Chestnut (chopped down)
Handful of Beansprouts
1 yellow onion (chopped down)
1 red bell pepper (chopped down)
2 dl Light Cream (ALTERNATIVE: Coconut milk)
Water
Ground Ginger (ALTERNATIVE: Chopped ginger)
Curry
Chilli powder (ALTERNATIVE: 1 red chilli, chopped)
Soy Sauce (ALTERNATIVE: Teriayki-sauce)
Ground Black Pepper
½ tsp Sugar (ALTERNATIVE: Honey)

1. Chop down all the incredients, that needs it
2. Fry to frypan/sauce/wok pan in certain order: Onions + chicken + Water chestnut + Cashew nuts + bean sprouts, toss around couple of times.
3. Pour in water and spices, apply chopped bell pepper
4. Let the water simmer off and add cream. Taste.

And there you go.

Serve with
Noodles
Rice
On their own
Inside a tortilla

Rainbow Trout Salad

Just since we are hitting also the christmas season, I was thinking that I could give you few examples of salads - that hopefully will make you day feel bit lighter.

INGREDIENTS
Rainbow trout (Substitutes: Any fish with red meat.)
Eggs
Tomatoes
Iceberg salad
Cucumber
Red Onion
Lemon
Lime Juice
Black Pepper
Salt

DIRECTIONS
1. Fry the fish in fry pan. Season with Black Pepper. HINT! If you decided to use tuna, just cut it down. Tuna goes extremely well on it's own.
2. Boil the eggs in salted water
3. What comes to other veggies - out look of them is free.
4. Garnish with Lemon wedges
5. And on the last touch - add lime juice on top, bit of salt and mix up well.
6. Remember the eggs? Add Egg wedges last.

And there you go. I know this time my introductions were bit off, but hopefully you understood the point?

Blue Cheese Sauce

I am not big fan of Blue cheese itself, but here is my version of how to do it!

TIME: about 10 minutes

INGREDIENTS
1 pack of blue cheese
1 cup/2 dl cream
2 table spoons margarine
1-2 leeks or 1 yellow onion

DIRECTIONS
1. Chop the leeks/onions and throw into pan with butter.
2. If the cream you use, is suitable for heating up (f.e. double cream is not!) - throw it into the pan now with crumbled blue cheese. Remember to lower the heat from the stove.
3. Mix the sauce on time to time, so the cheese will melt evenly.

And there you are again.

Serve with:
Pasta
Chicken
Pork
Vegetables

Frankfurter/Sausage Sauce

Both were my favourites as a kid, but when I grew older - I noticed that my parent's way of doing it got... well too bland for my taste. Though we can also blame my culinary schooling for that as well. So here is the way I do both!

TIME: Around 10 minutes

INGREDIENTS
pack of frankfurters/Sausages
2 yellow onions
2 cloves of garlic
140 gr pureed tomato
1 meat stock cube (additional: Veal Fondue)
water

Chilli powder
Cayenne pepper (optional! and be careful with it.)
ground pepper
Paprika powder

DIRECTIONS
1. Chop down the onions and garlic cloves, and throw them into pan with oil.
2. Cut the frankfurters/sausages in small pieces and throw them on the pan as well.
3. Cook until the frankfurters/sausages has got bit of colour (avoid black, yes yes for slight brown!)
4. Pour water on the pan, add spices and throw in the meat stock cube, and mix it, until the cube melts fully into the water. Let it stir until the water amount is at least half of before.
5. Add in the pureed tomato and mix well, and let it pour in low heat for a while.

Serve with:
Boiled Potatoes
Potato Mash
Pasta

Drinks, it's all about drinks!

I love cola, and that love is forever never ending. But I also like to do other kind of mixes, so I don't habitually just drink only one think. So here is some, I've done at home and proven them to be fine. Actually, I had multiple people trying them, and no one haven't complained about them.

You can drink these on their own, without alcohol or try it with the specific alcohol I have mentioned in brackets. Either way, enjoy.

DRINKS
The glass size on these are 3,3 dl

Strawberry Cola
2 dl Cola
0,5 dl Strawberry Juice
(2 cl Strawberry Liquer)

Cranberry Cola
1,5 dl Cola
1 dl Cranberry Juice
(2 cl Bacardi Razz)

Pear Cola
2 dl Cola
0,5 dl Pear Juice
(1 cl Bacardi)

Mix'n'Fun
1 dl Berry Juice
1 dl Sprite
0,5 dl Orange juice or Fanta
(1 cl Vodka)

Throw in ice - then berry juice, and spill sprite with using a spoon on top, and then the orange juice/fanta. You should get it layered that way.

PUNCHES

Strawberry Punch
1,5 l 7 up or Sprite
1,5 l Soda water
1 l strawberry Juice
fresh sliced strawberries
ice

The BETTER Mashed Potatoes Recipe

I am particularly in loev with Mashed Potatoes, but even I sometimes need bit of change to things I eat.

TIME: around 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS PART I
2 lbs/1 kg Potatoes
Salt

DIRECTIONS
1. Turn the stove on
2. Wash and peel the potatoes
3. Throw them in a cold water, with bit of salt in it and put on a stove to boil, until you can actually "mash" the potatoes with fork. (HINT! Smaller chops, the faster them cook.)
4. Move to do the Ingredients part 2

INGREDIENTS PART II
1 1/4 oz/40 gr Butter
1 1/4 oz/40 gr All-purpose Flours (Alternative: 3/4 oz Rice flours)
1 1/4 cup/3 dl Milk
Grounded black pepper
Salt
Onion Powder

DIRECTIONS
1. Take a medium sized fry pan and heat it up
2. Apply butter to the pan, and let it fry
3. Add flours and mix with the butter well, do not let it go brown!
4. Add milk and whisk it well, and before doing this - turn down the heat from the stove.
5. Mix until the mixture thickens up and take off from stove.
6. Mash the potatoes with eletronical mixer (be cautious with the texture! It shouldn't be like glue.)
7. Pour the just done sauce over the potatoes, with the spices and mix it up.

And thus you are done.

If you want bit of variations to this, you can add some cooked spinach to mix or do half with other vegetables such as: sweet potato, cauliflower, brocolli and so forth.

Enjoy.

Macaroni-Minced meat casserole

Particularly one of the meals, I have enjoyed to eat ever since I've been little. This version is particularly popular in Finland and Sweden, but it has also many variations available (includes: greekish Pastitsio, Egyptish Macaroni bechamél.)
Anyhow, I'm now telling you the recipe for the basic thing and bit of the alternatives as well.

TIME: about 1 hour
TEMPERATURE: 200/392 F

INGREDIENTS
15 oz/400 gr Macaroni
(you can substitute macaroni by other pasta brands as well!)

15 oz/400 gr Minced meat
(Alternatives: Tuna, Salmon, Any other type of fish, shrimps, Poultry, Vegetables, soy beans.)

To spice up the minced meat:

Allspice
Salt
Ground paprika
Chili powder
Ground ginger
Hint of teriyaki sauce

2 cups/4 dl Milk
(Alternative: Water)

3-4 Eggs

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS
Tomato (Crushed, puree, chopped, juice.)
Garlic (Crushed, chopped)
Onions (Chopped)
Herbs (Basil, Parsley for example. Dill is good choice when using fish.)
Chilli
Sweet bell peppers
Salsa
Root vegetables (Carrots, parsnip for example.)
Beans (particularly white, brown and green.)
Grated cheese

DIRECTION
1. Turn the oven on
2. Cook the pasta (I cook my pasta either in meat or vegetable stock HINTHINT.)
3. Brown the minced meat
4. Pour water off from the pasta, and mix with minced meat
5. Apply to a oven dish
6. Whisk eggs with milk and apply on top of the dish
7. Wish to use grated cheese? now is good time to throw it in
8. Put the dish to oven, and let it bake for 30-45 minutes
9. Enjoy.

SERVE WITH:
Green salad
Ketchup
Lingonberry Jam

Ham Pie

I wish you do not mix this up with Quiche Lorraine! That is completely different dish (which I am not unfortunately very fond off.). So, during summer - and fall, I serve this particular pie instead of mentioned Quiche Lorraine before.

I also give alternative ingredients, just to show how much you can work this out.

Time: 10 min + 15 min
Temperature: 225 C/437 F

CRUST
1/2 cup/100 gr margarine
(alternative: butter)

1.27 cup/3 dl All-purpose wheat flour
(Gluten-free alternative: 1 cup rice flour)

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Baking powder

1/2 cup/1 dlwater
(alternative: cream)

FILLINGS
8 oz/200 gr Ham
(Shredded, diced - however you like it.)
(I Usually prefer to use slightly cured ham, but nothing stops you from using parma for example.)
(Alternative: Poultry, Beef, vegetables.)

8 oz/200 gr Grated cheese
(I usually use half of mozarella, half swiss cheese. Any type of cheese goes fine.)

3 average sized Eggs

1/2 cup/1 dl Milk

ADDITIONAL INGREDIENTS:

2 sweet bell peppers, chopped
1 big Onion, chopped
3-4 Tomatoes, sliced
Herbs

DIRECTIONS
1. Put on the oven
(Some people forget to do this first!)

2. Apply vegetable oil to the dish, you are making the pie with
(otherwise will stick to the edges and bottom.)
(ATTENTION! this will make quite average size of a pie, so double up the amounts in crust if you wish to have bigger one - as well as if you want more volume to the crust itself.)

3. Mix flours, baking powder, salt and margarine together.

4. Add liquid to the mix, and mix until the structure is even
(dough like.)

5. Apply to the chosen dish and evenly spread across it, so it covers the sides and the bottom of the dish.

6. Put into preheated oven for about 10 minutes
(use lower levels.)
(keep checking later on, so the crust won't burn. It is supposed to stay pretty golden in colour at this point.)

7. Mix up all the ingredients for the filling together

8. Pour to the already slightly baked pie crust, and put back to oven for 15 mins.

And thus you are done.