Estonian girly night in

I spent last night 'eating and drinking in Estonian' - that's how we've come to call these nights in Edinburgh when couple of local Estonians meet up and 'practice' speaking in their mother tongue:) Yesterday it was three girls, with a fourth one joining us much later for a last glass of wine. We ate, drank wine, looked at my Mexican holiday photos and watched Nathalie on DVD. It was a very cosy and homely night in.

The menu was very simple as well. For the main course: potato-mince-tomato oven pie (see banner). These layered pasta or potato based dishes are increasinly popular in Estonia nowadays, though I cannot remember eating them in my childhood. This was accompanied by a very typical cucumber-dill-sour cream salad. And followed by yet another kama dessert. Which was trickier than I thought it would be. The recipe (scribbled down from a kama packet) is dead simple - mix whipped cream with curd cheese, kama powder, season with sugar and gently fold in some blueberries. I know I can't expect finding kama in the shops here, so I always stock up when at home. Curd cheese (kohupiim) is impossible to find here as well, but either ricotta or quark/kvark work well as substitutes. Blueberries aren't exactly in season, but can be still found in supermarkets. But when I headed to my local Tesco last night, there were no blueberries, no ricotta or quark, and no whipping cream. How frustrating is that exactly!!! Oh well, after popping in and out of several small corner shops, I finally found a tub of ricotta. And double cream - though a lot fatter and less fluffier - had to be used instead of whipping cream. And blueberries were replaced with spoonfuls of delicious home-made blackberry jam given to me by my University mentor in return for a jar of carrots with rosemary and orange. The result was really nice and definitely suitably Estonian finish to an Estonian night in.

Kartuli-hakklihavormi retsept
Kamajahuga mustikavahu retsept

Oh - and here is a picture of my breakfast. My flatmate has a Turkish-Kurdish couple staying over at the moment. And Fatosh, the wife, is a very good cook. She made those dainty Turkish feta-parsley-sesame pastries last night. These were absolutely delicious with my tea this morning:)