Birthday cake 2011

I went for a fancy cake this year. A week or so ago I spotted this Limoncello, coconut and white chocolate mousse cake* at the Swedish Allt om Mat website, and fell for it. Making it required several steps and couple of hours waiting now and then, but it wasn't actually too complicated. And our guests today (22 adults + 15 kids!) LOVED it :P

Recipe in Estonian here.

Previous birthday cakes:
2010
2006

* I used marzipan eggs for decoration, as Easter Sunday and my birthday coincided.

And then we were four ...

Just to let my dear blog readers to know that blogging has been - and will be - a bit erratic recently due to that little fellow on the picture. Our second child - a boy named Aksel - was born early on Saturday morning after a very quick delivery in a nearby birth clinic. We got home on Sunday already, and we're all doing great. However, little Aksel will be surely keeping me away from the laptop for a while, alongside with our soon-to-be-two-daughter Nora, who needs special attention and affection just now.

We're still cooking and taking pictures, of course, and blogging will resume in due course :) Hang on there!

Culinary overview of 2010

Inspired by similar posts by Alanna and Anne.

JANUARY 2010



I blogged about many of my favourite dishes back in January - chicken with 40 gloves of garlic (photo above) and dulce de membrillo and coconut & beetroot soup, to name just a few. Our beautiful daughter Nora Adeele turned one, and we celebrated it with marzipan-topped Princess cake.

FEBRUARY 2010



Favourite recipes back in February were colorful quinoa salad with lobster tails and avocado, cream cheese spread with horseradish and beetroot (photo above), yummy chocolate muffins, decadent Lenten buns with raspberries, Hummingbird's raspberry cheesecake brownie. It was a loooong, cold and snowy month, hence the number of baked cakes :P

MARCH 2010



In March I loved the caramelised rye bread ice cream and ate lots of Georgian food (incl. fried Suluguni cheese and egg and walnut salad). Anticipating the Easter, the month ended with another lovely pashka recipe (photo above).



At the end of the month we spent a week in Davos, Switzerland. Unfortunately I was down with a nasty cold most of the time, so I missed many of the culinary delights on offer. I did manage to try some spätzle and raclette, of course, as well as some of the local cakes.

APRIL 2010



The highlight of the month was our traditional Easter brunch. As the cold and snow melted away, I fell in love with light salads again. I loved the quinoa salad with beetroot and fennel, Ottolenghi's cucumber salad with poppyseeds. I've made the Georgian spiced and creamy mushrooms on several occasions - and it's been a great hit with Estonian foodbloggers as well ;)

For my birthday at the end of the month I made three different birthday cakes, including my usual mocca cake and the popular Brita cake.

Last, but not least - in April we got four new pets, called Evita, Carol, Daisy and Madame Fifi. Here are the first three (a pure or mixed Araucanas):



and here's Madame Fifi (a French Marans) posing in front of their cool bright orange Eglu:



(And they do belong to the culinary overview of the year, as these lovely chicken have been providing us with free-range eggs that come with a dark yellow yolk and are hidden inside a beautiful pale blue or olive green egg shell :))

MAY 2010



In May I shared more lighter recipes - gnocchi Puttanesca, wild garlic tzatziki, chickpea and tuna salad. Oh, and I provided some ideas for Estonian snacks to help you host an Eurovision fan party - the idea came to me after several e-mail requests for such post :)

JUNE 2010



As the summer season began, I blogged about a new cool café in Pärnu, the "summer capital" of Estonia (one of their popular cakes is pictured above). We loved the cooked whole fish under a salt-crust, and Ottolenghi's roasted eggplant/aubergine with saffron yogurt. The Italian tonnato mayonnaise was a frequent dish on our table during the summer, and the Estonian pork shashlik was a must-try on our Midsummer table.

We also celebrated Nami-Nami's 5th birthday, asking you to name your favorite recipes on the blog. You gave fantastic feedback, thank you!

JULY 2010



July was hot! hot! hot! I almost stopped cooking during the month, as the temperatures were simply too high for a Northern girl like me :D I did blog about grilled chicken liver with sherry and honey marinade, and then moved on to pretty much uncooked dishes. Cottage cheese and egg salad, Danish sweet buttermilk soup with summer berries, watermelon salad, cold beetroot soup, harissa-spiked hummus.

And of course, as any other true Estonian, I ate lots of kama with local wild and cultivated berries (photo above) :)

We also took a daytrip to Helsinki, visiting Café Stringberg for a coffee (our little must-do in Helsinki) and having lunch at one of the hottest eateries in town, Juuri (they're famous for their Finnish tapas, sapas, but these weren't served during lunch-time, unfortunately):



AUGUST 2010



I August we really reaped the benefits of our vegetable garden. Just look at the beets we harvested (above), coming in all shapes and colours!!! Favourite recipes back in August were this tomato salad (we had LOADS of tomatoes as well), oven-baked zucchini/courgettes and tomatoes with feta cheese, cherry and plum compote (our orchard is too young to pick our own stone fruit just yet, but soon, hopefully). We had some friends over for the first ever Nami-Nami tomato tasting party (photo below; hopefully this will become an annual tradition):



It was an exceptionally good year for wild mushrooms in Estonia this year, and we ate lots of them, of course! If I get hold of some black trumpet mushrooms again next year, I'll be definitely making this black trumpet chantarelle salad again - loved the flavour and the bite! I also shared a recipe for lovely simple scones and Snickerdoodle cookies.

SEPTEMBER 2010

September was eventful. In the beginning of the month we spent over a week in Germany and France (with a short detour to Switzerland), attending our friend Margit's wedding in Köln. Of course we sampled lots of culinary delights on the trip, most memorable being maultaschen in Heidelberg:



a proper Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte in a Bizenberger family café in the Schwarzwald area of Germany:



The traditional and the more modern porcini & parmesan cheese flammeküche at L'auberge Saint-Martin in Kinzberg.



And last, but not least - a trip to the famous Bernard Antony, Eleveur de Fromages in Vieux-Ferrette was all worth it!



Back home, things were getting exciting, too. Our daughter began attending a small local nursery (luckily, she loves it!), I went back to work after a long maternity leave. We had another tasting party at home, this time getting to know the infamous Swedish "delicacy", surströmming (an event that's NOT going to be repeated any time soon).



The garden was still providing us with excellent vegetables - like these beautiful eggplants/aubergines. My favourite recipe back in September was definitely this super-easy but very flavourful cauliflower cheese with lots of mustard.

OCTOBER 2010



October was a good month for good recipes, if I may say so. The American apple pie, pumpkin scones, the Dutch apple cake and this coconut dhal (above) are all worth repeating again and again.

NOVEMBER 2010



As the nights got darker and days shorter, I began cooking more substantial meals again. I loved this roasted cauliflower with bacon and garlic (thank you, Jaden, for inspiration!), the beet and blue cheese risotto, the Danish brunsviger cake (photo above). I also posted a recipe for a Latvian dish, Kurzeme stroganoff, that hopefully many of you will try.

I took my dear K. for a special birthday dinner at Bordoo, the new restaurant of one my favourite chefs, Tõnis Siigur. The 6-course tasting menu was nothing less than spectacular and I'm looking forward to going again a.s.a.p.

DECEMBER 2010



The last month of the year just flew by. On December 1st, my first cookbook (photo above) hit the bookshelves here in Estonia, and we had a lovely book launch party that evening (the book has been doing pretty well, thank you for asking ;)). I spoke in several radio channels during December (KUKU, R2, Vikerraadio), and the Estonian print media (and bloggers!) have been very generously reviewing and covering the cookbook as well. I feel so honoured and blessed! (Again - a HUGE thank you to dear Ximena for making the book look so special and beautiful!).

Although December has been very much centered around the cookbook, I did manage to attend a special dinner at NEH and a foodbloggers' lunch at CHEDI (serving excellent modern Asian food), visited the brand new (and very cool!) Sadama turg (Harbour market) and even blog about some dishes (these cheese popovers and soft gingerbread cakei are especially recommended.

We hosted a Christmas Eve dinner to our families again (food was pretty traditional, too). And on the Christmas day we got home two new chickens - a blue and black Orpington (still nameless; these two are to keep Evita and Carol some company over the winter).

Nami-Nami cookbook presentation

My first cookbook "Nami-Nami kokaraamat" finally hit the bookstores on Wednesday, December 1st. The official launch party took place in Rahva Raamat bookstore in Viru Keskus in Tallinn, and was a great success. There were lots of people (I signed books for a best part of an hour!) and although I was very stressed about the whole thing beforehand, I felt a great relief - and happiness - once the book was out and the launch party ended. Here's a little photo-review of the presentation.

A huge thank you to the team at VARRAK publishing house, to Heidi Park for the delicious fingerfood, to Põltsamaa Felix for providing the drinks and to all the friends, supporters and family who turned out and made me feel so special!


Krista Kaer speaks on behalf of the publishers.


My cookbook on the bookshelves, with a gorgeous cover by über-talented Ximena Maier. (It's my cousin Ingrid, who helped to coordinate some of the PR, on the phone).


An extremely lovely fortified fruit wine, Põltsamaa Tõmmu Vintage 2002.


The ever-charming Heidi Park, trained at the Culinary Institute of America and now baking fabulous cakes in Estonia (check out her website), did the catering for the party. She made three dishes from the cookbook plus her own famous brownies. Here are the edible goodies (click on the food photos for appropriate recipes, all three recipes are included in the cookbook as well):








Heidi's famous brownies.


Me signing cookbooks.




Some locals celebs with signed copies of my cookbook ;)

Nami-Nami cookbook

Some of you may have been wondering about the irregularity and lack of posts on Nami-nami over the last few months. Yes, I've finally returned back to work after a long maternity leave, and that's drastically reduced the time I have for cooking and taking photos and blogging.

But that's not the reason behind the small number of blog posts.

The reason is that gorgeous-looking cookbook above that's out later this month in Estonia. It's called "Nami-Nami kokaraamat" ("Nami-Nami cookbook" in English, but the book is published in Estonian, of course) and it has 218 beautiful recipes that could be grouped under the general title "food for casual entertaining". All recipes are illustrated by lovely photos taken by myself and my dear K, and all the chapters - and the gorgeous cover - are done by the extremely talented and wonderful Ximena Maier (yes, Lobstersquad's Ximena), whom I have the honour to call a dear friend.

The book is published by a major local publisher, Varrak, and there's a small introduction of the book in Estonian on their website here. I'm very excited - hope that you're as well :D

So, that's what's kept me so immensely busy over the last few months and weeks. All I have to do now is wait and see - the book's out on November 25th or so, and the official book launch event is on December 1st here in Tallinn. More details to follow!

Nami-Nami turns 5 today!

This beautiful girl keeps me from blogging more often these days :)

My little foodblog, Nami-Nami, turns five today. It's been five fun years, and although I've been blogging less frequently during the last year or two (I've got a good reason, trust me - see above), I'm still enjoying it immensely and have no plans of stopping in the near future. Hope that you, my dear readers, will stick around as well :)

For those of you who have actually tried some of my recipes - would you mind naming your favourite one?

Here are links to some of the recipes that you've mentioned in the comments:
Canadian Apple Cake (November 2005)
Colorful quinoa salad with crayfish and avocado (February 2010)
Minimalist banana bread (May 2009)
Upside-down onion pie (January 2006)
Blueberry tart (April 2006)
Carrot ragout (December 2007)
Caraway teacake (December 2009)
Spiced rhubarb cake (June 2009)
Warm Ginger and Carrot Salad with Feta Cheese (November 2005/June 2009)
Raspberry focaccia (August 2008)
Mocca cake with toasted almonds (April 2006)
Kama muffins (June 2009)
Kama and mascarpone truffles (September 2005)
Creamy swede and pearl barley (March 2010)
Salmon confit (November 2009)
Toffee apple cake with cranberries (January 2007)
Cranberry upside down cake (December 2005)
Filo tartlets with beetroot and cheese (August 2006)
Plum cake (August 2008)

It's cake time! Elderflower, coconut and lemon curd cake

This isn't the cake I'm serving today (this one is ;))

It was one of the cakes at our Easter Brunch a few weeks ago, and it was tasty and it's festive and pretty, so I'm sharing the recipe anyway (after all, I do deserve a cake today!) It's a coconut sponge, layered with lemon curd and topped with whipped cream spiked with elderflower extract. Perfect for spring with its light yellow colours.

Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did!

Elderflower, coconut and lemon curd cake
(Kookose-sidrunitort leedrikreemiga)
Adapted from the Swedish BAKA magazine 1/2010
Serves 10 to 12



Coconut sponge:
4 large eggs
250 g sugar (300 ml)
150 ml water
80 g plain flour (150 ml)
80 g potato starch (150 ml)
100 g flaked unsweetened coconut
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp baking powder

Separate egg whites and yolks.
Whisk egg yolks with sugar until thick and pale and frothy. Add water and continue whisking for a few more minutes.
Combine flour, coconut flakes, vanilla, baking powder and potato flour, then gently fold into the whisked egg yolks.
Whisk egg whites until stiff peaks form, then slowly fold into the rest of the dough.
Pour the batter into a 26 cm spring form tin that has been buttered and lined with a parchment paper.
Bake in the middle of a preheated 175 C oven for 40-45 minutes, until the cake is golden and fully cooked.
Cool completely, then remove from the tin and cut into two discs.

Between layers:
300 g lemon curd

Either use a good quality shop bought one or make yourself using your favourite recipe (I make my own lemon curd, using the juice and zest of 2 large lemons, 3 large eggs, 150 g caster sugar and 100 g butter).
Spread the lemon curd between the cake layers. (This can be done a day in advance. Wrap the sandwiched cake into clingfilm and keep in a cold room/larder or fridge until ready to decorate).

Cream topping:
400 ml whipping cream
50 ml undiluted elderflower syrup
Whisk the cream until soft peaks form, then add the elderflower syruo and continue whisking until you've got a strong cream. Using a spatula, spread the cream on top and on the sides of the cake.

To decorate:
grated lemon zest
fresh lemon balm leaves

Decorate the cake with long thin lemon zest strips and fresh lemon balm leaves.



To serve, cut into wedges.

A Birthday Cake

Last Saturday our beautiful little daughter, Nora Adeele, turned one. Like every other parent, we are amazed how quickly time flies - it seems hard to believe that it's already been a year since she rushed into this world last January (see a post here). I've kept stories about her at minimum here at Nami-Nami, as I've been worried it'd turn into a mommy&baby blog in no time whatsoever :D But just to recap - she's been an excellent companion to us during the last year, and a healthy, curious and happy girl. She has a good appetite (we've been trying to follow the principles of baby-led weaning), but as she's also very active, she's a light one (just 8,5 kg this morning). Oh - and she's already been to Southern France (where she dined at two 3-Michelin-star restaurants :D) and to London, so she's a well-travelled little lady.

We celebrated this important milestone with a party and a cake. The party was attended by many of Nora's friend (she's very sociable and loves playing with other kids), and a delicious cake that was inspired by the famous Swedish Princess Cake - a sponge cake sandwiched with raspberries, whipped cream and curd cheese, and topped with marzipan. As you can see from the above picture, then Nora Adeele was thrilled about her first birthday cake :)

Here's another photo of Nora Adeele (and me), taken when she's about 6 month old.



Normal blogging will return as soon as I get over the shock that I'm a mother to a toddler already ;)

The new LONELY PLANET guide to Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania

If you're travelling to Estonia, Latvia and/or Lithuania any time soon, then I can recommend the 2009 edition of the famous Lonely Planet guide. Carolyn Bain, the coordinating author of the book, has thoroughly revised the current edition - 5th already! And as an extra bonus, you can read an interview with yours truly on pages 60-61, where I share some tips re: Estonian food in general, best places to eat out in Tallinn, what to eat when visiting and what to bring back home to your friends and family. :)

You can order a copy of the book either from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk or directly from the Lonely Planet website.

Read also my recommendations for eating out in Tallinn in 2009 here.

Nami-Nami turns four and celebrates the anniversary with Kama Muffins Recipe

Nami-Nami food blog turned four this week. That's been four great years of reading about and eating and enjoying and writing about delicious food, and four years of meeting numerous inspiring fellow food bloggers from all over the world. Just imagine - had I not come across Melissa's food blog in June 2005, I would not have started my own. And if I hadn't started my own food blog, then I wouldn't have met Johanna (in England & Scotland), Andrew (in England), Jeanne (in England), Ximena (in Spain and in Estonia), Dagmar (Estonia), Anne (in Estonia), Kristina (in Estonia), Alanna (in St Louis, USA), Paz (in New York), Antti (in Finland and in Estonia), Melissa (in Scotland), Keiko (in England), Chloe (in Greece), Nupur (in St Louis, USA), Zarah Maria (in Denmark), Amy (in England), Blake (in New York last summer and in Estonia just last week), Klary and many others in person over these four years. And that would have been a real pity. I mean it..

Thank you all for reading Nami-Nami over the last four years. And the celebratory recipe? Kama muffins with dried cranberries and curd cheese. You cannot get more Estonian than that :)

What's KAMA??? Read more here.
Kama Muffins
(Kamamuffinid kohupiima ja jõhvikatega)
Makes 12



2 large eggs
100 g caster sugar
100 g butter, melted
60 g plain/all purpose flour (100 ml)
50 g kama flour (100 ml)
1 tsp baking powder
50 g dried cranberries (craisins; just under half a cup)
25 g roasted coarsely chopped hazenlnuts (3 Tbsp)
175 g curd cheese or ricotta

Whisk eggs and sugar until thick and pale. Stir in the cooled melted butter.
In a small bowl mix flour, kama and baking powder, then add to the egg mixture together with hazenlnuts, cranberries and ricotta/curd cheese. Stir gently, until ingredients come just together.
Spoon the batter into muffin cups.
Bake in a preheated 200 C/400 F oven for about 15-18 minutes, until the muffins are cooked through.

It's my day today

Photo by Krista Kõiv, taken a fortnight ago.

It's my birthday, again :) After a few chilly days and frosty mornings, the sun is suddenly really shining and it's lovely and warm outside. K. stayed home late this morning, giving me a chance to enjoy a leisurely breakfast consisting of a cup of coffee and a whole tub of Fage Total Greek yogurt topped with homemade sour cherry jam, while admiring the gorgeous birthday present he gave me. I'm baking a strawberry cake for the party tonight, and then head off for a walk with Nora Adeele, who has doubled her birth weight already (she was 2456 g when born and is now, at 12 weeks, around 5300 g). Our little girl surely has a good appetite :)

Right now, there's nothing to complain about - life's beautiful :)


Normal food postings resume next week.

Making chorizo meatballs with a baby

Me and our little Nora Adeele (32 days old on the photo) making Annemarie's excellent chorizo meatballs.

(Chorizo lihapallid)

Pille goes to the USA

Photo by K. Not related to the blog post :)

I've been to the Americas before (Mexico in October 2005), but next Wednesday I'm flying over to the USA for the first time. I'll be in three different places, first at a conference in Bloomington, Indiana, then visiting the very lovely Alanna in St Louis, MO, and finally explore New York for a few days.

Here's the plan at the moment (post-conference, that is):

June 1st - food blog lunch with Christine and Alanna in Bloomingon, then drive to St Louis

June 2nd - a St Louis food blogger party @ Alanna's place

June 4th - arrive in New York

June 5th - food blogger potluck dinner in New York (very kindly organised by Danielle of Habeas Brulee)

June 8th - Sunday brunch with my friends Priit & Pirjo in East Village

June 9th - fly back to Tallinn

I'm hoping to visit moma, do some food & clothes shopping (thanks, David, for your food-shopping tips!), see a good stand-up comedy show (any ideas/volunteers?), and plenty more. But if there's any other Nami-nami readers out there who fancy a cup of coffee, or a cocktail a la Sex and the City, or a pastrami sandwich at Katz Delicatessen or perhaps a Krispy Creme doughnut or even breakfast at Tiffany's, let me know. I'm travelling alone this time, and whereas I can handle a cup of coffee in my own company and a good paper, then seeing a stand up comedy on my own wouldn't be as much fun :)

Oh, and where do I get the best bagels??

And are there any other New York must-haves that this foodblogger in her early 30s absolutely MUST see?

The Story of a Fermented Oat Flummery

Yesterday was the 100th birth anniversary of my maternal grandfather Ernst Johannes, known to his family and friends as Orika Ärni. A proud father of five, grandfather of 11. He died in 1981, when I was still just 6 years old, so I don't have many memories of him. I remember he was a big, quiet and stoic man, and know that he had worked hard in his farm all his life, mainly breeding pigs and milk cattle, as well as growing various grain crops (he had been lucky and wasn't deported to Siberia by the Soviets, but he did lose his large farm to the collectivisation, of course, leaving our family with just a fraction of the original farm). Although we spent at least a month every summer at our grandparents farm, and visited frequently, I cannot remember much of him. I have this image of him, sitting silently on the steps to one of the side-buildings of the house, just observing quietly what we, the kids, were doing. He wasn't the type of grandfather who'd play and chat with his grandchildren - I had my 'urban' grandfather for that :D - but I do remember forageing for wild mushrooms with him, even encountering a big brown bear on one occasion that we watched silently.

But there is one vivid food memory related to my grandfather that I wanted to share. During our annual month at the farm, my grandmother would regularly take a big saucepan, fill it with oatmeal and warm water, and leave it to ferment in a warm spot for a day or two. She'd then cook it on the huge stove in the corner of the old farm kitchen, stirring with a large wooden spoon, until it turned into a grey, gluey flummery ('kaerakile' or 'kaerakiisla' in Estonian). It was my grandfather's favourite dish, and there were always several bowls of cold flummery on the shelves in the large walk-in larder. It didn't look appetising - being a bland grey colour - and we avoided it at all cost, volunteering to pick berries from the orchard and eating these instead. But my granddad liked it, so my grandmother cooked it.

I spoke to my grandmother Senta (who celebrated her 88th birthday last week) yesterday, and she told me that she didn't like flummery to start with - actually found it pretty discusting, but gradually she grew fond of it:

Eks ta alguses oli üsna vastiku maitsega, aga pärast hakkas istuma :D

Well, I made the flummery yesterday to honour my grandfather Ärni. It definitely wasn't the most delicious dessert I've had, so I need to persist and learn to like this, just like my grandmother did. But it felt really good to eat my granddad's favourite dish on the day he would have turned 100.

Fermented Oat Flummery
(Kaerakile)

250 g old-fashioned oats or oatmeal
1 l lukewarm water
salt
sugar
butter

Mix oats and water in a large bowl, cover with cling film or a kitchen towel and leave to ferment in a warm spot for 24-30 hours. It needs to smell slightly sour, but pleasant at the end.
Pour the mixture through a fine sieve. Cook the resulting whitish liquid on a moderate heat, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon to avoid sticking, until it's thickened considerably and become gluey.
Season with salt and sugar.
Serve warm with a dollop of butter or cold with a spoonful of jam. Drink cold fresh milk alongside.

'Egg mushrooms' for kids and adults alike

First of all, thank you for all your kind wishes on my birthday - you're too sweet!

And what a lovely birthday I had. On Thursday (the actual b-day), K. and I had a yet another fantastic meal at Stenhus in Tallinn. On Friday I had some 20 friends (incl. few kids) for a birthday party at our home, and today our families came for Sunday lunch. Friday's party was Spanish-themed, today I served a number of typical Estonian party snacks, and I'll tell you more about them in due course. But I wanted to share this happy and bright photo with you.

I suspect you all know about this particular party piece consisting of boiled eggs and halved scooped tomatoes? Yes? No? It's in a classic Estonian children's cookbook published in mid-1980s, so most 'kids' of my age are familiar with this.

But I knew it would be even better in mini format, so I tried this version. Instead of regular chicken eggs and medium-sized tomatoes, I chose quail eggs and cherry vine tomatoes. My nephews - and the rest of the family - loved popping them into their mouth, so I'll be making the mini version from now on.

Here's how (just in case you didn't know already).

Quail Egg and Cherry Tomato 'Amanita muscaria' Mushrooms
('Kärbseseened' lastelauale)

Boil some quail eggs (say 10) for 2 minutes, cool and peel them.
Halve 5 ripe cherry tomatoes, scoop out the seeds and let them drain on a kitchen paper for a few minutes.
Cut some fresh dill or parsley and scatter on a serving plate.
Now cut a very thin slice off the bottom of the quail eggs, and stand them on top of the finely chopped herbs.
Place half of a tomato on top of each quail egg.
Sprinkle with Maldon salt flakes or dot with mayonnaise for that Amanita muscaria* effect :)

* Amanita muscaria aka fly agaric mushrooms are of course poisonous and inedible, but they are some of the the prettiest mushrooms in the forests with their bright red caps and white flecked tops. Kids here learn early on to avoid these when forageing for wild mushrooms.