Saveur's Worldwide list of 55 Great Global Food Blogs

Today's photo: some of Nami-Nami tomatoes, 2011

I'm thrilled to say that Nami-Nami was listed in Saveur's list Worldwide Feast: 55 Great Global Food Blogs. (Thank you, Silja, for pointing this out to me). I'm in a great company - there are some real foodblogging heavyweights listed -  Delicious Days, David Lebovitz, Chocolate and Zucchini, to name just a few. During my 6+ years of foodblogging, I've met several authors of the blogs mentioned - Ximena, Dagmar, Jeanne, Keiko, Pertelote. Most of the other blogs are familiar to me and I follow them regularly, but there are some new ones listed as well that I'm off to check out right now. Definitely a good and honorable company to be in :D

Thank you, dear Saveur, and dear Nami-Nami readers :)

Bruschette with chantarelle pesto

We've had another wonderul wild mushroom year in Estonia. With two small kids, I've only made it to the forest twice myself, but friends and family have supplied us with plenty of different wild mushrooms. Chanterelle is one of the most popular wild mushrooms - they're easy to recognise, versatile and taste lovely, and I've had more than my fair share of chantarelle dishes this summer. Chantarelle bruschetta, boiled potatoes with fried chantarelles, creamy chantarelle sauce, chantarelle quiche - you name it, I've had them all. Again. And again. So when I spotted a recipe for chantarelle pesto in the Finnish Kotiliesi magazine, it immediately caught my attention - something new, something that I hadn't tried with chantarelles before..

It turned out to be a lovely mushroom spread that I'll be making over and over again when I get fresh mushrooms.

Chanterelle pesto
(Krõbesaiad kukeseenepestoga)
Serves 4 to 6



Chantarelle pesto:
250 g fresh chantarelles
1 Tbsp butter
1 small garlic glove, coarsely chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
80 g toasted pinenuts
1 small bunch of fresh basil
5 Tbsp freshly grated parmesan
about 5 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

To serve:
ciabatta or baguette
olive oil
garlic

Clean the mushrooms, avoid washing them, if possible. Transfer onto a hot dry non-stick frying pan and heat, until the liquid has evaporated.
Add butter and garlic, fry for a few minutes. Remove from the heat, season with salt and pepper and cool
Place the basil and pinenuts into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds. Add the cheese, fried mushrooms and about 2-3 Tbsp of oil. Process until you've got a coarse paste. Fold in the rest of the oil, check for seasoning.
 To make bruschette, cut the bread into thin slices and sprinkle with some oil. Bake under a grill until lightly golden and crispy, then smear some garlic over the bread slices.
Spread the chantarelle pesto on top, garnish with some Parmesan cheese shavings and serve.

Tasty apple and oat morsels that don't look much, but taste wonderful

Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of the Green Market Baking Book: 100 Delicious Recipes for Naturally Sweet and Savory Treats by the publishers. A proper book review is yet to come, but here I sing praises to one little recipe from that book - apple oat pecan drops (page 121). These soft oat cookies (or morsels) don't look much, but I've made them no less than three times during the last week. As pecans are prohibitively expensive - and hard to come by - over here, I've used chopped almonds instead. I love them - they're soft, yet ever so slightly chewy, naturally sweet (apple! raisins!), healthy (no added sugar and virtually fat-free), very simple and quick to make, vegan, and rather addictive. I baked them last Friday, just to try a recipe from the book, then made another batch to take along to a a pop-up apple cake café on Saturday (the first person to try them bought 20!), and then another batch to a little village fête yesterday - and I will certainly make them again soon.

Apple and oat drops
(Õuna-kaerahelbeampsud)
Makes about 25-30 tasty morsels



1,5 cups rolled oats (about 350 ml or 130 grams)
1 Tbsp whole wheat flour or spelt flour
2 large apples, coarsely grated
1 Tbsp mild oil (I used rapeseed)
0.5 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp vanilla sugar
4-5 Tbsp (hot) water
0.5 cup small seedless raisins or currants (about 75 g)
4 Tbsp chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 F / 180 C.
Using a fork, mix together oats, flour, apples, oil, vanilla and water. Mix in the raisins and the nuts. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop the batter onto the baking sheet by the spoonful (either a heaped teaspoonful or a scant tablespoonful).
Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until the morsels are light golden brown.
Cool a little, then enjoy!