In My Kitchen in January

It’s nice to start a new year in the kitchen, and as usual I want to share some new items and dishes with you.

I got the new seasonal winter Moomin mug for Christmas, and I bought some Moomin coffee to go with it. The mug has a very serene winter atmosphere, and I gladly drink my coffee and mulled wine from it. Another great Christmas gift was this cute polar bear, fox and hedgehog placemat. I'm sure that you will see it in some future food posts.

I also got some new kitchen gear as a Christmas present from work: two large oven dishes and a set of tea towels, potholders and an apron. Those will surely come in handy, and I actually didn't own an apron before, so maybe I'll start wearing one now.

There was a lot of food over the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. However I didn’t photograph so many dishes. I found some food gems in Finland, like this new product Vegekebakko, vegan wheat protein on a wooden stick that sent me on a trip to my childhood. The stick mimics a 80s classic, a meat version of the product. I was so excited to see that they made a vegan version, and had to buy a packet. They were actually very nice, so nice that I need to go back to Finland soon to get more of them. For this dish I also made some pickled kohlrabi.

I couldn’t resist this festive mature Cheddar (juhla=party), and I’m saving it for a special meal in the near future. I will probably try it with these crispbreads and the rye buttons. One of the crispbreads is a new product FINN CRISP Carrot Crunch, a rye crispbread containing carrots and seeds. The other crispbread is one of my favourites made of oats. 

Of course there were also plenty of chocolates and Christmas beers, some of which are depicted here.

For New Year’s Eve my partner and I had a relaxing jackfruit taco night at home before we went to see the local fireworks by our lakes. For the tacos I followed Meriel Armitage’s recipe for jackfruit carnitas. It was a very nice recipe, especially the pineapple salsa, and I will make these carnitas again.

I didn’t have a big Christmas tree this time, just a mini tabletop one and a small pine outside in front of the window. Of course at my mother’s place we had a proper Christmas tree. I also got a bunch of blue hyacinths for the season.

I quite regret not buying one of these vegetable characters to my kitchen from a Finnish supermarket. Especially the broccoli would've been great.

I’m sharing this post with Sherry from Sherry’s Pickings blog, who is hosting the excellent In My Kitchen series also this year. Go and have a peek into her lovely blog.

Your Veghog