Foodie stuff from Finland

As usual I ended up buying quite a few Finnish products to take home with me from the holiday. I wanted to share some of my bounty with you in case you're interested.

I expanded my Moomin bowl collection (normally I always buy a mug) by the ancestor of the Moomins bowl. I really like the artwork on this and the rare ancestor character is quite intriguing. Also these bowls are quite a convenient size and shape for many kinds of dishes.

And since we were in Finland, I bought even more Moomin products. I found these cute small Moomin napkins that feature some of the more rare characters. I'm sure they'll soon be seen in my food posts.

I had to buy proper rye bread in bulk again and freeze them for future use. They are very good after toasting. I also bought these root vegetable breads (beetroot & carrot and parsnip and carrot), thin oat crisp breads and rye crisps. These will be lovely as work lunches and evening snacks.

You may already know that I'm a fan of a certain healthy berry, sea-buckthorn, so I got this sea-buckthorn jelly and dried sea-buckthorn powder. The powder I normally use in baking and in yogurts. I'm not quite sure yet how to use the jelly the best way. Somehow I have this idea combining it with fried halloumi. Would that work?

Here come the Moomins again! My partner really likes these Moomin blueberry-raspberry liquorice sticks, so we bought a few to take with us. 

 

I visited the Kyrö Distillery Company again and apart from tasting their drinks, I bought their new product Cranmary raw chocolate. It's vegan and contains gin, cranberry and rosemary, a very good combination.

Fazerina are probably my favourite Finnish chocolates. Even though I don't eat much chocolate, it's nice to have a Fazerina occasionally. They are milk chocolates with a truffle filling, so good!

This was my foodie shopping from Finland. I hope you like the products. Most of them will be seen on the blog later, I'm sure.

Your VegHog

Foodie presents and other Christmas treats

I wanted to post for you some nice seasonal foodie items that might be good ideas as Christmas presents or as treats for yourself. And once again I hope that my family members aren't reading the blog right now, as there may be some spoilers!

I already treated myself with this gorgeous cotton and pine bouquet. I will be in Finland for Christmas, but I still wanted to decorate my flat here in England a bit as well. Of course the Christmas lights have already been up since the first advent.

So here are some nice products that I have spotted and tried. Roasted salted nuts with a hint of hickory smoke are quite special, excellent nuts, but and all sorts of other nuts are perfect at Christmas as well.

I accidentally bumped into these Finnish style Danish sea salt liquorice and obviously had to buy them as a friend of all things liquorice.

Why not have some lightly salted Christmas tree tortilla chips or winter berries & prosecco crisps? The prosecco crisps really surprised me. They have edible gold stars on them as decoration and have quite a nice prosecco fizz in the taste. 

Vegetarian pies of all sorts are brilliant seasonal food and I just love the Christingle pie by Pieminister. It's a roast parsnip, Cheddar, leek and chestnut pie and very comforting.

Mulled wine and cider are things that I refuse to celebrate any winter fests without. Okay, maybe it's not quite that extreme, but they are nice warming drinks.

Chocolate, what shall I say... there will be plenty of it around and who can resist: pralines, drinking chocolate, chocolate spread – is that enough chocolate for now?

Nice labels, ribbons and wrapping paper are almost the best thing about Christmas and I found many cute animal themed things again this year!

This was just a quick compilation of some products, of course homemade presents are still unbeatable. Are you going to give food presents this year?

Your VegHog

Foodie shopping

As I already wrote in a previous post that I would write separately about my holiday shopping not to clutter the holiday photo post too much. So I'll introduce here some of the food and kitchen products that I brought with me from Finland to the UK. I didn't have the time to use any of them much yet, but they will surely become handy, tasty or amusing in no time.

My absolute favourites were the hedgehog tea towels by Lapun Kankurit that I got in Helsinki. I already have some other tea towels from the same makers, but these must be the best ones ever. I'm not revealing them fully in the photos, as they will be making many appearances on the blog in the future.

Then I purchased also from the Lapuan Kankurit shop an interesting tea in a retro tin. It's called Kyläkaupan Teesekoitus (tea blend of the village shop) made by Metkatuote, and it's a blend of green and white tea flavoured with lingonberries, vanilla and lotus flowers. I'm sure the tea will be tasty, but don't you just have to love the tin!

My mum gave me this lovely coffee tin with cute animal artwork on it. There is also good Finnish coffee and a wooden measuring spoon within. This makes a great addition to my coffee shelf.

I love using healthy berry powders in breakfast bowls and baking. The dried powders are a convenient way of storing some of the berry goodness of the Finnish forests. Now I filled in my dry cupboard with new ones and am going to taste the lingonberry one soon. Lingonberry was somewhat a theme here, as I also bought sugar with added lingonberry flakes. That should be good for baking too. I'm not quite sure yet where I will use the sea buckthorn syrup, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Dried chanterelles were also a mandatory item on my shopping list as usual. In the background there's a dried nettle bag hiding.

I can't get enough of mentioning my local Napue Gin by Kyrö Distillery Company and of course had to bring a bottle with me, so good times are ahead.

Herra Hakkaraisen Täysksylitolipastilli are tooth friendly dragees in strawberry and pear flavours. They are good for after meals and in between.

This Kasviskeittokirja is a Finnish translation of the German original Vegetarianisches Kochbuch für Freunde der natürlichen Lebensweise by Eduard Baltzer, the founder of the first German vegetarian society. The original was published in 1869, if the info that I found was correct. It's from around that time anyway and contains old vegetarian recipes and nourishment info flavoured with the attitudes of the time. It's quite funny to read at times, but many nutritional facts haven't changed from those days. Maybe I'll cook something from this book soon and then I'll make sure that I'll post it here.

I always buy lovely napkins where ever I go and this time I took with me Kirsikkapuisto (cherry park) by the Finnish fashion designer Jukka Rintala and a white horse napkin Nøkken som hvit hest by the Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen from Ateneum's The Magic North exhibition, which by the way was truly magical.

I also bought my favourite cheese Oltermanni, rye nachos and crisps, some dried soya and pea protein products, chocolates and rye bread. It seems that I only bought food! Well isn't that quite important anyway? Have you done some interesting food shopping lately, on your holiday or at home?

Your VegHog

All I want for Christmas is moo?

I want to avoid commercial Christmas as far as I can, but isn't it nice to buy presents for your loved ones once a year? I've now been so busy that I'm badly behind with the present shopping. I have a few, but more are needed. Luckily online shopping is quite effortless.

I have collected here practical and quirky kitchen and dining items that I happen to find attractive at the moment. They are not too expensive either.

When I make such posts, I don't collaborate with any of the companies and this is not an ad. These are just my own desired items that have basically caught my eye. There are also millions of other good items out there that you can buy, but I'm definitely getting that Moomin mug for Christmas!

1. Scrub'a potato gloves by Eddingtons / 2. Foldable grater by Fiskars / 3. Seasonal Moomin mug by Arabia / 4. Beasties cake tins by Magpie / 5. Cheese dome by Sagaform / 6. Kastehelmi plate by Iittala / 7. Vinterfint mugs by Ikea / 8. Reclaimed chapatti board by Nkuku / 9. Reindeer wine rack by Array / 10. Star runner by John Lewis / 11. Heritage round casserole by Le Creuset / 12. Kukkuluuruu tea towels by Marimekko