Warrior Beetle: Midsummer's Eve

HI YOU GUYS I MISSED YOU. Don't worry, I am not encased in meringue (although it was a bit touch a go for a while, there) nor am I baked inside a vegetarian meatball, nor have I been pushed into the middle of a lake on a bonfire (which would be totally awesome actually but that didn't happen this weekend. Next, maybe.)

NO. What happened was MIDSUMMER'S EVE on Friday night followed by MUMMY'S BIRTHDAY on Sunday, the result being that the entire weekend was delightful and warm and sunny and full of yummy things to eat and laughter and presents and cake (!!) and lots of happy stuff.

So because I don't want to overload you, especially after my horrifically long absence (your Beetle tolerance has probably slipped accordingly) I shall post MIDSUMMER'S EVE today and her BIRTHDAY PARTY tomorrow. Hope everyone's cool with that. Yes? Good. Onward!

Remember when I promised flower crowns? FLOWER CROWNS.

MIDSUMMER'S EVE SUPPER AND FESTIVITIES

(Keskikesä and Kesäjuhla)

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Finnish Meatballs with White Gravy

Oven Roasted Purple Potatoes with Lemon and Black Olives

Cold Spinach and Green Bean Salad

Black Bread

Midsummer Weekend in our house is always fun. In Finland, they push bonfires onto the lakes and stay up all night dancing and eating and it's crazy and awesome. We do not do this per se because a) the fire department probably would show up at some point and b) we are both geriatric and can't stay up all night without dying. But we DO have a lovely dinner on the porch and wear flower crowns and go hunt for fireflies after dark. So that's something. AND bonus factor is that it falls on Mum's birthday weekend too (She thought she was the sh*t growing up in Finland because the entire country celebrated her birthday. I'm assuming there were years of therapy involved once the penny dropped.) so we generally give a few days over to sun and eating and, as Mister Tumnus would say in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, "jollification."

You know, jollification is SUCH a good word. I'm totally going to start using it.

Friday afternoon we went on a disgustingly large food shopping binge and bought enough to feed the five people coming to dinner on Saturday night, or, if you prefer, an entire Pakistani village for a year. Same amount. [hides Beetle horns in shame at blatant first-world consumerism then remembers it was her mother's birthday party and whips them back out in pride and an ecstasy of waggling defiance]

So for Midsummer dinner, it needed to be something culturally and culinarily appropriate, but also something I could make at the same time that I made three other cold salads for Saturday plus bread plus flower crowns.

Hey, that's why they call me Warrior Beetle. Bring it.

ROASTED PURPLE POTATOES WITH LEMON AND BLACK OLIVES

Purple potatoes are essentially the only potato Mum will deign to eat now since we read that Times article about breeding the nutrients out of our produce. They really do taste different than your average Yukon Gold, much earthier and with a lot more depth. (Which now that I think about it is probably the taste of health that I never missed until now.)

If you don't have purple, this recipe can be used for any other kind. Potatoes are equally opportunity taste bud amazers.

Turn the oven on to 450 degrees. Chop the potatoes in half or quarters depending on the size, and toss in a large bowl with olive oil, coarse salt, and lots of fresh rosemary. Spread evenly out on a baking sheet covered in foil and pop it in the oven. During that time, quarter a lemon, and get your olives ready. (We got the best olives in the world - the dangerous ones we are only allowed to buy every other month because we will eat ourselves into an olive coma.)

At 20 minutes, take the pan out, squeeze the lemon quarters evenly over the potatoes, and scatter with olives and the squeezed lemon rinds. Put the pan back in the oven and cook for another 10 - 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender. You can serve this one hot if you like but it is absolutely delicious cold.

FINNISH MEATBALLS WITH WHITE GRAVY (Lihapyörykät)
[Beetle Note: I don't know what "vegetarian meatballs" is in Finnish and I'm sure it's a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORD WITH SEVENTEEN NEW UMLAUTS and I'm just going to let it go.]

This is Beatrice's recipe, obviously. The best part is that my dad AND my grandmother always used Beatrice too, so my "traditional family recipe" just happens to be the one in my cookbook. Easy, that. The difference is that these are vegetarian instead of a mixture of pork and beef. What I did was take Beatrice's meatball recipe, substitute one package of ground veggie meat, and reduce the accompanying ingredients accordingly. I also switched out bread crumbs for oat bran and put in another heaping teaspoon of allspice. The below is what happened.

Hear that? That's the sound of all my dead relatives screaming in culinary agony simultaneously.

INGREDIENTS

1 tbs minced garlic
1 small onion, minced
2/3 cup oat bran
2 eggs, beaten
1 package veggie ground beef
1 teaspoon salt
2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground white pepper

3 tbs butter
1/3 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 cups veggie broth

In a large mixing bowl, mix the onions, oat bran, and milk. Add all the other ingredients, and beat them together until very smooth and fluffy (you can use a spoon, an egg beater, or a mixmaster. I used a spoon and then my hands. Because. OLD SCHOOL BEETLE.)
Using two spoons that you've frozen in the snow [LITERALLY. I'm not making this up. I, um, didn't. I used my hands.] Shape the meat mixture into small meatballs. Fry the meatballs, shaking the pan constantly so that they brown evenly on all sides. Drain them and keep them warm on a platter.

I baked these, incidentally. Because frying meatballs at 6 o'clock at night when I was already a sweaty, onion-stained mess seemed excessive, even for Midsummer's Eve. The good thing about veggie meat is that you don't have to stress about cooking times and dying of e-coli or salmonella or something like that. (Soy protein is pretty safe like that.) Cook them at 450 for 15 minutes, turning over halfway through to evenly brown on both sides.

For the sauce, melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the flour, whisking until smooth. Add the milk and veggie broth and cook, whisking pretty constantly, until it gets nice and thick, about 3 minutes. If it gets crazy thick you can add more liquid, and add more flour if the opposite is true.

The sauce should remain white, incidentally. If it browns, then you ruined it. And you have to go ritually kill yourself with a reindeer antler outside.

[Beetle Note: I can't find my pictures of the white gravy. I'm sorry. I trust that at this point you can use your imagination. If not, write to me and I'll see what I can do.]

BLACK BREAD

Well, no Scandinavian feast would be complete without Black Bread. (Or bread in some form that could hammer in a nail, kill someone, etc.) This black bread is the one I always make, it's the Beetle version of the 101 Cookbooks recipe, wherein I use butternut squash puree and oat bran in place of grated carrot [Mum's now obsolete hahah aversion to carrot is the reason for this]. It always goes well, but this time I'm including a slideshow of sorts because it went MAGNIFICENT for some reason and I couldn't deal with the awesomeness. Enjoy.

When they say "double in size" . . . yeah. I put this in the bowl, went on a walk, and came back to this.
Try QUADRUPLE IN SIZE.

Obviously punching down the dough is one of the best parts.
I just want the sheer FLUFFINESS of this on record.

And shaped into two perfect little loaves. Sigh.

Now, a before and after, if you will. Same loaf. Just before going in the oven, and just after coming out. Check it out.

BEFORE

AFTER.

I KNOW RIGHT?? For serious you guys I was so mad there wasn't anyone but the cat to share with this. (Singularly unimpressed, for the record.) The LAST time I made this I was all omg I've perfected this recipe. LITTLE DID I KNOW.

I shoved it in Mum's face when she came home, then made her weep when I told her that it had to wait until the party. I know, I know. MEAN BEETLE.

I included this because all of a sudden all I could think of was that scene in Star Wars when Luke Skywalker is flying his plane into the Death Star down that corridor. And it made me laugh so hard that I needed to share it.
It's a Bread Death Star.
You're welcome.

And so, dear reader, it was a Midsummer for the record books. The weather held and we were able to have a lovely porch supper and watch the fireflies come out, and there was a single,sad, lonely piece of Rhubarb Raspberry Crumble Slice left so Mum felt it was her duty to put it out of its misery.

She's a kind soul.

To finish, I shall entertain you with flower crown photos. There are no pictures of us wearing the crowns because Mum refuses to appear on camera and/or video and she hasn't mastered my SLR, so anything with me in it comes out looking like it's underwater.

I learned to make these out of a Swedish book when I was 7. The wrapping method means you get a really strong crown so that it can hold leaves, etc, and also won't disintegrate on your hair, which would kind of ruin the mood, no? Especially if it fell into your meatballs and gravy. Just get flowers with long enough stems and you're in business.