Proper Comfort Food

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but Mum and I are taking Finnish lessons. Every Monday night we go to the Finnish American cultural centre in the next town and sit in the sometimes heated sometimes not function hall, drinking black coffee and trying to figure out whether an umlaut is needed. Or rather, I do that. Mum does not. She, maddeningly enough, already speaks Finnish. She learned it when she lived there as a girl and whilst her grammar and writing isn't fluent, she's pretty decent at the speaking part. And she's exceptionally good at correcting my pronunciation.

Exceptionally good.

I know a word or a sentence here and there, picked up from my grandparents and Mum over the years. I also just found a video on youtube that tells you how to swear in Finnish, and I plan on watching it VERY closely. But I just wanted to share with you, dear reader, what I am attempting to memorise right now. It is ostensibly very simple. Counting from 1 to 10. No problem right? I mean, I feel like everyone can count from 1 to 10 in at least one other language, it's just something you pick up in general passing. I can make it to ten in Spanish and Italian and sometimes German if the mood is right.

This is not the case for Finnish. Would you like to know why?

This is why.

1 – yksi
2 – kaksi
3 – kolme
4 – neljä
5 – viisi
6 – kuusi
7 – seitsemän
8 – kahdeksan
9 – yhdeksän
10 – kymmenen

Right. Now. Would you care to imagine what irregular verb conjugations are like?

Exactly. 

The only thing MORE demoralising than realising you can't even make it to THREE without checking the book is your mother sitting next to you whispering "I bet I can make it to a hundred in under a minute. Wanna see?"

Show off.

She didn't deserve it, but I was the Bigger Beetle this weekend (I usually am) and cooked up a few comfort suppers for her (with Beetle approved alternates) that went at least a little way towards thawing us out. BECAUSE IT'S REALLY FREAKING COLD OUTSIDE, YOU GUYS. 

COMFORT FOOD

in the form of

BEETLE'S OWN CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP WITH CHEESE TOAST

and PIPARKAKUT

which in Finnish means

PEPPER COOKIES

and which are really

CRAZY STRONG GINGERSNAPS

But first to soup. (Dinner before dessert, you guys, you know the rule.)

Tomato soup and grilled cheese is a standby as old as time for a reason. It's amazing. It's fast, easy, warm, delicious, and can be made with a wide variety of ingredients, depending on what you have in the house. 

CREAM of tomato soup is a more decadent version. It's the more decadent version you need when you've taken a 2 hour walk outside and sadly not put on enough clothes, and you keep desperately hoping that if you walk faster you will warm up, but it never happens, and so what was supposed to be a lovely late afternoon autumnal leaf-gazing stroll with leisured and erudite conversation becomes a speed march of death when your nose runs nonstop, your fingers are icicles, and your face becomes a set grimace of stoicism in the face of holy god walk faster why is it so cold outside omg walk faster. 

When you get home, you SHOULD take a shower to warm up, but the thought of removing your clothes, even to get into hot water, makes you want to die immediately so the only thing left is to turn on the BBC, grab a saucepan, and start throwing things into it, swearing under your breath and whimpering every time to have to reach into the fridge, trying in vain to drown out the deathscream of your toes with Asia Business News.

BEETLE'S SUPER-FAST-BEFORE-WE-FREEZE-TO-DEATH CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 1/2 cups diced tomatoes (I kept mine pretty chunky) or 2 cans of same
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 1/2 cup cream or milk
• 1 cup vegetable broth or water
• lots and  lots of fresh basil
• salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil and the diced tomatoes until they've started to soften and release their juices. Reduce the heat to a simmer and stir in tomato paste, cream or milk, and broth or water, stirring well and letting cook for a few minutes between each one. 

Add more or less liquid depending on how thick you want this to be. I went for thick and chunky, so mine had chunks of roughly diced tomatoes and not a lot of broth. This is peasant cream of tomato soup. It's not a bisque. It's more cream of tomato STEW than anything else I guess. Thick and studded with bits of tomato and basil leaves.

In short, exactly what you want after the above-mentioned afternoon walk.

You can garnish, as I did because sometimes I am a fancypants, with a few sliced grape tomatoes and whole basil leaves.

But who am I to dictate the surface of your soup? 

And of course, served with . . . CHEESE TOAST

I don't want to insult your intelligence too much by giving you a recipe for cheese toast. I feel like if you can work a computer well enough to be reading this right now (and bless you for that!) you can probably handle cheese toast. 

For this, I toasted the last three slices of Beetle's Amazing Farmhouse Bread (name still tbd), topped them with decently thick chunks of cheddar cheese, and stuck them under the broiler for 5 minutes. This frees up the stove so you can finish the soup in peace, and also it makes something a bit lighter than the traditional frying-pan-full-of-butter grilled cheese.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. 

My rationale for the above combination is that if you're already having CREAM of tomato soup, then unless you actually are the Native American girl on the Land O Lakes package in the butter section of the supermarket, you probably want to pull back a bit on the ol' grilled cheese front. 

I mean, if broiled hunks of cheddar on farmhouse bread can be called "pulling it back a bit."

GIMME A BREAK, YOU GUYS, MY BRAIN HAS FROZEN AND ONLY MY HANDS ARE WORKING LET'S MOVE ON TO COOKIES.

PIPARKAKUT

This recipe came from Beatrice (duh) and the cookies are technically called "Suomalaiset Piparkakut" which, THANKS TO MY NEWFOUND FINNISH SKILLS, translates as "Finnish Gingersnaps." This is also helpfully noted on the same page for those of you who are not fluent like me. 

Scandinavians, and Finns especially, like their ginger cookies STRONG AND DARK AND SPICY. This means that when they say "Piparkakut" they literally mean "put pepper in these cookies because it will make them taste good." And you know what? They're right. They really do taste better that way. 

Just BE WARNED that after you've had what I (and other high minded people) consider "proper" gingersnaps, every other bland, pale, waxy cookie that has the audacity to call itself a gingersnap will make you want to fling it against a wall and weep with frustration. 

It's a one way gingersnap culinary street, dear reader. Just prepare yourself. And pack your pepper grinder.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup molasses or dark corn syrup
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tbs ginger
• 1 tbs cinnamon
• 3 - 3 1/2 cups white flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the syrup, brown sugar, and butter until smooth. Add the cream, ginger, cinnamon, flour, baking powder, and salt, and continue mixing until the dough is stiff. Chill for several hours. 

If this is OUR HOUSE, then "chilling" is the same thing as "leaving in the kitchen because the temperature outside is the same as inside." If you are in a normal house, the fridge is probably best.

Roll out small portions of the dough into 1/4 inch thickness, and cut into 3 inch rounds. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. 

BEETLE NOTES

Some people have the Bible.
I have this. 

As you can see from above, at the time of making I did not possess the emotional stability to roll out cookie dough. The best I could do was to shape approximately-similar-sized balls of dough with my hands, and flatten them on the cookie sheet. Scrappy, yes, but also fast and relatively painless. And, apparently, still delicious.

When Christmas comes, I will be a good little Beetle elf and roll them out and make beautiful reindeer and stars and trees, etc. For the time being, Mum is going to have to be happy with vaguely circular discs of varying thickness depending on where the palm of my hand landed, because that's the most I felt up to. Sometimes, dear reader, it's important to recognise your own limitations, even if they are cookie-based.

They don't look THAT bad, do they? 

When Beatrice says "do not overbrown" at the end of her directions. THE COOKIES ARE ALMOST BLACK. You will not know when they are overbrown because the colour does not change. This is a time for the finger-puffness test. Very scientific. Pay attention. 1. Pull the baking sheet out of the oven. 2. Gently poke the top of one of the cookies with your finger. 3. If it feels too soft, stick it back in. 4. It if feels pretty solid, take it out. See? Who needs the Cordon Bleu when you have Beetle wisdom like this? 

Sometimes when I get the "chill dough" instruction I ignore it. Martha, in particular, loves chilling her cookie dough. And I have to admit a lot of the time you can get away with just shaping cookies and shoving them in the oven. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES. You have to chill this stuff. Even just making random flatish discs of dough, by the time I reached the bottom of the mixing bowl it was getting too sticky to work with (and this is in our frigid meat locker of a kitchen.) I would recommend dividing the dough in half and leaving the rest in the fridge until you're ready for it. Your cookie cutters (or the palms of your hands) will thank you.

I purposely burnt these a little bit because Mum likes burnt cookies. They are crispy and dark and strong, and I think when I actually DO make them properly they will be even better. As was, bobo and oddly shaped, they still came out crunchy and gingery and peppery and perfect for after dinner tea.

Thanks, Beatrice. I love you. 

Or should I say. 

Minä rakastan sinua.