Average Betty makes traditional Estonian barley bread

Remember my recent post about a quirky American foodblogger, Sara o'Donnell aka Average Betty, visiting Estonia? Well, she's now back home, and going through all the lovely recipes served at our party and mentioned in my post (or at least that's what I'd love to think :)). She has also posted her first Estonian recipe video on her very popular YouTube channel, where she makes and bakes the delicious and simple Estonian barley bread, odrajahukarask.

Here's the link to Average Betty's YouTube recipe video* - do check it out, it's very informative and entertaining at the same time.

Sara uses a recipe from Marika Blossfeldt's excellent book Essential Nourishment: Recipes from My Estonian Farm. and the bread on Sara's photo (on the left) and on the video looks just perfect.

Here are links to some other blog posts written  by Sara about her trip to Estonia:
Estonian epicures and how to choose wine infographic (August 3)
My day with chef Dimitri Demjanov (August 20)
Traditional Estonian barley bread recipe  (August 29)
Leib: Estonian for Bread  (August 30)

* Note that while the soda bread/barley bread Average Betty is making is traditionally Estonian, the music at the beginning and at the end of the video is definitely not. Sara was here during the Old Town Festival, and wandering around our beautiful Town Hall Square while some Russian babushkas were on the stage, singing :)

Once you've tried Sara's/Marika's recipe for the traditional soda bread, remember that you'll find two more recipes for the Estonian barley bread/soda bread here on Nami-Nami.

Estonian soda bread/barley bread with kefir or cultured buttermilk:

Estonian barley bread with ricotta:


Feel free to browse all the Estonian recipes here on Nami-Nami.

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Beetroot pkhali, or Georgian beet salad with walnuts and herbs

There have been no beetroot recipes on Nami-Nami recently. I wrote about the wonderful Persian dish, beetroot borani, back in May, but that's three months ago! Me thinks there's definitely time for another beet dish, or I'm in danger of losing my Beetroot Princess* title :)

A fortnight ago we hosted a Georgian feast in our backyard, and one of the many Georgian dishes I prepared was this simple and stunning-looking pkhali, made with beetroot. Pkhali is a Georgian vegetable dish that's something between a salad, dip or even spread, depending on the consistency you choose; the characteristic feature is the aromatic garlic-walnut-herb dressing. (You may have come across an alternative spelling, mkhali. That's the Russian name for this Caucasian salad.) The most popular are beetroot pkhali and spinach pkhali, but one can also use cabbage, eggplant/aubergine, red kidney beans or other vegetables. At any Georgian feast, you would usually find a selection of pkhakli-dishes to sample. I've provided a number of links at the end of the post, if you wish to explore further.

Ideally you'd roast your own beets for the best flavour, but I've used pre-cooked (organic) beets on couple of occasions and I doubt anyone noticed, really.

Charklis pkhali aka Georgian beet salad with walnuts and herbs
(Gruusia peedisalat kreeka pähklitega)
Serves about six or many more as part of a buffét table

 

500 g beets/beetroot

100 g walnuts
3 to 4 garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
a handful of fresh parsley
a handful of fresh coriander/cilantro
0.5 tsp dried savoury
0.5 tsp ground coriander seeds
about a Tbsp of good-quality red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar

If you're using raw beets, then scrub them clean and wash thoroughly, wrap into a piece of foil and bake in a pre-heated 180C/350F oven for 60 to 90 minutes, until the beets are cooked. Cool, peel and grate finely.
If you're using boiled beets, then grate them finely and let drain on a sieve for a while, to get rid of any excess moisture (you can press the beets even drier with your hands or a wooden spoon).
At the same time place the walnuts, garlic cloves and a generous pinch of salt into a food processor and process into coarse paste. Add the coriander/cilantro leaves and parsley, process again for a short while.
(You can obviously use the good old pestle and mortar to make that walnut and garlic paste).
In a big bowl, mix the grated beets, walnut-garlic-herb paste and the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper according to taste. Be cautious with the vinegar - pkhali needs to be slightly acidic, but never vinegary, and the exact amount depends on the sweetness of your roasted or cooked beetroots.
Cover the bowl and transfer into the fridge or cold larder for 2-6 hours - this "waiting time" is necessary for the flavours to mingle and develop.
To serve**, form the pkhali into small balls (optional) and place onto your serving plate. Garnish with pomegranate seeds, thinly sliced red onion or chopped of spring onion/scallion.
Serve at room temperature.

* My friend Alanna of A Veggie Venture is the reigning Beet Queen, remember :)

** Alternatively, spread the pkhali evenly on a plate, then make a diamond pattern on the spread with the edge of your knife before garnishing (see Melissa's spinach pkhali link below as an example). Of course, you can also simply spoon the pkhali into a suitably sized bowl.

More pkhali recipes: 
Spinach pkhali @ The Traveler's Lunchbox
Spinach pkhali balls @ Jeanette's Healthy Living
Beetroot pkhali @ Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow
Beet pkhali  @ Stay for Tea
Spinach pkhali @ Delicious Georgian Recipes
Spinach Pkhali, Cabbage Pkhali, Beet Pkhali  @ Food Gather.com

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Ravensburger The Amazing Spider-man Jigsaw Puzzle

Recently Ravensburger sent us our Puzzle of the month to review, usually the puzzle is aimed for Nathan or James but Callum had a lovely surprise when he saw that this months puzzle was in fact for him. We were sent The Amazing Spider-man jigsaw puzzles.

There are 3 puzzles in the box, each puzzle is made up of 49 pieces. When I first opened the box and saw a bag full of pieces I was slightly concerned as to how Callum would differentiate between the pieces needed for the 3 individual puzzles, especially as there is a lot of red and blue pieces for each of them. On closer inspection we saw that the puzzles were all marked differently on the backs so that you could see which piece belonged to which puzzle.

Callum said he enjoyed doing the puzzles and that they didn't take him to long to do although they did make him use his brain to figure out where the pieces went. The puzzles are suitable for children aged 5+. Nathan did try helping Callum at one point but got bored as he said there were too many pieces to put together.

We can't wait until next month so see what puzzle we will have to review.

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Scatter Brainz... Real Boys Toys

This last week Callum and Nathan have been playing with some real boys toys. They were sent some Scatter Brainz to try out. Were were sent a 8 pack and a 3 pack of Series 1 Scatter Brainz. Scatter Brainz have just been released, they will be on shelves very soon and I'm pretty certain they will be a toy that is on lots of Christmas lists this year.

The Scatter Brainz are a dart shaped toy, each dart has a unique character. The darts have a sticky squashed brain tip. 

Series 1 Scatter Brainz are sold in packs of 3 and 8. The 8 pack includes a Scatter Brainz target board.  There are rare and ultra rare Scatter Brainz hidden inside the packs.

Also soon available to buy is the Brain Bazooka and the Scatter Brainz Mental Case. The Brain Bazooka shoots up to 5 darts, it comes in two different styles and includes two exclusive dart characters. The Mental Case features a dart board that spins, four different targets, space for 50 darts, plus 4 exclusive toy Scatter Brainz.

Scatter Brainz toys will soon be available to buy from good toy retailers, the 8 pack is priced around £9.99.

All week Callum has been playing with the Scatter Brainz, both him and Nathan find them really funny ("because you can see their brain mummy" - oh silly me!!) the only thing they complained about them was that they lost some of their stickiness however I think if we had the tin to keep them in then they would last a lot longer and if the boys had remembered to replace the caps over the brainz once they'd finished playing with them too then I think they would have kept their stickiness a bit longer.

Overall the boys really liked them even if this was more the novelty factor they said they would definitely like more in the future and have certainly been eyeing up the dart gun as a must for their lists to Santa (which seem to be growing bigger and bigger)

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Courgette cake with lemon frosting (Lemon and Zucchini Cake)

I've been blogging for over 7 years now, and have been reading a number of foodblogs from regularly since then. You know who you are, JW, KD, AK, DL, EB, MK, CD, MW and so on. I still clearly remember an old Utah (?) joke Kalyn posted in her excellent blog six years ago, so I've dugged it up for you:

Do you know why people in Utah lock their car doors in the summer when they go into church? It's because if they don't, when they come out the car will be full of zucchini.
(Kalyn Denny, Garden Update #3, 4 June 2006)

Well, the courgette/zucchini grows just as well here in Estonia, and I'm having to come up with delicious ways of using the bounty on almost a daily basis. And there are only 2 zucchini plants in my vegetable garden this year!!!

Chocolate and Zucchini seems to be the most common and popular combination for a zucchini cake - take chocolate and zucchini cake and chocolate zucchini bread (Elise @ Simply Recipes), gluten-free chocolate chip zucchini brownies (Karina @ Gluten-free Goddess), double chocolate zucchini bread (Michelle @ Brown Eyed Baker), chocolate zucchini cupcakes (Two Peas & Their Pod), for instance. The list goes on and on. But trust me, courgettes/zucchini and lemon are just as good mates. So here's another excellent cake and another lovely recipe helping you to use up that courgette/zucchini bounty.

Note that the American measuring cup is 240 ml - that will help you convert the recipe into "American", in case you haven't got kitchen scales.

Courgette cake with lemon frosting
(Suvikõrvitsakeeks sidrunivõõbaga)
Serves about 10

 

200 g courgette/zucchini (about 400 ml coarsely grated)
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
200 g all-purpose/plain flour (about 350 ml)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
125 g caster sugar (about 150 ml)
100 g oil (rapeseed, olive; about 150 ml)
3 to 4 Tbsp pinenuts (or chopped nuts of your choice)

Lemon frosting:
juice of 1 lemon
icing sugar/confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 180 C/ 350 F. Grease and flour (you can use flour, semolina, polenta) an 8×4-inch loaf pan or 1,5 litre/quart Bundt tin; set aside.

Grate the zucchini/courgette coarsely, add the grated lemon zest.

Mix flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and salt until combined.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale, thick and fluffy. Fold in the oil, then the dry ingredients. Finally add the grated courgette/zucchini, lemon zest and the pine nuts.

Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin. Bake in a pre-heated 180 C/350 F oven for about 45 minutes, until fully cooked (test the doneness with a wooden toothpick - it should remain clean after being pierced into the cake).

Let the cake cool for about 15 minutes, then turn upside down onto a serving plate. Cool completely, then remove the cake tin.

If you wish, you can glaze the cake with a lemon frosting. To make the frosting, simply add enough icing sugar into the lemon juice to get a desired consistency. Spoon the frosting over the cake and serve.

I've used blue borage flowers to decorate the cake.

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Geomag Wheels Police Chase Triple Pack

This week Callum has been really busy reviewing some fab toys. He has been really pleased about this as normally most of the toys we get to review are for his little brothers.

Callum and I have just finished  making the Geomag Wheels Police Chase Triple Pack.

Geomag is like no other toy on the market, it is a magnetic construction system that uses magnetic rods and chrome spheres. The Police Triple pack contains  68 pieces and enables you to make a  Police Helicopter, a Police car and a Police 4x4. In the box you get an instructions leaflet and enough pieces for you to complete the 3 vehicles.

This was the first time Callum has ever tried constructing with Geomag and he thought it was really fun and quite easy to do. I had to help him with folding some of the edges for the 3 vehicles as he found this slightly difficult and I must admit that without any written instructions I often wondered if I was putting things into the right places.

We started with the helicopter first as we thought this looked the simplest to build, we timed ourselves and was surprised that it took us 20 minutes to put it together. We were quite impressed with the finished result though.

After we thought we'd tackle the police 4x4. This one we thought was the most difficult of the three to complete as the rods didn't quite seem to stay in place for the wheels, this however was maybe down to the way I had folded up the body as the front wheels fitted better than the back ones.

Lastly we made the police car, this was probably the easiest out of the three vehicles to make and probably the one we should of started with as it required very little folding, even callum managed to do this one himself.

We enjoyed building the Geomag Police vehicles, its not often Callum and I get chance to spend time doing this sort of thing together so it made a lovely change. In all we spent about an hour doing them. A good point about Geomag is that they can be taken apart just as easily and a lot quicker than building them. Because the bodies are made from plastic they wont break easily and can be put back together over and over.

The Geomag Wheels Police Chase Triple Pack is available to buy from Smyths and is priced at £24.99.  We would certainly recommend this set.

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Monsuno Strike Combat Set & Cores

When we were asked to review a range of Monsuno toys I honestly didn't have a clue what they were. I asked Callum if he'd ever heard of them and was like "oh mummy they are just the best things ever... you know the programme I like watching on Nicktoons? well that's Monsuno!" I was like oh ok and still none the wiser. I asked Callum if he'd like to give them a try and he was only to happy to help.

We were sent the Monsuno Strike Combat Set, a Wild Core and a pack of 4 Cores for our review.

Monsuno are monsters created from ancient energy, that you can use to battle your friends. The aim of the game or battle as it is known is to spin your Monsuno core into the Combat arena and battle it out with friends! There are different modes of game play but the simplest one is defeating the other sides Monsuno by reducing their points to zero. This game is played using just your core and its strike card. Each game is started when both players say Monsuno Ready! The players take it in turns to try and attack the other players cores with their own core. If they miss  the core their turn is over. If once a core is released and the Monsuno is released then the other players Monsuno takes damage equal to the value of the Monsuno that is attacking.  Damage points are shown on the Monsuno figures. At first it was a little difficult for Callum to understand who to play the game but once I had shown him it a few times he understood and was away to play. We haven't tried any of the harder modes of game play yet but I'm pretty sure it wont be long before we are trying them out.

The Monsuno Strike Sector Combat Set allows for fast-paced Monsuno battle action anytime, anywhere. It is really quick and easy to set up as the four pieces snap together and apart folds up for easy transport. Included in the box is a on-the-go battle bag meaning you can easily take the Strike Selector with you and keep all your bits together. The Monsuno Strike Sector Combat Set is priced around £24.99 and available from all good toy shops. It is recommended for children aged 4 years plus.

The Wild Core is motorized and will bring chaos to any battle. Each Wild Core comes with an exclusive collector game card. A Wild core can spin for up to 20 minutes and can be used to The wild core has LED lights and can spin for up to 20 minutes. Wild Cores are priced at £14.99 and can be purchased from all good toy retailers. 

Each core opens out to reveal a character from the TV show. The 4 VS pack comes with 4 Monsuno Cores, 4 Action Figures and 12 Collector Game Cards! The $ Vs pack is priced around £24.99 and available from all good toy retailers. There are 32 cores in total to collect in four different styles.

Callum said he really likes the Monsuno toys and can't wait for his friends to come round so he can battle them! I suppose this is our next move in the way of toys for him as he is getting too big to play with the same toys as his little brothers. He has already started his Christmas list for Santa (yes I am wondering how big it will actually be come December) and has asked for more Monsunos so that he can collect them all and have bigger battles with his friends.

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