Two Weeks of Cooking Classes, Concert at Sibelius Hall, and X-Country Skiing

Hello Everyone,

Well, I have a lot to tell you about this time. I have two weeks worth of Finnish Cuisine, a concert at Sibelius Hall, and cross-country skiing to tell you about.

I think I will start with the first of the two weeks of Finnish Cuisine. For the first week (2 wednesday's ago), we made "fish in the heart of Finnish gastronomy", we made Finnish fish dishes. For this week, we made smoked salmon fillets (Savustettua kirjolohta), Fried Baltic Herring Fillets (and spinach sauce) (Silakkapihvit ja pinaattikastike), Mashed Potatoes (Perunasose), Mashed Potatoes with Spinach (Pinaatti-perunasose), Lapland Salad (Ruskasalaatti), Breakfast Buns, and Whipped Berry Pudding (Vatkattu marjapuuro).

 These are the Fried Baltic Herrings Fillets before they are fried, they have dill and chives in the middle and are coated in rye flour and salt.

 This is the smoker to smoke the salmon, it did a great job! This is our teacher in this picture showing Sam how to use the smoker.

 This is the smoked salmon fresh from the smoker and ready to eat!

 These are Creamed Morels, they are toxic before they are processed, this time of year you can only get them in the can, but in the spring and summer you are allowed to pick them in any area of Finland, you are allowed to pick berries as well, even on private property, our teacher told us this, pretty good, Sam is going to eat one!

 Our group was responsible for making the Fried Pike Perch in Beetroot Sauce. Pictured above is the Pike Perch Fillets and pictured below is the Beetroot sauce to go with it, it was delicious!

 Our group was responsible for making the Fried Pike Perch in Beetroot Sauce. Pictured above is the beetroot sauce which you eat with the fish. It was delicious!

 Here is the Smoked Salmon displayed nicely for eating.

 Here is the Lapland Salad, it contains traditional Lapland Bread Cheese, Smoked Reindeer Steak, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, and raw cranberries with a mustard dressing, it was also really good!

 This is the Whipped Berry Pudding, it contains water, berry puree or strawberries and rhubarb (puree), farina (semolina), sugar,and it is topped with fresh Lingonberries.

For the next week of Finnish Cuisine (last wednesday), we made Traditional and Regional Food, which contained regional tastes for a Finnish meal. We made Juhani Aho's Fish Soup (Northern Karelia), Potato Bread (Savo), Elk Meat Balls with Mushroom sauce (Hame), Sauteed Reindeer (Lapland), Beef Stew with Dill (Southern Finland), Butter Potato (Lapland), Honey Baked Vegetables (Hame/Karelia), Mushroom Sauce (Central Finland), Lingonberry puree with sugar (Karelia, Lapland), and for dessert we had Bilberry Pastry with Vanilla Ice Cream. We also had a really nice Finnish dinner beer that is sweet in taste and white and red wine to go with the meal, I was stuffed afterwards!

 This is the reindeer meat for the sauteed reindeer, it sure was a lot!

 This is the elk meat for the elk meat balls with mushroom sauce. Are group was in charge of the making the elk meat balls with mushroom sauce, I really enjoyed it and it was delicious!

 This is everything on my plate, lol! The meatballs with the mushroom sauce are at the bottom, the sauteed reindeer was at the top left, it kind of tastes like beef jerky a little, it was really good! the beef stew with dill is at the top with the honey baked vegetables, and the butter potatoes are at the bottom

 I think this was one of my favourite parts of the meal, this is the Juhani Aho's Fish Soup from Northern Karelia. It contains fish stock, onions, potatoes, salmon fillets, pike perch, white wine, double cream, and fresh dill, it was so good!!!

 This is the Bilberry (blueberry) Pastry (Mustikkakukko), and Vanilla ice cream. The dough is made with rye flour and the filling is bilberries, sugar, and potato flour, it was really good too!

We went to a John Lennon tribute concert yesterday (saturday) at Sibelius Hall (Sibeliustalo), Carolyn, Mike would have really liked it! They had the Lahti symphony orchestra playing and 3 different british singers, one sounded like John Lennon, and the other 2 were more jazz singers, one sounded a lot like Michael Buble! Something that I did not know is that Sibelius Hall is the largest wooden structure in the world, it smells really nice inside. Below are pictures of the hall.

 Sibelius Hall is right on the harbour, and this is the view from inside the reception area, a very nice location!

 We went to a really nice coffee and desert place after the concert that is located right next to the hall. They serve traditional Finnish deserts and other baked goods, coffee, tea, among many other things, and its in a nice lounge setting in an old historic house right on the water, I would definitely recommend going there. Above and below are pictures of it.

Today (sunday), me, Sam, and his girlfriend Sophie who is visiting for the week from England went cross-country skiing on the lake beside my place in Mukkula. The whole lake is frozen so you can go pretty much anywhere on it, and we were able to use ski's for free. We got the ski's from the physiotherapy exchange students, they can use them for free from their school. We went around a part of the lake and then went down the hill by my residence, it was a lot of fun, it was my first time cross-country skiing in more than 15 years! Below are pictures from it, it was a nice sunny day for it.

I hope you enjoyed my blog, I will keep you posted!