06/02/08

Recipes from different people

There are 2 good things about getting recipes from friends. First of all, if they make that food, then it must be a workable recipe. Secondly, every time you make it, you think of them.

Here are some favorites from my recipe box.

LESLIE’S CHOCOLATE CAKE. My friend Leslie from Kuopio gave me this recipe about 12 years ago. I told her I need a recipe for chocolate cake and she knew it had to be a sweet and sinfully good American one.

It’s not the simplest cake in the world: it takes 3 different bowls to get it done. But the end result is heaven. It has become our official birthday/mother’s day/father’s day cake.

Originally I wrote it down on a card. I have had to write it again twice since then because it was so dirty and covered with batter and chocolate. That’s the sign of a good recipe.

SAMI’S MAC-AND-MEAT. At work one day 8 years ago I was whining that I didn’t know what to make the kids for dinner. This young student we had working for us at the time said ‘Why not good old mac-and-meat?’ I didn’t know what it was so he explained:

‘You cook macaroni, put a bullion cube in it. Then you fry some hamburger and throw it in. It is the food that has gotten me through most of my studies. It’s very boring, but I love it. And if I love it, I bet your kids will too.’

How can you argue with such logic? The kids still love it today.

MY MOM’S FAMOUS SPAGHETTI SAUCE  Growing up, we ate spaghetti for dinner every Saturday night. People loved my mom’s spaghetti sauce and would kind of show up for a visit on Saturday around dinner time. They knew they would be welcome to stay and eat.

The sauce was what made it so good. It was just your basic meat and tomato sauce, but everyone thought it was special. They figured it must be some old family recipe that my mom would never give out.

But my mom would tell anyone who asked where it came from: ‘It was on a box of spaghetti. My own mom cut it off of there in the 1950s.’

ERIN’S CHILE.  Erin was one of our foreign student friends from the years when I was studying. He was only about 20, but had learned a lot about cooking from his mom. I don’t know which is better in his chile recipe, the final result or the writing of the recipe itself. Here are some quotes from it:

- ‘First of all, you have to have your shit together, because this takes at least 1 day’s notice.’

- ‘Next you need hamburger meat: 200-500 grams, depending on how your husband’s cars are selling.’

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW’S GREAT PIE. What I love about the recipe is that it’s written like she actually cooks. It says things like, ‘Throw in a couple of glasses of flour’ and ‘Add some salt’ without worrying too much about exactly how much that would be.

JENNIFER’S PLAY DOUGH. I knew it would be good when I got it from Jennifer since she had 3 kids. And it was, it got me through years and years with the kids. It’s so simple: flour, salt, oil, water, and some spice that I can’t find in Finland (sorry). You cook it up and it makes a dough that they (and I) played with for hours.

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VOCABULARY:  Recipe: resepti, Batter: taikina, Bullion: lihaliemikuutio, Hamburger: besides being a hampurilainen, we use the word to mean jauheliha, Have your shit together: be prepared, Play dough: muovailuvaha