Midsummer 2011

Greetings from last weekends midsummer party! I find it difficult to imagine that I would spend it anywhere else than here, summer cottage on the west coast.

Summer fabrics

Miia's design called Lootus (the one on the left) for Finlayson can be seen in the latest issue of Avotakka, a Finnish interior design magazine.

Pulmus on vacation

We were happy to find a photo of our Pulmus relaxing in the latest Finnish Deko -magazine. The story is of a house that can be seen in the eco-friendly holiday housing fair in Mäntyharju 27.6.-10.7.2011.

The house in question is called Luukku and has been designed by students from Aalto university. The wooden built house has won prices in Solar Decathlon Europe 2010 in Madrid in a competition to build energy-efficient housing and the Wood Award 2010. See more info here.

The interior decoration is by Kaisa Takala, Minna Piironen ja Hanna-Liisa Pykälä, all students at the Aalto university. Their comment in the Deko-magazine: "Luukku-house is very minimalistic and follows the Scandinavian design tradition. With the interior design we wanted to show Finnish summer cottage feeling in a stylish and modern way".

Poached rhubarb with pannacotta

Here's something for the weekend, as well as something for the rhubarb season. I'm always looking for new ways to use rhubarb, lovely as the pie is there is a limit as to how much I want to eat it. It's always good to have rhubarb with dairy products, as it contains oxalic acid which will use calcium from your bones if it doesn't get it from somewhere else.

This combination originates from Nigel Slater's Tender Vol. 2, and as before, had me jumping of joy. I did tweak it a bit, the pannacotta -recipe I've simplified as much as possible, and it still is lovely, and the poached rhubarb has orange juice, as I find the whole oranges bitter when roasted. But here goes:

For 4 people

vanilla pannacotta:

4 dl cream
1,5 milk
0,5 dl sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 gelatin leaves

Soak the gelatin leaves for 5 minutes in cold water. Bring cream, milk and sugar to boil in a saucepan. Squeeze the water from the gelatin leaves, add to cream, stir well and leave to cool.

Pour the cooled pannacotta mixture into small bowls. If you are worried about gelatin lumps, you can always sieve the mixture into bowls. Leave to set in the fridge for 4-5 hours or overnight.

Poached rhubarb:

a big portion, but you can have the extra later with some natural yogurt or vanilla ice-cream

500g rhubarb
4 tbsp honey
cinnamon stick
2 star anise
0,5 dl orange juice

Trim and peel the rhubarb, cut into short lengths. Put into a baking dish with rest of the ingredients. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes or so in 160 C degrees, until the rhubarb is soft.