Finnish Meatballs with cranberry sauce, Greek Potato Salad and Crunchy Salad from Costa Rica

As I have mentioned before, I have a few cooking books which I borrowed from the library. I wanted to make some dishes from these books. There are so many recipes which I want to try from those books, I have post-it the recipes which I want to try but there are so many. I am not sure if I can try everything before my return due date. I might have to extend them.

Anyway, one of the books which I really liked was this book called "Falling Cloudberries"

This Author has Finnish mother and Greek-Cyprus Father and this book is collection of the recipes which she gathered from her relatives on both sides.

By the way, it is one of my favorite things to look at recipe books in bed before I go sleep. And yesterday, I was looking at this book called "Twelves" which my mother-n-law gave me a few years ago. This cook book is all about Tuscan food and it also have many beautiful photos.

I looked at authors name and realized that it was a same author! Tessa Kiros! What a coincidence. When I borrowed this book from the library, I wasn't paying any attention to the author's name and I didn't remember the author's name from the book I had so I didn't know until last night! This is great!


Anyway, I decided to make finnish meatball with cranberry sauce and greek potato salad from this book this time. "Finnish meatball with allspice, sour cream and lingonberry"(p33) It is very similar to Swedish meatballs. I guess since they are both nordic country, they eat very similar food.

It took a while to make a small ball one by one. Since there were lots of them, I froze half of them for later use.

The end result was really good. I was so happy that I made this. The sauce is pretty simple by using the pan you fried meatball, adding water, flour and sour cream. It is delicious.

And, you have to have lingonberry or cranberry sauce with this. I wanted to make the sauce myself but I couldn't find any fresh or frozen lingon/cranberries so I just bought a canned cranberry sauce. It was actually pretty good.

I had Swedish meatball for the first time right after I came to the U.S. First, I thought it is strange to eat meatball with this sweet cranberry sauce. The combination was pretty shocking to me. Then, I tried it and found that it goes very well. Since then, cranberry sauce is something I have to have with swedish meatballs.

One more dish I made from this book was "Boiled Potato Salad" (p123). This dish was in Greek section of the book. It has black olives, red onion and capers in it. It is very Greek ingredients potato salad.

I loved everything I made this day. I wish I could make the cranberry sauce myself but the can was quick and good. I really like this book! There are a lot more I want to make from this book. Maybe I should buy this book :-)

The next one is from a different book on a different day. I introduced this book a few days ago and this one is called "World Food Cafe". This is a vegetarian cook book which features many vegetable dish from all over the world.


For the weekend lunch, I made this salad called "Crunchy Salad with Lime Juice"(p164).

This salad was in Costa Rica section of the book.

It has mango, avocado and had a Caribbean feel to it.

I was supposed to use watercress but I couldn't find them in our supermarket so I used Arugula (Rucola) instead.


It is very refreshing summer salad!

By the way, speaking of Swedish meatballs, the Swedish princess Victoria got married the other day. It was such a beautiful wedding and seems like everybody was happy for her. I wish her a great married life!