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!

A Day Trip to Manhattan and Delicious Caribbean Roasted Chicken

During the memorial weekend, my husband and I went to explore NY for a day. There are many things which we haven't seen in and around NY.

First, we went to this place called "Fort Tryon Park". It is north of Washington Heights. In this park, there is a museum called "The Cloisters".

The park has lots of flowers and trees but not too many people. It is a perfect place to have a picnic or just walk around. It is right next to the Hudson river so the view is also great.

The Cloister is devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Not just the art pieces but the building also looks like medieval so you feel like you are in medieval Europe.

It is a beautiful building in a beautiful location.

They also have garden inside. It is wonderful.

We walked around the cloister and the park. Since we started to get hungry right about then, we went to check out the nice restaurant in the park. However, the restaurant was closed for the private event.

So, we decided to head to the next destination and try to find something on the way there.

Our next destination was Columbia University and we were driving by Washington Heights and realized that there was a concert hall which we came once.(I came to see Maxwell in this concert hall)  I remember that there are many Caribbean or latin american restaurant around here. There is this one restaurant called "Malecon" which is right across from the hall and it seemed like they have really good roasted chicken. We decided to go in.

My instinct was right! Their roasted chicken was absolutely delicious!

We also had some yellow rice and avocado salad. There avocado was so good. They might be the best avocado I ever had.

I really liked this restaurant. I wish we have this close to our place. Another great thing is that it was very affordable. The food was very fresh and we ate a lot but the bill was $16.00 plus tip! What a deal!

The restaurant was pretty busy and there are many families there. It was quite lively atmosphere and I liked it. Maybe many families went to church and came to the restaurant for lunch after that. If you are in Washington Heights sometimes, I highly recommend this restaurant!

After fulfilling our stomach, we head to Columbia University but on the way there we found this big church and the door was open so we went in to see.

This church is called Riverside church and it was beautiful church. The security people were so friendly. They told us that we can take pictures and stay as long as we want.

This is how it looks inside.

Stained glass is also beautiful.

It was hot outside but inside of the church was cool and very quite. I had no idea such a huge church exit in Manhattan. I bet there are so many people coming here on Sunday morning. If you have a chance, try to peek in this church, it is a beautiful building.

Then, Columbia University. It was very green and peaceful. We sat down and relaxed watching birds and students. It is so much fun to do people watching.

It was a wonderful and perfect day. My husband also really enjoyed this day. We decided to do something like this more often. There are so many places or things which we haven't visited in NY and it is a perfect time of the year to visit all these places because in winter it is too cold to enjoy those sights.

Summer is here and we are excited to explore hidden places of NY. (at least hidden to us :-)