Burgers

On Sunday the sadistic January training routine continued and we went for a walk. A long long never ending walk. At it was cold, like -16°c cold. When we got back home I was hungry, I couldn’t feel my fingers and my ass was numb. Fun times! Pah New Year new me… why can’t the new me just eat more and watch more TV?

Well luckily I did get to eat. And I made burgers

Bacon burger <3

Bacon Burger Patties

400g ground meat (pork and beef)

1 egg

breadcrumbs

2 small onions (chopped)

Tabasco

salt & pepper

 

Mush ingredients together. Form into patties (makes about 8 small ones). Pan fry in bacon fat.

Ps. I also heated the burger buns in bacon fat. Take that torture January! Buahahhahah

No cook Saturday

Last Friday night was a bit of a fail. I woke up with a deathly hangover on Saturday morning at 6:30 am(!!) because the kid was feeling stressed about well… pretty much everything. We were in front of the local supermarket at 8 am when it opened and I think I cursed the whole way there and the whole time we were there much to the kids annoyance. But seriously not only was my hangover bad but oh the shame the shame! I hate it when you get those flashbacks of dumb stuff you’ve said/done from the night before. You know the feeling. I bet you do!

After the supermarket we headed to IKEA to buy me a new mattress. But all I had on my mind was hangover meatballs. Due to Captain Sadists early morning regime 1) we were there almost half an hour before IKEA opened 2) in the mornings they have breakfast and no meatballs FAIL. Luckily the ‘bistro’ cafe was testing a new product: Meatballs in a Cup! Yay! I got a soda & 8 meatballs in a cup for I think 1,95€ and suddenly my day looked much much brighter. WIN!

The whole point of getting up at an ungodly hour was so that we could go swimming. I can’t remember the last time I’ve actually gone swimming so you can imagine the torturous pain of trying to keep up with the kid and his brother in the pool whilst simultaneously wanting to drown in shame. OK, to be honest it wasn’t that bad, I mean the swimming (my moral hangover was just as bad as it seemed)

After swimming I was hungry again and as we were driving past Citymarket the kid’s brother said something about Kotipizza and after that I couldn’t think of anything other than that I needed pizza! ^_^

I took the Parmiamo 10,40€ which had cherry tomatoes, parma ham, parmesan cheese and arugula. It was so good! But I think I could have eaten the family size one since I was so hungry I don’t think I’ve ever had any other kind of pizza at Kotipizza. I’m not really a pizza person. Before the ripe age of 18 I actually disliked pizza! Shocking, I know And even after that I haven’t really ate that much pizza until I met the kid. Now it feels like I have pizza at least once a week

The kid took the Kebabpizza 10,40€ which had kebab, peperoni, paprika, red onions and garlic sauce He let me have a bite and it was actually good! Kotipizza taste WIN!

However the price of the pizza always makes me cringe. I mean this is almost as much as you would pay for pizza at an actual restaurant where you get to sit down and someone lights candles at your table and you have tablecloths and you’re not in the middle of a supermarket and someone takes your plates away. Ha! Instead you pay 2€ less and get your pizza in a box which doesn’t really keep the pizza warm and you eat it in your messy kitchen and then you have to throw the boxed away… pah! So, despite the pizza being good I have to say Kotipizza value & execution FAIL!

Roast and b…acon.

Before going back to Camp Fun the kid bitched at me because I apparently haven’t cooked for him for a long time. For some strange reason instead of telling him to stop whining and deal with it I decided to make him dinner last Thursday. Because really, who can say no to that face?

I think I’ve made him chicken (because it’s cheap) almost every time I’ve cooked so this time I decided to try something different. For a while now I’ve wanted to make a roast wrapped in… you guessed it BACON. So that’s what I decided to try to do.

Here is how it all went down:

Stuffed Pork Roast Pekoni style

Step 1. Cut open pork fillet with knife so that it splays open. Saveur has a good tutorial on Preparing Roast Pork Loin. I tried to follow the instructions but it didn’t quite go to plan ha!

Step 2. & Step 6. in action.

Step 2. Fill pork fillet with garlic cream cheese, cheese and bacon bits.

Step 3. Realize you should have put the bacon strips under the pork fillet before filling it. Curse a lot.

Step 4. Spread cling film on cutting board. Place bacon strips on cling film. Lift pork fillet on bacon covered cling film.

Step 5. Have a beer and curse some more.

Step 6. Roll pork fillet into a funny shaped roll with the help of cling film. Poke pork through cling film.

Fig. 1 & 2

Step 7. Remove cling film. Marvel at your bacon baby (see fig. 1) Have a celebratory beer.

Step 8. Wrap more bacon around pork fillet. Secure with kitchen twine or silicone equivalent (see fig. 2)

Step 9. Put into oven at 190-200°c.

Step 10. Peel 1kg of carrots and cut them into quarters lengthwise while drinking beer.

Step 11. Mix melted butter, bacon fat and tarragon in a cup. Insert carrots in roasting tin under bacon baby. Pour butter and tarragon mix on to carrots. Add some molasses.

Step 12. Go on 9Gag whilst waiting for dinner to be ready.

ENTER KID

Step 13. Get kicked off own computer by kid. Return to kitchen where I belong. Open another beer.

Step 14. After 45 min check internal temperature of bacon baby every 5 min until you realize roast is overcooked and your thermometer sucks.

Step 15. Quickly pan fry bottom of roast so bacon crisps up. Make oven fries and sauce.

Step 16. After letting roast rest for 10-20 min cut into slices and serve with carrots, fries and sauce.

Step 17. Listen to the kid rave about your “pekoni pötkylä” and feel validated as a woman. Collect reward.

Step 18. Realize reward is shite. Never cook again

Dinner = WIN.

Return on investment = FAIL.

F for Effort

This Tuesday, in celebration of Satu’s birthday the Bacon & Friends gang got together for dinner. We split the work so that I made the starter, Satu had the main course and Riikka did dessert

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather lately (read ever since the kid went away) so I had about 0% inspiration and even less energy. So, I decided to take the easy road and raided our local East Asia Mart‘s freezer. They have loads of stuff there and the service is nice

I thought at least if my actual preparation input is going to be 0% I might as well do something a little different in terms of the actual cooking process… so I brought my bamboo steamer. Yes, I know, F for effort. In the end tho’ I didn’t feel so bad when I bumped into Riikka at the door who had a store bought cake & ice cream in hand hahaha!

Shrimp & pork dumplings <3

I’ve made steamed dumplings before but it’s been a long time and I couldn’t remember which brand I’d bought so I wasn’t sure if these would be good. But I mean I like steamed dumplings so I don’t think I’ve ever had bad ones except for that one time I made them myself The shrimp ones are 4,90€ for a pack of 8 and the pork ones are 4,50€ for 12.

Satu was the only one who had been slaving away in the kitchen, which was ironic since we were kind of celebrating her birthday… She’d made this insane low carb lasagna thing. Oh my goodness there was ground meat, zucchini, tomatoes and lots of cream and cheese!

Look at that chees-y melt-y meat-y goodness!

Best low carb lasagna EVER <3 I think I ate way more of that than I should have. But luckily for me I seem to have a different compartment for dessert (and bacon) And so there is always room for…

…Chocolate mud cake and vanilla ice cream! Fuck yea!

Riikka put the cake into the oven for a while so it was warm and a little melted in the center. So good! Especially with the vanilla ice cream <3 Perfect combination and end to a fun dinner with friends ^_^

The next half hour the three of us were lying in a food induced coma on the comfiest sofa ever watching X-factor Haha. Bacon & Friends dinner WIN.

 

East Asia Mart

Tullikatu 6

33100 Tampere

Mon – Fri:10:00 am-7:00 pm

Sat:10:00 am-6:00 pm

Sun:12:00 am-4:00 pm

I’m on a boat and this boat is rocking.

My real Christmas present to the kid was a romantic booze filled cruise to Tallinn. As luck would have it tho the night we spent on the boat was pretty rough… and it wasn’t the booze (and no you perverts not that either). Already on our way to the harbor the wind was hitting us on all sides. Damn coastal town! When we got out to sea it just kept getting worse. I mean the tax free shop had all the bottles secured with packing cling film so they wouldn’t go flying about. I get pretty nauseous on boats, that coupled with too much food and drink at the buffet meant we called it an early night. To top it all off the bottom bunk in our 5m² sorry-excuse-of-a-cheap-o-cabin wouldn’t open so we ‘had to’ cram into the top bunk (which as it turned out wasn’t half as bad ).

I don’t really get why I’m always super excited about the buffets on ships and then it always turns out to be a bit of a disappointment. The food isn’t half as good as it sounds and you still end up eating so much to get your moneys worth. Also the beer and wine tap is fatal since you have to fit in as much of that too. And worst of all the 1,5h time limit is just a killer. So, Viking Buffet on stormy sea + no self control FAIL.

Waiting for the bus to arrive.

The next morning was a bit of a killer too. We had to be out of the ship by 7 am (!!) but the bus to the shopping center Rocca Al Mare didn’t leave until 9:50. We spent the next couple of hours lying on the (uncomfortable) seats in the terminal, looking at them loading the ship, eating breakfast and drinking beer and Jäger-tea (like you do before 9 am on a Wednesday).

Breakfast of champions = pastry filled with sausage + Jäger-tea. Buuuya!

Finding the right bus to take to Rocca Al Mare was a challenge since I’ve never been there before and asking for directions was clearly not an option. I decided that jumping on a bus that looked like it might be the right one and then riding on it until the last stop was the way to go. And miraculously it worked!

I found a new spring coat, sweater and sweat pants (which I’m secretly hoping will magically transform me into an exercising maniac) and the kid found some stuff too, but most importantly we found our way into Mack Bar-B-Que.

The best part about shopping is… lunch.

We had the Buffalo Shrimps 6,90€ as a starter. I wanted ribs since that’s part of my good food triangle. And they had something called “Our Famous Awarded Babyback Ribs” I mean with a name like that and a price tag of 9,90€ who can resist? The kid had a burger & beer as usual… I think it was the Original Mack BBQ Burger 9,30€. I also had a very strong Long Island Ice Tea (not like those watered down versions at Passion). The ribs were falling off the bone and they had this sweet sticky BBQ sauce, good fries and this really delicious creamed corn. Yay! Food perfection I also bullied the kid into taking a milk shake (of which I had half of) because I felt stupid taking a strawberry margarita on my own. If you look closely at the above pictures you can see the shame and face palming at my excessive eating and drinking Mack Bar-B-Que WIN.

On the way back to the boat we made a mandatory stop at SuperAlko to buy some *cough* souvenirs…

Insert lame inside joke

The boat trip back to Helsinki went surprisingly fast due to good company and possibly also due to the beer & shots and a couple of Moscow Mules and quality karaoke Regardless of how fast the 2,5h seemed to go we managed to miss our train. The kid managed to break open both of our beer cases (don’t ask how) before we even got out of the harbor parking lot quality!

The train ride started off with mild growling and glaring on either side as we were tired but after a couple of well earned beers it was all good times again. When we got to Tampere we shoved our baggage into a storage locker at the station and headed off to a bar with The King of Sex.

All in all an awesome trip. (I think my bank account is pretty empty tho’.) Tallinn trip = all-around WIN! YAY!

Sticky Wingers

Tampere is the Promiseland of Hot Wings and just last week we got a new player in town, Sticky Wingers

Everything fits perfectly in for their business idea… like a home run

In the time I’ve lived in Tampere there has been at least two establishments in the property where Sticky is now. It used to be this teen bar that we used to go to every other weekend when Sam was in the army, those were good times And then for a while it was this rock bar Inferno so I have to say this place has gone through several changes!

Walking in I was really surprised how much they had changed the whole layout  and look of the place since Inferno. I mean they had this awesome brick lain entrance and the whole bar & restaurant has these cool little details like baseball bats for table legs. I mean everything from the logo to the menu to the servers outfits to (even) the hand wet wipes (or whatever they’re called) are so well thought out. So defo props to them for atmosphere!

Whilst waiting for our food to come we just kept saying that damn if the food is good this place will be our new date night destination.

So was the food good?

Chili bacon fries are you kidding me <3

You bet!

They have a very greasy burger and wings filled menu just what I want I think they have like 15 different hot wings sauces AND these long burgers AND they have chili bacon fries… wow! I mean I love this place already! ^_^

I had to have the Chili bacon fries 6,90€ obviously and I already had hot wings on my mind so Original Sticky Wings (12pcs) 8,90€ it was. I also semi-badgered Heikki into having one of the X-tra Long Burgers just because I wanted to see what they looked like

The fresh made fries were good on their own but with the added bacon bits they were heavenly! The wings were good as always. The burger too was good and the curly fries amused the kid

Verdict for Sticky Wingers:

The kid and teh Puma say Sticky Wingers WIN!

Sticky Wingers

http://stickywingers.fi/

Tuomiokirkonkatu 17

33100 Tampere

 

Restaurant opening hours:

MON-THU 16.00-23.00

FRI 16.00-24.00

SAT 12.00-24.00

SUN 13.00-24.00

Happy New Year!

Hope you all have a safe yet booze filled New Year’s <3

All I want is to get my first proper New Year’s kiss ja bönthöööö

My Christmas

I spent Christmas over at my boyfriend’s grandmothers. Funnily enough it was the first Christmas I spent away from my family.  I was a bit worried that it would be awkward but it wasn’t at all. I mean good food + good company = good times I even got to sing along to Christmas songs at church

I gave the kid/boyfriend Legos.

And in return I got perverted candy

Merry Christmas!

HOPE EVERYONE HAS A FOOD FILLED AND LAZY CHRISTMAS!

ÄHKYISTÄ & LIHARIKASTA JOULUA KAIKILLE RAKKAILLE!

Pekoni Puuma <3

Kokomo Helsinki

Helsinki Station. Always sketchy but I still love it <3

I took a quick random day trip to Helsinki/Vantaa. The idea was to see my mum before Christmas since this is the first Christmas I’m not spending with my parents. Strange right? Well I also wanted to see my brother who’s been super busy with school and his two and a half kittens and obviously when there is me and my brother in the equation there has to be food involved!

I’ve been wanting to go to Kokomo since it opened because from the reviews I’d read it sounded like a fun place to go and most importantly they have cocktails! My brother was in a weird mood and he didn’t really want to go for some reason and I had to put up with him complaining the whole way to the restaurant. Things turned even worse when my usually brilliant navigation skills took us a block too far (I reckon it was Tom’s complaining that did it).

Once we got to the restaurant he started to brighten up and it’s no wonder, I mean who can be unhappy in a kitchy Tiki bar? Clearly he was hungry and all I wanted was a good cocktail so Kokomo was perfect

Tom took the Tiki Potatoes 4,50€ from the Mini Tiki list and I went for a much needed cocktail. The potatoes were deep fried and came with wasabi mayonnaise which apparently was insanely good. The mini tiki list has small kind of tapas like plates something that would be great with a group of friend. I swear if a Kokomo opened in Tampere (and I wasn’t a poor student) I would be there so often with friends for cocktails and a few items off that list

For his main course Tom went for the Ponzu Ribs 22,00€ which are Kokomo style ribs with the same tiki potatoes he had as a starter and wasabi mayonnaise. The dish usually comes with pineapple but my brother seems to be allergic to fruits and vegetables so he asked for the dish without it haha… I don’t know what the ribs tasted like because my brother wouldn’t let me have any but judging from that and the content munching sounds I guess they were pretty good

I had a tough choice between the ribs and the steak but when Tom said he wanted the ribs my choice was made. The Aloha Kokomo 23,00€ comes with a char grilled 300 g entrecote steak (by far my favorite cut because of the high fat content ), bean-bacon stew & tiki potatoes. The dish is then topped off with a chili red wine sauce. I’m salivating just thinking about that dish!

The waiter didn’t ask how I wanted my steak so I asked her if they could make it medium rare. She told me that the kitchen didn’t want to do that due to it not making the high fat content so enjoyable. I have to slightly disagree on this point but thought heck I’ll have it medium then if that’s what they suggest. Although the steak wasn’t bad for a medium steak I think I still would have preferred for it to be medium rare. Nonetheless the dish had some good flavors and portion size was perfect. The bean & bacon<3 stew was well seasoned. The potatoes weren’t super crisp which usually puts me off but they were well seasoned so I didn’t mind.

The cool thing about both dishes was the way they were presented. My dish came on a frying pan and Tom’s was on a stone hot plate type thing which is an awesome idea because so often (in Finland) you get dishes that are cold by the time you’ve taken the first bite.

So what cocktail did I take you ask? Well the Kokomo Zombie 10,00€ of course! It’s Kokomo’s signature cocktail. The menu promises a “damn Strong Rum Punch with the freshness of a passion fruit, softness of orange and pineapple spiced up with 3 different Bacardi rums.” Yup and that’s pretty much what I got in my zombie cup Oh it was so good and well balanced so much so that the bubbly happiness that comes with being tipsy sneaks up on you

Kokomo has good food, excellent cocktails and a very laid back unhurried feel (read: don’t go if you’re in a hurry!). I’m definitely going back some time just not sure when I’ll have time to go to Helsinki Kokomo cocktails & Helsinki WIN.