Answers to today’s questions at thefridayfive@DW.

1. Do you cook regularly or does someone else cook for you?

Nobody cooks for me as I live alone, and I don’t cook regularly either because of my chronic illnesses. I rather use my energy for baking, so I buy and eat a lot of ready-to-heat casseroles and vegetable soups. I usually cook 2-3 times a month and usually make something that’ll last me for a week or so as dinner. And when I do cook, I use a lot of semi-finished products such as frozen sliced potatoes because as a spoonie I only have so much energy to use, and using things like that help conserve my energy to do other things as well that day.

Usually when I visit my Mom, we time it so that I eat there. It’s always around lunch time because that’s when they have their main meal. It’s a real treat to eat food cooked by someone else, made even better that usually she makes one our old favorites that we all love but don’t make that often… so not only it’s that someone cooks for me (or we cook together) and the food is really tasty but also good company while eating! Except for those visits, I always eat alone so it’s all kinds of special 😀 

2. Which are you better at making: sweet or savory foods?

I have more experience making sweet foods (meaning: baking) so I guess that. But I’m pretty good at both, just limited in what I bother to make because I’m not very adventurous eater – I used to be picky, and guess still am. It’s just that there are textures I don’t like (they make me gag and even throw up if forced to continue), and certain tastes I tolerate if I have to but don’t use myself. I tend to stick to recipes I’ve enjoyed, or new ones that I think I might enjoy because they don’t have any of my no-thank-yous and not try out a lot of new tastes etc. I think my taste is also rather bland – as an example, I don’t like even mildly actually-spicy food – a bit of salt and black pepper is usually enough for me for most foods. Also as an example, I hate onions (which are a Finnish stable and put in pretty much all cooked meals or so it feels like) so I never use them and luckily nobody can complain to me about it because I only cook for myself!

3. If you had to work as a chef in a restaurant of your choice, which restaurant would best complement your current culinary skills?

I never eat in restaurants so I can’t name names, but it’d have to be one that specializes in home cooked food, with a menu of only maybe a dozen different meals on it at most. And each day would have only 2 different meals + one vegetable soup on offer. But really, I’m physically unable to work in that environment so I’d be fired before first week is out.

4. What is a cooking tip that you know, but other people generally aren’t aware of?

I can’t think of one…

5. Do you have a recipe you would like to share?

This one is one of my favorite casseroles, very quick and easy to make: https://www.k-ruoka.fi/reseptit/helppo-kinkkukiusaus I made it as-is the first time but felt it missed some “oomph” so now I also add 150g of grated blue cheese. I just love blue cheese and think it goes very well with the other ingredients. I also usually add in grated pizza cheese on the top after about half of the time in the oven for a pretty topping.

Mokkapalat (Coffee Pieces) is a baking favorite of mine. The recipe I use is from: https://cebicinkeittio.blogspot.com/2018/12/maailman-parhaat-mokkapalat.html I guess it’s kind of like a brownie? Mokkapalat is one of the stable bakes here in Finland. All kids and teens make it in school at the very least, and lots and lots of (most?) families bake them at least when their kids are small. There are about a million slightly different recipes but this is the one that I think is above all others (and I’ve tried like a dozen!). The cake part is soft and moist just right and the topping is enough for once (in the other recipes, you usually had to make the topping as double to get enough to cover the entire thing just barely thickly enough). I always use a Frezza Choco Loco cold coffee drink in place of the coffee in this recipe (old fashioned coffee as in the recipe is too strongly coffee tasting to me so I use one of the Frezzas).

These two have been my favorite things to make the last few years 😀