Summer days..Long,hot and sunny. We have been spending lots of time outside in the garden. Kiddo water sliding ,playing in the sandbox and building all kind of things. Me digging,cutting,listening music,drinking wine and reading books.. Occasionally screaming to Tweedle Dee & Dum while they’ve gotten into their normal enterprising routines of getting in trouble.

It has not just been fun and games. I did finish couple of projects too.

I have been looking for towelling poncho for Kiddo. Small sizes are available but for 140cm not so easy. Poncho just would be so easy to pull on, after sauna and after water sliding or after swimming.

Picture is fantastic! Yep..Kiddo was in one of those moods:”MOMMM! So I really have to try this on?”

I did some research in internet. I found this blog page, with really simple instruction. So I will not start to write instructions how to do it.Have a look! Sewing job for about 20 minutes!!

http://beneaththerowantree.blogspot.co.at/2011/06/make-it-hooded-beach-towel-poncho.html

I bought one towel size 160*60 and one  hand towel from which I made the hood from. Only thing what I made differently was to sewed  the sides together. Kiddo thought that  the poncho was bit too breezy for his taste. Anyway,practical and easy to make!

Moving onwards toward garden stuff and cooking..

I have started harvesting vegetables in my garden.I love this time of the year, when I can just walk outside,go to veggie garden, (pick gazzilion snails away, in order to rescue my veggies) and cook from home-grown stuff.

In Finland we have soup, which is called “Kesäkeitto”,Summer Soup, simply because it contains summers first vegetables. Carrots,potatoes,turnips, mange touts etc.What ever you have.. My problem is, that the soup is traditionally made  in milk, and my Austrian hubby does not like neither understand, why someone would want to make soup in milk? So I had to rethink the whole recipe..

I have a good friend from Romania,who’s a wonderful cook, and she has taught me how to make soup called: “Ciorba de Perisoare”.It is sour soup with meatballs and vegetables. Ciorba is made sour by adding either lemon juice, “bors” which is fermented wheat bran, sauerkraut juice, or sometimes even vinegar. I am in love with this soup! So instead of using milk,I used lemon,sour cream and vegetable stock. hubby loved it so did Kiddo.If you want try some chilies with the soup. They work well together!

Recipe is very simple. Here you go:

Ingredients

Original recipe makes 4 servings

• 2 l water
• vegetable stock cube
• salt & pepper
• 5 small potatoes, peeled and halved
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 6  green onions, cut into 3 inch lengths
• 10 baby carrots or 3 big ones
• 200 g fresh green beans, cut into 1cm lengths
• 200 g fresh shelled green peas
• 200 g cauliflower
• one leek
• dill or parsley
• 1-2 lemons
• sour cream

Idea is that you would have roughly about 2 kg different kind of vegetables of the season.Use what you have!

Directions

Prep the vegetables, peeling the potatoes, carrots and cauliflower to keep them tender, and cutting all into roughly equivalent size.

In a large pot, bring the salted water to a boil.

When the water boils, drop in the vegetables that will take the longest to cook, like the potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips, etc.  Cook for 1-2 minutes, and then add the lighter vegetables like radishes, peas, and broccoli. Add the salt,pepper and your vegetable stock. When you are ready to serve; add in the lemon juice, test the taste and see if you need to add more lemon juice. At this point I did add little sugar into the soup to bring the flavours out better. Just one small teaspoon. Stir in the sour cream and dill.Serve with dollop of sour cream and rye bread.

If you want to make the traditional “Kesäkeitto” this is what you will need to do:

Leave the lemon and sour cream away,half the amount of water replacing it with milk.

Cook all your vegetables accordingly in water and then add following mixture in the ready soup.

In separate pot mix 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and 1 l milk; In a large saucepan stir together the sugar, flour and salt.  Slowly at first, stirring to blend, add the milk.  Whisk until mixture is smooth.  Gently heat the milk, whisking it occasionally to keep the flour from cooking on the bottom of the pan.Be careful because this will burn and boil over easily.  Do not let it boil.Pour the hot milk over the vegetables. Add some dill and serve immediately.

Otherwise recipe is same.