Happy New Year to All !

New Years Eve was another wonderful winter day here at the cabin. The snow fall ended by morning and it was clear for a while, and cloudy the rest of the day. The temperature rose towards the evening.
We made chili, that simmered on the stove for hours, while we did some shopping for the weekend. We enjoyed it with hot dogs.

Chili dog

Recipe:
Ground meat
Onions, carrots, garlic, rutabaga
Chili beans
Crushed tomatoes
Chili, salt , sugar, water

We decided to go to town to watch fireworks by the lake so we had a small meal an hour before midnight. Shrimp salad is traditional in our family, and we added lots of goodies to go along with the salad.

Ready to party!

The fireworks were just wonderful! Picture by Nicholas Kujala.

Sauna keeps our bodies and souls clean

The best way to keep clean is sauna, whether it is summer or winter.

Important elements in sauna:
1. Wood (walls, benches, switches and for burning)
2. Water ( steam from throwing it on the rocks, washing)
3. Rocks
4. Linen ( seat covers, wash cloths)
5. Fire

Sauna-Matti

Snow bath

In winter it is fun to roll around or otherwise enjoy a snow bath in the yard after the steam bath inside

Soup and snow

The wonderful winter weather continues, so we decided to make soup on the wood stove. Soup seems to be the great winter food, warms and fills you up.And the soup simmers on the stove while we keep the cabin warm.

Recipe:
Roots you like (carrots, celery, parsnip and rutabaga in our soup), potatoes
20 franks
2 vegetable broth cubes, salt, pepper, herbs, enough water to fill pot /cover everything.
Simmer as long as needed. Serve with whole grain bread.

It started snowing suddenly in the afternoon, and we got several inches by evening. The fire in the stove has been burning all day.

Welcome!

Today we decided to make jelly roll with vanilla cream for dessert. We used an old-fashioned egg beater to whip the cream. Lots of fun and no electricity needed!
Recipe:
Cut 1½" slices of jelly roll ( we used chocolate flavour)
Top with cream
Add sprinkles