Noodles in safety box?

Yes, we are back at Ranweli ;)


Hikkaduwa was amazing and beautiful area. Really clean with fantastic beach, nice people, good service, good food and smooth atmosphere everywhere. Best rice n curry was at restaurant Moon Beam, and we found amazing burger place called Tiki Burger (which is owned by two lovely dutch ladys).


We also went 25 kilometers south to Galle to see a bit of historical places and all the dutch built buildings,.. reminded us of Europe. Especially great places to go is for example dutch build old hospital which they had renovated in to this food court -mini mall, Galle harbour area and Galle fort. We ate by the beach at restaurant called Tartaruga in Unawatuna. Food was not that good in there and really overprized compared to Hikkaduwa beach areas restaurants. Kids liked also our ” mini-holiday” and leaving back felt almost like a punishment :)


When we got back in our villa in Ranweli, all the clams that kids gathered were on our porch and noodles that we are not allowed to eat in here were in the safety box, just like we left them.


Funny thing happened while we were swimming in Ranweli’s pool area. There’s people from all over the world, german, dutch, swedish, us, etc. and a lady in a burkha with her family. This one german lady comes there, takes her robe off and she’s wearing bikinis that are USA flag-coloured. Literally everyone watches her with extreme bad eye. Sort of funny, that those bikini’s seem now worst then wearing a burkha.


Yes Mr Trump, you are number one to talk about this side of world too.


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While on vacation, we need a holiday..

I don't know what went wrong? Was it us? Isolation? High expectations? People of Negombo/Waikkal? Food or all of those things???

I do not recommend Ranweli private island eco-friendly holiday village to anyone :( Food is mostly horrible, people are mainly men ( we are amazed where are all women?)and they give the worst service ever. When I think about  Ranweli as an island, it has all the qualities of extraordinary paradise, but soul and spirit are lacking, you feel isolated and almost like a prisoner in a very expensive island. Eco-friendly idea is maqnificent, but customer service business is after all CUSTOMER SERVICE BUSINESS.

Couple of things started to piss us off:

1. Nobody smiles at you. As a finnish person I should be used to that, but on a vacation that's unexeptable and with these prices it's a fu"#€#ng crime.

2. Food was so terrible that I bought package of noodels for my kids. When I asked a plate and fork to our room restaurant manager interrigated me like I was committing a crime!?

3.  At breakfast  I asked soy sauce for my kid, they refuced, cause "morning buffet doesn't include that". Again I felt like a prisoner, It pissed me off and I reminded them that this is a four star hotel and good service means that they should give me that soy :) After a while they finally  gave me soy

So we took half of our things and headed to south. After long and pumpy road thru countryside, we had to clean car cause our kid vomit there, but we had finally arrived at Hikkaduwa. The beach has two sides. There's a tourist beach and  there's a hippie beach where we are currently staying. Sun is shining, wawes are awesome and people are smiling:)

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There's more pics in instagram @fearlessfinnblog  

What does eco friendly holiday village mean?

Traveling often means bad things for world’s ecosystem beginning from the flying itself. So even it is fun, exotic and mind opening to travel, you should do decisions that are if not  world saving, but at least conscious in some level. I was thrilled when I found out that we are staying in this eco-friendly holiday village Ranweli in Sri Lanka. We have been in similar kind of exclusive villa-places before, but this type of place and country itself is new to us. 


So, there’s plenty of brochures about actions that they do for environment and different awards that this hotel has won for those nobel causes. This is not the cheapest place to be which makes you think about what you get with your money?,  how does it help environment?  If you give up on some privileges, Is it still a holiday? As a tourist things that are different than in regular hotel would be these: There’s no plastic bags in garbage sinks, towels and sheets are changed only if you ask them to do so, they avoid using detergents and rinsing liquids that are harmful to environment. That is possible to notice  from the fact that floors are not that clean and pool doesn’t smell chlorine as it normally would. Cool thing is that every building seems to use solar power. At the same time recycling is not quite there yet. For example our family produces at least 15 plastic bottles for a day of waste here and they all go to the same bin?!


Their approach towards animals in the area is quite different too. There’s a lot of squirrels that are very protective of their territory and very bold. They steel every bit of snack they see, and even from your hand. Than there is about hundred birds that are swimming in the same pool that we are . It freaks me out because it just seems that they could carry dangerous deceases and at least it’s a bit unhygienic to be swimming with birds that poo and swim at the same time?  As a mother of two I have realized that I would choose my kids, not birds. Also it pissed me off when squirrel stole my kids lunch. The fact that there’s no plastic bags protecting garbage is not that big of a deal, but then again if my kid would be still wearing diapers it would probably be.


Those are pretty little things that bother me, but in a big picture if there would be more  environment conscious hotels and resorts  we could save a bit of this world, wouldn’t we? Then again, if my family gets ill because of those birds in the pool, i’ll give a rats ass about saving those creatures of nature. I guess we all just have to try our best ;)


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Waikkal, Sri Lanka :)

Skiing holiday in Finland is the perfect excuse to jump in a plane and get hell away from skiing opportunities. We just did that :) We are actually having a holiday in a private island quite near of Colombo.  The place is called Ranweli, ecofriendly, four stars holiday village. When we arrived it was night, so everything seemed pretty shady and bizarre. When morning arrived it sure seemed to be a tiny paradise, isolated of everything.


Breakfast is a buffet filled with influences from India. As a buffet, it is quite a humble version, but there is bread, eggs, jam, different curry dishes, pancakes, watermelon and pineapple. Cook prepares different omelettes for demand. I have noticed that Sri Lanka omelette is a good way to start the day. Breakfast is pretty much same stuff everyday.


People are smiling and nice, but unlike traveling in Asia these people are quick to get your plate away, but not quick to prepare it. Everything is kind of a slow motion and in many ways travelling/tourist business is not yet in the same situation that it is in Asia. Shops are selling  pricey old fashioned stuff. Walking in a bazaar showed us that some of the shopkeepers seems to be quite desperate and their approach is a bit afraightening sometimes.


Similarity with Asia is also tuktuk-rides that we use every day. It sure isn’t the safest way, (safe way would be stay at home) but it’s fun. Couple of years ago we actually were in an accident with tuktuk in Hua Hin, Thailand and life is a valuable thing, I can tell you that.  In here though, they seem to be driving better. All the tuktuk’s are in very good shape and there’s no crashes to be seen anywhere even they do drive like crazy wacko’s.


After couple of nights we discovered that this ”shoe-size” spider had also done a reservation in our room. Because of him and his family we desided to change a room ;)


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Gordon Ramsay answered :)

I have been a while in a quest of my next mission. World seems to be so messed up, and it's hard to know where to invest and what to believe. Is there something bigger than me? Enthusiastic  entreprenour and chef in me is struggling. So, I reached for the skyes.. and I wrote to Gordon Ramsay :)  Very kindly he answered that he is too busy to give an interview for me, but he hoped for all the best. I'm too afraid of possible law suites, so I'm not going to publish those emails. Nevertheless, He does exist, even he didn't give a answers ;)

I used to have a friend who wanted it all. She just didn't know what she wanted, and she couldn't focus on anything. She ended up loosing it all. Including me as a friend.

I noticed that I have similar symptoms.  When I realized that even watching Gordon or magic tricks don't work,  I'm in desperate need of sun and inspiration from somewhere else. Tomorrow we are taking off to the sun;)

Countryside problems and solutions :)

Our house warms up mainly because of baking oven. It means chopping logs, carrying them thru the snow inside, burning fire every day when it's cold and wearing woolsocks. You might think that's romantic? Cozy? *?&%%€#shit it is. We just bought a wrong house ;)

But sometimes, It's pretty cool to make something delicious in baking oven. Yesterday evening we run out of bread so I made this bread in there. I have only this iron casserole and for baking it is not the best choise. Things are burnt easily and there can be a slight taste of iron in the food.

This time I figured something convenient though. I buttered casserole with coconut butter and I tossed some cuos-cuos grains there, so that my dough woudn't  stick. It worked :)

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Surface of the bread is really nice from all over, there's no taste of iron and it was super easy to take out from the casserole.

 

In the best kindergarten They play guitar to kids who are sitting in a toilet :)

About an year ago I had a sudden opportunity to pick my kids from kindergarden already at noon :) Obviously I didn't call there ahead, because I wanted to surprise my kids. Instead, I was surprised. My kid was in the toilet trying to poo and a kindergarten teacher was there beside him playing a guitar so that my kid would get his "things" done and be amused at the same time.

That is the difference between huge daycarecentres in the cities and these small homelike- places in countryside, they truly do their very best around here ;) Today is Valentine's day and one of my childrens kindergarten teachers is going to start her retirement. We desided to make a cake for teacher as we made one for ourselves too:) Thank you for taking care of our precius ones, and wonderful Valentine's day to everyone :)

This cake has a candy surprise inside!getfileattachment-1

Chinese buns & pulled moose!

Check out also @fearlessfinnblog via instagram

We helped our relatives on sunday and as a return we got a nice piece of moose shoulder. Moose is a tricky thing to prepare so that it is not dry, tasteless or chewing gum. To avoid any kind of mistakes I did a pulled moose out of it.

It turned out moist, even I didn't add any pork or grease with it in the oven. Usually those are compulsory, because moose is sooo dry. I made a BBQ- sauce which I mixed with pulled moose and IT WAS GREAT :) Normal sides with this would be smashed potatoes, veggies, lingonberry jam..Boring stuff ;)

So I desided to make chinese buns. Problem was that I don't have chinese  steam-plate, so I created this "steam-miracle-machine".  In a pan I had about 1 litre of boiling water, oven grate, bambucarpet (for sushi making), parchment paper and cake dome.  I made some holes to the parchment paper and after a while, steam started to rise as it should and my buns came beautiful!

Fabulous steamed buns filled with bbq-pulled moose and buds :)

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Superb!!!

Reindeer with soy-eggs?

This plate is a proof that you can do a great dish even your fridge would be totally empty. I got this reindeer shoulder as a present yesterday. We have reindeer so rearly that I almost started to think that I would have to get something nice from the store to go with it. Instead I decided to be creative.  In the fridge we had: couple of carrots, onions, eggs, 5 tablespoons of lingonberryjam, two cups of gluhwein, 2 beetroots, 3 redish, soy sauce, and half can of cream cheese.

This is what I created of those ingredients: oven roasted veggies, beetroot-cream cheesefoam, braised reindeer in gluhwein and lingonberryjam and soy-eggs. This was quite good combination and I didn't spend a dime:)

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Eating with Tam To at Himalaya!

Sounds exotic, doesn't it?  Truthfully, Tam is our good friend and a Chef from Tampere and Himalaya is a restaurant at Klaukkala, but food was quite good and satisfying ;)

At lunchtime and dinner they serve food by the plate , only salads are in the buffet. Portions are quite big and filling. Caraway bread and Naan bread are included in every dish, wich surprised us.

All five of us ordered mango lassi-drinks and we were happy about those. Tam ordered also a house drink, wich seemed  to be mango lassi with vodka. Tiny disappointment there, but overall a good experience. Kids liked almost everything , but especially homemade cottagecheese (paneer) was their favourite. I had chicken which was a bit dry, but garlic sauce was great. Boys were having some spicy lamb and it was a bit chewey, but tasteful nevertheless. Service was good and they spoke fluent english. Athmosphere is so typical Nepalese restaurant as it can be in the middle of Klaukkala, no surprises there.

We asked some extra chili for the food and they brought some. Overall restaurant is worth of going in this area and the fact that bread is included is awesome. With some tiny improvements with surroundings and portions appearances, they could increase their prizes easily.

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For the future Super Bowls..

Obviously here in Finland game ended around 6 AM, so It's not like everybody has seen it direct... But great game and awesome show nevertheless!

Food plays significant role always weather it is Superbowl or Eurovision music festivals ;) So here is something that is easy to make and it sure spices up anything from pizza to hot dogs or quesadillas. You can make it as spicy as you like, just remember what goes to your mouth hot 'n spicy, is often hot'n spicy when it comes out too ;)

Super Hot-relish:

2 medium hot Chili

5 garlic cloves

1 red onion

2 jalopenos

1 tablespoon of chili flakes

1 teaspoon of smoked paprika pulver

1/2 tablespoon of black pepper

1 teaspoon of salt..maybe less

1/2 cup of oil

Chop chili, garlic, jalopenos and onion as small as possible, then add spices and oil. Now even it says just oil I have something better.  I made pizza with my relish last time, and when I made tomato sauce for pizza, I used sun dried tomatoes. Sun dried tomatoes are usually packed in oil and most people propably throw that away, but in this relish for example it is very useful. There is nice flavor of tomatoes and it's rather smart isn't it?

You don't need to warm or stir anything, It's good like that. Keep it in fridge and it is good a long time after your parties too:)

Remember to check out my Instagram also! #fearlessfinnblog

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Great brunch at Dylan!

We headed this morning for the Dylan's brunch in Arabianranta Helsinki. Food was amazing, prices comfortable and very kids frendly place :)

I salut kitchen personnel with respect, service was great and they were smiling the whole time. After majority of the families, tables were like someone had ejaculated food on them ;) People take care after your kids. These kind of places are rear to find and if you leave a mess after, they just might disappear. After all, it is much more better business for restaurant to Not have kids there.

Really nice place and we are definately going again in the future :)

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Our love is so sweet that it would kill a diabetic!

We are fighting over cleaning. I get pissed off because he wants to empty dishwasher right away, he can't stand loundry piles that I would be okay with, and he is obsessed when it comes to hoovering. I can't stand him doing those things cause I think It should be me doing those things, but at the same time I hate those things. I hate it when he always tells me on his birthday, that it is he's birthday. I usually start to cry, because I feel so bad about forgetting and then I get angry cause he didn't tell me ahead. I'm worst wife ever, but I love him more then anything.

Me and my husband have been married tomorrow 80 months. It's not long but It's a start. We are going to celebrate it by eating in a restaurant.  Obviously, it wasn't me who remembered make a reservation. We are happy and together. I'm not gonna thank God, our luck or our parents about it. I'm happy for us, cause we did it . Life is too long to be alone and too short to be with someone wrong. We have had a rough last year. Short version would be: two waterdamages, three burnouts, legal proceedings with our house last owner and few miner personal problems.

World is going crazy by the minute and beautiful and pure things are often hard to see.  My husband is my best friend, my  collegue, business partner and my paramore.

I made this " petit plateau amoreux" for him. Main ingredients are quark, crumble, berries and balsamicsyrup which I seasoned with liqourice. These are all my sweethearts favourite flavours. Have a great weekend!

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Eating cake is better than peeing into the mailbox

It's awful to see from your child's face sadness that comes when he realizes that he is not invited to the friends birthday party.

It is not possible to invite always everybody, I get it. It is expensive and really hard to host five to six  years old people in their sugar-rush. I get that too, but when I try to get my own feelings to understand reason why my son is so sad, I loose it. I wanna go and pee in to that kids mailbox and slash their tyres. Basic revenge stuff, just because they didn't invite my son. Mum-lion in me gets fury unrestrained.

What will happen in ten years when some girl is gonna dump him? Am I planning these revenges then too? I have to grow up ;) Hopefully my son will too, but right now there is no better way to deal with situation then make  a carrot cake for my family :)

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Here is my recipe for calming and soothing carrot cake:

8oz of butter

1 cup of sugar

1 1/2 cup of grated carrots

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup of wheatflour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

1 tablespoon of coconutflakes

There's no need for mixer, just whip everything together with hand whirlybird!

Mix melted butter, sugar, carrots and eggs. Then add all the dry ingredients in to the dough. Bake it in a oven 175c/40minutes or 350F/40minutes.

After the cake has cooled down prepare frosting

8oz of butter cheese

2oz of butter

1 cup of powdersugar

1/2 cup of sugar

2 tablespoons of orangejuice or lemonjuice

All the frosting ingredients to the saucepan and melt them together without burning the mixture. Cool down frosting a bit before covering the cake with it :)

Good luck!

I stabbed my husband...

So, I was trying to help my husband in our renovation project. He asked me to cut this plaster panel while he was holding it steady. It was so cold , because we tried to do that outside. So I was shivering and yes, I accidentally stabbed him to the hand.

So today I made the very same dressing than yesterday only today it is littlebit red :)

Recept is allmost the same exept I'm using pomegranate instead of herbes de provence. Also instead of just mixing it with hand, it is necessary to use blender. Otherwise the sweetness doesn't burst out from the seeds of pomegranate.

Salad is couscous-watermelon-lettuce salad and on top of it I made these exquisite goatcheese rolls wrapped in a filopastry.

There is one thing that most people fail doing, and that's couscous. Even in great restaurants it seems that preparing couscous is difficult for some. In some reason people are doing it in a saucepan like it would be porridge, but that is so wrong. Result is often too clumpy and too moist.

I remember years ago when I was working in Paris they were preparing couscous so that cook had to wear several cloves while he was massaging couscous in his hands while chef poured steaming hot water all over couscous and poor cooks hands. I hated to be that cook on a shift. I used to dream of stabbing a fork in to my chefs knee because of this couscous preparing-method. It didn't make any sense to me back then, and now I know for a fact that steaming water is deffinately not necessary ;)

Most important is to spice couscous enough. I use garlic, mynth, oliveoil and salt. I put all the spices in a pan with about 3 cups of water. I heat it up only  that much that spices open up better and water is a bit warmer than hands.

Then I measure couscous ruffly about 2 cups in a plastic bowl. I pour spicy broth on the coscous and I let it wait for a while. After couple of minutes, I mix it littlebit with a spoon and then I level couscous and I wait again minute or two. Result should be loose and sand kind of texture.

So, now I used coscous in a salad, but if you want it to be hot you can heated up now in the microwave. This is so easy that I really can not understand why people f*** it up so much ;)

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By the way, my husband is fine, and smiling next to me :)

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