Finland sweet Finland

I thought that a casual start for an international food blog, would be to start with my own country. These recipes might not be originally from Finland, but are made mainly from organic Finnish ingredients. The apples are picked by my mother from our garden, and the mushrooms I've picked with her from a nearby forest (in Finland, the forest is always near, no matter where you are). In this country, it is legal to just go pick berries and mushrooms as much as you can carry from any forest, no matter whose it is. I'd be interested in knowing whether anywhere would be any restricting laws for it?

But to get to the point, here's what it takes to complete these foods. (I must apologize for the quality of images, I was very hungry which leaves no time for taking good photos...)

Forest mushroom pasta 

The sauce
1 Onion
1-2 Garlic cloves
4-5 dl Mushrooms (I used Cortinarius caperatus, which, according to Wikipedia, is commonly known as the gypsy mushroom) (in Finnish it's just kehnäsieni)
Pepper
Salt
Ginger
Fresh mint
2 dl Cream
1 tbsp Ketchup/tomato sauce
1 tbsp Chinese Soy sauce
½ - 1 tbsp flour

First you chop finely the garlic and the onion, and cook on a pan until the onions get the nice transparency. Then you add the fine chopped mushrooms and season with pepper, salt, ginger and finely chopped fresh mint. Afterwards you add the cream, and if you like, some tomato sauce and Chinese soy sauce for the rich flavor. Let it season under a lid and start cooking the pasta. When the pasta is done, so is the sauce. If the sauce appears too runny, you can add some flour as mentioned in the recipe. Pour the water away from pasta and add it to the sauce. Stir and enjoy!

When you eat this you can't even realize there isn't any meat, the mushrooms
are so filling and rich with taste!

Fun Fact: Did you know, that mushrooms have a really high nutritional value? Some mushrooms can even reach the level of meat, and that's why it is a recommended ingredient especially for vegetarians and vegans.

Grandma's apple pie 

This is a modification of a recipe which here in Finland goes under the name "Mamman marjapiirakka" (=Grandma's berrypie). The only difference is that instead of berries, apples are used. You may of course use any berries or fruits that come into your mind. Note, that in this recipe, the more acidic the fruits are the better, because the sour cream neutralizes it. 

Crust

100g soft butter

1 dl sugar 

1 egg

1½ dl wheat flour 

1 dl wholegrain Spelt flour (May be hard to find but basically any wholegrain flour is enough to give the crust a bit of extra flavor instead of just the plain old white flour. In case you've never heard of Spelt here's a Wikipedia link to you about it)
baking powder

Filling 
4-5 dl of chopped apples
400 g sour cream
2 eggs
1 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Start by making the crust. First mix the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer, then add the egg and keep mixing until smooth. Mix the flours and baking powder together in another cup and pour in the dough. Mix again until smooth. Next you should take a pie mold and butter the base and edges to make it easier to remove the pie from the mold. Pour the dough in the mold and press on the edges to make an even crust.
Pour the chopped apples in the crust.

Sorry for the poor image, the point is that the pie had
already been mostly eaten when the picture was taken,
with only this piece left..

To make the filling, just whisk the sour cream, eggs and sugars together and pour evenly on the apples.
Bake in oven for ~30 minutes in about 200 C. It should be noted that the pie should not be eaten straight away as it comes from the oven (as I always do, because I'm always hungry) but it should be let to cool down so that the filling can have time to stiffen up. When it's too warm it's too runny. Enjoy as such or with ice cream.