Mushroom harvest

Some of our readers may recall the great mushroom picking expedition of 2013. Well, this year, our Supreme Mushroom Leader (Lassi Roininen) set forth again on another epic journey (this time without lackeys to make a mess of things) and, once more, came back with a lovely mushroom harvest.

Mushrooms from the forest.

Of course, our regular readers will know the fate of any food produce brought to the EISCAT building at Tähtelä on a Sunday afternoon... home-made pizza!

Pizza done!

Not surprisingly, everyone was happy to have a piece or two. And, you must admit, mushrooms are rarely cooked fresher than this!

Nom. nom. nom.

Operaatio kakku -- part 2

Yesterday we described the great cake exercise, which was an attempt to have an excuse to engage in conversation with our colleagues from FMI.

Well, the cakes were all completed successfully. They were:

1. Date cake with caramel sauce
2. Sea buckthorn roullade
3. Raisin, lavender and honey roullade
4. Lemon drizzle cake

Cakes #2 (back left), #3 (front) and #4 (back right)

Cleaning up didn't take too long and the cakes were carefully transported to Polaria on the morning of 15 July 2014 (an historical occasion!). The timing was pretty good. FMI had a visiting campaign team there, so we had ample cake for everyone and to spare! So, we've had cake for the next couple of breaks as well.

The remnants of Cakes #1 and #4.

Was it a success? Most definitely. We've now established some sort of rapport to the point where (occasionally) eye-contact is made and even a murmured "hei" (*gasp*). Of course, the first comments from our own staff on returning to SGO were "Ooo... cake... great!... what's the occasion?" and, after the explanation, this was promptly followed by "What! Who authorised that?". Probably in jest, but who knows... in any case, I regard the operation as successful and will continue to extend the welcome to all our colleagues from FMI (not just to come and talk to us at morning coffee at Polaria, but also afternoon coffee at Polaria, and afternoon tea and high-tea at the EISCAT building).

What I want to know, though, is what FMI thought of all this!

Operaatio kakku -- part 1

Last week we (the students and summer workers) were pretty much alone at Polaria at morning and afternoon coffee. In fact, nearly all the SGO staff happened to be on leave. It was deathly quiet. So... alone.

Well, sort of.

In Polaria (the main institute building) the coffee area is shared by SGO (Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory) and FMI (the Finnish Meteorological Institute). The two institutes have coffee at the same time every morning, but sit at separate tables. It is as if there is  barbed wire and land mines between the two.

So, in the absence of any parental control, we (the revolutionaries) formed a cunning plan. Called "Operaatio Kakku" (= Operation Cake), we schemed to make a batch of cakes and the use them as an excuse to go and fraternise with our colleagues from the other side.

Cool!

All we needed now was the cake.

So, after careful and comprehensive planning, we split into two Cake Divisions and set about to accomplish this formidable task. 1st Division was deployed a the guest house to carry out the production of Cake #1, while 2nd Division was set up at the EISCAT building to make a second (and possible third).

Today we have some photographs from the preparation phase!

The planning phase.

Cake #1 was to be a date cake. Made from a trusted recipe (a student has done this before!), the 1st Cake Division over at Guesthouse #3 had this well in hand...

By the time we arrived, the cake was in the oven and the mess cleared up.

1st Division relaxing. They look like they know what they're doing.

Meanwhile at the EISCAT building, Cake #2 was to be a lemon tray bake. This didn't go quite as planned. Firstly, due to a translation error, yours truly had bought the wrong sort of baking paper (voipaperia. not leivinpaperia).

Cake inspection officer... "you've got voipaperia? what?!"

Then we needed to convert normal flour to self-raising flour. Oh... and there were no scales to weight anything. Or measure anything. We just guessed. The recipe was for inspirational -- not instructional -- purposes.

Tray-bake looking a little flat.

 The mixture was sloppy and the tray too big and shallow. At this point we decided to declare a "Cake of Emergency" and started a second batch.

With ingenuity, some Skype-help, an interruption from a colleague (trying to get a scientific paper re-submitted) and a lot of trial and error, we resulted in a new cake and two roulades.

Science meets cooking.

To be continued...

Deep-dish pizza

Na ja... it's Sunday and there's not much to report on the weblog. Well, not unless you include pizza! This is a common feature at the observatory, and the one in today's photograph was made from scratch as follows:


Base:

• plain white flour (the rest of the packet, probably 1/2 kg)
• dried yeast (one sachet's worth)
• water (until it was doughy enough)
• pinch of salt (probably been in the cupboard since 2009)
• a few drops of olive oil (from the Nov'2013 campaigns)

Topping:

• tomato paste out of a tiny little tin
• mushrooms, also from a tin
• the left over scrap of a bell pepper
• a few dices of peaches (the rest was for dessert)
• sliced reindeer (like what you'd put on sandwiches)
• dried parsley (it was fresh, but someone didn't water it)
• dried oregano (bought already dried... out of a sachet)
• some random spice whose name I couldn't translate
• cheese, just standard Finnish cheese.

It was pretty deep, as I had a lot of dough, so I gave it some more olive oil, which it soaked up and made it pretty tasty. The whole thing was allowed to rise first and then the topping was added and baked in a glass over dish for 40 minutes or so on some pretty hot setting.

Self-made observatory pizza!

In any case, it turned out well and was very tasty!

Food for thought

Ack! It is weekend again and we've missed Photo-Friday. Sorry everyone. My, how the week has flown past. We've been busy with the Heppenaari Inverse Problems meeting, and the KAIRA team has been scattered travelling and processing the latest exciting results (yes, we've just made some serious breakthroughs and are working on it).

But it is weekend and the weblog has been neglected for two days now. Time to set things right!

Today's story is actually from last weekend. Yours truly decided to have a shot a making bread. The recipe was simple:

• All the flour remaining in the packet,
• One sachet of dry yeast (it said 11g on the packet),
• Water, until doughy (added carefully not to over do it),
• Spoon of sugar (granular, not cubed),
• Pinch of salt,
• Butter to grease the pot and tray.

The procedure was also simple:

Apart from the butter, put everything in the pot. Mix it by hand until it has made a serious mess. Turn it out and butter the pot/tray. Turn on the over for some random number (180 seemed like a good idea). Dump the dough in the pot and sit it on the stove over the oven, which was slowly warming up. When risen (exact time = enough to deal with some KAIRA e-mails), splot it into the tray and place it in the oven.

Leave it in the oven until force of appetite exceeds force of reason.

Dough in the pot. I didn't have a bowl or anything.

Rising dough in the pot. Note in the background the machine that solves equations.

After a second rising, it went into a buttered, glass baking tray.

Mmm... hot bread. Added lots of butter, and then toppings.

I think we could easily compete in the Great Finnish Bake-off, no?

The fate of the mushrooms

You may recall from the other day that we had been out in the forest hunting for mushrooms. In then end (with the help of a local expert) we identified and picked some. So... what became of these woodland delicacies?

Pizza!