Misty day, abandoned beauties

This time in February there’s always been snow, thick ice on the sea and real winter feeling.  But not this year. I went for my usual 5 km round with Nordic walking (= sticks), spikes in the shoes to avoid falling on icy road. You could hardly see 50 meters ahead, and you better stay on the road. 

The ice is too dangerous on the sea.

There are a couple of old small houses nicely renovated for weekend and summer use on the way. 

But this abandoned house is still waiting for someone to find its hidden beauty. He/She who fells in love with this must have a big bunch of money and patience for renovation. Anyhow, I believe that it could still be saved. There’s one old and quite big house being renovated close by, along the same road, which was in a much better condition, but its renovation has lasted already ten years. And it's no yet ready.

I found another abandoned beauty in our house in a room where I keep some plants and flowers over the winter, to move them outside in the spring as soon as the temperature allows. There was my 6-years old orchidé in full blossom. This is amazing, it never stops flowering. It was outside the whole summer, in full blossom, and then I thought it will take some rest, inside at a window, but alone without much water or care, but on the contrary – it has more flowers than ever. And this plant has never got any nutrients.

Before putting the sauna on, I made a marinade for our chicken thighs:

• 1 kg chicken thighs (with a small bone, ask your butcher to cut them, you cannot find this in supermarkets in Finland)
•  2 rawit chilis (quite hot)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 3 cm ginger
• Sesame oil, sunflower oil
• Light soy sauce

After the sauna, I put the thighs in 250 degrees C oven for 10 minutes and reduced the heat to 180 for the next 30 minutes.  I added some pieces of sweet pepper on the pan with the chicken thighs and once they were ready, cooked rice.    

This simple meal would have been enough dinner for me, but my dear JD wanted to have tarte tatin, which I made with Sikke Sumari’s recipe. And then we enjoyed all this, watching tv, and drinking Amarone. It was actually too good wine to drink with spicy Asian food, but the only wine there was left. The second glass was great. Then when Jimi Hendrix documentary film was going on, we both fell asleep in the arm chairs...