Autumn Goodies

The long fingers of autumn are slowly reaching out to us here in Sweden, gently pulling us from the warmth of summer to the cooler sunny days of early Autumn.

To celebrate the season changeover, Mother Nature is sharing her treasures with us. In the forest, the mushrooms and blueberries are awaiting, and in our garden, a feast of redcurrants.

We went mushroom hunting two days before we went to Finland. Maybe to get ourselves into the mood, since the Finns are experts in appreciating the goodies the forest provides. Much to Mr MacOlsson's disappointment, it was his Scottish wife who found this yummy cantarelle mushroom, in a patch under some trees where the wild pigs had been rooting previously.

To me, mushroom picking brings back romantic memories of the weekend we went mushroom picking together for the first time. A few days later we were married. Autumn is a special time of year. It is even more special to share our joy with our 3 little MacOlssons, and smile as they learn forest lore. My husband often picked mushrooms with his Finnish grandmother, and it is special to see that knowledge being passed down to our quarter Finnish MacOlssons.

And as for the redcurrants....well, I picked 14 kilos from 2 bushes! Moominmamma would have been very impressed, so maybe I am becoming more and more like her. This is my basket of rubyred berries.
I used my cordial steamer picked up for a song at a garage sale. My "saftmaja" is basically a double boiler. You put water in the bottom, the berries sit in a colander type basket, and the heated water steams up through the berries and delicious red saft is created. My 14 kilos of redcurrants made 13 1/2 litres of saft, so the MacOlsson family has a treasure chest of ruby red bottles. For those of you who wish to taste, come and visit us!