Clivia´s cuisine

Giving Denmark credit

2009-04-04T21:40:00.003+02:00

I really feel I have to give Denmark some credit, now when I am since long home again and recovered from the yellow onion shock! We returned home for Christmas, spent at my parent´s in southern Sweden and then A got back to Aarhus on January 6th to continue his admission. D and I stayed home for another ten days, me writing job applications and D hanging out with his little friends, re-learning how to sleep and also fine-tuning his crawling technique, getting up on his hands and knees for gaining further speed.

When we came flying back to Aarhus in mid-January I was in much better mood than the last time. We would stay for only two weeks, and also in a better place: instead of a smoke-infused appartment we lived in a really small 1800th century cottage in a cosy cobblestoned street. And the kitchen felt like a kitchen, in a real home, with lots of odd pots and pans and bowls instead of a starting box from IKEA. And no longer a dish washer, but that didn´t matter when I could do the washing-up looking out into a little garden behind the house.

In that tiny kitchen I cooked a lot of good food, even if the Swedish crown was even weaker this time and we still found the prices crazy. I also treated myself to more coffees and good things than before Christmas, wanting to make the most out of my long, lonely days. A was away from 7 to 7 most of the time and a baby is very lovely and we had a lot of fun - but the possibilities for stimulating conversations are limited...

All that said I now have a set of culinary recommendations for mothers with young children or indeed others who are spending some time in Aarhus, Denmark!

The café/restaurant at department store Salling is a nice place for a cup of coffee - light, airy, lots of room for the pram and the coffee is good and the price OK. From the large windows you have a great view over the city.

Danish lenten buns was a nice surprise - normally I refuse to eat lenten buns before mid-February but now I was abroad, having "treat time". Firstly, the bun was Danish - buttery, flaky, melting! Under the lid was not only cream, but also custard and raspberry jam, and the last touch: a dollop of chocolate icing on the top of the lid! This was a little pricey, but on the other hand very filling.

Child-friendly Café Slabberas on Frederiksgade was a water-hole for me during both stays, I went there at least once a week to give D a chance to be around other kids. Very nice setting, nice staff, good food (try their brunch plate) and after your coffee you can shop for children´s clothes in the basement while your offspring is playing happily in a crate.

Nursing rooms - here Sweden is waaaay behind. At Åhléns, the large department store in Stockholm there is a teeny tiny nursing room in the children´s department with two grubby sofas, only one place for nappy-changing and a single toilet which costs 10 SEK to enter (and that is expensive in Sweden!). Lousy. Then I experienced the nursing rooms at Salling and Magasin, the large stores in Aarhus. In Salling there was two large, stylish leather sofas where you could sit and nurse your baby, and a large nappy-changing room with at least five beds, bright and fresh and free. There was also a free toilet, and a microwave oven. The changing facilities at Magasin was a little less comfy, but still working, and there was a really large room with both sofas and chairs, a nice view, microwave and lots of Brio wooden toys. It was nice to go there after a few hours shopping, feed D some fruit and milk and then set him loose on the floor to play and stretch out.

For me as a dairy-junkie Denmark was paradise, so much to choose from! While many of you remain indifferent in front of a dairy counter in the supermarket I really enjoy being able to choose from umpteen different fat rates and kinds of buttermilk, and even cow´s breeds! How about some Jersey cow buttermilk from a small dairy company somewhere in Denmark? That I had to stick to the cheapest all the time is a completely other thing...

Honningbombe (photo above) was a cookie I found before Christmas, but not after. It was a large disc with delicious soft spicy honey sponge cake in the bottom, then custard, then honey cake again and then a chocolate coating. Delicious! I someone has a recipe for Danish honey cake I am more than happy to get it. I also really enjoyed the flaky, crunchy and really large "French waffles"

Last but not least I discovered aebleskiver, round and comforting and cardamom-scented - Dagmar has already written all about them! We had them at cafés and at home before Christmas and after Christmas all foodstores had them on sale for just a few nickles. Apparently a typical Christmas cake but we enjoyed having them in January too!

Enjoy Denmark and Aarhus! I am sure you will find your own little pearls in this nice city (but next time I think I will go there in summer)

It´s all Denmarks fault

2008-12-05T01:27:00.002+01:00

You must think I am crazy or something, a hiatus again. But this time I have a better excuse than just lacking inspiration; just a few weeks ago A came home from work (a certain Swedish telecom company) and said that they wanted him to work in Denmark for a while. Then we heard almost nothing for a week, and then it happened all at once. The Danes wanted them (there are two more of his colleagues) to start in late November, so could we just leave in five days? Ummm - yes...?
So a lot of quick packing and preparing and looking up the best way to get to Denmark with a 8 months old baby - last Sunday we were on our way in the car. We drove to Varberg on the west coast and the baby slept almost the whole time(!) and then after meeting a dear friend and spending the night at a very nice hotel we took the ferry over to Grenå, Jutland, Denmark on Monday morning and then drove down to Aarhus where D and I now is spending our time in best possible ways until daddy comes home from work. Our kitchen is tiny with almost no kitchen utensils and food prices are insane so the most exciting thing I have made the last week is potato soup (I decided after much pondering to buy a bag of onions so I could add one to it - it was really too expensive. I mean. Onions. Yellow onions! And they are so expensive!) Nothing to blog about, in other words!

Now don´t think I am complaining too much, or that I don´t like Denmark because I do! I like the city Aarhus and the nice people and the language (oh yeah, really) and I might even blog occasionally - but well, I am not sure. We go back to Sweden for Christmas and then I hope to get going again.

Japanese surprises from San Fransisco!

2008-11-12T21:47:00.000+01:00

It was such a long time since I participated in a BBM exchange, almost two years! And I almost missed this one too - if not the lovely Stephanie had let me in at the last minute...what a stroke of luck!
Anyway, on Mondays I am out with the other mums taking a walk with our little ones and when I got back to the house there was a message from Federal Express that they had been there with no luck but they would try again "automatically" three times and also they left a warrant to post on the door that I allowed them to leave the package on the doorstep if I wasn´t at home. So far so good. On Tuesdays we go to a baby singsong thing where the kids have fun and get tired and the mums can have coffee afterwards, very nice. And I got home to - nothing. OK so maybe on Wednesday. No. So I called them, and it turned out that to get that second "automatic" delivery you would have to call them. So this Thursday, finally!!! I got my longed-for package from Bonnie of Kumquat connection who very thoughtfully had put a large box toegther for me, filled with her own favourites. And mine, as it turned out! "Japanese I wrote in the title for this - it wasn´t all Japanese but lots of it. And I happen to looooove Japanese food, and I happen to not buy Japanese things very often because all the shops are in Stockholm and it is quite expensive and you don´t know how to use everything (Thanks to my friend Maiko I know some at least, after a guided tour at JFK, Japan Food and Kitchen a couple of years ago. Ocha-zuke, ocha-zuke!).

Well, Bonnie also has got me addicted to Trader Joe´s "Everything" Pretzels which probably are impossible to get hold of here - very inconvenient. I will have to get a wishlist here on the blog like Anne does, in hope for nice people over there to send me a new bag now and then. Sigh.

Enough said: here are the full contents of my package!

Large bags of Pretzels like I told you, incredibly tasty!
Box of Bonnie´s favourite crackers, Ak Mak´s - similar to Swedish hardbread and also very nice, my man has already finished most of it
Bag of candy corn, seasonal this time of year. Bonnie said people tend to love or hate it, she loves it and I do too, this bag exists no more
Small bar of chocolate with bacon, intriguing! Bonnie said that this probably was the craziest thing in the box but actually I had already heard of it. I am a big fan of chocolate with salt so also this one exists no more
Jar of grilled bell peppers from Trader Joe´s, looking very tasty. Grilled peppers are a staple also at my house so I really appreciated this! I love to use it for example in a feta cheese spread.
Udon noodles, which I have wanted to try for a very long time but never got round to, but with Bonnie´s guidance they exist no more. I made a delicious soup on that very evening!
Noodle soup base with that fantastic Japanese umami taste that makes you want more and more - I hope to find something similar when this bottle is finished
Japanese chili spice, also for the soup. A little smoky, a little sweet and very hot!
Rice spice mix with wasabi and seaweed and other things, to sprinkle over rice
And finally that delicious tea I always drink at sushi restaurants but have not found - it is hard to know which is which at a Japanese shop with no Swedish or English instructions! Bonnie included neat little unfilled teabags, like a small pillowcase to fold in a little of the tea and soak in hot water.

Thank you so much for all this Bonnie - and above all the small tips you gave on how to use everything. Now I feel inspired to use also the soba noodles I have in the cupboard, and I will certainly approach the shelves at JFK next time I am in Stockholm. A special thank you also to Stephanie, who arranged this event and very kindly let me participate although I was one day late...

My first bread pudding

2008-11-07T21:30:00.009+01:00

Bread pudding seems to be quite common to serve in for example UK but here in Sweden you seldom hear of it. Since I had some bread going stale today and planned on the not so very filling dish baked potato with prawns for dinner I decided that it was time to try it - all recipes I have seen sounds so good. But now when I was in a hurry I couldn´t find a single one of course, except one in Nigella´s Feast which just this time seemed a little wrong with lots of eggs and stuff. None of my basic Swedish cookbooks could provide me with what I wanted and my last hope was the very old cookbook from 1925 I bought at a flea market last year.
Bingo! Apparently even Swedes made bread puddings back then. I altered the recipe just a little, soaking the raisins in a little rhum inspired by Nigella and replacing kidney suet (something I can say with perfect confidence that I will never ever buy. Eww.) with some butter. We had it with vanilla custard and I knew from the first bite that I will so make this again. Stale Lucia buns would be very nice for this I think! The result was perfect: warm and comforting, soft with crunch on top and a subtle taste from the raisins. A real carbohydrate schock too, I could feel my eylids getting heavier....and heavier...

There you see what can happen when you for once open a cookbook from 1925!

Bread pudding
Serves 4

Stale bread, I used about 3-4 rolls
100 ml of milk
about 100 ml raisins soaked in a little rhum for about 10 minutes
25 grams cold butter, diced
3 tbsp sugar
zest from one orange, the original recipe called for candied peel which would be nice
1 egg
225 ml milk
pinch of nutmeg

Peel off the bread crust with a sharp knife and dice the bread. Soak in a little milk for a couple of minutes (the original recipe recommended 30 minutes and then to stir the bread to a mush - I wanted a little crust and decided to keep it diced!) When the bread has absorbed the milk add in the raisins, sugar, butter. orange peel and nutmeg. Stir carefully and then add in the milk and the egg. Mix again and pour into a dish lined with melted butter and breadcrumbs. Bake in 180C for about 45 minutes and serve with custard.

A broken promise

2008-11-05T23:13:00.008+01:00

No, I don´t mean that I promised to write more often and then didn´t because I told you I have so much to do with the baby and all. I mean my foodie resolutions for 2008, which I just imported from 2007 when I didn´t keep them either. Make my own pasta, take a fish class, wine dolmadas? Fat chance! Maybe possibly we will make sausages but I am not sure.
And the last one: "I will not feed my baby food from a jar unless it´s an emergency". Blah. I have changed the resolution to "I will not feed my baby food from a jar if I wouldn´t consider eating it myself" and everyone is happy at the moment. You see, I have found that the jars are sooo fantastic- even when I am not in an emergency. Especially the ones with porridge. Oh I love the porridge you just bring along to cafés and activities. And when you try to find out what the baby likes and not it is so much easier to open a jar of lasagna than making a whole lasagna with no salt and then maybe he doesn´t like it, or is allergic to tomatoes. I have come to terms with the jars, they will be part of our lives. But not the veg ones! Oh no. Not after trying broccoli!

You see, I had heard that babies like broccoli and wanted to try it but thought that maybe I could buy a jar the first time. I opened it, frowned at the terrible smell of it but heated it and stuck a spoonful of it in D´s mouth at which moment he just looked at me with a "You have got to be kidding" look at his face. I tried it and agreed with him. The contents went into the kitchen sink and I made broccoli for him from scratch which he didn´t like either but at least I don´t risk teaching my child that broccoli is brownish and tastes like a fart smells. Look at the picture and try to guess which is which!

Salmon with pink peppercorns and root veggies

2008-09-18T11:55:00.000+02:00

I really do have enough cookbooks, but recently I treated myself to another one, anyway. Ha!
I got a gift card from someone and really wanted this: Saras kök, Sara´s kitchen, by Sara Begner. She was the chef of the Swedish TV show Toppform some years ago, and then she has had another TV show with the journalist Ann Söderlund about family food. I wasn´t too impressed by them, but her cookbook is nothing but excellent. Tempting recipes, nice photos, nicely written - it inspires me!
A and I have tried several of the recipes and some of them will show up on this blog - first out is this delicious and easy salmon, baked in the oven with three different kinds of onion, wine and my favourite; pink peppercorns. Serve it with just boiled new potatoes or try the root veg mash - although you have to use winter potatoes for that. I like recipes where you can serve each part on its own - the mash would be good with meat, the onions with rice served as a vegetarian dish, and the salmon with a cold sauce perhabs...

Salmon with pink peppercorns and root veggies
Serves 4
600 grams fillet of salmon
1 tbsp pink peppercorns
2 tsp flake salt
1 leek
1 red onion
1 yellow onion
200 ml white wine
100 ml cream
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar

Cut the salmon in four pieces and put them close together in an ovenproof dish. Crush the pink peppercorns and salt to a coarse powder and spread it over the salmon.Cut the leek in slices, the red onion in wedges and the yellow in rings (or as you wish). Mix it all and spread it around the fish.Pour wine, cream (use any fat content you are comfortable with, I used some cooking cream) and olive oil over the onion and sprinkle over the sugar. Bake in 175C for 20 minutes.

Root veg mash
800 grams potatoes
200 grams parsnips
200 grams celeriac
1 cube veggie stock
juice and finely grated zest from one lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch of white pepper
1 "bunch" of dill - hmm. Maybe a good handful is enough? Parsley is good too

Peel and cut all the root veggies in pieces and boil them until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain.Melt the stock cube in 100 ml boiling water, pour in lemon juice, lemon zest and olive oil. Spice to taste with white pepper. Pour it over the soft root veg and mash it up coarsely.Chop the dill and stir it into the mash. Serve with salmon and enjoy.

Carrot coconut soup

2008-08-12T21:24:00.003+02:00

Some things are just not photogenique. Like this soup, or most soups come to think of it. A fish soup can be nice to look at but not many more.
Anyway. One of my current favourites on my cookbook shelf (ahem, shelves more like) is Tillsammansmat, a great book published in close cooperation with the Swedish church. Tillsammans means together, and the book is meant as an inspiration for all who wants to take back the opportunity to meet around the table, share a meal together - instead of just watching TV and running around not caring for each other. A nice thought, I think!
I didn´t take a photo of this soup from the book but I recommend you all to try it anyway, it is well worth it! Very tasty, very easy to make and with ingredients you probably keep in the house most of the time (at least I like to have a tin or two of coconut milk at home). The recipe in the book is for 10 people so I have cut down on it, plus I don´t use more than one tin (usually about 200 ml) of coconut milk, for me it is enough. The recipe calls for 1500 ml for 10...

Carrot coconut soup
Serves 4-5
2 large yellow onions
about 12-15 carrots
500 ml water
1 regular tin of coconut milk
2-3 cubes of vegetable stock
salt and pepper
Peel and chop carrots and onions. Fry it until a little soft in a big pot and pour over boiling water, coconut milk and the stock. Boil until soft, it doesn´t take long, and then wizz it with a mixer or in a blender or something. Spice to taste with salt and pepper and garnish with some parsley.

Chicken dill casserole

2008-08-06T20:36:00.000+02:00

I have written before about the very Swedish dish dillkött, a stew with a subtle sweet-sour taste and lots of dill. It is traditionally made from beef, but during my pregnancy I stumbled upon a recipe where you use chicken instead. The recipe is from the book "Mat för gravida och ammande", food for pregnancy and nursing, by Gunilla Lindeberg and Marie Löf.

Even though I like beef it just is a little easier to use chicken, not so much carving and trimming involved. Also, the mild meat is excellent to use in this stew and I have made it several times now...you try it too, wether you are pregnant or not!

Dill chicken
Serves 5-6

1 whole chicken, fresh or thawed
about 2000 ml water
2 tsp salt
5 whole white peppercorns
3 whole cloves
dill stalks
1 carrot in large pieces

Sauce
500 ml stock from the chicken
100 ml cream (or milk)
3 tbsp flour or 4 tbsp corn starch
100 ml fresh or frozen dill, finely chopped
1-2 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice
salt and pepper

Bring the water, spices, salt, dill stalks and carrot to the boil, put the chicken in and let it simmer for 40-45 minutes. Remove skin and bones and cut in nice pieces. Strain the stock and reduce to 500 ml, or take 500 ml and make it stronger with one of those very handy stock cubes. Whisk cream and flour together and stir in the stock. Let it boil for a few minutes until it thickens a little. Mix in the dill and spice to taste with the lemon juice or vinegar, salt and pepper.
Serve with boiled potatoes and some salad.

Always Estonia!

2008-07-21T16:27:00.005+02:00

Back home again after almost a week in Estonia, as usual for us in summer. And as usual we have brought home some beer and salted cucumbers and lots of happy memories. The photo is from lovely Haapsalu, where you can see the men in my life walking towards The Wiigi Kohvik to have a light dinner. It was a lovely summer´s evening and we sat on the veranda having a salad of peaches and shrimps (me - it was a little too light but beautifully presented) and something with duck breast (my man - he liked it very much). The little man had some milk, so far he is more a gourmand than a gourmet.

Estonia is really special to me although I don´t have any family history there as A does. I like the nature, the sea, the beaches, the people, the food... And yes - I had the great pleasure of meeting Pille too!

Just salad...

2008-07-11T20:47:00.003+02:00

A quick lopsided photo today: the kid is hungry! I was at my parent´s recently and went out to pick some things in the garden for dinner; when I came back in I noticed that it looked fantastic - just chives, salad, parsley and dill.

Summer is here!

P.S. Can you find the kitten?

Back again

2008-05-27T17:30:00.002+02:00

I don´t know which time in order I say: "hello, remember me? I am back again, and this time I will really try to blog more often!" but it is my blog and I write when I want to. Or when I have the time, as is the case now when my life is changed rather profoundly by a very small person.

On March 10th I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, and we now spend the early summer days together in lots of lovely ways. Walking, eating, sleeping, changing nappy and then eating, sleeping etc. Life is sweet, simple and blissful with my little D. One of many many good things about him is that he lets me cook and bake almost as usual. Meanwhile he lies in his "gym" and play with the toys, or keep me company in the kitchen sitting in the baby sitter. My little sidekick.

On our way home from the hospital we bought some bread, but since then we have baked our own daily bread as a matter of fact. My man is rather absorbed by this bread-baking: keeps reading recipes and trying them, buys all kinds of flour and he also borrowed his parents large kitchen machine, I don´t know what it is called in English but you use it for kneading. They use it once a year, we use it once a week!

This is a very nice bread to make when you want a luxury breakfast or expects guests for lunch and want to greet them with the wonderful smell of fresh bread. The recipe is from Allt om mat, a well-known Swedish food magazine and an article on how to get going with your baking by the journalist Peter Streijffert. My man read the article over and over again and then tried this, and then some other breads. Thank you Peter!

Morning rolls
Makes 10

12 grams fresh yeast
50 ml cold water
1 tsp salt
100 ml graham flour, this is a wholemeal wheat flour
540 grams strong bread flour, "Vetemjöl special"

1. Crumble the yeast into a bowl, add some water and dissolve the yeast.
2. Add the rest of the water, salt, graham flour and the wheat and work the dough for a couple of minutes. It is supposed to be sticky: nothing to worry about!
3. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge over night
4. Warm the oven to 225 fan oven or 250 "ordinary" oven. Spoon out the dough on a baking sheet: 10 sticky lumps the size of tennis balls. Bake for 20 minutes in the middle of the oven. Let them cool on a rack.

The rolls have a lovely crust the first day, but then sadly they get a little boring so make sure to eat them all very quickly. Not a huge problem, really!

Poached pears with saffron, ginger and vanilla

2008-03-05T19:58:00.001+01:00

For dessert when I had my girl´s lunch recently I decided to finally try poaching some pears, inspired by Pille who just had posted about ginger pears. Ginger pears are a real classic here in Sweden as well but I have never made it myself.

My recipe of choice this time was - surprise - one from my cooking guru Anna Bergenström. Here the ginger goes together with vanilla, saffron and spices in a delicious syrup! The recipe is easy and very practical, the pears can be made up to a week in advance! They can also be frozen in their syrup. Just make sure you try if the pears fit in the skillet before you start, and watch the pears carefully so they don´t get overcooked.

Ginger pears with saffron

Serves 6-8

6-8 nice, firm pears
500 ml water and 50 ml sugar
1/2 vanilla pod
about 2 tbsp fresh, peeled, chopped ginger (I think I used a little more)
a 5 cm piece of a cinnamon stick
0.5 grams of saffron, ground with a sugar lump in a mortar
(Then I get confused because the recipe mentions 1/3 lemon in slices but not where to put it! I just skipped it and it was fine)

Boil a syrup from the water, sugar and vanilla pod for about 5 minutes without a lid. Peel the pears but keep the stalks and the little thing on the other end where the flower was. This will prevent the pears from getting all mushy! And it looks pretty.
Put the pears close together in a skillet and pour over the syrup carefully. Add the ginger and cinnamon and let it simmer on very low heat, under a lid, for 20-25 minutes. You may want to turn them over once or twice but be careful! Put the saffron in the last 10 minutes. When the pears are all soft, but not more, let them cool in the syrup. The day after they will have a much more intense yellow colour!

Serve with a dollop of good vanilla ice cream.

Kamut wheat salad

2008-02-21T12:51:00.005+01:00

Oh dear dear, over a month since last time I managed to post something here! What a lousy blogger I am, compared to others who just keep writing and writing! But really, it is my blog and I´ll write once a month if I want to... Even if I hope to be more frequent for a while now, being ordered to rest by my doctor! Not much to do other than cooking and taking slow walks. Then in about six weeks The New Foodie will make his/hers entrée into our lives and then we´ll see what happens with everything!

I had some girlfriends over for Sunday lunch a few weeks ago and made lots of big plans of involtini with beef, or some finger food, or maybe a soup? It was a lot of fun to make plans but then my health started to sway and I went for a simple salad instead. No use to cook a large meal for friends if I would have to spend two hours in bed to recover! This meal was ready after just over an hour in the kitchen, plus some dessert preparations the night before (I will save that for a separate post).

Salads are really typical Clivia-meals - easy to prepare, fresh and always appreciated. I love to explore all the different kinds of grains and pasta and rice you can use, and then I just pair it with a good dressing and vegetables and a good bread. Then depending on the guests I serve meat or fish on the side, more veggies and often some different kinds of spread for the bread. This time my guests got home made foccaccia, creamed feta cheese and some salmon. The featured grain was a new product from the store I wanted to try: Kamut wheat. Apparently some grains were found in the Egyptian pyramids and now they grow it again! Very tasty, but maybe hard to find. You could subsitute spelt wheat, or bulgur for example. The recipe is from the back of the Kamut wheat box, we are into trying recipes from boxes right now since A made an excellent chicken curry after reading on the small box for the chicken stock cubes...

Kamut wheat salad
Serves 4

200 ml Kamut wheat, or other kind of whole or cracked wheat
400 ml water
2 carrots
a bunch of sugar snaps, trimmed
some fresh green asparagus
100 ml chopped fresh basil
50 ml chopped flat-leaf parsley
3 spring onions, chopped
100 ml of toasted cashew nuts
Juice from half a lemon
salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

Dressing:
100 ml olive oil
50 ml apple cider vinegar
1 pressed garlic clove
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper

Boil the wheat in the water until just soft, about 10 minutes. Rinse in cold water and stir in some olive oil. Put aside. Cut the carrots in nice chunks and boil them until just soft in salted water. Do the same with the asparagus and sugar snaps. Rinse in cold water.
Mix everything for the dressing.
Mix the wheat, veggies, nuts and herbs and arrange in a nice bowl or on a platter. Pour over some dressing and serve the rest on the side. Some olives never go wrong!

Nigella´s involtini

2008-01-14T21:06:00.000+01:00

Getting rid of: cheese, aubergine, raisins

This is, seriously, one of the best meals I made 2007! Nigella Lawson´s Feast is a book I leaf through at least every other week, just to enjoy her excellent writing and compensate myself during hard times for not having time to cook or having parties.
When I came home in late November after a particularly hard day at work I reminded myself that I a) had two large aubergines lying about in the fridge from the veggie box b) should grab the opportunity to make something proper even on a Tuesday. Involtini is maybe not the thing you should attack under these circumstances, but the name kept floating up in my brain all the way home and since I had most of the ingredients I simply jumped to the task. Nigella´s recipes are never scary - that helped! But do make sure you have a sandwich or some nibbles on hand before you start off - this will take you at least an hour! Count in that when you are finished and the involtini has cooled enough to eat you will remember nothing from your hard day at work, it is all obscured behind a joyful time of cooking!

Here is Nigella´s recipe (for those of you who has not yet got the book) with my own tweaks and changes

2-3 large aubergines cut lengthwise in thin slices
1500 grams tomato passata (I used less, see below)
200 grams mozzarella (I used leftover filling)

Filling:
100 grams crumbled feta cheese
100 grams mozzarella
25 grams grated parmesan (I didn´t have any mozzarella in the house so instead I scraped together 225 grams of other mixed cheeses; feta cheese, another excellent salad cheese from Jarseost, and parmesan)
75 grams pine nuts (I used chopped walnuts or almonds if I remember correctly)
50 grams raisins, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 garlic clove, crushed or finely chopped
zest from 1 lemon
a good pinch of dried mint
2 tpsb parsley
1 egg

Brush the aubergine slices on both sides with olive oil and grill them until soft and nicely patterned, I used my beloved cast iron grill pan for this. Put aside and let it cool.

Mix everything for the filling in a bowl, yes, raisins too. I was soo sceptical to these raisins! I am not a huge fan of Fruit in Food you see, and warm raisins are...yeurgh... But I decided to stick to the recipe the best I could and go with the raisins which really was t-a-s-t-y, surprise surprise. In the meantime I decided to make a cooked tomato sauce instead of just using passata, because I had so many odd aubergine slices and some old onions and whatnot in the fridge. I simply chopped it all up, sautéed in olive oil, poured in a packet of passata and let it boil with some dried thyme, salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar while I made the involtini. Put about a tablespoon of filling on each aubergine slice and roll it up firmly. Put in an ovenproof dish. When all the slices was gone I put the rest of the cheese filling in the tomato sauce and poured it over the involtini, and then baked in 190C oven for 25-30 minutes. The involtini should be served lukewarm according to Nigella, or cold - all but boiling hot from the oven! That way you will be able to really taste everything in these marvellous little rolls.

My new kitchen

2008-01-09T22:20:00.000+01:00

This is me, or 2/3 of me, in our new kitchen on Gooseberry road. Since December 8th we live in a small radhus, which means a house connected to other houses in a row, I don´t know the correct term in English for it. We have four rooms and a kitchen and a small toilet and a bathroom and storage room in the front yard and a garden shed in the backyard, and a small pond and a glass room which will come in really handy April-October since it is so well built you can sit there while it is still a little too cold outside, or too hot, since we both have a fan and a heater in there. We also have a grill, and furniture enough to house 12-16 people for a garden party. Very nice!

For now we have to stay indoors though, and work to fit in all our belongings in cupboards and boxes in time for the baby´s arrival in just over three months (yikes, so soon!). Last week I crawled inside the kitchen cabinets to fit in a new basket shelf which you can slide out to reach what´s in it. I have already some problems reaching my own feet and in a month´s time I certainly will not be able to reach, say, a bowl from this cupboard which is very deep and very deep down. After much twiddling around I took the basket shelf and tried to fit it in - bah, the cupboard was 50 cm and the shelf was 60 cm! So I had to crawl back and take away everything and move it to the other cupboard and try not to swear too much, the baby can hear me now. We will have to go back to The Large Swedish Furniture Warehouse and buy a new shelf! Sigh.

But to make a long story short: I really like this kitchen even if we have slightly less space in it. It is what we call a parallell kitchen, stove and washing on one side and fridge and another working space on the other. When I am at the stove and need something from the fridge I simply turn on my heel and get it in two seconds instead of having to run some metres to the right and squeeze myself in between the kitchen table and the fridge (which also was smaller). This is so so much more practical! When you have all the shelves in place, mind. And above all, the eating area is just outside the kitchen and opens up into the living room - equals lots and lots of space for having lots of friends over who never again will have to hear the phrase "oh could you get up, I have to get something from the fridge".

Last year - I dared...nothing?

2008-01-06T10:18:00.001+01:00

Hahaha, I just re-read my foodie resolutions for 2007 with a grin on my face. What has become of them? Absolutely nothing! But since I am good at forgiving myself for things I did (or did not) that didn´t harm anyone anyway I am simply putting them up again for 2008! Isn´t that neat? Some of them will be easy, some of them not. But then there is always 2009!

1. I will make my own pasta
2. I will take a class in how to handle and cook fresh fish
3. I will make sausages from scratch (that will have to wait until Christmas)
4. I will make sourdough bread
5. I will make wine leaf dolmadas
6. I will make pear preserves with ginger and lingonberries this autumn
7. (new) I will not feed my baby food from a jar unless it is an emergency

And I have made other things this year, really! I have further explored Lithuanian and Estonian cuisine, I have ordered veggie boxes, I made my own red cabbage for Christmas for the first time, I have become a cooking teacher... And above all I lost my job, got a new one, became pregnant and bought a house and moved. Christ, 2007 has been busy! Not sausage-making, though.

Tomato-fennel-beer soup

2007-11-24T17:20:00.000+01:00

Getting rid of: fennel, crushed tomato, Estonian beer

So, it is official: in April next year a new baby foodie will be born! That means that I for example don´t drink alcohol anymore, and I am not allowed (sigh) to eat parma ham and cold-smoked salmon and other favourite things. But lucky me, I have lots of other favourites to enjoy while waiting, and some of the Estonian beer we bought a large quantity of this summer before we knew about my pregnancy can be used in, for example, this delicious soup!

Since I stopped working in Stockholm I don´t buy as much food magazines anymore which is very good because of a) my economy and b) I already have loads of magazines to read and re-read. But recently, after a particularly hard day at work, I treated myself to the latest issue of Laga Lätt, a fairly new and very inspiring Swedish food mag. The title is a play with words, the Swedish Lätt means both easy and light - and so are the recipes!
I had all the ingredients on hand and the preparation took just 20 minutes, then I had a warming and a little different tomato soup in a bowl, sitting on the couch in front of the TV...

Tomato and fennel soup
Serves 4

2 yellow onions (personally I think that one is more than enough in all recipes but...)
2 small or 1 large fennel
2 cloves of garlic (also here too much for me but that really is a matter of taste!)
canola or olive oil for frying
400 ml water
2 tbsp concentrated fish or veg stock (I used a cube, crumbled up in the hot soup)
300 ml beer
500 grams crushed tomatoes or passata
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper

Chop the onion finely, finely slice the fennel. Press the garlic. Fry it all in a little oil until soft and shiny. Add water, stock, beer and tomato and let simmer for 10 minutes. Spice to taste with sugar, salt and pepper. Serve with a dollop of sourcream or creme fraiche, and a couple of sandwiches.

Astrid Lindgren 100 years

2007-11-14T15:29:00.000+01:00

Off topic today: it is world famous author Astrid Lindgren´s 100th birthday today. Even though she passed away a few years ago she will live forever through all her wonderful books! I have read almost everything and cannot really mention a favourite - maybe Emil, and the Bullerby kids. And Ronja!

Oooh, it is not so off topic after all - today very conviniently also is the day of the cheesecake and I am sure Astrid has had a lot of cheesecake in her life, growing up in the same region as me: Småland.

Happy birthday Astrid!

A find in the fridge: Jerusalem artichokes

2007-11-02T20:18:00.000+01:00

Getting rid of: Jerusalem artichokes, rice, mushrooms

Not only the cupboards but also the fridge and freezer is in need of emptying. This spring I got five small Jerusalem artichokes with my veg box and since these knobbly little thingys are one of my favourites I wanted to save them for something really special, since I don´t grow them myself anymore and they are rarely seen in the shops in my town. Well, of course I forgot about them and they have spent all summer rattling at the bottom of the fridge.

Last Friday night I wanted to treat my dear man to something extra since it was his birthday the day before and we didn´t have time to really celebrate. I decided to dig deep into our storages and make a variety of my favourite mushroom sandwiches, only now I used boiled rice instead of bread and served this gratin with some good thin steaks!

On the photo you can see the Jerusalem Artichokes laying peeled and sliced (on my trusted mandoline) on a layer of rice in an ovenproof dish. I had some fresh thyme on hand after the cooking class earlier in the day so I added some stalks and thought it looked so pretty. Then of course when you cover everything with a nice thick mushroom stew it is more taste than looks that matters!

When I make the sandwiches I slice the artichokes thicker and boil them for some minutes but I skipped that this time and it was fine. And I meant to take a photo of my plate before devouring it all but of course forgot all about it. You will have to visaulize the gratin with the mushrooms in brown sauce and a little grated cheese on top, a nice piece of steak browned in butter and spiced with just black pepper and salt, and a pile of organic salad, tomatoes and cucumber from the veggie box tossed in lime juice and olive oil...mmm...

Fruit salad

2007-10-29T20:13:00.000+01:00

Getting rid of: fresh fruit, raisins, canned pineapple

Well of course I will continue buying fresh stuff even if we are trying to empty our kitchen - fruit and veg and dairy... But I know myself oh-too-well and fresh fruit tend to just be put in a bowl and looked at with pride in this household. See, we have a bowl of apples in our kitchen. Look how lovely they are! And bananas, mmmmm. And kiwi! Lots of vitamin C. They look so lovely that we somehow forget what they are really for: to be eaten! These past months I have been craving a lot more fruit, but even so especially apples just lies there - and it is such a shame! Every two weeks I get a delivery of fresh organic fruit and veg from Ekolådan and last time I got gorgeous apples: small, rather tart and very very apple-y if such a word exists. Most of the other things from the box is now gone, but a morning recently when I was making scones for my man the sad fruit bowl caught my eye. There was two rather browned bananas, a lonely kiwi and a pile of those apples...

Strange but true - fruit can be lying about for weeks here, but once they are turned to a fruit salad they are gone in just a day, sometimes just hours. My trick to make it extra juicy and tempting is to add a small tin of crushed pineapple in own juice, a cheap staple that is easy to keep at home (in the cupboards, oh my). Boring apples, or apples that will be boring in just days, and sad bananas turns into something luxurious, delicious and totally healthy!

No-knead bread

2007-10-26T21:57:00.000+02:00

Getting rid of: flour, sunflower seeds, spices

As you can see I have changed my feature, from "Today´s Swedish word" to "Getting rid of". This will be my new theme for the upcoming months - getting rid of as much as possible from my bulging kitchen cupboards, fridge and freezer. Then, in December when I am installed in my new kitchen I can change back to my usual "Getting". Being a food nerd means "getting". You get stuff from EBBP parcels, you get stuff from friends who know you will love a food present for birthdays and Christmas, you get new and exciting things when you are out shopping with other food nerds, or indeed just popping by at Hötorgshallen for "just some sundried tomatoes" and coming back up the escalator laden with bags of dried fruits, pulses, herbs, strange-looking fruit and a smelly cheese. All this now occupies our kitchen and since we don´t want to carry too much while moving we will have to eat it, or throw it away which really is not an option unless something is helplessly expired...

Before my, and our for that matter, decision of getting rid of things I happily bought a large bag of flour and brought it home just to discover that I really didn´t need it. An entire shelf is filled with different flours, in two rows - meanwhile we have been buying our bread for months now! My baking goes in periods, sometimes I just bake and bake everything we eat, and then suddenly I stop for some reason and it is just so hard to get going again. Well, now I have to! This "No-knead bread" is an old favourite of mine and I made it long before everyone else started experimenting with cast-iron pots and minimal amounts of yeast a year or so ago when the ultimate recipe for no-knead bread was tried out by so many of us food bloggers. I, however, was not tempted because I already had the ultimate recipe: of course from my cooking and baking guru Anna Bergenström!

No-knead bread
25 grams fresh yeast
1tsp salt
preferrably about a tbsp of honey
400 ml tepid water
800-900 ml of wheat flour
100 ml sunflower seeds (optional)
1 tsp crushed fennel seeds or other bread spice that you like (optional)

Crumble the yeast into a bowl, add salt and honey and some of the water. Stir until the yeast is dissolved and add the rest of the water.
Pour in the sunflower seeds and the fennel and the flour and work it to a loose dough. Cover with a towel and let rise for 1-2 hours.
Line a baking sheet with paper or grease it, and carefully tip the dough directly onto it. No need to knead. Heat the oven to 250C and meanwhile let the dough rise, for about 20 minutes.
Bake the bread in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 125C and continue baking for 40-45 minutes.
Let the bread cool on a rack, loosely covered with a towel. Enjoy!

Hip hip hooray, maybe my blog will stay...

2007-10-16T21:08:00.000+02:00

Oh yes, I am still alive. Too busy living as a matter of fact - this blog gets more and more neglected and I really have to think hard what to do with it. Maybe I should quit, or take a "real" hiatus instead of just disappearing for weeks, or maybe I should just try and get inspired again, participating in all the nice events available? That is what I am thinking right now.

But, no decisions made at the moment, today (forgot to post on the 17th though...) I celebrate this blog´s second birthday with a lovely flower photo shot at a restaurant in Riga where we consumed some - oh yeah - shots this summer! Two years of writing, taking photos, meeting incredibly nice people some of whom I have now met and count as real friends, answering questions about almost everything and learning loads, loads about food. Oh yes, while writing this I definitely feel that I just cannot quit blogging! What I need is a whole day, or a whole weekend when I can just cook and write and work on a good backlog for all those days and weeks when life just gets too much...

An exciting year lies ahead of me I can tell - the third year as a food blogger when also a lot of other things will happen in my life! We have for example bought a house, so in about two months´time Clivia will get a new Cuisine where new challenges will take place. So stay tuned, and thank you for your patience!

Cooking class

2007-10-05T16:40:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: kurs. Means course, or class.

My life has been pretty intense these past months and I have had little time for food blogging and even cooking, sadly. But after my recent trip (see below) to Tallinn to meet my blogging friends I got new inspiration, and since four weeks back I have another source of inspiration: I have become a cooking teacher!

I have got a new job since april at an organisation which arranges courses for adults in everything from languages to yoga - a lovely job! Anyway, I don´t work full time and therefore had the possibility to take on a cooking class on Fridays, starting about a month ago. And it is so much fun! I only have three pupils but for a new teacher like me it is totally OK. We have great fun together and try many things - they are so brave and never turn a recipe of mine down! This has been on the menus so far:

Beetroot soup with sour cream and chopped pickled cucmbers, fake cheesecake for dessert

Stuffed peppers, some with lentils and some with mince and olives, Blå Jungfruns muffins for dessert

"African stew" with home made peanut butter, Gino for dessert

Fish stew with root vegetables, apple crumble

Salad with whole wheat, marinated in a vinaigrette with sundried tomatoes and garlic, loads of veg like cucumber, tomato, peppers and onions - served with oven grilled chicken. Dessert: ice cream with lemon marinated blackberries.

The upcoming Friday we will cook meatloaf. What next? I don´t know... Any ideas?

A lovely day in Tallinn

2007-10-02T19:22:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: Estland. Means Estonia.

I have written quite a lot about Estonia here on this blog, a country I first visited in 1992 in a youth exchange. Then I met A, whose mother is Estonian-Swedish and that has led to me visiting this fantastic country many times. When I found Pille´s blog I was delighted, what a great way to learn more about Estonian culture and above all, food!

From the start I had a feeling that Pille must be a very, very nice person and a week ago I finally got to meet her and get that feeling confirmed! Anne, Dagmar and me arranged to go overseas with Tallink Victoria to our closest capital, Tallinn, for shopping and sightseeing - and meeting Pille of course. After a very calm night at sea we arrived in a sunny lovely September Tallinn on a Tuesday morning when everyone else was at work. Could life be better? We had a lovely day shopping, chatting, having coffee and eating and admiring the view from Toompea. Thank you so much Pille for guiding and feeding us, and thank you Anne and Dagmar for great travel company! Next time I hope we won´t have to listen to car alarms all night though (the journey back wasn´t nearly as calm as the first night...)

Read more about our day in Tallinn and see pictures over at Pille´s and Dagmar´s!

Everyday luxury: going to the market!

2007-09-09T18:41:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: torg. Means square.

One thing I have seldom done before I started this blog is shopping at markets, and I haven´t had a clue about seasons - when to buy the best.
Well, now I do! I have had a vegetable box coming all spring every other week with organic fruit and veg but this time of year I prefer to buy everything myself. I have the great luck to work just five minutes walk from the market square here in my hometown - so every Wednesday and also Friday or Saturday when the vendors are there I go down to shop for fresh vegetables and fruit.

These are some very, very nice cucumbers I bought from my favourite stand, a very kind man who runs a small-scale business outside town and go to the square laden with fresh veg, flowers and potatoes on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I also bought some sprouted dill to use for pickled cucumbers - but no recipe yet. I have to try them before I can make any recommendations. Last year I failed with my cucumbers... For now it will have to make do with the pretty picture!

Vacation highlights: a cookbook find

2007-08-27T20:36:00.001+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: kokbok. Means cookbook

We were a bit unlucky with the weather when we went to Estonia this summer - it rained, rained, rained... for days! And then it held up for a couple of hours so we could take a walk and then it started pouring down again. But I don´t complain, after exploring the big cities Riga and Vilnius and after a bumpy bus ride between Pärnu and Haapsalu I was more than happy to lie on the bed and read in our little cottage at Roosta Pühkeküla.

Anyway, on the third day of rain we decided to go into Haapsalu for a little shopping and then we stopped by a promising-looking café right beside the old castle.
I was standing in line when I saw a fantastic cookbook lying on a table and picked it up just to look at the beautiful photos. I don´t know any Estonian so buying cookbooks is not to think of. But then I realised, that this cookbook is written in Estonian and English. Perfect! I bought a cappuccino, a pastry and a copy of the book on the spot and then spent the afternoon and evening reading. And reading. And reading. And getting inspired... And learning lots of Estonian words!
This book is so, so nice. It is called Sapemaa Talu Köök, or The Kitchen of Sapemaa Talu. Sapemaa Talu is the summer home of the author Anni Arro, and the recipes are all "summer food" but highly versatile for the rest of the year as well. It is still on my bedside table now, I leaf through it almost every day to look at the pictures and drool over the recipes. The only downside is that almost every recipe uses garlic and I cannot use garlic because of A´s stomach but then again I am used to getting around those little cloves!

In the bowl beside the book is the result of my first recipe trial: broad beans cooked Estonian style as they are in the pods in heavily salted water. It appealed to me because de-podding broad beans is not my cup of tea and I love broad beans so I gave it a try. You should too, now while they are in season (at least here). Just put a large amount of broad beans in a big pot, cover with water and put in 3-4 tablespoons of coarse salt. Let them simmer for 30 minutes or a bit more until soft, drain and serve at once with a little sourcream. They were heaven! And it is good fun sitting around the table, picking and eating on a summer evening.

Another Pasta salad

2007-08-21T20:10:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: matsäck. Means picnic.

Still many things going on in my life and not enough time for blogging, or cooking but I at least do it more often now than a month ago. I have been back to work for two weeks and it is OK considering I work part-time and hence have the possibility to enjoy the summer weather which of course showed up right on time for work to begin again.

This time of year we try to have a really quick dinner and then go out to the cottage or take the bikes and go for a swim after work. And sometimes we don´t even want to wait for dinner, but go immediately. This pasta salad was brought to the cottage last week in my beloved collapsible Tupperware bowl (you can even put it in the diswasher when it is flat like a pancake and it still gets clean!), paired with grilled chicken from the deli and the broad bean mash for dressing/dipping. Very good!

Vacation highlights: Double Coffee

2007-08-17T12:11:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: dubbel. Means double.

When I am abroad I like to try new things and go to local restaurants, but nevertheless it is nice to have a reliable back-up, some place you know will always deliver. When you are just too hungry, or too tired, or if you have a cold and feel really sorry for yourself it is so soothing to just see a sign outside a building and say: "Oh, why not just go to..."

For many people it is McDonald´s and sometimes for me too, but on the road in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania we return to the chain Double Coffee again and again. Brekfast in Riga, and here it is lunch in Vilnius: a scrumptious potato pancake with cottage cheese and mushrooms and fresh veg. And dill, of course. Double Coffee is not very cheap, but not expensive either for us Swedes. They serve omelettes, breakfasts, salads, sandwiches, desserts and all kinds of coffee and drinks. Always fresh and nice and also with a local twist. The menu is not the same in all three countries (take that, McD!). And it is almost always open. Try it, should you be in the vicinity!

Broadbean mash

2007-08-10T09:27:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: bondbönor. Means broad beans

For the elections 1994 my party produced a give-away notebook in very fashionable brown environmentally-friendly paper - it is so knobbly you can only write on one side of the sheets! Anyway, I used it as a recipe book and it is fun to leaf through it now and see what 20-year old me fancied to cook in the filthy corridor kitchen. Many of the recipes originated from my mother, such as frozen Daim cake (but I could never make that as I only had half a shelf in the freezer and it was always crammed with microwave pizzas), the pie recipe that came with her food processor and that we always make at home and of course Blå Jungfruns muffins which I still often make. Then there are things that I have had at parties - a special vanilla sauce, two pasta recipe from my dear friend Eva-Lotta who also lived at the corridor, stuffed lemons (?), "amateur jambalaya"... Oh yeah, this notebook is fun!

Last week I bought a bag of broad beans at the market and left them lying around for a while thinking about what to make. Maybe a potato salad? But then I remembered that I had a recipe jotted down in that old notebook - from where I don´t know and I have never tried it. Now was the time. I didn´t have 300 ml of broad beans at the time so I just improvised the quantities but it turned out very good! I have had it with pasta salad but it would also be good with hard-boiled eggs or as a spread for a sandwich.

Broad bean mash
300 ml boiled broad beans
100 ml mayonnaise
100 ml sourcream of some kind, I used turkish yoghurt
salt and pepper
a good handful of chopped fresh herbs: I used chives, basil, parsley from the balcony

Mash the cooked beans in a bowl and fold in the rest of the ingredients. Spice to taste. It keeps in the fridge for a couple of days.

Vacation highlights: Riga

2007-08-02T21:30:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word:gryta. Means stew, or casserole.

I came back this Sunday from a rather long stay in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Three small countries with a lot on offer! This time we mainly spent time in the capitals Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn but also in the adorable little seaside town Pärnu and the countryside in western Estonia where my mother-in-law comes from. Our first week was all sun, sun, sun and then it was rain rain rain almost all our time in Estonia. Luckily we already love this country so we wasn´t a bit put off!

I thought I would share some culinary and maybe other highlights of our trip. This is a stew I had at a traditional restaurant in Riga´s Old Town on our first night there. Sadly I didn´t take any notes but I remember it as a rather simple stew with quite a lot of tomato taste. It reminded me of my meat stew with peanut butter actually. The stew was served with whole barley and of course decorated with a lot of dill, the classic garnish in this part of the world. My man is a big dill-lover so he was in heaven for two weeks!

Summery meatloaf

2007-07-31T20:36:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: köttfärs. Means mince.

Perhabs a meatloaf seems like an odd choice for this time of year, but for me mince patties and meatloafs are very summery. The ultimate meal in summer is at my parents´veranda, with mince patties, potatoes right from the garden, sometimes there is grated beetroot in the patties also fresh from the garden, fresh dill, fresh salad, fresh tomatoes and our own milk. Luxury! I hope to be able to do the same in my own house as soon as we buy one. (Well, I will have to compromise on own milk).

This is my sister-in-law´s recipe for a meat-loaf that you roll up instead of filling it from the top. I don´t know where she got it from so cannot give credit, but whoever made it knows what she/he is doing. The sauce is particularly nice, but I also like a cold sauce with my mince - yoghurt or sourcream with herbs. From the garden. I can imagine that you can vary the filling in one million ways - use what you have on hand!

Meatloaf with classic Swedish cream sauce
Serves 4
400 grams mince
1 egg
3 tbsp breadcrumbs
50 ml water, boiling
1/2 tbsp concentrated veal stock
good pinch of salt and pepper

Filling:
10 button mushrooms, or chanterelles from the freezer
1 small onion
7 sundried tomatoes
125 grams of mozzarella cheese
fresh basil and /or thyme

Pour the boiling water over the tomatoes. Chop and sautée the onions and mushrooms. Chop up the soaked tomatoes, shred them and stir in with the chopped herbs. Put aside. Save the water for the breadcrumbs and let them soak for a couple of minutes. Stir in the egg, veal stock and the mince.
Put a large piece of plastic foil on the kitchen counter and spread out the mince in a rectangular shape. Crumble over the mozzarella cheese and the mushroom-onion-tomato mix. Roll it up using the plastic for support and dump it in an ovenproof dish. Bake in 180C for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the sauce...
250 ml cream, I use cooking cream
1 tbasp concentrated veal stock
2 teaspoons corn starch
pan juices
splash of dark soy sauce
salt and pepper
Mix the ingredients and bring to the boil. Let it thicken on low heat and spice to taste. You can add a splash of worcestersauce as well. When the meatloaf is ready pour the pan juices in the sauce for extra taste.
Serve with boiled potatoes and green peas for example.

Oooops

2007-07-26T19:11:00.000+02:00

I had arranged for some posts to "magically appear" on the blog while I am away but seem to have done something wrong... Now you can see them all though! Sorry.

I am currently at a beachside summer´s cottage village in Estonia, it has been raining for a few days but we are enjoying ourselves anyway! Both Riga and Vilnius was fantastic and I had some great food.
Until I write again - enjoy your summer as well!

Wedding decorations: flowers

2007-07-19T09:01:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: näckros. Means water lily.

I love being able to take proper photos again! This is a close-up of one of the table decorations for the wedding: a glass vase with a water lily, some pebbles and leaves... Simple and beautiful! When I arrived on Friday (sadly I had to go alone since A was sick) the one thing to do was to roll up the sleeves and get to work laying the tables for the party. It was held in an old barn with a gooood dance floor, and the colours chosen by the bride was light green and white.

Porridge

2007-07-19T09:00:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: gröt. Means porridge.

This is my brother sitting at one of the best kitchen tables in the world: my grandparents´, in a little village up north. I associate this table a lot with summer breakfasts, and porridge. My grandfather very often made blueberry porridge for us, blueberries and rye. After all grandchildren had finished eating as much as we could usually there still was a lot of porridge left for grandpa to finish, which he always did squeezing in the last spoonfuls and saying: "ooooh, that was a lot of porridge I ate right there".

Now my brother has taken over the tradition of eating *a lot* of porridge, and he is even "worse" because he has to pour the milk in a bowl by the side to get room for all the porridge he needs to get through the day. This day was a really special day since we all were going to my cousin´s wedding, going on from noon until 3 in the morning. And yes, with great food. More to come on that...

We are on our way...

2007-07-17T09:41:00.001+02:00

.... to Riga! This afternoon we will get on the ferry and go to our very nice neighbour conutry Latvia, and its beautiful capital RIga. We will stay there at least one night, and then go down to Lithuania to see either Vilnius or the coast, depending on weather. Then we will go back up to Latvia and further to Estonia, and go back to Stockholm next weekend. All in all nearly two weeks in one of the favourite parts of the world!

I hope you my dear readers will have a good time wherever you are, with lots of sun and delicious summer food, for example a trusty pasta salad like this one. I have no recipe, what goes in the salad depends on what I have in the fridge but I usually have some kind of cheese in it, and olives. I also always pour over the dressing, usually a vinaigrette while the pasta is still hot.

I will have some posts about the wedding appearing here while I am away, and hopefully by the beginning of the week after next I will be back with lots of nice memories from my holiday!

Wedding: the food!

2007-07-17T09:40:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: tallrik. Means plate.

OK, so we have come to the food! All was prepared by relatives and friends for the buffet. This is my plate, loaded about a week ago...

spring rolls

tzatziki

smoked salmon

potato salad

bean salad

tomato salad

roast beef

"tjälknöl", another kind of cold sliced meat

lamb sausages

my uncle´s tapenade

... and I am sure I forgot something!

For starters we had my uncle´s lobster soup, served in jugs to pour over little bowls with crawfish tails and dill - a very nice way to serve this. After the buffet and before the dancing we had chocolate tarts with raspberries in them, decorated with rose petals.

Wedding decorations: crown

2007-07-17T09:28:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: krona. Means crown.

More wedding decorations - perhabs some of you are interested... My aunt made a large "crown" from birch leaves and blueberry leaves with ribbons and paper water lilies: paper flowers are traditional to use at weddings both for the bride and the decorations. She also made the other crown, a slightly smaller one to put on the head of the bride. My cousins made long pleated garlands, which hung from the walls and up to this crown, with fairy lights and also white cloth ribbons which in fact is the kind of weave you use to protect your plants from cold nights. Handy and inexpensive! And soooo beautiful. The crown hung over the tables in the old barn where we had the party.

(I have not yet quite mastered all the functions of my camera so the photo is not very good but I hope you get the feeling of it.)

New camera!

2007-07-12T12:42:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: apa. Means monkey.

My prescence here on the blog has been no less than a disaster lately - partly because I have been busy with Real Life and partly because of our lousy camera. It is just no fun blogging about food if the photos of the lovely concoction you just made looks like a blur.

But this Saturday I took the car and drove to a shopping center and bought a camera. Yay! I have however not cooked anything really this week so my motifs has been our lovely little nephew G and the lemur monkeys at Skansen. This photo is however a little food related, because the leumur seemed to want to have my friend´s cell phone for lunch.

Friend: give-it-back
Lemur: ooooh, yum yum. Gnaw gnaw gnaw, tug tug tug.

Well, I am off to prepare for the weekend. This Saturday my cousin is getting married up north and I have to get packing and rent a car because it doesn´t seem as my man can go with me; he is ill, and I don´t want to drive our own car alone - it has started to jump as a lemur on the road again. I will resume taking food photos this evening!

Sweets from Germany!

2007-06-20T21:11:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: Tyskland. Means Germany.
Ooooh, sorry sorry sorry for dragging so much behind posting about this. Too much weddings! Anyway. Of course I participated in the 7th round of EBBP, Euro Blogging By Post, hosted by the passionate cook Johanna, and here is what turned up in my mailbox a week or so ago. Süßigkeiten from Florian of Küchenkrieg - all the way from Hamburg, Germany!

I got all sorts of stuff - even ice cream! (unfrozen!) Oooh, I really have to get a new camera but the ice cream is the blurry thing in the middle in front of the Kinderegg, a regular treat for Swedish children too! You know - it is chocolate, a toy and a surprise! I also got other chocolates, biscuits, jelly, cherry lollies... oh, and some smurfs of which the daddy-smurf apparently is the best. I haven´t tried him yet! All the sweets came with a nice long letter explaining about everything, giving me a recipe for the jelly (thank you! My German is not what it should be. At all.) and a personal story behind each item.
Thank you so much Florian! If you want to know more about the EBBP round head over here to read!

Sister of the bride

2007-06-18T21:25:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: brud. Means bride.

Did you miss me? I have missed myself too! For a couple of weeks my whole mind (almost, I had to spare some space for my exam in law) has been occupied with this gorgeous girl, my dearest sister Helena, and her wedding.

Our flat is a mess, I have barely cooked anything in weeks and the intray is out of control but what does it matter when you get to share such a magic day with all your family and relatives? We also got to tie two families together in more than one way. Not only did these two marry each other but we all got to know each other while preparing for the party. We worked all night on Friday laying tables, making flower arrangements and I prepared small sandwiches with creme fraiche, sundried tomatoes and basil. I also (beforehand!) made the wonderful biscotti with ginger, almonds and pink peppercorns from the passionate cook. A great success with the bubbly and strawberries when the bride and groom had arrived - her riding a large black horse and him walking by her side...

We celebrated all night, eating and dancing and singing, and the next day we had a do in my parents´garden with lunch and coffee with leftover wedding cake. Now I am a bit tired but it will be back to normal in a few days I guess. And our flat will be clean and proper again and we will plan our vacation and I will fill in all the boring forms for my part-time unemplyment. It will all feel better to do all this when I have nice memories like this wedding to think of!

And I will cook again, and blog - about sweets from Germany and LA, veggies, rhubarb and loads of other stuff. And in a month we will head off for another wedding!

P.S. Of course we had cheesecake for dessert! D.S.

Another Swedish cheesecake

2007-05-30T17:27:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: ost. Means cheese.

I have written before about Swedish cheesecake, different types and recipes. When we were up north last weekend we passed the absolutely stunningly beautiful landscape Hälsingland and layed our greedy hands on a large piece of cheesecake the Hälsingland way. Here it is, slightly warmed and served with a nice spoonful of cloudberry jam. We bought it at a regular food store in Järvsö, 30 kilometres north of the place where my mother grew up.

I won´t give you the recipe at the moment, I have never made it myself and those who knows things say that making Hälsingeostkaka is much harder than Smålandsostkaka. But since A is really pissed off that I just stole the last piece like this I guess I will have to start experimenting in the kitchen...
This cheesecake is more smooth than the Småland cheesecake, and a little bit chewy - like halloumi but not salty at all and not that solid. I guess (but have never tried) that you could try and slice it and fry in butter, cinnamon and sugar! Mmmmm.
Next time we´ll have Hälsingeostkaka is at my cousin´s wedding in July, and next time we´ll have Smålandsostkaka is at my sister´s wedding in just over two weeks!

Bolero

2007-05-24T11:34:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: trevlig. Means nice.
If you have plans on vacation in Stockholm I know a place where you can eat. Well, I know a lot of places but until now it has been quite hard to find something decent in the very heart of our beautiful capital. There are good places in the south, north, east and west - and Gamla Stan - but if you are hungry around Sergels torg there are mostly fast food restaurants and boring cafés.
Go to Café Bolero at Klarabergsgatan, right across the street from the large department store Åhléns. I was on my way to Burger King some Fridays ago with a severe dip of blood sugar after a shopping round (dress for my sister´s wedding) when I suddenly recalled the Swedish food blogger Alice Brax writing about some place in the city and turned on the heel to go there instead and wait for my equally low-blood-sweet boyfriend.
After a fantastic salad with beef, lettuce, olives and parmesan cheese for me and a grilled chicken sandwich for him we were both nice and sweet again, our wallets only slightly lighter (i.e. reasonable prices) and our bodies very relaxed after sitting on a soft couch listening to nice latino music.
Go there!

A thousand shades of green

2007-05-16T08:46:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: grön. Means green.

One of the reasons I love the month May is that the trees are so beautiful when the leaves starts to come. For a couple of weeks the forest you see from the train, the road or from our windows come in thousands of different green colours, from the lightest green birches to deep green pine and spruce. Here and there you also see clouds of flowering blackthorn towards the green. It is so beautiful, you cannot stop looking at it. During the summer all the trees are the same green, but then in September-October you get lots of different colours again.
I think of the trees when I look at my newest sewing project, the effect on this quilt reminds me of what I see outside the window right now.

A dear friend of mine got a baby boy in February, and since I liked sewing the quilt for little G I decided to make another one for this little L. This time I went for all fabrics green and nature-related since his father is an biologist and his mother works with environmental issues and I must say I am very pleased with the way it came out. The photo is terrible, we really have to get more pixels soon, so you may not be able to see all the frogs, grass, leaves, forests, farms and dragonflies....

I am looking forward to 4 days off now, due to Ascension day. This afternoon we will probably (if A gets a good deal at the hotel) set off for Sundsvall, a very beutiful town up north where we have a good friend to visit. This trip comes on rather short notice but while we still don´t have kids or any pets we can be spontaneous!
Have a good weekend, you too!

Free gourmet food

2007-05-10T16:25:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: gratis. Means free.

Farmers must be careful with money and every saved krona can be put somewhere else where it is more needed. A classic saying from my father is "Un-bought, that is the best thing there is!" When he finds something for free, or when he can fix something that is broken not having to replace it he smiles pleasantly and says it, with a certain glow to him.

As I am very much my father´s daughter, last weekend these little stingy darlings made me glow. Nettles, true gourmet food. Tasty, very good for you and best of all: they are free. Well, apart from a few drops of fuel for the car that is. We decided to go and pick a good bunch of them while they are still fresh and delicate, for freezing and using later on. The only downside is the stingy part of the business, even if I wear thick gloves I always seem to get burned somewhere, picking or preparing.

We used some of the nettles for soup and some for a frittata, and froze the rest in small bags for soups and pies later. Pick as many small, delicate, fresh nettles as you want and put them in a large bowl or the wash basin in the kitchen, with lots of cold water. Stir and work with your hands (they don´t burn in water if you are careful) very carefully so the sand sinks to the bottom. Pick out grass, leaves, bugs and woody stalks and scoop up the nettles into a large pan. Bring to the boil with water and let simmer for abot 15 minutes. Strain the nettles (save the stock for soup!) and pack into plastic bags or chop them and use for example in a...

Nettle frittata
Serves 4
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
olive oil for frying
about 100 grams parboiled nettles
150 ml grated cheese, I used some "ordinary" cheese and some parmesan
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
4 eggs

Put the oven on 200C. Fry the onion in the oil until soft and shiny. Add the chopped nettles and stir in. Whisk the eggs and add the onions and nettles, stir in the cheese and spice to taste with salt and pepper.
Grease a small ovenproof dish or line it with greaseproof paper. Pour in the egg batter and bake until settled, about 15-20 minutes. Serve hot, tepid or cold with for example smoked salmon.
Recipe from Swedish TV chef Maud Onnermark, originally with green kale but I have used both spinach and now nettles.

DBP: potato gratin with olives

2007-05-08T08:39:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: ugn. Means oven.

A. called this Saturday from work (Ericsson is busy these days, keep their employees busy all week round!) to tell me he was really really up for a potato gratin of some kind and I took out my mandoline for slicing the potatoes. (You really have to try and make the best of these last days of winter potatoes, don´t you? Soon you will find nothing but new potatoes in the shops here, and that is the way it should be, by the way.)
Anyway. Before I had the mandoline I was afraid of the knife for my food processor. Then I was afraid of the mandoline, but when I discovered how practical it is and that I really can use it without slicing myself open somewhere (knock on wood) I started to really loving it and now I am afraid of my new Tupperware onion chopper instead. It is this little round container with a rotating lid and a blade inside, so sharp that my hair just stands up when I see it. Ouch.

As I stood there slicing potatoes and carrots with my mandoline and contemplating different flavourings for the gratin I came to think of half a jar lemon-filled green olives in the fridge and said onion chopper. Hmm, I could finish those olives and practise on the chopper!

This gratin came out really, really tasty! I haven´t got a recipe but simply slice some winter potatoes and a carrot, and a small fresh yellow onion. Layer them in a greased dish with chopped green olives, salt and pepper. Pour over fluids of some kind to almost cover, I used milk and creme fraiche whipped together because that was what I had on hand - and bake on medium heat (175-200 C) until the potatoes and carrots are soft and with a nice colour. You can add some grated cheese on the top towards the end if you like to.
We had the gratin with seared fillet of beef, top Swedish well-hung quality, and a salad, on the balcony. Life is sweet sometimes if you try and embrace your very sharp kitchen tools. Now, I could imagine having one of those microplane graters to be afraid of next...

First salad dinner of 2007...

2007-05-05T15:57:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: kyckling. Means chicken.

I made this salad a couple of weeks ago when we had some friends over from the dancing group. It was one of the first really spring-like days and I felt like cooking something light, but still a little warming and filling.

The starter was served on the balcony: Anne´s very very tasty pitta chips with hoummos and feta cheese dip. I cheated and grated the cheese into a tub of ready hoummos, and mixed with some finely chopped red onion. I cannot recommend those chips enough! Very easy to make and super tasty. I spiced mine half with ancho chili powder and half with an Indian spice mix called Panch Phoran which I got from a friend and haven´t figured out how to use. For this it was perfect!

The recipe for the salad is from my trusted cooking guru Anna Bergenström and her book (written together with her daughter Fanny) Kärlek, oliver och timjan.

Bulgur salad with chicken and pine nuts
Serves 6-8

300 grams bulgur wheat
700 ml water + 1 tbsp olive oil
1 cube chicken stock
salt and pepper
4-5 tomatoes, cut in bite-size pieces
1 finely chopped red onion
1 large bunch rocket salad
1 small cucumber, diced
mint or basil (I used basil)
toasted pine nuts
Chicken: about three fried chicken fillets, 1-2 ready grilled. I used a bag of chicken legs which I simply cooked in the oven and cut in pieces.

Dressing:
zest + juice from 1.5 lemon
4-5 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Bring the water and olive oil to the boil and dissolve the chicken stock in it. Stir in the bulgur wheat, lower the heat and let simmer for 3 minutes. Stir a couple of times. Put aside with a lid on and let it sit on a wooden board for 10 minutes. Stir it up, mix the dressing and stir in. Let it cool.
Prepare the chicken as you like it, you can shred the meat or just leave the pieces whole.
Mix the bulgur wheat with veg and shredded meat, or put the meat on top. Arrange on a platter and put pine nuts over it.

I served a dressing on the side, from the same book. Very very tasty as well!

Yoghurt dressing
300 ml plain yoghurt
pinch of coarse salt, I use Maldon
black or shite pepper
1 tbsp vinegar, I used apple cider
1/2 tbsp runny honey
small pinch of herb salt
dried thyme or tarragon
1/2 pressed garlic clove

Finally, for dessert my trusted vanilla yoghurt panna cotta with blackberries. We finished the dinner in a very good mood, trying out Latvian and Estonian liqueurs and singing nasty Swedish folk songs. A nice start on the spring!

Beef for the oceans

2007-04-29T20:41:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: hav. Means sea.

Oh sorry sorry sorry again for my long silence, the weeks just fly right now with work, law studies, my sister´s hen party, gardening, having friends over... I have had to cut down on my computer time. But now I am up to speed again!
Today I am going to share with you a real gem from the Swedish culinary traditions, sjömansbiff. It means "the seaman´s beef" and the recipe is adapted for being cooked on a simple stove, beef and potatoes and sauce in the same pot.
Try it now, while we still have winter potatoes in the shops and we still have chilly evenings. .. The recipe is from my favourite TV Chef, Per Morberg and we have made it several times now. Always a success, and even better the next day. It is fine to make a double batch but the potato doesn´t freeze well so make sure you finish it in a few days - not that it is any problems with that... The cooking procedure is a little time-consuming but well worth the result. This recipe is good because you cook the meat and potatoes separately, in old recipes you cook it together which can yield very very mushy potatoes.

Swedish "Sjömansbiff"
Serves 4
600 grams tender beef, sliced in 0,5 cm thick slices
100 ml plain wheat flour
4 large yellow onions
8-10 large potatoes
800 ml good beef stock
400 ml beer, I use my trusted A le Coq from Estonia
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper

Put the flour on a plate and flip the beef slices in it. Brown the meat in a frying pan and transfer it to a pot together with the tomato paste. Peel and slice the potatoes in 1.5 cm slices, brown them in a frying pan and put in another pot. Finely slice the onions, fry until golden and put half of it with the meat and half with the potatoes. Spice with salt and pepper, a bayleaf each and pour over stock and beer in the two pots. Let the meat simmer for 1.5-2 hours until tender, and cook the potatoes during the last half hour so everything gets ready on the same time.
To serve, drain the potatoes and layer beef and potato in a serving pot and pour over the fluids from the meat cooking. Salted cucumbers is good to have with it, and a glass of beer.

Celebration dinner sandwich

2007-04-29T20:19:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: fira. Means celebrate.

This one I haven´t made myself but I have to show it anyway. I have told you before how good my man is at plating and decorating food, cakes and sandwiches. Myself I am a good cook and baker - but decorating? Nah. Sometimes I sprinkle something on the food but mostly I just present it as it is. And when I want a beautiful and tasty sandwich, for example when I wanted to celebrate my new job, now one month "old", I just turn to my dear A, with confidence.

On this one we have beetroot salad and meatballs on one side and eggs, prawns and prawn salad, lemon and dill on the other. Maybe it looks strange having this mix on one (it is large though) sandwich but it is really common here in Sweden and is called landgång. Hmm, don´t know the English word for it but it means the thing you walk on to get on a boat. (My dictionary says gangway but that sounds so crazy. I don´t trust my dictionary after the second cousin debâcle...)

DBP: lentil and roots pyttipanna

2007-04-10T19:20:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: linser. Means lentils.
DBP is a new kind of posting here at my cuisine - Devoured Before Picture. You know, sometimes you just forget taking that picture of your food, because you are very hungry or you just cannot find the camera or something else. Instead of skipping the post, I will call it DBP and so there. I am not that good at taking pictures anyway and this pyttipanna was not very photogenique. Good, though!
We are very reluctant at the moment to buying food and try to use up what we have in our fridge and cupboards, being creative. Today I accompanied four chicken legs from the freezer with this pyttipanna style lentils and root veg creation. Pyttipanna is a very Swedish dish where you fry finely diced cooked meat and boiled potatoes and the only similarity with this is really the diced rooties but I call it pyttipanna anyway since this too is a good way to use leftovers.

Lentils and roots pyttipanna
Serves 2-3
1 carrot
1 yellow onion
1 smallish piece each of celeriac and swede
2 parsnips
about 100 ml green lentils, washed
Butter or oil for frying, salt and pepper and herbes de provence or other herb you like

Finely dice the vegetables and fry on medium heat until shiny and a little soft in a pan with a lid. Add the lentils and boiling water just up to maybe 2-3 centimeters in the pan. Spice it up, cover with the lid and let it simmer until the lentils are just cooked through, check the water so it doesn´t dry up and burn. It should take about 20 minutes.
Serve as it is with just some grated parmesan on top or with leftover meat or fish. I was lucky to find some goat´s cheese in the fridge which went perfectly with this.

Easter and surprise lamb meatballs

2007-04-05T11:21:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: påsk. Means Easter.

Let me begin with an apoplogy for my sporadic appearance here on this blog, but right now my life in Real Life consumes most of my energy and time. I have had some rough months being unemployed and now when I have my new super life (my new job is SO wonderful) there are a lot of things to catch up with! Today for example I am doing laundry (OK, I have washed my clothes once in a while even before) and also cleaning in strange places. You know, those cupboards in the kitchen you dread to open because you a) won´t find what you are looking for anyway and b) something will inevitably fall out and smack you in your face. We have a couple of those! And I have decided that this Easter is going to be perfect. Lots of food, lots of feathers, lots of eggs, everything sparkling clean and sorted out (well, I have surrendered to our home office which is beoynd help) and lots of cooking.

In the picture is our Easter decoration in the kitchen, birch twigs with feathers and my cute little eggs and rabbits and whatnot. We got a little carried away when we were out walking in the forest last weekend and picked half the tree (of course we didn´t pick of a standing tree but one put down by someone) so this is big. And the leaves are coming!

We won´t have lamb on the Easter table so I decided to make something with lamb yesterday instead. These large meatballs are easy to pull off, very tasty and freezes well. Since A. won´t touch anything with garlic I now have some tasty lunches in the freezer! The recipe is one of my classics, I made it up some years ago and makes it once in a while.

Happy Easter!

Lamb meatballs with surprise inside

400 grams lamb mince
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 large egg
salt, pepper
(optional) 1 clove pressed garlic
200-300 ml ready tomato sauce, bought or home made.

50 grams feta cheese

Stir the mince with onion, the spice and egg to form a smooth batter. Cube the cheese. Rinse your hands in cold water and take a blob of the mince, flatten it out and put a feta cube in the middle. Wrap the mince around it to shape large meatballs or patties. Put them on a cutting board or plate rinsed in water. I got eight meatballs from this amount of mince.

Brown the meatballs in butter on all sides. When golden, pour over the tomato sauce, put a lid on the pan and let simmer for about ten minutes until cooked through. Serve with bulgur wheat, rice or pasta.

Kiwi and elderberry sorbet

2007-03-25T21:11:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: glass. Means ice cream

Recently I have played around with the thought of making ice cream, sorbet, semifreddo... Maybe it is the coming spring with promises of sun and warmth that inspires me, and also a longing for something light and fresh. Next time I go home to my parents´and bring the car I will ask to borrow mum´s ice cream maker but for now a bowl, a fork and a freezer will have to make do. And it does!

Last weekend after a more than hectic week I discovered a whole tub of kiwi fruits, hidden away in the kitchen AND a plastic bag with four new ones. That is what happens when you are not around keeping an eye on your loved one and his grocery shopping... Anyway, I immediately decided to use the kiwi galore for some kind of sorbet or ice cream.
I checked my trusted Bonniers kokbok for advice, then tweaked the recipe quite a bit. It said to use gelatine but kiwi and gelatine don´t like each other so that was out of the question. It also said to use sugar syrup but I had some concentrated elderberry cordial in the freezer and used that instead. In the end my kiwi and elderberry sorbet came out really well, beautifully green with the little black speckles from the seeds, fluffy and icy and refreshing. The elderflower and the kiwi turned out to be good mates, too. Next time I will perhabs use a little less elderflower because it was kind of dominating but then again I love elderflower and you could taste the kiwi too. Anyway, the recipe is so easy so you can try both!

Kiwi and elderberry sorbet
one small batch
3 ripe kiwi fruits
200 ml concentrated elderberry cordial or 100 ml sugar syrup* and 100 ml water

Peel the fruit and blitz it in a blender or with a hand held mixer to a smooth purée. Mix well with the cordial and pour into a freezer container with a lid. Put it in the freezer for a couple of hours, then take it out and fluff it up with a fork to get rid of the crystals. Put it back, let it stay for an hour more or so, take it out and fluff and etc. until it sets and becomes more smooth. Scoop it up, serve immediately and devour in no time, before it melts.

*the recipe said to boil 150 ml caster sugar and 100 ml water together until the sugar dissolves, and let it cool.

Waiter - there´s something in my... Easter Basket

2007-03-25T12:47:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: dag. Means day

Today is Waffle day, and also we put our watches one hour forward, to save daylight. It is tough to wake up, notice that the time is 8.30 on a Sunday morning, prepare to go back to sleep and then realise that it is in fact 9.30 instead so you really have to get up. But we made waffles for breakfast, for comfort. (The recipe is of course from Backstugan and you find it here.) And it is nice in the evenings when you get one hour extra sunlight!

Anyway. It is time again for "Waiter, there´s something in my...", this time hosted by Johanna with the theme Easter Basket. Two weeks to go to my favourite holiday! I really like Easter a little better than Christmas both because of the spring and the food. After writing this I am going to spring clean our place and put up some chickens and eggs for decorations. And after this coming week with its insane schedule of evening classes (even on my birthday, boohoo) and meetings I will also plan the food. Easter food tends to be lighter, with less meat and more fish. I want gravlax and smoked salmon, vegetable and/or fish paté with a cold sauce, perhabs lamb, spinach and asparagus, and naturally lots of herring and the most important thing: eggs. Both plain boiled eggs and egg halves which is my contribution to this event. When I set the buffet table for Easter I always include a large tray of egg halves with different fillings.
I like to make things up and use whatever I have in the cupboards so egg halves is the perfect starter in Easter times. Cold potatoes, caviar, smoked salmon or gravlax, shrimps, chives, anchovies, capers, dill... Only your imagination sets the limits.
These are a product of what could be found in our kitchen yesterday. From back to front:

Mayonnaise mixed with dill from the freezer and shrimps on top
Whipped cream mixed with Swedish caviar (try IKEA) and chives on top
Egg yolk mixed with chopped anchovies and chives and then put back in the eggwhites

I am so sorry about the blurry picture but something mysterious happened while uploading. Got to start working on my photos when things start to slow down...

Oink, oink

2007-03-17T00:10:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: gris. Means pig. And they say "Nöff nöff" here.

I am sitting here in the middle of the night after a very tough week, waiting for the oven thermometer to beep. And I wonder: what on earth possessed me when I volunteered to cook pork loin for 55 people?
The story goes like this. As you might know I am a keen folk dancer and spend Thursday evenings dancing, first training a children´s group and then dancing myself. Midsummer is a very traditional day for most Swedes, and then most Swedes like to see folkdancing, and hence we spend midsummer dressed in our traditional costumes, very warm clothes by the way, dancing and dancing in at least three different places. Of course we love it, but it is also totally exhausting!

And that is why we tomorrow will celebrate midsummer the proper way, in the proper clothes (brrr, it is still rather cold here), with a folk dancing group coming to perform for us (but hush, it is a secret) and above all the proper food - and this is where my pork loin gets into the picture. At midsummer, you barbecue. Of course you eat herring, but barbecuing is at least as important. And that is why I am cooking 8.5 kilos pork loin in my oven. I have brushed it with soy sauce and a little liquid smoke, hoping that it will get the authentic, slightly burnt, aroma. Then tomorrow I will slice it, put it on plates and brush it with a marinade I still have to make up, with - I plan - more smoke, oil and a little garlic. We will eat it authentically with potato salad, we have bought 12.5 kilos and then do our traditional frog-leaping dance around the pole - of course we have one of those as well. I will get back to you with a full report when I come to my senses again.

The photo is of me in the clothes I won´t have to wear for "midsummer" tomorrow.

Pasta with brussels sprouts and mustard

2007-03-12T15:03:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: brysselkål. Means brussels sprouts.

Oh joy. The sun is still shining, the sky is still blue and I have got a job. Oh yes, I already told you that... But I am really excited about it! It is "only" a part-time job for 6 months but it is my dream job, where I get to meet lots of interesting people and where I can use my creativity. I will, in short, be planning courses and seminars on different subjects for different people and the job also is here in my home town which is very nice, just a 15 minute walk from home. Yay! Of course I will miss working in Gamla stan, but Stockholm is just 30 kilometres away so I can go there whenever I like.

Well, enough on that subject. Today I will share one of my favourite recipes for pasta, with brussels sprouts, mustard and cream. I first found it in one of my oldest cookbooks: Kokboken Format by Malin Landqvist and Lotta Seipel, and has made it many times in different shapes. This time I used a new product which I got as a sample, Valio creme fraiche with a mix of mustard and lemon in the lid to stir in the creme fraiche. It was OK, but I found it a little too strong and maybe shouldn´t have put in all the spice mix. Or maybe I am simply not very much into this kind of convenience products, at least not when making it from scratch will take you just 2 minutes more... This is one of my quickest recipes, you make it while the pasta boils.

Pasta with brussels sprouts, mustard and cream
Serves 4

500 grams brussels sprouts, fresh or frozen
small knob of butter
half a yellow onion or 2-3 large schalott onions, finely shredded
200 ml whipping cream (I more often use cooking cream or creme fraiche)
2 tbsp french mustard

Boil the sprouts for 10 minutes or prepare them according to instructions on the bag. Drain in a colander. Meanwhile, sautée the onion in the butter and stir in the cream. Let it simmer for a while until a little reduced. Stir in the mustard and spice to taste with salt and pepper if needed. Add the sprouts and heat it all up, and serve immediately with pasta. I often add a few slices of crisp streaky bacon on top, too.

A quick note on happiness

2007-03-11T12:46:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: lycka. Means happiness.

Let me just tell you, that today we have sun, blue sky and a whopping 9 degrees above zero. All the snow is gone and I have got a job. And now I will head off to a tupperware party at Anne´s where I will, without doubt, be fed lots of wonderful things.

See you later!

Five things you didn´t know about me

2007-03-03T16:06:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: sak. Means thing.

Pille has tagged me for a meme and I happily accept since I am a wee bit uninspired these days and don´t post nearly as much as I should, or as I did when I worked full-time. I will try to come back soon to my old energy!

Anyway, the theme of the meme this time is Five things you didn´t know about me and I have thought a lot on what to reveal this time. I have actually taken part in a similar meme last year and then gave ten random facts. This is what I came up with now:

Cousin statistics: I have 15 cousins. 10 boys and 5 girls. 7 on my father´s side and 8 on my mother´s and I am the second oldest on both sides. 7 of them lives around here in the Stockholm area, 2 in Järvsö, 1 in Hammerdal, 1 in Uppsala, 1 in Linköping, 1 in Värnamo and 2 in heaven. I have 4 second cousins (kusinbarn). Update: apparently my dictionary was wrong about this. I have much more second cousins (sysslingar) than 4! What I meant was that my cousins´children all in all is 4. 3 girls and 1 boy!
I have had eye surgery twice as a little girl to correct a squinting eye but my mother claims that I still squint when I am tired.
I can hold a speech or be toastmaster for a large number of people without thinking twice but if you suggest us playing charades at a party I will go and hide somewhere or just plain refuse. I hate playing charades, and also board games where you have to sing, even though I am good at singing.
I love Monty Python. My favourites (some of them): Fish slapping dance, Penis song, The Pet Shop and everything when they are dressed like old ladies. Oooh, and the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects it.
I am a total sucker for accordeon music and also folk music, preferrably involving a tramping organ. When I really love a song, like "Tukkipoikka" with JP Nyströms (a group from the very north in Sweden which sings in both Swedish and Finnish) I play it over and over again and once made a friend of mine yell: "Oh please, just shut it off! It is so terrible!" And yes, I like music you actually heard of too, like R.E.M. and Ella Fitzgerald.

Waiter - there´s something in my...pie

2007-02-25T19:33:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: paj. Means pie, and is pronounced almost the same way!

After my last somewhat whiney posting I have decided to not complain any more. I have my friends and family and my health and above all there is so much food to cook. What more could you ask for in life? (ah, oh well. A job. I know I know, but surely it will be OK.) My main problem now is that I can feel a cold coming - but I will fight it! With, for example, this:

In this round of "Waiter, there´s something in my..." the theme is pies. And as hostess Jeanne told us, it should be a closed pie. Since closed pies are not at all common in Sweden and I felt a little insecure trying to make one (the cold makes me weak) I decided to interpret it the way Jeanne in fact encouraged us to: you should not be able to see the filling of the pie. Instead of closing the pie with a lid I went for a crumble, a savoury one. The filling is mince, and as you can see in the picture it is indeed invisible. And so is the crumble - apart from the chili speckles. Next time I make this crumble (and I will, it was so tasty) I will choose something else for filling - perhabs some mussels, or chicken.
Anyway. I found the crumble recipe in one of my favourite cookbooks, Manna, written by Karin Bille with recipes by chef Carola Magnusson. There it is used on a hot sandwich with mussels but I can think of dozens of other ways to use it too. The garlic and chili goes well with cold weather and a runny nose - but as I said: the mince filling is rather tasty but *not* pretty. Feel free to improvise!

Garlic and chili crumble
Enough for one small pie
60 grams cold butter, straight from the fridge
200 ml spelt wheat flour or wholewheat flour
half a fresh red chili pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
1 small clove garlic, pressed or finely chopped
a good pinch of sea salt

Put everything in a bowl and pinch it together with your fingers until it forms medium crumbs. You can also use a food processor. Put on top of the filling of your choice (for mine I fried 500 grams mince and 6-7 champignon mushrooms, and a small chopped yellow onion and seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper) and bake in the oven, 175C, for about 10 minutes.

Buy Swedish food online

2007-02-21T13:31:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: sol. Means sun
We have a bright sunny day here in my hometown, but it is -15 degrees outside so I hesitate to go out, even though I should. I woke up at 4 this morning feeling thirsty and couldn´t go back to sleep so this is a drowsy day. Anyway. I just found this, which I think might interest a few of my dear readers - an online shop for Swedish products like food, candy and gifts. The shop is called Hemlängtan which means longing home and you can buy herring, caviar (i.e. Swedish caviar which is pink and a little sweet-salty and comes in a metal tube) and reindeer soft cheese.

No Clivia, back to work now. I should:

Write job applications
Pay some bills
Go online and buy more books for the law course I am taking
Study the law books I have already got
Clean the floors
Finish the new baby quilt I am making
Fold and put away the laundry I made this morning
Go outside and get some fresh air

And I should not:

Drink coffee when I am in fact hungry
Read blogs all day
Wake up at 4 and not go back to sleep because my head starts rhyming songs for my sister´s wedding
Think that the phone will ring and someone will say: "Hello Clivia, I have a job for you. Do you want it?"

Well, better luck tomorrow!

My hero!

2007-02-16T10:02:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: skådespelare. Means actor.

This (picture borrowed from Titan, thank you) is Per Morberg, a well-known actor in Sweden. But did you know, my fellow Swedish readers, that he also has become a TV chef? No, I didn´t think so. They send it on the somewhat forgotten channel TV4+, Thursday evenings at 9. Go see, immediately! This is, I must say, one of the best cooking programmes I have ever seen. Forget about Tina Nordström and go for Per Morberg instead. Why this programme is not more well-known is a mystery to me, I myself discovered it by pure coincidence.

This is passionate cooking, in his own home, with the best produce he can find from local producers. Morberg is in fact a trained chef and has worked in some of the finest restaurants which shows in his cooking kills and his fantastic kitchen. Last week A. made a beef casserole from one of his recipes and it was totally melt-in-mouth delicious.

But what really makes me love this is his style. Hygiene? Nah. He keeps running his hands through his hair, dipping his fingers in (boiling hot) sauces and licking them, then putting the finger somewhere else in the food without washing first... I don´t cook that way myself but I think it is cool that he does in this hygiene-crazy country without apologizing.

The fire alarm goes off at least once in each programme so he has to stop cooking and fan over the alarm with a tea towel (which he uses for wiping his hands, his sweat, his pots...) He uses a high-pressure cleaner to peel the potatoes (yes, outside) and an electric saw for the lamb ribs. And he is very, very funny. Yesterday when I was watching he was making chicken curry and had to cut up some chicken. He stared earnestly into the camera and said, preacher-like: "When you deal with chicken you have to be really careful about hygiene." Next thing he was outside by the cutting-block with the chickens and an axe. Ha ha!

Update: As my dear reader Krakel Spektakel points out I also just have to admit that he is also, as you can see, a very very beautiful man. Yeah OK, he is hot. I am not even much into macho men, but this man - well. I confess. Oh la la!

So just watch this, will you? For you not living in Sweden you can watch clips and pictures here.

Salad with almond potatoes

2007-02-12T10:01:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: potatis. Means potato

At first I headlined this post "almond potato salad" but changed it, thinking about all those who might think it is a potato salad with almonds in it and then be disappointed since it is not. I can assure you, however, that this salad is indeed just thrown together in a hurry but certainly not a disappointment!

"Almond potatoes", mandelpotatis, is a kind of potato grown mostly in northern Sweden where they also take much pride in it. The name refers to the shape - rather small, oval potatoes. They have a lovely, clean and strong potato taste and are very floury so if you want to use them as they are you have to boil them with peel on. Substitute a kind of potato you like for its flavour if you want to try this salad.

I am currently unemployed after a re-organization (long story, but if you need a information´s specialist with a passion for food in the Stockholm area - here I am!) and decided to go to Stockholm this Friday meeting a friend. Just when I was about to leave A. called and dropped the fact that he would bring a dinner guest for the evening and could I come up with something really tasty? Gah. But I will never let a dinner on short notice defeat me, besides the guest is super nice and I looked forward to meeting him. I simply bought a bag of these fine potatoes and paired it with this and that from the fridge and kitchen cupboards. I also bought some well-hung steaks that went into the griddle pan and it all went down well!

Wintery potato salad

Serves 4

about 1000 grams good potatoes, boiled until just cooked through

some white and some green from a leek, finely shredded

a fistful of kalamata olives, pitted and halved

50 ml capers

Dressing:

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar or other mild vinegar

3 tbsp canola oil, I used 2 tbsp cold-pressed and 1 plain

1 tbsp dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cut the potatoes in nice chunks while still hot and pour over the dressing. Mix carefully with the other ingredients and serve immediately while it is still warm (it is of course just as tasty cold the day after) with steak or chicken for example.

Tuna salad with spelt wheat and miso dressing

2007-02-05T11:11:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: tonfisk. Means tuna.

I don´t care much for tuna since school lunch days when we were served salad with dry rice and dry tuna, like sawdust...yuk. It just grew in my mouth and I tried to wash it down with lots of dressing and milk...
Anyway, when Anne and I was out celebrating the elections result with a real foodie afternoon we found real good (expensive too) tuna in a shop. At least Anne claimed that this tuna was completely different from the one most common in the ordinary food stores, and I decided to give it a go. The "completely different" tuna was allowed to follow me home.

I tested a jar and found it acceptable, but the remaining two small tins stayed where they were until last Saturday when the tuna lover A. came home with a tin of tuna in sweet and sour sauce which I found rather suspicious. He wanted to have this tuna for dinner served with quinoa and this was the time I felt I had to take control of the situation. No way was I having sweet and sour tuna with quinoa on a Saturday evening! If I would eat tuna, it would have to be proper tuna. And not warm either. I decided to revive the tuna salad of my childhood and empty some space in my kitchen cabinets at the same time.

The result as seen in the picture was delicious, so delicious in fact so I will go back to that shop to get more tuna. Instead of rice I used whole spelt wheat from a large bag I have. I think that tuna can be too dominating, but the nutty, chewy wheat somehow balanced the taste and texture, making it the tuna salad I want to make again.

For the salad I simply mixed the boiled spelt wheat (you could use farro, bulgur or indeed quinoa) with some bits and pieces I found at home. Red onion, leek, yellow peppers, corn, green peas from the freezer...
I had some miso and rice vinegar standing in the fridge since ages ago and decided to try a miso dressing. The first search result I found, from About: Vegetarian cuisine sounded perfect though I adapted it a little after my lack of sesame oil and taste for more ginger. The dressing was perfect, rather strong-tasting and drizzled over the salad:

2 tbsp miso
4 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp tamari soy or other light, Japanese-style soy
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
Ground ginger to taste, I used about 1 tbsp and also some fresh, grated

In the picture is the suspicious tuna to the left, the completely different tuna to the right and the miso dressing in the middle.

Porridge for people on the move

2007-01-28T19:42:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: gröt. Means porridge.

An old tradition in Sweden is to bring porridge to people who just have moved to a new house. You don´t see it very often these days, but we in our family have always brought it to new neighbours and friends and I think it is a nice touch and an unpretentious way to make people feel welcome. Rice porridge is traditional for Christmas but we have it now and then during the year, for example sometimes when the harvest is done or when we have guests in the evening (my parents have their dinner at noon and eat lighter in the evening).

Last weekend A. and I was invited to my mother´s aunt and uncle, a lovely couple in their 80´s, for a lutfisk dinner, together with some other relatives living in the Stockholm area. (When I count my blessings this is one of them - even if my close family is far away I have lots of relatives from both my mother´s and father´s side living around here.)

Since they moved house in April and I haven´t got around to see them after that I wanted to bring a small gift but I ran out both of time and ideas. Then it struck me: porridge! I could bring porridge, but not ready porridge since the menu already was set for the evening. Said and done, I took a nice cellophane bag, filled it with porridge rice (round) and decorated it with a nice ribbon and a long cinnamon stick I bought in Copenhagen in December. Voilà! The beautiful wooden box and candleholder is made by my grandfather and my grandmother painted the horses.

Risgrynsgröt (Rice porridge)

Serves 4

150 ml round rice

300 ml water

pinch of salt

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp caster sugar

700 ml milk

a piece of whole cinnamon

Bring the rice to the boil with water, salt, butter and sugar in a pot with thick bottom. Not stainless because it will burn! Let simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes until the water is almost absorbed.

Pour in the milk, put in the cinnamon and stir. Let the porridge simmer on very low heat for 45 minutes, watch it so it doesn´t burn and stir carefully once in a while.

Serve with ground cinnamon, caster sugar, cold milk and I also like mine with a small knob of butter. Why, you have to celebrate a new home!

This year I dare...

2007-01-25T09:30:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: lova. Means promise.

I tend not to stick to my New year´s resolutions when they are boring, like "I will start jogging", or "I will not throw my clothes on the floor", but foodie resolutions are something else! Therefore I will present some foodie resolutions for 2007 like for instance Anne and Pille has done! Better late than never...

So - this year I dare....
1. I will make my own pasta
2. I will take a class in how to handle and cook fresh fish
3. I will make sausages from scratch (that will have to wait until Christmas)
4. I will make sourdough bread
5. I will make wine leaf dolmadas
Hmmm, I feel I have to make a sweet resolution too. Yes!
6. I will make pear preserves with ginger and lingonberries this autumn

Waiter, there´s peanuts in my stew

2007-01-22T20:24:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: jordnöt. Means peanut.

At the last minute I am participating in the brand new food blog event "Waiter, there´s something in my..." which will be held every month with a new theme. For January it is stews, very convenient for this - at last! - winter weather. We have -5 and loads of snow!

I decided to turn to my cookbooks and find something completely new, something to warm me up. In Astrids kök by Astrid Nilson, one of my favourite cookbooks, I found a recipe for an "African" stew which caught my eye. Apparently the lady who gave her the recipe comes from Gambia, so it might be Gambian then. Anyway.

The recipe called for peanut butter, something I never have in the house, but I had some peanuts and remembered reading about making your own nut butter at Chocolate and Zucchini and used that method. You simply blitz the peanuts in your blender for some minutes (be patient!) and suddenly oil comes out from the nuts, binding it all together and making butter out of itself. Fascinating! I used 200 grams of unsalted peanuts (I wanted to salt it myself) and used half of it for the stew.

The stew was, I think, amazing. A real keeper! The peanut taste works really well with the meat and tomatoes, it is simple to make and satisfying to eat. Comfort food at its best!

Elizabeth´s African stew
500-600 gram beef, I used some well-hung brisket
2 medium yellow onions (I used one red I had on hand and it was fine)
1-2 cloves of garlic
oil for frying
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tin crushed tomatoes, 400 grams
1 tsp salt
pinch of white pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 cube meat stock
200 ml water
2 large carrots
about 150 ml peanut butter

Cut the meat in cubes with 2 cm side. Peel and chop the onions and garlic.
Brown the meat in a pot, and add the onions after a little while. Fry until a little soft. Add tomato paste, crushed tomato, bring to the boil and add the spices, stock and water. Turn down the heat and let it simmer for 40-45 minutes under a lid. Never mind that it is a little runny, the peanut butter will thicken it perfectly later!
Peel the carrots and cut them in nice chunks. Put them in the pot together with the peanut butter and let it simmer without lid for about 30 minutes. Check that the meat is tender, spice to taste if needed and serve with bulgur or couscous.

Beetroot bread

2007-01-10T22:03:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: rosa. Means pink.

I have been lazy with my blogging but I will get back to it now. One of the many things I haven´t written about yet is the beetroot bread I made for the dissertation party in December. My task was to make bread for 80 people and I decided early to make the kind where you put many smaller buns together and when they rise and bake they stick to each other. I figured it would look almost like a molecule and since my friend´s dissertation was in chemistry that would be perfect. I also thought it would be cool to colour some of the bread with beetroot, so I did.

Why I didn´t take a photo of the "break-bread" I don´t remember but I also made a very large pleated bread where you hopefully can see the different colours. All the bread was devoured almost immediately by the guests and was just, just enough... eeek. But no one was hungry after that party.

The recipe is from a basic cookbook, Bonniers kokbok which I got from my aunt some years ago. At first I didn´t think I needed it but as it turned out it is our absolute favourite. I doubled the recipe and added sunflower seeds and grated beetroot in one of the two batches. The recipe called for wheat flour but I used rågsikt which is a mix of wheat and fine rye.

Beetroot bread
50 rolls
100 grams fresh yeast
1200 ml tepid water (37C)
100 ml oil
1.5 tbsp salt
400-600 ml sunflower seeds
2000 grams wheat flour
2 large beetroots, finely grated

Dissolve the yeast in some of the water, then add the rest of the water and the oil. Add salt, sunflower seeds and the greated beetroot, then almost all the flour (save 200-300 ml for the finish). Work the dough on a floured surface until smooth, this will give you plenty of arm muscle exercise since the dough is rather large and heavy. You can also use a machine if you have one.
Put the dough in a large bowl, cover with a kitchen cloth and let it rise for 45 minutes.
Shape 50 round rolls of the dough and let them rise again under a cloth on the baking sheet for another 30 minutes. If you want a large "breaking bread" you put them close to each other so they stick together.

Bake in very hot oven (250C) in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes or until the rolls are nice and golden brown. But mostly they will be pink on the outside (bot sorry, not on the inside.)

Fresh cheese

2007-01-10T22:02:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: ost. Means cheese.

I really have to make a recipe index now, after over a year, but don´t know where to begin really. (Anybody have some advice? Can you use the new blogger in some way? Heeelp.)
I think I have published a recipe for fresh cheese somewhere but I don´t know where and now I have a good picture of it so... This batch was consumed on the dissertation party in December.

If any of you, my dear readers, would come and have dinner here in my cuisine, the possibility of me serving home made fresh cheese is very high. It is easy, you can flavour it in approx. 1 billion ways, you know exactly what is in it and above all it is goood. I usually use mild yoghurt or Swedish fil, and sometimes I put in some creme fraiche as well. My favourite flavourings are chives and horse radish but walnuts and grilled peppers are good too. Not to mention a mix of black, white and pink crushed pepper. You can serve it with crackers, at a buffet or as I often do instead of "ordinary" butter and cheese for good home made bread.
Anyway, here comes the recipe. Again?

Fresh cheese
Serves 6-8 people depending on how you serve it. The cheese keeps for a couple of days in the fridge.

1000 ml yoghurt or fil
if you like 200 ml creme fraiche
salt
a good handful of snipped chives or other fresh herbs, or chopped walnuts, or...

Combine the yoghurt and creme fraiche in a pot and heat it up. Just when it starts to split take it from the heat and drain it in a coffee filter for a couple of hours. (You can use the whey for baking bread later if you like.) Season and serve. Voilá!

Crafty Clivia again: bags

2007-01-08T22:25:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedsh word: väska. Means bag.

Oh yes, my sewing frenzy continues and my man is cooking. Today something electrical in our oven burned so now we will probably have to buy a new stove. Woohoo. (I mean, what a shame. So expensive!)

I made these bags for two little girls I know. The oldest, aged six, knew exactly how she liked hers and even draw a picture of it. Brown, with purple handles and a gold pocket, and then she drew something curly that I have interpreted as lace. The younger, aged four, said that she wanted a red bag. A little more room for improvisations there...

The brown bag is made of velvet, brown and deep purple, and it is lined with a flowery cotton fabric in brown. I made a gold pocket and after a little pondering also decided to add the small beads because the bag looked so "grown up", not as something for a little girl. The red one is made of simple cotton fabric, with a "pouch" pocket and handles in a red fabric I hade left after the quilt. It is lined in bright yellow and I found a lovely "flower" ribbon to decorate it even more. Oh, what a lousy picture this is but the light was hopeless!

I had so much fun making these and hope that their new owners will like them too!

Why I am so silent

2007-01-07T15:44:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish words: sy. Means sew. Tyg. Means fabric. Lapptäcke. Means quilt.

I feel a little silent on this blog at the moment and here you see why. I have been off work for almost three weeks which in turn has given me lots of time for hobbies. And this year it was not my hobby cooking that "won", instead I have spent quite a few days in a sewing frenzy... So today is "Crafty Clivia" and not Cooking Clivia" writing...

I have wanted to try and sew a quilt for years but as a person I am a little impatient so the ordinary patterns didn´t suit me. An attempt to make a quilt out of 2 gazillions tiny fabric squares ended up in an ugly pillow in 2005 and there I was when I learned that my sister-in-law expected a baby. "Sorry little one, I thought. No quilt for you, I will never succeed".

But then I stumbled upon a technique called "stack and slash" and suddenly I saw the light. No counting, no fiddling, quick and easy. You just take six different fabrics, cut them in 30x30 cm squares, pile them on top of each other, cut them off in exactly the same line on all six, mix them and sew back together. Then you pile, cut in another angle, mix and sew again and again until you are satisfied. I made all the squares almost ready in one evening and then all I had to do was finding a good fabric to "bind" it all together, quilt it and here it is! I think it is beautiful, even though the quilt is a little bubbly in the middle. Well, they can cover it up with the baby boy. The photo is a little blurry but I chose fabric in bright, happy colours with frogs and cherries and teddy bears and bubbles on, and the "base" fabric is dark grey with a curly pattern in lighter grey.

So now you know what I have been doing instead of cooking. I am making bags now, but hopefully I will get back to more cooking soon! Combined with a lot of sewing, because it is so much fun and because I really have a lot of fabric to use!

Tasty new year!

2007-01-05T21:40:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: ny. Means new

The picture is from last year but this year looked exactly the same (no snow though). We have the most fantastic view from our balcony and stood there for about 30 minutes sipping champagne and not freezing because of global warming. (When will we get snow? When?)
Anyway. Here is our New year menu, with rapsodic recipes...

Lobster baked with mushrooms
(cut the lobster in halves and put on a stew with fried yellow chanterelles, onion, white wine, dijon mustard and a little cream and herbs. Top with strong grated cheese and bake in hot oven

Beef, sauce and potato gratin
(Not very inventive, but tasty. We got a whole piece of beef, about 1 kilo, browned it in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper and put it in the oven om low heat, just 125C until the inner temperature reached 65C. Let it rest in tin foil and make a good sauce from the juices. More cream and a dash of worcestershire sauce. Served with a plain potato gratin)

Spiced pineapple with ice cream
Press the juice from an orange and heat up with some tbsp muscovado sugar, some tbasp rhum, two star anise and a vanilla pod. Dissolve the sugar, then put aside. Peel, core and slice a pineapple, sprinkle over a little brown sugar and fry in butter until golden brown. Pour over the spiced orange/sugar mix and let simmer for a couple of minutes, then serve with a good vanilla icecream.

Red cabbage salad

2007-01-04T10:27:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: lat. Means lazy.
... not that I am lazy in any way. Yesterday I sorted out my wardrobes and today I am doing laundry big time (after wardrobe-cleaning I texted some friends complaining that I don´t have anything to wear. As it turned out all the goodies was in laundry basket) and I am sewing a quilt for our new nephew and I have to clean the cabinet under the sink and then I have some books to read and - last but not least - I have to get going with my blogging which has been a little slow these past weeks. So I will fill my remaining four free days! It is just so lovely to feel that you can do whatever you like, when you like to.

Today I will share a super tasty, quick and easy recipe for red cabbage salad. Red cabbage is always on the Christmas table in our home but this is a fresh and new take I think. From being one that only takes a mouthful of the red cabbage I turned into one that took both second and third helpings... The recipe is from the programme Gokväll, Good evening.

Red cabbage salad with oranges and walnuts
Serves 10 but the recipe can easily be halved.

0.5 head red cabbage, about 750 grams
1-2 tbsp vinegar, I used apple cider vinegar
2-3 oranges
small handful of walnuts

Dressing:
1 tbsp vinegar
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
3 tbsp neutral oil
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Put a large pot of water on the stove and bring to the boil. Finely shred the cabbage and put in the boiling water together with the vinegar. And why vinegar? Well, it prevents the cabbage from turning blue! Bring to the boil again and drain the cabbage very carefully in a colander. You don´t want it wet! This procedure makes the cabbage milder, but still crunchy.
Peel the oranges with a sharp knife and cut out wedges over a bowl to catch all the juices. Cut the wedges in smaller pieces. Put aside.
Chop the walnuts and put aside.
Mix vinegar and mustard and then add the oil while stirring vividly. Spice to taste and pour the dressing and the orange juice over the cabbage in a nice bowl. Let it sit for a little while before serving. Stir in the oranges and walnuts just before serving, or they will turn purple as well. The salad keeps well for a couple of days in the fridge but you might want to add more fresh oranges.

Happy belated Christmas

2006-12-27T22:11:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: helg. Means holiday like Christmas, Easter etc. but also like in weekend

Oooops, unexpected hiatus there but blogger refused to work on the computer at my parents´ house. I have had a wonderful, calm Christmas with my parents, sister and brother and various cats and cows, as usual. We go for a very calm Christmas in my family, it is just us for Christmas lunch (and my mother´s food really is the best) and in the evening my aunts with families and my grandmother comes for coffee and my mother´s cakes and cookies (which also are the best by the way). In late evening we go to church, like almost everyone else in the little village. I am not very religious, but singing the old hymns and listening to the Bible verses on Christmas is really special for me.

On Christmas day my man and my sister´s fiancé arrived and we have spent the days since almost constantly eating our way through the fridge. Now I am back in our flat and our kitchen and am looking forward to being off work for another 12 days which will give me more than enough time to make up for my lack of posting these past weeks, for example about wonderful salads and green cabbage frittatas and the huge pile of Italian delicacies I got from my sister and brother for Christmas...

Christmas BBM

2006-12-18T21:20:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: paket. Means parcel, or package.

Finally it is getting colder here so I just enjoyed a large cup of warm apple juice spiced up with some of the contents in my wonderful BBM package which arrived a couple of days ago. The kind sender is Libbycookie over at Curiosity Cabinet, located in Los Angeles. Funnily enough my own BBM package ended up in California...

Anyway, this round´s theme is Holiday and Libby kindly provided me with my very own Christmas stocking with my name on it filled with various goodies:

A beautiful box of spices for mulled wine or cider, tried today and it was superb with a hint of citrus, anise, cinnamon and lots of other things
Chocolate coins and peppermint bark, went down well here...
A bag of holiday-shaped pasta
A bag of "Peppermint Patty Candy Cane Cocoa" which I will enjoy after a long day in the snow (when it finally comes)
A cute set of small cookie cutters - this was really a hit since I like baking with and for children!
Last but not least a nice card telling me all about her family´s traditions and the recipe for Pecan Crescents which her family makes every year. I also got a paper house to decorate according to my own taste with stickers.

Now let´s see what Santa puts in my fluffy stocking on Sunday! Until then I can enjoy all these gifts from yet another friendly swapping partner. As I have said before - BBM is addictive!

Thank you so so much for all this Libby, and thank you Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness who is our secret Santa organiser this time! You can read her round-up here... And sorry about the somewhat blurry picture...

Fresh Christmas yeast

2006-12-18T16:01:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: jäst Means yeast. The Swedish word gäst, which is pronounced exactly the same - like yes with a t in the end - means guest. Isn´t that neat? You use jäst when you expect gäster (guests).

I found these on the shelf when I shopped for some Christmas baking, fresh yeast in holiday packing. This is for sweet baking, with "extra power" but I have learned from several articles, experts etc. that it is really not necessary to use a special yeast for sweet things. I can understand that, I have never had problems with plain yeast during the long dark years before the sweet yeast introduction.
Despite my knowledge I couldn´t resist buying these because of the merry feeling they give me. God Jul means Merry Christmas, and there are tiny little lussekatts on them too. Cute!

Here fresh yeast really is widely available so I was surprised at first when I read food blogs and realised that in quite a few countries it is rather hard to get hold of, and people think it is hard to use it (on the other hand we don´t have a very good bakery tradition here so if you want good bread without paying a fortune then you will have to get baking yourself). Anyway. I use it for most of my baking (though I always keep a few bags of dried yeast in my baking cabinet, for back-up).

As it turned out I haven´t used them - I almost did yesterday for making lussekatter for my sister-in-law who just had a baby (yay! We have a new little boy in our lives!) but then we were out of saffron and out of time so instead she got these delicious muffins which are much more fast to make, and I had all ingredients in the house. You can read about lussekatter here instead...

Finally, the Menu for hope III campaign is still running, until december 22nd, and you still have the opportunity to buy raffle tickets for winning my wonderful Swedish candy collection with prize code EU20, or something else. I have bought three tickets myself today and can assure you it is very easy, safe, and above all it feels good to spend money on something that really matters this time of year when you just shop shop shop ´til you drop.

Win Swedish candy!

2006-12-15T23:19:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: godis. Means candy, or sweets.

Sweets are of course good for you but these sweets are also good for others, if you donate some money to get raffle tickets to win it!
I am talking about Menu for hope III, an event among foodbloggers around the world to raise money for UN World Food Programme. The idea is quite simply that we donate different food related prizes and people buy raffle tickets for $10 each and specify which prize is most wanted. Read all about it and see all prizes here, or here for the European prizes, and donate here. My prize code is EU20.

And now I will tell you all about my donated prize, to tempt you into donating some of your hard-earned money for a good cause.
The lucky winner gets ten different very Swedish sweets which I have found are very much appreciated when I send them in BBM parcels and such like. There is of course Daim, our famous chocolate-covered crunchy caramel bar with almonds, the wonderful taste of it makes you speechless for quite some time (the teeth gets stuck, but it is worth it). Then there is a bag of chewy "cars"with fruit flavours, crunchy coloured chocolate "non Stops", a bar of my favourite Marabou chocolate with orange crunch, wonderful Kexchoklad (thin wafers and chocolate, a real classic), old fashioned violet tablets and of course our famous salty licorice (one bag, one small box). Oooh, and I throw in some "tyres" for the "cars" as well.

We all spend a lot of money this time of year which is totally OK, but this time of year is also suitable for thinking of and caring for not-so-fortunate people.
What are you waiting for? Everyone loves sweets, come on! Or find another pize you like. The donations has already beaten last year´s result of $17 000, let´s make it much much more!

Menu for Hope - a first note...

2006-12-12T09:50:00.000+01:00

Just a quick posting today, our computer at home broke down yesterday and I don´t want to blog too much from work...

Let me just announce that I have donated a prize for Menu For Hope III, a selection of Swedish candy. For more instructions on how to buy tickets visit David Lebovitz, the European host for the event. Scroll down to see my prize (code EU20). You can also check out the main information page at Chez Pim to learn more and see ALL prizes. There are lots of generous people out there!

I will get back and write about all this properly when the computer at home feels well again. Until then check out all the different prizes and donate, donate, donate! The money goes to United Nations World Food Programme.

... and counting

2006-12-07T09:28:00.000+01:00

Today`s Swedish word: raket. Means rocket.

This time of year the main topic in Swedish media usually is the Nobel Prize ceremony which takes place on Sunday. Well, not this year. In less than 24 hours, if the weather permits, we will have The First Swede In Space and that is almost the only thing you read about in the papers. (Well, there are also some articles about the popular docu-soap "Farmer seeks wife" which already has resulted in one wedding.)

Our Swedish astronaut is called Christer Fuglesang and he has waited 14 years for this - good luck Christer! I hope you will be back in time for Christmas, safe and sound and well-traveled. And here he is in full gear, photo credit Nasa, which also provides us with this special page about the expedition. By the way, I read somewhere that a really famous American chef is in charge of the astronauts´ food during the trip. Cannot remember her name and is really curious about it all so I will have to go googling a little... Or can anyone enlighten us all?

And me? Well, I am allowed to travel a little as well. Tomorrow I am off to Lund, a lovely university town in the very south of Sweden where I spent four happy years studying and where I also learned how to cook for myself. I will meet old friends, perhabs go to Copenhagen and on Sunday I will make gingerbread, pepparkakor before I go home again! See you all next week.

Salty chocolate

2006-12-06T09:42:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: chokladkaka. Means chocolate bar.

Just a quick note about a new favourite, found at the Stockholm food fair a couple of weeks ago. Salty chocolate! I have tasted some things with the sweet and salty combination before, but this is the best so far. We were walking around, Anne and me, sampling different foods, trying mandolines, shopping Tupperware, nagging coffee machine vendors to give us free espresso. And so we found the chocolate. Five or six different kinds of chocolate - with chili, coffee beans, pink peppercorns, ginger... All very delicious, but this was the one we both really fell for. Dark, dark chocolate with rather large sea salt crystals. The brand is C. Henriet but I am sure there are plenty of other brands too. Just try it, it is so good!

In the beginning was Chaos

2006-12-04T15:35:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: röra. Means mess.

I have told you before about my friend M´s dissertation party and here is a short note - recipes to come but I am still in need of some extra sleep...
This is how our kitchen looked this Thursday morning when I was in full party-preparing frenzy. From the left: tapenade in my food processor, I made eight times the normal batch and fiddled for an hour peeling garlic cloves (you see a mountain of garlic peel to the far right), counting sardelles and scooping capers. Luckily I had cored the olives the night before! But when you have everything prepared it is easy to whizz it together.

And then we have fresh cheese in the making in the cloth thingy hanging over the pot in the sink, and dishes dishes dishes... But everything went very well except my second batch of fresh cheese didn´t drain properly so no horse radish cheese on the buffet this time, just chives... I also made red pesto and bread.

Anyway, the dissertation went very well and actually I understood quite a lot of it (except when M and the opponent spent 30 minutes scribbling chemical reactions on the whiteboard). She has done successful research on a certain step in the process for creating artificial photosynthesis and has hence contributed to solving the world´s energy problems. Bravo! Above all she is a great person and a dear friend and I am so glad I could be a part of her great day. And evening. And night. Yaaawn.

Dear Santa

2006-12-03T20:51:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: gryta. Means casserole/pot

Dear Santa,

Please bring me a very, very large bowl this year, so I won´t have to use my second largest pot (the largest was occupied by the fresh cheese - more on that another day) for raising the dough next time I am baking beetroot bread for 50 people. To the right you see my up til now largest bowl, with rye/wheat/sunflower seeds bread for 50 people. I need one slightly larger for future projects.

I have been a very good girl this year.

Love, Clivia

Fish with orange, chili and saffron

2006-11-28T21:13:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: apelsin. Means orange.

Oh dear, what a lousy picture! But I can assure you that this is the best I have cooked in weeks (now, I haven´t cooked very much but you get the picture). Yum, yum, yum.

The November weather this year is extremely warm, and very gloomy. It is dark when I get up and it is dark when I leave work, and it makes me soooo tired. So I thought, "I want to cook something sunny, something fresh and healthy, something that makes me happy. And I want to eat more fish! More fish to the people!"

This is what my thoughts led to, and a very gloomy Monday evening suddenly felt at least a tad sunny! The taste from the orange and saffron blended perfectly with the fish, and in the background a nice little heat from the chilli.

Sunny fish casserole

Serves 4-6

500 grams fish, I used coalfish (sej) but salmon would be nice too, in large chunks

1 yellow or schalott onion, finely sliced. A clove of garlic maybe? (I cannot use it when A eats)

1 carrot, sliced thinly lengthways

1 fresh red chilli, finely sliced

1 packet of crushed tomato

1 orange, preferrably organic since you will use the peel as well

a tiny pinch of saffron

salt and pepper

Fry the onions in a little oil until soft and shiny. Then add in the carrot and chilli and cook for just a minute. Add the tomato and the zest from half the orange, season with salt and pepper and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Squeeze half the orange and add the juice to the tomato. Stir in just a tiny pinch of saffron, you don´t want it to be overwhelming! Stir in the fish and let everything simmer for a couple of minutes until the fish is cooked. Spice to taste with salt and pepper if needed and maybe a little more orange juice. Serve with rice and the remaining orange.

Must is a must!

2006-11-26T20:17:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: flaska. Means bottle.

We have passed the magic date and it is now less than a month before Christmas! Since I am helping a good friend with her party-for-82-people-after-defending-a-doctoral-thesis-in-chemistry (and boy, will we celebrate!) next Friday I don´t have time to even think about Christmas food, yet. But I can at least buy a bottle of Julmust now and then, to refresh myself in between baking, planning, thinking... for that party. I am not alone in charge, thank God for that, but today I baked 100 of Johanna´s lovely Pink peppercorn and ginger cantuccini. Beside them I will bring the following to Uppsala very early on Friday morning:

Bread
Red pesto
Tapenade
Hoummos
Dried fruit, roughly chopped, to put on top of Brie cheeses
Party clothes, comfy shoes, toothbrush and my very best mood

The thesis-defending (it could be called disputation like in Swedish?) will start 9.00 and continue until 12.00. I don´t think I will understand very much but will give moral support! After that, me and a whole army of friends and family will get to the restaurant where the party will take place and get on cooking the last things for the buffet table, like Anne´s chocolate pots which will be served with a small citrus salad which I still have to invent, and a bulgur salad, and we will have trays of different meats, veg, pies etc. provided by deli counters, other friends and the Doctor-to-be´s Mum. 18.30 the party starts and we will continue eating, dancing and whooping until 2.00 at night. So there. I think I know what I am doing the upcoming days - resting and cooking...

New kitchen toy

2006-11-20T21:12:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: vass. Means sharp.

This is my newest kitchen toy, a ceramic mandoline! I went to the Stockholm Food Fair last Friday with this in mind: I should do something about our lousy knives. I wanted something sharp, really sharp. And I got it. The problem is that it is a little too sharp. I am a little afraid of it! And I haven´t used it for anything other than trying to slice an overripe tomato, showing my dear man that this wasn´t a waste of money (actually it wasn´t very expensive). Well, this was no good for overripe tomatoes but I am sure I will use it for lots of other a little more stabile things, like potatoes and cucumbers and carrots and cabbage... I just have to feel like cooking again, which I don´t, at the moment. At the moment A is the one who cooks, and I do the dishes with sideway glances at my sharp little friend who hangs there on the wall just waiting!

I sure know this is a versatile tool. Cream Puff´s mandoline can even speak for himself! But I need more encouragement. How do you use your mandolines, those of you who owns one? And no "Oh, I once cut off half my finger"-stories, please... *gasp*

And as I said, my desire to cook is luring just behind the corner and will be back soon. I have been to restaurants, I have BBM parcels to put together, I will participate in Menu for Hope, I will cook for a friend who defends her doctoral thesis in chemistry (party afterwards!) and above all Christmas is coming up in just four weeks. So stay tuned!

Peace in Gamla stan

2006-11-13T12:59:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: spegel. Means mirror.

You know how you sometimes just cannot go to sleep? Random thoughts keeps popping up in your head, your PJ´s gets twisted around your back and your legs and suddenly you feel hungry. That happened this past night and I lay awake between midnight and about 3.00. Sigh. With a heavy head and very heavy eye-lids I decided to treat myself to a bagel and good coffee for lunch at Coffee Cup, a café chain up on Västerlånggatan here in Old Town which is quite good. Well, on my way there I stumbled upon a new place called Spegeln (see above) and was lured inside because it looked so nice.
And oh, that was lucky! A parma ham focaccia, a salad and a good strong cappucino later I feel (almost) refreshed from my bad night. Focaccias in this town tends to be rather pricey and not so exciting, but this one (for 60 SEK) came with a fresh salad and was filled with lots of ham, lots of sundried tomato and basil and a lovely cheese. And above all, it was presented to me very nicely cut in smaller pieces which allowed me to hold a very good book in one hand and with the other pick up the sandwich bite by bite. When I told the owner how pleased I was with his design he said that he always cut the focaccia like that for girls because they like to nibble! Isn´t that sweet?

And the place was very cozy with lots of mirrors, comfy chairs and sofas and nice corners where you can rest your tired head. And the staff was very friendly and attentive. Go there if you want some peace in Gamla stan!

Old Town Spegeln, Västerlånggatan 34, Gamla Stan, Stockholm

And sorry, but my life is a bit hectic right now so I don´t think I will have much time to update in the coming days...

Clay pot chicken

2006-11-05T12:00:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: kyckling. Means chicken.

*Clattering teeth*
My man is on his way to wander round a lake with a friend but I am sooo happy to stay indoors today. It is damp, it is gloomy and just a few degrees above zero. I just got dressed to go down to the library but realised that it is closed today since it is the All Saints weekend. So I am staying here baking, cooking and sewing (oh yes, I am trapped by the crafts devil, happens every year by this time). This photo though was taken this Friday when the weather was absolutely fantastic. I think it looks rather cool with both autumn leaves and snow on the same time. Now the leaves are gone...

Yesterday we invited my in-laws for a simple Saturday dinner and I decided it was time to once again de-dust the clay pot, or romtopf as the Germans call it. I had bought some large chicken legs and also the fridge was full of lovely root veg after a trip to an organic farm last weekend. I leafed through a cookbook or two and found a recipe from my ever-present cooking guru Anna Bergenström which I tweaked a little. This was lovely served with potatoes and a cold sauce made from creme fraiche with freshly grated horse radish. Clay pot cooking is really very practical and the chicken comes out juicy and tender.

Clay pot chicken

Soak the pot in water for at least 30 minutes

Chop up some vegetables in large pieces, I used about two carrots, half a swede, 1/4 root celery, two very small red onions and one large parsnip. I should have used kohlrabi as well but forgot! Put in the bottom of the pot and mix, don´t fill more than half of the pot so you have room for the chicken as well. Season with a little salt and pepper. If you don´t have a garlic allergic in the house add some garlic as well!

Cut the chicken legs (three in my case) in half, rub them with the juice from half a lemon, peel from half a lemon, pepper and salt and a pinch of dried oregano or thyme (I used my beloved Herbes de Provence). Put them on top of the root veggies, pour over a glug of white wine, put on the lid and then put it in cold (very important!) oven, programmed for 200C. When the oven reaches 200C start counting time, it will take about 45 minutes for the chicken to cook.

I like my chicken a bit brown and crisp so I took off the lid the last ten minutes or so and put on the grill mode. You can also brown the chicken before you put it in the pot.

Serve directly from the pot and forget about the cold outside.

Snow chaos!

2006-11-01T22:24:00.000+01:00

Oh, for God´s sake. Does it have to snow already? Just a short non-food posting today but I will give you several Swedish words.
Kallt, means cold. Blåsigt, means windy. Lidande, means suffering. Snöstorm, means snowstorm. Våt om fötterna, means wet feet. Vänta, means wait.

It started yesterday evening. A and I had been to a concert (Cesaria Evora, wonderful!) and entered the central station in Stockholm where approx. 100 people were standing in line in front of the information desk. We learned that all trains heading north of Gävle, a town about 200 km north of Stockholm, were cancelled and some trains were even standing on the railways in the middle of nowhere because it was not safe to continue in the increasing snowstorm.

I thought the worst was over, but when I came out in the street after work the snow hit my face so hard I just gasped! The commuter train was delayed, and we waited, and waited, and waited. Then we learned that the railway points (växlar) north of Stockholm were totally frozen, didn´t work at all. So the central station was even more chaotic this evening! It took two hours to get home, and that is only because A very kindly took the car to pick me up at the train station. All buses in my hometown were cancelled, the streets were simply too slippery, so we also took a passenger - a poor lady who had been on her way home from work for three hours. Normally it takes about 50 minutes!
I am so glad we decided to switch to winter tyres this weekend, or I would have had to walk all the way home. But now I am OK again after some champagne tea! Now let´s see how it works tomorrow. Life in public transport in Stockholm is so exciting!

Sausage stroganoff

2006-10-30T21:21:00.000+01:00

Today´s Swedish word: korv. Means sausage.

You cannot live in Sweden without encountering the famous sausage falukorv. It is a true classic, saviour of the hungry and stressed families, useful in many ways, you can eat it raw, fried, boiled, thai style, in the oven with apples. But this is the falukorv dish I love the most, korv stroganoff. And yes, I admit without blushing that actually this is on my top ten, even five, of absolute favourite dishes. There are people frowning upon falukorv, but I am not among them.

When I grew up, my mother´s korv stroganoff was a real treat, the kind of food you were very happy to see on the table (well, I liked almost everything she made, apart from black pudding and prune-stuffed pork). Now I make my own, maybe once a month, because I love it so much. Falukorv is a large sausage, bent in a circle, with a mild taste. Its origin is in the landscape Dalarna where there was a mine in Falun where they used oxes to run the carriages. Or was it when they made ropes from the leather they got so much meat they had to make sausages? I don´t remember, maybe it is all true. Anyway, here´s the recipe for my best comfort food!

Korv stroganoff

Serves 6-8 (freezes well)

600 grams falukorv or other mild-tasting, meaty sausage

1 small yellow onion, very finely chopped

2-3 tbsp plain flour

500 ml boiling water

2 tbsp mustard (not Dijon)

2-3 tbsp tomato purée

100 ml creme fraiche or similar

Shred the sausage quite finely and brown them in a little butter. Add the onions and sautée carefully not to burn them. Salt and pepper! When everything is a bit soft, powder over the flour and stir, it should soak up the juices in the pan. Pour over the water a little at a time, stir and let simmer until it thickens. Go easy on the water, you don´t want runny stroganoff! Stir in the mustard and tomato and let simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the creme fraiche and stir. Taste, the sauce should taste a little tart, mustardy, but still mild.

Serve with rice and green peas which is the very best veg for this (i.e. what Mum used to serve). This time I had to make do with a carrot. If you want you can add some finely chopped salted cucumbers in the sauce.

Tosca cake

2006-10-28T21:19:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: mandel. Means almond

Tosca cake is a Swedish classic - maybe in other countries as well? Anyway, I found it in my beloved Swedish cakes and cookies, my lifesaver when I don´t feel like translating recipes myself. I used another recipe from another much loved book of mine, Church coffee, since there are a lot of good recipes for when you want a lot of cookies, i.e. the whole congregation. We (because this was teamwork by me and A for a fika this Thursday for our dancing group) used the large oven pan but this calls for an ordinary round spring-form. Otherwise it is pretty much the same, this cake is truly a classic! Serve as it is with coffee or as a dessert after a lighter meal.

The tosca topping is also delicious to glaze canned pears and bake in the oven. Serve at once with whipped cream or ice cream!

Otherwise I am tired, and look forward very much to the coming winter time tomorrow. Since 1980 we Swedes turn the clock back one hour the last Sunday in October (which is lovely, you get an extra hour´s sleep!) and forward again last Sunday in March (which is OK on a Sunday morning, but not the day after. Ugh.) And no, it is not practical. At all. Maybe our new government can do something about this? Hmmm.

Tosca cake

100 grams butter (of course you can use margarine if you want but I never do)
2 large eggs
150 ml caster sugar

200 ml plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

50 ml milk

Topping:

100 grams butter

100 ml caster sugar

2 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp milk

100 grams flaked almonds

Grease and flour a 24 cm round spring form

Melt the butter and let it cool off. Beat the eggs and the sugar until white and fluffy. Combine the dry ingredients and stir into the eggs together with the milk and butter. Mix well. Pour into the pan and bake in the lower part of the oven (175C/350F) for 20-25 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the topping. Just combine everything in a saucepan, heat and stir well until it thickens. Use a spatula and spread the topping over the cake, put it back in the oven (but move it up to the middle) and bake for another 15 minutes until the topping is golden and a little caramelized.

Operakällaren

2006-10-26T15:52:00.000+02:00

Today´s Swedish word: lyx. Means luxury

My man works for a certain Swedish cell phone company, and they have the very good habit of awarding their employees sometimes by giving them something called dinner for two. The idea is that you get a card entitling you to a meal for two at a restaurant of your own choice. You go there, you eat, you drink, you pay - and then you get all the money back on your next salary. Isn´t that neat?

Anyway. We chose Operakällaren, one of Stockholm´s oldest and finest restaurants. It opened in 1787 in the old Opera and since 1895 it has been in the same building as we entered, a little nervously, this Saturday in September. The diningroom was redecorated last year and in a very good way. As you can see in the picture (borrowed from Operakällarens homepage) the modern chairs goes well with all the gold!

Oh, what can I say other than it was wonderful. The staff was so nice, the food was fantastic and so beautifully presented, the wine was fantastic (we had our own sommelier!)... We chose the tasting menu with wine and this is what we had! And sorry, I cannot find the wine collection on their homepage - I write down what I remember and update the rest later)

Sea urchin soup with crab, clams, oysters and Iranian caviar (A´s favourite)

(with champagne!)

Fried langoustine tails with chickpea purée and mint jus (my favourite!)

(Ooh, I think it was Chateauneuf du Pape with this...)

Fried fillet of turbot with poached egg and potato purée with anchovy

French pigeon stuffed with horns of plenty with roasted walnuts, creamy lentils and grape sauce

A selection of cheeses

(with port wine from 1969!)

Lemon mousse with Malibou foam and Mojito flavoured sorbet

Apple variation with soufflé, terrine and Calvados cream

(I think it was Vinsanto with this)

Pastry delicacies

(This was so great! A small piece of marmalade, a sugar stick with melon liqeur inside, and a piece of French nougat)

It was really great to get this opportunity, since this kind of fine dining is a tad (!!) expensive for us, but at the end of the meal I said to A. that this is worth paying for, even without a refund from the very kind cell phone company. I was simply in foodie paradise!

Introducing new feature - Swedish words!

2006-10-26T15:48:00.000+02:00

I have decided to celebrate my blog´s 1st birthday not only with cake, but also by introducing a new feature: Swedish words. Often, but not always food-related, and always related to my postings. Enjoy!

Today´s Swedish word: ord. Means word!

Birthday cake

2006-10-21T23:26:00.000+02:00

I had lunch with Anne the other day, who told me that you are supposed to make a blog birthday cake - which I didn´t have time for on the big day. Well, as luck would have it we have a lot of birthdays in the family this week - my father-in-law yesterday and A and his twin sister on Wednesday. This evening we had a little joint birthday celebration for all three of them, and A and I brought a cake. So it is not made for my blog, but tomorrow I will eat a piece in honour of it anyway! Isn´t that too convenient, getting a blog cake just like that, whithout planning?

The base is one of my favourite recipes - a gateau au yaourt I picked up at Chocolate and Zucchini a year ago and have made many times since. It is so perfect, I almost never make any ordinary sponge cakes any more because this is much easier, you just stir everything together in five minutes and shove it in the oven. The cake comes out moist, a little fluffy and very tasty. I usually make it with a wheat flour mixed with wholewheat.

I baked it yesterday evening, cut it in three layers and put it out on the balcony. This morning I left to go to Uppsala for the day meeting friends and when I came back the cake looked like this. I have said before that my A is outstanding in food decoration and this cake is yet another proof. The filling is, quite simply, mashed banana and vanilla custard. Then he has put on whipping cream and decorated with fruit and berries, and topped it off with a clear jelly made of gelatine mixed with some apple juice for flavour. The jelly is optional but gives the fruit a nice, shiny finish. The green leaves are mint which was what we had on hand. And the cake was just as delicious as it looks. "This cake is so good I cannot speak", his mother said!

Thank you for all nice comments, I promise I will continue doing my best on this blog!

Happy birthday, cuisine!

2006-10-17T17:06:00.000+02:00

Just a very quick note on this historic day...
It is now almost exactly a year since I started up Clivia´s Cuisine and I am so nostalgic about this! I have learned so much about ways to cook and bake and about food from all over the world, and I have had the opportunity to get to know lots of lovely people.

Thank you all for reading and commenting and mailing and inspiring me! I will celebrate the beginning of year two with some new features - as soon as I have time. I just had to write something right now!

Clivia

Autumn canapées

2006-10-14T23:27:00.000+02:00

I just waved off some girlfriends who came for a soup and a chat and a a cake. This was not to celebrate my blog in any way (even though the counter just ticked over 15 000 visits and it turns 1 year on Tuesday!) but in another way this was truly a blog dinner since I had a lot of blogger inspiration!

At first I didn´t plan a three-course meal but then we had boiled potatoes the other day and they just - ahem - was a little too boiled so there I was with quite a few mushy potatoes. What to do? Well, I could always try Pille´s potato shortcrust in my new 24-hole mini muffin tin! I jumped to the task and the recipe was wonderful as I had guessed, dear Pille knows her finger-food!

For filling them I turned to another food-blogger for inspiration and decided to try Anne´s funnel chanterelle dip which was lovely. I had some mushrooms lying around after my trip to the forest yesterday... It is the ones with the red flakes on, I thought they needed some decoration and went for pink pepper which was a lovely companion to the mild mushroom and cheese. In the other half of the canapées I put a classic Swedish mix (recipe found in Bonniers kokbok)of egg, boiled potato (not all of them were mushy), matje herring, chives, dill and creme fraiche which also was lovely Update: Oh! I forgot that I also put in a very finely diced apple! Essential for giving this mix some freshness and balance.... And I am above all very pleased with this photo, it looks really good while most of my photos looks like - well, you can see what the food looks like but maybe you won´t feel like eating it...
For the main course I made the Swedish-French fish soup from my blog dinner this January, with fake aioli and home made baguette, and for dessert I made the fantastic beetroot cake with saffron glaze.

Over and out! I have a lot of dishes to take care of tomorrow...

Chanterelles again

2006-10-11T21:25:00.000+02:00

Some people have eyes for mushrooms and some don´t. I am quite good at it, but not as good as my dear man! This is just a little of all the chanterelles, funnel chanterelles and whatsitcalled, taggsvamp (In Latin Hýdnum rapándum) he dragged home this Saturday. You see, if he ever observes a mushroom and picks it, he will for ever remember where he was by that time. And mushrooms don´t move, they come again and again on the same spot. So when A feels like it, he just takes the car, drives somewhere and walks purposefully right out between some tree and a rock mumbling "it was here somewhere". The next thing I know he comes into the kitchen, soaking wet (this Saturday was very rainy) and covers the kitchen table with large, golden, fragrant mushrooms. And then we spend a couple of hours cleaning and cutting and cooking and filling freezer bags and then he has had enough for at least a couple of days!
We enjoyed some of these yesterday on hot sandwiches. I take some good bread, butter it a little, then make a really good mushroom stew spiced with salt, pepper and a little balsamic vinegar. Then I boil thin slices of Jerusalem artichokes until just soft, covers the bread with them, put the stew on top and covers with some cheese. Bake in oven until the cheese has melted with a nice colour. Serve with some good soup, or with a cup of tea as a late night snack.

This Friday I plan to go mushroom-picking with a dear friend of mine. Let´s hope we will find at least something! I know some of A´s places...

EBBP from Dianne

2006-10-10T21:27:00.000+02:00

When I first participated in BBM last year I never thought I would be addicted to it, but as it turns out I have taken every opportunity since to send and receive foodie things. Last week I participated in BBM, sending to Melbourne and receiving from Syracuse. This week I have been sending to Shoreham-by-Sea and receiving from Southsea, both UK via EBBP organised by Johanna of The Passionate Cook. Every time I think that maybe I should just not join next time, because my kitchen cupboards are bulging with things and also it takes a little time, money and effort. But you know, when a new round of BBM or EBBP is coming I just cannot resist. I love putting together the parcel and figure out what my receiver would appreciate the most, and I also love to get a parcel from a secret Santa somewhere! Better still, the parcels tend to arrive on the gloomiest, most boring days, to cheer me up!

Back to my latest parcel, which I consequently picked up this Saturday when I had a cold coming with sore throat, runny nose etc. and the rain was just bucketing down, cold and unpleasant. I picked up a heavy parcel in green plastic cover (so practical this day!) and headed home to open it immediately. As it turned out it was from Dianne over at A gluten-free journey and she sent me all sorts of lovely things. First of all a card which described everything and also advised me to immediately have a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows (Dianne supplied me with both) and go read the food magazine Country Kitchen which she also sent me. So I did, but first I took a photo of all her goodies: apart from marshmallows, instant cocoa drink and the food magazine I got some fine-looking Shrewsbury cookies and a piece of Cheddar cheese (yum! I just love Cheddar!) and a jar of Hampshire honey. Dianne wrote that she actually lives close to the beehives and maybe the bees who made this honey were the ones who had tried to sting her all summer. Can it be more local?

Thank you so much for all this Dianne, and thank you Johanna for organising! I don´t think I will be able to resist next time either - I already have some ideas on what to send...

Tomato strike

2006-10-05T21:38:00.000+02:00

Last weekend we went to Mariefred, a cute little town about 20 kilometers from here. There are small wooden cottages, cobblestone streets, a real castle and a very old railway but the main attraction for me was the Farmers´market, taking place on a square in the city center.

Let me just moan a little first: it is in fact hard to get hold of locally produced things here in Sweden, and also there is almost no debate about food. Well yes, about food safety and such of course, but not much about quality, about food miles, about eating seasonally, about why food should cost money. Every month I buy and read some English food magazines (mostly Olive and Waitrose Food Illustrated) and there are large features about what is best right now, why it is best right now and what to do with it. I miss that in most Swedish food magazines, and I miss the local products on the shelves in the large food chains. Sigh. We order fruit for work from one of Stockholm´s best fruit vendors and I doubt they send us anything Swedish ever, not even apples right now. This week they sent us satsumas (why? Surely they will be much better in November-December), and we got plums already in June. Hard as rocks and terribly sour. Why?

Well, I will do my best to change this, at least in our home, as much as I can. Eating locally and seasonally takes a lot of effort here considering where I live. In my nearest food store there are no organic vegetables and most of the other vegs are imported, except maybe the root vegetables. I will have to go further to get my vegs, or shop in Stockholm and lug it home on the commuter train. Well, well.
But, there are options if you have a car and can afford it (I could go on about food prices for ages, will take that another time perhabs), and now I am back (finally! Had you lost hope I would ever get to the point?) to the Farmers´market in Mariefred last Saturday.

This is what I got:

a bottle of fresh organic canola oil from a producer actually living just 15 kilometres from my hometown
grapes, peppers, carrots and a kind of radish (rättika), also from around here
four kabanoss sausages, bought them directly from the producers

You know, there are still fresh Swedish tomatoes, but when they are finally out of season (shouldn´t be too long now) I will go on fresh tomato strike for at least six months. I can find no reason to eat the bleak, watery, sour tomatoes sold here in winter*. Will you join me?

* I will, however, eat canned tomatoes and the sundried ones I buy in 500 gram bags at Hötorgshallen. It is the "fresh" ones I am angry about

Kanelbullens dag

2006-10-04T16:42:00.000+02:00

Today the 4th of October we celebrate Kanelbullens dag here in Sweden. And what is that? Well, kanel means cinnamon and bulle is bun (or roll), and dag means day. So, cinnamon bun day. Nice, isn´t it? We have had buns here for the office fika in the afternoon and if I didn´t had to go to a meeting this evening I would have bought some to bring home. Baking them is a little too time-consuming for a working day I think, but maybe this weekend I will have some time to make my man very happy, because cinnamon rolls is an absolute favourite of his.

The Cinnamon Bun Day is invented by an organisation called Hembakningsrådet, who also supplied me with this nice picture (thank you!). Swedish lesson continues: Hembakning means Home baking, and this organisation works for supporting knowledge about cereals, baking and other bun-and-bread-related issues.

Well, I am off to the meeting, in pouring rain. We have had some calm weeks after the elections, just awaiting the negotiations between the parties. Yesterday the Parliament re-opened and on Friday the new Prime Minister will give a speech on the new government policy and also present the new ministers, which is very exciting.

Systembolaget

2006-09-29T21:24:00.000+02:00

I know nothing about wine, really. Well, I know that I don´t fancy sweet wine with my food, and you shouldn´t judge a wine by its price, but that is all. Should I get more knowledge? Maybe, but right now my brain is fully busy with all other things food-related I have come across during the last year (my blog will turn 1 year in a few weeks). Until later, I rely on the trusted Swedish institution Systembolaget. Systembolaget you see, is a wonderful place. It is also the only place in Sweden where you can buy wine, spirits and strong beer to bring home.
Some people think it is wrong, and inconvenient, but I don´t mind going there. You see, it is truly a wonderful place. A wine analphabet like me can just walk into Systembolaget in Old Town, where they have the old-fashioned system with people getting the wine for you. Well, you walk up to the counter and says "Hello, I am going to cook a pasta with smoked salmon today and I want a wine for about 75 SEK." The salesperson answers "OK, and do you have herbs or horse radish in it?" And you answers that you are going to use horse radish, at which moment the salesperson taps a little on the computer and says "Hey, how would you like this blah blah blah for 68 SEK? And you say it is fine, he or she gets it for you, checks your ID which is fun if you are over 25 (you are supposed to be 20 years or older), you pay and the next second you are skipping out the door with your wine. I always let them choose and I am never disappointed. Apparently they get a lot of training and knowledge about wine and what goes with what so you never have to figure it out for yourself if you are not interested.

Today I visited another kind of Systembolaget just to pick up a bottle of really good apple cider for my dear man who is currently experimenting a lot with chicken casseroles (right now he is experimenting with the sewing machine to fix a pair of trousers for tomorrow*. I have had two glasses of wine and refused to do it). Well, this is the kind of shop where you take a basket and walk around the shelves, choosing and picking what you like. To guide you there are small signs with symbols for different foods and describing the taste. I found a Cidre de Normandie which looked promising, and also something called Cidraie. I love the slightly yeasty flavour of French ciders. I also picked up an organic wine, Vida Organica 2005, Argentinian. We had it with our Friday sushi (well, we don´t have sushi every Friday) and liked it very much.
Well, that was all about Systembolaget and back to the food again in the future on this blog I think.

*Tomorrow we are going to this place, which I really really look forward to. It is too posh for me to dare taking photos but I will tell you all about the food!

Apple pie baklava style

2006-09-26T21:03:00.000+02:00

I know, this is quite far from a traditional baklava but it has at least some similarity. The phyllo dough, the honey, the nuts...
When I was in Hälsingland a month ago my aunt and I created a "baklava" with phyllo and things we found in her kitchen cupboards - prunes, cashews, almonds and some honey. It turned out delicious and I bought some phyllo to try it out at home. This weekend I had to use it before it expired but just couldn´t use prunes when I had all these beautiful fresh Swedish apples laying around the house...

This apple and almond baklava was just as delicious as the prune variety but next time I will make it when I expect a lot of guests because it is best to eat it all right away. We heated it up two days later and it was OK but a tad soggy. I like our little invention, the crunchy dough goes very well with the sweet and sticky filling, it looks very pretty but is actually rather quick and easy to make. A keeper! And you can vary it endlessly, with different fruits, maybe a little cinnamon, more nuts, more honey...

Apple and almond baklava
9 sheets of phyllo dough
about 100 ml melted butter
200 grams chopped almonds, it is nice with both small and a little larger pieces
100 grams grated almond paste (not necessary, but my dear man loves it)
4-5 tart apples
100 ml runny honey (you can also melt firm honey in the microwave)

Start with the filling: chop the almonds, grate the almond paste and prepare the honey. Use a box grater and grate the apples down to the core, I didn´t bother peeling them. Mix everything in a bowl. Use a rather small ovenproof rectangular dish and grease it with a little butter. Cut the phyllo to the size of the dish and layer three sheets (brush each one with a little butter). Remember to work fast and to cover the remaining phyllo with a damp towel or some plastic foil. Spread out half of the filling over the phyllo and continue layering three more phyllo sheets with butter brushing and all. Spread the remaining filling and finish off with the last three phyllo sheets. Brush the surface with butter.
Use a thin and sharp knife and cut the phyllo in a pretty diamond shape (my knife was not sharp enough so I had to stop half-way). Bake in oven (I think about 180-200C) for 20-30 minutes until the phyllo is crisp with a nice colour.
Let it cool a little bit and serve with whipped cream.

Cyberkocken

2006-09-24T20:57:00.000+02:00

Another round of Cyberkocken, the Swedish Paper Chef - hence Swedish writing. But I can tell you that the ingredients were chicken, basil, sundried tomatoes and something black. I made filled chicken fillets with sundried tomatoes and basil, and spiced the chicken with black pepper. I served it with champignon risotto and it was really good!

Dags för cyberkocken igen med Folkets mat som värdar. Ingredienserna var inte svåra alls den här gången jämfört med den där kycklinglevern (fast det var väl mest svårätet) och jag skred entusiastiskt till verket för att göra något med kyckling, soltorkade tomater, basilika och något svart (svartpeppar blev det)

Soltorkad tomat- och basilikafyllda kycklingfiléer
900 g kycklinglårfiléer, putsade och lätt utbankade
10 soltorkade tomater, i olja eller blötlagda i hett vatten 30 min.
1 stor näve basilikablad
en skvätt god olivolja
salt och svartpeppar

Hacka tomater och basilika och blanda i en bunke med lite olivolja. Bred ut filéerna och salta och peppra. Lägg en klick fyllning på varje filé och rulla ihop (man kan väl också tänka sig att skära ett snitt i en vanlig kycklingfilé och pressa in fyllningen). Ställ i en smord form och stek i ugn vid 225 grader tills köttet är genomstekt och har fin färg. Servera med t.ex. som på bilden en god champinjonrisotto. Jag är nöjd med min skapelse - gott och enkelt även om det kanske inte är så fantasifullt... Men någon gång ska jag testa att ha lite vitlök i fyllningen, det kan jag inte använda när sambon ska äta också eftersom han inte tål det. Jag köpte för övrigt både champinjonerna, paprikan och rättikan på Bondens marknad i Mariefred i lördags. Odlat i Sörmland, obesprutat och jättegott!

To Clivia from Upstate New York!

2006-09-23T22:22:00.000+02:00

Look what I got in the mail this friday! Wonderful gifts from Stefanie of Couteau Bonswan. I am one of those people addicted to BBM and EBBP, two different events with the one in common that it is all about sending food parcels around the world - and also receive one from a Secret Santa somewhere. I have shipped my own BBM parcel far, far away and hope it will reach its final destination. Yesterday I mailed Stefanie with the happy news that her parcel has arrived here in Södertälje safe and sound. Here to be seen on my kitchen counter!

This is what I got...

1 bottle of red BBQ sauce
1 bottle of chicken BBQ sauce (both of these I will put away for using next summer)
1 bag of vegan granola, already opened and sampled by me and A (I had to hide it from him eventually. Well, I had to hide it from myself too - it was that good)
1 bottle of wild flower honey (I collect - and use! - honey from around the world so this is perfect)

Everything is locally produced around where Stefanie lives in Syracuse, which I really like - I always tries to include local things in my own parcels so we seem to share the same philosophy!

Thank you so much for all this Stefanie! And thank you to another important Stephanie, she of Dispensing Happiness who is organising this happy event.