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

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

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!

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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...

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

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.