Bar Meson Paco

One of my favorite restaurants in the world. This is a very tiny place in a very tiny town, in the mountains between Torre de la Horadada and Murcia. I've been there for lunch on my three trips to the area, and it's always a real treat. The tiny town is called Cabeza de la Plata, and the bar - as far as I can tell it's called Bar Meson Paco. You get there by driving from San Javier to Sucina, and right out Sucina you turn left (or rather straight ahead, the road curves sharply to the right) into what looks (and feels) like a field. Then it's straight ahead for quite a while, and the trip includes some very beautiful scenery. When you get to the town, turn right and.. you're there. If you're in the area - this is well worth a visit.



We asked for food, and food we were given. We started with a lovely tuna salad. Normally I shy away from tuna, but this was delicious. Firm, white, flakey - it bore no resemblance to the stuff I usually find here. (And which the kitties love.) Then we got Paco's amazing lamb chops. They melt in your mouth, and are just SO good.



We finished with my very favorite, the Tarta de Almendras... And then we were ready to roll out of there, back to the beach. I already look forward to my next visit.

IMBB #19 - A Vegan Feast

I was excited - as I usually am when Is My Blog Burning rolls around - when Sam announced this month's theme - I Can't Believe I Ate Vegan!

In my case, it's I Can't Believe I'm Cooking Vegan, or something like that. Some entries are already up, and I've noticed many saying that they would have no problems eating and cooking Vegan. Well, I would have major problems. First off, I'm very reluctant to give up meat, so even Vegetarian is not much of an option for me. And to cut out cheese and eggs? Dude. Never.

And one big thing for me is that I will not use substitutes. No fake meat, no fake cheese, no fake dairy, NO. (And for goodness sake, no tofu.) So, for this event, I cooked from just regular vegetables and good old ingredients. Nothing weird. Not that I'd find it even if I wanted to - Sweden has very few substitute things, and I wouldn't know where to find half the stuff I've seen used in some Vegan recipes.

I invited my sister and her fiancé Peter (The Sushi Chef, as I've referred to him before on this blog) for dinner, and cooked a lovely dinner. For the main course, I made homemade oven-baked falafel with roasted root vegetables, almond salsa and a delicious tomato sauce. For dessert, I made pineapple in chili and vanilla syrup with a coconut sorbet. The falafel recipe I used was roughly this one but I rolled the falafel in sesame seeds, and I added a minute of frying after the baking, to get some more color. The roasted roots don't need a recipe - just get a bunch of your favorite root veggies, and maybe some red pepper, toss with olive oil, salt and rosemary, and roast for about 40 minutes in a 200 degree oven.



The almond salsa is from the Swedish chef Malin Söderström. The Pineapple recipe is by Tina Nordström, a Swedish chef who has a cooking show on TV, and the sorbet comes from Santos at The Scent of Green Bananas. I had to fiddle with the pineapple recipe, so I won't give that today. It turned out fine, but it was a lot more work than it should have been, so I'll give it another go before posting.

Almond Salsa
(picture on top - yes, it does look disturbingly like sauce bolognese, yes, I know.)

100 g roasted almonds
5 plum tomatoes, peeled and de-seeded
1 red pepper, roasted and peeled
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
pinch of sugar
4 cloves of garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper

Put everything in a food processor, and run until smooth.

Delicious Tomato Sauce
picture

500 g tomato passata
1 red onion, finely chopped
pinch of sugar
pinch of Maldon salt
100 ml brandy
splash of olive oil
crushed chili

Start by sweating the onion in the olive oil for five minutes. Add the sugar and salt. Add the brandy, and let it boil until all the liquid has vaporated. Add the tomatoes, and a little bit of crushed chili, and let simmer for as long as possible. I left mine for three hours, which was perfect.




Coconut Sorbet
picture

1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar - I used half white and half light brown muscovado
400 ml coconut milk

Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Let it reduce by about half. Remove from heat, stir in the coconut milk until fully incorporated, and place in the fridge until really cold. Then, pour it in an ice-cream maker and let it run for a fairly short time - 10-15 minutes did it for me.

The star of the show? The sorbet. Oh my god. It is so good. Absolutely great. I'll make this many more times, for sure. And the best part - it doesn't go icy in the freezer, but stays beautifully creamy. Yum!

Tagged with: IMBB # 19 + Vegan

Tarta de Almendras

Embarrassing, again: Sorry about the bite. I don't think I took even one food pic on the trip without tasting the food first. So, what's in that picture? Perfection, that's what. It's an almond cake - tarta de almendras - from a little tiny bar up in the mountains in Spain. More on that in another post.

The owner speaks no English - and I speak very little Spanish. I have asked for the recipe for this but to no avail. Apparently his sister bakes them. But guys, I'm dying here. I want to be able to make this SO badly. So, can anyone help me out? With all the custardmaking that's been going on lately, surely someone knows the tricks to this? I'll try my best to describe it.

1. It's definitely custardlike, soft and squishy, but not really wobbly.
2. It has a caramel on top with a few pieces of almond. I don't worry about recreating this part, I'm sure it's fairly easy.
3. I don't *think* there's any almonds in the custard itself.
4. He has other versions too, including a chocolate one. Not as good, but the exakt same texture.
5. For some reason, I keep thinking it involves condensed milk.. but I could be wrong.

So.. any ideas? If there's a winner, I promise a nice prize, of your choice. Heck, I'll almost promise my first-born to get this cake - it's that good.

Hoki with Tomato Vinaigrette

I don't cook much fish. I always intend to do it more, but somehow, it rarely happens. But, as I got last month's issue of Allt Om Mat (All About Food) a fish recipe jumped out at me and demanded to be cooked. It was a recipe for Hoki - a fish from New Zealand that's becoming popular here now that you can't get cod much anymore. They're very similar in texture and flavor, but you can only get frozen hoki here since it's imported from so far away. This dish was really tasty - it was very fresh and flavorful, and I will definitely make it again. Healthy, too - which is a big bonus. (Although, after an extra-tough spinning class, I'm finishing my evening with Ben & Jerry)

I altered two things from the original recipe - they used yellow tomatoes, I used red. And I added the red onion, and used less oil than they suggested. (In fact, I altered the dressing a bit as far as quantities goes. And next time, I'll probably omit the chili - it really didn't add much flavor here. Anyway - here's what I cooked:



Hoki with Tomato Vinaigrette
2 large servings

400 g Hoki fillets (or other firm white fish)
olive oil
salt
3 plum tomatoes, diced
1/2 red onion, finely sliced
1/2 green chili, finely diced
1 tsp neutral flavored oil
1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp dried oregano
handful of grated cheese

Preheat the oven to 225 degrees C. (450F) Pour some olive oil in an oven-proof dish, slice the hoki and place them in the dish. Add salt and pepper if you'd like. Make the topping - mix tomatoes, chili, onion, oil, vinegar, sugar and oregano. Add salt if you want to. Put this mixture on top of the fish. Finish with a little grated cheese. Bake for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, make rice or potatoes to serve with it - we had a whole-grain rice which was a very tasty companion.

The Itchy and Scratchy show is back in town

Yes - I'm back. (Uh-huh, I'm both Itchy AND Scratchy. Like you would NOT believe.) Behold the mountain of medications that have made up a large part of my daily eats on this vacation.. To make a very long story short, the cat bite quickly healed, but I got a serious allergic reaction to the antibiotics. So I've been itching, like crazy. I've had had to see several Spanish doctors, each providing me with more pills, and several cortison injections. (The latest one even subscribed Valium, to help me get some sleep.)And the itch still won't go away! I'm slowly going insane. It's finally a bit better, at least, so I hope to be rid of it - and the meds - shortly.

Ok, enough of this pity party. Obviously I'm not going to call this my greatest vacation ever, no, but its still been great. We've stayed in a small, sleepy beachtown called Torre de la Horadada, where my parents conveniently enough bought a house a couple of years ago. It's been beautifully warm and sunny, and the water has been great for baths. (And yes, salt water was a bit soothing, thankfully.)



The food - oh, the food... Spain seems to have so much fresher produce than Sweden, although of a smaller vriety. Not awfully surprising - the climate is a lot better for growing, so most things in the store seemed to be at least somewhat local. We really enjoyed going to the markets and buying fruit and vegetables, and most nights, dinner was finger-food - jamón serrano (salty, flavorful, chewy ham), queso manchego (delicious, nutty cheese), pepinillos (tiny little gherkins), olives, sausage (I don't ever really manage to find out what this kind is really called, but it's mild, chewy, and made from pork) and one of my favorite discoveries - croquetas. Breaded and fried, filled with a thick white cheese sauce and pieces of ham - I have no clue how to make this, but if anyone out there does know - tell me!



We also ate out a couple of times, but more on thar in the next few days. A huge thanks to Lena who again has proven to be a wonderful blogsitter.

Bakery Girls

Cute name, isn't it? It's the fantastic bread I blogged about a couple of days ago. I did a reasonable version of them at home, so I thought I'd share the recipe. This is a very dark and dense bread, with a lot of chew. You could top it with anything - I chose flax and pumpkin seed - but it was a bit hard to get it to stick. Next time, I think I'll just add more goodies to the dough. And a Kitchen-Aid really helps here, you need to work it a lot to develop the gluten.

Bakery Girls
12

2 dl (0.8 cup) crushed rye
2 dl boiling water
500 ml tepid water
50 g fresh yeast
40 g sour dough
2,5 dl (1 cup) wheat flour
5 dl (2 cups) rye flour
1 tablespoon salt

You need to start the night before, by combining the crushed rye and the boiling water. Cover, and let stand over night.

Next day, let the yeast dissolve in the water. Add the salt and the sourdough. Add the crushed rye and the flour, and mix in a Kitchen-Aid for five minutes. Let rest for fifteen. Again, work for five minutes, and rest for fifteen. The dough will be very sticky. Turn out on a well-floured workface and form skinny batons, about 5 by 10 centimeters. Place on a cookie sheet, cover, and proof for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 250 degrees C, but when you place the first sheet in the oven, immediately reduce to 225 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes.



And this is what you get if you let your cats walk all over the bread as they're proofing. I don't recommend this.

Weekend cat blogging #16 Nero

This is Nero, or Kellycats silver Habanero. He is a shaded silver British Shorthair. He is the son of my beautiful Janson and Anne's sweet princess Kelly. He’s a real mischievous little boy, and he’s often lucky that he’s so cute because it’s impossible to stay mad at him for long.

Food bloggers - blog about your cat(s) on the weekend, and send your permalink to Clare at Eat Stuff! The perfect way to watch gorgeous cats AND discover yummy new food blogs.

Wrapped Chicken

Here's another idea for something that goes perfectly with a lovely golden autumnal chanterelle risotto. It's chicken breasts, divided lengthwise, seasoned with salt and pepper, and wrapped in cured ham. I used Tvärnöskinka, which is Swedish, but you could prosciutto, serrano or any other similar product. A couple of basil leaves are tucked inside the ham, and the whole thing is fried on both sides for a couple of minutes. Excellent flavor - this is one of my favorite ways to eat chicken.

Meadow Food Soup

How do you like that name - Meadow Food? It's what it's called though - Ängamat in Swedish. (And I don't think it's usually translated like that - but it sounds so much more poetic than "Veggie Soup".) A classic, and best done towards the end of summer. It may sound simplistic, but it's a beauty. The flavors shine through, and it's softly comforting.

Meadow Food Soup
Serves 4

1 small head of cauliflower (3-400 g)
4 carrots (250 g or so)
100 g broccoli
100 g sugar peas
700 ml vegetable stock
2 tbsp flour
500 ml milk
white pepper

Divide cauliflower and broccoli into florets. Peel and slice the carrots. Bring the stock to a boil. Add carrots, cauliflower and broccoli, and boil until somewhat soft, about five minutes. Mix 100 ml of milk with the flour, and add this to the pot. Bring to a boil again, then add the rest of the milk, the sugar peas, and if you want to, a little white pepper and maybe a touch of salt.

And that's that. A very quick and healthy meal, and surprisingly tasty.

Creamed Corn

I've always liked corn, a lot. When I was a kid, we always had frozen corn at home, and when I wanted a snack I'd boil some and eat with butter. Real healthy, yeah. Or not. Anyway, when I lived in the US, I discovered the wonders of creamed corn. Ah, perfection in a can. And sadly, it was in a can. Meaning, no chance in hell that it would be find-able in Sweden. And it's not. So, I don't usually have creamed corn, even though it's something I really like.

Per and I ate dinner with Lena and Nico the other night, at a pub called Saddle & Sabre. It had a western theme, served huge pieces of steak and.. what do you know, amazing creamed corn! I was too shy to ask the cook for a recipe (next time though!) but I did think about that hey, maybe it was possible to.. make the stuff yourself. Maybe.

I went home and leafed through my American cookbooks. Last one, I found a recipe that sounded promising. It's from Sheila Lukins USA cookbook, which is actually a very nice read. I haven't cooked all that much from it though. Her creamed corn was good. Not great, like the restaurant's, but very good. (The restaurant's was really deep in flavor and tasted.. roasted, somehow.) I halved it, and it made three large servings. Now, please, if you happen to have a good recipe for creamed corn - I'm all ears. (Ha ha ha)

Sheila Lukins Creamed Corn

8 ears of corn
1500 ml (6 cups) chicken stock
3 tbsp sugar
125 ml (1/2 cup) light cream (half and half?)
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Start by removing the corn from the cobs. Don't discard the cobs just yet! Bring the stock to a boil, and add the cobs. Let them simmer and infuse the stock for 20 minutes. Remove, and discard the cobs.

Add the corn and the sugar to the stock. Let it simmer until the corn is very soft, at least 20 minutes. Remove a cup of the kernels and set aside. Purée the rest of the corn and the stock until very smooth. Add the reserved kernels, salt, pepper and the cream.

Korintkakor

Korintkakor - "currants cookies" - are very popular in Sweden. It's considered a real classic. They're really easy to make, and very tasty - essentially a shortbread studded with raisins. Try to get currants if you can, but regular raisins will do as well.

Korintkakor
Makes about 60 cookies

250 g butter, room temperature
250 g vegetable shortening, room temperature
150 ml sugar (about 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp)
1 litre of flour (4 cups)
2 tsps baking powder
100 g currants

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Mix the butters and the sugar. Add the flour and baking powder, and add the currants. Mix together. Form small balls of dough, put on a baking sheet, and press down with a fork. Bake for 10-12 minutes - they should not get much color!

Oven Baked Potato Chips

Let me say straight away that this is not like the chips you buy. Obviously. There's a good thing and a bad thing about them. The good thing is that they're a lot healthier than what you buy. You control what goes on them, and you can make sure that that's just a little oil and your favorite seasonings. The bad thing? Yeah, they're not real chips. They're not as crispy, and not as.. umm, processed. Still, they're pretty good and a nice fix if you want something salty and carby. Easy to make - but be careful to watch them in the oven, there's a fine line between "done" and "charred".

The recipe comes from the Gourmet Cookbook - I used the "look inside" feature on Amazon.com

Oven Baked Potato Chips
1 large potato
2 tbsp olive oil (I used less - I used a Misto sprayer, and then brushed it out)
salt
pepper, rosemary, chili - whatever you want

Slice the potato very thinly with a mandolin. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Put potato on parchment paper, one layer. Brush with oil, and add whatever seasoning you want. (I used flavored salts - the chili salt was delicious here). Bake for 10-20 minutes - watch closely.

Chèvre Wraps with Rocket and Walnuts

Here's a real fast and simple dinner, when you're not in the mood for something really elaborate. Note how the picture is pre-wrapping - somehow I absolutely always fail at the wrapping part, be it wraps, burritos or spring rolls. I just can't manage it. I think part of my problem is that I want too much stuffing in relation to the wrappings. Well.

Chevre Wraps
Makes 4 wraps, enough for two people

4 tortillas (I use regular flour tortillas, since that's what's readily available)
100 g chèvre
2 tomatoes, sliced thinly
1 bunch of rocket (also called aragula)
1/2 red onion, sliced into thin half-moons
1-2 tbsp runny honey
walnuts

Divide the rocket on the tortillas. Add tomatoes, red onions and chèvre. Top with 2-3 walnuts per wrap, and drizzle with honey. Season with black pepper if you want to. Roll up the wraps, and grill for a minute or two in a table-top panini grill, or whatever you happen to have.

Weekend Cat Blogging #15 - Janson

Here's Janson, or if you prefer long fancy names S*Hufflepuffs silver Eminem. He's my first British Shorthair, and the reason that I met Anne. He is a black silver spotted tabby just like his dad, Hamlet. He is a real sweet heart, I guess maybe he inherited his softness and nice manners from his mom Ywette.
Tomorrow I will use my magic to give you some more of Anne's wonderful food to read about, but until then you can rest your eyes on my beautiful boy
/Lena


Food bloggers - blog about your cat(s) on the weekend, and send your permalink to Clare at Eat Stuff! The perfect way to watch gorgeous cats AND discover yummy new food blogs.

SHF #12 - Nectarine Tart with Easy Custard

Elise from Simply Recipes is the host of this month's Sugar High Fridays. The theme - Cooking up Custard! Now, custard is something I think few bother about these days, at least in Sweden. You can buy it ready made, and you can buy it as a powder. Very simple. But, a home-cooked custard is better, for sure. I opted for a simple version - thickened partly with an egg yolk but helped by potato flour. Thus minimizing the risks of splitting. It tasted heavenly.

To go with it, I decided to use up a couple of nectarines that were laying around, and I improvised a little tart. I also got an occasion to try out a sweet pastry recipe, apparently from Chez Panisse. Not sure where I got it to tell you the truth - I think it was posted in someone's comments. I just clipped it out and saved it. It was fine - but maybe not as entirely foolproof as I would have thought. Anything that involves rolling out pastry - well, it's bound to fail if you're not practised. And personally, I don't like tart pastry much. Or pie dough, for that matter. I do like the fillings though, so I still make pies from time to time. This one was nice - the filling is very good with different textures and bright flavors, and Per loved the pastry. (We're a good match that way.)



Easy Custard (from Bonniers Kokbok)
4-6 servings

1 egg yolk
400 ml milk
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp potato flour
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla sugar

Mix the egg yolk, milk, sugar and potato flour together in a small saucepan. Heat gently. Whisk constantly, until the sauce thickens. It must not boil. Remove from heat, keep whisking, and add the vanilla sugar. Let cool or serve while still lukewarm.

Nectarine Tart

Tart Pastry from Chez Panisse
220 g unsalted butter, room temperature or cut into very small pieces
80 ml sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
310 ml flour

Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Add salt, vanilla, and egg yolk and mix until completely combined. Add flour and mix. Wrap ball of dough in plastic and form a flat disk. Chill until firm. Then roll out, line a tart form, and put in the freezer for fifteen minutes. Directly from the freezer, bake blind in a 175 degree (350F) oven for ten minutes. Fill, and bake until finished.

Filling
3 nectarines, cut into thin wedges
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
50 g walnuts, roughly chopped

Combine, and add to the pre-baked tart shell. Bake until golden and it looks "done" - mine took about 15 minutes.


Glinda, interrupting the photo session

Don't forget to read the round-up at Elise's!

Fava beans!

Faithful readers may remember that I don't eat beans. In general. The only beans I can stand are fava beans, and those are not generally easy to find around here. In fact, I make my parents bring me frozen ones from Spain. But, the other day when me and Per went back to Rosendals Gardens, I bought a bunch of fresh fava beans. I just thought I'd show you what they look like. The above picture is before any kind of shelling, and this one is after the first shelling.



In retrospect, I should have left them at this. Instead, I removed the tough inner shell too, exposing the bright green kidney-shaped bean. And then I boiled them briefly in salted water. Sadly, some of them turned to mush. Next time, I think I'll leave them like this. Prettier, too.

Got a hankering for something to do with beans like this? I have two recipes I like a lot - Four Cheese Linguini with Fava beans and Gorgonzola Risotto with peas, mushrooms and fava beans. (Even though I did call them broad beans in that post. Same beans.)

I'll leave you for a while on this note - I'm going to Spain tomorrow, on our slightly-late honeymoon! I'll try to do a post for SHF tonight - custards, mmm! - but after that, my blogsitter Lena will take care of you. I have a couple of saved up posts that she'll make magically appear here, so I hope you won't miss me too much. (Ha, ha.) I'll be back soon, with (hopefully) wonderful stories of all the great Spanish food I'm planning on having!

Honey Garlic Bread

Last Saturday's dinner. Neither of us felt like actual food, so we bought a baguette from our favorite store (which, again, is Ica Maxi. Their bread is incredibly good, despite them being a huge chain and all...) and slathered with honey garlic butter. Delicious! The recipe - not much of a recipe, just mix butter, honey, pressed garlic and some salt. Then put in the oven for five minutes or until butter has melted.

An update on my cat bite - it's infected. No huge surprise, as almost all cat bites apparently are. I spent NINE hours in the emergency room yesterday, and after finally seeing a doctor, I got a different kind of antibiotics. Lets hope these ones help a bit more.

Delicious bread

I do apologize. It should have occurred to me to take a pic before I had started eating. I know. Couldn't quite help myself there. See, this bread is.. amazing. Just the way I like it - dark, chewy, flavorful.. ah. It's a "bagarflicka" - bakery girl - from Bageri Kaveln. It's on my way to work if I'm driving (I usually go by bus) and this makes a delicious breakfast. I did ask for the recipe last time - she wouldn't give it to me, but she did give quite a few pointers so I'll give it a go some time soon! (Update - here's a new pic. Without bite.)

Bageri Kaveln
Skvaltans väg 15 (next to Bygg-Ole)
Nacka

Pain

[serious pity post]

Yes, pain. As in, actual pain. Not the pretty French Pain - not at all. This is going to be an enormously whiney post. But mercifully short, I assure you. Because of the pain. In my right index finger. Most inconvenient.

See, this is what happened. Ywette had to go to the vet this morning, for some bloodworks. I chatted happily with the assistant, yes, Ywette was a delight and no, of course she didn't need a sedative and no, absolutely not, why would I need protective gloves?


See what a cute little bundle of fur she is?

Long story short, I ended up with two holes in my finger, numerous bleeding scratches, and Ywette got a sedative. Let me just tell you how much it hurts. Aiiiowwwweeeeyaaaahh! About that much. And I feel like such a wuss. Just a little bite? Why does it huuuuuurt so much?

I spent the rest of the day getting a tetanus shot and seeing a doc for antibiotics. I'm planning to spend the evening on the couch, with a pint of my second favorite Häagen-Dazs. (Strawberries & Cream - plain Strawberry is my favorite but it's not sold in Sweden any more.)

Love Yummies

This is what we were served with coffee at Per's aunt Gerd. Lovely! The buns were actually baked by his uncle Lennart, and were delicious, cinnamon-flavored poofy, fluffy little wonders. But the real star in my eyes were the other thing on the plate - the Love Yummies. The what? Yeah, the Love Yummies. See, that's what they're called in Swedish. Kärleksmums. Isn't that a cute name? They go by many other names too, but needless to saye, Love Yummies is my favorite name.

I am planning to bake a batch and give you a tried and true recipe, but for now you'll have to make do with this picture and a basic description: the base is a chocolate sponge, the topping is chocolate-coffee and coconut.

Ribs, revisited

I tried ribs a while ago, as some of my might remember. I also asked for YOUR best ribs recipes - and the other night, I tried one of them. It was decidedly better than my first effort but still not quite what I wanted. Maybe ribs just aren't for me? Anyway, I followed Phillyiukgirl's instructions - I (or Per, really) brought the ribs to a boil and let them rest (this part, by the way, was great. They were SO tender!) in the water. We smashed lots of garlic, and rubbed garlic and brown sugar all over the ribs. We poured over soy sauce - and in an inspired moment, some whiskey. But.. it didn't turn into the sticky glaze we had imagined, but instead burned on impact with the baking pan making a large sticky black mess underneath the ribs. The ribs themselves were beautiful, but I would have wanted more "sauce".

I still have one more set of ribs in the freezer, and I plan on making Scott's dry rub for those.

Weekend Cat Blogging #14 - Kelly

I suppose this post should really be about Hamlet, who had his fifth birthday yesterday. However, I didn't get any good pics of him this time, so you'll have to take another look at princess Kelly instead. Isn't she gorgeous? For those just tuning in, Kelly is a shaded golden British Longhair.

Food bloggers - blog about your cat(s) on the weekend, and send your permalink to Clare at Eat Stuff! The perfect way to watch gorgeous cats AND discover yummy new food blogs.

See the round-up here.

Seafood Risotto

The key to this dish - a good stock. Normally, I use any old stock in my risottos, but here.. you really need the strong flavor of a good, preferrably home made seafood stock. I make mine from crawfish shells, saffron, tomatoes, garlic and other spices, and I freeze enough to last me until next year's crawfish season. (August!)

Seafood Risotto
Serves 2

olive oil
butter
100 ml sherry
300 ml frozen seafood stock, mixed with 700 ml of water
150 g arborio rice
1 yellow onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
300 g crawfish tails
handful of parmesan

Start by melting the butter and the oil, and frying the onion and garlic in this. Bring the stock to a boil. Add the rice to the onion, and let fry for a couple of minutes, until lightly browned. Add the sherry, and stir while it all evaporates.

Then proceed as usual, adding the stock one ladle at a time. Stir more or less constantly, and let the stock slowly melt into the rice. As soon as it looks dry, add more stock. Keep tasting - it'll take about 20 minutes. You might not use all the stock, and you might need more (just use hot water).

When it's pretty much done, add the crawfish tails. Finally, stir in the parmesan, and if needed add salt, pepper, honey or lemon juice if you want it more salty, peppery, sweet or sour.

Some more things I've tried lately

Time for another "copycat"-post. As always, I'm incredibly tempted by other blogger's recipes, and here's the latest ones I've tried. Funny, all are for sweet things...



Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte, from Heidi at 101cookbooks

Oh my god. Make this. It's incredible. It's like one, huge chocolate truffle. Amazing texture. And so easy to make! Don't be intimidated by the instructions - it really was a breeze. Even the unmolding was simple! I used a 9-inch springform rather than an 8-inch, and it came out perfectly allright. This is a recipe I'll save and cherish. It's heavenly.



French Toast from Oslo Foodie

I happened to have a half leftover baguette when I woke up on Sunday morning, and I remembered having read this wonderful recipe a couple of weeks ago. I immediately whipped up a batch for breakfast. Yeay! I did omit the powdered sugar, and instead topped mine with my fave: maple syrup. And cinnamon. It was really yummy, and went very well with coffee.



Crazy Cookies from Farmgirl Fare

Great cookies! I made these for a work event, and everyone loved them. I substituted white chocolate rather than butterscotch chips, and dark chocolate for the milk... and I used walnuts. (Pecans are nearly impossible to come by here.) I got a lot more cookies than Farmgirl did - close to fifty! Not that I'm complaining, more cookies is always a good thing.

Does My Blog Look Good in This? I guess so!

Andrew just posted the results of the monthly photo competition - Does My Blog Look Good in This? #8. And I'm so thrilled - I placed second! Out of 56! Aaaah! I'm so happy! That's just amazing. Although - I do love the picture. A lot. So much that I'm letting you all see it again:



You can find the full results here. There are some seriously gorgeous pictures - I am really impressed by everyone. All the entries are here. Some of my own faves: #49, #45, #36 and #1. All look totally cookbook-worthy though - I seen a lot worse in books and magazines all the time.

A word on food photography, and what it means to me.. actually, the photos is one of the reasons I enjoy having a blog. I've been interested in photography since I was 15 and got to do a work experience week in a photo lab. An intern taught me how to develop film, and taught me a lot of neat tricks with an old regular camera. It was amazing. A whole new world opened - or that's what it felt like. I kept it up a lot during high school, always snapping pics of people. Nowadays, I've gone digital. I have an Olympus C-8080 WZ, and since about a month I also use a separate flash. (Olympus FL-36.) I've also got a tiny Olympus Mju Mini, perfect for my purse!

Crawfish Time!

The end of summer is crawfish time in Sweden. Crawfish, or Crayfish or Crawdads as they're also called, is one of the most beloved foods here. There's some native crawfish, but the vast majority of what we eat is imported from Spain, China or Turkey, where it's prepared the Swedish way, for exporting. This year, I was lucky enough to be invited to some real crawfish fishing, with Per's family. Crawfish has been planted in many lakes in Sweden, to ensure some fun times and some home-cooked crawfish. We did our fishing in Göta Kanal. I took the pictures while it was still light, but we fished from 8 pm until midnight, so it got dark pretty quickly.

Let's talk about the pictures.
1. The canal. Isn't it beautiful?
2. Mats, baiting one of the cages with rotting fish.
3. The first crawfish caught!
4. If you look closely, you can see the basket underneath the water.
5. A closeup of the crawfish, pre-boiling.
6 & 7: Into the pot they go, still living
8 & 9: Perfect time for a picnic!

Ok, so the crawfish were caught. Per's mom washed the crawfish and boiled them the next day. You prepare a large pot of water with salt, sugar and crowns of dill - some also add a little bit of beer. You bring it to a rolling boil, and add the crawfish. They die instantly.

After they're cooked, you can eat them that day, or you can freeze them. Swedes eat their crawfish cold, you see. We have special crawfish parties, including festive lights and silly hats, and lots and lots of vodka. You eat the crawfish, sucking at every piece of the little red body, and you eat toast, sharp cheese.. and that's pretty much it. Some have other food too, but most stick to strictly crawfish. It's a once a year thing for me, and for most - even though you can now find frozen crawfish all year round in the stores. (I remember that as a kid, it could only be sold for a certain period of time, 3 or 4 weeks per year.)



After you've finished with the crawfish - don't throw away the shells! I always save them until the next day, and fry with saffron, tomatoes, onions, carrots and other spices to make a lovely seafood stock. It gives amazing flavor, and keeps well in the freezer.

Cajsa Warg - a foodie nirvana

Today, I had a few minutes to try and track down a special sort of rye that I need for trying out a new bread recipe. I decided to try a new store that I had heard about - Cajsa Warg. All I knew was that it supposedly was really well stocked and had a lot of hard-to-find items.

I stepped in. And nearly fainted. It was so wonderful. The place has an old grocery store feel, with wooden shelving filled with tons of exciting food products. They had fresh produce, too, and interesting ready-for-dinner things like hand-filled pasta and ready-seasoned meat. In addition to this, they do catering, and they have a kitchen in the middle of the store. I felt like I wanted to stay forever, but I only had a few minutes.

The rye? No, they didn't have any - but the owner (or one of the co-owners, I think) took my e-mail address and said she'd check with her suppliers. That's customer service! And I couldn't help mentioning this blog, so she got the url. Hope she'll come visit!

I would love to work in a place like that. Just imagine, spending hours in a wonderful place like that - every day. I felt like the only place I'd be more comfortable in is my own home. (And that's debatable, at times.) I wonder if they'll be hiring any time soon? I'll certainly keep my eyes open! Ahh.. *daydreaming*

Cajsa Warg
Renstiernas Gata 20
116 32 Stockholm
08- 642 23 50

Apple picking time

It's apple season! This photo is from Per's aunt Pia's garden, where we went to pick apples on our last visit. We ended up with a large bag of Transparent Blanche, which I don't like much for eating but they're great to cook with.

Classic Sunday Dinner

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try my hand at a really, really classic Swedish Sunday Dinner. This was something my grandmother would gladly make for us, and something generations of Swedes have eaten. I can find recipes in my oldest cookbooks, looking pretty much the same in my new ones. Now, the dinner has variations, but it always has some kind of roast, boiled potatoes, jelly, gravy and some kind of veggies. I opted for a Slottsstek - translates to "castle roast" - which is one of the true classics. It gets it's unique flavor from anchovy. Do give it a try!

Slottsstek
serves 6-8

1,5 kg beef, suitable for roasting (I used the cut "fransyska")
2 tbsp butter
salt
white pepper
300-400 ml water
1 bay leaf
1 onion, cut in wedges
8 allspice peppercorns
8 white peppercorns
6-7 anchovies

Gravy
300 ml of liquid from the roast
3 tbsp flour
150 ml cream
sugar
vinegar

Brown the roast in the butter, slowly over medium heat. Season well with salt and white pepper. Add the water, the onion, the bay leaf, the peppercorns and the anchovies. Cover with a lid, and let simmer for about an hour and a half. Baste occasionally to make sure the meat doesn't dry out.

When done, remove the meat and slice thinly. Strain the liquid, and reserve 300 ml in a small saucepan. Mix the cream and the flour, and add to the liquid. Bring to a boil, and let simmer for a few minutes. Add sugar and/or vinegar, or a dash of soy sauce if you want more color.



Serve with boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, redcurrant jelly and pickled cucumber.

A lovely Saturday

We recently did another outing to Djurgarden, one of the prettiest parts of Stockholm and perfect for long walks in warm weather. We went, again, to Rosendals Trädgård and had ice-cream this time. Both Per and I opted for the sorbet, and got a scoop each of "apple-mango" and "tropical". Both were really good, but the apple-mango was incredible. I must make more sorbet at home!

The last two pictures in the collage show "Göteborg", the newly built ship that is sailing to China shortly. Gorgeous, isn't she?

Weekend Cat Blogging #13 - Glinda

Here's the baby - Glinda Gräddost. (Gräddost means Cream Cheese in Swedish, and Glinda, obviously, is the good witch of the north. From Oz. Obviously.) She's our youngest, turning one in november, and hopefully our future breeding queen. For now, she's just a kitten, and one of the most adorable ones we've ever come across. She's been friendly and loving from day one, and she loves hugging her humans - especially when we're wet and straight out of the shower.

The pictures show her lounging on our glassed-in balcony, which acts much like a greenhouse on hot days. The cats love it.


Food bloggers - blog about your cat(s) on the weekend, and send your permalink to Clare at Eat Stuff! The perfect way to watch gorgeous cats AND discover yummy new food blogs.

This week, see Kiri in his stylish sailor suit at Eat Stuff
Sort er Godt at Skør i Skralden
Jack and Betty at Stephen Cooks
Boo (who is just SO cute!) at Masak Masak
Macroom, the new kitten, at Dispensing Happiness

Green Chili Soup

Also known as green sludge. (I know, that's an awful picture.) Low-fat sludge, as it happens. This recipe is from one of WeightWatchers cookbooks - can't remember which one, as I was just leafing through it at a friend's house and decided to copy this recipe down. It has 0 points (I'm not even going to go into how much I dislike the WW points system - that's a post all of its own) and about 60 calories per serving. If you're counting.

However, this soup is actually worth making even if you're NOT counting. It's really tasty - a lot better than I expected when I made it. It's also a lot hotter than I thought it would be. Note to self - maybe decrease the amount of chili. Or not. It was good this way, just hot. The original recipe used.. oh, some kind of cabbage too, but I couldn't find that in my grocery store so I just omitted it. Can't imagine it'd have made things a lot better.

Green Chili Soup
4 small servings

1-2 green chilis, finely diced
150 g green beans
150 g broccoli (I used a bit more)
1 green bellpepper
1 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
800 ml vegetable stock

This is very straightforward. Dice everything, and boil the vegetables in the stock until they're soft. Transfer to a blender, or use an immersion blender, and process until as smooth as you want it. Season with salt, pepper and a little bit of honey.

New forum for Swedish foodies!

Heads up, my Swedish foodie friends. There's a new forum in town! Or actually, a whole slew of forum, but only one is food related. I'm talking about Matlust iFokus - check it out at http://matlust.ifokus.se

The other iFokus themes are photography, travels, movies, horses, cyckling, computers, home decoration and a few more that I'm forgetting. You only register once (and of course, it's free) and then you can enjoy all the forums. I'm a co-moderator of the food one - yeay!

Caesar Salad

I LOVE Ceasar Salad! It's one of my favorite dishes, and I'll often order it if we're eating out. However, I've never before attempted it on my own. Something about it has always scared me. The anchovy, probably. And the heavy whisking. Anyway, I recently got a recipe that looked do-able, and I decided to give it a go. Results? Bliss! It wasn't the best I've ever tried, sure, but it was certainly a fine start. And I'll gladly eat it again. But, please, if you have a stellar recipe for caesar dressing - do share! I'd love to hear it.

Ceasar dressing

Put one egg yolk in a small bowl. Whisk heavily while adding rougly 100 ml of olive oil, a little at a time. What really helped here was an immersion blender - I strongly recommend having one, and using it for this. It helps the emulsification! Then, add 1 minced clove of garlic, 2 tiny anchovy fillets (For Swedes - use "sardeller i olja" and NOT "ansjovis".) and blitz again. Add about a handful of parmesan.

Toss with romaine lettuce and homemade crutons.

Crutons
Slightly stale bread, cut into large dice
olive oil
salt

Toss bread dice with olive oil. Either fry in a pan, or - easier - bake in a 175 degree (350F) oven for 10-12 minutes. Simple!

An excellent pre-dinner nibble

I'll not talk much today - but I urge you to try these sweet, spicy almonds. They're incredible. And perfect with pre-dinner drinks. However, it's impossible to eat just one.

Spicy Caramel Almonds
Makes: too few.

150 g blanched almonds
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp sugar + 1 tbsp
sprinkle of Maldon sea salt
sprinkle of cayenne pepper
sprinkle of cumin
sprinkle of hot pepper (I use Peperoncino in a mill, that I found at the back of my spice cupboard. Shame on me, I should use it more.)

Heat the oil in a heavy pan. Add the almonds and the two tbsp of sugar. Fry this until the almonds are golden, stirring well. Immediately transfer to a bowl and toss with everything else, including the extra tablespoon of sugar.

Let cool on a plate, break apart any stuck bits, and serve. (Before you eat them all.)