Saturday, June 24, 2006

Midsummer's Day


Swedish strawberries - completely mandatory for Midsummer

Most of the world might not be aware, but Midsummer is possibly the most sacred holiday in Sweden. The stores are open pretty much all year round - Christmas Day, New Year's, Easter - but for Midsummer? Forget it. (Well, except for our exceptional Ica grocery store - that stays open.) Most Swedes celebrate Midsummer very traditionally - preferrably outdoors, preferrably in the archipelago, always with lots of friends, good food and plenty to drink.

We had a party. The food was excellent, although not very traditional. I'm not a big fan of "sill" - cured herring - so I skipped that. I made several side dishes. Tesse brought marinated meat for the grill, Dagmar brought halloumi vegetable skewers (not pictured) , Anna baked amazing baguettes and we all ate until we nearly burst. I also didn't get pictures of my raitziki sauce, my fab bbq sauce (but that will warrant a post of its own, soon!) nor Danne's great tapenade on toast, but it was all delicious. I'll give recipes for some of this stuff during the week, promise!


Summer blush, slowroasted tomatoes and peppers with garlic and basil


Crostini with broad beans, goat's cheese and mint


Mini omelettes with spinach and feta cheese (From Pille.)


Cheese-filled pierogies


Marinated new potatoes


Tomato-Pesto-Olive Tarte


Tomato-Pesto-Capers Tarte


Mixed salad with mango


Anna's amazing baguettes


Mini Pavlovas with strawberries, cream and strawberry sauce


Dagmar's exceptional chocolate truffle cake with walnut crust and a raspberry sauce

15 comments:

Brazilian Linda said...

Mmmmm mums vad gott det där ser ut! den midsommar festen hade jag gärna kommit på :) hihi.. dina små ost piroger ser ut som de jag gjorde igår :) Same thought.. :)
Trevlig midsommar i efterskott! :)

Kalyn Denny said...

The foodquite looks quite wonderful.

Kalyn Denny said...

Oops. too many quites in there!

Toronto1 said...

Wow what a feast!! I hope you and your family had a safe and pleasant midsummer.
The food looks and probably tastes yummy.
Is it too late to join the party?
Just kidding.

Anne said...

Linda - receptet är från AFF så chansen att de *ÄR* samma finns ju ;)

Kalyn, thank you so much :)

Toronto1 - well, actually, I have tons of leftovers, so it's definitely not too late :)

Brazilian Linda said...

hihi, jag har faktiskt inte ens sett att det fanns ett sånt recept där inne :) Jag bara experimenterade lite här hemma, men där ser man, matglada folk tänker ibland lika :) Jag gjorde extra idag och hade på mackan i morse till frukost,, mums vad gott, var länge sedan jag åt en sån god frukost :)
Ha en fin söndag!

The Öbergs said...

YUMMY! Glad to know pickled herring is not a necessity at these parties. Of course, we had lasagna for midsummer! HA!

Anonymous said...

What a party! All the dishes looks wonderful. Good to hear you had good time!

Anonymous said...

Anne, thanks for a great party and for inviting us. The food was great and we just loved your excellent mini Pavlovas! I supected that the delicious mini omelettes were Pille's but in the end I forgot to ask. Everything was amazing, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Looks amazing!!

Pille said...

Your midsummer spread looks wonderful, Anne! I celebrated midsommer ("jaanipäev" - which in Estonia is also the biggest holiday of the year) by drinking cocktails on Santorini - not bad at all for a change:)
Thanks for trying one of "my" recipes - it was curiously popular this weekend, as two Finnish bloggers made them for "juhannus", too. Cool!

Viktoria said...

It looks really yummy! (And I made your strawberries once again for my midsummer party!)

Priscilla said...

that all looks incredibly delicious!!

Anonymous said...

HELLO!MY NAME İS BENGİSU.I LIVE IN TÜRKİYE(TURKEY).FOOD LOOKS WONDERFUL.BYE...

~~louise~~ said...

Hi Anne,
I was just reviewing a post I did for Midsummer a while back and lo and behold, I've been linked to this post since 2008. How cool is that???

Here's my link if you want to take a gander.