Fajitas

Today, we're eating chili tortillas wrapped around chicken thighs
cooked with chili, coriander and cumin, grilled peppers, avocado,
tomatoes, cheese and sour cream.

More ice cream news

Since summer is almost here, it seems everyone is launching new ice cream flavors. Here are two really refreshing options, from two of my favorite brands. Häagen-Dazs has something called Ice Cream Smoothie Raspberries & Summer Berries (apparently there's a mango-apricot option as well, haven't tried that) which is a really nice mix of ice cream and sorbet, swirled together. I loved this! I wish there would be more flavors though - and especially something citrus-y.



Ben & Jerry's have two new sorbets, swirled with fruit sauce. I tried Jamaican Me Crazy which is pineapple sorbet, pineapple chunks, and passionfruit sauce. I *love* pineapple, so this is right up my alley. It's a little on the sweet side though, and I wish it had slightly more acidity. Their other flavor is Mango-Berry Swirl, and I haven't tried that. Yet. I will.

A great idea

Gateau is one of my favorite bakeries, and conveniently close enough for us to get breakfast bread from them on the weekends. My favorite bread is called Grand Blanc, a huge sourdough bread.



A while ago they decided to launch these crisp little chips - it's basically the day-old bread (I'm guessing what didn't get sold), sliced super-thin and toasted with olive oil and sea salt. And what a great idea indeed. They're completely addictive and incredibly delicious - on their own, with cheese or with dips or salsas.

Lemon Curd

Lemon curd - well, you can buy it at the store, but home made is so much better. Some recipes are more involved - this is not. It'll make a small batch, but still plenty. This is so easy I actually whipped it up with the baby on my arm!

Do try it with homemade mini pavlovas (using the same number of egg whites, as it happens), whipped cream and some fresh strawberries. It doesn't get much better than that.

Lemon Curd
(printable recipe)
about 200 ml

4 egg yolks
150 g sugar
100 ml lemon juice (two lemons made just enough)
zest from one lemon
70 g butter, diced

Beat egg yolks and sugar until really fluffy. Add with the lemon juice, lemon zest and butter in a heavy saucepan and heat gently. Whisk all the time. When the cream is almost boiling and thickened, remove from heat and keep whisking until cooled down. A cold waterbath makes this much faster. Place in the fridge before serving, as it will firm up a little bit more that way.

Recipe in Swedish:
Lemon Curd

Dinner today

Pasta shells with chèvre, prosciutto, peas and pine nuts. Delicious!

Weekend Baby - errr - Cat blogging

Hamlet, really wanting to be on Per's lap, and not caring that the baby happened to be there, too.


Klara and Kelly carefully watching the baby.

I promise to not show you too many baby photos here, but we have set up a separate blog for Titus for those who might be interested. (It's linked from my profile.)

Jamie Oliver designs kid's menu for Swedish hotel

Scandic Hotels, which are all over Sweden, are working with Jamie Oliver to create a new kid's menu. I've seen it, and it looks pretty good! (In fact, I'd say it has a leg up on most of the grown-up hotel menus I've seen.) I got to try the dish above, which is meatballs, pasta, broad beans, parmesan and a tasty tomato sauce, and it was really nice. The dessert is "smush-ins", which is a bowl of plain ice cream and a wide variety of toppings for the kids to pick and mix. Nice!

How Scandic came about asking Jamie is pretty funny. Apparently they had a conference, and had an exercise where they had to imagine that if their hotel chain was a person, who would it be? And apparently they came up with... Jamie. I'd have loved to hear the reasoning, and even more the phone call to Jamie to explain it...

Lamb Ribs with Quinoa Clementine Salad

When I bought half a lamb last fall, lamb ribs was one of those cuts I really didn't know what to do with. It ended up sitting in the freezer for a long time, but eventually I decided to just try slow-baking them with some ready-bought barbecue sauce. Incredibly delicious! The ribs don't hold a whole lot of meat though, so you need a lot of them to feed a crowd.

The salad is great with this - a nice, light counterpart to the intense meatiness of the lamb. It would also go well with a piece of grilled salmon or chicken. If you can't find clementines, oranges or blood oranges would be equally nice.

Lamb Ribs
No need for measurements. Just pop all of your lamb ribs into the oven at 125°C for 3-4 hours. Brush occasionally with barbecue sauce, and keep baking until the meat is tender and easily separating from the bones. Clean the meat from bones and gristle, and mix with some extra barbecue sauce.

Quinoa Clementine Salad
(printable recipe)
Serves 2

100 ml quinoa
handful green olives, chopped
75 g feta cheese, crumbled
3-4 tbsp pistachios, coarsely chopped
50 g sunflower sprouts
2 clementines, peeled and diced
1 avocado, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

Rinse the quinoa really well to get rid of any bitterness, and boil in salted water for 10-12 minutes. Rinse with cold water, drain and mix with all other ingredients. Serve with the lamb.

Recipe in Swedish:
Quinoasallad och lammrevbensspjäll

Chapchae

Ok. This is probably not at all authentic Korean chapchae - let me just say that. In fact, I'd love to hear about your versions of chapchae, because while this was very good, I'm sure it can be even better! I love the bite of the noodles, made from sweet potato starch - they were easily found at the Asian supermarket I went to, and they're really what's essential for this dish. I think you can pretty much free-style it from there, to adapt this to your own favorite noodle dish. I didn't stray very far this time, but will definitely add some more flavors next time - maybe some garlic and ginger...

Chapchae
(printable recipe)
serves 2

2 carrots, thinly sliced
150 g mushrooms, sliced
200 g noodles made from sweet potato starch (dang myun)
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
100 g snow peas, sliced
200 g beef, in thin strips
cooking oil
2 tbsp japanese soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
salt
black pepper

Boil the noodles according to package instructions and drain. Fry the meat and veggies in a little bit of cooking oil, and mix together with all other ingredients.

Recipe in Swedish:
Chapchae

Asparagus season

It's time for asparagus! I've made this excellent omelet so far, which has smoked ham, asparagus and feta cheese. Delicious!

Obviously not doing a lot of cooking right now - but Per is, and it's great to be pampered like this. I absolutely love the baby life right now, it's wonderful and so much better than I could ever expect. For those wanting more baby pictures, I'm sure I'll be posting occasionally but we'll also set up a separate baby blog when we have the time. For now, there's a Flickr set of photos here.

Cake decorating class!

A few weeks ago, Lena and I attended a cake decorating class at Jungbo Gard, a beautiful place about an hour from central Stockholm. It was great fun - we all made "pillowy" cakes, and I have lots of photos to share with you.


We started with store-bought layers, and several fillings - blackcurrant, coffee, caramel, caipirinha and white chocolate.


My cake - chocolate layers with caramel and coffee mousse.


I wanted a square pillow, so I cut the cake into a slightly rounded square, and colored a mixture of sugar paste and marzipan for the covering.


I like a really thin cover, so it's less sweet. It can make some of the filling show through though!


Lena, covering her blue cake.


More cakes being covered.


Most of us made buttons and ribbons as well.


Lena, showing how to make the indents for the buttons.


Some added tassels, too.

Jungbo Gard also has a gorgeous cottage for rent in the summertime! I'll try to get you some more info on that, as many readers ask me for nice places to stay when they're here.

Weekend Cat Blogging

You haven't had any cat photos for several months - sorry!


Here's Kelly - in her new summer haircut.


And before.


Klara is a big girl now - she'll be a year soon!


With her favorite "toy" - the water fountain.

Finally!

Various cheese and charcuteries. I've been waiting very patiently!

Meet Titus, the tiny chef

Born May 14 at 8.44 am
Weight 3710 g
Length 51 cm

Dark Rye Sourdough

Since I'm about to leave you for a few days (Baby time! I might make small updates from the iPhone), I thought I'd give you a project to last for a couple of days. Here's one thing to make with your handy sourdough, which surely you have started by now. No? Then you need to check out this post, first. You must have some active starter to make this bread.

It looks fiddly. It isn't. It does however take time. A lot of it. But other than that, and a warm place for the bread to rise, it's really nothing.

Dark Rye Sourdough
based on a recipe from Bröd & Marmelad från Rosendahls Trädgård
makes 2 loaves

(printable recipe)

Day 1 (night):
300 ml tepid water
100 ml active sourdough starter
180 g rye flour

Whisk everything together, cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm-ish place overnight.

Day 2 (morning):
300 ml tepid water
180 g rye flour

Add to the dough from yesterday, cover in plastic and leave for at least 3-4 hours.

Day 2 (afternoon):
300 ml tepid water
20 g salt
150 g all-purpose flour (wheat)
400 g rye flour
100 g sunflower seeds (optional)

Mix everything together, and don't worry - it's supposed to be sticky. Leave to rise for at least an hour, or two.

Pour into greased bread tins, cover with plastic and let them rise for 1-2 hours - they should reach to the edge of the tin.

Heat the oven to 250°C. Put in the bread, and lower the heat to 200°C. Spray some water into the oven to build steam, or have some water in a pan below the bread. Ive cubes work well too. Bake for 60 minutes, but remove the loaves from their tins for the last fifteen minutes, to make the crust nicer.

Cover the breads with a towel and leave to cool on a rack, overnight.

Recipe in Swedish:
Mörkt rågsurdegsbröd

Jamie's Chicken Tikka Masala

Here's another Indian curry from Jamie's Ministry of Food! I didn't like this one as much as the korma, but then again, I never order tikka masala in restaurants either. As last time, it's a lot easier than it might look from just seeing the ingredients. There's nothing to it - I promise, everyone can cook this!

Jamie's Chicken Tikka Masala
(printable recipe)
Serves 4

600 g chicken, in bite-sized pieces
2 yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 red chili, finely chopped
small bunch of fresh coriander, separated into stalks and leaves (and stalks chopped)
cooking oil
a pat of butter
400 g (1 tin)crushed tomatoes
400 ml (1 tin) coconut milk
3 tbsp flaked almonds
1 batch tikka masala paste, below
salt, pepper

Tikka Masala paste:
2 garlic cloves
1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 fresh red chili
2 färska röda chilis
1 tbsp coconut flakes (unsweetened)
2 tbsp almonds, chopped
small bunch of fresh coriander
1 tsp whole cumin
1 tsp whole coriander seeds

Start by toasting the cumin and coriander seeds in a dry pan, until golden and fragrant. Grind them in a pestle and mortar. Peel the garlic and ginger, and mix all ingredients in a food processor until you have a smooth paste.

For the curry: Heat a little bit of oil in a deep pan or pot, and fry the onion, ginger and coriander stalks on medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir well so it doesn't burn.

Add the spice paste and the chicken. Stir well and season with salt and pepper. Add coconut milk and tomatoes, and about 3-400 ml of water. Bring to a boil, cover with a lid and lower the heat. Cook for about 20 minutes. Season again with salt and pepper, to taste.

Serve with rice and the fresh coriander leaves. A dollop of yogurt is good with this, and so is a squeeze of lemon and some additional flaked almonds.

Recipe in Swedish:
Tikka Masala

Avocado Edamame Salad

Here's an extremely yummy side salad that I found at Kalyn's Kitchen a while ago! I've made it twice in as many weeks, both times to accompany a piece of grilled salmon. She specifies red onion - I tried it with yellow as well, and actually preferred that one a little bit more, but feel free to use your favorite. And you can most definitely add fresh coriander if you're so inclined - it makes it even more guacamole-like, which is never a bad thing if you ask me.

Edamame comes frozen, and for this, it's really nice to have the shelled variety. If you can only find unshelled, you'll need to up the amount, instead.

Avocado Edamame Salad
(printable recipe)
Serves at least two

2 ripe avocados
100 g cherry tomatoes
1 small onion (yellow or red are fine)
200 ml (0.8 cups) edamame beans, shelled
1 lime, juiced
1/2 - 1 tbsp olive oil (if you have a good one with lemon - use that!)
salt, pepper, cumin

Dice the avocados and quarter the tomatoes. Finely dice the onions. Place the frozen edamame in a pot, cover with water and bring to boil. Drain and rinse with cold water. Mix with everything else - including lime juice and olive oil. Season with salt, pepper and a good pinch of cumin.

Recipe in Swedish:
Avocadosallad med edamame

Butterscotch Thins

These yummmy cookies come from Nicole at Baking Bites - as always one of my very favorite baking blogs, and probably the one where I have the most recipes bookmarked. (I used a slightly different method, so click on the link above for her original recipe.)

These were really quick and easy to make, and I brought them into work where they were quickly devoured. People thought they were gingerbread cookies, since that's what they look like, so they were rather surprised by the strong caramel flavor. You could certainly add a few spices to these if you'd like - cardamom, cinnamon, ginger.. it would all work very well.

I rather like the plain-ness of these - nothing special, just a nice cookie to go with your cup of coffee. However, they would also be great as sandwich cookies - maybe with a chocolate ganache (a white chocolate ganache in particular!) or even ice cream would be super tasty!

Butterscotch Thins
(printable recipe)
about 40 cookies

250 ml (1 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
120 g unsalted butter - at room temperature
200 g dark muscovado sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until it's smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients.

The dough will be very sticky, so put it in the fridge for a while to firm up. Then, shape small and even balls and place with plenty of space between them on a lined baking sheet. Bake at 175°C for 8-10 minutes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Muscovadokakor

Super Frutti

Superfruits are good for you - that's the idea behind this new bag of mixed candy from Swedish Malaco with their new line extension of "Gott & Blandat". As usual, this is gummy candies, but the flavors are all new: goji berries, acai, raspberries, cranberries, pomegranate and acerola.

Supposedly, at least. I have to tell you that the only one I could readily identify was raspberry (and that was delicious). Some of the other ones were really good as well, but sadly, I couldn't tell you which ones. So - while this was a pretty good bag of mixed gummies, I think I'll be sticking with the standard bag which has slightly more variety and in general better flavors. It was fun to try this one too, though.

Any American males in Stockholm?

This has nothing to do with food, but a friend of mine is seeking American males in Stockholm for a voice recording this summer. It's a pretty cool thing, and if you live here and want to know more, e-mail me (there's a link in the right-hand column) and I'll connect you!

Rye Sourdough Starter

Sourdough, "sleeping" in the fridge

I’ve recently discovered the joys of baking with sourdough, again. And for the first time, I’ve made bread that is ALL sourdough, rather than adding in a little bit of yeast as well. Sourdough baking is a bit fiddly – it’s not something you can do in a hurry, and it really does require some time and care. But it isn’t hard! Anyone can do it! I promise!

It all started (this time) when I was going to clean out my jar of *very* old wheat starter from the fridge. I started rinsing the jar with hot water and about half way through, it started to look.. well, pretty good. So I fed it for a few days and oh yes – it was alive and well. At the same time, I started a new rye starter which also turned out to be really good. I find wheat a lot harder to get along with, so I really recommend ordering a starter from somewhere. I got mine from here.

Anyway – let’s talk about a rye starter. You can make one with just flour and water but I’ve had much more luck with this one which uses a little bit of honey and yogurt to get it going. I got this recipe from a fellow blogger, and it’s really quite foolproof. Do use a fairly big jar – you can see mine in the photo and when it was at it’s most active, it would bubble almost to the top. Don’t forget to save a bit of starter in the fridge. Feed it a little bit every week and let it sit out in room temperature over night to get bubbly again before moving it back into the fridge.

Rye Sourdough Starter
(printable recipe)

On day one
1 tbsp honey
150 ml fine-milled rye flour
150 ml tepid water
3 tbsp yogurt (about 10% fat, Mediterranean style)

Whisk it together and pour into a fairly large jar. Cover with a lid, but not completely. Keep in a warm place in your kitchen.

On days 2-4 (or 5)

Add a large spoon of fine-milled rye flour and the same amount of tepid water, and stir well. The starter should bubble and star to smell a bit sour but nice and fresh.

Continue like that – the starter will be ready to use on day 5 or 6.

Recipe in Swedish:
Rågsurdeg

Lamb Pine Nut Meatballs

Ok, ok, not meatballs exactly perhaps, but flattened meatballs. Or patties. Burgers? In Swedish, they'd be called "biffar", which is also the same word as for "steaks", so it's not very useful in this case. Anyway - whatever you call them, they are utterly delicious. We had them as part of a small spread with tzatziki and pitta bread, but they'd also be perfect with pasta and tomato sauce.

I recently bought another half lamb, so my freezer is stuffed with it - or well, slightly older lamb really, but it's very tasty.

Lamb Pine Nut Meatballs
(printable recipe)

Serves 2

250 g minced lamb
3 tbsp pine nuts
1/2 yellow onion, finely minced
1 egg
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
salt
cayenne pepper

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until they're golden and fragrant. Let them cool. Mix the minced lamb with onion, garlic, egg and spices, and add the nuts. Shape into small patties - or regular round meatballs - and fry in olive oil on medium heat for a few minutes on each side.

Recipe in Swedish:
Lammfärsbiffar med pinjenötter

Egg Bacon Salad Sandwiches

Baby's due date is getting nearer, and I'm getting increasingly tired which probably isn't a big surprise to anyone. Hence the lack of posts, and recipes. I wish I'd say that'll change soon, but the truth is it's probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better! I don't plan on stopping blogging altogether, but to be realistic I most likely won't be posting every day anymore, for a while. Just so that you know. I'll try to post quite a bit though, and I'll definitely give Twitter updates, too!

Now, tired means not a lot of cooking, so I've been exploring fast, simple ways to have dinner. This was to satisfy a major craving for eggs and mayo that came upon me a while ago, and some crumbled leftover bacon went perfectly with it.

Egg Bacon Salad Sandwiches
(printable recipe)
Enough for two sandwiches

2 eggs, hard-boiled
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/2-1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp finely chopped red onion or shallots
3 slices of crispy fried bacon
salt, black pepper

Finely chop the eggs, and mix with mayo and mustard. Add the finely chopped onions and crumble in the bacon. Season with black pepper and some salt. Divide on two slices of excellent bread.

And eat. I had a bowl of apple wedges with mine.

Recipe in Swedish:
Äggsallad med bacon