New York, part 3

So. Back to our trip! Here's what we ate on our second day, when we walked up Fifth Avenue to Columbus Circle. We had lunch at Quality Meats, where my chopped salad with chicken, bacon and blue cheese dressing was just ok (huge chunks of raw red onion?), Dagmar's steak was delicious and Lena hit the jackpot with an open-faced sandwich with truffled chicken salad, fries and a small salad. The service was very slow, but we were offered a glass of champagne as compensation for waiting.



After all our walking, we were planning on coffee and a little something at Bouchon Bakery but there were no tables available and our feet were killing us. So we stopped at Jamba Juice, where I had their seasonal "Berried 'n chocolate" which was a lot better than I had actually expected.

We had dinner at Roxy's Deli, right on Times Square. While perhaps not the finest of dining, it suited our needs at the time. We just ordered appetizers to share - fried chicken, some weird fried rolled up tortillas with chicken inside and guacamole for dipping, and OH THE WONDER: fried macaroni & cheese. Who thought of that? It should be illegal! (And I have to try and make it myself, soon.) No photo of that, though.



We also shared a huge slice of cheesecake. Their cheesecake window looked very promising, and after a lot of contemplating, we chose the Caramel Apple Streusel. Enjoy the photos - we enjoyed the cheesecake!











New York, part 1
New York, part 2

Carr's Cheese Nibbles

These little crackers melt in your mouth and are down-right addictive!

Time for Julbord!

New York, part 2

So, more about New York! We arrived quite late, so on our first night, we just had a Blueberry bagel at Grand Central Station. It was wonderful, warm, chewy and filling. On the next day, we went outlet shopping, and lunch was just in the food court. Nothing to write about - but after that, we had coffee at Cinnabon as you can see in the picture above. Coffee sucked (as most American coffee does, except for Starbucks - yes, feel free to laugh now) but the Cinnabon classic was... ah, delicious. It sure hit the spot.



For a late dinner, we went to Mandoo Bar in Little Korea, and arrived just before last call. We quickly decided to just share some dumplings - fried pork dumplings and boiled seafood ones. The pork filling was much tastier, but I liked both the fried and the boiled dough.



We also got some sort of kimchi and pickled stuff to start with - neither was much to my liking, but I'm not a big fan. Service was brisk but friendly and the food tasted good. Recommended!



Here's some of the food-related stuff I picked up at Woodbury Commons - two spatulas (see that little one with a gingerbread man? so cute!), a pancake pan with animals, some multi-colored sugar sprinkles, a cookie decorating kit, a dinosaur sandwich cutter, wine stoppers, and finally a Kitchen-Aid Beater Blade. I've been wanting one of those for a LONG time!

I still have more New York talking to do, so expect a part 3 and 4 as well!

Chanterelle Caesar Salad

So, I might have mentioned that I was going to be in the newspaper. It was a feature for Expressen Söndag (one of the daily newspaper's Sunday supplement) and I actually missed it since it was this past weekend and no one said it was coming out. Oh well - I've managed to get a copy now, and it looks ok. (Never very comfortable being photographed...)

Sorry - it's not available online. It was quite a nice article about a girl's night dinner, and the idea was basically to invite three friends and serve a three-course meal. A journalist and photographer was there for part of it, and took photos and notes. I served a non-traditional Caesar Salad with funnel chanterelles - absolutely delicious. I used Swedish Vasterbotten Cheese instead of Parmesan, and Swedish cold-pressed canola oil rather than olive - both good moves that helped make this a little bit more local.

(The main course was this lamb stew with caramelized oranges and pistachios, and for dessert, chocolate panna cotta with raspberry jelly.)

Chanterelle Caesar Salad
Serves 4

300 g funnel chanterelles
140 g bacon
2 small heads romaine lettuce
100 ml Vasterbotten cheese, grated

Cut the bacon into strips and fry until crispy. Drain on paper towels. Fry the mushrooms in the same pan until all the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are getting crispy. Remove from pan and leave to cool completely.

Tear the salad into large piees and toss with the dressing (not all of it - start with a smaller amount and gradually add more), croutons, and half of the mushrooms and bacon. Arrange on a platter, and top with the remaining mushrooms, bacon and cheese.

Dressing:
4 anchovy fillets
1 egg
100 ml Vasterbotten cheese, grated
1 tbsp dijon mustard
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp worcestershiresauce
2 garlic cloves
200 ml cold-pressed canola oil

Mix the dressing in a food processor, or preferrably a blender. Start by mixing the anchovies with the egg, cheese, mustard, vinegar, worcestershiresauce and garlic. Add the oil, drop by drop, until the dressing thickens. You'll have more dressing than you need, but it'll keep in the fridge for a few days.

Sourdough Croutons:
3 slices light sourdough bread
2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tsp flaky sea salt

Cut the bread into small dice. Toss with the oil and salt and spread on a baking sheet. Toast at 200°C for about 7-10 minutes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Caesarsallad med trattkantareller

New York, part 1

Ok, let's get going on my enormous photo pile! First things first - I went with Lena and Dagmar, and we stayed at the Bedford Hotel which was right near Grand Central Station. Great location really - we found that it was easy to get to, easy to get to where we wanted, and the area felt safe in general. The first night was super cold, so we all bought warm pajamas and blankets, and got them to turn up the heat. Other than that, we were happy.


Our ride from the airport

We took a shuttle from the airport. I expected a mini-bus, but ended up in this - a huge, white Hummer limo. Complete with flashing lights and make-out music. It felt surreal but was kind of fun.


The Chrysler building - just a few blocks from us.


Lena, I and Dagmar, at Rockefeller Center

Main purpose of the trip? Shopping. Just shopping. And eating, but that took a backseat to... shopping. I really, REALLY recommend going to Woodbury Commons Outlet, if you're as shopping-minded as we were. We had a great time. You need to take a bus there, but it was well worth it for us.


Lena, with most of our bags at Woodbury Commons.


Yummy - Cherry Yogurt Parfait, and Peppermint Mocha Latte.

As for food - well, we all agreed to skip fine dining on this trip. We did want to eat at several places, but ended up eating pretty much where we were, rather than making trips across town. (Like I said, shopping came first!) We had breakfast at Starbucks twice, at Dunkin Donuts, and at Lily's which was a pretty expensive restaurant attached to a hotel. Overpriced for sure (at least their breakfast menu) - but tasty pancakes. Service was just ok - we waited for a long time. Sadly, we had to do that at the majority of places we went.


Lena's French Toast at Lily's.


My pancakes.

We ate at several other places - but let me tell you about some of them in another post!

Apple cake

Titus is completely devouring a big piece of apple cake, made by my parents.

No Wednesday links today - because of our trip, I haven't really bookmarked anything!

Cookbook Watch: A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I know you're all dying to hear about the NYC trip - or maybe not, but I'm dying to tell you! I just have to download all the pictures, and get writing - soon! Meanwhile, how about some more cookbook reviews?



Modern fransk husmanskost ("Modern French Home Cooking") is written by Yvan Cadiou who's a highly trained French chef from Brittany. He's done some cooking shows for French TV and BBC, and has written cookbooks in French - this one, however, is as far as I can tell only available in Swedish. First of all, the name totally puts me off. It seems so boring, and frankly, anything but modern. And not very suited to the chef - just look at his website!. Then again, maybe it's well suited to the book, which is also.. well, not that modern. I expected to be surprised and inspired, not to see the same ratatouille, salade nicoise, pot au feu and duck a'l'orange as in every other French cookbook. Not to say that it's not delicious - it sure is - but it's not what I think of as modern, exactly.



Hela årets kokbok ("Cookbook for the whole year") is written by Fredrik Eriksson who runs Långbro Värdshus in Stockholm and is well known for being an advocate for locally produced food. His "year" isn't really a whole year though - it starts with Easter, moves through early vegetables into the grilling season, then on to shellfish, harvest time and finally christmas. Food-wise, maybe that is a full year? I'm not sure. Either way, with 200 recipes, you'll certainly be busy for the whole year!



Johanna fixar Fest ("Johanna holds a party") by Johanna Westman is a book to help you arrange children's parties. Or really, if you *are* a kid, it's to help you hold your own party. I love how Johanna's books (she's written quite a few) are never dumbed down, but they're still simple and clear enough for kids to use. The book has a whole year of parties - and not just the obvious holidays either, no, this also has Chinese New Year and waffle day in addition to things like Valentine´s, Easter and Christmas. Each occasion has general party ideas, some tips, but mostly recipes which is why I think this is a cookbook first and foremost rather than a party-planning book. And as such, it holds a much wider appeal. This is great - even if you don't have kids, or if you don't really throw parties. I think my favorite chapter is "Mother's Day, and other luxury breakfasts" and I can hardly wait until Titus is old enough to read...

Last night's cheesecake

Apple Caramel Streusel - yum!

Had breakfast at Dunkin Donuts

Cinnabon!

A well needed snack after a long shopping day!

Wednesday Bookmarks, Nov 17

View from my bedroom window, Nov 17, 2010

You guys, I'm leaving for New York today! I'll be there with my lovely girlfriends, and we'll have so much fun shopping and eating! I'll try to keep you updated via Twitter and maybe a few blog posts, when I have Internet access.

To keep you busy while I'm away, here's some goodies I've been bookmarking this past week:

Croquetas is one of my guilty pleasures whenever I'm in Spain. I buy them frozen, and they're completely delightful. I've never tried making my own, but this recipe for Chorizo Croquetas looks irresistible.

Next one lured my with it's name: Trailer Trash Pot Roast. How can that not be a winner?

More beef, this time in a stew. It has a tropical twist: coconut! Coconut Beef Stew might sound surprising, but I think it will work. And I think Titus will love it!

Noodles is one of my favorite foods, in any shape or form, and this Sweet Soy Ginger Sauce is something I definitely must try.

December is fast approaching, and I know I'll be attending and probably hosting a few holiday parties. These pinwheels with brie, prosciutto and apple look great - they'd go perfectly with a small glass of spiced Glögg.

And finally, a soup! A tomato bulgur soup, topped with crunchy five-spice cauliflower. Looks just perfect for this cold weather!

As always, for all of my bookmarks, you can check out my Delicious page.

Power Bars, version 1

Sometimes I get really hungry a few hours after breakfast, or after lunch for that matter. Candy is the obvious, but very bad, solution, so I wanted to try for something a bit more wholesome and with less sugar. So, I'm on the quest to make power bars. Great ones. These are nice - but not the holy grail of power bars. I will try more! Do you have a great recipe? Please do share!

Meanwhile, these are fast and simple to make, and definitely among the healthier alternatives.

Power Bars, version 1

100 ml almonds, blanched and skinned
150 ml oats
1 tbsp honey
100 ml sesame seeds
100 ml unsweetened coconut
100 ml sunflower seeds
100 ml dried apricots, in small pieces
2 egg whites

Mix everything in a food processor and shape into a square (about 20 cm) on a baking paper. Score into twelve pieces. Bake at 175°C for about 15 minutes. Leave to cool completely, before breaking apart.

Recept på engelska:
Power Bars, version 1

Cake for dad

Yesterday was Father's Day in Sweden, and I got my dad this cake. No - I didn't make it. It just so happens that our local supermarket has a really good bakery, and their Princess Cake - which this is - is excellent. And since they had gone the extra mile and made Father's Day cakes - oh, it was the easy route. And it was delicious!

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Recipes to use up old bananas! I can never have too many of the former - because I always seem to have the latter. So, here's yet another one. And it's a good one! It's fairly healthy - I used wholewheat flour than regular, and it contains so-called "smart food" like linseed, walnuts and chocolate that are all high in anti-oxidants. And no oil or butter!

Ok, it's still a cookie. But as far as cookies go, it's not that bad.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies
makes 24

125 ml wholewheat spelt (or wheat) flour
250 ml rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp crushed linseed
75 ml sugar
60 ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 banana
150 ml dark chocolate, finely chopped
100 ml walnuts, finely chopped

Mix everything. Shape into small balls, and place on a baking sheet. About 12 per sheet is good - they don't spread a whole lot during baking. Bake for 10 minutes at 175°C.

Recipe in Swedish
Bananhavrekakor

Want to print the recipe? Go to PrintFriendly!

Tosca!

I made my dad's favorite cake, a Swedish Tosca Cake, sine Father's Day is this Sunday. This time, I used all blanched almonds, about 150 g in total. Turned out quite lovely - I'm especially pleased with the caramel topping.

Frozen Raspberry Oreo Cheesecake

Forgive the blurry, iPhone-taken in very bad light photo. I know it sucks. Never mind, make this anyway - it's delicious. And I bet it could be styled to look very pretty, too - I'll definitely make it again some time and I'll try to remember to take a better photo!

I've stopped using Google Pages for printables since I found a much better solution. Just go to PrintFriendly instead! (I'll add a link in the sidebar soon.)

Frozen Raspberry Oreo Cheesecake

200 g cream cheese
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
200 ml sugar
300 ml cream (full-fat)
300 g raspberries (fresh, or frozen and thawed)

200 g Oreo cookies
70 g melted butter

Use a springform pan. Use a food processor to turn the Oreos into crumbs. Add the butter and process until you have wet crumbs. Press them into your pan, in an even layer. Bake at 200°C for 4 minutes - no longer! Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely - in the freezer is good.

Mix the cream cheese, egg yolks, sugar and raspberries until smooth. Beat the cream until firm, and fold into the cheese mixture. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the other ingredients. Pour everything over the crust, carefully, and place in the freezer for at least 6 hours or over night.

Leave at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.

Recipe in Swedish:
Frusen halloncheesecake med Oreo-botten

Wednesday Bookmarks, Nov 10

The view from my office window, at 11 am.

So, what's been cooking this week? I think you can tell that it's usually the sweet treats that I bookmark - especially now that the weather is grey and dreary. We had a horrible rainstorm yesterday, that turned into a snowstorm, that then turned into semi-frozen slush. Definitely NOT my favorite weather. (I thought I'd use these posts to show you photos from my window, so you can follow the Swedish seasons.)

Mia Öhrn is a great pastry chef and she's also really sweet - I met her a few weeks ago at a press event and was thrilled. She always seems to make tempting treats, but these milk chocolate truffle macaroons with cinnamon are completely adorable.

Christmas is fast approaching, and I know I want to make this sticky saffron cake topped with white chocolate truffle. I think it might be very sweet, but perfect in thin slices with coffee.

Top Chef Just Desserts is one of my favorite shows right now. Eric Wolitzy was recently eliminated, but he's been showing off a lot of great baked goodies throughout the season. This recipe is for chocolate chip cookies, and they seem perfectly soft and chewy. Have to try it!

I hope these links will cheer you up! As always, for all of my bookmarks, you can check out my Delicious page.

Perfect fall snack

Locally grown apples - preferrably from your own garden, if you have that option - dried to crisp yet chewy snacks. I borrowed a friend's dehydrator and that worked out really well, but you can oven-dry these as well. Or even air-dry, but they won't be as crispy.

You can dip the slices, pre-drying - in lemon juice to prevent browning, and you can add spices like cinnamon or cardamom. I did nothing at all to this batch though - the apples are delicious all on their own.

Simple dinner idea

Got it from Nigella's latest book: chicken legs, spicy sausages and potatoes, sprinkled with chopped red onions and orange zest. Mine was in the oven for a few minutes too long, but the basic idea was pretty good. Will try it again.

Simple White Bread

Here's the bread I've been promising for a while - it's adapted from a recipe in the book "Enklare Bröd" that I reviewed here. (I used more yeast than the original since my kitchen was a bit cold, and my yeast had passed it's expiry date.) It's simple, in the sense that you don't need any machines to make it, and it'll give you great results.

You do need time however, and you do need to be at home to take care of the bread - you can't just leave it. Although you can put the dough in the fridge for a few hours between the foldings if you need to go somewhere - I did that after the third fold and it turned out just fine.

Folding the dough is what helps it develop gluten, and that in turn creates the nice, hole-y texture that's so desirable.

Writing the instructions is however pretty hard, so I hope you'll understand this - if not, feel free to ask!

Simple White Bread
(printable recipe)
One loaf

25 g fresh yeast
3,5 dl water, tepid
390 g high-protein bread flour
2-3 tsp salt

Start by mixing water and yeast. Add flour and salt, and stir into a dough. Leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Fold the dough: Wet your hand, and grab one side of the dough. Fold it towards the middle. Do the same all around the dough, 3-4 times. You'll feel the tension in the dough. Leave to rest for 30 minutes, and repeat twice - in total, fold the dough three times. Keep the dough covered with a towel, to prevent the surface doesn't dry out.

After the third folding, leave the dough to rise for one hour. After that, move it to a well-floured surface. Stretch the dough a little, so it forms an oval. Grab the top third and fold it towards the middle, and press down. Do the same with the bottom third of the dough. You'll now have a loaf-shape with a seam on top. Turn the dough seam-side down, still on your floured surface, and cover with a towel. Leave to rise for one hour.

Preheat your oven to 250°C, and if you have a baking stone or something similar, make sure you heat that, too. (A baking sheet works!)

Place the well-risen loaf on a baking paper (parchment, or teflon), seam-side up. Score the bread if you'd like, before swooshing it into the hot oven. (I used a cutting board to help transferring it - the parchment paper makes it easy.) Bake for a total of 35 minutes, but you can open the oven door to let out some steam every 10 minutes. I lowered the heat to about 200-225°C, since I don't like a too-hard crust, but for crustier bread, keep the heat high.

Also bear in mind that I have a convection oven, and yours might work differently. Always keep an eye on your bread. You can use a thermometer to check when you think the bread is finished - it should keep an inner temperature of at least 96°C.

Recipe in Swedish:
Enkelt vitt bröd

Cheese Combinations for Digestive biscuits

This post is for a blog competition. Digestive biscuits are very popular in Sweden, and often served as part of a cheese course. Göteborgs Kex has just launched a smaller version of these, called Små Digestive. They're cute - I usually find the regular Digestive biscuits to be a bit big, so this is welcome news for me!

Bloggers were asked to make a few combinations with biscuits and cheese, and here are my three ideas. Chèvre are one of my favorites, and I knew it went super well with both pears and honey, so I decided to make a compote combining the two. This was my favorite combination!

Per loves gruyère, so I knew I wanted to use that. It goes well with something sweet, yet tangy, so I made some vanilla caramelized kumquats. Very successful as well! It's like a very luxurious cheese and marmalade sandwich.

Finally, my mom's favorite cheese, St Agur. It's a very flavorful and creamy blue cheese, and it paired perfectly with a caramelized walnut. It's almost slightly smokey in flavor.

Gruyère with Vanilla Caramelized Kumquats

Place a slice of gruyère on each mini digestive biscuit, and top with a few kumquat slices.

Vanilla Caramelized Kumquats:
8 kumquats
4 tbsp water
4 tbsp home made vanilla sugar (or regular sugar + 1/2 vanilla bean)

Slice the kumquats and remove all seeds. Mix sugar and water (and scraped out vanilla seeds, if using) in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the kumquats and cook for five minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly - then move the slices to a teflon baking sheet and separate them. Leave to cool completely.

Chèvre with Honey Pear Compote



Place a small slice of chèvre cheese on a mini digestive biscuits, and top with a spoonful of compote.

Honey Pear Compote:
2 ripe pears
2 tbsp honey

Peel and core the pears, and cut into smaller pieces. Place in a saucepan with the honey and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for five minutes, then check to see if the pears are soft. If they're not, let them boil for five more minutes. When they're soft, use a balloon whisk to break them up and combine the pears and honey into a coarse compote. Leave to cool.

Blue Cheese & Caramelized Walnuts



Top a mini Digestive with St Agur, or another soft blue cheese, and a caramelized walnut.

Caramelized Walnuts:
50 ml walnuts (just over 3 tbsp)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp salt

Heat the oil in a small frying pan and toast the walnuts for a few minutes, until golden and fragrant. Add the sugar and salt, and stir. Cook for a few minutes, until the sugar has melted and caramelized. Pour onto a teflon baking sheet and separate while they're still hot. Leave to cool completely.

Recipe in Swedish:
Små Digestive x3

Wednesday Bookmarks Nov 3

Well, no comments on my bookmark post last week, but I like it so I'll continue for a while! I think it's a great way to feature some other excellent food blogs and give some linking love to them, and hopefully it can help you discover some delicious recipes, too!

So - these are things I haven't tried yet, but am dying to make. For all of my bookmarks, you can check out my Delicious page.

One of my favorite Swedish bloggers, Helena Ljunggren, posted about these donut muffins, and I really have to make them. I love donuts, but they're a lot of work to make yourself (although you can bet I'm going to eat a lot of them in NYC, Krispy Kreme and Doughnut Plant HERE WE COME!) so a muffin that tastes like a donut? Perfect. Helena's blog is in Swedish, but her photos are so gorgeous you really should check it out.

Framed posted about a chicken vegetable cobbler that looks extremely comforting and yummy in this cold and dark fall weather we've been having. And perfect for me who's not a huge pastry fan, since a cobbler is more of a pie-filling-topped-with-biscuits sort of thing.

Steamy Kitchen served up some roasted cauliflower with bacon and garlic - sounds great!

I've been wanting to make power bars for a while, and this recipe from Kung Markatta (a Swedish producer of organic foods) is particularly interesting. It has oats, nuts, seeds, fruits and.. peanut butter. How can you go wrong with that?

Finally, Annika from Swedish food blog Smaskens, just posted this recipe for a creamy yet tangy rhubarb cream sauce to go with roasted duck. Sauces are NOT my forte, so I'll be trying this!

Wagamama Stockholm

Wagamama has finally opened in Stockholm! This is a great noodle bar resturant that I've been to in London (and they also have locations in many places all over the world) and I've really been waiting for it to come to Stockholm, too. So, we had dinner there last night. And I'm sorry to report that it wasn't that great. Not as good as the ones in London, for sure.

The food was fine, but both my dishes (duck gyozas, shown along with ebi gyozas in the top pic, and yaki soba) were on the dry side, and didn't taste like much. Service was.. well, rushed. I understand the waitress, I really do - there was a line, and we had finished our food - she clearly wanted us to leave. But she could have been a little less obvious about it, perhaps? Anyway. We did leave, and ended the night with coffee and a cookie-on-a-stick at Espresso House instead.

Cookbook watch - big, huge cookbooks

Allt Om Mat Stora kokboken ("The big cookbook from All About Food")

An extremely ambitious cookbook by the most classic Swedish food magazine, Allt Om Mat. The closest equivalent in US would probably be the Gourmet cookbook, by Gourmet magazines. (The magazines aren't that much alike, but the books are at least in the same genre.) All the recipes are well-tested and therefor reliable, which is what I really like about them. It's perfect for when you don't feel adventurous and prefer to follow a recipe - like my husband. Everything turns out like it should, which is definitely a big advantage. The book is nicely ordered - weekdays, Friday nights (easy and slightly more glamorous), Saturdays (including starters and/or desserts) and Sundays with dishes that take more time. There is also a large focus on parties and events, and there are lot of party menus and buffets. And last, but certainly not least, a big section on Swedish holidays. I like this book a lot - it's definitely a keeper.



Bonnier is one of the big publishing houses in Sweden, and they have published a large, definitive cookbook since 1960. Even staples must be updated, and although this one was re-written in 2002, it was time for another major revision. As all staple cookbooks, this is big. Really big. 1800 recipes, in fact! Well, in theory this would be the only cookbook you'd ever need. In reality? Perhaps not. It's great if you're just starting out in cooking, but if you're more of a cooking buff, maybe this isn't for you. Still, I like having at least one of these around, for looking up things like meat temperatures and stuff like that.



Yeah, so Bonniers have published their big cookbook for 50 years now. Guess what, they just re-published the very first edition from 1960, too! This is exactly like the old edition, since the original pages have been photographed and re-printed. This gets me more excited than the updated one - it's a lot of fun looking at old staple recipes, and marvelling at the ingredients and methods used. And the photos! They might not be food-porny like what you see in modern cookbooks, but I love them - it's all very retro. My favorite sections are probably the ones about kitchen layout, the menu suggestions, and a chapter on cooking with kids.