Lovely fruit

I love the fruit markets in Spain. Or well, the markets - period. In our area, there's a different market in a different town on any given day - Friday afternoons in Pilar which is our closest town, and another day in San Pedro which is also close. And you can find everything. Fruits and vegetables, sure, but also your houseware, kitchy garden gnomes, a wide variety of pickles and olives, underwear, shoes, handbags - everything, really.



We bought a lot of oranges, to have freshly squeezed juice in the mornings. Mm, delicious! They were really sweet and juicy, and very cheap. We also bought plums and peaches. The peaches were made into a clafoutis, but.. that didn't turn out so well. I'm not sure what clafoutis should be like, but I'm fairly sure it shouldn't be the gelatinous mass that I ended up with. It looks pretty, sure, but.. absolute inedible. Oh well, another lesson learned.

Eight Cookbooks of Separation

I read about the Eight Cookbooks of Separation-challenge on Food Blog School a while ago, and I *meant* to post about it right away. But.. well, I didn't. Anyway, better late than never. So. The picture above shows pretty much all my cookbooks. They have an entire bookshelf to themselves. It's a pretty big shelf. But I bet many of you food bloggers easily match this collection.

Anyway, it'd be stupid to blog about each and every one, so here's a couple of my favorites and most used books.



1. Stora Kokboken (Translates "The Big Cookbook")

This used to be my grandmother's. My other grandmother had one too, which I grew up with, since she lived with us. That one is another edition, and I'm much more used to that one - but mom would never give it up, so it lives with her. Instead, I got this one when my other grandmother died. She got it for christmas in 1953. Stainfactor? Very low as in it's well protected, but very high as in used a lot. This has so incredibly many good basic recipes, it's something I always look at.

2. Jamie Oliver - Jamie's Dinners

Well, this is my favorite of Jamie's books, but I have all of them. We cook extensively from this one, and I'd have to say it has a stainfactor of 7 or so. More importantly, everything has come out absolutely perfect so far. Yum. A safe book.

3. Nigella Lawson - Nigella Bites

Again, I have all of Nigella's books, but this is my personal favorite. I have made about half the recipes in it, I think, and I love it. It's not as dependable as Jamie, but it has an even higher stainfactor. Say 8.

4. Bitchin' in the Kitchen - The PMS Survival Cookbook

I picked up this little gem in a weird store somewhere in a mall in California, many years ago. It's written by Jennifer Evans and Fritzi Horstman, and I completely fell for it straight away. Who wouldn't love a cookbook with chapters like "Chocolate", "Comfort Foods", "Sugar, Sugar", "The Salt Fix" and "Desperado Feasts"? I heartily recommend this. All recipes also come with a "piggie rating". Stainfactor? 6 or so. I don't use it *that* much, but what I've tried, I love. And it's fun just for reading. No pictures though.

Now, head over to Tomatom who thought up this cool idea, and read more about cookbooks!

It's fall - so here's a stew

Stews and one-pot dishes are very much a fall and winter food for me. Today is definitely the beginning of fall in Sweden - it's cool, crisp and gorgeous outside. I decided on a stew with a lot of red wine, adding some of the rosemary and sage that has survived the first frosty nights outside, and a couple of pears that were sitting in my kitchen. And as it happens, stews with wine are quite nice to drink with wine, and since Andrew tagged me for the Meme With Two Tails - this is my entry for that. It's certainly the most wine-appropriate food I've cooked for quite a while, and definitely the first wine I've had in several weeks. (Not by choice - but with all the antibiotics.. yeah.)

And who am I tagging? For a foodie, I'm choosing Pille at Nami Nami who's away in Mexico and I bet is sure to have lots of wine-food-experience to talk about, and for a wine blogger.. I'm actually going to tag a Swedish one, Vinbloggen who is run by Morgan Skantz, currently living in Spain.

So - what wine would that be then? I'm using a bottle of Graham Beck Merlot, 2003 from South Africa. It was very nice here - soft and mellow, and a perfect pairing with the aromatic rosemary and sage, and the sweetness from the pears. This is, however, the time to admit that I mostly like wine on its own, or possibly with cheese. I rarely manage to get that ultimate experience with a great wine/food pairing, and thus usually drink water with my food.



October Stew with Pears

1 kilo meat for stewing (I use fransyska), in large pieces
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
375 ml (half a bottle) of red wine
3-4 carrots, peeled and divided in large pieces
3 small pears, peeled and cut into wedges
100 g walnuts, whole or roughly crushed
1-2 tbsp cornstarch
250 ml cream (or half and half, or whatever substitute you'd like)

salt (Falksalts Rosemary Salt if you can find it)
butter
fresh rosemary, a small handful, chopped
fresh sage, about ten medium leaves, chopped

Get out a large pot, and melt a pat of butter. Sear the meat, until it has some color on all sides. Add the garlic and onion. Salt generously. Add the wine - it should almost cover the meat. If it doesn't, add water. (About a cup or so). Bring to a boil, cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes. At that point, add the carrots and the fresh herbs. Keep simmering for 20 more minutes. Then, add the pears, the walnuts and the cream. Continue to simmer for another fifteen minutes, then add the cornstarch, bring to a final boil and simmer until it's thickened slightly. Serve with your choice of carbs or starch - we ate it with bulgur, it'd have been nice with boiled potatoes or rice as well.

Weekend Cat Blogging #17 - Edith

Behold little Smokey Edith, enjoying her very snug space atop our tv-computer. She loves rolling around there - it's nice and warm when it's turned on, and she feels safe and happy.

In Hufflepuffs cat news, Ywette is away on a date. She is very much the Queen Bee around here, so the other cats are acting a bit differently when she's not around. Keep your fingers crossed that Ywette likes the beau we've picked out for her - his name is Screaming Eagle - and that we'll end up with beautiful little babies in a couple of months!

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.

Wanna send me something?

Well, I don't really feel comfortable with posting my mailing address, but if you for some reason want it - just ask. If you're resourceful, you can probably find it on the net anyway (hint - it's on our cat website), but it's a little scary to post it outright, I guess.

That said, if anyone *does* want to send something.. *wink wink* :)