Oh internet, what wouldn't I know without you??

Well, what do you know? Not that it takes a lot of effort or time to peel an egg with a cooperative shell... But for those times when you have to pick the shell off in minuscular millimeter sized pieces...

I've taken to always peel my kiwis (rather than using a spoon to eat them out of their halves with skin) but this is WAY quicker than peeling with knife or peeler as I normally do!


This looks a little too good to be true but hey, worth trying! :-)

I guess I'm hungry

I guess I'm a little hungry. Or peckish perhaps.
Better to look at this gif than actually going over to the fridge to have a look see, right? 8-)

Just got to love them

Or perhaps it's him you've just got to love? Funny it is either way. Steve Ziegler (?) and his infamous "gnocci-laugh" from the Webstaurant Store.

Heck, you have to watch that old gnocci-video too, it's hilarious! :-D

I will have to remember this recipe - Veggie and ham rose pie

Before oven.

It looks ABSOLUTELY STUNNING. Stunning and delicious. There are so much to be said about the attractiveness of food, at least I eat it with much more pleasure if it looks good.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to work out who the actual cook/author is behind the recipe below, but I hope they don't mind me sharing! :-)

Recipe :

Carrying on from my Rose Apple Tarts, I decided to make a similar savoury version using bright coloured vegetables – courgettes, carrots and aubergines. It turned out to be very pretty, but it did take a lot of work and patience! It’s a good one to make if you have a glut of vegetables in the summer, and a bit of time on your hands :)

For this tart, you could equally experiment with different fillings (e.g. an egg/quiche filling) and a variety of other vegetables (e.g. butternut squash, beetroot etc.) There are so many exciting colour, flavour and texture combinations you can play around with for this tart. There are similar recipes on the web, but this one is my own tri colour version. It’s a recipe I think that has a lot of potential and I look forward to experimenting a bit more. I think miniature ones with beetroot and goats cheese would be great as a starter, and also might take bit less work. Some of the tougher vegetables like beetroot, you may need to blanch/ par cook. I’ll just have to experiment and see.

After oven.

Here’s how:

Pastry

    6oz of plain white flour, sieved
    pinch of salt
    3 oz of butter, chopped into small pieces
    a few drops of cold water
    beaten egg white (optional)

Cream filling

    2oog of mozzarella
    200g of sour cream
    1 teaspoon of salt
    pepper to taste
    pinch of nutmeg
    pinch of paprika

Vegetable filling

    1 medium courgette, top and bottom stalk removed
    1 medium aubergine, top stalk removed
    2/3 peeled carrots
    Salt and pepper
    Olive oil

Place the sieved flour into a large bowl. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs. Take a fork and add just a few drops of water to bring the mixture into a ball of pastry. Place the ball of pastry in Clingfilm or plastic bag and leave to rest in the fridge for at least thirty minutes.

Pre -heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a 9 inch flan tin with butter. Once the pastry has rested, place it on a floured work surface. Using a rolling pin, roll it into an 11 inch circle. Carefully place the pastry into the tin and rest in the fridge for a further 5 minutes.

Take the pastry out of the fridge, and gently prick the base with a fork. Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper and fill it baking beads. Place in the oven and bake blind for 15-20 minutes. Once barely golden in colour, remove from the oven and leave to cool and set. If you want to maintain a crisper base, you can brush the base with beaten egg white.

For the filling, break up the mozzarella into small pieces and mix with the sour cream. Beat well with a wooden spoon, and then stir in the seasoning. You can add more seasoning if desired. It’s quiet a blank canvas, so if you fancy spicing it up with chilli powder, or giving it an Italian flavour with oregano – then do so.

Meanwhile, using a mandolin / slicer/ sharp knife – cut the vegetables into thin strips. Once you have them all sliced, place them on a level surface to see if there is much difference in the height. If so, chop off any edges so they are all roughly the same height. Place them all flat on a plate and season well with salt and pepper.

Next fill the pre cooked pastry case with the cheese and sour cream filling. On a chopping board, roll one strip of carrot into a tight circle, then wrap a strip of courgette, around that followed by a strip of aubergine. You may need a second pair of hands with this. I had the help of the OH. Repeat with the same pattern until your circle of rolled vegetables is roughly 9 inches in diameter. With two hands, carefully lift the circle of vegetables and gently lay it into the cheese and sour cream filling. Season again and brush with olive oil. Place in the oven (190 degrees Celsius) for 40-50 minutes. I covered with tinfoil near the end to prevent it burning. Serve as a main with a salad or as a side vegetable dish. It is quiet a bland tart, so there is plenty of scope to spice this recipe up a bit. I was bit timid first time out!

With a slice taken out.

Because I can

Cookies and double espresso for dinner. It's my birthday today and the sun is shining. I'll have cookies for dinner - because I'm old enough, because I can. :-D

Cinnamon swirls or cinnamon buns?

I just realised - cinnamon swirls, cinnamon rolls and cinnamon buns must be the same thing!

Helsinki 2005. This Finnish bun was SERIOUSLY the size of my face!

Cinnamon buns/swirls being my absolute favorite sweet bakery product I just feel that it's weird I never knew this. 8-) I guess I just learned one translation, e.g. cinnamon bun and assumed the other were variants of sweet bread with cinnamon. Silly that, considering the whole thing being of Swedish descent.

If anyone can shed light on the truth of this matter, please do let me know! :-)
For now, I believe in the truth presented by Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon_swirl

Sockerbit NY - sweet & Swedish

A candy shop selling Swedish sweets will open in Manhattan this weekend. Hah! We might have to, just might have to take a detour past this place too while we're there? :-)

If not I'll just have to settle for a fresh non-exported supply of my favourite Jelly Belly's. :-D

Sockerbit doesn't seem to have spent so much time on their own webpage yet, but I found a few links with references to it:
Resespanarna - Sockerbit (Swedish site)
A Swede in New York (Swedish blog)
DN.se Sockerbit-laddar-för-Goda-affärer (Swedish newspaper article)
Plockgodis i New York (Swedish blog)

And naturally Sockerbit's own FaceBook page - Sockerbit sweet & swedish

1.8 kg

That's how much candy this is, give or take a few that disappeared before I had time to get the camera out.

Do you want to know what's worse? Nobody came "trick or treat'ing" at our door tonight!! That means... 1.8kg of candy is heading straight for my hips! Eeek! 8-)

Chocolate

S had the opportunity to taste a new brand of chocolates some time ago and came home passionately describing it to me. I have had some issues with dark chocolate since the start of my last pregnancy (you wonder what this will mean for young David in the long run?) so haven't had much chocolate since as the echoes of nausea still lurks at the back of my mind when thinking about having some. Tonight he had bought some and insisted I'd try it.

It was Cocoa Farm Wine Chocolate Pinot Noir by Farm by Nature - yummy!

It's like a serious heavy-weight champion deluxe variant of the old Swedish classic ice cream "romrussin" but with chocolate and wine, not ice cream and rum. Oh, um, that's a poor comparison now isn't it? It is someway also not too far from another old Swedish classic "Skotte" (soft, rich dark chocolate, raisins, crunch...). But that's the first impression and I happen to love the ol' romrussin ice cream and the "old ladies chocolate" Skotte... :-D

Anyway, they make this chocolate using a special technique where they infuse raisins with wine (Pinot Noir, Shiraz or Merlot) and cover them with chocolate (38% in this case). It is absolutely looovely.

Try it out!

Pan Restaurant & Night club

After a long day in town we decided to not go to Magnus Ladulås (we tend to always end up there because of the reasonably priced and delicious food) and couldn't get a table at Kryp In (which was fortunate seeing their menu has jumped up a notch price wise). So we went a-wandering along the cobbled streets of Old Town/Gamla Stan to find a restaurant to feed four hungry adults and a one-year-old.

We stumbled upon this seemingly brand new place "Pan Restaurant & Nightclub" serving "South European food". It was very stylish, clean and open (the place triggered some very old memories of "Marble Bar" in Sydney, only not quite as grand). I worried we perhaps wouldn't be welcome in case it was exclusively for smartly dressed night-clubbers and bar-hangers but after a quick scouting tour inside we were made to feel very welcome by the expressive head waiter.

Nothing in our visit to this restaurant was disappointing. My fish soup was delicious. The 28 days tenderized beef served with french fries and fresh veg's was apparently to die for. :-) Service was excellent although the waitress in training forgot to bring us our drinks (something which the waiter could have noticed when bringing us our food) and the waiter charmed Tobias who flirted back rather happily. They heated Tobias food without protests and served it on a really nice plate with his own cutlery. The waitress even asked if we would like to wait with his food until ours was ready to serve and she suggested a straw for his water, a totally unexpected and much appreciated initiative!

The sound level was low even though the restaurant filled up (half full) while we were sitting there, the space was airy and attractive and the food was great. There's absolutely no reason not to go back there! :-)

There's unfortunately only a few traces of this restaurant on the web, old job ads on different websites (link) but I believe it's located on Stora Nygatan 40-42 (on the corner to Schönfeldts Gränd).

Worth noticing is that at the moment you get 20% off for orders placed before 6pm.

WARNING: Café Art

We desperately needed somewhere to break for afternoon snack, cup of warming coffee and restroom needs today and ended up in a previously untested café in Stockholm Old Town.

Holy schmoly it is by far the worst café I have ever visited! I so rarely go in to town nowadays and I so cherish my coffee and "fikabröd" that the quiality of Café Art really put me back. This horrid place should be put out of business and made into an art gallery or something totally different before it has a chance to ruin other people's café experiences!

Review at CINT (in Swedish).

Nhu's Thai

We had lunch at Nhu's Thai restaurant at Hornstull on Söder (Stockholm) today, I say WOW! We climbed off the subway after traveling for 45 minutes to get to town for the Christmas markets today and _needed food quickly_. This restaurant was one of two options close by, the place was nearly empty and we clambered in with stroller and baby no problem.
We ordered food, got Tobias food heated and by the time he was half way through his meal we got our food. And what food it was! :-D Glorious food!

We saw on the window outside that it had been nominated to the "Gulddraken" by one of the main newspapers in town. I can clearly understand why now. :-)

S ordered a fish dish which was beautiful in every aspect. It was crisp, it was colourful with a rich spicy taste and the serving was large. I ordered my classic (seeing my appetite is at rock bottom) Thom Ka Gai (chicken soup with coconut milk, lemon grass, mushroom and coriander) and it was yummy. Perhaps not knocking any socks off, but I refuse to review food in this state of appetite! I read later that they serve Thai fish cakes and I SO regret not having some, they are just generally the most delishious Thai food I know! :-) The menu offered some not so regular Thai choices because of an offering of food from the northern regions of Thailand, I like that.

Only bad thing I can think of was that the restaurant was rather chilly as we were one of the few tables inhabited. It probably gets better as it fills up but I still wish they'd have some form of additional heating installed. :-)

More about Nhu's (in Swedish):
DN's Äta ute - beskrivning och hitta dit
DN's Äta ute - recension (besök)

Why is it

...that in some countries it's quite OK to store egg in room temperature but in other countries egg are stored in the fridge?

...that jam and peanut butter can be stored in room temperature in some countries, but not in others?

The world's best waffles

We made waffles tonight. Actually a bit too late for dinner now that we set the time an hour ahead for daylight saving (is it on, or off now??). But we felt like waffles, so waffles it was. :-)

We've had some problems with our waffle iron, as anything we pour into it turns out soggy. But tonight we decided that since it was purchased in Norway we must give it a chance to bake some Norwegian waffles.

Out we went on the internet, to find a suitable candidate for our recipe. It wasn't difficult - I mean who can resist something which claims to be the "world's best recipe for waffles"? :-D

Recipe:

4 egg
400 g sugar
1 kg wheat flour
1 liter whole milk
1 ts natron (hjorthornssalt in Swedish, god knows what in English?)
1 ts vanilla powder
2 ts baking powder
3 dl sour cream
250 g butter/margarine

Start by mixing egg+sugar thoroughly. Then add natron, vanilla powder and baking powder to some of the flour. Now stir in flour and milk in the egg/sugar mix. Melt the butter and pour it into the mix. Let the mixture set for at least an hour.
Add the sour cream right before baking the waffles.

This recipe makes 30-35 delicious waffles.
Serve with sour creme and jam or butter and brown cheese (S prefers the latter).

In Norwegian:

Verdens beste vaffeloppskrift!!!
4 egg
400 g sukker
1 kg hvetemel
1 liter h-melk
1 ts natron
1 ts vaniljesukker
2 ts bakepulver
3 dl seterrømme
250 g smør/margarin

Fremgangsmåte:
Først blander du egg+sukker godt. Deretter blander du natron, vanlijesukker og bakepulver sammen med en del av melet. Bytt på å ha oppi mel og melk. Smelt smør/margarin og hell dette i røra. La røra stå og godgjøre seg minimum en time.
Bland ut rømmen rett før du begynner å steke.

Du får 30-35 lekre vafler med denne oppskriften. Serveres helst med rømme og syltetøy.


NOTE! We halved this mix and got plenty of waffles. Actually we got way too many, so I'll be having some for lunch tomorrow, and for dinner... :-D
We also used "minimjölk" with only 0.1% fat and it worked well.

But we can't do anything but agree with the "publisher" of this recipe. The waffles were absolutely delicious! I added finely shredded carrots to the mixture for the last waffle and that one tasted a little bit sweeter (if that's possible). If we make these waffles again I will put carrots in more of the mixture.

Seigmenn

These must be the bestest candy to ever come out of Norway... :-D

S' mum thankfully brought a couple of bags of Norwegian candy with her when she came to see us this cold Easter weekend (if she hadn't we wouldn't have had anything to give to the two small easter witches which came knocking on our door). :-) Anyway, my all time Norwegian favorite candy must be these - Laban seigmenn and seig ladies and other varieties which make it out of that factory (that is "jellymen", "jelly ladies" and more).

Arrgh! Now that I surfed the net to find Nidar's website I realise the bestest Norwegian candy is Troika and no other... X-) (how could I forget?) Three layers - dark chocolate truffels, cherry jelly and marzipan covered in dark cocolate, yum! :-)
Perhaps I can have categories of favorites? Jelly candy being one and chocolate candy being another?

Med sine tre lag av trøffel, marsipan og gelé, er sjokoladen Troika en typisk nytelsessjokolade. Denne godbiten spises gjerne fra dypet av sofaen, på mange forskjellige måter.

Never trust a Norwegian with a sandwich

I left S in the lounge for approximately 30 seconds while preparing a cup of tea and bringing it back with me. Look what happened! Norwegians are infamous for their sandwich eating habits - anytime is a good time for a sandwich in that country - which makes it dangerous to leave an innocent sandwich alone with one of them... X-D

Farbror & Company (II)

I was wrong. S remembered I had "moose entrecote" for dinner. So I have to take back some of the critic for the fillet I thought I was eating. :-) Entrecote should be better though. But if it's from a moose, I don't know. So that ups the score of that meal somewhat.

But not enough to make me want to return for another meal in the near future.

Farbror & Company

S and I had "a night off" last night, when S sister looked after Tobias to let us get out and do something together the two of us. We decided to have a meal at one of the restaurants 'in the hood' because getting into town would take too much time and it's nice to be close to home just in case. 8-)

There is a selection of roughly 7-8 restaurants in our neighborhood and we picked "Farbror & Company" (www.fabben.se). Newly renovated and reopened last summer. Unfortunately the food leaves the same impression as the website and the rest of the restaurant. It looks good but "I wouldn't bring it home to meet mum" (to qote BBC Food's Master Chef show host). Question is if I really would like to date it at all? No. No I wouldn't.
What they claim is moose fillet can't possibly be the fillet cut of moose. It was too coarse and sinewy for that (I had to leave a couple of chunks because I couldn't chew through it, could barely cut through it). The butter dough potato package, the sauce and the condiment of berries was rather nice though, so I enjoyed filling up on them. The starter was nice (but it made me suspect it came out of a jar) and the chocolate we had for dessert was a bit too hard and was possibly not fresh.
The service was OK, the girl did nothing to enhance our experience of the place but I suppose it's not easy when a big dining room like that is empty bar us two and a group of three other diners.

So we're not going back there again.

TV-reklam som fungerar?

Hade inte lust att laga middag idag, alla måltider blev hiskeligt förskjutna eftersom vi fick besök strax efter jag vaknade (och det gjorde jag sent!), så jag fikade först och sen käkade jag frukost länge och väl vid 15-16-tiden... 8-) Så jag gjorde en hemmagjord "cotti frutti" till middag istället, med lätt vaniljyoghurt, mini-keso, en halv dl havregryn och två skedar hallonsylt. :-)

Vaddå "cotti frutti"?? Att man kunde sätta keso i yoghurt hade jag väl aldrig vetat om jag inte sett på TV senaste månaden? :-D Läskigt. Att det man ser på TV fastnar så relativt lätt. Men gott.

Sen har vi tillsammans gjort slut på morotsstavar och selleristavar och dip som blev över sedan igår. Mums! Selleri är för övrigt som en snäll kusin till rabarber. Samma krisp, minus syrligheten. Och minus rabarbersmaken också i och för sig.

Mer info om Valios "cotti frutti": http://www.valio.se

Raclette

We got a raclette grill similar to the one above for Christmas.
I'm looking forward to trying it out actually, I do have a feeling it's the new "fondue" - we'll love to do it to start with and eventually we'll just forget what it was all about. But I'll sure enjoy it while it lasts! :-D

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Raclette Preparation
Cheese
Raclette cheese is usually sold cut from the wheel. Depending how ripe the cheese is the rind can be quite soft or hard. Some people prefer to melt the cheese with the rind on. The rind can have quite a different flavour compared the main part of the cheese and is usually very salty and crunchy when grilled under a raclette. Trim off a thin layer of the outer rind using a sharp knife. Then use an adjustable wire cheese cutter to slice cheese into thin slices approximatley 2mm thick. The small bits can be cut into equal sized cubes. To prevent the cheese sticking together you can place a layer of wax/baking paper in between the slices. Place on a serving dish, cover with plastic wrap and store in refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature for 20mins before serving. The smell and taste of the cheese is a lot different compared to it's aroma and flavour when melted.

Potatoes
We recommend the Pontiac and Desiree potato varieties (the ones with the pinkish/purply skin) as these have a tasty creamy texture. Small Kipfler potatoes are also perfect and ideal for raclette. The Pontiac, Desiree and Kipfler potatoes are great cooked in their skins. The common washed Coliban, Sebago or "Chat" baby potatoes are best suited for baking (potatoes served with raclette can also be baked, in the microwave or oven).

Bread
Sliced French Baguette (cut on diagonal for a larger slice), Turkish pita or other crusty loaf type breads can be placed in a basket and covered with napkin or tea towel to prevent drying out. If you wish you can drizzle olive oil over them or serve with butter. During the meal they can be placed onto the top of the grill to toast slightly.

More about raclette: www.raclette.com.au ("original raclette recipe")

Oh, and raclette is a Swiss cheese made from cow's milk. :-) (Wikipedia link)