Food & Thoughts

Cherries was at the market the other day and I just couldn't help myself from buying them although they were a teeny tiny bit expensive. Heck, I'm studying for my exam and I need to treat myself nicely from time to time - let myself indulge, if you know what I mean! And it has been a while since I'd made anything out of Baking by Flavor , hasn't it? Unfortunately, no recipes in that one that included fresh cherries, but - there is this killer recipe for blueberry muffins that I tried once. Loads of spices in it, which accented the blueberries so well, but I didn't think they would be quite the match for cherries... So - found some leftover marzipan from Christmas in the back of the cupboard (there are so many goodies in there, it keeps surprising me!) - and did buy a huge amount of milk chocolate a while ago. It is getting warmer around here, and we all know what happens when chocolate is in a hot environment - it melts! Man, I had to do something and I had to do it...

Just an EDIBLE tart for one person with cherry tomatoes, buffalo milk mozarella and basil. This would fit Dreska's Italian theme so well! The pie crust was made from a left-over piece of short crust pastry I'd stuck in the freezer some time ago, thawed, rolled and baked blind. Then all there was to it was a bunch of tomatoes at the market, the basil that would wilt within the next couple of days anyways - and hey, didn't I buy some mozarella di buffalo a couple of days ago? An egg yolk, a little cream, salt and pepper whisked together, and poured on top. Another stop by the oven, a green salad on the side - ah yes, a perfect dinner for when summer truly has arrived!

C'est l'amour, la vie - oops, sorry - French is not one of the languages I speak - or write. But darn it, I can cook French if I want to! The theme for Dining with the Bloggers this week is ze fabulous classic cuisine - ze French! And where better to turn than to everyone's darling petit French woman - Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini . It's not like she needs the extra linking, is it?:-) but just as I used to neglect making recipes from all the other blogs out there, I never tried any of hers. And that is a shame, especially considering her pictures almost without fail make me drool. Chocolate & Zucchini's index is huge and with LOADS of recipes, but when I found a recipe for Galettes de Sarrasin (buckwheat crepes), I was sold. There's this tiny little restaurant here in Copenhagen that make the most beautiful - and tasty! - buckwheat crepes, and I never thought about the fact that I could make them myself. The recipe is easy to follow, you just have...

I'm in a trifle state of mind these days - this is actually very much like the rhubarb one , and a bastardized version of a TRUE Danish kind. There'd be no yoghurt on that one - no, only whipped cream will do. And, you'd actually use æblerasp (a kind of sweetened bread crumbs) instead of macaroons - but this is my version, remember? Apple compote - I make mine by stewing apples, cut up in not-too-small pieces, with sugar and a cut-up vanilla pod. This batch I cooked a loooong time ago - just found it in my freezer when I cleaned it the other day, and it was still surprisingly flavorful! The joys of modern kitchen appliance! Crumbled macaroons on top (or æblerasp of course) and fat, drained yoghurt (or whipped cream, as decided by your waistline) on top of that. Sprinkle with a little brown sugar, and you're all ready to go!

You really couldn't have entered this months Sugar High Friday without one of the Microplane-wonders pictured here - well, maybe you could, but I for one wouldn't have wanted to! Microplaners make for the loveliest, fluffiest zest you've ever seen, and you don't get stuck with stringy pieces with all the white stuff still on it, in your teeth. And for me, going without zest in a theme like Pucker up with Citrus! would be a no-no! Alice of My Adventures in the Breadbox is the host this time. You could use anything that incorporated citrus in any form, shape or size - pomelo, lime, grapefruit, orange - my choice was the sunny lemon! Now, I'm stretching the theme a bit here, I think - because I really wanted to use lemon curd (as I've done before ), but I didn't make it myself - I'd love to try making it, but now wasn't the time. I bought it - but I promise you, it's made with the real deal! It makes your eyes go all squinty if you're one of ...

An EASY one this week - beverages! At least that was what Cathy claimed it would be, when she suggested it a while back. Well, and then not so much so! Not because of the theme though, but because this last week has been more than usually hectic for me, and while I knew exactly what I wanted to make, I haven't done it. Yet. Hang on one second... Wait, is it okay to mix alcohol with antihistamines?;-) I love reading The Food Whore's blog - she doesn't put up a lot of recipes, but her gossiping posts more than make up for it, and I love - love - love her bitchy-ness! I often cry from laughing reading it, and am amazed at some of her stories! Seriously - who would do this ?! The Lemon Drop Martini is a drink she's written about a couple of times, so when she revealed the ingredients a couple of months ago, it was diligently bookmarked and definitely comes in handy here on a icky cold May evening where I needed a little pick-me-up. Studying too much pathology will do tha...

Hmm, I wonder how many people will end up here as a result of a Google search, looking for recipes for cooking guinea pig? Heh - well sorry, that's NOT what this is about! You see, as you all know by now, I am a foodie. Naturally, things rub off when you live in a household with one such - so much so that my guinea pig has become - well, a Gourmet Guinea Pig. He doesn't hide in the hay - no no, he hides in a forest of - PARSLEY! I'm doing a lot of cooking for my cousin's 18th birthday - lots of goodies coming up, I hope!

The Boyfriend started working looooong hours with his new job, so I'm left with doing dinner almost each and every evening - which is fine, now. When it first started, I spent hours thinking about what to make - we do eat quite differently, our cooking styles are pretty far apart. We like the same kinds of food, but in general, I'd say my food is usually more simple (brown rice with avocado, tamari and toasted sesame seeds) and I felt like I had to provide a real meal for him - yes, I fell victim for the meat, potatoes and two vegs! Naturally, that wasn't going to happen forever. Especially seeing I had to do the cooking, and his contribution to the affair was along the lines of: me: "what would you like to eat for dinner?" him: "Oh I don't know. I'm sure you'll come up with something great" ARGH! MEN!;-) So I took charge and decided I'd just cook what I like! (minus the brown rice affair though - I think he'd look pretty disappointe...

It's that time of year where you just have to make stuff like this - at least you have to start experimenting so you'll have the perfect recipe for the bounty that is to come! And seeing I had a little rhubarb left over from last , and strawberries lying around the kitchen, trying this was sure as amen in church! Although strawberries and rhubarb is a classic combination in jam around here, I had difficulty locating a method for making it myself. I was a little worried about putting the soft berries together with the more stringy rhubarb - wouldn't the berries go mushy before the rhubarb was tender? But the consistency of this one turned out quite well. Tastewise, it did get a little sour, but I would say adding more sugar would take care of that, or leaving out the lemon. Or you know, just buy rhubarb that's not as tart as mine was!:-) Strawberry & Rhubarb Jam - adapted from Sensational Preserves Makes one 250 ml. glass 160 g. strawberries, hulled and halved if la...

Cathy's gone to Sicily, that silly woman! And left me here in the cold, still rainy Denmark - how rude!:-) So I didn't pick a theme as such this week - I just chose to do something that would make me forget that I was in the cold, and Cathy in the sun! A couple of weeks ago, I spotted this post on Sage, Pine-nut and Pecorino Scones . They were bookmarked as soon as I saw them - easy to whip up and yummy ingredients. They were made by The Part-Time Pro Bono Baker Gemma. Gemma's blog is fairly new, but she's already done a lot of things that are on my to-do list. Even though I thought the ingredients delectable, I made them on a cold and rainy evening were the planned dinner was a salad, but I just needed something warm and nourishing - read: something that had come out of the oven. Scones! Because it was sort of on a whim, I didn't have the exact ingredients in the house - had pinenuts, some frozen pesto and a couple of twigs of sage languishing in the back of...

My definition. You might have noticed the small bracket-enclosed word I had on one of my last posts. It is one I hope to use quite a lot in the time coming. It simply means, in case you hadn't figured that out already, Danish. Here's the deal - I'm not big in Danish foods, although I am Danish. With the help of a couple of fantastic ladies , I've decided to try and tread the path that is Danish food. There's a lot of meat, fat, dairy and well, generally, not stuff that I'm big fan of - maybe apart from the dairy that is. Still, there are things in Danish cuisine I love. For a lot of them, I don't know if they could really be defined as being DANISH - heck, some of them may be very far from it! Traditions and styles of different kitchens are being mixed and matched so much these days, I think it's sometimes hard to deduct where something originally came from. The point is, I'm not going to be very strict on the subject - what will be important fo...

She forgot her Rhubarb Compote with thick, fat Greek yoghurt and crumbled macaroons. Too bad for her, 'cause now there's none left!;-) The Greek yoghurt I bought at the local green grocer and the macaroons I bought in Irma . I'm not sure our macaroons would be the same as an English/American macaroon, they're not as chewy, but more along the lines of a meringue, yet no as airy... You get the idea? Anyways, they're just there for the textural crunch, so you could use anything, as long as it's crunchy and sweet. I love the rhubarb compote in a trifle too, layered with pillowy, soft, organic whipped cream and macaroons. But for the everyday version, I opt for yoghurt. For the compote, I slice up my rhubarb, dump them in roasting tin (unfortunately, I didn't really have enough this time to justify using that one ) and sprinkle with - umm, a lot of sugar, vanilla-scented if you have it. Sorry for the lack of specifications, but it really depends on the sourness ...