Food & Thoughts

So this is one of the hard-core Danish delicatessen - there's no way I could escape posting about what is synonymous with Danish spring and summer for me - fjordrejer . It does feel just a tiny bit stupid though, seeing unless you come here, you're probably never going to have it. Then again, it might convince you to come here! They come like this - you ALWAYS buy them alive and kicking (and they will jump out of the bowl if it's not deep enough!) Then you boil them in a large pot of water, to which you've added salt, sugar, maybe some stalks of dill. Bring the water to the boil, add the shrimps, and let the water come back to the boil. Turn of the heat and drain. Then you have: As the (Swedish) kitchen chef at my job proclaimed the other day: only Danes would be daft enough to feel they should do the tedious task of peeling these little buggers when they're this size, instead of waiting until they grow a bit bigger. Small they are: That's a size AA battery, mea...

It's funny how I think that when I finally have a vacation, I'll post ALL the time - when reality is, I post a lot less! There are just so many things to do, sun to enjoy and friends to see - you know how it is! But - today is IMBB # 16, and seeing I missed the last jellied IMBB due to lack of time, I thought no way I'm gonna miss this one! Hosted by the Seattle Bon Vivant Viv, the theme is EGGS! But you already knew that, didn't ya?;-) We always have eggs in the fridge. I love eggs - scrambled, boil, in a frittatta - yolks used alone in a curd or custard, whites alone in meringue - added to breads, in tarts - I use eggs a lot. This time though, I've chosen a slightly deviant way of using eggs. It is the star of the "dish", only it's actually just - a boiled egg. A boiled egg served with a spice mix that accents the taste and texture of the egg itself. Hey, Viv said it could be as simple (or as spectacular) as you wanted it to be! Dukkah is a spice ...

Alright alright already! The Cook Next Door is hitting the food blogging world like a tornado on a rampage! And I, honored as I was being chosen by Nicky of Delicious Days , the inventor herself, am taking AGES to get my behind into gear. Fear not though, here it is! What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own? I think it must have been around 4th or 5th grade. We had this teacher that used to live in Africa, who taught us how to make these little fried dough balls - and I mean DEEP fried dough! Me and one of my friends came back to my place after having done them at school and decided to try making them again. Everything went without a hitch, but when my Mom came home and saw all of that oil in the pan, realizing we'd deep fried stuff - okay, my Mom never went ballistic, but if there was ever a time in my life she'd been close to it, this was it! She didn't yell at us or anything, after all, we had no idea what we did could have turned out catastrophically...

I was tagged by Barbara from Tigers & Strawberries a while ago - so better late than never, and with no further ado: my answers to the COOKBOOKS meme! There they are - taking up an entire bookcase in the living room! I'm out of space, as you might notice, so I can't buy anymore... YOU REALLY THINK THAT WILL STOP ME?!?! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Then you don't know me very well! I have them sorta categorized, so we have: top left - cake/sweet stuff and bread cookbooks top middle - restaurant cookbooks top right - vegetarian cookbooks bottom left - Danish cookbooks - and no, that's not really space there, that's two books missing. My Stepmom borrowed them! bottom middle - more Danish, some odds and ends bottom right - British cookbooks Roughly, anyways... A tiny bit of them is not legally mine, but seeing I'm the one that actually uses them, I think I have the right to claim them. In the top right quadrant you'll notice my notebooks too: Underneath the bookcase i...

I will NOT do it - I simply refuse to miss this months Sugar High Friday, hosted by Jarrett of Life in Flow , that besides from hosting, also gives us all the couldn't-live-without-it fantabulous food porn watch . The theme is Tantalizing Titillating Tempting Tarts! Just recently, I got bitten by the tart bug meself, but it had been a while since I'd done a sweet tart - the last one really wasn't a success. While I love a nice fruit tart, that just wasn't what I wanted either. And then I started thinking alternatively: well what if you use shortcrust pastry... and a tart dish - would you? - could you? - would I dare call it a tart then? I decided yes! That is why my contribution to today's Sugar High Friday had to be none other than a Danish classic ""patisserie cake": a linse . Loosely translated, that would be lentil. Don't ask me why!? What it is, is, as promised, short crust pastry, baked blind, then filled with a creme patisserie, assembl...

I've been tagged - twice! For different memes , and I promise, I'll get them up as soon as I possibly can! I'm such a slacker...

"Zarah's quite busy with her exam at the moment, so come back after Tuesday... Meanwhile it'll just be me nosy-ing around here..."

This week it is snack-time - and nothing could suit me better, I seem to be living of snacks at the moment. Being at home most of the time, frustrated paging through my textbooks, I need a little munching here and there. And even though I am at home, last night, I just couldn't be bothered to cook a real meal - what I could be bothered to do though, was whip us up a sweet snack to follow the make-shift dinner we had (ryebread open faced sandwiches - I boiled eggs, c'mon, that's ALMOST cooking dinner!;-)) Coincidentally, Cathy also found a little something for that sweet snacking tooth this week! So I needed sweet, I needed fast - I needed Strawberry Scones that Caryn of Delicious! Delicious! had served for Mr. R - and I needed to just hurry and write down the recipe or I would get caught up in reading the fascinating food-blog/soap-opera she's got going on! If you're not already an addict, be careful following that link - she'll have you hooked in no-time! I...

I mean, really: who NEEDS 9 different kinds of pasta? UH, ME, ME!! WO-HOO! Over here! *waving like crazy*! I DO!! Just in case you wanted to know, they are, from left to right, top to bottom: Penne Rigate - Galletti - Fusili - Tortiglioni Spaghetti - Tripoline - Puntalette (the little bag on top) - Fusili Longhi Bucati - Lasagna Larga Doppia Riccia - as if that's not enough, I've actually got several bags of some of the varieties - enough to bring me to the grand total of 15 WHOLE bags! And two half full bags... and a jar... And it's not like it's just the pasta - there's also these - remember? I just can't help myself with all those shiny bags, bottles and jars at the supermarket, in the specialist shop, at the green grocers... "My name is Zarah. I'm a stockpiling-oholic." There, I said it, it's out in the open. Whew!;-)

A little confusion this week, my apologies for posting too late - I thought the theme was Indian this week, and it turned out - it wasn't! Nah, healthy/low fat/light it was, so be sure to check out what Cathy's tried . I stuck to what I'd already done, and I'm not sure I can totally justify calling this low fat... Healthy maybe? Yes, we could call it healthy!:-) A couple of months ago, Barbara of Tigers & Strawberries had a post up, titled One Potato, Two potato, Red potato, Blue potato . Blue Potato? I got blue potatoes once in my organic drop-off box, but I hadn't seen them anywhere else - well yes, in Jamie Oliver's cookbooks, but not in the hands of REAL people, you know. Barbara had included a recipe for the prettiest looking Saag Aloo I've ever seen. Admittedly, I've never seen Saag Aloo before, but it really is gorgeous! Unfortunately, I hadn't seen blue potatoes this winter at all, so I grieved for a while, but bookmarked the recipe thin...