Food & Thoughts

I grew up in a small suburban town, in a red brick house build by my Grandad. The house was surrounded on all sides by a big, lush garden. It was a great garden, with hiding places under the bushes, a swing and a small corner with lots and lots of rhubarb in summer. Mom used to make a mean rødgrød - a Danish fruit soup/jelly thing, served with cream and sugar (for the crunch) - out of those rhubarbs. I wish I could have said it had had an apple tree, but it didn’t. It would have been perfect in it, though. It should have been one of those huge, old ones with big, gnarly branches, in the spring adorned with delicate white blossoms and come fall, full of red and yellow orbs, like mini chinese lanterns, swinging about in the rough winds. Maybe, if you were lucky, there’d still be a couple left for the first couple weeks of winter, too. Alas. No such tree. Now, I live in the city, in an apartment, and I stil have no apple tree. But in my uncle’s little house, a mere 30 minute bike ride fr...

... to make anymore elderflower cordial. At least around here. A mere glimpse is the period when the elderflowers are in bloom. That's how it seems, at least. (okay, so you get peas, and cucumbers and tomatoes, but they don't make elderflower cordial, now do they?) I only got to make one batch. My first batch, ever, even. It is so, so good. So if there are still flowers on the trees around where you are, I urge you to make some. I don't care how you get to them - but do get them. Personally, I was found on quiet neighbourhood streets, smuggling a pair of scissors and a large plastic bag around - very discret, as always. And if you didn't make it in time either REMEMBER it next year. Put it in your calender already. Make the largest batch you can imagine. Then double it. You know you want to. And I'm telling you, you'll regret it if you don't. Here's the recipe I used, again from Camilla Plum: -makes about 3 liters which is entirely too little... 40 elder...

Shameless, shameless. Yes, weekends should be the time where I had plenty of hours at my leisure, to spend blogging and - you know, doing the other things life requires of me. And that is exactly what I have been doing - the things life's requiring of me. Like making chilisauce again, 'cause lordy, we've almost run out - oh the horror! Of course, I jumped at the chance to snap some new pictures while I was at it. As much as I am a kind of person that very seldom regrets anything, I just didn't feel very, well - proud - of the photos accompanying my original post for chilisauce . Which, coincidentally, is probably my most Google'd post. (I'm second on the list - doesn't that make me almost famous?!?) Honestly, those photos are crap, and the people arriving here from Google deserve better. You deserve better. And while I still have a whole lot to learn in the photography department, I can, without saying too much, do better than that, today. So here is the po...

I think Camilla Plum is my hero. Camilla Plum is everything I am not. For one, she's quite a bit older than I am - somewhere in her 50's, I think. Two, she lives on an all-organic farm with lots and lots of animals and kids and a husband that runs his own breweri. To boot, she's an awesome cook. I'm pretty sure she used to be a chef-chef - you know, one of the one's in white aprons with a chef's paper hat with years and years of experience in a kitchen and the cuts on her underarms to prove it - but to me, she's a cook. A darn fine one, too. You see, she cooks real food - the kind you do at home. Wait a minute, make that the kind I want to make at home, and could make at home, was I organized enough. She uses bunches and cases of fresh herbs - in all her meals. She braises stuff. She simmers beans. She cuts up whole cows and pigs and lambs and trots into her kitchen garden to get the cabbage she needs for her dinner. She makes down home comfort layer cake...

Back when I told you about Pariserbøf , I briefly mentioned pickles, our rather, the thing we Danes call pickles. I think it might go under the name mustard relish or picalilli out in the big world. It is a complete necessity when making Pariserbøf , but also makes for a mean quick remoulade (again, the Danish kind - French may think us calling this remoulade bordering on an insult!) if you chop it up finely (or buy the finely chopped kind, of course) and mix it with a little mayo. Basically, it's an assortment of vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, onions - some people add celeriac, cucumbers, green beans, bell peppers, too) in a mustardy, spiced (not necessarily spicy) sauce. It's usually something I buy, but when rummaging through my old magazines at the beginning of my vacation, I found a recipe in my favorite Danish food magazine. Slowly, it dawned on me that "hey! I can make this myself!" And not have all the E-numbers. There is already a way of avoiding the E-n...

I'm a snob. Wait, make that a snob and a half. When I was a kid, there was this one bully-type boy that used to tease me about always wearing Lacoste polo's - hey, it's not like I had a say in that and at least mine kept their color unlike his!:-P But really, I was often accused of being a snob when I was younger. One of the reasons probably stemmed from me not getting my glasses until I was 13. I would walk by people on the street, not recognising them, because I COULDN'T SEE THEM! Yes, I'm still a bit traumatised by it - there was more than one person getting pretty huffed about the fact that I obviuosly felt so superior I couldn't even say hello. In the end, before I got the glasses, it resulted in me waving hello to a lot of people I didn't even know, just because I thought I'd recognised someone and didn't want to be accused of being a no-hello'er again. The other thing that added to the title was one that I think a lot of teenagers are vic...

Well HELLO! The woman just won an Oscar! If that isn't reason to celebrate and do a little DwB with the person on the recieving end, I don't know what is! You know her - I know her - EVERYBODY knows her (and if for some odd, odd reason you don't, I'm not sure you're actually entitled to call yourself a foodblogger ;-)). Sam Breach of Becks & Posh and Food Blog S'cool fame not only busies herself with reviews of restaurants in San Francisco (or Las Vegas or England or wherever she may be at any given time) teaching us new things , promoting great purveyors, bay area bloggers and goodwill events - she also makes food. Real food, from scratch . Yes, siree. Not only that - she writes with an honesty and straightforwardness that I love. I may not be able to get the ingredients she mentions or go to the restaurants, but her writing makes reading about them plenty worth my browsing-minutes nonetheless. She makes lots , lots and lots of food ( this one had m...

Way back when I used to do a regularly scheduled blog, I ALWAYS took part in this brainchild of Jennifer, The Domestic Goddess - The Sugar High Fridays. Then stuff happened, I didn't blog much for a while and well, no SHF for me. Now I am blogging somewhat regularly - so what better way to celebrate that I've been doing more than one post in the past three weeks than to take part in Nicky & Oliver of Delicious Days ' version of SHF: Can You Can? And in fact, yes, I can can , (I can even do the cancan, but that's a whole other thing!) so this time, I chose to bottle instead. Hey, Nicky and Oliver said it was okay - at least that's how I interpreted the rules (there's a "bottle" in there somewhere, isn't there?) Hence, I give to you: homemade rhubarb cordial . During the warm (wait, make that darn hot, as they have been here this year!) months, I drink a lot of water, as I'm told to do. I like flavoring it with cordial, and usually go for el...

Hot dog, Danish style: ketchup, sweet mustard, roasted and raw onions, pickled cucumbers - and sausage and bread of course! As it would be served at any of the pølsevogne here - or as you could make it yourself at home. Most of the ingredients are plain bought, but we do make our own agurkesalat . Agurkesalat 2 large cucumbers, sliced ever so thinly, maybe with amandoline, should you be lucky enough to own one of these... 0,4 liter apple vinegar 100 g sugar 10 black peppercorns, whole 1 bay leaf 1 teaspoon salt Bring vinegar, sugar, peppercorn, bay leaf and salt to the boil. Leave simmering until the sugar has dissolved. Place the sliced cucumber directly in a 3/4 liter pickling jar. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cucumbers. Leave to cool for half an hour, then eat. Any leftovers can be kept in the jar in the fridge (observe normal pickling rules: no dirty forks go in the jar, rim of jar kept clean etc. etc.) Agurkesalat is also great with fishcakes and roast chicken. It ...

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 ...

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...

(For an updated version - with better pictures! - please check this post .) So you're probably going: why on EARTH would I want to slave over my own chilisauce, when there are so many nice brands out there, that are even cheap? Well, I for one do, simply because this is the best one I've ever had. The taste may not be as the commercial kind, here you can taste every single ingredient - maybe I'm not able to taste the galangal from the ginger, but I know it's there! And there's just something weirdly satisfying about reading a recipe that says "2 tablespoons of chilisauce", then taking that little, dark, sweet-spicy smelling, sticky jar of your own homemade sauce out of the fridge, instead of a large bottle. I'm weird like that, but I do like that feeling... Sweet Chili Sauce Makes three small jars (250 ml each) You need: 10 cloves of garlic, peeled 4 large red chilies, stems removed 3 thumbs of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped 1 th...

You can't buy vanilla extract in Denmark. Well, you can, but it is HILARIOUSLY expensive. Not just expensive, but tummy-turning, pocket-wrenching expensive. Browsing through Santos ' archives (I've got some catching up to do, with blogs being off-limit for the most of December and January - exam, remember?) I found this - and thought it would be appropriate to share with all of you sad souls out there, that, like me, can't lay your hands on anything like those gigantic, everlasting bottles, SIGH! - how EASY, BREEZY it is to do your own extract. I got the - well, it's not exactly a recipe, more like a guideline - from the lovely chicks at Nigella's Kitchen . Take 5-6 vanilla pods and a bottle of good-quality vodka, rum or cognac. Slit the pods open, and place in the bottle of alcohol. Shake. Leave for a couple of weeks, somewhere dark, shaking every time you remember it's there. Then - use at you would your ordinary extract. You can refill the bottle ...

Well, what do you say, wanna go NUTS? I sure did! When the lovely Viv over at Seattle Bon Vivant announced January's theme for this Sugar High Friday I clapped my little hands, chirping "Oh goody! Almond cake? Baklava?..." to myself. Then came Christmas. And January. And uh-oh...What to make, what to make? Will I even be able to come out from my weird world of not doing anything else but studying for my exam?? Oh yes I will. I shall not miss this - I SHALL NOT!! And then I thought about it. And thought some more. Because actually - I'm not that big in nuts. I mean, hand me a piece of cake that's got nuts in it, and I won't be all: NO WAY! - I mean, it's cake! But I don't find myself putting nuts in all my cakes and pastries. More often than not, I leave them out if they're in a recipe. I do almonds, and I like almonds. I think I've just had to many bad (read: rancid) experiences with nuts. But what I really like about these ev...

There was a glutton of the sweetest tasting strawberries at the market a week or so ago. I don't know where they came from, I mean, it was the middle of September. But they were there. I couldn't help myself. It's been a really bad summer for strawberries here in Denmark, waay to much rain, not that much sun - and I'm a girl that relishes the moment were the first strawberries are there - you never know exactly, but one day they're there, if you're really lucky still warm from the sun, the smell oh-so-sweet and the color, oh that dark, juicy red. Naturally, I had to try and save some of that late-coming summer. I ended up with a strawberry tart and three (count them, 3!) jars of strawberry jam. And that doesn't count the ones that jumped in my mouth while making all of this... Strawberry tart - adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Rhubarb Tart from How to be a Domestic Goddess It's basically a cream cheese filled pie crust topped with (i...

There was an abundance of raspberries at the market the (hmm, not sure you could call it a market, but it's the best I have!) the other day - naturally, I had to buy a lot and make jam! There's nothing better stirred into yoghurt or Tykmælk in the morning. I almost never use jam on bread and therefore use a method introduced to me by Nigella Lawson - hands-free raspberry jam on p. 346 of her How To Be A Domestic Goddess . While I at first thought the recipe made for a very sugary version, I've grown to like it like this (I do have a sweet tooth!) - raspberries can be so tart, and I add no other sugar to my morning meal. It does look rather runny as well, but that's taken care of once you've stirred it through the first time you open the jar. The recipe is not really a recipe, more of a direction: take equal amounts of sugar and raspberries, put them in two separate bowls. Put them in the oven at 180 degrees celsius for about 20 minutes - take them out, pou...