Weekend Cat Blogging - Kelly & Hamlet

Kelly, our Princess Fluff. We're waiting for her to get in the mood, her boyfriend is impatiently waiting for her.



Hamlet, our darling, darling hero. He's such a friendly cat, always the first to greet any guests, and the one to happily jump onto your lap with a loud purr.

Coffee Latte Cookies

Friday! Cookie time! Or actually, chocolate time! It's the annual Chocolate festival at Nordiska Museet this weekend, and I'm heading over there after work today.

I saw these cookies over at one of my favorite baking blogs, Baking Bites. Nicole called these cookies Chocolate Marble Cookies, but after following her suggestion and using white chocolate for the white dough, and dark chocolate for the chocolate dough, I had to go with Coffee Cookies. The dark part is much more intense, and tastes strongly of coffee and chocolate, whereas the white part is rich and buttery, with strong hints of vanilla. Lovely! In fact, so lovely that while normally cookies can live for quite a while in my freezer, these ones somehow disappeared...

Coffee Latte Cookies
Makes about 30

220 g butter, at room temperature
125 g brown sugar
125 g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
275 g flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
30 g cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee
150 g dark chocolate, finely chopped
150 g white chocolate, finely chopped

Beat butter and both sugars until the mixture is fluffy and feels light. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat well. Mix the flour with salt and baking soda, and stir this into the cookie dough.

Now, remove half of the dough and place in a separate bowl. Add cocoa powder, instant coffee and dark chocolate to one of the bowls, and the white chocolate to the other bowl.

Scoop about 1 tbsp of each cookie dough, and place together on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave a lot of room between each cookie - I could fit about 10 on one cookie sheet.

Bake at 175°C for 8-10 minutes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Kaffe Latte Cookies

Anne's Food in Amelia

Me and my blog are featured in the latest issue (22) of Amelia, a Swedish women's magazine that comes out twice per month. I was interviewed for it *quite* a while ago, so some of the things in the article is a little bit outdated, but oh well!

Anyway. If you're new to this site, I hope you'll feel very, very welcome. Here's how things work. I blog about food, almost every day. Occasionally about other things, but mostly about food. I post recipes 3-4 times a week, and those are available in Swedish too. Just click on the link at the bottom of every recipe post (except for the ones written prior to 2006) and you'll be taken to the Swedish translation. Or if you want to check out my Swedish recipe archive, go here.

As for the things mentioned in the article - you can find my Cyberkocken creation here, the latest edition of Cyberkocken over at Brazilian Linda, and the infamous pear pie, here.

Please enjoy yourself! Leave a comment if you feel like it, or drop me an e-mail!

Sweet, sweet Swedish Cookbooks!

There has really been a storm of Swedish cookbooks this fall - especially about sweets. Let me tell you about four of them that I like very much - even though I'm sorry to say that they're only available in Swedish.



First out, Bara Bullar ("Just Buns") by Åsa Swanberg (Forum förlag). I made her recipe for cinnamon buns on National Cinnamon Bun Day, and that was a huge hit. I really enjoyed it - it was a very easy recipe to work with and the buns were fantastic. This whole book has nothing but buns - buns in all shapes, sizes and flavors. Not sure what to try first! Maybe her Custard-filled buns? Or Tosca-buns - topped with caramelly almond slivers! Blueberry buns? Maybe traditional Lucia buns with saffron? This book has recipes for all of that and much more. A definitey must for the avid bun-baker!



Passion för desserter ("Passion for desserts") by Jan Hedh. (Prisma förlag.)
Jan Hedh is legendary - he's a wonderful pastry chef and has written several brilliant books already, about chocolate, desserts in general, bread and marmalade. In fact, his book about bread was recently published in English so if you enjoy baking bread, try to find that! His first chocolate book is also available in English.

His recipes are always quite fiddly and involved so it's nothing for the beginner, but the results are always well worth the trouble. This book is a new book about desserts, sort of an updated version of his older one. All the desserts are new, but some of the basic recipes and the techniques described are obviously the same. I like this one better, it has a much clearer layout and it's easier to find what you're looking for.

And the desserts.. well. Klas Andersson is the photograher on this as well as all of Hedh's books, and he's absolutely amazing. Everything looks so good it makes me want to lick the pages! Or at least get in the kitchen myself - but honestly, daring baker or not, making something from this is quite a project, and I need to build up confidence a bit first! But when I do, I think I'll try his Hazelnut Praliné Cake. It's incredibly beautiful - one of those where you put layers in circles, to make the whole cake sort of striped when you cut into it. (Did that make sense at all? I guess I'll just have to make it and show you... eventually.)



Lakrits, Mint & Choklad ("Licorice, Mint & Chocolate") by Elisabeth Johansson. (Natur & Kultur förlag). Elisabeth Johansson is also a pastry chef, one who's been working on the Nobel Prize dinners and won a lot of awards for her outstanding work. She's recently started writing cookbooks, and this one is her latest. It's divided into candy, baked goods, dessert, drinks and additions, and it has so many unique and interesting combinations I'm swooning as I read through this. I'm especially excited to see so many licorice recipes - that's not very usual at all. The licorice caramels covered with chocolate and dipped in crushed candied violets caught my attention right away (they're on the back of the cover!) and so did licorice ice cream with cherries cooked in Port.

Then there's chocolate cream with whisky and lemon curd. Or Lemon Mint Martini? Really, I could write down every single name in this book, because everything sounds amazing. It has more licorice recipes than mint though, and the chocolate desserts are usually quite exciting - not your standard recipes at all. This is for those who feel that they've gotten a bit bored with the classics, and are ready to try something new.



Vinterns Söta ("Sweets for the winter") by Lisa & Monica Eisenman. (Forum förlag)
Finally, a new book by Lisa & Monica Eisenman, the owners of the Cookbook Café! They've done two books before, another one about sweets, and one about soups and bread that I didn't like half as much as the first one. In this one, they go back to sweets, and I personally think that that's what they do best. This has loads of recipes - lots of candy, many variations on truffles and fudge, and also a lot of baked goods. There's a frozen candy cane cake that I'm dying to make! They also say that there's another book in the works - Sweets for the Summer - and I personally can't wait!

Coconut Lemon Rice

I have to share this dish with you! It was the first one I made from Pink - the cookbook I told you about the other day, by Peter Norman. This recipe is amazing - I tasted this rice at the press release party and knew I had to make it as soon as I could. I wasn't disappointed - it's dead simple to make, and mine turned out just as good as his had been.

It's a great side dish. I served mine with chicken, but it would have been great with some fried or grilled fish, as well. Maybe with the lentil-fried fish Per made? That would be a nice echo of the crunchy lentils in this dish.

Mind you, I'd be happy to eat just a large bowl of this rice, with nothing more to accompany it. Or serve it as part of large spread. Either way, this is really a new favorite for me, and I hope it will be for you, too.

Coconut Lemon Rice
Serves 2

150 ml basmati rice
225 ml water
1/2 tbsp neutral oil
50 g cashew nuts, unroasted and unsalted
1 tbsp red lentils
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tiny dried red chili (peperoncino)
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp fresh coriander
50 ml coconut flakes
50 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

Rinse the rice thoroughly, until the rinsing water is clear. Place in a small saucepan, add the water, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, and cover with a lid. Cook for ten minutes, then remove from heat and leave it for ten more minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan, and toast the nuts, lentils, mustard seeds and chilli until the seeds start to pop, and the nuts color slightly. Stir this into the rice with the turmeric, coriander, coconut and lemon. Serve, ideally with some nice chicken or fish.

Recipe in Swedish:
Kokos- och citronris

Broad beans & Bresaola on toast

This is one of the most brilliant little dishes I've come up with this fall. It's completely irresistable! And sadly, I don't know what to do now that broad beans are no longer in season. I have some stashed in the freezer, so I'm good for a little longer!

What you do is simply toast some brilliant bread. Mash some broad beans with a little bit of lemon juice and a few drops of olive oil. Add some black pepper. Spread on the bread. Crumble over some of your favorite blue cheese. (Mine is St. Agur.) Top with a rumpled slice of bresaola or anything else really, parma or serrano ham would also be great here. Or simple bacon, cooked to a crisp. It's your call. But do make it. You won't regret it.

Chèvre Lemon Cabbage

I don't know about you, but whenever I buy a head of cabbage, I end up having to throw some of it out just because I can't think of one more thing to make with it. To remedy that, here's a recipe that's perfect for a little leftover cabbage - or by all means, buy it for this recipe! I have another cabbage recipe lined up as well, so check back in a few days. And check out these ones too:

Chicken Cabbage Salad with Feta
Cole Slaw

This is a good side dish - I like it with just a slice of meat, steak or pork chops of some kind. It's very flavorful and complex, even though it has so few ingredients.

Chèvre Lemon Cabbage
Serves 2-4 depending on what you serve with it

150 g chèvre cheese
About 5 dl (2 cups) shredded cabbage
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
salt
pepper
fresh coriander

Crumble the chèvre into a bowl, and add lemon, oil, salt, pepper and coriander.

Blanch the cabbage for one minute in boiling water, drain very well and then add to the rest of the ingredients. Toss well and serve straight away!

Recipe in Swedish:
Vitkål med chèvre och citron