Risotto with Taleggio

This is our latest favorite comfort food. It's a very "bare-bones" risotto, using the bare minimum of ingredients. You can certainly add stuff - in the picture above, there are some gently fried funnel chanterelles added along with a few slices of serrano ham, but frankly, I like the plain version better. It's just so very satisfying! And Taleggio is the perfect cheese here - soft and creamy, but with plenty of flavor. You can add parmesan, you can add butter - but you dont have to. At all.



Risotto with Taleggio
Serves 2

1 small onion, finely chopped
olive oil, about 2 tsp
200 ml (just under 1 cup) arborio rice
800 ml good stock, chicken or vegetable
100 g Taleggio cheese, diced
1 tbsp runny honey
1-2 tsp chipotle sauce
1/2 lemon

Heat the oil in a large pan, and the stock in another pan. Fry the onion in the oil for a few minutes without letting it color. Add the rise and turn up the heat. Let it color a bit, and then start adding the stock. Add more as soon as the rice looks dry. It should take about 20 minutes in total - taste the rice so you know when it's done. It should have a little bite to it. You might not need all the stock, or you might need more. (just add hot water then.)

Stir in the cheese, and season with honey, lemon and a little bit of chipotle sauce. Use regular chilli powder or cayenne pepper if you can't get chipotle, but the lightly smoked flavor really works here.

Recipe in Swedish:
Risotto med Taleggio

Dried Lamb

Not everything I cook is super. This was one of those things. It's a dried leg of lamb - you rub it with salt, sugar and saltpeter, then immerse it in a mix of water, more salt, sugar and saltpeter for ten days. Then you take it out and hang it to dry for a month. A lot of work. Yep. And it's not worth it. At least I didn't think so. It was ok, but that's it. Glinda loved it, which is nice - she gets to eat the major part of this. We'll probably toss out the rest.

And the kittens are doing great, by the way. :)

Weekend Cat Blogging - Welcome, Kittens!

I was pretty much sure that Glinda would have her babies the same night we were having a huge, 13-course gourmet dinner. And indeed! Halfway into the evening, right in time for the cheese course, she started. And we ended up with four absolutely gorgeous little miracles, and some very awed guests that had never witnessed a kitten birth before.

Here's a first picture of them. You can't see very well, but there are two black and white boys, a brownspotted and white boy and a brownspotted girl, just like mommy. Glinda is doing very well and is happy with her new role.

Names? These will all start with a J, and I like to have a good theme. We're thinking candy (Junior Mint, Jolly Rancher, Jelly Belly, Jujubes), whisky (Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, Jack(ie) Daniels, Jameson) or Shakespeare characters (after all, they are born on Twelth Night - Jupiter, Jamy, Juno and... we're not sure.).

But any suggestions are very welcome! :)

Some very blurry first pictures...


Number one, black and white male


Number two, brownspotted and white male


Number three, brownspotted female


Number four, black and white male

Macaroni and Cheese

As many of you know, I really love macaroni and cheese. The stuff that comes in a box. A blue box, from Kraft. Yes, I really love it. I do. The orange powder. Yum. Addictive, even. And sadly, not easy to come by in this little corner of the world. Thus, I jump at pretty much all recipes for homemade macaroni and cheese, and when Kevin announced that he'd host an event to collect many such recipes - I knew I had to participate.

I got Jamie Oliver's new book, Cook with Jamie, for christmas. I have a lovely husband. And this book has what looked like a very promising recipe for macaroni and cheese. So I went ahead and made this for New Year's Day - a lazy day when carbs and fat was exactly what we wanted. And the verdict? Well, it's a nice enough dish. Sure. But honestly, for almost half a kilo of cheese, I expected something with a bit more oomf. I can think of many better things to do with that much cheese - and this is just not great enough. But I'm really looking forward to eating my way through many other nice macaroni cheese recipes - bring them on!

Macaroni and Cheese
Serves 4

based on a recipe from Cook with Jamie

400 g pasta (I like spirals)
butter
1 tbsp dried oregano (Jamie would use fresh, so go ahead if you have it)
80 g parmesan, grated
100 g taleggio cheese, cubed
125 g mascarpone cheese
1/4 of a nutmeg, finely grated
125 g fresh mozzarella (one ball)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, and boil your pasta in salted water. Remove it about two minutes before it's done and drain, but save some of the pasta water.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan, and add the oregano. Fry for a few minutes, then lower the heat and melt the taleggio, mascarpone and parmesan. Add a few spoons of pasta water until you have a smooth sauce. Mix with the drained pasta, adding more water as needed, and season with plenty of grated nutmeg.

Transfer to an oven-proof dish. Top with torn pieces of mozzarella, and a bit more grated parmesan if you'd like. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Turn the oven to "grill", and bake for just a few minutes more, until the top is golden and crunchy.

Recipe in Swedish:
Pasta med ostsås

Waiting, baking...

I'm waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. For what, you might ask? Well, for kittens. Glinda is supposed to give birth at any time, and I'm just sitting around watching her, and watching old episodes of Gilmore Girls. It might be today, or tomorrow - I was really sure she'd hold out until Saturday, so sure that I've scheduled a big 13-courses gourmet dinner for tomorrow. But from the look of things, I don't think she'll wait that long.

Anyway. I'm also cooking - preparing stuff for tomorrow's party. And no, I'm not cooking it all myself. We'll be four couples in total, and every couple brings one small appetizer, main dish and dessert. And well, I do four courses to get it to thirteen - since we're eating on Trettondagsafton, which literally means thirteen-day-eve. (Epiphany in English, I think?)

And as you can see in the picture above, I'm also baking. Kitten-watch is not very intensive, and a good time to get the freezer stocked with bagels. I followed my usual recipe - you can find it here - but substituted 200 g of the regular flour with dinkel (spelt) wholegrain flour. Not bad at all!

Keep your fingers crossed that I will see some kittens soon!

Jessie's Pasta Salad

My cousin Jessie makes the absolutely best pasta salad I've ever tried. It's perfect for a portable lunch - excellent for a picnic! (And I realise there won't be that many picnics this time of year, but really, why not? Who says you have to be outdoors?) It's also perfect for when I go to cat shows. Cat shows last all day, and you can't leave until they close. And the food usually consists of sad little hot dogs and coffee, so you better bring your own. I bring this. And actually, on some occasions, I just bring my cousin Jessie and count on her to bring the salad.

Not very exact measurements - just play around with them to your liking

Jessie's Pasta Salad
serves 4-6

boiled pasta for 4-6 - try farfalle (butterflies) or fusili (spirals)
iceberg lettuce
1 leek - white part only
cucumber
red or yellow bellpepper
corn (optional)
good quality smoked ham

Dressing:
200 ml crème fraîche
2-3 tbsp mayonnaise
cayenne pepper
salt

Cut all the ingredients for the sallad into small dice. Mix with the pasta, and stir together the dressing. Just mix everything in a large bowl, and keep in a tight-lidded plastic box until you're ready to eat. Keeps very well in the fridge!

Recipe in Swedish:
Jessies pastasallad

This year, I dare...

Time for new year's resolutions! Like last year, I promise to take on some new challenges, and I hope that this year, I dare to make the following:

1. Sushi. Shouldn't be so very hard, right? As my trusty readers have heard to death by now, my brother-in-law is a very talented sushi chef, and should be able to give me a few pointers - however, he just started his own restaurant (Hattori Sushi Devil) and it's wildly successful and I doubt he'll have the time! But I found a lovely website to help me out - Make My Sushi has some great flash illustrations for sushi making. And failing that, my neighbor makes her own sushi so I can possibly persuade her to come over for sushi night.

2. Chokladbiskvier. This is a sort of cream-filled chocolate macaroon - a bottom made from almonds and eggwhites, filled with a chocolate buttercream, then dipped in more chocolate. It's very popular here, you can find it at virtually any café. However, I'm scared to death of making them myself. I've tried once, and it was very unsuccessful. Let's hope it goes better this year.

3. Glace au four. Ice-cream, in the oven. How stupid is that? Yet, I know it can be delicious. My friend Cissi (who sadly has stopped blogging) made a wonderful version, and I still have her recipe. That's definitely one thing I'm trying this year!

4. A vegetarian week. Not a huge challenge, we already eat a lot of vegetarian dishes, but we'll have to think long and hard to make a weekly menu. Not giving up on eggs and dairy though! And we're NOT going to eat just pasta, I promise!

5. Swedish crisp bread. Really, it's supposedly not so very hard. I really should try. Will let you know how it goes.

I won't pass this on to any bloggers in particular, but if you want to join me in this endeavour to try new, slightly frightening things, please do! And feel free to link to any such promises in the comments - I can't wait to read them!