Delhi Blog Meet

What better welcome than one get than a Blog meet, when you are a blogger.River has a post up on the details of the Blog Meet.

The meet will take place on 5-11-2006 (Sunday) at 3:30 pm in India Coffee
House, CP. The Coffee House in on the second floor of Mohan Singh Place near
Rivoli Cinema. All those who wish to attend the meet can leave little
confirmation notes in the comment-space.

If you blog, or wish to blog some day and you are in and around delhi, do drop-in for a cup of Coffee and lots of fun..

Do confirm your presense by dropping a comment at River's or Shivam's. I won't be too much on the net these few days. i am just Settling in, haven't gotten a connection yet and I still haven't got my ID created in the Office systems.. Anyway see you all.. :)

Plankstek - a Swedish classic

This is "plankstek" - literally "steak on a board". And that's essentially what it is! A steak. On a board. Surrounded by mashed potato, sauce (usually béarnaise), a grilled tomato, and often asparagus or haricot verts wrapped in bacon. This particular one had lots of other veggies too - some boiled, some fresh. The boards are made special, and some people buy the to make this favorite at home.

You can find this as not-so-classy restaurants everywhere - it's dead popular. This one comes from Restaurang Jugen Jon, the closest restaurant to our cabin in Dalarna.

Chocolate Truffle Cake

I've made this amazing cake several times, but never posted the recipe before - I did a copycat post on it, but now it's time to save this in my own archives, too. See, I never want to lose it - it's a really great recipe, and it's a perfect standby when you need a heavy dessert, and not really know how many people you'll have to serve. It can serve anything from 8 to 18 - all depending on greed and what else you have been serving.

Chocolate Truffle Cake
From the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum (who has an excellent blog!)

450 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
225 g unsalted butter
6 large eggs
40-50 g sugar
butter for the baking pan

Start by buttering a springform pan, 20 or 24 cm in diameter. Cut out a piece of parchment paper or teflon sheet, butter this too, and place into the pan. Wrap the pan in double layers of aluminum foil, as it will be standing in a pan of water.

Preheat the oven to 220°C, and bring about 2 litres of water to a boil.

Melt the chocolate and the butter together - the microwave works perfectly fine here. Stir together. Crack the eggs into a bowl that will fit onto a small saucepan, and add the sugar. Pour water into the small saucepan, and place on medium heat and top with the bowl - the bowl must not touch the water. (This is a double boiler, or a water bath.)

Beat eggs with an electric beater while heating until they are slightly warm to the touch. Remove from heat and beat very vigorously for at least five minutes - the egg mixture should become very pale and fluffy.

Mix the eggs and the chocolate carefully, until you see no more streaks. Pour into the prepared pan. Place pan on a large rimmed cookie sheet and pour the hot water into the sheet so it reaches about half way up the sides of the cake pan.

Bake for five minutes. Cover the tin with aluminum foil and bake for ten more minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for 45 minutes. Wrap in plastic and place in fridge for at least three hours or overnight, until the cake is very firm.

Take it out of the fridge, and loosen the cake from the pan with the back of a knife. Open the springform mechanism and remove the sides. Invert the cake onto a plate, and gently remove the bottom of the pan and the parchment paper. Invert back onto the plate you want to serve it on.

You can now place the cake in the fridge again for up to two weeks (or so I hear - it's *never* lasted more than a day here) but remove about 20 minutes before serving. It should be at room temperature, so it's soft and flavorful. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

Chokladtryffeltårta

Weekend Cat Blogging - Edith

73rd time for Weekend Cat Blogging, this time hosted by Kayak Soup! As Halloween is coming up, I'm showing Edith this week - she's the closest we have to a black cat. (She's a black smoke British Shorthair.) Incidentally, she also has a birthday coming up, on Thursday! This picture was snapped yesterday, during a quick walk which wasn't very enjyoyed, I'm afraid. Too cold, and too many strange sounds. Edith was happier when she snuggled up in my arms, and we went back inside.

Head over to the round-up for many more cute kitties.

Lindemans bin 75 Riesling

Yum! This was a really great find this summer. It's a lovely light riesling, with fruity tones of apples and oranges, with plenty of mineral flavor. It went really well with barbecued chicken skewers. And man, I know this summer was a scorcher, but now that fall is here, I admit I kind of miss it. So I'll just have to buy myself some more of this wine (Swedes, look here.) and take myself back to warmer days.

And yes, it's in a box. As are very many wines in Sweden nowadays. Bag-in-box is very popular here, and apart from the slighty tackiness of not having proper bottles, I rather like it.

(I thought I had a picture of the wine in glass though, but no - sorry. I have to get one next time we buy this - because this box? Long, long gone.)

SHF #24: Mini chocolate-cherry muffins with toasted coconut

Oh wow, it's storming outside! Sweden is being hit by a really hard windstorm today. Not a big problem, as I chose to stay at home and relax. Who wants to go to work? (Well, I have worked a lot of extra hours lately.) When I woke up, I remembered that today was Sugar High Friday time, hosted by Cooksister Jeanne! The theme is Petit Fours, and while I had some trouble interpreting that, I had been planning on making Chokladbiskvier, a Swedish delicacy which translates into something like "chocolate cream-filled macaroons". Or so. Anyway. I didn't make them, as I didn't have all the ingredients at hand, and hey - it's a storm outside.

So I opted for something else entirely. Petit Fours are small, right? Well, so are these! We're talking teeny tiny muffins - bite-sized, really. And very yummy! I started with a Nigella-recipe from "Who wants to be a domestic goddess", added some chopped up dried cherries, skipped the frosting, halved the cherry jam, added coconut, and I think that's about it as far as changes go. And I promise, I'll make Chokladbiskvier soon, and share with you all...

Mini chocolate-cherry muffins with toasted coconut
Makes 12 normal sized muffins, or about 40 mini-muffins

125 g butter
100 g dark chocolate
200 g morello cherry jam
150 g sugar
3 tbsp chopped dried tart cherries
pinch of salt
2 eggs
150 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
dried coconut (organic really makes a difference in my opinion...)

Preheat the oven to 175°C.

Melt butter and chocolate. (In the microwave is fine.) Add the jam, the sugar, the cherries and a pinch of salt. Add flour, baking powder and the eggs. Mix everything until a fairly uniform batter, and dollop into whatever size muffin cases you want to use.

Sprinkle with coconut, if using.

Bake for about 15-17 minutes (normal muffins) or 10-12 minutes (tiny ones) until they are puffy and done, but not boringly dry.

Chokladmuffins med körsbär och kokos

World's Best Pear Crumble

I first ate this at Lena's, and she reluctantly shared the almost embarrasingly easy recipe.

This is one of the tastiest desserts ever, despite it having only three ingredients. I'm not hesitant to post this - sure, it might be trashy, but we all need some cards up our sleeve, and this one is really a great stand-by. The ingredients don't go bad easily, and you can have them at hand whenever. I know we do.

Pear Crumble
Serves 4

-a large can of tinned pears
-one packet of cake mix, I usually use lemon
-50-100 g butter, thinly sliced



Open the can. Cut the pears in half, and put in an oven-proof dish. Pour over about 100 ml of the pear syrup, and discard the rest. Open the box of cake mix, and pour over the pears. Finally, top with thin slices of butter, to totally cover the surface.

Bake at 175°C for about 40 minutes. Serve with vanilla custard or ice cream.



Världens bästa päronpaj

When good recipes go bad: Lavender Lace Cookies

Nice, pretty cookies! Right? Well, they are, and they were actually tasty too, but they were not what I had planned.

I was intending to make this recipe for Earl Grey Cookies, just swapping the lavender for the tea. Great idea, or so I thought. I followed the recipe perfectly - after all, I've made those cookies plenty of times. All I changed was the lavender, instead of tea. And somehow, I ended up with lace cookies. Which was nice, but not what I wanted!


Hamlet sure was interested.

Anyway. This was in the summer, I'm thinking the high heat could have had something to do with it, and I'll give it another whirl soon. Wish me luck!

Wild Mushroom Pyttipanna with Beet yogurt

The stores are still full of wild mushrooms here - funnel chanterelles and yellow chanterelles. For this recipe, you can use either one, or other mushrooms if you prefer. It's a take on a Swedish classic dish - Pyttipanna, usually a great way to use up leftover meat and potatoes. (I've posted about it before, here.) This is slightly different, but the same concept - it's vegetarian and fairly light. Normal Pyttipanna is always served with a fried egg and pickled beets. For this one, I mixed beets with thick greek yogurt to produce an intensely pink sauce which was very tasty.

Wild Mushroom Pyttipanna
Serves 2

400 g sweet potatoes (two medium)
1 medium parsnip
1 medium fennel
200 g mixed mushrooms
1 onion
salt
pepper
oil
fresh thyme

Preheat the oven to 150°C.

Dice the sweet potatoes, the parsnip, the fennel and the onion. Fry, separately, in a large pan with a bit of oil until it browns slightly. Move to an oven-proof dish. Fry the mushrooms in a dry pan, and add that too to the dish. Mix everything, season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle over a bit of fresh thyme if you have it. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until all the veggies are suitably soft.

Beet yogurt
150 ml thick yogurt, greek or turkish style
100 ml (about 1/2 cup) pickled beets

Mix with an immersion blender (or a regular one). That's all.

Svamp- och rotfruktspytt

A very Happy Diwali to all my readers and your Family!

And Eid Mubbarak!

Been Busy with my shifting to a new city, new Job etc etc.
Keep Comming back. I will keep you posted.

Chocolate Balls

A favorite confection for Swedish kids and adults alike - I hereby present to you: the chocolate ball. When I grew up, it was known other another name entirely - something which is now percieved as far too racist to mention. So I won't. (But I'm kind of betting someone will in the comment section.) Anyway. It's great stuff! I don't make them myself any more (but it's dead easy) since a store near me (Coop Konsum in Nacka Forum) has the Best Ones Ever.

My co-worker started buying them, and I would look disapprovingly at him. After all, this is something you make yourself, not something to buy. That was my very firm opinion. Until he bought me one. And that was the start of a very dangerous friendship, so to speak. Because these truly are the best chocolate balls I've ever tried. Such flavor, such texture. Yum.

Anyway. They contain basically butter, sugar, oats, cocoa and sometimes a little coffee. They are then shaped into balls and rolled in coconut. One of these days, I might make some myself, and then I promise to share the recipe.

Happy Blog Birthday!

Today is my blog's second birthday! Awww, my little baby has grown so big! I can hardly believe it! I don't keep a close eye on statistics, but I can see that I have a LOT of visitors. That makes me very happy - thank you all so very much for visiting me!!

Oh - wanna see my very first post? Right here!

Now, a year ago I baked a Princess Cake. Today, I thought I'd make good on my New Year's Resolution, and finally bake a Budapest roll. As with so many kitchen fears, this one turned out to be unfounded. It wasn't very hard at all! And this is a *very* popular cake here, most people I know actually say that it's their very favorite. You can buy it by the piece in most cafés. Where it got its name from? Sorry, I have no idea.



Budapest Roll
Serves 6-8 (or fewer, depending on your appetites, obviously...)

5 egg whites
300 ml sugar (about 1,3 cups)
150 g hazelnuts
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100 ml flour (about 0,4 cups)
3 tbsp flaked almonds

300 ml whipping cream
1 small can (about 300 g) of mandarin orange segments

Start by preheating the oven to 150°C.

Blitz the hazelnuts in a food processor until finely chopped. Mix with cocoa powder and flour in a bowl.

Beat the eggwhites until they start to firm up. Gradually add the sugar, and beat until you have a thick, glossy meringue. Fold in the nut mixture, and spread on baking paper in a jelly roll pan. Sprinkle over the flaked almonds.

Bake for about 20 minutes - but after 15 minutes, turn the heat up to 175°C.

Remove, put the baking paper with the cake on a rack and let cool completely. Then invert on another piece of paper or onto a teflon sheet, and carefully remove the first sheet. (Brush with some cold water if it won't come off easily.)

Drain the mandarin oranges, beat the whipping cream until stiff, and mix together. Spread this onto the cake. Now, it's time to roll! Roll as you would a sushi roll, using the sheet the cake is on to help making it tight. Be very gentle, or the cake will crack. Roll all the way to the end.

Slice off the ends - baker's treat - and move the cake to a plate. Let it set in the fridge for a couple of hours - it can be frozen, too.

Before serving, you can drizzle with melted chocolate or dust with powdered sugar, or what I did - nothing.

Budapestrulle

Weekend Cat Blogging - Glinda

Sorry for the blurry picture, but it's taken after Glinda has raced through the entire house three times and ended up somewhat still in her cat tree.

Glinda has had a lot of progress this past month. She's gone into heat for the first time - and for the second time too, with just a few days apart. Third time's a charm, so we'll try to get her to a suitable boyfriend next time.

Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by Jelly at I Got Two Shoes this week! Head over there to see tons of cute kitties!

White Chocolate Mousse with Fruit Salad

Time for a yummy Friday treat! This is a nice dessert that you can - and actually have to - make in advance. It has to stand for at least three or four hours, but you can easily make it the day before you want to serve it. I got the chocolate mousse recipe from a magazine - sadly, I don't know which one, it's in my ever-growing collection of torn-out recipes - and I think it works nicely. The Kesella is a quark, and I use the 10%-fat version.

You can prepare the fruit salad in advance, but don't add the mint until the last minute, or it might get too dominant.

White Chocolate Mousse with Fruit Salad
Serves 4

200 ml heavy cream
200 g white chocolate
200 ml Kesella (quark)

1 pomegranate
2 kiwi fruits
100 g mango (1 mango)
1-2 tbsp honey
fresh mint

Melt the chocolate in the microwave, be careful so it doesn't burn and use a double boiler if you're nervous about it. Mix the chocolate with the quark. Whip the cream until it forms peaks, and fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into glasses or other serving dishes, and place in fridge for several hours.

For the fruit salad, dice the kiwi and the mango (if using fresh - I have just discovered frozen mango cubes, great stuff) and mix with the pomegranate seeds. It's perfectly fine if you get some juice from the pomegranate too. Add a little honey, and just before serving, add some fresh mint, roughly torn into shreds.

Place on top of the mousse, and serve immediately.

Vit chokladmousse med fruktsallad

Pea Soup with Sweet Potatoes and Serrano Ham

Pea soup is very traditional in Sweden, and is always eaten on Thursdays, followed by a dessert of thin pancakes with whipped cream and jam. I've never been a fan - well, the pancakes were good enough, but the pea soup? Not so much. However, a few years ago I tried making my own and realised that it wasn't half bad. And I experimented a bit and came up with this one, which is actually quite nice. It doesn't photograph well, I realise that. Also, it's more of a thick stew than a soup, but it can be thinned out if you prefer that. As it was, both Per and I liked it.

You need to prepare this the night before, or in the morning if you're having it for dinner - the peas must be soaked for about 12 hours.

Pea Soup with Sweet Potatoes and Serrano Ham
Serves 2-3

150 g yellow peas, dried
1 medium sweet potato, diced
800 ml water
salt
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp dried sage
1 stock cube (vegetable)
salt
pepper
80 g serrano ham
olive oil

Rinse the peas and soak them overnight. Discard the soaking water.

Bring the 800 ml of water to a boil, add some salt and the peas. Cover and cook for about 45 minutes. Add onion, sage and apple cider vinegar, and half of the diced sweet potato. Cook for about 30 more minutes, or until both the sweet potato and the peas are soft.

Meanwhile, fry the rest of the sweet potato in a bit of oil until they're nicely browned. Fry the serrano ham in oil too, until it's crispy. (Just moments!)

Mash the soup a bit with a large wooden spoon and add water if you want it to be thinner. Serve topped with the fried sweet potato and the ham.

Ärtsoppa med sötpotatis och serranoskinka

Fontana Olive Oils

What kind of olive oil do you use? Me, I use whatever I find, really. Or well, I'm a bit discriminating, having a few trusted brands that I choose among. But I'm not picky. Nor do I seek out more special kinds.

But maybe I should? I got these four beauties in the mail this summer, a gift from a fellow blogger over at FastFoodLovers (Swedish, despite the name) and I'm pretty impressed. It's a collection from Fontana, an olive oil importer, and the exciting thing about them is that they're single origin. They're named Kreta, Kalamata and Lakonia (and Original), and they have different characters. Some are softer and mild, others - Kalamata! - are much more assertive. I like getting to experiment, but I do admit, I haven't done a proper olive oil tasting. I don't like it *that* much. But it's great in food. And from now on, I will try to always have at least two kinds at home - or maybe three.

Everything Fried Rice

Here's a little something I whipped up for dinner last night. I was browsing my bookmarks on del.icio.us and felt inspired by this fried rice recipe from Hooked On Heat. I had every intention of following it, but as I started to rummage through my fridge and freezer, finding a left over chicken breast here, a handful of shrimp there, I decided to just let go and create.

Don't be scared by the long ingredients list. And by all means, feel free to substitute, omit and add as you see fit. This is more of a sketch than an actual recipe. But the results were very good, and I happen to be very pleased with the photo, too. (Always a bonus!) And I liked having a balance of color - green beans, yellow sweetcorn, orange carrot, pink shrimp...

Everything Fried Rice
Serves 2-3.

1/2 cup jasmine rice
1 cup water
salt
1 chicken breast, uncooked
handful of shrimp, peeled and cooked (mine were frozen)
100 g haricot verts (frozen is fine)
3 tbsp sweetcorn (frozen is fine
1 onion
1 large carrot
3 cloves of garlic
1 egg
oil
powdered chilli
powdered ginger
powdered coriander
runny honey
soy sauce
black pepper

Start by rinsing the rice, then boiling it in the water. (Don't forget to add a bit of salt.) Poach the chicken breast (just bring water to a boil, add the chicken, let cook slowly for 10-15 minutes. Cut to check doneness.) and cut into small pieces. Finely dice the onion, carrot and garlic. Crack the egg into a bowl, and whisk it around a bit so the yolk breaks.

Heat a large frying pan with a bit of oil. Fry the carrot and the onion. Add chicken and garlic. Season with chilli, coriander and ginger. Add the haricot verts and the corn. Make some room in the pan for the egg, and fry it while stirring so it breaks up into little pieces. Add the rice, and stir well to combine. Add the shrimp. Season with soy sauce, a little bit of honey and lots of black pepper.

Serve with sweet chilli sauce.

Everything fried rice

How to Deep Fry Fish-II

There is this new blog on the block on Life, Happiness and Relationships called sound of Life . Do Bookmark it or spread a word.

Twisted Baguettes

Today is World Bread Day! I love bread, so I certainly think that such a grand day deserves its own blogging event. So, apparently, did Kochtopf who is hosting a round-up of breads from around the world.

These are among the best baguettes I've tasted. My friend Anna gave me the recipe - she's a great baker.

Be aware that the dough for these is *very* soft, almost batter-like. Shaping the baguettes is indeed a challenge, but don't let that stop you. They're chewy with a crunchy crust, and while not fast nor easy to make, completely worth it.

Twisted Baguettes
Makes 2

600 ml water
750 g flour with extra protein
25 g fresh yeast
2 tsp salt
extra flour for the shaping

Mix the water and most of the flour and work with a machine for ten minutes, adding flour as you go. I use my Kitchen-Aid. Sprinkle over the yeast, and work for three more minutes. Add the salt, and work for three minutes again.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (NOT a towel - it will stick. Trust me on this.) and leave to rise for four hours.

Prepare a large surface with lots of flour, and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour the dough onto the flour, it will be very soft. Don't knead it at all. With generously floured hands, gently form two lengths and place on the baking sheet, twisting gently as you go so that they'll end up with a twisted shape. Dust with more flour, and leave to rise, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 275°C, with the vent closed (if your oven permits). Put a large pan of water near the bottom of the oven, so that you'll get steam.

Bake the breads for 10 minutes. Then lower the heat to 200°C, and open the vent. Bake for 30 more minutes.

Remove, and let cool uncovered on a rack.

Vridna baguetter

Potato Parsnip Casserole with Apples

This has been a great weekend - but too short. It's still unseasonably warm, no fall weather yet, and the leaves are still mostly green. The air is starting to get a bit chilly, and we felt like having something autumnal for dinner. This casserole worked out nicely - we served it as a side to a couple of pork chops, but you could certainly eat it on its own or as a side to something else. It's pretty versatile. I thought the parsnips were a bit dominating, but Per really enjoyed this dish.

Potato Parsnip Casserole with Apples
Serves 2-3

1 large eating apple
300 g potatoes
150 g parsnips
1 large red onion
300 ml cream (use whatever fat content you're happy with)
1-2 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp runny honey
fresh chopped herbs (I used thyme, rosemary, sage and tarragon)
salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Peel the potaties and the parsnips, and slice thinly. (A mandolin comes in handy.) Slice the apple and the red onion, too. Mix everything and place in a buttered oven-proof dish.

Mix together cream with mustard, honey, salt, pepper and the fresh herbs. Pour over the potato mixture, and bake for about 45 minutes or until everything is nicey golden and cooked through.

Rotfruktsgratäng med äpple

Blueberry-Lime Muffins

I have to show off my friend Anna's lovely muffins that she made for her birthday party. Moist and bursting with flavor, they were just amazing.

Foodie Gifts: Chocolate & More

My friend Pia is very dear to me. We have a lot in common - we both love cats and particularly British Shorthairs (we're both breeders), we both love "fika" - coffee and yummies -, we love beauty products, and we both love very expensive handbags. We like to combine some of these interests and often (well, not often enough) meet up for lunch or tea and shopping. On one of our last dates, she surprised me with a huge, huge bag. It was full of lovely stuff - all for me! It was a combined birthday and moving in present, and I could not have been happier. Pia had combined stuff from all over the world, that she had picked up on her travels. The theme was, deliciously, chocolate. I got chocolate from Germany, coffee-flavored marzipan with chocolate, from Lübeck, a chocolate lip balm, chocolate honey, chocolate toffees, and chocolate body wash. And that's just the beginning - also tucked in was a tea tong (a cool strainer kind of thingie for your tea bags), a gorgeous wine bag with cats on it, in linen, a bottle of rhubarb cordial, a peach-scented soap, a very hard to find soothing foot spray, a jug, a mixture of honey and hazelnuts (DELISH!!), cloudberries in cognac, and pineapple compote from the Azores. And I might be forgetting something more - probably!

Don't you wish Pia was your friend, too? Well, she *does* blog! Go visit!

Pia unfortunately missed today's Chocolate Festival at Nordiska Museet. I was there with my sister Ehva (who also blogs, but in Swedish) and we totally stuffed ourselves with chocolate before heading over to Rosendal's Garden for lunch.

Hmm... BachelorCooking.net is up

Yes Dear all, bachelorcooking.net is up and running. It is still very crude, all the picture have been badly skewed, I need to work on the template first... It will take up a number of day I am sure.

You may start updating your Blogroll with http://www.bachelorcooking.net


I will create a Blog for currymela at www.bachelorcooking.net/currymela and also a forum for all of us to discuss of cooking and tips anything we want to talk about at www.bachelorcooking.net/forum. Get yourself registered in the forum too. As and when it is up..
Also don't forget to link to the forum and curry mela.

Arre yaar, somebody do something about the template :)

Site still in BETA. Been busy so not been able to twaek much.

Spaghetti with creamy chanterelles and zucchini

Here's another, delicious, way to use chanterelles. Use golden ones or funnel chanterelles, or a mixture of both. Or any other wild mushrooms, for that matter!

Spaghetti with creamy chanterelles and zucchini
Serves 2

200 g spaghetti
a small zucchini
150 g chanterelles
1 small onion
250 ml single cream (or half and half, or hey, full-fat if you feel like it)
parmesan, grated (a small handful)
butter
oil
salt
pepper

Peel the zucchini into thin strips with a veggie peeler. Dice the onion, finely. Clean the chanterelles and cut into smaller pieces if they're large.

Boil the pasta in plenty of salted water. Fry the chanterelles in a dry pan. Fry the onions in butter, and add the already-fried chanterelles. Add the cream, and let it cook on low heat for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Fry the zucchini strips in a hot pan, with a bit of oil.

Drain the pasta, but save some of the cooking water. Mix the pasta with the creamy chanterelles and the zucchini, and add the parmesan. Slowly add a little pasta water and mix carefully until you have a lovely, silky sauce.

Serve with more parmesan if you wish, and perhaps an extra grind of black pepper on top.

Spaghetti med gräddiga kantareller och zucchini

Blueberry Pie

Man, I've been cooking SO much new stuff when I've had vacation, so I have tons to write about!

Per is not that fond of picking blueberries either, but he does enjoy a good blueberry pie. This is a simple version - no need for pastry. You just whip up a base, and scatter the berries on top. And you can use frozen ones, if you don't happen to have fresh ones, it won't really matter much. The result: a crispy yet chewy crust with berries running into interesting patterns on top. Serve with vanilla sauce or ice cream.

Blueberry Pie

125 g butter
225 g sugar
140 g flour
1,5 tsp baking powder
1 egg
200 g blueberries

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Beat egg and sugar until fluffy. Add the butter, and beat to incorporate. Add the flour and the baking powder, and stir until batter is uniform. Spread into a greased pie dish, and scatter the berries on top. Bake, low in the oven, for about an hour. Take care so it won't burn!

Blåbärspaj

Red and blue

Lingonberries


Blueberries

Some of our bounty from Dalarna. This is right up there with mushroom-picking for "least favorite thing in the world" for Per, so we didn't pick that much. Still, enough for jam, a pie, and a very exciting lingonberry toffee that I'll tell you about soon.

Salad with hot Chèvre

I do indeed love my chèvre cheese, and especially if it's fried. What's not to like? This is a very simple little salad, quick to throw together and perfect for lunch. The double-dipping with first flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs, makes the cheese extra crispy. It will be all hot and melty inside, which is simply delicious. Don't forget to have some honey in the salad dressing - it goes just perfectly with the cheese, walnut and spinach...

I use panko breadcrumbs, but I'm sure others will work well too. Panko are Japanese, and are fairly easy to find - but if you can't, either make your own from stale white bread, or just use whatever you have. At any rate, don't let it stop you from making this!

Salad with hot Chèvre
Serves 2

2 thin slices of chévre
flour
1 egg
panko or other good breadcrumbs
olive oil

80 g baby spinach leaves
150 g haricot verts (thin green beans)
walnuts

Dressing:
red wine vinegar
olive oil
honey
dijon mustard
salt
pepper

Start by boiling the beans. Add them to salted, boiling water and boil for a few minutes. Drain and plunge into a bowl of ice cold water.

Rinse the spinach carefully. Mix with the beans and the walnuts in a salad bowl. Make the dressing. (Sorry, no exact measurements)

Put flour and panko into low bowls and beat the egg in a third bowl. Turn the chèvre slices first in flour, then in egg and then in the breadcrumbs until very well coated. Fry in a hot pan in some olive oil.

Toss the salad with the dressing and divide on two plates. Top each serving with a slice of cheese.

Lunchsallad med panerad chèvre

Help Wanted for a Wordpress Template

Well well, I have registered bachelorcooking.net.
Unfortunately Bachelorcooking.com wasn't available :(

But I want a very nice template, that will go well with the theme :)
Is there any of readers out there who are handy with Wordpress Blogs :)

Just a few words of note:
In the new avatar The bachelorcooking.net will be feature rich.
Will have a directory, a cooks forum, events site, curry mela..
It will be awesome..

I will get me a digital SLR camera soon.. The point and shoot doesn't give too good results boohoo.

When will it be up..
Sigh.. that is the million dollar question...
The moving, new place, new job phew!!!!
But we shall overcome :)

Funnel Chanterelles

Being able to pick your own wild mushrooms is really special. I love it - sadly, I completely suck at identifying different mushrooms so all I really dare to pick are these ones, funnel chanterelles. They are easy to identify, and above all, they taste great. I'm not one to go out every weekend to hunt for bounty, but once in a while. And especially when in Dalarna. Unfortunately, my significant other thinks being in the woods is pretty much hell on earth, so we don't do it for very long. This year, we were decidedly out a bit late, so what you see in the picture is all we found.



However, it was enough to throw together this lovely little creamy dip. Perfect with crackers or even with tortilla chips - it worked a lot better than I would have guessed. I fortified the whole thing with some regular button mushrooms, the chanterelles are still dominant in flavor and if you can find other wild mushrooms - hey, use that. And if you get leftovers, you can always heat it up and serve stirred through some pasta. Yum.



Funnel Chanterelle Dip

100 g funnel chanterelles
200 g button mushrooms
200 g cream cheese
1 small onion
salt
pepper
olive oil

Mince the onion and the mushrooms, and fry in a little bit of oil until softened. Let cool completely. Mix with the cheese, and flavor with salt and pepper. Serve.

Trattkantarellröra

Not food.

I can't resist showing you some pictures I took on an evening walk the other day. Sollerön, where our cabin is, is just such a gorgeous place. I love it up there. The air is clear and lake Siljan is cold and almost always very calm.



Our cabin is perhaps 100 meters from the shore. And five minutes from the golf course...



I don't know if you use google earth, but the coordinates lat=60.922321, lon=14.6295 should get you there.

Weekend Cat Blogging - Ywette and Glinda

What do you mean, "vacation is over"?

Well, we're back in town! One week in Dalarna, with much needed relaxation. The cats love it up there - all they do is sleep and eat. (You might wonder what they usually do, well, umm, right. They are more relaxed though - I swear!) And they are so good about going in the car. We use three large pet carriers, Hamlet gets his own and the girls share. Glinda meowed for about five minutes and then all the cats were quiet for the whole trip - a little over four hours. It really is good to have well-travelled kitties.

Cat blogging is hosted this weekend by The Hidden Paw. (Love that name!!)

Banana Muffins with Roasted Hazelnuts

Still in Dalarna! We'll go back home tomorrow though, and enjoy our second week of vacation right at home. Today, we're off to Rättvik's yearly market, a very big event up here.

I made these muffins last week, and they are indeed great so I have to share the recipe right away. Hope you like them! The recipe is from the great site dagensmuffin.se (the daily muffin - sorry, just in swedish).

Banana Muffins with Roasted Hazelnuts
makes 14 normal-sized muffins

125 g butter, room temperature
150 ml sugar (about 0.6 cups, or about 130 g)
50 ml golden syrup
2 eggs
50 ml thick yogurt (turkish or greek style)
350 ml flour (about 1.4 cups or 200 g)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 large and very ripe bananas, mashed
150 g dark chocolate, chopped
80 g toasted hazelnuts, chopped

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Toast the hazelnuts for 5-10 minutes. Rub in a towel until most of the peels fall off, and chop roughly.

Mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon and vanilla sugar (if using). Stir in the chocolate and the nuts.

Beat butter, sugar and golden syrup until fluffy, and add the eggs. (And if using vanilla extract, add that now.) Stir in yogurt, banana, and finally all the dry ingredients. Don't overmix.

Dollop into muffin tins, and bake for 15-18 minutes or until the muffins are baked through with golden tops.

Bananmuffins med
choklad och rostade hasselnötter

How is my new profile?

Hot ain't it? Lolz

Fry Onions Till Golden brown!

Bachelor Cooking Tip:
In almost every recipe, specially Indian Cooking, You will come across the phrase fry the onions till golden Brown. Frying Onions till golden brown is a very delicate affair. It is hard to say, fry for 4-5 minutes either since I don't know what kind of flame you are using. I don't even know what kind of Cooking vessel you are using. In a thin frying pan, frying till golden is difficult and the onions just tend to get burned. Thick bottom pans are very recipe friendly, and cast iron ones are the best. The picture above is Think Aluminium Kadhai or Wok and it is also very Indian recipe friendly.

The picture was taken just before the Onions turned golden brown. Even if I say fry till golden brown, you need not wait till then. It might just get burned. This is the perfect time when you may add the crushed Ginger-garlic paste and saute before you add masalas or Tomatoes.

The significance of frying till golden brown is that it dries the onion of its sweet juice and gives a slightly seasoned taste to the curry. Burn it, and the curry gets spoiled. That is the secret to Indian cooking.. The perfect timing of frying..

The above picture will launch a thousand Indian Recipes. Good Luck.

Oh, that much onions is enough for 1 kilo meat. For the frying till golden brown, that is. If you want to add more onions, add later when you add the Meat. Add onions later for a nice gravy. Add when the meat is dry, and fry till the onions have turned to gravy.... Enjoy!!

My new stove - I won it!

This blogging on the fly business is not so easy here in Dalarna. We have a laptop (which is literally in my lap now as I'm sitting on a very cold bench in central Mora) but our cabin is a blind spot as far as cell phone coverage and we're far from any networks. But well, I should manage a short update and show you my lovely new stove! And oven. It's a brand new Electrolux, and what's really cool is that I won it. In a recipe contest. How cool is *that*? I won with one of my favorite recipes - Beet Risotto with Fava Beans. Go check it out - and I'll be back soon, I promise.

And a note for all you Swedes - today is Cinnamon Bun Day! Go eat one, right now. At least that's what I'm planning to do.

New gadget

Behold, my lovely new little gadget! It's pink, it's shiny and it... cooks eggs in the microwave. Kind of. It's not that great - or well, I haven't really got the hang of it yet, after using it twice. Any other micro-egg-users out there?

I'm on vacation by the way, and computer access is a *bit* restricted here in the wild north (we are in our cabin in Dalarna) so while I'll try to blog as often as I can, there might be a slight lapse here and there.

Chocolate Pots

I've actually written about Nigella's Chocolate Pots before, but they're well worth repeating, especially since I forgot to take a picture that time. I made these the other night as a small and simple dessert. Unfortunately, I used lower-fat milk and didn't have time to let them set for more than four hours, so they were a bit runnier than I remembered. But lesson learned, I will have more time, and better milk, next time.

A note on my cups. I love these gorgeous little porcelain cups that look just like cheapie plastic cups that have been scrunched up. I first saw them in one of the Nigella books when it came out, and looked for them everywhere. I finally found them (this was some years ago) in a small store that had all kinds of interesting things, as far as interior design goes. I promptly bought them, ignoring Per who was whining about their surpreme ugliness the whole time. (He still hates them.) Now, they became popular about a year ago, and I've seen them in several places, and several colors and several sizes.. but mine are the original. I do take some pleasure in that.

Chocolate Pots
serves 4

175 g dark chocolate
1 egg
100 ml milk (full-fat!)
150 ml cream (full-fat here too, heavy cream or double cream, or whatever it might be called in your country.)
cinnamon
itty bitty pinch of allspice, ginger or cardamom

Blitz the chocolate in a food processor. Heat milk and cream until almost boiling, then add spices. Pour into the food processor, hang on for a second or two, then blitz for 30 seconds. Add the egg, blitz again. Pour into small cups and let set in the fridge for at least six hours.

Chokladkräm