happy first advent

For the first time in many years I actually feel the Christmas spirit ahead of Christmas Eve.

I've usually never really felt any Christmas spirit when I lived somewhere else than where I grew up.

So it has kind of taken me by surprise this year. This morning I lit up the first candle in my newly acquired Advent candlestick. Had some breakfast with 'rågrut' and Swedish cheese. After that some mulled wine, ginger snaps, and a saffron bun.

Can it get more Swedish?

new favorite store

I guess you can guess what kind of store I went to today. Sure, if you're Swedish it gives you an edge. As all the products are things you can find in a normal grocery store in Sweden.

This is all from the store Totally Swedish in London, luckily not far away from where I live at all, I think it took me about 15 min to get there. Very convenient indeed.

You know how it is. You start missing everything so much more when you don't have easy access to it. I do miss my 'filmjölk' in the mornings with the cereal. And the 'knäckebröd' with some butter and cheese. And for first advent on Sunday I've got two lovely saffron buns that I can eat with my 'glögg'.

How Swedish am I. I almost feel more Swedish now than I do at home in Sweden. Of course it becomes more evident when you move abroad.

how i missed you

There are no words to described how much you have been missed.

And I've only been in London two months... Not sure if that bodes well.

muffins times three

My apartment was a little bit of a bakery today. Three kinds of muffins. Delicious ones. A pizza muffin, a more foody one, with tomato and mozzarella. Then a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. Then my personal favorite (as chocolate is not actually my favorite), cardamom and apple muffin.

kiwi-tini

What better way to start the first working week of the year to only have 3 ½ days of work. What we called Trettondags jul is apparently called Epiphany in English if one trust wikipedia. Had no idea.

Anyways, days off work is always great no matter the cause. I dedicated my Friday off to doing absolute nothing. I felt I needed one of those days. And in the evening I went to a nice restaurant with a couple of friends. Really nice food at the place called Mississippi Inn with Southern American food. Of course I ordered the burger with some delicious potato wedges and a chili bearnaise that was in fact really hot. Since everything in Sweden with the word chili in it usually means swedified chili: ie not that strong at all so that Swedes can handle it.

Then I topped it off with a fabulous Kiwi-tini. I loved just saying it. They even had to run out and buy more kiwis because they were out. How sweet.

The cutest butter serving for the bread, delicious burger and green Kiwi-tini.

sunday food

Waking up to a Sunday with nice weather and of course that had to be celebrated with a nice breakfast. I made myself a special Sunday breakfast consisting of American pancakes with berries and maple syrup. So nice!

American pancakes with berries and maple syrup.

After a nice walk in the city I sat myself down on my balcony reading a paper. It almost got too hot. And it is 4th of September! Me like that. Please keep it coming. After that it was time for some Sunday dinner and this kitchen ended up with some very pink! A very pink beetroot pesto with pasta. I had to make some changes to the original recipe as I did not have any cashews but it turned out quite nice anyway. Have to try it again and make it according to the original recipe.

Shocking pink beetroot pesto with pasta.

weekend is here

I started my weekend today. Great feeling to have when leaving work on a Wednesday.

When I came home I made myself a delish fruitsalad, containing nectarine, grapes, strawberries, pomegranate, and some lemon yoghurt. Then I enjoyed it out on the terrace in the sun.

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gotta love summer

Loving summer when you just want a light dinner and can eat a bowl of strawberries. Just add some sugar and milk mixed with cream. Summer love.

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midsummer

I had a wonderful Midsummer on Friday with old and new friends. Really a memorable day/evening/night. The day lasted forever. Well, only until about 4 am.

We met up in a park in Stockholm and had a nice potluck, where everyone contributed with some fort of food. Could you guess what I brought? Yeah of course I brought the dessert. As I had stocked up on a variety of cupcake recipes and I was about to be very ambitious and make three different kinds. But decided that it maybe was a little bit too much when I saw the size of the first batch. So I ended up 'only' making two kinds.

But of course I forgot to take pictures of these delicious creations (if I may be so bold and compliment myself). I ended up making one set of cupcakes with rhubarb, mint, and almond and another set with raspberry and a secret in the middle (nutella) and topped with crumble. It seemed like the favorite was the raspberry one but my personal favorite I think is rather the rhubarb one. I adore rhubarb. And mint for that matter. (The first recipe I found in a magazine but also found here, and the other version is a homecooked recipe but based on this recipe.)

But here I can give you a picture of me at least holding the cupcakes. A photo which my dear E took and I hope she will allow me stealing from here.

food and spa with the colleagues

It is still fun to go to work everyday. Nice to have somewhere to go and something to do. Even though it is quite boring now and then when I do not have things to do. As we did not have the full handover period I still do not know everything I am supposed to do. I was supposed to go to England for training at the end of this week but it has been postponed, til I do not know when. Soon hopefully.

The weekend that passed I had plans with the co-workers. I have been eating so much it is crazy. It started with an afternoon tea at Grand Hotel. So delicious! Of course with a glas of champagne with it.

Afternoon tea at Grand Hotel.

 Then we left for the hotel and I got a massage at the spa. So nice and wonderful. In the evening we went for three course dinner at Bockholmen's restaurant. Great location, on an island by the water and more great food!

Carpaccio with ruccola, parmesan, dijonaise, and roasted almonds.

Halibut, potato pureé, anchovy, dill, tomato, and spring onion. Nice!

The next day I woke up to have a lovely hotel breakfast. Then I took a very relaxing bath in my hotel room.

After that we continued to Haga Forum for brunch. A truly great brunch. I absolutely adored the waffles that you made by yourself. Really good!

So much food! But I am not complaining at all. It was a nice time with all the co-workers. Even though I am the youngest among all of them, which I can tell when they are not up to as much as I could be.

mom's birthday

Yesterday was mom's birthday so there was some baking and cooking. For some time I have been wanting to make a cake with meringue so we ended up with a Schwarzwald cake, which apparently is called Black Forest cake in English, a direct translation. In addition it seems that the Schwarzwald cake as we know it in Sweden is different from the German cake.

It consists of three layers of hazelnut meringue, all meringue layers brushed with melted chocolate on the bottoms. Whipped cream with vanilla sugar in between the layers and all around it, then topped with big chocolate flakes. Yummy.

Schwartzwald cake.

Even though I love cakes I actually was more excited about the dinner. I made home made falafel that I have been wanting to do for a really long time. Now it was time and it was truly delicious! I made falafel wraps and have not been this exciting for a dish in a while. Tortillas filled with tzatziki (home made of course with plenty of garlic), falafel, salad, tomato, cucumber, carrot, corn, and red onion.

Falafel wrap, with home made, delicious falafel!

Falafel
800g of chick-peas, 7 garlic cloves, juice of ½ lemon, 1dl leaf parsley, 2 tsp cumin (spiskummin), 1 tsp ground coriander (not fresh), 1 tsp chili, 1 ½ tsp salt, one egg, and I also used about 2-3 tbsp corn starch (maizena) to make it all not fall apart. It should have been some tahini in it as well but could not find that, so I ended up sprinkling ing about 2 tbsp of sesame seeds instead. Mix it all together in a mixer or blender and let stand for 1-2 hour. Make into balls with two spoons and preferably deep fry. We deep fried the falafel in a frying pan with about 2 cm of oil in it. Went perfectly!

creole revisited

Some week, or two, ago I did the Creole casserole again. Definitely a favorite. Although this time we switched the pork tenderloin to chicken instead and I actually preferred that. I will stick with chicken from now on.

I also baked some bread with shredded carrots and sunflower seeds, really easy when you just pour it onto a baking sheet. Freshly baked bread with butter is probably one of the most delicious things.

Creole casserole

Carrot bread with sunflower seeds

cooking, dessert, and polish

Among my favorite things. 

Sis came over today and of course we had to have a nice dinner as it is her birthday! We made a really nice dinner with home made pasta, ravioli filled basil and four different cheeses (ricotta, parmesan, aged cheddar, and a bit of feta), together with home made tomato sauce (of course) and a cheese/cream sauce. Really delicious. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. But I definitely have to try making more home made pasta, it is so easy!

Of course I also made a delicious dessert. A chocolate fondant, a chocolate cake with a runny inside. Served warm with warm raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream. Recipe found at the ever inspiring Swedish blog Kalasgott (just look at all the yummy pictures). Luckily there are several left so I will have one or two for tomorrow. Unluckily I did not get a yummy picture of the runny inside.

Chocolate fondant.

Happy birthday sis!

And of course I had some gorgeous nails. A gorgeous green glitter polish from NYX.

NYX - Lime.

the christmas sweets

The Christmas sweets of 2010. All the nine kinds (well, forgot to take a pic on the fudge, and the recipe here). The absolute, all time favorite is the liquorice toffee and the white chocolate and lime truffle. Yummy.

Candied almonds (but cinnamon excluded)

Toffee rice

White chocolate and lime truffle. THE FAVORITE!

White chocolate and saffron truffle. Love the saffron!

Peanut brittle.

Cake balls. Nice but not a favorite, perhaps with another filling?

Knäck (Swedish Christmas toffee). Delicious as always.

Chocolate coated liquorice toffee. Another favorite!

christmas sweets in abundance

I kind of went a little bit out there last weekend (and some this week) and made Christmas sweets like crazy. A few of the standard ones I made last year and then all of the new ones I wanted to try out.

From left to right: candied almonds, fudge, knäck (Swedish Christmas toffee), chocolate coated liquorice toffee (last year's hit), toffee rice, and peanut brittle (discovered at Christmas 2003 in Florida). So that is six different Christmas sweets, but it is not over there. In the fridge we can also find: cake balls, white chocolate and saffron truffle (I absolutely love saffron!), and white chocolate and lime truffle (must be my all time favorite!).

To conclude, nine different types of Christmas sweets. And the perfect year to make all of this as well since my sister will leave already on Christmas Day and my parents will leave on Boxing Day which will leave me home alone with all these candies.

fazer salmiakki

This one is on my top five list of favorite candies. It is milk chocolate with salmiac filling, delicious! I really have trouble stop eating these and somehow this package disappeared rather quickly. I was happy to see a few years ago that they started selling it in Sweden as well. Only to discover that they sell only the chocolate bar and not these individual chocolate pralines. The salmiakki chocolate bar is not at all as good as these ones.

Finnish chocolate, Fazer Salmiakki

On another note, Fazer is probably also one of my absolute favorite candy producers, they have so much good stuff. Unfortunately most of the really good stuff is not even sold in Sweden and can only be found in Finland. That is why I usually stack up when I am in Finland. The Fazer breads are delicious too, and that they also finally started selling here in Sweden some years ago.

By the way, Fazer is pronounced 'fatser' and not 'faser' if there is someone out there in unawareness. When I was on my exchange in Helsinki I had a friend taking a course in which they visited companies. She said they had been to a company and pronounced it 'faser', I interpreted that as Pfizer the medical company. Then she was all excited as they had received all these free products and my immediate reaction was: What?! Free products? Would that be medicine and pills and stuff?! Then she took out the candy bags and I realized she had visited Fazer. Then I had to teach all of them that they had visited 'fatser' and not 'faser'. What I cannot figure out is how they could have visited the company and not picked up that it is pronounced 'fatser'.

ostkaka

A few weeks ago when mom and I was in the grocery store I spotted ostkaka and got a immediate craving for it. I have not eaten it since I was young. Some day ago mom bought another pack and tonight I had a piece again. It is really nice. It is a traditional dish and directly translated ostkaka means cheese cake, but it is nothing at all like the American style cheesecake. You eat it slightly warm and of course have to have drottningsylt (blueberry and raspberry jam) and whipped cream with it.

Ostkaka, Swedish cheesecake.

Looks not much to the world but it is really good.

The ostkaka of course have to be served with blueberry and raspberry jam and whipped cream.

friday burger

Friday dinner was a yummy homemade burger. Actually the first time I am trying it out. It is really easy and fast to make and I love that you can pick whatever you want on it. My hamburger was with my homemade sourdough bread fried in a little bit of butter to make it extra delicious, salad, tomato, red onion, bacon, Heinz chili sauce, home made aioli (must be another favorite! Love garlic), and some mozzarella.

lonkero

To celebrate a bit I decided to have a lonkero, or long drink. It is a Finnish drink made of grapefruit soda and gin and I imported it from Finland and it is too bad they do not sell it here. I really like it, which is odd since I do not really like gin.

Now here comes the problem. We put all the cans in the cellar and I am all fine with that. However, some week ago dad discovered a guest in the cellar. A bat! As you might imagine I have been hesitant to go out there.

But today I did it. I really wanted my lonkero and you just have to weight the pros and cons.

The fabulous Finnish drink: Lonkero.

creole

I made this Creole casserole last week from a recipe I found on a blog. I liked the ingredients and it all came out really good. Definitely a recipe I will save and make again when the time is right.

It contains pork tenderloin in pieces, bratwurst (it was actually supposed to be some spice sausage), cornichon, pickled onion (a favorite), bell pepper, black olives, cream and some spices. Served with rice. Simple as that.