The Blue Café

Rhubarb Soup with Chilli!

2009-05-10T06:07:00.001-07:00

After two months away from The Blue Café blog, but not away from cooking and baking, I finally found time to come here again today. When I started this blog, a long time ago, I had serious plans to come here regularly. After all I run a house and a kitchen, and I make food for handfulls of people almost every day.

But life walks her own paths, dancing her own rythm, and now I know better than to say or plan to come here every day. And it doesn't matter, does it :-) If you follow this blog there is laways a long, long list of old posts where you can go, recipes to learn, words to read, photos to enjoy.......posts which will take you to the daily life of a Norwegian kitchen.

It is rhubarb season here. Last week-end my husband and I spent a few days at our cabin, and I played with a new rhubarb soup recipe. It turned out a success, and I made it again today, for Sunday lunch with a sweet foccacia filled with almonds and left over marzipan from a cake I baked yesterday.

Rhubarb Soup with Chilli

10 stalks of rhubarb

one chilli

a handfull of lemon melissa

sugar

water

Cut the rhubarb staks into small pieces, with their skin on (the skin is so red and nice at this time of the year). Boil in water. Remove the seeds from a red chili, cut and add, cut the melisssa leaves. Add everything into the soup and let boil for at least half an hour.

Serve warm or cold, as you like it.

Shaghetti vongole, or isn't it?

2009-03-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

I had the women from work here for dinner the other night. For a long time I had planned to make it an Italian night, but hadn't quite decided what to cook. Something with spaghetti yes, but what else. Carbonara was on my mind for a long time, but then, when visiting the fish market one day, I saw that they had what we call hjerteskjell (heart shells, clams or vongole?). The boys were coming home for dinner that night, and I decided to use them as tester for a self made recipe using the shells together with some fish.

The dish was a success and I knew that I would make it again for the girls. I posted about the dinner over in The House in the Woods the other day, and a very interesting discussion about what to call the clams, started. Marco, the artist behind Glasshandmade, lives in Venezia and knows vongole very well. Now he has promised me to show me real vongole when I come to Venezia in June :-) And while waiting I keep on calling my dish Spaghetti Vongole

Spaghetti Vongole ala The Blue Café

spaghetti
"hjerteskjell"
white fish (my dictionary says wolf fish or catfish)
garlic
leek
lemon
olive oil
white wine
salt
pepper

make spaghetti as you always do.

cut andbraise the garlic in extra virgin olive oil, add sliced leek and a whole lemon cut into small pieces, dice the fish and add

steam the hjerteskjell in white wine and olive oil for a few minutes, just enough so that all the clams open.

find a beautiful bowl for the spaghetti, add the braised fish and vegetables, pour over the white wine from the hjerteskjell, decorate with the clams.

(......oh my! I need to work on my English for my food blogging........)

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I didn't play any music during the dinner, but while preparing it last week I enjoyed one of my favorite operas, Die Zauberflöte

Pancakes for birthday breakfast

2009-02-28T09:39:00.001-08:00

Two birthday kids in two days. We combined and invited to dinner last night, family, mid-20 students and on the step to become teenager girls. A success. Marta, who is 13 years+one day old today had a few of her best friends to sleep over, and this morning I woke them with a pile of pancakes, ready to fill with blueberry jam made of blueberries we picked last summer. Grandma and grandpa, who couldn't come for the dinner last night, came up and had pancakes with us.

Recipe for pancakes? Well, I don't think I have ever used any, never in my life. I learned to make it as a girl, just like I have taught all our kids to make them, still without recipes.

Start with eggs, add milk, melted butter, salt, a little sugar, flour. Stir well, look forward to the meal and the people you will share the pancakes with, keep on stiring. Rest before frying the pancakes. Do the table with more than a teaspoon of love. Enjoy the food, compare blue tongues.

Music for this? Do you have any suggestion?

Fishballs in white sauce - typical Norway!

2009-02-23T04:48:00.000-08:00

When I do grocery shopping I often have an idea in my head what to buy, which means I also have an idea of what to make for dinner. But some days I like to let the colours in the shop guide me. Like the day I found this beautiful white and green fennel. The day was cold and grey, and after a walk home from work I had wet, wet feet. I needed some comfort food, and knew that the sweet, licorice taste of the fennel would be just perfect. I knew I alreday had fishballs at home, so then the desicion was easy. Fishballs in white sauce is a traditional dish here in Norway. Not the tastiest food there is you might say, but it depends on the sauce, and from time to time I love to make it. And to eat it.

Fishballs in white sauce

the sauce:

melt 3 tablespoons of butter in the pan. add 3 tablespoons of white flour and stir well. add milk, a little at a time and keep on to stir well, till you have a smooth sauce. add salt and white pepper, and as I did this time, thin cut fennel. add the fishballs and warm it all. Serve with potatos and vegetables, we often use raw grinded (wrong word, or?) carrots with a little bit of sugar and lemon juice.

I should really give you some traditional Scandinavian music today, but we are doing a caotic redecoration in the music corner in our livingroom and all my cds are stored away in huge baskets. So the fishballs will have to be eaten in silence. or may be some food talk? Do you have a traditional recipe to share?

Fastelavnsboller, pastries before Lent

2009-02-22T04:42:00.000-08:00

It is the carnival time, or the last days before Lent starts. A period which is filled with traditions, and often the strongest traditions, those which survive, are the traditions concerning food. On facebook this week-end alot of my friends have written about the baking of "fastelavnsboller" or semlor as Sewdish Ilva call them. I see from what Ilva has written that in Sweden they are typical for Fat Tuesday, and this differes a little from the Norwegian traditions. here they are for Sunday before lent, "fastelavnssøndag".

Traditions are important, and in The Blue Café I try to follow the traditions as best as I can. During the period of carnival the food is rich, you are supposed to fill up before Lent starts. I don't say totally no to meat during Lent, but still I try to make our menues simpler, with less meat, less sweets. Then it is nice to feast with food now, these last days before Lent starts, and the cream filled pastries which we call fastelavnsboller, are perfect for that.

fastelavnsboller

300g butter

1 liter milk or water

100g fresh yeast

1 teaspoon baking powder

a little salt

2dl sugar

white flour

Melt the butter, add milk/water and warm till fingerwarm. Add the fresh yeast. Mix flour, suger and salt and add the fluid. Mix/knead well. Let the dough raise for almost an hour. Bake round pastries and let them raise for at least 30 minutes. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 220C.

Eat them cold, filled with whiped cream. At "fastelavnssøndag" we always hide a miniature Venezian ceramic mask in one of the fastelavndsboller. The one who finds the mask gets a little gift.

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Music for the fastelavnsboller? It can't be anything else than Saint Saëns and Le Carneval des Animaux, can it :-)

Tea time with sick daughters, Santa Sunniva Cookies

2009-01-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

None of us got much sleep last night, up in her bedroom in the attic, Marta was coughing badly, down in the basement Ingrid's coughing was even worse. Today they have both been home from school, and as it often is with choughing, it is better in daylight. Fortunately.

Both girls slept long and then they spent the morning planning dinner and starting their own blogs. Marta is an easy learner, so when Ingrid was busy preparing the food, she found the white table cloth I usually use for my food photographing, unwrapped it just like I do, and took series of photos. Both girls are laughing. For years they have teased me for my blogging and for my food photographing, now they are both walking in my footsteps :-)

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Not long ago I bought several packets of dates at the grocery store. Left overs from Christmas, still soft and sweet. I love dates, but there certainly is a limit of how many I can eat at a time, so I had to find other ways to use them. Sick daughters are in need of comfort food, even though they feel well enough both to cook and to blog, so I decided to make a plate of cookies. The smell from freshly bakes cookies is always a very good medicine

The dates gave the cookies a very nice, sweet taste, and to make them even better I added some Norwegian Santa Sunniva Liqueur, therefore the name; Santa Sunniva Cookies.

Santa Sunniva Cookies

5dl white flour

1 1/2 dl sugar

200gr salted butter

cut the butter into small pieces and knead the dough together by your hands

add about 20 sliced dates and an egg cup of liqueur

make round cookies

press them down with a fork

bake at 200C for about 15 minutes

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My choice of music this time is a little different. Not any of the old classics, but charming Josh Groban with a collection of evergreens. Not a music I listen to every day, but for a cookie baking night it filled the kitchen perfectly :-)

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By the way, here is Marta's blog

and here is Ingrid's

Cod Paella, risotto med torsk

2009-01-25T01:39:00.000-08:00

One of the pleasure is life is to visit fishmarkets. We don't have one like the Rialto market here in Trondheim, still the one we have is a nice one with quite a good selection of choices according to the season. When Terje and I visited Ravnkloa (the fish market here in Trondheim) yesterday, I was looking for fish for a paella, and the cod filets looked perfect.

I have a favorite restaurant out at Murano (in Venice) where I have discovered a marvellous risotto with fruits from the sea. Unfortunately you have to be two to order the dish, I remember one time Terje and I had it, we almost licked the plates at the end, the taste was too good to let go. I was not able to create the same juicy taste in my paella, but I am on the right way. Give me some more practice, and I am there.

cod paella

dice the cod filet into small pieces
fry in an extravagance of extra virgin olive oil
add salt and pepper
cut an onion and a green sweet pepper
fly in more olive oil

fry the rice in the leftover oil in the pan
add fish bouillon and white wine
add the fried fish and let boil for about half an hour
add the onion and the sweet pepper

serve with olive bread dipped in olive oil, the one we had is baked in Lom, sold in the delicatessen at the fish market.

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I fist fell for Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 because of the beautifil painting on the cd cover. The music is just as beautiful, and suits well on an icy, wintry Sunday morning.

Yoghurt, orange and chocolate

2009-01-20T12:53:00.000-08:00

I am in need of some comfort food today, as I am home taking care of a cold. Wrapped in a huge Indian wool shawls, music on the cd and a stack of book from and about Venezia accompanying me, I almost felt tempted to greet the cold as a good, old friend :-) Some days are almost meant to be stay at home days.

The Venezia book on top of my pile is Toni Sepeda's Brunetti's Venice, Walks through the novels. Being a Donna Leon and a Comissario Brunetti fan for many years, this book met me like a long waited for friend, when I found it at an airport bookstore a couple of weeks ago. We are planning to visit Italy and venezia again in June, and then I'll make sure to find room for a Brunetti walk.

The Blue Café is supposed to be a food blog, but I can't resist the temptation to talk about books, and you all know that I can never resist the temptation to talk about music as well. The Venezia mood I am in this morning, took me to the Verdi part of my music collection. Nabucco is not my favorite Verdi opera, but a good kind of different choice from time to time. And the dramatic music is a good curtain for the easy, comfort food I am enjoying

No recipe, just a small bowl of plain yoghurt topped with dark chocolate.
A red plate of juicy slices of orange.

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Pizza with anchovy and aubergine

2009-01-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

Fridays are pizza days, and days when we usually eat our dinner late. I still remember when pizza came to my Norway, some time in the mid-70ies. The thick American pizza, rich with melted cheese. It didn't take us long to know that we loved this food, and it soon became something everybody ate. Many, many years l learned about another type of pizza, the thin Italian one, crispy, salty and with a number of toppings I'd never dreamed of. I will never forget my first pizza eaten in Roma. I was there for the first time in my life, it must have been in 2001. The purpose of my trip was studying the diaconia, and at the same time my brother was there with his orchestra and his viola. We met for lunch hour, sat down at a small outdoor café not far from the St.Peter's Cathedral and ordered a pizza. I will never forget the thin salty dream I got, topped with mozarella.

After visiting Intaly several times a year since 2001, I have learned to make alot of different pizzas, and I have learned to make them with whatever I can find in the fridge. Last week I couldn'r resist a fat, tempting aubergine when I was shopping for groceries. The aubergine spent a few days in a basket in the kitchen untill Friday came, and I decided it was time to use it in a pizza. In the fridge I had some leftover anchovy since Christmas and the topping was all set. The result was a perfect crcisp, salt pizza.

pizza with anchovy and aubergine

for the pizza dough:

25g yeast

water

olive oil

white flour

salt

for the topping:

a sliced aubergine, salted for about an hour

anchovy

cheese (I used Edamer from Norway)

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Andrea Bocelli's music is perfect for pizza.

My choice this time is his Verdi cd where he sings with Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

(let the choice of archestra be my prayer for peace in the Middle East)

Grønnsaksuppe, red vegetable soup

2009-01-18T05:18:00.001-08:00

Sunday dinners are family dinners here in The Blue Café. The boys know that extra plates are set for them around the table, and today my parents are also coming. I love making food for alot of people, as I also love to prepare meals for only myself of for me and my husband. It is not always easy to plan what to grocery shop though, as we seldom know on Saturdays how many we will be around the table for the next day's Sunday dinner. Today Ingrid had to go to work (7-eleven) and would not be here for dinner. "Oh mamma, can you make something for lunch or an early dinner before I leave", she asked this morning. In my mind I went through the fridge and the pantry, what could I possibly make without shopping? I also knew that the chicken we have bought for dinner might be a little short for 7 people, may be I could combine something?

Of course I could. There is always vegetables around, and the solution was easy. "Ingrid, what about some red vegetable soup and some homemade bread?" "Perfect mamma, you are an angel" The soup is made, late breakfast for Marta which slept long this morning and was not hungry when she wake up, lunch for Ingrid and there is still enough for a starter before the chicken for the rest of us.

red vegetable soup

slice two onions and fry them in olive oil

add three sliced carrots and fry some more

add 1 1/2 liter water

four tomatoes cut into boats

salt

pepper

safan

let boil smowly for about 15 minutes

serve with homemade bread

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I have a Tivoli Ipal radio in the kitchen and with a cable I am able to connect my Ipod to this radio. So since the livingroom was busy with family members watching sports today, I could still have my own music in the kitchen through the radio and my Ipod.

Enjoy with me Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón

Opera and a bread baking day

2009-01-17T06:38:00.001-08:00

Once a week I have a bread baking day. Sometimes just the ordinary grain bread we always eat, sometimes I have more time at hand and can bake different types. During the winter these days are perfect to make the house warm, with the cosy smell of fresh bakery.

At our cabin we don't have electrisity and I dream of an outdoor oven where I can bake our breads. The minus with no electricity though is that we don't have a freezer, only a small room in the gas fridge where I could put a couple of breads, but would it be worth warming up a whole bread oven for just two or three breads? Well, my dream is still there, so I'll wait and see what we do with it.

Here at home we have a big fridge, and as long as I bake once a week, there is always room for the extra breads there.

I am not good at following recipes. When making our everyday bread, four pieces of big loaves and 15 small ones, I start with a mixture of differemt types of flour. I add salt, oil, 100gr fresh yeast and 1,8l of water, mix it, and then add white flour untill I have a smooth dough. I let it raise for about an hour, make the breads, let in raise some more and it is ready for baking, 240C for about 15-20 minutes for the small loaves, 220-200C for about one hour for the big ones.

The small baguettes was made of white flour, water, salt, olive oil and fresh yeast. In half of them I added dates, they were so cheep at the grocery store this week, and these baguettes are perfect with cheese.

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During my baking days I play opera. Give it a try, opera goes perfect with breadbaking :-)

Marinert torsk, marinated cod

2009-01-16T12:09:00.001-08:00

I went to the local fishmarket downtown after work yesterday. Down near the harbour the fishmarket has been situated for ages, I remember it from my childhood, though they did a great restauration some years ago. I try to go there at least every second week, and always find temptations. I sometimes make plans for what to buy, or what to look for before I go, more often I go with an open mind, to see what they have, to see what tempts me.

This time my eyes soon found the marinated cod, but it was only a few pieces left. No problem, fishmonger Ketil said, I'll make you some more, and soon I had five good pieces. Ketil grew up in the same neighbourhood as I did, and we always get a good chat when we meet. Mostly fish stories and how to make the best fish dishes.

I baked the cod filets in the oven, 200C for 40 minutes, and served them with small potatoes and a paprika salad.

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I have connected music to my food for almost thre weeks now. I would like to hear from my readers what you think of this. Music plays a very important role in my life and it feels natural to combine it to my cooking, and I love to share it with you. Now I am curious to hear your responce.

Four half tomatos and a piece of bread

2009-01-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

Marta made pancakes for dinner yesterday. They were ready when I came home from work, warm, delicious and with sweet blueberry jam from the freezer. A perfect meal made by my 12 year old chef. She phoned me when I was on my way home from work; "Mamma, I don't think there is enough milk for the pancakes." I was tired and didn't want to go grocery shopping on my way home, so I had to think fast. "Look in the fridge Marta, there should be some creme fraiche there, add some of it and use water instead of milk, and your pancakes should be all right".

They were!

I seldom eat anything for supper, but with an early pancake dinner I felt a craving for a treat in the night. I had a couple of tomatoes threatening to become too ripe and I had some leftover white bread threatening to become too dry. How could I combine this?

Easy. I baked the tomatoes in the oven for about one hour, first half an hour on 200C, then the rest of the time on 150C, with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh basil, and let the bread, dipped in olive oil, bake with the tomatoes the last 15 minutes. A glass of water with a slice of lemon and some Claude Debussy music...........a perfect night.

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Some thoughts on food

2009-01-14T09:48:00.000-08:00

The Newspaper had an article yesterday about the female handballplayers of our local star team Byåsen. To play better, they are now focusing on what they eat, and one of the questions the player got from the interviewer was if they now have changed hamburgers with fish and vegetables. It was almost hard to believe their answers. One of the players laughed and said "Fish, I never eat fish. Well, I remember my father prepared fish from time to time when I was a girl, but......."

Another tale. Marta often has friends here after school, and we always invite them to eat with us. Fish is on the menue here in The Blue Café several times a week, and I remember one meal some years ago. Two young girls were here, but when they heard that I was serving fish, only one of them wanted to eat with us. The other one sat down in the livingroom to wait while we ate. The one "who was brave enough to eat fish" took some bites, loved the taste and then picked up her cell phone to phone home; "Mamma, guess when I am doing! I am eating fish!" I asked her, "Do you never eat fish at home?" "Oh yes," she replied" we eat fried fish sticks from time to time" She smiled and helped herself to a second serving of fresh trout.

I wonder why so many children believe that they don't like fish. And I wonder why so many parents walk the road they believe is the easiest one, a road with pizzas, hamburgers, chips and junk food (I call pizza junkfood because I find many of the readymade ones so, though I love, love, love homemade pizza and serve it at least once a week)

I would love to hear your thouhgts on the fish topic. Do you like fish? How often do you eat it? Do you order fish when you eat at restaurants? How can we help the young generation to eat more fish? Do you have a fish recipe to share?

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Music? Schubert's Trout Quintet of course.

Take a look here and here for other fish stories

Sunday Wreath

2009-01-12T09:07:00.000-08:00

We have more or less emptied the boxes with Christmas cookie, and I can't say it makes me sad. Christmas cookies are great, but they have their limits, and when mid-January comes I feel that the limit is reached as well.

So when friends announced that they would be coming for coffee Sunday afternoon, I had the perfect excuse to bake a yeast wreath (as if I need an excuse to bake.......)

Marta and I shared the dough between us, she made buns, I made what we in Norway call "klippekrans", which can be translated into a cutted wreath (I use the scissors to cut). All Norwegian children learn to make this in school. Usually the wreath is filled with butter, sugar, cinnamon and raisins. I used marzipan instead of sugar and raisins, as I always have so much left over marzinpan after the creamcakes at this time of the year.

klippekrans / sunday wreath

300gr butter

1l water

75-100gr fresh yeast

2dl sugar

ca 1,5kg white flour

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melt the butter, add water and make sure it get a lukewarm temperature

add the yeast and stir rill it kind of melts

mix everything, stir well

rise in warm kitchen for about one hour

make the wreath from half of the dough, buns of the rest, or make two or three wreaths. The one I made rised very well and turned out almost too big

bake in oven, 200C for 25 minutes

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The guests have left, the leftover wreath is cut into two pieces and are sleeping in the freezer. Will be as good as fresh later when warmed up in the oven.

I anjoy a tidy, warm, quiet livingroom with Schubert on the cd-player.

There can never be too much Schubert........

Gratinert løksuppe, Gratinée des Halles

2009-01-11T04:36:00.000-08:00

I have a huge blue book about French cooking. Yesterday morning I started to look though it in search of recipes, or rather in search of inspiration, as I seldom follow the recipes when I cook. I am more a find the way as I walk person. I was going downtown later in the day and was making a grocery list. But the more I looked, the more tempted I was of French cooking, and almost booked a ticket to France :-)..... Well, in the end I decided to go for a very simple, very tasty gratinated onion soup, Gratinée des Halles.

Again and again I discover that the best food is often the simple food. With few but the best ingredients, where each item added shows off her best. Onion soup is a very good example. We had this soup as a starter last night, and it felt rich enough to be a full meal.

Løksuppe / Gratinée des Halles

one onion

5dl water

extra virgin olive oil

salt

pepper

toast

cheese

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slice the onion and fry it in the olive oil. Add the water and let it boil for 30 minutes

add salt and pepper

fill two soupbowls, top the soup with 4 pieces of small slices of toast and cheese

put in hot oven for about 10 minutes

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After the New Year's concert from Wien I discovered that I did not have any Johann Strauss in my music collection. With amazon it was easy to do something with that, and last week Die Fledermaus came in the mail.

The onion soup tasted even better with Gabril von Eisenstein, Rosalinde, Alfred, Adele and the others from Die Fledermaus singing in the background :-)

Breakfast with lemon and honey

2009-01-10T00:11:00.001-08:00

Saturday morning, the rest of the house is quiet, the sky is pink with the promise of a bright new morning. I got a box in the mail yesterday. I had been away all day, five hours on the train, a long meeting, and was tired when I finally reach home, so I didn't even open the box, just went to bed. But this morning I woke up fresh, and the first thing meeting me was the box. I opened it, and found......a small jar of honey, fresh from Betsy's Fork Creek garden. I opened the box and smelled summer, I made breakfast and tasted summer :-)

Two pieces of homemade bread is my typical breakfast. Usually with black currant marmelade from The Blue Garden, or with brown cheese. Today was a special treat, two pieces of bread with Betsy's very special honey. The perfect darkness. The perfect sweetness. And a cup of tea with lemon.

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I had my ipod with me on the train yesterday, and enjoyed Urs Joseph Flury and Concertino Veneziano. Bought on a whim in Venezia a few years ago. played again and again.

When icy roads say no to grocery shopping

2009-01-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

If you read Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods, you know about our challenging weather right now. With yesterday's drive home from work in mind, I put a cookbook in my backpack this morning, with the intention of reading recipes on my way home from work, and hopefully decide what to make for dinner. Plans changed though. My husband phoned me at work to tell me that because of the road situation in our city, he had to work some extra hours. I took the bus home, and a crowded bus filled with wet people is not a good place to read recipes. And as my dear neighbour and very good friend came onto the bus the stop after mine, I didn't miss the cookbook at all.

Ok, I said to myself. I will make a late dinner. I can make a grocery list when I am home and then go shopping. Anyway the grocery store is only a few minutes from our house.

Finally at home I knew that there would be NO grocery shopping. It was raining cats and dogs, it was blowing and the roads were too slippy. The only option was to make dinner from what I could find in the cupboards. Not an easy task, believe me, but after searching high and low, I ended up with some spaghetti, a lemon, half an onion, some leek and a few cherry tomatoes. After I took the photo I even found a few walnuts and I realized I had a bright green basil in the window sill. Women have made dinner on less.

25gr fresh yeast, salt, sugar, 3dl lukewarm water and some white flour even made the most wonderful foccaccia. Marta and I feasted, though she hardly had time to come in to eat, it is too much fun to play (read jump from the carport roof) out in the snow.

Marta was not too happy about the walnuts. I think they made the dish!

I cut all the vegetables and fried them in olive oil, added a little salt.

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Good food needs good music. While reading Vikram Seth's An Equal Music some time ago I discovered Bach's The Art of Fugue. Bach's music is among the best music ever written.

Spring colours in the snow

2009-01-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

The snow keeps on falling. Day in and day out. I love to sit here in my studio where I have the window right in front of my face. I love to watch the beauiful snowcovered trees, the falling snow, the silence of a white world. I do not love to struggle with the snow to and from work. It drains my energy and my dreams seem to find a way to fly south to the summers of Italy. I am craving for spring colours, and a good way to make some colours with the taste of spring is to make a green salad. I even believe the greens give me some energy for my snow fights.

And if dinner is healthy enought, we can have a cup of coffee and a piece or two of some leftover cake in the afternoon.....

This pastasalad is very simple.

pasta

avocado

eggs

cucumber

iceberg salad

salt

extra virgin olive oil

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With Italy in my mind day and night (almost), it is easy to end up with Italien music when I look through my cd collection. Venezia and Vivaldi go perfectly together. Some time ago I discovered some Vivaldi music which was new to be (I am NO music expert), and it soon became among my favorite cds.

Concerti e Cantate

CONCERTO ITALIANO

Trettende dag jul, 13th Day of Christmas

2009-01-06T12:15:00.000-08:00

It is the 13th day of Christmas and the holiday is officially over. I started last night to put away my creches, and have continued today with the angels, the snowmen, the cds, books, stockings and all my other collection. It feels sad and empty and at the same time it feels good. The house is back to normal and it is tidy. Instead of a basket filled with Christmas books I have now filled the same basket with garden books. It is still snowing, will it ever stop(?), but I have a dream of spring somewhere far ahead.

To celebrate "trettende dag jul" or epiphany, we have eaten the last lussekatter from the freezer. Warmed in the oven, and they are good as new.

You find the recipe for lussekatter through this link

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When I was pregnant with my second son, 25 years ago, I had to stay in bed for several weeks. During that time I discovered Misa Criolla, and since then it has been among my favorite music. I am playing it tonight while having coffee and lussekatter, and a very nice fire in the hearth.
And I am reading today's mail. Nice letters and cards from friends around the world.

Back to more greens.

2009-01-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

After a long Christmas vacation with alot of food and alot of sweets and calories, it is time to go back to a more normal everyday life. Holidays and time off are blessings, but the older I get the more I appreciate the everyday routine with my job and my time off.

My first workday after almost two weeks off was today, and to kind of get into the healthy mood, I made myself a very simple green salad for lunch yesterday.

Green everyday salad

iceberg salad
leek
cucumber
cherry tomatos
olives
basil

sprinkeled with balsamic vinegar
followed by a long walk in the snow

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After all the recent Christmas music, it is nice to be back to "something else", like Beethoven and a few of his symphonies.

What about no 5 &6?

Feast means Marta's cupcakes

2009-01-04T01:09:00.000-08:00

During the holidays we fill the house with family and friends again and again. After a busy autumn it has been a wonderful time to get back to being social, time for family, time for friends, and also time for solitude, which becomes more and more important for me. Today is Terje's birthday, and again there will be a full house.

A Party in The Blue Café often means cupcakes, Marta's cupcakes, as one of many cakes on the table. Marta loves decorating her cupcakes, she dreams of making her own cake company, inspired by Cakeadoodledo. During the past year she has tried different recipes, and has now found the perfect one for her use in a small book from Cacas, sjokolademuffins. They are sweet, soft and raise just perfect.

It is still Christmas time here in Norway. We celebrate untill the 13th day of Christmas, which is the day of eating the gingerbreadhouse, undecoration the tree and storing away all tracks of Christmas decorations. We still use our Spode Christmas Tree china and I still play my Christmas cds. But as we go back to work and school tomorrow, I am not sorry to have the 13th Day of Christmas here in Tuesday. It will be good to be back to a more regular scedule.

But so far Christmas is still among us, and when we had Terje's birthday breakfast this morning, we were accompanied by Bach and his Christmas Oratorio.

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Remoulade

2009-01-02T23:57:00.001-08:00

We are almost snowing in today, except than one never snows in here in Norway. Some days I would love to creep under my duvet and hibernate till spring comes, but that's no option, is it? And I must confess that a white wonderland can be quite fascinating. I took some snow photos through my studio window before 7 this morning, and I will be out taking alot more durring the day. I am no winter girl, but can't close my eyes for this fascinating beauty. We plan to walk over to the Nordic Ski Arena at Granåsen, only 30 minutes to walk from The House in the Woods, later today to watch some ski jumping, but so far the pedestrian road there is not plouged and it will be too much work to fight the snow all the way. Or we can ski may be?

The leftovers from New Year's Eve are almost gone, and here comes the recipe for the remoulade I made for the aspic. As I bought the majonaise, it is a quite simple recipe actually.

Remoulade

2dl majonaise
2dl cream
lemon juice
dill
pepper

whip the cream and mix everything
can it be easier :-)

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Today's music? Of course I am listening to Vivaldi's winter from Le quattro stagioni.
And of course I listen to the edition where my "little" brother plays the viola.

Aspic with eggs, green peas and shrimps

2009-01-02T03:28:00.000-08:00

It is breadbaking day here in The Blue Café today. We are still in a holiday mood (will not be back to school and work untill Monday), but I was up early to keep the good rythm. I started the breaddough right after breakfast, so the girls woke up to the smell of fresh bread through the house and could eat some for a late breakfast while it was still warm. I really should make it a new year's resolution to bake all our bread, but I know that in a week or two, or five...... when life is back to it's normal scedule, I will probably be too busy to keep up. Well, anyway we can enjoy it today. And it feels extra good to sit inside a warm, nice Christmas decorated home when the world outside is a totally winter wonderland. It has been snowing heavily for two days and it will keep on snowing untill tomorrow morning. If it stops then I might go out cross country skiing. I'm crossing my fingers.

But this post is not supposed to be about bread, nor about snow, but a recipe from the New Year's Eve buffet. More will come in the following days, but today I'll give you the recipe for aspic. I have no idea what this is called in English, but it is a kind of salt jelly which you can fill with anything you like.

Aspic with eggs, green peas and shrimps

aspic powder
5dl water
5 eggs
one box of green peas
one box of shrimps
-------------------------------------
mix the aspic powder and the water, stir well while it is heathed to the point og boiling
let it cool

slice the eggs and "decorate" the inside of a breadpan
add the cold liquid, the peas and the shrimps
------------------------------
stay cold over night or for a few hours
serve with remoulade, recipe will come tomorrow.

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While baking the breads today, mixing the flour and the water, kneeding the dough, enjoying the smell from the over, I have been sitting down to read Umberto Eco, listening to Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies. Life is good :-)

Rømmegrøt

2009-01-01T06:24:00.000-08:00

The first day of the new year is a quiet day here in The Blue Café. We had alot of people here last night to celebrate New year's Eve with us, and I spent all day in the kitchen with preparations. I love to give parties and I love to prepare the food needed, but sometimes I strech myself too far. I didn't do that yesterday, but it was not far from, so today is a day to regain strength, a day for reflections. I have watched the New Year's Concert from Wien/Vienna, as I do every January 1st, and now it is my husband who sits in front of the television watching ski jumping from Garmish Partenkirchen, his first day of January tradition.

I took alot of photos yesterday, at least during the preparations. When the buffet was all made I was to busy to greet the guests and forgot my camera for a while. I will post photos and recipes the coming days, but today I have something totally different, traditional rømmegrøt.

When Americans find my food blog many of them writes me to tell about memories of Norwegian food, often shared by an old grandmother or grandaunt. Lefse, krumkake, lutefisk and rømmegrøt are often mentioned then. Heidi wrote me not far ago, and one of her questions was how we make rømmegrøt. We used to have rømmegrøt alot, but haven't eaten it in a while, so her email inspired me to make it for lunch today. We have visited relatives in the US ourselves, many years ago, and when they served us rømmegrøt it was made of butter, flour and milk. That's not the original rømmegrøt but something we call fløyelsgrøt (corduroy porridge) or smørgrøt (butter porridge). The real rømmegrøt is made on rømme, thick sour cream.

rømmegrøt for 3

3dl thick rømme

6 tablespoons of white flour

5dl milk

salt

heat the rømme and 3tablespoons of flour. Let it boil while you stir hard, to force the fat out of the rømme. Gather the fat in a small bowl

add the rest of the flour, stir well

add the milk, little by little and stir well all the time to get a smooth porridge

boil for at least 10 minutes

Serve the porridge with sugar, cinnamon, raisins and the fat.

The porridge is often eaten with a grøtpinne (porridge stick), different types of salted, dried meat and flatbrød (flat bread)

Marta loves rømmegrøt :-)

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I looked through my cd collection today and realized that the Strauss family has not quite found their way there. I have some with Richard Strauss though, and today I am playing Anna Netrebko's Souvenirs. It is her personal selection of operetta classics, salon songs, lullabies and more. She sings (in Norwegian) Grieg's Solveig's Song, and she also sings Strauss' Cäcilie and Wiegenlied.

Solveig's Song for the rømmegrøt, Strauss for the New Year's Concert.
Enjoy :-)

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Marzipan cake for New Year's Eve

2008-12-31T06:24:00.000-08:00

The guests will be here in a few hours. The only thing left for me to make is the foccacia. I want it warm and fresh, and wait till the last minute to bake it. Everything else is finished, I even found time for a nap, and I can feel the partymood filling me. Once more we will welcome the New Year, together and with good friends.

I have been busy in the kitchen all since I woke up early this morning. Not much time yet for reflections and lists of New Year's resolutions. That will have to wait till tomorrow. Today I am busy, today I am counting my blessings, today I look back and I look at what I have here and now.

When I woke up this morning it was snowing outside. After weeks of dirty old snow and ice, the world is again white and new. The garden looks beautiful and the snowflakes has a taste of heaven - yes, I've tasted them :-)

The snow and the festive colours of New Year's Eve inspired my cream cake.

My cake is made of eggs, sugar, white flour and baking powder. Cut in two layers and filled with strawberry jam and whipped cream, Covered in more whipped cream and then clothed in marzipan. And I know it will taste good.

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Music for a New Year's Eve:

Fresh bread and Christmas herring

2008-12-30T12:21:00.001-08:00

After the first busy Christmas days with celebrations and parties with family and friends, life is slowing down. It is time to enjoy the peace and the quiet, time to play some music, read the Christmas cards, time to sit down and talk. Our kids are growing, and more and more Terje and I find ourselves home alone. Still all four kids are home often enough to avoid the empty nest feeling, now we just enjoy the "nights for two". Like last night. Early in the evening we decided to have a night in front of the fire with a nice supper. There were still Christmas herring left, I always make several jars, give some away and enjoy the rest, and with fresh homemade bread and the sweet, fizzy,homemade limonade Terje makes for Christmas, it really became a feast.

Especially with Schubert in the background.

Julesild / Christmas Herring

6 fillets of herring, spiced
2 onions
1 dl oil (soya or olive)
--------------------------
1 dl vinegar
1 dl tomato ketshup
3 dl sugar
4 tablespoons of water
pepper
dill

Cut the herring and the onion into small pieces.
Warm the rest of the ingredients except the oil, till the sugar has melted.
Add the oil.
Let it cool.

Mix everything.

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music for the food:

Schubert's Winterreise
with Ian Bostridge and Leif Ove Andsnes

The party is over

2008-12-29T12:19:00.000-08:00

Fruitsalad with figs, oranges and avocado

2008-12-28T10:07:00.000-08:00

We are in the middle of the Christmas celebrations, and the table is filled with goodies for several meals a day. After a light breakfast and a long walk out on icy roads, I was ready for a light lunch. Reading Lucullian Delights is a daily pleasure I treat myself, and today Ilva gave me the idea to use dried figs. We always buy dried figs and dates for Christmas. I love eating one or two at a time, but they are rich and I can never have many of them at once. Searching through the fruitbowl and the vegetable shelf in the fridge, and I knew what my salad would consist of; fig, orange, avocado, walnut and orange juice. I made two small bowls for me and Terje, and we ate it with a piece of fruitcake.

Fruitsalad with figs, for two

8 dried figs

3 oranges

1 avocado

10 walnuts

orangejuice

a few drops of balsamic vinegar

Cut the figs, two of the peeled oranges and the avocado fruitmeat into small pieces, squeeze one orange and add half of the juice to each bowl, add a few drops of the very best balsamic vinegar. Top each bowl with the walnuts.

Rislapper, rice pancakes

2008-12-27T02:49:00.001-08:00

Today is "tredje juledag", 3rd day of Christmas. In Norway Christmas starts with Christmas Eve, or rather the day before when we decorate the Christmas tree, and then it last for 13 or 20 days (we have both traditions). So when many of my friends around the world say good bye to Christmas these days, our celebrations have just started. I am off work all untill the 5th of January, so I have a long time to enjoy the tree and the music, the family parties and the Christmas food, and long days for reading. The cold room in the basement is filled with leftovers after the celebrations so far, and it is always alot of fun to see what I can make from it.

Today is our annual family juletrefest, Christmas Tree Party. We all bring along food, and as my mother will bring a huge plate of small breads with meat, I decided I could bring the marzipan cream cake I made for Christmas Eve. There were so much else on the late night coffee table then, so only a small part of the cake was eaten. Terje and I had two small pieces for our morning coffee today, and it tastes just as good as it did 3 days ago. I will also bring rislapper, small rice pancakes, made from the leftover from the rice porridge we had for lunch on Christmas Eve.

Rislapper

cold left over rice porridge

eggs

white flour

melted butter

sugar

salt

Mix all, let it rest for half an hour, fry small cakes in the pan just like when you make pancakes.

I am sorry I don't have any better recipe, these rislapper are typical "make as you go".

Christmas cake tabel in Norway

2008-12-26T03:34:00.000-08:00

A typical Norwegian Christnas Eve: church, home to dinner, gifts, coffee and cakes, singing and dancing around the Christmas tree.

Everybody eats too much for sinner, we save the dessert for the coffee table where it has to compete with too many cakes........

Creamcake decorate with marzipan, chocolate cakes, krumkake, lefse, cookies, sweets, nuts, dates. figs....... what did I forget?

Too many cakes, too mcu sweets, and now we take long walks only to come home and feast on leftovers.....

Happy Christmas season.

About having a food blog

2008-12-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Some days I ask myself what I am doing with a food blog. Am I pretending to be one who knows how to cook and bake or what? There are so many food blogs out there, how can I believe that what I scribble down, the photos I show, the recipes I share, can be of any interest at all to other than myself?

I wonder if I shall stop food blogging, or if I shall close my foodblog down. It takes alot of time keeping up with all my blogs, and my family keep on teasing me when I line up our food for photos...........

But I keep on. Year after year. At least I have some recipes to show my children, I say to myself. The boys both have kitchens of their own, they call me from time to time asking how to cook this, how to bake that. May be I shall gather some of my recipes and make them a very special "Recipes, with love from Mum"-book?

Still I keep on food blogging. If you are once smitten, it is hard to stop. And then things happen. I get comments, I get emails. Questions. How do you do this? I like your blog? How do you make that? You have inspired me to start blogging, come and have a look....... And I know that food blogging has become a part of my life I will not leave behind.

Like when I write a post about our first Christmas cookies, and people from around the world take time to contact me, to comment, to help me with the words I don't know in English. UP, an extra Thank You, for the link which explains hjortetakksalt

Balisha, you have asked me about the colouring of the cookies in my previous post. It is so simple. We drip a few drops of food colouring into an egg glass, then we use the back of a match stick, dip it in the colour and use it as a paint brush. Good luck!

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The recipe for these kokosmakroner, you ask? Well, I shared them last year. Take a look here.

Kakemenn, the first Christmas cookies

2008-12-07T04:55:00.000-08:00

Cookietime is here. Terje and Marta made the first cookies yesterday. A traditional recipe from Terje's childhood, a recipe he has payed forward to all his children. And to his wife. A sweet and spicy smell fills the house. I sit in the livingroom, knitting on a pair of socks, enjoying the sounds from the kitchen. Father-daughter chatting and laughing.
"Thank you God for giving us the moments of here and now."The best moments can't be bought for money. The best moments are given us and must be lived.

Here is Terje's recipe for kakemenn:

1/4 liter milk

325 gr sugar

1 teaspoon "hjortetakksalt" (I have found no translation for this, but it is a powder, much like baking soda, with a terrible strong smell)

1 dl oil or melted butter

1/2 kg white flour

Mix and let the dough rest in the fridge over night.

Roll the dough out to a thickness of about 0.5cm. Cut out figures.

Bake for a few minutes at 200C

Saturday Rice Porridge/risengrynsgrøt

2008-11-29T06:30:00.001-08:00

Today is one of the favorite days in my year. I am decorating for Advent. Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, the first candle in the Advent wreath will be lit during breakfast, the Advent star will shine in the livingroom window, purple wil be the dominant colour. I have a secret cupboard down in the basement where I keep all my Advent and Christmas decorations, and I am bursting with anticipation every year when I open the cupboard on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent, to look through my treasures. Monday is December 1st, and my Advent Basket will be waiting for me in the morning, the basket fillings are all down in the basement cupboard somewhere.

I spend most of today at home, and surrounded with so many memories from the past I get a need for some traditional cooking. All through my childhood, and also when our own kids were small, we used to have "risengrynsgrøt", rice porridge, for Saturday lunch. Nowadays I make it only occationally, but today was a perfect porridge day.
Risengrynsgrøt

4 servings (+ some leftover for "rislapper")
3dl porridge rice
3dl water
1liter milk
salt

Boil porridge rice and water for a few minutes. Add the milk, get it to the boiling point, turn donw the heath and let it "almost boil" for about 45 minutes, Add a little salt.

Serve with butter, sugar, cinnamon and raisins

Limonade from the garden

2008-11-24T23:00:00.000-08:00

The kitchen is mostly my domene, at least when we talk about preparing food. My husband often comes after the meal is finished to help with the cleaning. (praise to him!). But from time to time Terje decides that he wants to "make some food". The coming month will be a busy one for him, as he is a great Christmas cookies baker. I can't wait to all the delicious smells which will float from the kitchen when he starts.

Last week-end he woke to a kitchen day. In the freezer he found the berries he had put there a few months back, now it was time to transform them into limonade.

Black and red currants were the main ingredients this time. We have a limonade boiler, old bottles were warmed in the oven, and soon a warm, sweet smell filled the house.

This limonade is the best you can get, giving us a taste of summer all year.

Salmon for breakfast

2008-11-23T00:44:00.001-08:00

It is snowing outside, King Winter came early and he came strong. Indoors it is time for fires, mugs of tea, hot chocolate and books. Piles of books. I have a long list of books I want to hike my way through this winter, and I have a year's subscription of Food and Travel to enjoy. They are nicely stacked in a woven basket, waiting patiently for me to armchairtravel the world through recipes and colourful photos. And there are cookbooks. Cookbooks are not only for recipes, mostly for me they are for reading, enjoying, mindtravelling.

Most of all though, Sunday mornings are for long, slow breakfasts.

In the fridge I found a few tiny little pieces of smoked salmon. The girls love salmon, so when we buy some, I never know how long it will last, or rather, I know it will not last long. But the few small pieces were enough for me and Terje to get the right taste of salmon with our omelette. And with some foccaccia from last night, warmed to get back some of the fresh, crisp taste, the leftover breakfast became a perfect feast for a dark November morning.

Omelette
3 eggs
some cream, milk or water
spring onion
leek
salt
pepper

Foccaccia topped with pear.

2008-11-16T04:07:00.001-08:00

A long, quiet Sunday at home. It was snowing lightly outdoors when I woke up and I knew that the day would be perfect for reading, listening to music, quilting, and some kitchen fun.

We had a late breakfast my husband and I, both girls were sleeping over with friends. Music on, chatting about this and that. Bread with fruits and nuts from a bakery downtown, alot of tea. Sunday morning breakfast just as I dream them to be.

But breakfast bread doesn't last for ever, and while it was still too early to start to prepere the moose soup for an early dinner, I decided to bake a sweet foccaccia. Two almost overripe pears were in the fruit bowl together with apples and oranges, perfect for a foccaccia topping.

Foccaccia

25g fresh yeast

salt

sugar

3dl lukewarm water

ca 5dl white flour

Put the yeast in the baking bowl, add a little salt and sugar. Let the yeast melt.

Add the water and stir well.

Add flour and stir more.

Let the dough rise for half an hour.

Glaze a baking tin, about 20x30cm with olive oil. Put the dough in the tin, add sliced pears, sugar and cinnamon.

Rise for yet 30 minutes.

Bake at 220C for about 25 minutes.

Okra, inspired from India

2008-11-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

During my weeks in India I learned about new fruits and vegetables almost every day. I loved to go grocery shopping with Carolyn, as most of the shopping she did was vegetables, and I loved to watched while she cooked one creative dish after another. I found most of the vegetables tasty, though some did not correspond with my tastebuds....... My favorite though was okra. Fried okra was served several times, and I helped myself again and again, enjoying this new to me taste.

We usually have a late dinner on Friday nights here in The Blue Café. Today I've been to the fishmarket downtown to find a treat for dinner, and on my way back to work I passed one of the many small Asian grocery shops which are to be found in Trondheim. I went in just to have a look at the vegetables, and to my surprise and pleasure I found that they sold okras. I didn't hesitate, but bought a bunch, and couldn't wait to come home to fry them.

Ingrid, Marta and cousin Mathilde found the taste strange, and will probably need more time to get used to it, Terje liked the new taste, I loved it. Fried in olive oil in a deep wok pan, sprinkled with Maldon salt, it tasted just as good as the okras I ate in South India.

My kitchen and my cooking is changing, more creativity, new tastes, colours.....

Ginger tea on a chilly night

2008-11-13T11:15:00.001-08:00

Winter is on its way to my corner of the world. Frost has come and covered the grass out in the garden with a thin white film. I am only just home from the warm and sunny Indian days and don't feel ready for frost yet.

I was tempted to make myself a mug of thick, hot chocolate last night, and the thought made my mouth water. But then I thought better of it. Why not make a nice, healthy cup of ginger tea instead. And sweeten in with some fruit.

Ginger is good for the body, good for my arthritis, and felt even better with a nice book, and a couple of candles to give a feeling of warmth.

Pomegranate and yoghurt

2008-11-12T13:00:00.001-08:00

I am back in my own kitchen, back to my own busy days, and with me from India I've brough alot of ideas which I hope can come alive in my own kitchen.

So far I haven't done very much cooking. The days and nights have been too busy. I don't want life to be too busy for cooming, but I can't always make my days exactly the ways I want them. A job and a family need time, time I give willingly. Meanwhile my kitchen is there, patiently waiting, and I know that days will come when more time can be spent making new and traditional dishes.

Today Marta came downtown after school and we had pizza together. Then we had some shopping to do for her upcoming dance performance before it was time to go back to school and a parent-teacher appointment. Home from that it was time for homework for her, writing for me, and suddenly it is almost bedtime. The pizza made me thirsty, so for a late night snack I've made a bowl of yogurt and pomegranate seeds - directly inspiration from South India :-)

Pomegranate youghurt

fill a small bowl with plain yoghurt

add pomegranateseeds

can it be any easier than this?

The Blue Cafe in India

2008-10-31T04:41:00.000-07:00

I am in India for three weeks, visiting friends. And I am totally spoiled with food. Mostly vegetarian.

I was curious before I came, would the food be too spicy for me, would my stomach accept the foreign food, would I like the taste of it. I had absolutely no reason to worry. The food, three meals a day, is tasty. colourful, mostly vegetarian.....and a feast for body and soul.

My hostess Carolyn, to the left in this photo, is a fabulous cook, and as I walk around in her kitchen with camrea, pan and notebook I hope to pick up a few of her secrets.

Living privately means that I get to meet alot of people, and last Saturday we were invited to frinds of Carolyn and her husband Hossy for lunch, Muthu and Sashi. Carolyn and Hossy live in the Karnataka reagin, while Muthu comes from another region, Coorg. Her cooking was influenced by that and her cooking was different. Another feast.

Muthu wrote a long list of the different dishes for me:

peas pulao
boondhi rialtha
rice chappati
bamblee curry
moothe curry
ala crobi, ,meltric subzi
bandgobi sninla mirchi subzi
sevia

(I am not sure if I got all the spelling correct)

Correct spelling or not, the meal was a feast. I am in love with Indian food.

Thank you Muthu.

It's time for apples

2008-10-09T08:35:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I mentioned in The Blue Café that I was making an apple pie, and Anna asked for the recipe. I am sorry it took longer than I had planned Anne, but here it is.

Eplekake / Apple Pie
125gr butter
125gr sugar
2 eggs
150gr flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons of milk

Mix butter and sugar untill it is almost white. Add the eggs, one by one,
add flour, baking powder and milk.

Fill a baking tin and add apple cut into thin boats. Sprinkle with sugar and cardamom.
Bake for 30-40 minutes in 175C.

Serve with whiped cream

Italian carbonara, Norwegian bread

2008-10-05T04:52:00.001-07:00

A combination of Italian and Norwegian food is what you often find in The Blue Café. In only 12 days I am going to India for three weeks, and I wonder what will happen to my cooking after that experience, but so far Italian spaghetti carbonara eaten with homemade dark bread is not an uncommon dish. Spaghetti carbonara is actually something we eat quite often. It is so simple to make and we all love it.

This time I mixed some diced ham with celery and lemon, just because that's what I found at hand. And the dish was topped with tomatoes from the garden, some late borago flowers, and fresh ruccola from the grocery store (nothing left in the garden)

For the bread I don't have a written recipe. I have bakes this same bread for years and years, and my fingers knows exactly what and how much to put into the bowl.

Eaten dipped in extra virgin olive oil and sprinkeled with a little Maldon salt, and it is almost a meal in itself.

The tomatos are finally ripe

2008-09-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

I have several tomato plants, planted together in a huge pot. They are filled with tomatos in all sizes, and every day I lift the branches and leaves to check for ripe red ones. A few weeks ago I moved the pot indoor to give the plants a better temperature, but still I had to wait and wait for the ripening. Untill now. The first red tomato was found a week ago, now there are several every day.

Finally, tonight I had enough to make bruschettas, some old, almost dry bread painted in rich extra virgin olive oil, fried in the iron pan, then topped with diced sweet tomatos with the taste of olive oil and sunshine from a Nordic summer.

Califlower Soup

2008-09-25T09:35:00.001-07:00

Autumn is the perfect time of the year to colour the food. My garden is filled with colours right now, late roses, sweet peas, calendulas, sunflowers, blue borago and alot more. Many of the flowers blooming right now can be used in the food, to be eaten, or to decorate. A white rose is beautiful in a white califlower soup. Sweet peas are beautiful everywhere.
A califlower soup is easy to make, staring with melted butter and flour, adding milk or water, salt, a little white pepper, and some creme fraice. But be careful with the cream, it might be too heavy for your gall bladder.

I seldom plan our menus far in advance. I love to shop on a whim.

Chicken salad and colours from the garden

2008-09-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

Our autumn days have so far been filled with sunshine, and everything is growing like mad before the dark and cold season. Chicken salad and pita bread was on the menu for our dinner today, and while grocery shopping, I knew that there would be reds and blues in the carden to colour the salad.
Colours means alot to me, and especially now when the days are getting shorter and I know that alot of gray weeks and months are ahead of me. I am a colour collector, and love to blend different colours, to increase my food palette with new colours, to play.

In the kitchen salad I used what I had, mixed with a few buys from the grocery store - chicken, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli, leek, red salad and blue flowers from the garden, and a dressing of vinegar balsamic, the best olive oil I have, drops of fresh lemon and maldon salt.

Honey Plums and back to Food Blogging

2008-09-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

It is such a long time since I blogged about food and cooking, my mind feels blank. I have forgotten how to do this........

When I started this food blog a long time ago, my goal was to blog about food every day. I make food every day, the food I make is homemade and most of it is my own recipes, so why not blog about it here to make it into my very own kitchen diary?
Well, I did for a long, long time. It was alot of fun, and a wonderful bonus was the friends from all around the world the food blog gave me. People who commented, people who sent emails and letter, yes, even people who came visiting for a snack or a meal in The Blue Café.

Then, some months ago I was so busy I had to limit my blogging time. I had to concentrate on my main blog, Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods, and my other blogs were given a break.

Nights are longer now when autumn is here, and though my travels keep on (I will try to update them in My Year in the World, and they will always be part of the tales in The House in the Woods) I know it is full time for some food blogging again. Give me some time, be patient when I practice my food writing, and I will be back.

Meanwhile you can enjoy the dessert we had at the cabin yesterday. Plums soaked in honeywater and white wine, eaten with vanilla souce. A pure treat.

Kålrabistappe

2008-06-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

I need your help to find the English name for this side dish. It is old, traditional doos here, often to go with salt meat, as we had some days ago. It is made of swede, boiled till it is soft, then mashed with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Simple and very tasty.

I like to cook traditional, and am afraid that the young people of today totally forget, or never learn how to make the food which was essential for previous generations.

Our oldest son bought his own flat a couple of months ago, and he is already realising that pizza and pasta every day can be quite boring. Now he calls me from time to time to get ideas for simple and tasty meals to cook.

I am playing with the idea of making a cookbook for my two sons. I probably have all the recipes I need alreday here at The Blue Café.

Tomorrow I will start preparing food for my Big Party.

A salad a day!

2008-06-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

It's Pizza Time.....again

2008-06-01T08:53:00.001-07:00

If you read my main blog over in The House in the Woods you know that I have been busy, busy travelling for some time. Here and there, home just long enough to unpack and pack again. Born a traveller I love to travel, but for the moment even I can feel that I am on my way to a limit. I miss my family, I miss my home, I miss my garden and I miss my kitchen.

When I came home last night my husband had made lasagne and one of our grown up boys was here to eat with us. After the meal it felt as a kind of fulfilment to do the dishes, to make the kitchen mine again.

The day before I laft for Copenhagen our fridge broke, and so my husband had to go without me to buy another one. The new fridge arrived only hours before my next travel and there was never any time for me even to open it so see waht it looked like. So when we were driving home today from a handball tournament where Marta played I started to plan what to have for dinner. There is some mincedmeat in the fridge,my husband said, and I decided to do it the easy way - go for pizza.

Dinner is finished, Marta and Terje have gone to watch soccer (Rosenborg, the team of Trondheim against Viking, the team of Stavanger near where my husband was born), Ingrid and her boyfriend will go up to his place to make their own dinner, I have done the dishes and I have made myself at home in the new fridge.

It is time for a quiet night with a book and a mug of tea.

Arme riddere, or "poor knights"

2008-05-19T04:50:00.000-07:00

Usually we eat a piece of bread and some cheese or homemade jam in the evenings (dinner is quite early here), but last night I wanted something different. I search though my mind to see if I could think of something which didn't mean I had to buy anything, I don't like to do grocery shopping on Sundays. Then I remembered a long forgotten snack from my childhood, arme riddere (poor knights) is my direct translation, but this dish might have a completely different name in English. If you know the dish I would love to learn its name.
Arme riddere musy have been created by a housewife with alot of old, dry bread she needed "to get rid of". I am always fascinated by left over recipes, we really throw away too much good food in the world, and now when we know that a food crisis is coming, we should all take care with what we eat, and how to get the most out of little. Arme riddere is a good addition to any creative leftover-list.

Arme riddere

for 3 persons I used:

6 pieces of old bread

2 eggs

3 tablespoons of sugar

cinnamon

2dl skimmed mil

Mix egg, milk, sugar and cinnamon. Dip the bread in the mixture, make sure that the pieces of bread are soaked through.

Fry in butter or olive oil untill it get a perfect suntanned colour.

Perfect to eat with homemade strawberry jam.

To be a food blogger..........

2008-05-18T01:24:00.000-07:00

I wish I was a better food blogger, but too often I forget my camera when I am in the kitchen. Like yesterday, the 17th of May, Norway's birthday. All morning we were busy with parades and celebrations, but in the afternoon I had invited friends and family for a traditional dinner, sodd (a soup with meat and meat balls) and a local flatbread called Skjenning, followed by coffee, vafler and trollkrem. I had planned it all, how I would take the photos and how to present the meal, and I started with pgotos of the flower arrangement from The Blue Garden and a table setting........then suddenly I became too busy with food preparations and the guests started to arrive, and four hours later there were no food left, and no photos had been taken.........Well, that's my food blogging in a nut shell.

Bread baking comfort days.

2008-05-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

After a period of perfect spring weather and long days out in the garden, here in The Blue Garden or over at our cabin near the sea, the temperatures have dropped drastically, and fresh snow can be seen at the mountains not far from us. Rain, which have been long waited for, is falling heavily, but why does it have to se so icy cold! A big part of my mind is busy planning what to do nect in the garden these days, and I have been out every single day, untill today. Now even the viking in me say that enough is enough, and I am giving gardening a break. A long needed housecleaning is being done, and in between I warm my mind and fingers with bread baking. Is there any better way to warm your hands than kneeding soft, lukewarm dough........knowing than in a couple of hours you can gather around the table with fresh bread.

Butter, water, yeast, salt, flour and love is all you need.

Out in nature, preparing food.

2008-05-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

With spring here and summer fast arriving, we are spending alot of time out at our cabin. Two hours south west of Trondheim, near the sea. A cosy, though primitive place where we have to walk to get water from the well, and cook over gass because there are no electricity (not that I mind gass, but home in The Blue Café I'm always using electricity). The kitchen is small, and has no oven for baking, but I love to cook there. And I love it mostly when I am able to prepare most of the meals outdoors.

Saturday was no exception. We planned a barbecue, and a barbecue for us almost always starts with me making a potato salad. Chives from the cabin garden, a few undressed potatos, olive oil and salt, and you have the most tasteful salad. And of course I must not forget the sprinkling of fresh air and sea salted winds.

I try to take all activities outdoor when we spend our week-end at the cabin. Very restaurants around the world can be compared with the view from our terracce, no chef in the world has better background music than the hundreds of singing birds in our surrounding trees. And after long days outdoors, what is better than nights with games and comfort.

Fresh from the garden. Rhuburb cake.

2008-05-12T11:56:00.001-07:00

We have spent another refreshing and relaxing week-end at our cabin. Mixed weather, from perfect warm sun till cold rain, but we don't mind, rain or shine, our cabin is our sanctuary. We headed home after lunch today because Marta was invited to a birthday party. This made me feel I got the best out of two worlds; a long, sunny morning at the cabin with garden work, some reading in the sun and preparing a healthy vegetarian lunch which we ate out on the terrace, my afternoon nap in the car and when we arrived home I still had so many hours of the day left for doing whatever I want. And the first thing I always "want" after time away is a walk in my garden. At this time of the year there are bursts of growth and colours every day, and I love walking around with my Nikon.

When Marta left for the birthday party and Ingrid left to hang out with a friend, there were just me and my husband at home. We are not used to the lonely hours and days yet, so they feel like special treats. And with all the time suddenly available I wanted to make us something special for dinner. Nothing chic, nothing gourmet, just some comfort food for the two of us. I made small pizzas and continued with "rundstykker" or pastries, and after we had eaten I still felt some bursting kitchen enery :-) My garden walk earlier had taken me past the rhuburb, so all at once I knew that we wanted a rhuburb cake for after dinner coffee.

I make the rhuburb cake very simple; 125g butter and 125g sugar mixed together, two eggs added, then one teaspoon baking powder, two tablespoons with milk and 150g white flour. Bake at 175Celcius for 40 minutes. Eat with icecream while still warm

This makes a small cake. We ate part of it, keep a part for tomorrows coffee and have fozen the last piece.

Gone Fishing

2008-05-06T12:53:00.001-07:00

During the summer months we spend alot of time at our cabin, two hours from Trondheim, near the coast. Last week-end we opened the cabin for the season, and with May 1st as a red calendar day and an opportunity for us all to take Friday off, we had a long week-end there.

Cabin life is quite another way of living, far from our busy and hectic everyday life. Here we can sit for hours enjoying the singing of birds, the colours of flowers, we can work in the forest and the flower beds, we can hike the mountains..........and we love fishing.
Saturday night was fishing night. Not the best luck, but my husband got three coalfishes which we fried for breakfast Sunday morning. My husband is a fish frying master. I know his recipe, but somehow not his secret (I wounder if it is the amount of pepper he is using), so my fish is never as good as when he fries them.........Well, may be the secret is the pleasure of eating homemade food without having to do the cooking myself :-)

With loving hands.

2008-04-13T01:09:00.001-07:00

Readers of my several blogs have heard about my special birthday this year for weeks now. My anticipation, the family celebration in Italy, the "real" day and the coming garden party in June. I guess you are fed up long ago, but as my blogs are just as much my memory diary as it is written for my readers, I can't let this period pass without photos and words about the chocolate cake my husband and youngest daughter made for my birthday.

With celebrations before and after The Day, April 10th, 50 years since my birth, was a quiet day. Though with family around we were still 10 around the dinner table, and afterwards around the coffee table. I am usually the cake maker in our family (Marta seems to be the one soon to take over though), but Terje has had his own speciality through almost all of our soon to be 28 years of marriage - a chocolate cake which we call "Mokka kake".

Wednesday I was sent out of the kitchen, and father and daughter made my chocolate dream together - yet another Mokka kake from The Blue Café.

Cheese souffle and a salad, and a few thoughts about food

2008-04-06T07:19:00.001-07:00

Friday and Saturday nights are nights with something extra good to eat. Normally we eat our dinner around 5pm, but these nights we eat late, and I enjoy my time in the kitchen preparing the food. After a long period of pastas and pizzas I felt it was full time for something else, and my choice fell on a cheese souffle. Marta was the only kid at home and souffle (except chocolate souffle) is not her choice, but we had some leftover tomato soup in the fridge which she was more than happy to have.

Eating together, taking time to enjoy food and company is important. And soemthing we tend to forget more and more. I am a supporter of the slow food movement, and though our days are often busy, we love to share stories and silence over a meal. It can be a simple meal or it can be more sophisticated, company and time is always important. And for me it is a rule (very seldom broken) that we have no television on while we eat. The company we have in each other, the joy and pleasure we get from the food is not to be ruined by today's "house god", the television.

Back in my own Kitchen

2008-04-04T12:39:00.001-07:00

Two weeks in Italy are over. I enjoy Italian food and have brought back ideas and new recipes. As time goes by I will share some of them here, but tonight, after long and busy days at work this week, we have been enjoying a fruit salad. It is good to be back in my own kitchen. Good to know that the food I prepare is rich and healthy, good to know that my family enjoy my cooking.

Friday Night Fruit Salad

one pear

one banana

two blood oranges

a small box of diced pinapple

grained dark chocolate

raisins

pinenuts

juice from the half of a lemon

Top the salad with yoghurt before eating.

More lemon - a taste of Italy

2008-03-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

We are going down to Italy with the first flight tomorrow morning, all of us, me, my husband, four kids, a boyfriend and my parents. To celebrate my birthday. The others will stay for one week, I will stay for two. We have been to church this morning, on Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday as it is also called, and now we are all busy packing. But first we had lunch, and without any spesific plans I decided to try to empty the fridge before we all leave the house. Spaghetti is always in a cupboard, I had a lemon, a squash and the half of a paprika to challenge myself with. When I also found some cream I knew that the lunch was saved. Spaghetti with lemon sauce.

Cut the squash, the paprika and some garlic and braise it smooth in extra virgin olive oil. The lemon was cut in two halves and the juice from one of the halves found its way to the pan. (I still have some lemon left from my late tea tonight). Add cream for a thick, creamy and tasty sauce.

The spaghetti was boiled al dente and was served with the sauce, cold water and bread. A perfect taste of Italy.

I will not be able to update this blog during my two weeks away, but I will try to write a few posts at The House in the Woods.

Marta's Limonade

2008-03-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

I have called Marta, now 12, my apprentice. This is not the right title anymore, I must change it to co-chef. She loves reading cookbook (just like her mother) and she loves playing in the kitchen (just like her mother). I have been "on the road" yesterday and came home late. She was not in bed yet, "you know mum, it is Easter break now and I can't go to bed before you have read a chapter from Harry Potter!" (We have only a few chapters left of the last book, what shall we read next.......)

Well, instead of a sleeping Marta I was met with a delicious smell from the kitchen. Marta was just finished making waffler and coffee, perfect supper for her, me and daddy. And as soon as we had finished the waffles I had regained enough energy after my long day of working to read yet another HP chapter.

I have written about waffles here at The Blue Café already, so instead I'll give you the recipe of one of Marta's specialities; limonade:

1 1/2 l water

6 tablesp sugar

peeled lemon skin

1dl lemon juice

ice cubes

sparkling water

Boil water sugar and peeled lemon skin, let boil for 5 minutes. Cool.

Add lemon juice

Cool in fridge for a couple of hours

Decorate the top of the glass with sigar and lemon juice.

Enjoy the limonade cold with ice cubes.

Fried rice with walnuts, onion and chives

2008-03-11T04:17:00.001-07:00

An unexpected day at home, and a craving for something extra for lunch! Well, the first step is to look through the fridge. I found some left over cooked rice and decided it could be a good start for something. With some extra virgin olive oil, a couple of chive boats, the half of an onion and an almost empty box of walnuts, and soon my lunch was finished.

First I fried the chive and the onion in the olive oil, after a while I added half of the walnuts and the rice. The rest of the walnuts I fried in a corner of the frying pan to use for garniture. Eating alone really doesn't mean that the food shall look just plain! With a piece of bread and a few pieces of parma ham I could have a feast together with my book.

I am reading Dervla Murphy's One Foot in Laos. I visited Laos myself a few years ago and fell in love with the sticky rice which were served to all meals. My fried rice was not sticky, but good as well.

A Month since my Last Post

2008-03-08T03:08:00.001-08:00

It really was not my intention to keep away from The Blue Café for a month. It just happend, and I have no reason. I keep on makijng food every day, I even almost always take photos of the food I make..........

So the other day I suddenly came to my senses when I was in the kitchen frying some salmon for dinner. I caught my camera and decided it was full time to think about blogging again. And why do all food photos fpr blogging have to be so fancy and perfect. Here I had a kitchen with all signs of a kitchen in use, and the smell of the delicious fish was teasing my sences. If this isn't worth a blog post, nothing is.

So here I am, back again. Hopefully with more kitchen talks and recipes for you. I hope all my readers haevn't left me :-)

Red Soup for a Red Week. Lent

2008-02-08T08:28:00.000-08:00

Lent has seven weeks and the rainbow has seven colours. I have given each week of Lent a different colour, starting this first week with red. I lit a red candle on my special season table, I plant tomato seeds, I buy some red tulips and I make some red food. I am not a vegetarian and don't give up meat totally for these weeks, but I challenge myself to let as many days as possible be vegetarian days.

I am fascinated by the red colour. Do you know that red was for a long time one of the most difficult colours to make. The old Meso - Americans found out that the blood from the female cochineal beetle together with alun made a beautiful red colour. I read about colours in Victoria Finlay's Colours. Travels through the Painbox and I am mesmerized.

Red Vegetable Soup / Tomato Soup

Dice a red onion and braise in the best extra virgin olive oil together with two stalks of cellery. Add three chopped carrots, then four plum tomatoes cut into boatshaped pieces. Cover the vegetablas with just enough water. Add salt and pepper and dried bouillon. Let boil for 20 minutes. Add a glass of white wine if you prefere (I don't do that during Lent)

Eat with bread and butter.

Salted pork on Fat Tuesday

2008-02-06T13:22:00.001-08:00

I've been away for a couple of days, so though Lent has started I still haven't posted about our Fat Tuesday tradition, salted pork, potatoes and mashed rutabaga. Since we were away on Tuesday we had this dish on Sunday. Enjoy the photos. Lent recipes will soon come.......

Herring Salad on Blue Monday

2008-02-04T13:54:00.001-08:00

It is Blue Monday and Terje and I have just finished a late supper. We will both be travelling for a couple of days, so we have had Dagmar's Austrian herring salad one day early.

Herring Salad

Make a cream of:

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

pepper

1 tablsp mustard

olive oil

vinegar

3 tblsp majonaise

3 tbsp craime fraiche

Dice and mix in the cream:

4 hardboiled eggs

1 apple

4 spiced herrings

4 potatoes

Make a salad a few hours before you eat, to make it more juicy

I baked four grain whole wheat bread, and we had a feast.

More about Lent tradition over in the House in the Woods.

Fastelavn søndag - Sunday before Lent

2008-02-03T07:53:00.000-08:00

In our livingroom I have an old table. I have had some empty baskets there for a few weeks, but now it is filled with masks from Venica. And my Lent book is there. As Lent unfolds the decorations on the table will change, and the pages will be turned in the book. The pages shown today are about "fastelavn søndag", some lines from the Bible where Jesus tells about his coing death and his rise, photos of fastelavnsris, traditions about this day and the recipe and a photo of "fastelavnsboller". In my blogs, some days here, other days in The House in the Woods, the Blue Garden or the Blue Bookshelf, I will take you along my walk through Lent. How I celebrate, how I walk in prayers, how I slow down, how I want to live these seven weeks before Easter. I have always "collected" traditions, and would love to hear more about how you live these seven weeks, how you prepare for Easter.
Fastelavnsboller eaten on Sunday before Lent, on Fastelavn Sunday is an old tradition. These last days before Lent and fasting is for alot of food, for food extravaganza. Tuesday I have a special dinner recipe for you, today I will share with you my recipe for the rolls, or buns (I am never sure what you call this sweet pastry in English) The recipe is from my book, "40 dager - fra karneval til oppstandelse"

Fastelavnsboller
150 gr butter
5 dl milk or water (i prefere water)
50 gr fresh yeast
a little salt
1 dl sugar
12-13 dl white flour

Melt the butter, add water and warm till lukewarm. Add salt and just a little sugar to the yeast to let the yeast melt. Add water/butter and stir well. Add the rest of the sugar and almost all of the flour. Knead this you get a smooth dough, add more flour if necessary.
Let the dough rest and rise to double size.
Knead, cut into 25 small pieces and make rolls
Bake at 230C for 10-15 minutes.

Whipe some cream, cut the sweet rools in two and add cream. Sprinkle with dusting sugar.
******************************************
Do you want to have a look into my book? May be it is of interest to you even if the writing is in Norwegian.
Take a look here:
http://server02.dotminded.com/dotminded/data/magazine/489032/

The book can be ordered from here:
http://www.iko.no/sider/produkt.asp?id=309&vare

Breakfast on a Saturday morning

2008-01-26T01:53:00.001-08:00

Marta loves week-end mornings.

She can sleep long, walk around in her pyjamas, and is allowed to eat breakfast in front of the television :-)

I made her breakfast today. A piece of bread with ham and cheese, chives for a little colour, a note from mum saying "I love you". A glass of milk.

Oh yes. It is easy to see why Saturdays and Sundays are favorite days.

A Late Night Snack

2008-01-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

I had dinner in town with a friend after work the other day. Between two appointments we met at a cafe and sat down to eat and catch up on news. I never felt I had this opportunity to eat in town after work when the kids were small, but now, when they are growing out of the nest one after the other, my life find new tracks to follow. A short meeting during a busy day is healthy food for the soul, something I can live on for a long time.
Our dinner was not a big one though, so when the night came I was hungry again.
Hungry for a snack.

Some left over bread was becoming dry, but made into an olive and cheese sandwich it was just perfect.

As I have repeated so often;
simple and easy food can often be the best!

Thanks you....can I offer you a piece of foccacia?

2008-01-22T09:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you for your comments and email about my food blogging. It gives me alot of inspiration to hear from you. Who knows, may be I'll keep on food blogging :-) The Blue Café has just started its second year, so why stop now.........

Food, cooking, meals - it all means alot to me. The excitement of planning, the time for preparations, the joy of sharing a meal. All important moments of the day. It doesn't have to be chic or expensive, simple, plain food prepared with love can be just as good, or even better. I love to bake bread, and after finding Ilva's foccacia recipe a year ago, Italian inspired foccacia has become an important part of my bread sortiment. It is so much fun to differ the topping, try out new tastes, and it was a great positive surprise the other day when I topped the foccacia with sweet and sour herring left over from Christmas.

Here is the herring recipe.

Ilva's foccacia recipe here.

More from the kitchen table

2008-01-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

My kitchen is for more than cooking. The kitchen table is perfect for reflections, for looking through cookbooks or food magazines, looking out the window, looking into my mind. The table has room for a birthday gift in waiting.

We had guests this afternoon. I had planned some baking when I came home from work, but then Marta came; Mom, can I bake muffins and make waffles for the guests.......... My little kitchen helper is soon a young woman.

From my kitchen table.

2008-01-20T01:23:00.000-08:00

Having a full time job and alot of travelling during the week.....well, it is not easy to keep up with my slow food intentions in the kitchen. Some days just have to be for fast food, or rather "easy prepared" food. Meals which are easily prepared can still be healthy, and still means gatherings around the table.

Week-end are good for keeping up though. I am a morning bird, and yesterday morning I had fresh pastries ready when the others came down for breakfast. It was well worth the early morning lack of sleep watching my family enjoying the fresh, still lukewarm bread.

I am not sure about the future for this food blog. Blogging is about conserving memories, but it is also about the feedback I get from readers. I am not sure about the amount of readers here, so I might go back to concentrate more fully on The House in the Woods, posting The Blue Café posts over there from time to time..........

..........will think about it a couple of weeks........

A New Balsamico Vinegar

2008-01-13T03:04:00.001-08:00

A new, expensive balsamic vinegar

turns a plain red lollo and leek salad

into a feast for godesses

We had this salad last night

with a Quiche Lorraine

Over in The House in the Woods today:
The Love of Food and the Time it Takes to Prepare it

All curled up.

2008-01-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

I am curled up in the sofa, an opera on the cd-player, a book in my lap, remote noises coming from the studio upstairs where Marta is playing with her new Nintendo dancing mat, "sweet music" from the kitchen where Terje is doing the dishes, cracks from the fire where logs are playfully burning.

It is Saturday and we are enjoying a quiet night at home.
Supper is just finished, tomato soup and bread for Marta,
a Quiche Lorraine for me and Terje. A Quiche Lorraine filled with ham, onion, leek, chives, eggs, cheese and creme fraiche.....

and a fresh salad of red lollo, leek and the sweetest vinegar balsamico

(I digged deep in my purse while grocery shopping today to buy the best, it is worth it!)

If you want the recipe for the quiche you can follow

this link back to February last year.

Photos of the lollo salad will come tomorrow.

Now it is time for me to go back to my book.

More of Selbu Blå - late night treat

2008-01-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

Leaving Christmas behind.

2008-01-08T09:01:00.001-08:00

We have finally finished the last bits of turkey and all the other left overs from Christmas, and it si time to do some serious planning about what to eat for dinner again. As I have told you before we eat dinner quite early in Norway, as soon as possible after we are home from work. I drove to work today (usually I take the bus) and on my way home I picked up my husband. We stopped to grocery shop together, and when we came home he drove along to pick up Marta from handball practice while I started to prepare dinner. We have not had any spaghetti during the holidays, so that's what I wanted to make today. I bought the wholegrain type, just to feel healthier, and to go with the spahgetti I braised leek, cellery and some typical thick Norwegian "middagspølse" - dinner sausage.

At the grocery store I was tempted to buy some Selbu Blå (blue cheese from the village of Selbu, not far from Trondheim), and to eat with the cheese I also bought some salted biscuits. Then I can never have spaghetti without a green salad, today's one was made with a mixture of three different types; ruccola, heart and lollo (I don't know if these names are also what you call them in English though)

I love Christmas and all the typical Christmas food, but it is good to be back to everydays again. And everyday cooking.

The Book Corner. Guestblogger Fleur

2008-01-06T04:01:00.000-08:00

Greetings to you, friends and patrons of Britt-Arnhild's Blue Cafe! This past fall, I acquired a new cookbook called The Ethnic Paris Cookbook. For The Blue Cafe, I decided to make from it a recipe called Kabylia Lamb with Semolina Dumplings. It is an Algerian family recipe given to the authors by the owner-chef of the celebrated 404 restaurant in Paris. I thought it sounded good and was curious to see how it would turn out.

You will need:

For Lamb Stew:

Olive oil
3 pounds of lamb (1and1/2 kg) from the shoulder or leg, cubed
1 onion, grated or diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped or minced
2 (-to 4) tablespoons tomato paste
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 turnips, peeled and cut into eighths
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large potato, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground coriander (powder)
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

For Semolina Dumplings:

2 cups coarse semolina*
1 large egg
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tomato, diced
2 tablespoons finely-chopped fresh coriander leaves (cilantro)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground coriander (powder)
freshly-ground black pepper
2 teaspoons baking powder

Fresh coriander leaves (cilantro) for garnish

1.)
To make the stew, heat some olive oil in the bottom of a large cooking pot over medium heat. Add the meat cubes, onion and garlic, and cook, stirring the meat to brown evenly, about 10 minutes. Add the vegetables, paprika, ground coriander (powder), salt and pepper to taste, and enough water to just cover the vegetables. Simmer, covered, until the meat is tender (anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour).

2.)
While the meat is cooking, prepare the dumplings. In a medium bowl, mix all the ingredients except the baking powder, stirring well. Add about 1/2 cup of the lamb stew liquid to the dough and stir to blend. Set aside for 20 minutes to allow the semolina to soak up the moisture from the liquid ingredients. Stir in the baking powder, then form dumplings by pinching off large teaspoonfuls of dough mixture and rolling between your palms to make walnut-size balls. Set aside on a plate.

3.)
When the meat is cooked, use a slotted spoon to remove the meat and vegetables to a deep serving platter or bowl. Cover and keep warm. Return the stew broth to a low simmer. Gently place the dumplings in the simmering broth in a single layer (you may have to work in batches). The dumplings should be submerged in liquid and not touching -- add a little more water if it's necessary. Cover and
cook 15-20 minutes.

4.)
Using the slotted spoon, place the dumplings on the meat and vegetables, then spoon over with the hot broth. Garnish with the fresh coriander leaves (cilantro).

And how did it turn out? Well, I used pieces of lamb stewing meat with the bone in, not cubes, so I had to cook mine for quite a bit longer -- nearly 2 hours (which had no adverse affect on the vegetables, thankfully). The amount of meat was only 1/2 what the recipe called for but the broth probably became a bit thicker and richer with the longer cooking. The taste of the stew upon completion was hard to describe. It was actually somewhere in the neighborhood of "delicate, sweet and delicious", belying its hearty peasant ingredients.

I had some trouble with the dumplings. I couldn't find coarse semolina at the market and so was forced to buy the medium-to-fine grain. Wrong. They were very gooey and fell apart in the broth. I didn't photograph them because of this. However, once they were cooked, the pieces held together as they were supposed to, and the herbs gave them a wonderful tasty zing that was a perfect counterpart to the mild sweetness of the stew.

Also: the original recipe calls for huge amounts of herbs (1/2 bunches of each!) in the dumplings but that just looked wrong to me. So I changed the amounts I used (and changed the recipe above). I think the lesser amount is entirely satisfactory.

I'm looking forward to getting ahold of the correct coarse-grind semolina and trying this dish again. It's a great bet for those who aren't too crazy about lamb because it comes out so sweet, tender and non-game-y. I'd serve it with some warm Middle-Eastern flat bread, maybe with feta cheese toasted on it, and a crisp green salad.

Happy cooking and eating! Best regards from Fleur at Frangible Pie

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Thank you Fleur for being my third guest blogger.

You can visit Fleur at Frangible Pie.

Breakfast with energy!

2008-01-03T02:55:00.000-08:00

Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day. What we eat then will give us energy through half of the work or school day. Traditionally we eat whole wheat bread/four grain bread with butter, cheese, jam, honey or thin slices of meat. Our girls have their own favorite though, porridge made on oatmeal grains and water. Simple, cheap and filled with energy. I don't make the porridge every day, so for them it feels like a treat when I do.

Outmeal porridge/havregrynsgrøt
water (about 2dl per person)
oatmeal - I never measure, just throw handfulls into the water and as soon as it boils I know if I have used enough. If not I just add some more.
Boil for a few minutes. Add just a little salt.
Eat with sugar, raisins, and if you want with a slash of butter and some cinnamon. My glass is often filled with milk, or for treats - homemade juice

Chicken the Blue Café way

2008-01-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

I uploaded these photos in the beginning of December, but then forgot all about them. Found them again today while doing a little New Year's cleaning in The Blue Café.

Cut chicken filet in pieces and fry in olive oil, salt and pepper. Boil for half an hour in chicken broth and add some creme fraiche. Eat with rice and a green salad.

For dinner today we had turkey leftovers from last night. Turkey mixed with cold rice and pear, sprinkeled with peanuts and eaten with leftovers from the waldorf salad. I was too hungry when I came home from work to remember my camera.

Waldorf Salad

2008-01-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

We are still in Christmas mood here. Terje, Marta and I have spent New Year with friends at their cabin, but headed back home after breakfast today.

Work starts again tomorrow, so tonight is time for a last Christmas breakfast for the extended family (+ a boyfriend and a friend)

For the last about 10 years we've had turkey on the menu one of the days after Christmas Eve. This year we were invited to dinner parties those days, so the turkey had to wait. But now it is the oven, and in an hour we will be 8 people seated around the table

Turkey is a new dish here in Norway, adopted from USA, and when we first started to make it I got a recipe for the stuffing from Terje's greeat grandaunt, who died many years ago. She lived most of her grown up life in US, but came back to Norway to spend her last years here.

With the turkey we always serve rice, and a Waldorf salad.

I can't remember where I have got the recipe for the waldorf salad, I have it written down in my handwritten recipe book, and a note that I made it for the first time in 1987.

Waldorf Salad

2 apples

a small box of pinapple

2 stalks of cellery

100g cabbage

100g grapes

1dl almonds

1dl majonaise

1dl whiped cream

4teaspoons lemonjuice

2teaspoons suger

Dice the fruit, whipe the cream and mix it with majonaise, sugar and lemon.

Mix it all.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2007-12-31T02:16:00.001-08:00

Food for Christmas

2007-12-30T03:20:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I wrote in The House in the Woods about a traditional Christmas Eve in Norway. Very little has changed:

At 1.30pm we will eat rice porridge for traditional Christmas Eve lunch. There will be one single almond hidden in the porridge, and the one who finds it will be given a gift, a marzipan pig :-) At 4pm we'll go to the local church for a Christmas Carol, and then home to eat the huge, traditional Christmas dinner - salted and dried rib of mutton. The best meal of the year :-) The mutton is damped on birch sticks which Terje finds in the garden, and eated with potatoes, carrots and swede. For dessert we have tradidionally had a cloudberry cream, but as the kids don't fancy that, we will this year make a rice porride cream (another trad. Norwegian dessert) with strawberries. After dinner it is time for the opening of gifts, which always takes a long time of course, and then the night goes on with phonecalls to all our close family, walking around the Christmas tree singing all the traditional Christmas carols, coffee and ALL the different Christmas cookies which have been baked the last weeks, a board game or two, starting to read the newest books, listening to the newest tapes and so on.

We are now back to normal, everyday life.
A bread dough is set to rise, we have had breakfast, Terje has been out skiing, I've done my excercise on the exercise bike down in the basement, some leftover sweet foccasia is put in oven to get soft and warm and I am brewing a cup of coffee. Ski jumping from Germany starts in the TV, and I have a pile of books to enjoy.

And I am making plans for how I want The Blue Café to
develop in the coming year.
Next week-end The Blue Café is celebrating its first anniversary.

Recipe for the cream cake

2007-12-29T11:05:00.000-08:00

Creamcake

(from yesterday)

4 eggs

120gr sugar

120gr white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix eggs and sugar well, add flour and baking powder carefully

Bake for about 30 minutes at 190C

Be carefull not to burn the cake

Cool

Cut the cake in two and add milk, jam and whipped cream between the layers.

Add milk and whipped cream on top.

Roll out marzipan and cover the cake.

Decorate the top using your creativity.

Yesterday I used some fairtrade chocolate hearts I got for Christmas and a branch of holly

A Family Tradition

2007-12-28T08:30:00.001-08:00

I grew up in a big family, and my parents always had an open house. In 1971 they realised that there were not enough days during Christmas to invite everybody to our home. My granddad was a school master and for one night every Christmas mum and dad hired the gym at the school where my grandparents lived. The gym was big enough to invite our huge and fast growing circle of friends and family.
8 years in a row my parents hosted their huge Christmas party there. Then my granddad died and no party was held.

20 years ago the next generation took up the tradition again, and now we come together every year during one of the Christmas days.

The annual party has been celebrated several different places, but last night we were back in the same old gym at the school where my grandparents lived. Where I spent so much of my childhood. Some of the buildings were gone, new had come, but the old gym was just the same. And the row of paintings of the old school masters was still there, granddad Johannes the nicest among all the old men.

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Photos: we all bring food to share at the party. The 4 photos show the creamcake I made.

Dirty Sunday traditions.

2007-12-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

Alot of my time is spent in the kitchen these days, cooking old traditional meals, creating new traditions. Father in law has come to stay for the holidays, sons have come home for Christmas and they bring friends at all times, family and friends are coming to wish us Merry Christmas, and we love sharing time around the table. Last night we had pizza on the menu, followed by a game of scrabble. I had my camera ready and was going to take photos of the pizza for The Blue Café, but as often happens I was too busy taking care of food and guests to remember my camera. Just like today. I started with very good intentions to take photos of our traditional lutefisk dinner, but ended up with photos only of the unfinished meal.

Not even did I only end up with photos of the unfinished meal, I never even finished this Dirty Sunday blog post. I was going to write about the tradition we have created over the past years when we invite a few family and friends over for lutefisk on "lillejulaften" (little Christmas Eve - ie the night before Christmas Eve). But The Blue Café has been so full and busy the past week, I have had no chance for food blogging. I have kept my main blog alive with a daily entry, but that took all my computer energy. I still struggle to focus on food blooging, but decided to post these photos and words anyway just to keep my food blog alive. I promise to be fully back soon.......

2007-12-24T02:28:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

I send you my Christmas greetings with this Christmas car filled with gift.
As our tradition is, we decorated our tree yesterday, on "lille julaften" (Little Christmas Eve). We always do this together as a family, using ornaments we have collected through our 28 years of marriage. Most of them are handmade, and the girls find them a bit out of date. This year they had a wish - "Mom, can we decorate the tree with more modern stuff? You are always so old fashioned, sometimes we wonder if you were born before God!"
Now I have been to the Salvation Army's shop and bought 50 shining red baubles, and everyone loves the tree.
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We are preparing for breakfast now. For lunch we will have rice porridge with one almond hidden and a gift for the one who finds the almond. Later comes church and home to the traditional Christmas dinner, opening of gifts and dancing around the tree singing the old carols. The day will end with all of us wrapped up in comfort blankets around the fire with new books and cds.

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I almost live in the kitchen these days, enjoying cooking and baking traditional food. I had plans for alot of posts here, but with the house filled with people who gather around the table at all times I havenever found the time.

I will be back though :-)

Pages from my book

2007-12-21T14:12:00.001-08:00

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- the book will be only in Norwegian (though of course if you all write to IKO (my publisher is the second one), they might think otherwise
- it is my first book
- it is hardcover and in full colour print
- it can be ordered from IKOs webshop in a couple of weeks
- the title of the book is "40 dager - fra karneval til oppstandelse" (40 days - from carneval to the rising )
- yes, I have started my second book......more about that later

Delfiakake, joy and activity

2007-12-20T11:53:00.000-08:00

Our house is brimming with activity, joy and happiness these days. Torgeir is home from Australia, father in law has travelled 1000kms to celebrate Christmas with us, Øystein comes home for meal and chatters, Ingrid's boyfriend has not yet left to spend the holidays with his family, friends of Marta frequent the kitchen........
Terje and I gather our energy, count our blessings and feel thankful for every precious moment. I know I will be exhausted when January comes, but believe me, it is worth it.

My soon to be 85 years old father in law is the best cook I know, and he never wastes a chance to pass forward his talents. Sitting in my studio writing this, I have the door open, and from the kitchen downstairs comes the enchanting fragrance of fresh cookies. He, Marta and Marit are baking "brune pinner" ("brown sticks").
The Blue Café is busy these days, but there is always room for one more around our table.

The photo shows my "delfiakake",

made from the same recipe are the puffed rice balls.

Christmas herring from Huseby

2007-12-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

After work today it was time for some mother alone shopping. I have a long list of things to buy and came about halfway through it. That's okay though, tomorrow is another mother alone shopping day, and then I will first meet a friend for coffee and excanging of gifts and chatter. Usually we eat dinner around 5pm, but because of me being away, and my husband taking part in a Christmas lunch at work ,we didn't eat untill two hours later today. So it was late when I finally had the kitchen ready for some "making food for Christmas". Stuffed with spaghetti carbonara I was happy that I had not planned more sweets. Instead I had Christmas herring on my list.
Herring in a sweet and sour sauce is perfect on home made bread, and can be eaten any time of the day. I always make alot, fill glasses and have several Christmas presents ready at once.

Christmas herring from Huseby

2dl vinegar

2dl ketchup

6dl sugar

1dl water

pepper

dill

heat untill the sugar has melted,

add 2dl olive oil

let the sauce cool

dice 10 herring filets

cut 4 onions into small pieces.

Mix everything and fill glasses.

make a cup of tea,

cut a slice of homemade bread,

spread herring on top,

enjoy!

And while enjoying your tasty bread you are welcome over to Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods. But be careful so you don't spill sweet and sour sauce on your laptop.

"flesk"

2007-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know, The Blue Café is too sweet for the moment. A sweet small fills the house and we are all a little more happy. I flip through my handwritten cookbook which is just as old as my marriage, several times a day making plans for what to bake next, writing lists for grocery shopping. Yesterday I phoned my mother to ask her about her "krumkake" recipe, hers is better than mine. When she lifted the reciver the first thing she said was: "Britt-Arnhild, I was just going to ask you if you want me to make krumkaker for you" My answer to her question was a smiling yes :-). One of the traditions my g\husband has brought with him from his childhood is to make what we call "flesk". What can I call this in English? Turkish Delight? Jellies? I have no idea why we call them flesk in Norwegian, flesk actually means fat or pork, and these sweets ar as far from pork as you can imagine. I am sitting in my studio tonight, and while I worked on a post about Øystein's Angels, Marta came running up the stairs to give me a taste of what she and dad had been making. My mouth feels quite sweet now, and my smile is broad. Do you want to make some flesh for Chrismas as well? It is quite easy.

flesk

1 kg sugar

3dl water

3 more dl water

4 pkg of white gelatine

Warm sugar and water till the sugar has melted.

Melt the gelatine plates in water.

Boil all for 15 minutes

add red colour (and a little lemon)

Pour the liquid into a roasting pan and leave it cold over night.

Dice the flesk and roll it in sugar.

The flesk taste even better when made my young fingers:-)

Never too much chocolate

2007-12-17T10:29:00.001-08:00

Our Christmas preparations go on. I should have spent all aftenoon today writing cards and letters, but first I wanted to create some nice smell in the house to set us all in the right pre Christmas mood. I have a sweeth tooth and can always manage one more chocolate, and of course nothing tastes like some home made ones. I wish I could teach you all some Norwegian today, as I am not sure if I have an English name for all the ingredients needed to make these rice balls. But I will try :-)

Puffed rice balls

300g dark chocolate

4tbsp dark coffee

250g coconut oil

2 eggs

3tbsp sugar

puffed rice

Melt the chocolate in the coffee. remove from the heat and add the coconut oil, let it melt. Mix egg and sugar and add to the chocolate.

Add puffed rice

Form the chocolate covered rice till balls.

Cool

Can you understand my recipe?

When I made coffee for the rice balls I mad a whole pot, and in the mail today I got the December issue of Food and Travel. Letters will have to wait.

Kokosmakroner, Cocos Macarons

2007-12-16T05:44:00.000-08:00

The house fills these days, with Christmas colours and with fragrances of the season. I don't bake as much as I used to, life has taken other turns, but still several traditional cookies are made to fill our red and green tins. My husband and youngest daughter made gingerbread figurines Saturday morning, but before they startet I claimed half an hour in the kitchen - that's how long it takes to make these "kokosmakroner"- Oh, so simple, oh, so tasty. At least tasty for those who love cocos. Not my cup of tea, but the rest of the family can't have enough of these cookies.

kokosmakroner

250g cocos

180g powdered sugar

3 egg whites

mix the egg whites till they are totally stiff

add powdered sugar and cocos and stir carefully

use a spoon to make small cookies on the baking plate

bake at 180C for 10 minutes

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My visitor counter tells me that I have quite alot of visitors here, but so few comments are left.

I would love to hear from you.

Do you have a favorite Christmas cookie recipe to share?

Do you have a food blog?

Or another type of blog?

Where do you live?

How do you celebrate Christmas?

Lussekatter for Santa Lucia Day

2007-12-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

13th of December is Santa Lucia day. When I was a girl we did not celebrate this day in Norway, but during the past 20 or so years we have adapted the Swedish way of celebrating. We started when the boys were small (they are now 25 and 23), but our celebrations became real traditions when the girls were born and we could start Lucia morning with the youngest girl in the family walking from badroom to bedroom singing the Santa Lucia song, serving lussekatter and hot chocolate. I am dreading the day when Marta says that she has outgrown the dressing up part, and was a little anxious when I asked her this year what she would do. She was quiet for a few seconds, but then proclaimed that she wanted to dres up in her old white Lucia dress, wear the light crown and wake up her siblings. Two of they are at home right now. Ingrid still lives at home, Torgeir are just back home after finishing his studies in Australia and lives at home till he gets a job and his own flat.
Safron is needed to get the right yellow colour of the lussekatter. Usually I buy it at the apotech and it costs a fortune for the half gram I use. But right now I have several grams which my sister in law bought in Greece last summer. I use the same dough as I use for sweet rolls + a little saffron for the yellow colour. The rolls shall be formed in different ways, every form has its own name according to different Lucia attributs.

lussekatter

300g butter

1 liter water

100g fresh yeast

1/2 tsp salt

3dl sugar

1,5kg white flour

1/2 to 1 g saffron

Melt the butter and add water to have a fingerwarm fluid, add the yeast and let it melt.Mix flour sugar, salt and saffron, and add the fluid. Knead well, I use an kitchen aid. Let the dough rise for about 45 minutes.

Form the lussekatter or roll them out. Let rise for another 30 minutes.

Bake in 225C for about 12-15 minutes.

My traditional fruitcake

2007-12-12T11:24:00.001-08:00

Baking for Christmas has finally started in The Blue Café, and as always, first out is my traditional fruit cake. I have baked it every year since 1988, some years I have made several to give away as Christmas gifts, but this year it will be only one I think. The name fruitcake can be a little misgiving, as the fruits are mostly figs, though this year I also used a special nut which is called "paranøtt" in Norwegian - my dictionary can't help me with an English name.

Terje was busy in the kitchen most of last night, making fruit juices (from berries from the freezer), so it was late when I finally could start baking, and the cake was finished just before I went to bed. Too late to taste it then. But this morning I had a piece for breakfast, with "brunost" (brown goat cheese - we Norwegians almost live on goat cheese,LOL)

Why is it that Christmas cakes always taste better before Christmas?

fikenkake

200g butter

200g suger

3 eggs

200g white flour

1 tsp baking powder

(a small glass of liqueur - I used cherry)

250g figs

Mix butter and sugar well, Add one egg at a time and mix well. Mix flour and baking powder, and the liqueur and diced figs.

Bake at 175C for about one hour.

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Do you have a fruitcake recipe to share?

Spaghetti with "falukorv"

2007-12-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

I am going to buy a new lense for my camera, to get better close up photos. My food blogging has taught me that such a lense is needed, and as soon as the lense is here I know I have alot of ideas on how to improve my photos. My cooking will be very much the same though, simple, colourful and tasty, mostly using what I have on hand, some days combined with grocery shopping from my shopping list or from bits and pieces of whimsy. I have had the house filled with guests for lunch today, so dinner, which we normally eat around 5pm, had to be simple. Then spaghetti is often my solution. And mixed with onion, cellery and the Swedish sausage "falukorv" braised in olive oil and flavoured with salt and cream - a Tuesday dinner feels like a feast.

The Book Corner. Guestblogger Julius Elefante

2007-12-10T11:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Britt for having me as your guest this week.

Baking from my Home to Yours by Dorie GreenspanProlific baker and cookbook writer Dorie Greenspan was once told by Julia Child that they got on very well because they were both home cooks. This is of course believd by Ms Greenspan's culinary pedigree - she has been in the kitchens of the great chefs Pierre Herme, Jean George Vongerichten and Daniel Boulud. Her numerous collaborative and solo works are multi-awarded and tend to favour stylized Parisian pastries. Her newest outing, Baking From My Home to Yours, published last year and now widely embraced by bloggers all over, is perhaps the tome that many occasional bakers will find to be the most familiar and accessible. It has become my one favourite baking cookbook.Leafing through the gorgeously photographed pages, I honed in on her Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. I set out to bake a batch:
True enough, these are exquisite enough and deserve being called the "best." They are moderately thin, crunchy around the edges but substantial and chewy at the centre. They are also very of the moment: lately, I have been noting that high-end bakeries are retiring their puffy, chewy, doughy cookies in favour of these thin, craggy-edged beauties. Ms Greenspan provides the recipe for these cookies on her website.
Once in a while, one may want a treat but without all the fuss associated with making a cake. The Dressy Chocolate Loaf is as easy as it is delectable.

After creaming butter, sugar, and eggs, one adds sour cream and the sifted dry ingredients. I counted three, maybe four, steps. Follow this up with an even easier sour cream ganache, then you'll have something that is the epitome of beautiful simplicity. Which is probably why Ms Greenspan loves this recipe - it appears in another of her cookbook as "Chocolate Midnight." A recipe can be found in Cooking the Books.Of course, what good is a cookbook without its show-stopper cake? Without a doubt, the one cake to trump them all is her Devil's Food White-Out Chocolate Cake. This is shown on the cover of the book, and here is my rendition of it:

Thanks Julius for being my guest blogger.

I have already put this book on my wish list.......and Christmas is right around the corner......

You can visit Julius at his blog:

http://occasionalbaker.blogspot.com

Cucumber salad

2007-12-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

When Torgeir phoned us from Australia before starting his very long flight home to Norway, I asked him what he wanted me to make for the homecoming dinner. I was so sure he would say taco, I almost didn't ask. And yes, without hesitation that's what he said. But then he continued: No Mam, wait a second, I think I will have something more typical Norwegian, what about salmon?

Salmon suited me perfectly, and being a lover of traditions I must confess that I rather go for salmon than taco, which is not Norwegian at all, but a dish our kids have loved for years :-)

More about braised salmon or braised trot, which I make the same way, can be read here, so what I will do here today is to post a recipe for our cucumber salad.

Cucumber salad the Blue Café way

peel two cucumbers and slice them into very thin slices (I use a traditional "ostehøvel"

mix vinegar and olive oil with a little salt and quite alot of suger to get the bitter sweet tast

pour the fluid over the cucumber slices

perfect with creme fraiche

served to many of our fish dishes

Chocolate cake for Torgeir.

2007-12-04T02:50:00.001-08:00

As I have already mentioned, our oldest son came home from Australia Saturday night. I prepared a salmon dinner, which I plan to blog about tomorrow, and my husband made his speciality, a chocolate cake. We got the recipe from my father in law at least 25 years ago, and it has been among Torgeir's favorite cakes ever since he was born. I am the one who make most of the food in our kitchen, mostly because I love to cook and bake. But this spesific cake is always made by my husband. Something he does many times a year. But not too often, the cake is quite heavy and fat. I am off work today and have just had my morning coffee and a piece of the cake, so now is the perfect time to share it with you. In our handwritten recipe it is called "Mocca kake", so that's the name I am using here as well.

Mocca kake

150gr butter/margarin

300g sugar

mix butter and sugar till it looks almost white

Add two eggs and 75gr dark chocolate melted in 1/4 l milk,

and also 300gr white flour and 3 tsp baking powder

Bake for 45 minutes in 180C

Cool the cake and cut it into three layers.

Between the layers you spread mocca cream

Mocca cream:

200gr butter

300 gr powdered sugar (icing sugar)

50gr dark chocolate melted in 5 tblsp strong coffee