The Blue Cafe in India

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.