Our Halloween

Halloween is no traditional holiday in Norway, but the past years it has come, influenced by US. Most of our celebrations are the shops selling costumes, special sweets, and all imaginable and unimaginable items you "simply must have".

I am no shopper, but with an 11 year old girl in the house it is difficult to say no to the "celebration". A group of her friends had a party which they had planned all by themselves, and when Marta came home we had our own family Halloween night in front of the hearth - me, Terje and our two girls.

Sweet rools, hot chocolate with whiped cream, best "china" and real silverware, a crackling fire and the reading of a H.C.Andersen fairytale.

It's supper time.

Favorite supper: a piece of Wasa knekkebrød with butter and brown goat cheese, a cup of tea and a pile of books.

Tomorrow is Halloween, Marta has her costume ready, she and Terje has finished the pumpkin which will decorate the porch and I have made "boller" (sweet rolls) to give the trick and treaters.

An appetite teaser

Sunday was a day for leftovers. Yes, I agree with you, leftovers are for Mondays, or Tuesdays, but not yesterday. We had so much left of the paella, and all of us love paella so much.....we agreed it would be a perfect Sunday dinner.

To make the Sunday a little special though I made a little appetite teaser for Terje and myself. I had made no plans for this on Saturday while grocery shopping, so I had to make it like I often do while playing in the kitchen - look to the cupboards, search through my creativity.

In the garden it is full time to harvest the small leeks. For some reason they never grew much this summer, but inspite of their miniature size their taste is great. I cut a few and braised them in extra virgin olive oil with almonds. Coooled it and sprinkeled with honey before serving.

Mmmmm. Give it a try. You will not regret it.

Sharing a breakfast

A colleague has turned 50, and we are surprising him with a breakfast at work. Everybody bring a plate. I bought some ham and cucumber, and to make the place a little happier I used chives, lavendel and the very last calendulas from the garden.

Chicken paella

It is Friday night. Work is over for this week and I find myself in the kitchen enjoying some extra cooking. Though inspired by the French and the Italian kitchen, alot of my cooking is traditional Norwegian. But today I took a trip south of France, to Spain and the land of the paellas.

Though paella is often served with fish and seafood, I decided to go for a chicken one, with onion and sweet pepper.

To celebrate the week-end, I did a few extra touches on the table, and added white wine to the paella. Terje plays cageball after work every Friday, and is starving when he comes home, so it is easy to find my way into his heart through his stomach.

Chicken paella

fry diced chichen in a rich bath of virgin olive oil

add salt and pepper

fry an onion and two sweet peppers (a red and a green)

fry the rice in the olive oil left in the pan

add chicken broth and white wine

boil rice and chicken for about half an hour

add onion and sweet pepper before serving

give huge helpings

second and third helpings tells you that love is achived

We ate the paella with warm foccaccia bread right from the oven, richly sprinkeled with Mauro's Portugese Sal de Flor, and drank Terje's home made blackcurrant lemonade.

My turn today

Today the kitchen was mine again. Terje and I drove together home from work, and both of us went right into the kitchen when we came home to make dinner together. I love togetherness :-)

In the fridge there was some minced meat left over from Ingrid's pizza yesterday. While Terje washed potatos and carrots, I mixed the meat with an egg, some water, potato flour, dried bread crumbs and pepper, made small cakes and fried them in butter - then you have the most traditional Norwegian dish, "kjøttkaker" (meat cakes). And as side dishes - potatos and carrots.

Plain and simple. The Norwegian kitchen at its best. And a small bowl of olives just to give the dinner a touch of Italy.

Spoiled with taco pizza

Some days you know are perfect days. Already when I woke this morning there was something in the air whispering that this is a day to dance through. The dance music has been on all day, and met its crescendo when I came home from work and could take my afternoon nap while Ingrid and her boyfriend made dinner.

The singing of a homemade taco pizza woke me, and all I had to do when the two chefs made the table, was to take my daily garden walk in the blue hour, when dusk is falling.

Now the pizza is finished, the two turtledoves are doing the dishes and preparing for afternoon coffee - for a full table (guests/family are expected). I hear them downstairs while I sit here up in my studio updating my blogs, continuing my dance.