Spring colours in the snow

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

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.

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

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

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

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
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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
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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

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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