Fruit salad with pine nuts and honey

Cabin time means time for friends. And this week-end was no exeption. Saturday afternoon friends were coming for coffee and I spent a nice hour in the primitive kitchen preparing sweets for us. A friend of Marta spent the week-end with us, and since she is intolerant to milk, it was a special challenge to decide what to eat. Another challenge which is connected to cabin life is that we don't have electricity and we don't have an oven.

I have collected "over free" recipes over the years, but most of them contains milk, cream, yoghurt or other milk related ingredients.

I made waffles with lactose reduced milk, and as a special treat for us all I made a huge bowl of fruit salad sweetened with pine nuts fried in miele di limone/lemon honey. Easy to make, and oh so yummy.

When the guests came it didn't take long to empty the bowl.

Birds Corner

In the garden we have an old, wooden birdhouse which we fill with seeds and bread crumbs every day. The birds know about this special corner of The Blue Café and are regulars. But often when they come their corner is already occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel and one or more of their kids. The birds wait in line, some days patiently, some days making alot of noise and even starting small fights.

I want everybody to feel welcome in The Blue Café, and when I came over this ceramic house a few weeks ago, I knew it would be a perfect extention in my outdoor serving area. It is not big, and helds no more than one or two birds at a time, but it's a perfect waiting room, or may be I shall call it a bar, where the guests can have a starter while waiting for their favorite feeder to be free.

For busy days

Vacations, travels, gardening, work, writing.....it has all taken from my time in the kitchen. I do cook every day (almost), and I do bake bread and cakes. But I have used my old recipes. I have made dinner which I have made so many times I don'¨t have to thing - my steps take me to the grocery store, my arms knows exactly what to put in the shopping basket, and when I come home the work in the kitchen is done without much thinking :-)

I have started to read cookbooks in the evenings now, a good sign that creativity soon will start to bloom in the kitchen. And eventually I will start to blog about my new meals and dishes. And I will show you some new and great cookbooks. But I am not there yet. Yesterday I spent all afternoon in the garden fighting the weeds, so for my empty stomack I made a family favorite - bruschettas.

The tomatoes in the garden are not ripe yet......when they are we will feast on tomatoes :-)

Benefits from the harvest

The berries are ripe in the Blue Garden, and Terje are busy with harvesting. We make jam, marmelade and juice, and also have fresh red currants with sugar and vanilla sauce for dessert.

The vanilla sauce is easy to make in the Blue Café:

1 egg, 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon potato flour, 5 dl milk.

Mix all and heat it to the point of boiling. Still all the time. When the sauce starts to boil, remove from heat and add vanilla sugar.

Strawberries.

This summer has not been a good summer for the strawberries. In the southern parts of Norway it has been too much rain, here wher I live it has been too dry.

I bought six kilos of strawberries at the market earlier this week and had to pay a fortune. But it is well worth it. We ate a few that same day, and I made jam for the freezer. And as soon as I had finished conserving the berries I made fresh bread. Supper that night, with a table filled with us and houseguests, was lukewarm, bread with fresh strawberry jam. Delicious.

Supper time.

Pizza recipe for my brother Børge

The house is still filling up with summer guests, and alot of my time is spent in the kitchen. A couple of hours ago we sayd goodbye to guests, in half an hour we are expecting the house to be filled with new house guests. I have a foccatia in the oven and will make a salad as soon as I have posted this blog. Terje will heat the grill.

What I plan to post about now though is the simple pizza of the house. Marta has had two small cousins staying here since yesterday. The weather is gorgeous and they have spent the day playing out in the garden. When lunch time came they were all hungry and I decided to make the pizza of the house - making it the way I love - search the fridge and go. Just as we sat down at The Blue Table, my brother, his wife and their son came to pick up cousin Embla. I had planned a pizza for 6, suddenly we were 9 and it didn't take long to finish every piece of the food.

Børge, this pizza is so simple to make. Here is the recipe for you:

The Blue Garden's Pizza.

Dough is made of :25gr fresh yeast, a little salt and a little sugar which is added to the yeast. When the yeast has melted I add 3dl of lukewarm water and "just enough" white flour.

Let the dough rise for half an hour.

Press the dough out on a plate to fit the oven and cover it with tomato sauce/ketchup, salami and cheese.

Bake in 220C for about 20 minutes.