Yoghurt, orange and chocolate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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