Kitchen equipment 6 - clay teddy



I found this clay teddy during my last business trip to US, where I made a "raid" in a kitchen equipment store down-town Madison. As you can see, I have not use my clay teddy yet !!!!! On the un-broken packing material, the text says:

Our Brown Sugar Bears are very talented. When soaked in water for 20 minutes and afterwards they will:

• keep brown sugar moist for up to 3 months
• keep cakes and cookies moist
• keep raisins, coconut and other dried fruit fresh
• keep popcorn kernels moist, resulting in an increased yield when popped
• keep tobacco and cigars moist !!!! They actual write this on the packing material in the US !!!!!
• keep licorice fresh

When dried in the oven, then cooled and placed in a sealed container they will:

• keep spices dry
• keep salt dry
• keep cameras and electronic equipment dry
• keep crakers and chips crispy

Easter egg collection - 2011

My collection of Easter eggs received or brought in connection with Easter 2011:

• Milk chocolate and dark chocolate egg from Konnerup & Co
• Mignon - nougat egg in real egg shell from Fazer, Finland
• Summerbird Easter egg

I still have the eating pleasure of these Easter egg in front of me :-)))

Lunch at Börsenkeller, Flensburg

Today the yearly spring shopping tour to Flensburg together with a good friend took place. The shopping tour has to take place in end April/beginning May, as the "main reason" for going to Flensborg is buy German white asparagus !!! However, we also combine the shopping of asparagus with shopping of cat food, wine, beer, soft drinks, hair shampoo and German yogurt.

In order to be kind to our bodies, we took the decision to park below the supermarket down-town Flensburg, so we could roll the supermarket trolley full of yogurt, German ham, white asparagus from the supermarket directly down to the car = GOOD DECISION :-))

However, we always combine this shopping tour with having lunch at our "usual" place, which is Börsenkeller located at Nordermarkt in Flensburg city center. Here the menu card always contain a daily season menu, which follows the season closely. Today we decided to taste white asparagus with potatoes, land ham and hollandaise sauce, uuuuhmmmmm !!!! It just tasted GREAT

Planting potatoes in pots

Yesterday was another big day in my kitchen garden. It was the day, when I planted my "many" potatoes !!!!!

My kitchen garden is actual quiet small. Mainly it consists of pots with various herbs, two apple trees, one fig tree, one raspberry bush and a selection of different rhubarbs.

However, two years ago I started to grow my own potatoes in pots as well. And I have four big pots (square metal containers) for this purpose).

Therefore my need for seed potatoes is quiet limited, so I "complained" about my need for 4 potatoes to my work colleagues. So now one of them is my "official" supplier of seed potatoes.

And he is taking his task as "supplier" very serious !!! So I am actual receiving a small collection of seed potatoes, two of each potato sort. This year I received the following potatoes:

• Cerisa - early (the pot most away from you)
• Ditta - early to medium (second pot)
• Monaco - very early (third pot)
• Sava (the pot closest to you)

Thank you much to my supplier of seed potatoes :-))) It is pleasure to be a customer of yours.



The apple tree getting the most sun shine in my garden is very close to start blooming. The other apple tree is only starting to have leafs on it.

Home-made yogurt

I have been serving home-made yogurt for my Easter guests. And now I am eating the remaining cup of yogurt for breakfast this morning :-) This yogurt just taste great compared to the typical yogurt, which you can buy in Denmark. I REALLY DISLIKE the taste of Danish yogurt, as it is too acidic for me. And the other thing about Danish yogurt is, that the fruit combinations are TOO BORING. This is the reason why, I always bring yogurt back me from my trips to either Germany or France, filling up the car or suitcase with yogurt.

However, at work we have some kitchen machines designed for making yogurt at home. So I took one of these machines (yogurta from Moulinex) with me home for my Easter vacation. I also managed to get hold of freeze-dried concentrated yogurt bacteria culture, which is needed for the yogurt fermentation.

The yogurta consist of 7 glasses with lid (= 1 liter of milk) and the heating "box" with timer.

I started by adding boiling water to all the yogurt glasses as well as the liter measuring glass in order to "kill" all the unwanted micro organisms. As I like yogurt with a higher fat content compared to yogurt with 0% fat, I used a mixed of plain whole milk with 3.5% fat with coffee cream with 9% fat in a ratio of 10% cream and 90% whole milk.
As I am not a big fan of cream layer on top of my dairy products, I used homogenised whole milk and coffee cream. If you have a preference for cream layer, you should use non-homogenised milk and cream instead of.

I added the freeze-dried yogurt bacteria culture into the milk base, as I added the milk into the cream in the liter measuring glass. And afterwards I stirred around for a little time.
Instead of using freeze-dried yogurt bacteria culture you can also use a fresh plain yogurt from the supermarket. Here the ratio should be 4% yogurt to 96% milk or 40 g yogurt + 960 g milk

I when poured the milk into the 7 yogurt glasses and closed the glass with the plastic lid. When I placed the yogurt glasses in-side the yogurt machine, turned the timer for 9 hours and started the machine.
After the 9 hours I removed the yogurt glasses from the machine and placed them in the refrigerator to cold the yogurt down before eating it.

The structure of the yogurt is like a weak set yogurt and the mouth feel is quiet light. So you either eat the yogurt like it is as plain yogurt.

Or you add some fruit on top of the yogurt like this home-made apple jam  Lønnestrædes apple jam

Or you mix in one-two teaspoons Home-made vanilla sugar



Hylde for de Vilde - elder for the wild ones

Spend a lovely day on the fjord of Vejle rowing (open water rowing) in this wonderful Easter weather. We had our lunch boxes with us, so we enjoyed our lunch on a beach close to Hvidbjerg. The weather felt just like a summer day (in April !), so we were rowing in short, T-shirts and sandals with bare feet :-))

So now I am relaxing with sun-kissed skin at home enjoying a Summer time drink together with my easy evening meal Easy evening meal 2 . The drink is called "Hylde for de Vilde" (=Elder for the wild ones), and I first tasted this drink at a local cafe in town, which were not to keen to share the exact recipe with me.

However, this is my interpretation of the drink

Hylde for de Vilde:

• ½ part of cold elder flower drink
• ½ part of cold white wine
• 1-2 slices of lemon
• ice cubes

1. Mix everything together in a big wine glass

Salad with asparagus and strawberry

I have no idea about, how I decided to make this specific combination into a salad !!!! It just came to me as inspiration out of the blue. Very refreshing and a punch of sweetness from the strawberries. As the strawberries are coming from France, they do not have the full sweetness and flavour as Danish strawberries. So they are just perfect to use in salad and not relying on their sweetness for dessert.

UPDATE 26 July 2015:
This drink is being forward for the monthly blogging event Tea Time Treats having the theme of BBQ fodder biscuits and cookies. Tea Time Treast is managed by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from The Hedge Combers.

Ingredients:

• 1½ pack of mixed baby salad leafs - rocket, spinach leafs and rosso
• 40 g of pine kernel - roasted
• ½ bunch of asparagus
• 400 g strawberries
• dressing of pomegranate balsamico and cold pressed rasp seed oil



Brownie with pistachios



I found this recipe on the back side of the milk chocolate for use in cooking, which I got hold during my extended week-end in Switzerland Extended week-end to Switzerland

Again here the baking time for the brownie gave me some difficulties !!!!! The original baking time is 20-25 minutes, here I had to bake the brownie for 45-50 minutes. Perhaps because I live 65 meters above sea level and my friend in Switzerland is located 650 meters above sea level ??? Or because my brownie form is smaller, than the brownie forms in Switzerland ???? My message to you = keep a watchful eye on this brownie, while you bake it.

Brownie with pistachios:

• 200 g milk chocolate
• 80 g pistachios - grated
• 200 g butter
• 160 g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 120 flour

1. Heat the oven to 180'C
2. Melt the milk chocolate - here I use the microwave oven and my Microwave Plus Tupperwave pot - 600 W for 40 seconds as a starting point - stir the chocolate and decide if you need to give it another 5-10 seconds each time, until it is melted
3. Melt the butter - again here I use the procedure as for the chocolate.
4. Mix the butter and milk chocolate together to homogeneous mass in a mixing bowl
5. Whip the egg into this mix - one egg by the time
6. Whip in sugar, flour and pistachios nuts
7. Pour the brownie mix into a baking stable form with a size of 18 x 26 cm. The height of the brownie mix should be around 2.5 cm in the form, before baking.
8. Bake at 180'C for 25-50 minutes

Spring dinner with focus on asparagus

I started my Easter vacation with a spring dinner for two friends yesterday evening with focus on asparagus. You could easily claim, that the menu for this spring dinner was highly targeted the female taste preference with less focus on "male meat" food !!!!

In Denmark it is very easy to buy fresh green asparagus, whereas fresh white asparagus is more tricky to find in the supermarkets. So next week, when I have extended Easter vacation, I will go shopping in Flensburg, where it is more easy to buy fresh white asparagus. So the asparagus used in this theme menu were green.

As starter I served blinis (home-made) with dressing with horse radise and chives dressing topped with lump fish roe.

I still have some lump fish roe left for a small treat of blinis this evening:-)

 As a second starter I served green asparagus gratinated with a mix of Parmesan and Emmentaler cheese.

For the main course I served a salad of baby leafs, roasted pine kernels, raw green asparagus and strawberries. As dressing of pomegranate balsamico and cold pressed rasp oil Salad with asparagus and strawberry

 The main course was a chili pie with spring onions, scrimps, some more green asparagus and Emmentaler cheese.






As the sweet closure to the spring dinner I had made a brownie from milk chocolate, butter and  pistachio nuts.
Luckily, the starters and main course had filled up my two dinner guests, so I lot of this brownie left for Easter, uuuhmmmm !!!!
Brownie with pistachios


I will shared these recipes with you at a later stage.

New tea for my tea cup 5

One of my wonderful friends was in Paris last week-end, where she bought THE EASTER TEA from Mariage Frères for me. I am a big fan of this Easter tea, and I have been able to enjoy it for Easter for the last five years.

This Easter Tea is a black tea with flavour, so a festive tea for Easter Celebration. It has a great smell and taste, so all in all a very, very drinkable tea.

Thank you very, very much wonderful friend :-))) When I will be drinking this Easter Tea in the coming weeks, it will remind me of, what a great friend you are. 

Easy evening meal 2

Sometimes your evening meal just need to be very easy to prepare as well as not require too much cooking time. This evening was one of these evenings !!!

I used pizza dough ready to bake - ready-to-use pasta tomato salsa with rosemary, 3 asparagus, some pine kernels and thin slices of goat cheese. So while the pizza was baking in the oven I could smell the lovely goat cheese, while I sipping some lovely cold white wine.

Status on my kitchen garden 1

Today I have spend a lot time outside. Started this morning with a small morning row of 15 km on the fjord with some wind on the way back to the club house (as usual).

After lunch I used the good weather to read outside in my garden - licking some more sun shine :-)

The winter has been taking it token among my herbs. The chives is doing excellent, and the oregano is also started to grow again. But rosemary, apple mint, lemon thyme and lemon balm did not survive our second "hard" winter with snow and freezing temperatures. I am uncertain, if my garden mint will be the final victim among my herbs to the winter.

My raspberry bush is growing bigger and bigger, so I am hoping for more raspberries this year than the approx. 10 raspberries, which were the grant harvest last year.

My rhubarbs are doing fine as well, so I can start to think about, what I will use my first harvest of rhubarb for in the kitchen.  

Filo muffin with asparagus

It is season again for asparagus. I have a preference for the green asparagus, but white asparagus I will also eat with pleasure.

These filo muffins with aspargus are very easy to make and take very, very little time to prepare. As I like to have a  bit (al dente sensation) in green asparagus, I do not boil them before putting them into the filo muffin. However, if you prefer to have more soft asparagus, I will suggest, that you boil them for 1-2 minutes - adding the asparagus into boiling water. I really hate over-cooked vegetable as they loose their colour and their softness are very uninspiring.

UPDATE August 2014:

These filo muffins is fitting perfect into the monthly blogging event Tea Time Treats having picnic food as theme by Karen. Tea Time Treats is managed by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from Th Hedge Combers.

Filo muffin with asparagus - 7 muffins

• ½ pack of filo dough = 60 g filo dough
• ½ bunch of green asparagus
• 3 eggs
• 1½ dl milk
• 50 g Emmentaler cheese - grated
• Salt and pepper for seasoning 

1. Heat up the oven to 200'C 
2. Cut the filo dough into 7 pieces
3. Fill each muffin form with the filo dough
4. Pour the milk into a shaker. Add the eggs as well into the shaker. Season with salt and pepper.
5. Shake everything together
6. Cut the green asparagus into small pieces
7. Place the asparagus pieces into the filo covered muffin form
8. Add the grated Emmentaler cheese on top

9. Fill the muffin form with egg-milk shake
10. Place in the warm oven
11. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 200'C
12. Serve together with a green salad

Extended week-end to Switzerland

Last week-end was an extended week-end for me, as I took the train from Vejle to Bern in Switzerland to visit a good friend working there. I had packed my suitcase with a few gifts for her in form of gin, a collection of Easter egg from Summerbird, pork meat (rullepølse), a cooking book by Camilla Plum and cheese cutter.

My friend was away from home with her work, when I arrived. However, the bed in the guest bed was decorated with various Easter eggs as a warm welcome.

During my stay in Switzerland I made a trip to Bern, where I enjoyed the wonderful spring weather walking around in the old part of the town center.
I found a small bistro, where I was served a quiche Lorraine with salad with a glass of white wine for my lunch.
While I has waiting for the lunch I wrote post cards for my post cards friends. Actual the post cards in Denmark, before I returned back home. It is normal the opposite way.

During the afternoon I tried to locate a good tea room, which I thought would be an easy task in the German speaking part of Switzerland. I found a tea room, which was OK, but not excellent. Afterwards I found another tea room, which looked better. So I think I will try this next time.

Saturday my friend and I took the train to small village, where we had  lunch, home-made pork sausages with potato rosti. Simple and very tasty food.
Afterwards we walked back on walking path with a fantastic view to the Alps, small villages and cows with ringing cow bells on.

Monday morning I took the train back to Denmark. I decided to buy some macaroons and a salad on the train station in Basel. I enjoyed a small selection of macaroons for my morning tea, while I passed the Rhineland in full spring outfit in the German speed train.

And for lunch after we had passed Frankfurt am Main I enjoyed a salad with very small mozzarella cheese balls, sun flower kernels and tomato.

Home again with my suitcase I unpacked various chocolate products from Cailler. I now have some milk and dark chocolate for cooking purpose as well as cocoa powder without sugar for coming use in my kitchen.
However, just for plain eating I also have milk chocolate with nougat croquant and milk chocolate with caramel and salt.



And for the coming Easter I received a small collection of different Easter chocolate from my friend. And my friend had also brought an Easter egg for Hannibal the Cat :-))

I had a great week-end in Switzerland with good food, wine and chocolate, lovely surroundings and great company. So I will be back again in connection with my summer vacation.