Reine Claude s'érouler

Plums - plums - plums - this is the forth recipe in a row with plums. Actually is now bein published a little ealier than expected, as a work colleague of mine "demand" this recipe for some coming week-end guests ! Hopefully both you and the week-end guests will enjoy these plum crumbles :-)

I have found this recipe om Reine Claude s'érouler or in more "plain" English Plum Crumble in the weekly newsletter (week 32/2012) from Årstiderne. But as I got these plums with a French name from a French work colleague, I decided to give this recipe a French to maintain the French touch.

The flavour combination for the crumble top in form of cinnamon and cardamon is very tasteful. The rest of crumble part is OK, but I have had better texture with the crumble lid from this recipe on rhubarb crumble.

Reine Claude s'érouler a la Årstiderne: - 12 pieces

• 500 g plums - without stone and roughly chopped
• 100 g sugar
• 1 tablespoon home-made vanilla sugar
• 60 g (cake) flour
• 40 g oat flakes
• 110 g sugar
• 80 g hazelnuts - chopped
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon cardamon
• 100 g butter

1. Heat the oven (conventional) to 200'C.
2. Mix the roughly chopped plums, sugar and vanilla sugar together. Fill the mix into paper muffin forms.
3. Knead flour, oat flakes, sugar, hazelnuts, spices and butter together to the crumble part.
4. Make a small lid of the crumble part and place it on top of the plums.
5. Place the small plum crumble in the middle of the oven. Bake the crumbles at 200'C for 20-25 minutes.
6. Serve the crumbles warm or cold.

Plums in port a la Dansukker

This is the third reciep in a row having focus on plum - plum and yet some more plums.

Again I am using smaller plums with firm texture, as I will be boiling those plums and still would like to some texture left in the final dessert.

As usual I have a preference of trying out new recipes again instead of keeping repeating over and over the same old recipes, so I am always on the look out for new recipes to try in my little kitchen. This time is a recipe from www.dansukker.dk/portvinsblommer, which I am having a go at.

Plums in port a la Dansukker:

• 500 g plums - half and without stone
• 3 dl port
• 250 g dark Muscovado sugar
• potassium sorbat - optional

1. Clean the plums, cut them in half and remove the stone.
2. Place them in pot and fill the port on top. I use a small saucer in order to keep the plums down in the port, so they are floating around.
3. Leave the plums for minimum 8 hours in the refrigerator.
4. Add the dark Muscovado sugar and stir well.
5. Add boiling water to the storage glass.
6. Add everything into a cooking pot.
7. Let the plum boil softly for 5 minutes
8. Empty the glass for the hot water.
9. Pour everything into the storage glass
10. Serve the plums either warm or cold together with whipped (dairy) cream or ice cream

Lønnestæde's Plums in Spiced Red Wine - year 2012

This is the second recipe in a row with focus on how to use your surplus of plums.

This time it is the 2012 edition of plum in spiced red wine, here I have made a few changes to the various spices used in Lønnestræde´s Plums in Spiced Red Wine - year 2011.

I simply looked through my kitchen cupboards finding useful spices for this wonderful tasteful plum in red wine. I can only strongly you to try them. In this recipe I am using smaller plums with a more firm texture.

When you cook these plums you are having the most fantastic smell of gløgg in your kitchen.

Lønnestæde's Plum in Spiced Red Wine - 2012:

• 750 plums - without stone
• 500 g red wine
• 250 g sugar
• 4 sticks of cinnamon
• 2 bay leafs
• 9 cardamon
• 6 allspice corns
• 10 black pepper corn
• potassium sorbat - optional

1. Add boiling water to the storage glass.
2. Wash the plums and remove the stone. Cut the plum into 2 pieces.
3. Cook up the red wine with sugar and all the different spices.
4. Add the plums into the red wine, and let the plums cook for 5 minutes.
5. Empty the glass for the hot water.
6. Add the plums into the storage glass.
7. Reduce the red wine syrup into half the amount.
8. Fill the red wine syrup into the storage glass with the plums.
9. Let the plums mature for minimum 2 weeks, before using them for dessert.
10. Serve the plums together with whipped cream or ice cream.

Plum jam with star anise and vanilla

This is the very first of plenty plums recipes, which I will be posting in the coming "many" days for now on :-)

The very first thing I made from all the plum, which I got from my work colleague, was off cause plum jam. Last year I made this plum jam with cinnamon and star anise, so I decide make a twist to this spices combination, as I have no cinnamon sticks left anywhere in my kitchen. And as I usual I use a ratio of 2 parts of fruit to 1 part of sugar, as I prefer the fruitiness over the sweetness in jam.

The smell, when you cook this jam is just fantastic :-)

Lønnestræde plum jam  - version 2:

• 900 g plums - without stones and diced into desired size
• 100 g water
• 450 g jam sugar - sugar with pectin
• ½ vanilla pod - vanilla corns and pod
• 4 star anise
• 1½ tablespoon apple vinegar
• potassium sorbate - optional

1. Wash the plums, remove the stone from the plum and cut into the desired size.
2. Heat up the plums in a cooking pot together with a small amount of water.
3. Add the spices as well.
4. When the plums are boiling, add the jam sugar.
5. Bring the fruit to the boiling point and let it boil for 5 minutes.
6. Adjust the balance between the sweetness and the fruit flavour by adding vinegar into the jam.
7. 

   Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water. 
8. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass. Store them cold.
   
   
   
   
   

Plum harvest for "cook-out" in my kitchen

Reine Claude plums

I have some fantastic work colleagues, and some of them have plum tree in their gardens. And they have very kindly shared some their lovely ripened plums with me, so that I did not have to spend a fortune buying foreign plum in the supermarket. Plums from the supermarkets does not have the same great taste and fantastic ripeness compared to plums harvest directly from the tree and turned into various plum products.

Actually I got the feeling, that I was doing my work colleagues a big favour by accepting their plums, so they have less plums to do something with. And at the same time they have doing me a big favour proving me with all these fantastic tasteful plums. I assume you can this a win-win situation for all of us.

So last week I had 3 very, very active days in my kitchen after work turning plum - plum - plum into:

• plum jam with star anise and vanilla
• plum-tomato compote
• Raw plum jam - failure ?
• Plums in port a la Dansukker
• Lønnestræde´s plums in port with Christmas spices
• Lønnestræde´s plums in spiced red wine edition 2012
• Pickled plums in liquorice a la Isabellas Countryliv
• Reine Claude s'érouler also known as plum crumble

I will share all these plum recipes with you in the coming days.

A BIG THANK YOU to my work colleagues for sharing their surplus plum with me - I hope, I can get similar portions of plums next year.

Victoria plums

Suggestions on how to use your over-load of plums

If you are the luckily owner of one or more plums tree in your garden, I assume, that you right are overload with plums and yet some more plums ? Therefore I hereby provide you with some suggestions to how to use this over-load.

And another possibility is to share your over whelming amount plums with people around you, who do not have a plum in their garden such as me, and how really would like to get a few kilo of fresh Danish plum, which just has the right ripeness compared to those found in the supermarkets.

The first option is off cause to make jam, this jam has an interesting spice twist to it in form of cinnamon and and star anise.

You could also turn your over-load of plum into plum-compote, which you can enjoy together with cheese, sausages and meat dishes. Last year I made two different compotes, the first being a more traditional plum-compote

and the second being a plum and tomatoes

Moving away from the savoury options to the sweet options in form of either plums in spiced red wine, which you can enjoy later on in Autumn as dessert

or right here and now in form of a plum cake

Last week I spend 3 busy evenings in my little kitchen turning my part of plum over-loads from work colleagues into various plum recipes. I will share these recipe suggestions with you in the coming days, perhaps it is more correct to say the coming many days ?

Tomato pie a la Årstiderne

I have found this tomato pie recipe in the newsletter for week 32/2012, which follows with my weekly vegetable box from Årstiderne.

This tomato pie is so easy make and it has a great taste. You should try it out yourselves. It is a great way of keeping your tomatoes at bay, if you have a greenhouse full of tomatoes.

Tomato pie a la Årstiderne: - 2-4 servings

• 1 roll of ready-to-use pie dough
• 1 onion - sliced thinly
• 3 cloves of garlic - sliced thinly
• 500 g tomatoes - roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon oregano - chopped
• salt and pepper
• 50 g sour cream - 18% fat
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon of mustard
• 50 g Parmesan cheese - grated

1. Heat the (conventional) oven to 200'C.
2. Place the pie dough in a pie form, lined it with baking paper and fill pie peas on top.
3. Bake the pie dough at 200'C for 5-10 minutes.
4. Mix the onion, tomatoes and oregano together. Season with salt and pepper.
5. Whip sour cream, egg and mustard together.
6. Remove the pie peas and baking paper from the pie dough.
7. Fill in the sour cream - egg - mustard mix into the pie,
8. Add the tomato mix on top, followed by Parmesan cheese
9. Bake the pie at 200'C for 40 minutes.
10. Serve this tomato pie warm or cold.

The tree of Hannibal the Cat is still "cat cool"

Hannibal the Cat behaving back in "his" tree checking the neighbourhood

I was a little concerned, if Hannibal the Cat could recognise "his" tree, the troll willow after it´s hair cut. I did not have to worry about this for long, as my garden lion climb the tree again this morning - checking the local neighbourhood for some "mouse sushi".

When Hannibal the Cat is climbing around in his tree, it is like seeing a "monkey cat" (abekat in Danish) jumping from one branch to another branch.

At the time being I am busy in my little kitchen utilising bag after bag full of Danish plums coming from the gardens of various work colleagues. So busy that I am not having the time to share the outcome of this work with you right now. I will have some recipe ready in the coming week-end.

Hannibal the Cat behaving like a  real "monkey cat"

Rumtopf - plums jumping in

Plums before they jumped into the Rumtopf

It has been 5 weeks since, the blackcurrants were filling up in the Rumtopf, so the Rumtopf has just been standing still on my kitchen table awaiting some new fruit to move in. And finally a new red fruit was matured or grown up enough to jump into my little rum "monster". As you can guess from the headline, it is plums, which are in season now here in Denmark.

Today a work colleague of mine had taken a big portion of plum to work, which we were not able to eat, so on my way home I decided to "steal" the left-over plums and dump them in the Rumtopf. I will confess my plum "theft" tomorrow at work, so the work colleague bringing the plums will a part in Rumtopf.

Plum being a part of the rum "soup"

So after the plum addition, I still have the following fruits remaining on my list of "fruit list":

• cherries
• blackberries
• perhaps autumn raspberries

A saucer keeping the fruit down in the Rumtopf

As usual I cleaned the fruit followed by weighing them, so I know the amount of sugar need as well. Afterwards I add them on top of fruit already in the rum "soup" topping of with yet some more rum. 

Content in Rumtopf as of today:

• Rhubarb + sugar
• 580 g strawberries   
• 290 g sugar
• 318 g red currants
• 157 g sugar
• 160 g raspberries
• 80 g sugar
• 124 g white red currant
• 62 g sugar
• 475 g blackcurrants
• 238 g sugar
• 272 g plums
• 132 g sugar
• Rum, rum and yet some more rum 

Blueberry and hazelnut blondies a la Country Living

I have found this cake recipe in the July 2012 issue of Country Living and as big portions of blueberry are cheap to buy at the time being, I decided to test out this cake recipe. And it was highly appreciated by my fellow rowers, as I took it with me yesterday on a picnic row on the fjords of Kolding & Gamborg incl a tour around the little island of Fænø. 

It was perfect to spend yesterday on the water, as the day was quiet sunny and warm. And the cake as enjoyed after a cooling down swim in the fjord of Kolding.

Blueberry and hazelnut blondies a la Country Living:

• 175 g butter - soft
• 175 g sugar
• 175 g light brown Muscovado sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon home-made vanilla sugar
• 225 g (cake) flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 75-100 g hazelnut - roasted and roughly chopped
• 150 g blueberries
• 100 g white chocolate - finely chopped

1. Heat the (conventional) oven to 200'C.
2. Beat together the sugars and butter until soft, fluffy and lighter in colour
3. Beat in the egg one by one.
4. Beat in the vanilla sugar and baking powder.
5. Fold in the flour in the cake dough.
6. Fold in the blueberries and white chocolate.
7. Fill the cake dough into a 20x30 cm baking tray, greased with oil or soft butter. Soften the top of the dough.
8. Bake the cake at 200'C for 30 minutes in the middle of the oven. A cake tester should still have a little amount of dough clinging to it.
9. Leave the cake to cool down in the baking tray.

Simple cauliflower soup

As I mentioned previously cauliflower is not among my favourite vegetable, so when I find in my weekly vegetable box I am having a hard time coming up with ideas on how to get ride of this cauliflower.

So dear Årstiderne, if you read this blog post, please consider to make a vegetable box especially for me. In such a vegetable box you should NOT add cauliflower, egg plant, fennel, too much cabbage and potatoes !!!

I have made a few adjustments to this recipe on cauliflower soup removing the garlic and increasing the amount of dairy whipping cream. The taste is actually pretty good now, having a simple delicate creamy taste.

Simple Cauliflower soup - serves 3:

• 1 cauliflower - roughly chopped
• 2 onions - roughly chopped
• 1 l vegetable stock
• 1½ dl dairy whipping cream, 38% fat
• pepper

1. Cut the cauliflower and onions into smaller pieces
2. Add the vegetable into the cooking pot
3. Add also the water/vegetable stock in the cooking pot
4. Cook for 20 minutes
5. Blend everything together into a homogeneous mass
6. Add the cream
7. Season with pepper

Pea and courgette soup a la Country Living

Green is good for your eyes

This recipe is a great combination of picking up surplus courgettes at work from a work colleague having a small farm and reading Country Living July 2012 issue in a summer-hot garden hiding in the shade of my parasol.

I decided to increase the amount of butter, onion and dairy whipping cream as the courgette were size L/XL.

This soup is having a fantastic delicate taste with a good full mouth feel. And green is good for your eyes :-)

Pea and courgette soup a la Country Living: - serves 4

Boiling peas and courgettes

• 50 g butter
• 2 medium onions - chopped
• 2 large courgettes - diced
• 1 garlic clove - crushed
• 1 liter vegetable stock
• 300 g peas - ready-shelled
• 1 dl dairy whipping cream - 38% fat
• 50 g peas - ready-shelled
• salt and pepper for seasoning

1. Melt the butter in a large pot over low heat. Add the onions and cover. Gently fry for 15 minutes.
2. Add the diced courgette and crushed garlic. Stir and let it cook for 2 minutes.
3. Pour in the stock, when add the peas. Cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes.
4. Blend the soup in the pot.
5. Stir in the cream and the remaining 50 g peas.
6. Serve and let your eyes feast on this wonderful green colour.

Hair cut to the tree of Hannibal the Cat

Troll willow - BEFORE "hair cut"

The troll willow in my little park was suffering from dead branches and some kind of sickness, so therefore I have located a "garden handy man", who could something about it.

So my troll willow has been getting a hair cut, actually quiet a large hair cut, as you can see yourselves from the picture below. Let´s hope the tree of Hannical the Cat will recover, so my garden lion again can climb his tree.

Troll willow - AFTER "hair cut"

Hannibal the Cat in "his" tree

Last week Hannibal the Cat was been behaving like a teenager !!! He left the house Wednesday morning and returned Saturday early morning. When spend most of Saturday sleeping and eating like a normal human teenager !!!

Yes - a cat should spend time outside enjoying it self hunting mice and birds. But why can it not tell it´s owner, where it is spending it´s time, if it decides to stay away for a longer time !!!! I am worried, as Hannibal  the Cat perhaps has been locked in-side a house or garden shred, as he is a curious cat.

Perhaps I should attached a kind of GPS tracker on the cat !

What have you done to "my" tree !!!

Dinner with focus on Alsace wines at Madhimlens Madhus

This makes me feel very welcome being a champagne girl

When we were having this lovely summer dinner at Madhimlens Madhus, we saw, that we could participate in a wine dinner with focus on Alsace wine. As Alsace wine mainly are white wine it would a perfect option for me, as I am a prefer white wine to red wine.

And my two good (iron) friends from Horsens wanted to join in as well, providing both transport and a bed to sleep in afterwards, so I could enjoy all the wine without driving myself !!!! And the driver was sharing some of his wine with the rest of us :-)

The price for this wine dinner was 595 DKK for both food and wine. And it was value for money in my opinion. And I will ready to come by again for another theme event at Madhimlens Madhus.

It was the wine company Dopff Au Moulin from Riquewihr in Alsace, which was the supplier of the golden drops of wine for this dinner. One of the family member from the French wine company was participating telling us about the different wine. He was speaking excellent English with a few charming French words.

Nice detail

Appetiser

We were welcomed outside in the court yard with a glass of Crement Brut, Cuvee Julien served together with rice cripes, truffle mayonnaise and sweet-sour pop corn.

The comment from the French wine maker to the glass of Crement was: "What to served together with Crement ? Another glass of Crement !"

I am fully aligned with the suggestion being a champagne girl :-)

Afterwards we assigned the dinning table of the evening, where both water, bread, butter and fresh cheese were awaiting us.

Another brilliant detail serving the butter on a stone

First stater - salmon

As the first starter we  were served marinated salmon with foxes sauce, small bites of zucchini with ultra thin slices of fried rye bread.

The wine was Pinot Gris De Riquewihr, which has an excellent perfumed powerful taste. This wine turned out to be one of the best wines this evening for me.
This wine was introduced with the following words of the wine maker: "let´s be crazy" and yes I was crazy with this wine !!!

Second starter - scallop & bacon

The second starter was roasted scallops, pepper dried bacon, pickled tomatoes and sauce on baked pepper fruit.

The wine was Pinot Blanc Traditionelle.
The wine maker stated: "Pinot Blanc will accept any flavour - perfect for a business lunch".

It was an OK wine in my opinion, but the weakest wine of this evening.

First main course - corn risotto with chicken

As the first main course we got served creamy durum corn kernels, salty lemon, chicken from Hopballe Mølle with wild watercress.

It was served together with Riesling Grand Cru Schonenbourg 2009, where the wine maker said "let the magic operate".

This wine was young, so I did not find a lot of magic within it. Yes, it was good, but no magic in my wine glass.

Second main course - veal

The second main course was two type of veal cooked with Alsace wine, artichoke, chanterelle and potatoes from the island of Samsø.

The accompanying wine was Pinot Noir, which was introduced by the wine maker with the following words: "we change colour just like the president (of France)".

Pinot Noir from Alsace is a funny thing, is it a rose wine ? as it is not a red wine in my opinion !!!

Dessert being the finale

As the sweet closing remark we got creme brulee with fresh raspberries and raspberry sorbet decorated with lavender.

The dessert was served with Gewurtztraminer Grand Cru Brand.


Here the wine maker describe it "mar(r)iage between food and wine.

It was a perfect combination, and this wine was also one of my favourite being sweet, but not over sweet.

Koldskål - cold buttermilk soup

Koldskål or as it translates into English "cold buttermilk soup" is a traditional Danish summer dish. You will served it as a cold evening meal on hot summer days, so you do not have sweat away in a hot kitchen making dinner.

Cold buttermilk soup can be served either as main dish (which is what I am used to from my family) or as dessert. I will be eating it with a soup, however, some people will be drinking it. As you see many options for this specific dish.

I prefer to use thick milk for this dish, as I like the more creamy mouth feel coming from this product instead of the traditional buttermilk with only 0.5% fat.

Cold buttermilk soup is also available as ready-to-use products everywhere in the Danish supermarkets during spring and summertime. But it is so easy to make yourselves, so you should give it a try.

And again I could not help myself, when I found some small sweet rusks sold together with yet another metallic tin, so they "jumped into" the shopping trolley !!!!

I have been using the recipe on Koldskål from the cooking book "Frøken Jensens Kogebog", which is a classic Danish cooking book with recipes on traditional Danish food.


Koldskål - cold buttermilk soup: - 2 servings as main course or 4 servings as dessert

• 1 l thick milk - 3.5% fat or 1 l buttermilk
• 1 egg - pasteurised or raw
• 100 g sugar
• 1 lemon - organic - both juice and peel
• 1 tablespoon home-made vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon commercial vanilla sugar
• small sweet rusks
• fresh strawberries - optional

1. Whip the egg and sugar together.
2. Afterwards add the thick milk, lemon juice and peel, vanilla sugar to the whipped egg-sugar. Stir well.
3. Place the cold buttermilk soup cold in the refrigerator for minimum 1 hour.
4. Serve the buttermilk soup together with small sweet rusks and fresh strawberries

My Greek tomato dislikes living in my garden

An un-happy Greek tomato living in my garden still waiting for the summer to come bye

The first day, when the Greek tomato moved into my kitchen garden as it´s new home, kitchen garden is perhaps not the right description, as the tomatoes is living in earth bag on top of water basin on a south facing terrace.  However, everything look sunny and bright in the beginning of June. Here in beginning of August, the Greek tomato is not a happy tomato living in my garden situated in cold Denmark.

A few tomatoes is visible, but you can not call this tomato a happy plant !!

A more pleased chili

The chili is having an OK time on the cold terrace, It arrived with 3 chilies, and now is having 7 chilies.

Tomato plants and chili on the first day of arrival on the terrace

The two other tomatoes plants are enjoying themselves on the terrace being neighbours to the fig tree. It look like one big tomato jungle, when though I am doing my best to remove all the small side shoots from the tomatoes. I see plenty of tomato flower as well as green tomatoes waiting for the sun to turn them red in the face.

Two tomatoes (free land and cherry) hanging out with the fig tree

Hey Sun - please us red, so we can be eaten