Saturated with liquorice - Lakridsfestival 2015

I am satured with liquorice after a visit to Lakridsfestival 2015 in Fredericia !!! For my good friends in Horsens this must sound almost impossible, that I can be saturated in liquorice. After 2 hours of tasting, tasting, tasting and yet some more tasting of various liquorice products I am actually satured in my taste buds of liquorice, I am have not even raided my goodie bag for any of the liquorice samples !!!! Lets see, how long this saturated state in my taste buds will last ?

After you had paid the entrance fees, where was plenty and yet some more liquorice goods, which you taste as much as you wanted. And you did not have the feeling, that the stand people were looking at you, when you decided to eat some more of their goods. This is excellent.

Besides from liquorice you could taste various normal food containing liquorice as seasoning, wine fitted to this food and finally a liquorice cocktail. I will been sharing this cocktail later on with you.

I will for sure be back again next year, if Lakridsfestivalen atter kommer til Jylland :-)

Anyway I did make various purchaces of liquroice products, so when the liquorice need gets over me, I should be able to do something about it.

At Møn Bolcher Møn Bolcher I found two version of white chocolate, one "plain" version only with liquorice and the second version with a trusted combination of liquorice and lemon. I also brought three glasses of liquorice. One glass of liquorice in white chocolate, raspberry and chilli, a second glass of liquorice in white chocolate and mint and finally the classic combination of liquorice in milk chocolate and liquorice powder !!!

 At a work station in the kitchen we could make our own taste version of liquorice with various ingredients. I decided to go for a combination of cherry, ginger and raw liquorice powder, which I finally dusted with "gold" as my very own glamour liquorice :-)

This was a very funny thing.

At the stand of Østerlandsk Thehus you could by five different liquorice teas in some wonderful metallic tins, a "plain" liquorice tea and the second version being Cool Mint. None of these teas contains any tea leafs.

COOL SUMMER BREEZE

Another vegetable rich juice, where the apple provides the sweetness, while the lemon including the peel provides a refreshing bitterness.



COOL SUMMER BREEZE: - 4 servings

• 1 broccoli
• 6 apples
• 4 stem of celery sticks
• 1 cucumber
• 1 lemon - with peel

1. Clean and rinse all the ingredients.
2. Juice everything together.
3. Juice the lemon between the apples.
4. Pour into a glass and enjoy :-)

Oat cookies a la Louisa Lorang

I have got this recipe on oat cookies on a Louisa Lorang recipe post card. And I have made no modification to this recipe. The combination of oat flakes and raisins is as usual excellent.

Oat cookies a la Louisa Lorang: - 16-20 cookies

• 100 g soft butter
• 100 g sugar
• 75 g dark muscovado sugar
• 1 egg
• 150 g (cake) wheat flour
• 50 g oat flakes - finely rolled
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 100 g raisins

1. Heat up the fan oven to 180'C.
2. Whip butter, sugar and muscovado sugar together using a hand mixer into.
3. Add the egg and whip again.
4. Mix flour, oat flakes, salt and raisins together. And whip it into the cookie dough.
5. Cover two baking trays with baking paper.
6. Divide the cookie dough into 16-20 pieces.
7. Place the cookies in the baking tray and flatten them a bite.
8. Bake the cookies at 180'C for approx 15 minutes. The baking time depends on your preference on cookie texture, chewy or firm.
9. Cool down the cookies on a wire rack.
10. Store them in airtight container.

Progress on sofa cushion

My sofa cushion project is moving ahead for full speed, as you can see. For the knitting I have used 100% wool yarn in superwash quality (9 x 50 g), with a size fitting for knitting needle in size 3½-4.


Both the front and back are finished. The front side concists of 9 patches, each patch is 20 x 20 cm. I have used 4 colours for the front, while the back side mainly in knitted only in sage green colour with smaller strips in dark green, spring green and aqua blue.

Below you can see my initial drawing for the 9 patches. I ended up with knitting:

• 2 patches in garter style (ret strik)
• 1 patch in stocking stitch (glat strik)
• 1 patch in pattern of small squares in either garter style or stocking stitch, each square is 5 knit stitches and 5 rows
• 1 patch in rib knit (rib strik)
• 1 patch in moss stitch (perlestrik)
• 1 patch in double moss stitch (dobbelt perlestrik)
• 1 patch in sailot bubble (sømandsbobler)
• 1 patch in double moss stitch, where the pattern is rowing 1 knit stitch after 2 rows and so on.

The back side is "only" knitted in garter style, and it is basic one big patch of 60 cm x 60 cm.

The 9 patches is sewn togther is the front side having a size of 60 cm x 60 cm, Afterwards I will sew the front and back side together in a pillow inside. The size of the pillow is a standard Danish size in form of 60 cm x 63 cm.

GÅ AGURK - GO CUCUMBER

A colourful green juice with a refreshing taste with some sweetness from the pineapple :-)




GÅ AGURK: - 4 servings

• 2 cucumbers
• 1 spring cabbage
• 1 pineapple - peel, top and button removed
• 1 handful of mint - only the leaves

1. Clean and rinse all the ingredients.
2. Juice everything together.
3. Juice the mint leaves between cucumbers.
4. Pour into a glass and enjoy :-)

Mr & Mrs Croque

As usual I participate in the monthly blogging called Tea Time Treats, which is managed by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from The Hedge Combers. As theme for February Karen has selected toast - on toast -toasties

So what type of toast should I create for this occasion ? A standard toast known as French toast here in Denmark being a combination of cheese and ham between two slices of boring white sandwich bread, which actually is not filling anything in your stomach. Or should it be the much better tasting and much more filling Croque Monsieur or Croque Madame ?

How to twist a Croque Madame / Croque Monsieur into a more British style ? Well the Gruyere cheese can be replaced with matured Cheddar, the Dijon mustard with English mustard and the ham to be substituted with bacon !!!

Mr & Mrs Croque: - 1 toast

• 1-2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon of milk
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 2 slices bread
• ½ teaspoon English mustard
• 4 slices of bacon
• 6 small slices of matured Cheddar

1. Whip one egg together with the milk.
2. Fry the slices of bacon
3. Spread the mustard on one side of each bread slice
4. Place the slices of Cheddar on one slice of bread on top of the mustard.
5. Place the fried bacon on top of the Cheddar.
6. Place the second slice of bread on top of the bacon.
7. Heat up the butter on a frying pan, the butter should not turn brown.
8. Place the toast into the egg-milk mix on both sides.
9. Fry the toast on each side for 1½ minutes per side. At the same time fried the second egg.
10. Served the toast on a plate. Adding the fried egg on top of the toast turns Mr. Croque into Mrs. Croque.
11. Enjoy an easy, yet very taste toast :-)

Orange cake with rosemary

At a food production exhibition  I picked up this recipe by Krydderurter.dk on an orange cake with rosemary, which is very fitting for suggestion of the monthly blogging challenge of Cooking with herbs having the theme of winter herbs. And rosemary is still having fresh and very green outdoor in it´s pot.

Orange cake with rosemary: - 1 cake

• 4 eggs
• 200 g sugar
• 150 g butter - melted
• 2 tablespoon of freshly minced rosemary
• 200 g (cake) wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 organic orange - peel and juice of it

1. Heat up the oven to 175'C
2. Whip eggs and sugar light and foamy.
3. Mix rosemary with flour, baking powder and orange peel, and stir it into the egg-sugar mix.
4. Add the melted butter and orange juice into the cake mix without stirring to much.
5. Pour the cake dough into a cake form of 1½-2 liter. Consider to cover the cake form with baking paper, before pouring in the cake dough.
6. Bake the cake in the middle of the oven at 175'C for 1 hour.
7. Cool down the cake, before serving with a nice cup of tea.

LADY IN RED

Weekend again giving plenty of options for late and longer breakfast, where a glass of freshly squeezed juice is perfect company. This juice is part of JuiceSelvKasse from Årstiderne, which on a weekly basic supply me with various different vegetable box.

LADY IN RED: - 3-4 servings

• 6 stems of celery sticks
• 2 apples
• 2 red beets
• 1 lemon with peel
• 4 grape fruits without peel
• 4 cm of fresh ginger

1. Clean and rinse all the ingredients.
2. Juice everything together.
3. Juice the lemon in between the apple.
4. Pour into a glass and enjoy :-)

Tea shopping in Helsinki

Besides from my usual shopping for tooth paste with xylitol in Finland I brought various teas during my recent business trip to Helsinki (well also Marimekko stuff found it´s way into my suitcase as well), but here I will be focusing on the tea shopping.

I found four new teas for later use in my teapot in form of two Earl Grey versions from the company "johan & nyström). The other two teas I was attracted during my "shopping raid" in Stockman to due to their colourful metallic tins in combination with their content flower components.

Knitting a sofa cushion

My knitting needles are busy again. This time my knitting project is to make a sofa cushion in green and blue colours for use in my new library. I will share photos later on of the transformation of the guest room into a library. After this transformation I am planning to slowly change the colour pattern of the library from red and purple into mainly green. Therefore I need to new sofa cushions for the guest bed/reading sofa.

I saw an idea off using yarn leftovers for a new sofa cushion. The cushion is made from 9 patches in various colours and knitting pattern. So I found this wool yarn in three green and one blue colour, so now the knitting process has started.

Waffles for Pancake day

Today Tuesday is White Tuesday, so the day where you in preparation for the fast will use up all your flour and milk in your kitchen. Milk and flour is some of the main ingredients in pancakes, so therefore White Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day.

Instead of baking pancakes I decided to bake wafers using some new equipment in my kitchen in form of silicone wafer form from Lékué.

Waffles: -  8 servings

• 3 eggs
• 410 g milk
• 240 g (cake) wheat flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons dark syrup
• 110 g butter - melted

1. Heat up the (conventional) oven to 220'C.
2. Whip milk and egg together by hand in a mixing bowl. Stir in the melted butter.
3. Add flour, salt, syrup and baking powder. And stir everything into a homogeneous mass.
4. Place the silicone waffler forms on a baking tray covered with baking paper.
5. Pour the waffler dough in the silicone forms.
6. Bake the wafflers in the middle of the oven at 220'C for 8-9 minutes.
7. Remove the wafflers from the oven, de-mould the wafflers from the silicone by turning up-side-down and place the wafflers on the baking tray itself.
8. Bake the wafflers with pattern side at 220'C for 4-5 minutes until they turn golden.
9. Serve together with fresh fruit and ahorn syrup.

Shrovetide Scones

In case you do not have the time for baking Shrovetide buns (fastelavnsboller), when you should make scones instead of, as scones do not need to raise.

As flavouring for these scones I have select apple and marzipan, as these ingredients are typical in classic Shrovetide bun

Shrovetide scones: - 8 pieces

• 450 g (cake) wheat flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoon baking powder
• 50 g sugar
• 125 g cold butter
• 1 apple - cored, peeled and diced
• 100 g marzipan - grated roughly
• 1 egg
• 200 g milk

1. Heat the oven (conventional) to 250'C.
2. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
3. Cut the cold butter into small pieces.
4. Grind the butter pieces into the flour mix.
5. Mix the milk and egg together.
6. Add the milk and egg without kneading into a dough.
7. Add in the apple and marzipan without kneading into a dough.
8. Place the dough on a piece of baking paper.
9. Roll the dough in a role using the baking paper for the rolling part. Cut the role into 8 pieces, form each piece into a round shape.
10. Bake the scone at 250'C for 12-15 minutes in the middle of the oven.
11. Cool down and enjoy together with a nice cup of tea :-)

Fastelavnsboller / Shrovetide buns in Spring colours

Today it is Shrovetide Sunday (Fastelavnssøndag) here in Denmark. What does it mean ?

Shrovetide bun are connected with fasting, which starts 49 days before Easter. And when in the fast  period you are not supposed to eat meat and wheat flour as well as not drink milk or alcohol. So before the fast started there was big parties, where you would indulge in these foods. Fastelavnssøndag (Shrovetide Sunday) and the following Monday were the last days, where you could eat meat. The following Tuesday was the last day of eating wheat flour, where here buns were baked and eaten. This White Tuesday is also known as Pandekagedagen (Pan Cake Day) again relating to the use of wheat flour in pan cakes.

Another funny thing is, that I noticed the very first advertisements for buying Shrovetide buns in the local news paper right New Year. There is 6-8 weeks from New Year to Shrovetide, but it has been possible to fill your stomach with Shrovetide buns from the bakers in many last weeks. Here is an interesting article about Shrovetide Buns (in Danish).

However, the taste of Shrovetide buns from the bakers are nothing compared to your own home-made buns, where you can adjust the filling to your personal taste preference.

The traditional Danish "fastelavns"/Shrovetide song is like this:

Fastelavn er mit navn                                             Shrovetide is my name

Boller vil jeg have                                                    Buns I would like to have

Hvis jeg ingen boller får                                          If I get no buns

Så laver jeg ballade                                                When I will make trouble

Boller op, boller ned                                               Buns up, buns down

Boller i min mave                                                   Buns in my tummy

Hvis jeg ingen boller får                                         If I get no buns

Så laver jeg ballade                                                When I will make trouble

This year I have decided to try out this suggestion for Shrodetide buns using a a very fat rich bun recipe combined with pistachio mass as filling.

Shrodetide buns in Spring colours: - 20 buns

• 250 g water
• 250 g dairy whipping cream, 30-38% fat
• 20 g yeast
• 2 eggs
• 15 g salt
• 50 g sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
• 850 g wheat flour
• 50 g butter - diced into smaller squares
• 200 g pistachio marzipan
• icing sugar + water

1. Pour dairy cream and water in the mixing bowl of the stand-alone mixer. Dissolve the yeast into the yeast into this liquid by stir with a spoon.
2. Weigh salt, sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs into the liquid.
3. Knead these ingredients together on the mixer at speed 2 for 1 minute.
4. Add in the flour into the mixing bowl.
5. Knead the dough together for 2 minutes at speed 2 followed by kneading it at speed 4 for 6 minutes.
6. Add in the butter squares. Knead the butter into the dough at speed 4 for 2 minutes.
7. After kneading let the dough stand warn for 2 hours with the tea towel covering the mixing bowl.
8. Divide the dough into bun portion of 80 g. Place the buns on baking trays covered with baking paper. Cover the buns with tea towels, and let the dough raise for another 1 hour.
9. Heat up the fan oven to 200'C.
10. Make a smaller hole in the upper part of the bun. Squeeze in the pistachio marzipan into the hole.
11. Bake the buns in the fan oven at 200'C for 12-15 minutes.
12. Cool down the buns, before decorating them with white glazing around the pistachio marzipan.
13. Enjoy

Valentine´s Blondie

Cake for my Valentine

My good Estonian colleague has shared this recipe on blondie with cranberry and raspberry with me. Well, actually her blondie was "only" with cranberries, so for Valentine´s Day I decided to increase the romantic colour of red by adding in some dried raspberries :-)

Valentine´s Blondie:

• 150 g white chocolate
• 150 g butter
• 90 g sugar
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
• 3 eggs
• 90 g (cake) flour
• 100 g white chocolate - chopped into bigger pieces
• 150 g dried cranberries - roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons of dried raspberries

1. Heat up the fan oven to 180'C
2. Melt the 150 g white chocolate together with butter over low heat in a medium cooking pot.
3. Whip eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar very well together.
4. Stir the flour and melted chocolate and butter into the egg-sugar mass.,
5. Gently stir in the chocolate pieces, dried cranberries and dried raspberries.
6. Pour the cake dough in a silicone form.
7. Bake the cake at 180'C for 30-40 minutes. Check after 25 minutes, if the cake still has a liquid core. 
8. Keep baking until the core is not liquid any more.
9. Cold down the cake prior to cutting it.

Sweetheart Juice

Good morning Sweetheart :-)

It is time for you to get up and enjoy this entire day of Romance !

The day begins with this juice having the colour of LOVE :-) using two of the fruit being in season right here and now - pomegranate and blood oranges !

Perhaps you should enjoy this glass of juice together with Sweetheart Yogurt ?

Sweetheart Juice: - 1-2 servings

• 1 pomegranate
• 3 blood oranges - due to small size

1. Cut the fruit into halves.
2. Squeeze the fruit halves for their juice.
3. Mix the two fruit juices together.
4. Serve cold in a glass.
5. Enjoy the rest of Valentine´s Day :-)

Welcome to February - the short Winter month

Welcome to February - the short Winter month

The day light is returning again here in February with an extra 5 minutes of day light per day, so suddenly everything seems much bright around you, and the timer on various lamps can be adjusted, so they turn on later and later during this month :-)

February is the month of love and carnival with Valentine Day (14 February), Fastelavnssøndag / Shrodetide Sunday (15 February) and pancake day or white Tuesday (17 February). So these three days will become a theme for me during this short Winter month of February.

As a little pre-view I will be sharing these two  recipes with you for this upcoming theme of love and carnival.

marzipan cake with raspberry and lime

Fastelavnsboller / Shrovetide bun