Happy New Year 2016

Happy New Year
Goodbye to 2015 & Welcome to 2016

to all of you from Hannibal the Cat and I. We hope you will get an exciting, promising and healthy New Year here in 2016 with plenty of sunshine, some white snow to bring some light into a dark Winter season and less wind during the rowing season !!!

Here in 2015 my little kitchen got the final finishing touch in form of hand-made ceramic tiles in five different colour, which was placed according to my own mosaic design. All in all my kitchen project has turned out as I imaging it should be like.

After being busy in my kitchen, I decided to continue my "decoration work" converting the guest room into a library, where I off cause have a section with cooking books.

Right here and now I am in the line up to changing my entrance into a more light and less clothed room. However, this involves replacement of the floor tiles !!!! And the though of having brick workers inside my home again is a dreadful idea !

During Springtime 2016 all the windows of the house will also be replaced with new energy-efficient windows. Hopefully there will still be room for all my many small light houses in the windows ?




My new best kitchen friend the Juicer and I have formed a great friendship ! Together with the JuiceSelvKassen as a frequent weekly box from Årstiderne we have managed make 29 different juices with plenty of vegetable insides. Some of these juices have taste wonderful, while other have been having a more pretty colour than taste !







Well my way of baking through the entire bread book called "Hjemmebagt" has been moving so slow, so that I did no bake any of these recipes in this bread book. If I maintain this baking speed during 2016, I will be finished baking in around 20 years time, around the time, when I will be retiring from work !!!!  Could be that 2015 will bring more baking momentum.

Perhaps I have not been baking any of the bread from "Hjemmebagt", meanwhile I have been turning more and more to baking cooking pot bread (Grydebrød) such as Best bread of the World (Verdens bedste brød). Here "my" sour dough, which I managed to hold of at baking event (Rent mel i posen) has taken up residence in my refrigerator. Some friends and colleagues also have got a portion of this sour dough. This specific sour dough has a lovely apple vinegar flavour, which I am crazy about.

As usual I am still participating in the monthly virtual tea table called Tea Time Treats hosted by two food bloggers in the UK. It is great fun for me to work the various theme selected for these monthly tea tables. And I will continue to participate in these monthly virtual tea tables here in 2015, as it bringing me a lot of inspiration to both me and my little kitchen.


As usual the month of December has been a very, very busy month for me in my kitchen, as I am working on selecting interesting Christmas recipes as well as actually making the Christmas stuff, so I can share an daily blog post with a Christmas recipe with you in the count down for Christmas !!! For me this process is a little bit like mood therapy, a way of keeping up my mood during a long, dark, gray and rainy Winter season, as it keep me busy inside of hiding under my duvet like a little sleepy brown bear !!! So therefore I will already now promise, that you will get Christmas Calender again in 2015 :-) Traditionally I invited various friends living in the area of Vejle for a gløgg evening, so they can taste some of my Christmas creations.


As regular theme blog posts during every single month I have shared the following type of blog posts with you:

• blog introduction to each month with focus on a specific theme (starter in September 2013) - not done on a regular basic besides from Valentine theme in February, Easter in April and my classic Christmas Calendar in December. However, I thinking about how to twist this idea for reintroduction again here in 2016.
• recipe on cocktail and drinks (started in 2011) - even less regular in 2015 - so plenty of room for improvement in 2016
• as usual very regular contribution to Tea Time Treat (started in December 2012)
• recipe on ice cream (started in October 2013) - also quiet seldom in 2015 - so another area of improvement in 2016

So how did I get get along with my TO-DO-LIST of 2015 ??? Well I managed to less than 50% of my list, which means I will have some interesting thing to do here in 2016 :-) However, a very typical Danish saying is, what counts is to be part of the game and not necessary win the game !! Well in this Olympic year of 2016 it is the winning part, which is the most important part.

 TO DO LIST 2015:

• collect sloe during Autumn 2015, so I can make my own sloe gin
• collect elderberry during Autumn 2015
• make macaroons
• make a ginger bread decoration for Christmas 2015
• make my own marzipan from almonds for Christmas 2015
• work with more sugar candy type such as nougat and marshmallows
• Liquorice fudge
• Chai fudge
• make more ice cream
• Liquorice ice cream
• Saffron ice cream
• enjoy more drinks and cocktail
• Pomegranate Aperitif
• Cherry sparkling cocktail
• Apple gløgg
• enjoy home-made juices from both juice and vegetable
• PURPLE POWER
• FRESH´N BITTER
• PINK PASSION
• SPICY KALE
• APPLE APPEAL
• APPLE ORANGE PEAR TWIST
• Sweetheart Juice
• LADY IN RED
• GÅ AGURK - GO CUCUMBER
• COOL SUMMER BREEZE
• BLADBEDEBOOST - SPINACH BEET BOOST
• SWEET CARROT
• CARROT LIFT WITH GREEN TWIST
• RED POWER
• ENERGIZER
• LEMON MINT
• FRUITY CAULIFLOWER
• ORANGE DREAM
• ROAD RUNNER
• GREEN CLEANER
• VILD MED INGEFÆR - CRAZY ABOUT GINGER
• BODYBUILDER
• PARSLEY HORSERADISH
• WORK OUT WONDER
• KÅL & KIWI - CABBAGE & KIWI
• GREEN GINGER
• MUSCLE JUICE
• SOMETHING SPECIAL
• DANISH DYNAMITE
• use the herbs from my kitchen/nature garden more actively
• Ramson salt
• Elder flower cordial a la Lønnestræde

Coming to the end of this very long blog text I would like to share a "TO DO" list with you of the things, which I would like work with in my kitchen during 2015:6

   

      TO DO LIST 2016:

• collect sloe during Autumn 2016, so I can make my own sloe gin
• collect elderberry during Autumn 2016
• make macaroons
• make a ginger bread decoration for Christmas 2016
• make my own marzipan from almonds for Christmas 2016
• work with more sugar candy type such as nougat and marshmallows
• make more ice cream
• enjoy more drinks and cocktail
• use the herbs and other stuff from my kitchen garden / nature more actively
• work more with cakes and desserts from the French kitchen
• make more soups
• try to sell some of all my home-made jams

So let´s see how many of these "TO DO" points, which I managed to cross during the brand new year of 2016, at least I have 363 days in front of me to do something about it :-)

Kitchen status on 2015:

Review day: 1 January 2016
Recipes baked during 2015 from "Hjemmebagt": 0 (2 accomplished at 31 December 2015)
Amount of new cooking books in my kitchen: 0 new cooking book (77 books at end of 2015)
Page views in 2015: 54.617 (total page views of 241.691 at 31st December 2015)
Publish posts in 2015: 182 posts (total posts of 1167 at 31st December 2015)

Top 10 of the most popular blog posts published during 2015:

1. Best bread of the World (Verdens bedste brød) - published 4 January 2015
2. Transformation fra grim ælling til flot svane - published 31 March 2015
3. Salted almonds - published 25 July 2015
4. Liquorice fudge- published 9 January 2015
5. Fredsted lakrids te - published 6 January 2015 & Mr & Mrs Croque - published 23 February 2015
6. Cookies with raspberry and white chocolate - published 14 March 2015
7. Svanen er landet - published 6 March 2015
8. The last meal !!! of 2014 - published 1 January 2015
9. Gazpacho - published 8 September
10. Brownie-style cake with yogurt - published 22 May 2015