Foccacia bread with tomato & rosemary a la Tupperware

I have got this recipe on foccacia bread with tomato & rosemary in connection with a Tupperware demonstration. It is very easy to make the dough, as you do not have to knead it together, you just stir it together in the mixing bowl. I divided the original recipe into two, as I only had one silicone form.

Foccacia bread with tomato & rosemary a la Tupperware: - 1 bread

• 12 g fresh yeast
• 2½ dl water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 125 g wheat flour
• 125 g tipo 00 flour
• tomato, fresh rosemary, salt & olive oil as topping

1. Add yeast, water, olive oil, salt & both types of flour into a medium size mixing bowl.
2. Stir all the ingredients into a homogeneous mass using a cooking spoon.
3. Fill the dough into a rectangular shaped silicone form (18 x 25 cm).
4. Place chopped tomatoes into the dough, sprinkle with olive oil, salt & rosemary.
5. Let the bread dough raise in the oven with a temperature of 50'C for 30 minutes.
6. Remove the dough from the oven.
7. Heat up the oven to 220'C.
8. Bake the bread at 220'C for approx 20 minutes.
9. Serve the bread together with vegetable bolognese.

Vibe Summer dress - fourth progress

After having knitted 11 cm of the upper part of Vibe Summer dress in rib pattern, it is now time for me to divide the knitting dress into the back & front part of the dress.

I will now start to make the arm part in form of raglan on the back side with reduction in amount of knit mask on every second needle. 

Vegetable bolognese a la Søndag

I have found this recipe on vegetable bolognese in the vegetable magazine of "Søndag" (issue 16/2020). The beef has been replaced with red lentils as the protein part of the meal. The original recipe is for two serving, however I decided to double up the recipe, so I had some extra portions for easy food later on in the weeks.

Next time I think, that I will increase the use of tomato concentrates to boost the tomato flavour. As options vegetable inclusion I would also consider to include some pepper fruit on the top of the carrot (vegetable bolognese with extra tomato).

The red lentils is actually giving a nice texture, a little like beef texture.

I served this dish together with freshly baked foccacia bread with tomato and rosemary..

Vegetable bolognese a la Søndag: - 4 servings

• 1 large onion - finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• 2 tablespoon tomato concentrate
• 1 tin (400 g) of canned tomato
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 carrots - peeled and medium grated
• 6 dl water
• 70 g red lentils
• salt & pepper for seasoning
• 400 g spaghetti
• grated parmesan cheese
• rucola

1. Fry the onion and garlic in hot olive oil, so the onion becomes clear in colour.
2. Add in the tomato concentrate and let it fry for ½ minute.
3. Add in the canned tomatoes with the dried herbs.
4. Add in the water, grated carrot, lentil. Season with salt & pepper.
5. Bring the mixture to the boil.
6. Let the bolognese simmer under lid for 1 hour.
7. Serve the bolognese with boiled spaghetti, grated parmesan, rucola and foccacia.

Peach ice tea

I have located this recipe on peach ice tea in the 2020 Spring/Summer  edition of the Tupperware catalog. I decided to use my teapot, which has a metallic filter to make this ice tea. The portion of peach-tea mixture was more than enough to fill up my metallic tea filter, so you can actually make two portions of ice tea.¨

I could also imaging to used canned apricot instead of peach for such ice tea, or even no addition of canned fruit.

The peach flavour is not very dominated. And you can easily taste the tea in the mixture.

Peach ice tea:  - 2 liter

• 3 tablespoon of black tea
• 425 g canned peach - save 2 tablespoons of the sugar syrup
• 1-1.25 l cold water (0-max 25'C)
• ice cubes - optional
• twig of green herbs such as mints or lemon balm

1. Separate the canned peach fruit from the sugar syrup using a sieve. Save 2 tablespoons of the sugar syrup.
2. Place the peach in a smaller mixing bowl and mash the fruit like mashed potatoes using a potato masher.
3. Pour in the sugar syrup and black tea leaves, and stir.
4. Fill ½ the portion into the metallic tea filter.
5. Pour cold water into the tea pot. I noticed, that the draining of water filling through water into the the filter, was very bad. So therefore I filled water into the tea pot and when afterwards placed the tea filter into the tea pot.
6. Place the tea pot cold in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours, so let the peach-tea mixture infuse the water.
7. Remove the tea filter from the tea pot.
8. Fill ice cubes and optional herbs twig into a high ball glass and fill up with the ice tea.
9. Enjoy :-)

Chocolate cake a la Tupperware

I recently brought a new Tupperware silicone parchment and included with baking parchment I got a MicroPro ring as well. The ring can be used for baking. A few days ago, I got a Tupperware recipe on a chocolate cake, which could be baked in this MicroPro ring.

When I got the recipe, I noticed, that the only chocolate part was three tablespoons of cocoa powder. For me it is too little to call it a real chocolate cake, so therefore I decided to include 50 g chopped chocolate as well.
As I do not like dark chocolate, I decided to use dark milk chocolate instead (dark milk chocolate contains 47% cocoa beans). I find dark milk chocolate to have less of a sweet taste, where some milk chocolate can be very sweet in taste. Use what ever chocolate, which you have a preference for.

Chocolade cake a la Tupperware: - 1 cake

• 1 egg
• 150 g sugar
• 75 g butter - melted
• 100 g whole fat milk
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 3 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 125 g (cake) flour
• 50 g dark milk chocolade - medium chopped

1. Heat up the oven to 170'C.
2. Add the egg and sugar into a medium size bowl, whip it together with an electrical mixer.
3. Add in the melted butter, milk, flour, cocoa powder, vanilla sugar and baking powder. Whip again into a homogeneous mass.
4. Stir in the chopped milk chocolate pieces into the cake dough.
5. Place the Tupperware MicroPro ring on top of baking parchment.
6. Fill the cake dough into the MicroPro ring.
7. Place the cake in the middle of the oven, and bake the cake at 170 for 30-40 minutes.
8. Check, that the cake is baked, before you take it out of the oven.
9. Pull softly in the MicroPro ring from time to time, so get the cake loose.
10. Remove the MicroPro ring and let the cake cool down on the baking parchment.
11. Serve the cake.

Vibe Summer dress - third progress

It has taken me quiet some time to get to knit the middle part of the Vibe Summer dress !

When I had finished the lower part of the Summer dress and started to knit the middle part of the Summer dress, I realized, that I had made a mistake changing pattern from the low rib part of the dress to the pattern of the lower part of the dress and increasing the amount of knit masks. Therefore, I reeled up the entire knitted lower part (35 cm of knitting), and re-started again.

When you have spend quiet some money (620 DKK on the yarn), I do not want a second quality dress, I want the premium quality. So, after having knitted the lower part of the Vibe Summer dress twice, I have knitted 16 rows of the middle part. And I can now move on top the upper part of the dress, which consist of rib knitting.

DL crisp bread

After I have enjoyed all these crisp breads a la Skovdal it is time to bake to more crisp bread. And I here I have located an old recipe, which a colleague of mine has shared with.

I call this recipe DL crisp bread, as the majority of the ingredients are measured out in DL !!!

DL crisp bread a la Skovdal: - 30-40 pieces

• 1 dl oat flakes
• 1 dl sesame seeds
• 1 dl linseed
• 1 dl sunflower seeds
• 1 dl poppy seeds
• 2½ dl wheat flour or spelt flour (use what you have)
• 1 dl whole grain wheat flour
• 2 dl water
• 1 dl olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt

1. Heat up the fan oven to 180'C.
2. Add all the dry ingredients in a medium size mixing bowl.
3. Stir all the dry ingredients it together, before you add in the water. This way you ensure an even mix between flour and seeds.
4. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
5. Divide the crisp bread dough into two portion to get the size thin enough.
6. Place the crisp bread dough on a piece of baking parchment, place another piece of baking parchment on top of the crisp bread dough.
7. Use a rolling pin to flatten the crisp bread dough into a thinner size.
8. Remove the top baking parchment.
9. Cut the crisp bread into piece size, so it is easier to break into pieces after baking.
10. Place the crisp bread on a baking tray.
11. Bake the crisp bread at 180'C for approx 15 - 20 minutes, until it let golden in colour.
12. Cool down.
13. Store in an airtight container.

Easter Calender 2020 - Good bye

As the final touch to my Easter calendar 2020 I hereby share the top 3 list from this year's Easter Calender.

Top 3 list Easter Calendar 2020

Number 1: Easter buns with almonds and orange jam

Number 2: Easter carrot cake

Number 3: White port tonic

Easter lunch from Memu Bistro

For Easter lunch my mother and I had for this Easter ordered the food as take-away due to the corona virus. And we had selected Memu bistro as the supplier. Their Easter lunch consisted of 8 dishes and costed 225 DKK/person incl two types of bread and butter.

It tasted great :-)

As starter was the traditional lunch starter in form of marinated herrings with curry salad. This was followed by

boiled egg with scrimps

salmon salad

carpaccio  of red deer with lingonberries

roast beef

fish cakes with remoulade

tartlets with chickes,carrot and peas 

and as finishing touch lemon mousse with whipped cream and a gelled lemon juice layer between the mousse and the whipped cream. Recipe on home-made lemon mousse.

Easter decoration 2020

It is a Danish tradition to decorate your home with various lambs, eggs, chickens in the time up to Easter. It is also a Danish to tradition to bring tree branches to the living room, which when is decorate with various eggs decoration.

I have also started to hang up various Easter decorations with tape in my windows as a way to use all my mine Easter decorations.

It is not typical Danish to decorate your outdoor surroundings with colourfull eggs. This is much more tradition in Germany. However, I really like these outdoor decorations with eggs, so I have been doing this for the last 6 years. 

I typically "dig out" my big plastic box with Easter decorations items one month before Easter happens. This gives me plenty of time to both enjoy all my many Easter decorations, where some dates back to my childhood and other items have been brought in different countries in connection with either business or holiday travels.

Easter table cloth

Besides from these Easter paper decorations I have brought an Easter table cloth from Juna. The table cloth is made from 55% cotton and 45% polyester, and off cause the colour is yellow, which is Easter colour in my opinion.

 So, now I can also decorate my dining table in Easter style.

Easter Calendar 2020 - Easter cheese cake

Today is Easter Monday or second Easter day, which is the the final Easter vacation day here in Denmark.

I will celebrate this last day of Easter with cheese cake using this recipe on Champagne Cheese Cake as starting point. Instead of champagne/sparkling wine I will use apple juice. And the biscuit bottom layer will be blend of digetive biscuits and almonds grounded into flour.

I tried to use mirrow glaze from Tørsleffs in green colour. It did not work for me. First I tried 10 minutes in water with 70'C followed with 5 minutes in boiling water. The glaze was very thick to work with, and it was floating in a big lumpy formation on the top of the cake.

Easter cheese cake: - 8-10 servings

• Biscuit bottom:
• 120 digestive biscuits
• 100 g almonds grounded into flour (with the skin on)
• 130 g butter - melted
• Cake mass:
• 5 sheets of gelatine
• 400 g plain full fat cream cheese
• 1½ dl dairy whipping cream  
• 125 g icing sugar
• 2 dl apple juice 
• Green mirrow glaze from Tørsleffs - optional

Biscuit bottom:

1. Break the digestive biscuits into small pieces using a rolling pin. First place the biscuits and makroner in a freezing bag, so you can control the whereabouts of the cakes.
2. Grind the almonds into flour and mix together with the digestive biscuits pieces.
3. Melt the butter.
4. Stir the butter and biscuits together in a medium mixing bowl.
5. Afterwards press the mass into the bottom of the spring form (18-22 cm).
6. Place the mass cold.

Cake mass:

1. Place the gelatine sheets in a bowl with cold water, let the sheets soak for 5-10 minutes.
2. Add the cream cheese, icing sugar and dairy whipping cream in a medium mixing bowl, stir it together using an electrical mixer. 
3. Squeeze the gelatine sheets from excess water. Pour all the apple juice into a cooking pot and add in the gelatine leaves. Melt the gelatine sheets in the juice. 
4. Add the juice-gelatine into the cake mass, while you keep mixing to avoid lump formation.
5. Stir in the remaining sparkling wine by hand.
6. Fill the cake mass into the spring form on top of the biscuit layer.
7. Place the cake cold in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
8. Glaze the surface of the cake with mirrow glaze
9. Serve the cake with a glass of wine or a cup of tea :-)

Easter calendar 2020 - Easter cookies

Today it is Easter Sunday, which is the fourth day in the Danish Easter vacation.

And to day it is time to bake some cookies. I found this recipe on the weekly magazine "Hendes Verden" issue 15/2020, which I brought do to some knitting recipes on light sweater.

However, I also locate this recipe on a giant Easter cookie, which should be baked in the shape of an egg. However, in these times of corona virus I decided to bake this cookies as individual cookies.

Otherwise I have made no changes to the recipe. I find it to be a very good basic cookie recipe, which I easily think could be used for other types of cookies with addition of spices like cinnamon and other ingredients like raisins. Or change the sugar from plain sugar to brown sugar or muscavado sugar.

Easter cookies: - 25 cookies

• 100 g butter - soft
• 100 g sugar
• 2 tablespoons of syrup
• 1 egg
• 125 g (cake) wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 120 g (fine) oat flakes
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 bag of chocolate coated almonds

1. Heat up the fan oven to 170'C.
2. Whip the sugar, syrup and butter together with an electrical whipper.
3. Add in the egg, and whip for 1 minute.
4. Add in the flour, salt, vanilla sugar, baking soda and oat flakes.
5. Whip for another 2 minutes.
6. Cover two baking trays with baking parchment. 
7. Use two teaspoons to place the cookie dough on the baking tray with distance between each other.
8. Bake the cookies at 170'C for appox 15 minutes. After 8 minutes baking turn around with the baking trays to get an even baking.
9. Right after baking press a chocolate coated almond down into each cookie.
10. Cool down the cookie.
11. Store in an airtight container.
12. Enjoy with cup of tea/coffee :-)

Easter Calendar 2020 - White Port Tonic

Today it is Saturday, which is the third day in the Danish Easter vacation. So, let's celebrate this Saturday with a drink to keep the spirit up during these days of corona.

Instead of enjoying a a more normal gin tonic, lets enjoy a white port tonic !!!! I think, that certain of my friends will think, that now I have turned crazy !!!! Mixing white port with tonic instead of enjoying the known and trusted gin tonic !!!! And other of my friends, which are connoisseurs of port will think, that this is misbehaving against port !!!

I got this idea of mixing white port and tonic, when I purchased this white port, which was recommended to be served together with tonic.

White port tonic -1 drink

• 9-12 cl white port
• ice cubes
• slices of either orange or lemon - use what you have
• tonic

1. Start my adding the ice cubes into a long-ball glass.
2. Add in the slides of citrus fruit.
3. Fill in the white port.
4. Fill up the remaining of the glass with tonic.
5. Cheers and happy Easter to you :-)

Easter Calendar 2020 - Easter buns with almonds and orange jam

Today it is Good Friday (Langfredag) being the second day of the Danish Easter vacation. So today, I will enjoy my vacation time with a home-made bun for the blog post for my Easter Calendar 2020.

As usual I have used this recipe on classic buns as starting point combining it with inspiration from yesterday's Easter carrot cake using grounded almonds and replacing sugar with orange jam instead of.

Classic buns: - 16 buns

• 650 g wheat flour
• 100 orange jam
• 100 g fat (plain vegetable oil) or 120 g butter - personally I prefer butter
• 50 g fresh yeast
• 50 g egg - or just use 1 egg
• 8 g salt
• 250 g full-fat milk
• 100 g almonds - grounded into flour

1. Weigh all the ingredients directly into the mixing bowl of the stand alone mixer. Keep salt & orange jam away from the yeast.
2. Place the bowl on the stand-alone mixer.
3. Start knead the dough at speed 1 for 8 minutes.
4. Afterwards increase the speed to 4, knead for 2 minutes. Check the consistency of the dough. If it is not OK, when knead it at speed 4 for another 2 minutes. Again check the consistency. If needed, knead again for 1 minute and when check consistency of the dough.
5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place it on the kitchen table sprinkled with flour.
6. Let the entire dough raise for approx 20 minutes under a damp cloth.
7. When you evaluate, that the dough has raise enough, divide the dough into smaller pieces with a weight of 80 g each.
8. Shape the dough pieces into bun shapes. Place the bun pieces on the baking tray covered with baking parchment. 
9. Let the bun raise for second time for approx 40 minutes under a tea towel.
10. Heat up the oven to 200'C.
11. Bake the bun at 200'C for 10-15 minutes. After 8 minutes baking change the baking trays around, so the buns becomes evenly baked.
12. Cold down the buns, before serving them with a nice cup of tea/coffee.

Easter Calender 2020 - Easter carrot cake

Today it is Maundy Thursday (Skærtorsdag), which is a public holiday here in Denmark and starting off the Danish Easter vacation with 5 days off from work. It could be, that you are off from work, but this Easter you are not off from home due to the corona situation. So we are staying at home and staying away from each other to keep people around safe.

So, to keep me busy I have as usual created this little Easter Calendar 2020, where I every Easter day will be sharing a new recipe having a relation to Easter of some kind (according to my definition).

I have found this recipe on a carrot cake in Easter version at Dansukker. I decided to "only" to bake the cake and not to make the frosting to have a less calorie/energy dense cake. Instead of making a frosting from cream cheese, I will dust the cake upon serving.

I wonder why, this carrot cake is called a Easter carrot cake by Dansukker ? Perhaps it is due to high amount of eggs used (5 eggs), and back in time Easter was also the time of the year, where the hens would start to lay eggs again after a Winter without any eggs.

Easter carrot cake: - 12 pieces

• 300 g carrots - peeled and roughlt grated
• 3½ dl icing sugar
• 5 eggs - divided into egg white and egg yolk
• 230 g (cake) wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
• 1 teaspoon with top baking powder
• 100 g hazelnuts - grounded into flour
• 100 g almonds - roughly chopped
• 125 g butter - soft
• 1 dl orange jam

1. Divide the eggs into egg white and egg yolks.
2. Add the egg white and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Whip in a firmer foam. It actually takes some time to whip into a firmer foam, so be patient.
3. Add in wheat flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar, grounded hazelnuts and rougly chopped almonds. Stir it gentle with the whipped egg white foam.
4. Add in the egg yolks, orange jam and soft butter, and stir into a homogeneous mass.
5. Finally add in the grated carrots.
6. Heat up the oven to 175'C.
7. Fill the cake dough into a round shape form, 24 cm in diameter.
8. Bake the cake at 175'C in the lower part of the oven for 45-60 minutes.
9. Check that the cake is baked, before removing it from the oven.
10. Cool down the cake, before serving it.
11. Sprinkle with icing sugar on the cake prior to serving.

Vibe Summer dress - second progress

Vibe Summer dress - backside

After having knitted 12 cm of rib knit for the lower part of the Vibe dress, the pattern of the dress is changed from rib knitting into reverse knitting with smaller intersections of straight knitting. I do the knitting of the dress having the back side of the dress outside, as I will get a more equal knit doing the majority of the straight knitting.

I still have another 5 cm to knit of the bottom part of the dress, before the pattern will change.

Vibe Summer dress - front side

Palm Sunday - suggestions for home-made Easter treats

Welcome to Easter Calendar 2020

Easter is just about to start. In Denmark we have public Easter holiday in form of 5 Easter days incl. two days in the week-end (Thursday - Monday). This year Easter will quiet different compared to previous years due to the present corona virus. It is more or less impossible to travel outside Denmark in connection with Easter, so many people will be spending their vacation in Denmark keeping distance to each other.

So, option could be to make various Easter treats in your kitchen for sharing this your family.

The schools are closed the three days just before Easter, so so many Danes will have be on vacation as a family in this upcoming week.

As usual I will be celebrating the Easter with a small Easter calendar, where I will share a recipe from my kitchen on each of the Easter days. I hope you will look from time to time, so I am busy with in my little kitchen.

The first blog post for the Easter Calendar 2020 will be on the upcoming Maundy Thursday.

As a warm up you can take a look at some Easter calendar post from previous years. I am looking forward to see you again Thursday for this very first day in my Easter calender :-)

Easter eggs shaped scones from 2019

Orange kugelhopf from 2018

Easter cocktail from 2017

Hot Cross buns with tea and lemon from 2016

Easter waffles from 2015