Crispbread Classic a la Svansø

Besides from the breads (oat flakes bread with linseed & Rowan's five grain bread), which I baked for last week-end´s get-together for rowers participating in the Danish Summer rowing trip on the Thames, I also make some classic crispbread.

Making this crispbreads I used the easy approach in form of a plastic bag from Svansø full of the grain mix, so I did not have to buy five bags of various grains (oat flakes, sun flower seeds, linseed, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds), where you do not everything up.

It is a very process to make your own crispbread. You just mix the dough together on a stand-alone mixer, put the dough between pieces of baking paper before rolling the dough very fine followed by baking the crispbread. You can actually make these crispbread without getting your hands in contact with the dough.

The taste in these crispbread is perfect, so I will for sure make them another time in my little kitchen.


Crispbread Classic a la Svansø:

• 310 g of Svansø Knækbrød Classic mix
• 300 g wheat flour
• 1 dl olive oil
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 300 g water

1. Heat up the fan oven to 170'C.¨
2. Weigh all the ingredients into the mixing bowl of a stand alone mixer.
3. Stir the dough into a homogeneous mass.
4. Divide the portion into two equal portion, which is rolled out between two pieces of baking paper using a rolling pin.
5. Remove the top baking paper, followed by cutting the dough into the individual pieces.
6. Bake the crispbread at 170'C, until they are crisp and brownish in colour.
7. After baking the crispbread break them into individual pieces.
8. Cool them down and store them in air thigh container.

Mojito

One of the big drinks in connection with New Year here in Denmark is apparently Mojito, as you buy limes fruits and mint leaves in all Danish supermarkets with respect for them shelf. So right after New Year you can buy all the leftovers of mint plants/bunches of mints and limes, as January is the month of dieting and fitness upon a calorie rich month of December full of food, alcohol and sweets.

Otherwise the Mojito is more of summer cocktail for me due to it´s coolness of fresh mint leaves and plenty of ice cubes and fresh flavour notes from the mashed lime.

So after I have been sweating seriously in rowing machine, I will go home and make myself a Mojito as a more funny way of getting my much needed C-vitamins !!!

Adding the sugar into the lime and mint leaves, before mashing everything together is giving a better dissolution of the sugar and better sweetness in my opinion compared to added the sugar after the mashing process.

Mojito: - 1 serving

• ½ lime - cut in 4 halves
• 12 mint leaves
• 4 teaspoon of sugar
• 5 cl rum
• ice cubes
• sparkling water / club soda

1. Place the lime halves, mint leaves and sugar in a high-ball glass.
2. Mash it well together mortar.
3. Add in the rum.
4. Fill the glass with ice cubes.
5. Top with sparkling water / club soda.
6. Place a straw in the mojito.

You can buy a ready-to-use Mojito mix, where you "only" need to add in the rum and ice cubes, before you have a ready-to-drink mojito such as the Funkin drink mixes. You should "only" use such a mix, if you like to drink a too sweet and too acid mojito without to much lime/mint flavour profile. If you like to drink a less sweet and more flavourful Mojito, I will strongly recommend to make your own mojito and stay very clear of the Funkin drink mix. One Funkin drink mix cost approx 1.32 €/pack.

Product test - Della Nonna Soup from Il Fornaio

I assume you from time to time find yourself in a similar situation, where you have no idea at all, what to serve for dinner in the evening ! And if you want to stay clear from the fast solution like fast food like take away, it can be difficult to find an interesting and tasteful option.

Recently, I found such a quick solution from Il Fornaio for dinner in form of a soup meal kit. The main ingredients in this soup is whole grain rice, beans, peas and lentils, potatoes, carrots, onions and tomatoes. It is giving you two servings.

The plastic bags contains all the dry matter for the soup. As other ingredients you need as well to have olive oil and water, which I assume you can find in all kitchens.  The total cooking time is 15-20 minutes, this is not a quick fix-it solution, if you are looking to have a hot meal in less than 10 minutes.

The taste is decent, but no magic happens from a flavour view point. I do not think, I will be making a new purchase of this soup due to the lack of a great taste.

Product test - Risotto with Karl Johan mushrooms from Il Formaio

Sometimes I do not have a lot of time to both cook a meal from scratch in the evening, and here it can be difficult to find a fast and good solution for such occasion.

Recently I found this solution in my local supermarket in form of risotto with Karl Johan mushrooms from Il Fornaio, which contains two servings.

The plastic bags contains all the dry matter for the risotto. As other ingredients you need as well to have olive oil, white wine and Parmesan cheese in your kitchen, ingredients which my kitchen always have inside. The parsley is an optional extra ingredients. The total cooking time is 15 minutes, which is the case for making your own home-made risotto, so the time saving element is the fact, that you do not need to make any ingredients preparation, as you simply add the entire bag into the cooking pot and no shopping is neither as well.

The taste was excellent and reminded me about a home-made risotto prepared to the bottom. I can certainly see myself buying some bags of this risotto.

Lazy Sunday breakfast

Finally a lazy Sunday, where I had no need of getting early up and eat the usual bowl of muesli with milk and drink a glass of milk, before rushing off to the rowing club for an early morning row at 7.00 o'clock !!!

So I spend yesterday afternoon preparing for this lazy breakfast in bed making  rhubarb compote and muesli made from honey roasted oat/rye flakes, roasted nuts and raisins. These two key ingredients were to eaten together with real Greek yogurt with the traditional fat level (= 10% fat - uuhmm), served in my very own glass bowl from the Chobani yogurt bar in New York :-))

I also enjoyed a glass of apple juice from Løgismose with a touch of mint. It was a good apple juice, but I could NOT detected any touch of mint anywhere in the apple juice. In my opinion you should be able to taste the ingredients, if it is high lighten on the product !!!

Yes, I spend some time preparing for some part of the breakfast, and when I spend no time making croissants !!! I simply used a ready-to-bake croissant dough, which I pimped with a small tea spoon of speculoos = Belgian Nutella baked in a inner core if the croissant.

While I was enjoying breakfast in bed reading new papers (being a bit behind on Friday´s and Saturday´s local newspapers), Hannibal the Cat was taking a nap in the bathroom sink after a night out in mouse-town.

Bread mixture with carrot and red beet from Urtekram

I found this bread mix from Urtekram in my local supermarket. And as I was getting a 20% discount I decide to buy a bag and test it out. Besides from flour the bread mix contains dried carrot and red beet "stuff", which is giving colour to the dough as well as final bread. Looking into the bread mixture being dried, you can not the orange or purple colour of these vegetable, however, when you have added in the water and start to knead the dough, the colour is turned on !!!

In my opinion you can easily increase the water amount from 500 g (5 dl) to 550 g (5½ dl), as the dough is quiet firm to work with. I decided to use the recommend water amount, as I had no idea, how it would the dough would work during the kneading process.

Besides from the water you have to add salt, oil and yeast to bake this bread mixture. I was paying approx 30 DDK for this bread mixture, so it would be cheaper for you to bake your own bread (still using organic wheat flour), and when add some grated carrots and red beet into the dough. However, I am can easily see the advantages of using the bread mixture, if you do not have flour being a basic ingredients in your kitchen.

So would I buy this bread mixture again myself. Yes, I would buy the bread mixture, if I can get it with a discount, otherwise I find it too expensive.

Cosmopolitan Cocktail

I have found some ready-to-use cocktails mixes in my local supermarket as a special offer. And I decided to buy one of each cocktail mixes, so I can compare it against a home-made version of a similar cocktail. Each ready-to-use cocktail costed 10 DKK/mix, which is giving one cocktail each.

I decided to start of with Cosmopolitan, as I had some cranberry juice available in my refrigerator.

The ready-to-use cocktail for a Cosmopolitan needed addition of vodka. And it had a more red colour compared to my home-made version of Cosmopolitan. The taste profile of the ready-to-use Cosmopolitan drink was actually quiet good, not being chemical or synthetic at all.

I mixed my home-made version of Cosmopolitan based on this recipe:

Cosmopolitan: - 1 cocktail

• 4 cl vodka
• 2 cl Cointreau
• 5 cl cranberry juice
• 1 cl Rose´s lime juice
• Ice cubes

1. Pour all the ingredients into a shaker containing ice cubes. Shake well.
2. Pour the cocktail into a cocktail glass and add in some ice cubes
3. Cheers

Product test 7 - Urtekram dinner kit Thai nudles

I have been taking another step towards the finishing line trying the entire range of dinner kits from Urtekram, the first being whole grain lasagna, the second being chicken with cinnamon and curry and the third being Morocco dinner kit .

The fourth and final box tested in my kitchen is a mild Thai wok dish, again made with chicken. This time I made a reduction in the cooking time of 5 minutes to maintain of a bit in the vegetable. Another 5 minutes reduction for the cooking time with the vegetables would have been even better in my opinion.


The Thai dish is the best tasting of the four different dinner kits, but again the taste is too mild for my expectation to the Thai kitchen. A more rich taste/flavour, perhaps combined with coconut milk, would have been a way of fulfilling my idea about the Thai kitchen.

And asking the usual question of mine, would I have paid full price for this Thai meal dinner kit ? And yet again my answer would have to be NO.

Product test 6 - Urtekram dinner kit Morocco meal

I have been taking another step towards the finishing line trying the entire range of dinner kits from Urtekram, the first being whole grain lasagna and the second being chicken with cinnamon and curry . And the third box tested in my kitchen is Morocco meal made with yet another portion of chicken, as I could not find any fresh lamb in the supermarket. For me the suggestion of using pork meat is not the best recommendation having the idea of Morocco in mind !!!

I used a mix of tomatoes, squash and carrots as vegetable in this dish. And again I find he entire cooking time of 20 minutes after addition of the vegetables is too long, if you prefer NOT to have over-boiled vegetable. So here I would suggest 15 minutes instead of.

For me Morocco food is interesting flavour combination of lemon, mint, raisins and cinnamon. This dinner kit is NOT fulfilling these expectation of mine, the flavour is not really there as all, just being very boring.

Asking myself again, would I pay full price for this Morocco meal dinner kit ? And again my answer would be NO.

Product test 5 - Urtekram dinner kit chicken with cinnamon and curry

Slowly I am cooking my way through the various dinner kits from Urtekram, the first being whole grain lasagna. And the second box tested in my kitchen is chicken with cinnamon and curry.

The chicken pieces are coated in a cinnamon mix before roasting them in the oven. The vegetable part (600 g) was made up of carrots, celery, pasternak, onions and cloves of garlic, which first is fried in oil, prior to adding to spelt grains. spices mix and water for boiling this spelt/vegetable mix. Before serving you are adding coconut pieces and raisins as topping.


My overall verdict of the entire meal is, that it is not fantastic or interesting tasting:

• I would preferred a stronger taste of curry
• Using less water for the vegetable/spelt mix
• Replacing some of the water with coconut milk for a more creamy mouth feel.

However, the coating of the kitchen with cinnamon mix was excellent.

The final question to myself is, would I pay full price for this cinnamon/curry dinner kit ? The short answer to this specific question is NO.

Product test 4 - Urtekram dinner kit whole grain lasagna

As I was able to buy this dinner kits from Urtekram at very good price as "here & now" offer in Fakta I decided to try the entire collection of these dinner kits.

My "first" trial was using the whole grain lasagna kit, where you need to have minced meat, various vegetable and grated cheese as minimum beside for the actual dinner kit box. As extra supplement you also add tomato concentrate as well.

As vegetable I used 100 g carrots, 100 g leek, 100 g celery, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic and 200 g tomato concentrate. For the cheese topping I mixed the required 140 g of grated cheese with 40 g grated Parmesan cheese.

The final lasagna turned pretty well using these extra supplements of garlic, tomato concentrate and Parmesan cheese. I did not miss the lack of bechamel sauce, which is not a part of this dinner kit.

However, if you have to pay full price for this dinner kit, which consists of lasagna plates and two different seasoning, I think it is too expensive as the tomato concentrate is not a part of it.

Using a "normal" recipe on your own, you are actual able to a similar or even better tasting lasagna at a lower price.

Product test 3 - cream puffs from Frelsens Chokolade

I am not a big cream puff fan, but sometimes the cream puffs in the Frelsens Chokolade just looks to interesting to pass by without stepping inside to buy some. And as I eat my way through the cream puffs I most times gets disappointed as the taste is either too sweet or too bitter for me.

This time is was the cream puff commercial about a summer cream puff, which lured me into Frelsens Chokolade. I broth a collection of 6 cream puffs, two of each flavour combination:

• white cream puff - white chocolate with raspberry filling and raspberry topping
• dark brown cream puff - dark chocolate with liquorice filling with liquorice topping
• light brown cream puff - milk chocolate with plain filling

I really dislike dark chocolate due to the bitterness in this type of chocolate, so a normal cream puff with dark chocolate is not my favourite, so therefore I wanted to try cream puff with a milk chocolate coating. And this was neither a favourite of mine, as the sweetness in the milk chocolate and the sweetness in the plain cream puff filling was just TOO SWEET for me, and I normally has a "sweet tooth" as we say here in Denmark.

The dark chocolate cream puff with a liquorice filling was more interesting. It was still not perfect in my opinion, as I want liquorice food to actually taste of liquorice. And here in the cream puff filling needs more liquorice taste, if it wants to please my taste buds.

I found the summer cream puff to be the best cream puff of these three cream puffs. The cream puff filling had a good taste balance between sweetness and freshness, so the raspberry filling was tasting of real raspberries. And the combination with white chocolate did not turn to sweet due to the freshness of the cream puff filling.

But the summer cream puff did not managed to turn me without a cream puff fan yet.

Product test 2 - cup cakes from Kvickly

Cup cake, cup cake and yet some more cup cakes !!!! Even in Vejle the trend of cup cakes has arrived at the bakers as well as in super markets bakery department. So I bravely enough decided to try some of these cup cakes sold by Kvickly.

The blue topping is a blueberry cup cake, the orange topping is a carrot cup cake and the white topping with the red spots is a raspberry cup cake.

My overall impression is, that these cup cakes are too industrialised in taste and texture. They taste OK, but they are not fantastic in any way at all.

Anyway I have no made up my opinion about cup cakes in general. I believe, that I need to both bake/create my own cup cakes as well as try some from a more artisan cup cake producer. Can you recommend any cup cake recipe and/or cup cake shop ? If yes, please feel free to leave a comment or mail me :-)

Product test 1 - Wasa cripsbread with cinnamon

This only reason why I decided to buy this Wasa crispbread was because, the crispbread was sold including a metallic tin. Place a metallic tin as a part of food pack, and YES I will place it in the shopping basket !!!

Luckily enough for me, this round shaped crispbread having the flavour of cinnamon is actual tasting very good. So it has been good bargain for me: good taste AND the metallic tin.