Your help is needed again !

Can you believe it - I forgot to celebrate Hannibal turning 3 years Wednesday this week !!!!

Perhaps I should make a delayed birthday party for him, as I believe, he will not know the date of his actual birthday ? What do you think ?

Any way I need your help again to make the decision about, which cake I should bring with me on a picnic row taking place next week. This time is has been more difficult to find the recipes for voting, as I have to avoid the use of milk due to a lactose-intolerant rower.

However, here is the cake candidates, which you can choose from:

• Carrot muffin
• Chocolate muffin
• Brownie with berries

So please help me making this decision by participating in the on-going vote on my blog. And this voting is ending the same day as Denmark has to vote about the composition of a new parliament. So 15 September is a day with two interesting voting taking place.

Apple Aquavit

I have found a small recipe collection in a local supermarket with various suggestion for home-made flavoured aquavit. As the apple season is booming at the time, I decided to try one of the recipes on apple flavoured aquavit.You can either use crab apple or ordinary apples. As I have no access to crab apples, I decided to use small apples instead of.


Actual I contacted a good friend in a neighbour city, who has a lot of apple trees, which she could provided me with these small apples. And I received this reply in form of a picture of a shoe in size 36.

I am starting to have a smaller collection of various fruit alcoholcs using the fruit of the actual on-going season. Previously this Summer I have making blackcurrant rum and raspberry vodka. So some friends and I have discussing the options of having a sensory evaluation of all these fruit alcohols. It could be a funny event in many different way, so I am not planning to be driving home afterwards !!!!


Apple Aquavit:

• 70 cl Brøndums Snaps Klar
• Small apples
• 1 whole cinnamon stick

1. Fill a 1 l glass with boiling water as a starting point
2. Wash the apples.
3. Empty the glass for boiling water.
4. Fill half of the glass with the small apples.
5. Add the cinnamon stick
6. Fill up the glass with Brøndums Snaps Klar
7. Let the Apple Aquavit stand for 2-3 months.
8. Remove the apples and cinnamon. Let the aquavit pass through a coffee filter.
9. Enjoy the Apple Aquavit together with dessert.

Plums hiding in a cake

Another way of getting safely through the plum season is to use the plums in a cake. I have uses this recipe for a plum cake called "Blommer i skjul", which translates into "Plums in hiding" as inspiration source. You can find the original recipe here:  http://www.dansukker.dk/dk/Tema/ÅRET_RUNDT/Sommer/Pluk_blommer.aspx

A serving suggestion is to served this plum cake with some vanilla ice cream, which actually is a perfect balance between the freshness from the plum cake and the sweetness coming from the ice cream :-)


Plums in hiding:

• 1000 g plums before stone removing
• 70 g brown sugar
• 170 g cake flour
• 90 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 125 g butter
• 1 egg
• 1 dl milk
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves

1. Heat the oven to 200'C - conventional oven.
2. Wash the plums, cut them into half size and remove the stone.
3. Place the plums with open side upside in a oven-stable dish.
4. Spread the brown sugar on top of the plums.
5. Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves together in a mixing bowl.
6. Cut the butter into small pieces.
7. Add the butter into the flour-sugar mix, mixing everything together using your fingers. It should like a grainy mass.
8. Add the egg and milk into this mix. Stir everything together using a wood spoon.
9. Add the cake dough on top of the plum.
10. Bake in the middle of the oven at 200'C for 30 minutes.
11. Check if the dough is baked, before removing the cake.
12. Eat and enjoy

Lønnestæde´s plum jam with cinnamon and star anise

The plum season is over us, under us and around us. I love Danish plums, as they have a perfect balance between juiciness and taste compared to the unripened tasteless plums coming from outside Denmark. And many times you can get free plums from family, friends or work colleagues, who is doing their best to get ride of their over-load of plums.

I have used inspiration from this recipe with regards to the use of spices: http://www.dansukker.dk/dk/Tema/ÅRET_RUNDT/Sommer/Pluk_blommer.aspx. However, I find the ratio of 2 part of fruit to 1 part of sugar to suit my taste buds the best instead of 1 part fruit to 1 part sugar.

Plums are quiet sweet in taste like raspberries, so addition of vinegar can help to boost the fruit flavour, as it minimise the overall sweetness. So I decided to add apple vinegar, just like I did in raspberry jam.

As I am lazy "chef" I only cut the plums into 4 pieces, which actual is giving quiet some big plum chunks. However, blending my jam is not an options for me, as I want pieces in my jam. Therefore consider to cut the plums into smaller pieces, if you are less lazy, than I am.

Lønnestræde plum jam:

• 900 g plums - without stones
• 100 g water
• 450 g sugar
• 2 sticks of cinnamon
• 4 star anise
• 20 g pectin powder
• 1 tablespoon apple vinegar

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 gelling powder and agitate.It is important NOT to add the sugar at this stage, as the gelling powder need the water from the fruit to hydrate sufficiently.
5. Bring the fruit to the boiling point and let it boil for 2 minutes.
6. Add the sugar to the fruit. It is very important, that you add the sugar little by little, while you agitate, in order to pre-gelling/gel lumps in the jam.
7. Bring the fruit and sugar to the boiling point again and boil for another 2 minutes.
8. Adjust the balance between the sweetness and the fruit flavour by adding vinegar into the jam.
9. Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water. I do not use any preservatives in my home-made jam, so this is important to increase shelf-life of your jam. Another thing you can do is to store the jam cold afterwards. As the jam is made from 3 parts of fruit and 1 part of sugar, the sugar content is not high enough to preserve the jam.
10. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass
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Perfect evening with barbecue and tea lights in the garden

The annual barbecue and tea light garden event took placed this Saturday evening in PERFECT WEATHER. This year we had to find a day in September, before the majority of us had room in our calendars to meet up in person !!! Last year we had the barbecue event in July, where we only managed to eat the starter out-side, before rain forced us to escape in-side with food, drinks and the plates to squeezed 6 people around a table sitting 4 people !!!

Hannibal the Cat decided to try out a chair to check, if the cuchin was soft enough for the guest to sit on !!! He is a very considerating cat.

The principal of participating in the annual barbecue garden event is, that each participant has the responsibility for bringing one dish, which either is a starter, meat main course or vegetable main course. My responsibility is to take care of the grill, tea light for the garden, the drinks and the dessert.

In my opinion is a great way to entertain guests, as I can relax without cleaning the entire house before opening up the door for the guests and making three courses of food.

As starter my cousin was bringing a sushi collection, which she had found having a big discount. Great taste. However, 3 people to share this as a starter was really filling us up. We could easily have been 4-6 people sharing this sushi portion as a starter.

As "bread" for the appetizer as well as the main course I had baked these bread sticks using a recipe from my bread book "Hjemmebagt" I will share my feed-back on this recipe later on. The important thing is, that they taste great.

As main course my cousin had made beef rolls with various herbs. While, these rolls were on the grill, we made a common toast with a forth friend sitting in Italy. We were missing you, hopefully you will join us next year !!!

As the vegetable part  for the beef rolls we could choose between two different salads or enjoy both. The salad to the right was made of tomatoes, feta, dressing of oil and vinegar and plenty of garlics, so any vampires in surroundings would have avioded  us !!! The salad to the left side was made of cous cous, fried walnuts, mushrooms, fried egg plants and parsley. Both salads were delicious :-)

The finish beef rolls. They were tasting great :-)

The dessert was a refreshing version being a combination of pine apple, plums, rosemary and rum. I will share some details about this dessert later on this week. This is the un-prepared version.

The prepared version of the dessert.

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As the dark was settling around us, it was time for me to light all the tea lights located at various placed in my little "park". The good thing about having the barbecue in September is, that we have more time to enjoy all these tea lights, as the sun is away around 20.30-20.45 at this time of the year.

Finally we enjoyed a cup of tea and coffee sitting around the fire place draped in some plaids.

Thank you to my good friends, who participated in the annual barbecue garden event. I really enjoy your company as well as your great food. After a fast evaluation I have decided to invite you again next year :-) Hopefully you feel the same !!!

Kitchen equipment 9 - old coffee cups

I found these three old coffee cups in a secondhand shop two days to a price of 15 DKK (= 2 €) per coffee cup. And my mother decided, that she would pay for these cups and give them to me as a gift :-)

I have recently been seeing a lot of photos in magazines as well as out here in blog-land, where old coffee cups are being used for serving of various types of dessert/ice cream. I did not have such coffee cups before now, so now I can be trendy again !!! I am really looking forward to serve dessert in my coffee cups, and I will of cause share pictures of this use with you, when it happens.

Grill menu at Hopballe Mølle

Is this not a idyllic view ? This is Hopballe Mølle located close to Vejle.

Hopballe Mølle produces chickens, which is getting a special developed fodder combined with slower growth compared to the "normal" industrial chicken production. Besides from producing chicken, Hopballe Mølle is selling their own chickens in their shop as well as turning the chicken into food, which you can eat in their restaurant.

During the Summer period you can enjoy a grill menu each Friday and Saturday evening on the patio located next to mill dam. Some friends and I decided to test this grill menu on one of the only Summer evenings, which we had during the Summer of 2011 !!!!

The grill menu is served in a separate location divided from the a la cart guests, which I find is a very good idea.

The starter was a some kind of fish, I have forgotten this type, served in a very creamy sauce. It was a very nice beginning to this grill evening.

After the starter we could choose from a huge collection of various olives, onions, pesto etc as well as four different types of salads. All the salads were very tasteful.

As "main course" we were served three different types of meat. Some very tender beef, rosemary marinated chicken breast and chicken on a stick. You could a much meat as you wanted, so no restrictions on the amount of meat.

As dessert we had chocolate porfitiroles and strawberry marinated in Grand Marnier. The chocolate part was OK, but the strawberries was just so perfect. I believe, that I had 3 servings of the strawberry :-)

The service was better this evening compared to the first time, where I was eating lunch at Hopballe Mølle.The waiter agreed to change my wine menu from one glass of white wine and one glass of red wine into two glasses of white wine instead of. The waiter was checking, if we liked the food and was also sharing their way of making the strawberry dessert.

So all in all, it was a nice evening with good food and in great company of friends.