Out eating again with rowers

"Shoothing star"

Some time ago I was out eating again with my rowing friends in connection with a rowing tour. We had decided to eat out instead of bringing the usual casserole served together with rice, which is typical rowing food.

There is not that many places to eat in Julesminde, in case you do not want to eat in small fish & chips shops, so we ended up at Spisestedet. This evening the menu was limited due to a big  buffet being served. We did not feel like eating buffet food (it did look fine and interesting), we all ended up eating the only seafood being available, which is typical Danish dish called "Shooting star".

"Shooting star" is a fried fish fillet and boiled fish fillet served on white toast bread. The fish fillets are decorated with scrimps, white asparagus and mayonnaise.

This version of "Shooting star" was OK, but not expectional. I could have "lived without" the slice of salmon (the only seafood, which I have a hate relationship to) and the asparagus coming directly from a can !!!

The restaurant was more than happy to exchange the traditional white toast bread with rye bread. Otherwise the service was suffering from few servants, all being very young and lighter forgetful. It was a completely different experience compared to eating at Rudolf Matis, however it price level is also in total different league.

Would I eat at Spisestedet another time ? I do not really know how to answer this question. The food was OK, but I would perhaps prefer cafe instead of, which would have similar or slight lower price level.

Æble-daddel brød from "Hjemmebagt"

Apple-date bread - uuhmm :-)

 "Hjemmebagt" - 73 recipes - 18 accomplished = 55 recipes to bake

Adding apple and date pieces into the dough

Bread after finished raising in raise cart

With Autumn ruling outside with rain and wind, it was a perfect opportunity to start baking bread again and thereby continue on my "task" to bake a single recipe in the baking book "Hjemmebagt". It is actually 5½ month, since I last have been baking anything from this baking book in form of ringridderboller, so it is about time, that I got baking again.

I took the decision to bake the bread called "Æble-daddel brød" (= Apple-date bread), which in mu opinion is very fitting to all the apples here in Autumn.

The bread is a mix of three different flours (fine spelt, whole grain spelt and durum flour), salt, buttermilk, water and then apples and date of cause.

After kneading the bread, the diced apple and date in added into the bread by gentle kneading, be careful doing this, otherwise you end up with apple and date pieces everywhere in the kitchen. And you should also be careful with using plenty of flour in the bread raise cart/basket for the the last raising, before the bread is baked. If you use too little flour, it is going to be difficult to get the bread dough out of the raise cart, as the dough is sticking to it.

The bread has a lovely flavour with some level of sweetness coming from the pieces of apple and date.

Bread dough to be baked

Baked bread

Dinner af "Grappa"

Soup of Jerusalem artichoke

Recently I had the opportunity to eat at Restaurant Grappa located in Århus with a group of colleagues. Afterwards I was left with mixed impression, as some of the food was OK, while the rest was bland. Perhaps it related to the fact, that we were such a big group of people, that the menu had been ordered in advance for all of us, so we all served the same food.

Starter with salmon

We started with a thick creamy soup of Jerusalem artichoke. The texture was great, but the taste was too salty for me. I really dis-like salty food.

The second starter was salmon. It would nice, but after being served too much salmon during the years, I prefer anything other seafood than salmon. The three balls of salmon all had the same flavour profile, here it would have been great, if they have had three different flavours.

Beef with red & yellow beetroot

One of my work colleagues can not tolerate salmon, here the staff react smooth and fast and supplied another starter in form buchetta. She shared some of it with me and another colleague. And this really taste excellent !!!!

As main course we got beef served with potato mash, red & yellow beetroot. The colours was good, but again I experienced too so salt on the beef !!!

As a sweet ending we of cause were served tiramisu, which was pretty good being light and creamy with good taste combination.

Tiramisu

So as you can see, I am left with mixed impression based on this pre-ordered served menu. However, the fast reaction towards seafood allergy was very positive, and the seafood-free starter tasted great.

Lønnestræde´s blackberry jam with lemon and balcamico

Blackberry jam ready for use

When I saw, that Kate from What Kate Baked (being the hostess of the virtual tea table) had selected the theme to be Jam, Chutneys, Curds and Conserves, I knew at once, what type of jam, which I would make for this occasion. The jam should be based on the fruit in season, and that is of cause blackberries ! 

The Tea Time Table is a monthly blogging event managed  Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked. It was a surprise for me to read, that Kate originally found jam making "for too hard and for too likely to fail" ! For me jam making is an easy thing, when you either can work with jam sugar or use citrus fruits as main ingredients. And it practically takes no time, within ½ hour (1 hour making citrus jam) from cleaning the fruit you will have glasses of jam ready to be eaten or given away.

For this jam I decided to use the fruit in season, which is blackberries, and which my good work colleague is having surplus from his garden.

Making a jam "just from fruit and sugar" is my mind a little boring, I want to have that little extra touch of something else in my jams. So I "picked" the minds of various work colleagues, and have up with the combination of using lemon zest, lemon juice and balcamico as the little extra touch this time.

Blackberries ready for jam cooking

The lemon zest and lemon juice is giving a wonderful juicy character to the blackberries, and the balcamico is adding complexity to the taste. You could decided only to use lemon zest and lemon juice for your version of blackberry jam.

While I was making blackberry jam, Hannibal the Cat came into the kitchen after a wet rainy day out-door, and he took part in the jam making process sleeping away with an open eye from time to time from "his" chair to monitor the jam process.

As I did not want to mash the blackberries, I was left some blackberry juice without any berries in-side, this juice I filled into a bottle, which would suit pan cakes perfectly.

Lønnestæde´s blackberry jam with lemon and balcamico:

• 1000 g blackberries
• 500 g jam sugar with pectin
• lemon (organic) - juice and zest
• 50 g water



Blackberries with lemon zest in the cooking pot

• ½ teaspoon balcamico

1. Clean the blackberries.
2. Peel the lemon and squeeze it for juice.
3. Heat up the blackberries in a cooking pot together lemon peel, lemon juice and water.
4. When the blackberries boiling, add the jam sugar and agitate.
5. Bring the fruit to the boiling point and let it boil for 2 minutes.
6. Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water. Do this step, while you start to heat the blackberries. 
7. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.

Hannibal the Cat sleeping away, while he dreams of mouse sushi

"Humus" of edam beans and peas

Green "humus"

I found this recipe on green "humus" in a magazine called OM... - a COOP magazine. It is very, very good alternative to the usual humus made on chickpeas with it´s wonderful green colour and fantastic flavour, so you should really try it yourself.

Wonderful colour combination

"Humus" of edam beans and peas:

• 400 g edam beans with peel
• 200 g peas
• 3 tablespoons of lemon thyme - chopped
• 1 dl mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice
• salt & pepper

1. Defrost the edam beans and peas, if frozen.
2. Remove the pod from the edam beans.
3. Fill a cooking pot with water and salt, bring it to the boil.
4. Add the edam beans and cook them for 1 minute.
5. Add the peas and cook beans and peas for another 1 minute.
6. Add the beans and peas in a sieve in order to remove the water. Afterwards cool down the beans and peas with cold water.
7. Shake the beans and peas very well to remove the water.
8. Add beans and peas into a food processor and run to the desired consistency.
9. Add chopped lemon thyme, mayonnaise, lemon juice to the bean-pea mass in the food-processor and run it again to a homogeneous mass.
10. Season with salt & pepper.
11. Serve the "humus" of edam beans and peas with grissini, carrots and other fresh vegetable.

Dinner at la viet

Selection of starters

In connection with an international meeting at work with colleagues from around the world we wanted to eat at an informal place, where eating and talking would have equal amount of space. It is also important, that the many different nationalities would feel comfortable with the food served.

Having all these things in mind, we decided to try out la viet for this occasion. And here we had a good start, as we could choose between chop sticks and fork & knife at each individual seat, so each person took use their preference as cutlery.

As usual, when we are such a big group of people (20 persons), the menu had been decided upon the booking of the tables. However, la viet responded without hesitation, when it turned, that one of the participants was vegetarian and therefore is not eating meat, eggs and seafood.

Main dish - chicken with green curry

As a start we had a selections of delicious tasting starter consisting of:

• crips scrimps with chili, basil and coriander
• rice paper with vegetable and duck
• chicken wings with anise and chili

Afterwards we had another selection of three main course in form of:

Noddle dish with port and vegetable

• chicken with green curry and ginger
• wok with scrimps
• noddle with pork and vegetable

The level of spice was just perfect, tasteful, spicy and not to hot.

I would like to come back another time to try some more dishes at la viet.

Rumtopf - now completed with Autumn raspberries

Autumn raspberries swimming in rum

On the my way home from work I passed by my very good friends in Horsens in order to collect Autumn raspberries, which turned out to be the last summer fruits from the Danish Summer of 2012 moving into the Rumtopf.

Autumn raspberries ready for their faith in form of rum soup

I actually had to remove some of the rum from the Rumtopf in order to squeeze in these wonderful tasting Autumn raspberries. However, the removed rum is saved, so I can enjoy it, before the Rumtopf is ready for consumption. And yes, there is some rum as well for some very good people, which I know in Horsens :-)

This Summer Challenge (2012 ?) of mine has been a very easy task to test out, as you only have to clean the fruit, before you add fruit and sugar into the rum. So I can only encourage you to try to make your own Rumtopf next year.

It has been quiet an inspiration for me to make this Rumtopf, as you have been following the Summer and Autumn closely in form of the fruit added into the rum soup as well as thinking forward to fruits, which could be relevant to add into rum soup.

Now it is just a question for me and the people, who kindly have donated/provide fruit for the Rumtopf, to wait until Christmas, before the Rumtopf will enjoyed.

As usual I cleaned the fruit followed by weighing them, so I know the amount of sugar need as well. Afterwards I add them on top of fruit already in the rum "soup". 

Rumtopf of 2012:

Rumtopf full many different summer fruit from 2012

• Rhubarb + sugar
• 580 g strawberries   
• 290 g sugar
• 318 g red currants
• 157 g sugar
• 160 g raspberries
• 80 g sugar
• 124 g white red currant
• 62 g sugar
• 475 g blackcurrants
• 238 g sugar
• 272 g plums
• 132 g sugar
• 468 g blackberries
• 234 g sugar
• 680 g Autumn raspberries
• 340 g sugar
• Rum, rum and yet some more rum