Pizza inspiration

Recently I had this unusual very great tasting combination on a pizza eating at a cafe:

• Brie cheese
• mozzarella 
• red onions
• apple slices
• lingonberry jam

Hopefully this can bring some inspiration as well to your kitchen :-)

Dinner with rowers at Gourmet Gaarden, Stege

Starter with fish from Klintholm Havn

As tradition demands (hereby assuming that twice makes it a tradition) one evening during the annual Summer rowing tour is spend eating some great food. Last year, being the first year doing that, we went to Rudolf Matis in Kerteminde celebrating our rowing tour around Fyns Hoved.

This year we went to Gourmet Gaarden in Stege celebrating, that we managed to row around the island of Møn from Vordingborg seeing the wonderful view of Møns Klint (The White Cliffs of Møn), which is such a spectaculars view of blue sea, white cliffs and green beech forest as topping on the cliffs. Møns Klint is the second most windy place in the country of Denmark, what the most windy place I have no clue about.

In case you have never seen Møns Klint I have added a photo here of the cliffs in morning light, it´s not an amazing sight ?? White Cliffs of Dover is nothing compared to this in my opinion

The menu card is quiet small at Gourmet Gaarden, basic two starters, two main course and two desserts, but this is actually quiet nice in my opinion, as I many times get lost, when I have make a decision from a menu card full (too full) of options !!!

Appetiser with smoked halibut and cheese

As a small appetiser we were served smoked cod with smoked fresh cheese, radishes, onion and roasted rye bread.

We all went for the season menu, which was a starter with fresh fish from the local harbour (Klintholm Havn) served together with dill oil, dill mayonnaise, dill "snow", white asparagus pickled in French white wine vinegar, fresh peas and hand-made potato chips. Great flavour combination and nice look, the asparagus was just great in taste.

Main course: veal in two version

As main course we were served Danish veal fillet, a sausages made of the same veal meat, potatoes and "green stuff" of the season together with a great sauce made on veal. Of the two veal part the sausages was actually the best tasting part .









As the finishing touch (as yes you can eat a lot, when you have spend between 5-8 hours rowing) I had dessert. One part of the dessert was raspberry mousse served a single fresh raspberry and white chocolate. The second part of the dessert was ice cream made from ymer (fermented concentrate dairy, almost like Greek yogurt, but fermented with a mesophilic starter culture as in buttermilk, ymer is known only in Denmark), white chocolate cream, fresh raspberries and liquorice meringue. This was a fantastic finish for a evening full of great food.

Dessert: raspberry mousse, ymer ice, white chocolate cream and liquorice meringue

A tree course menu costed 365 DKK, which really is value for money in this case, so if you are in the neighbourhood of Stege you should do yourself the favour of eating at Gourmet Gaarden.

If you are suffering from any kind of allergy you need to tell this in advance, when you book the table, so the chef can prepare him self for this challenge.

My only little negative remark to this evening at Gourmet Gaarden is not at all related to the food, but to the chairs :-( We were setting on some chairs without armrests, which at the same time was too high for people with short legs. So if the chair had been better, I would have given this experience 6 stars, but due to the chair I end up with 5 stars !!!

Blackcurrant jam with liquorice and lemon

Again I have been invited in for free picking of mega blackcurrants at my friend´s garden in Horsens. I could have turned these blackcurrant into a more normal blackcurrant jam. However, over a cup of tea after the berry picking process we discussed various options for twisting blackcurrant jam, and one option was to included liquorice, which I went back and actually did in my little kitchen.

The liquorice addition is giving a interesting flavour twist on top of the blackcurrant flavour. During my flavour adjustment process, I found that this jam with liquorice was becoming to sweet and mature in it´s flavour, so therefore I decided to add in some lemon zest and lemon juice to bring back freshness in the jam.

Blackcurrant jam with liquorice:

• 800 g (Danish) blackberries 
• 400 g jam sugar
• 1 teaspoon of raw liquorice
• 2½ tablespoon of sweet liquorice syrup
• ½ lemon - zest and 1-2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 4-5 tablespoon water - optional

1. Heat up the blackcurrant and jam sugar in a cooking pot together with a small amount of water. I use extra water in order to avoid burning at the bottom of the cooking pot.
2. Bring the fruit to the boiling point and let it boil for 2 minutes
3. Add in the raw liquorice, sweet liquorice, lemon zest and lemon juice. I normally add it smaller steps, so I can fine tune the flavour profile to my preference. It is more easy to add some extra, than to remove an overdose of something.
4. Bring the fruit to the boiling point again and let it boil for 2 minutes
5. 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.
6. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.

Cake and tea at Cafe Fiedler in Kiel

My mother and I have been away on another vacation trip to Germany, where we this time went to Kiel staying at a hotel located in the very city centre for 2 days. And as usual we went looking for a cafe or patisserie, where we enjoy some great cakes together with a cup of coffee and tea.

As usual it took us some time to locate the right place, so the first afternoon we only found a cafe without a big selection of cakes. And right after we had eaten our cake there, we continue our walk around in the city centre and of cause found a much better patisserie to have cake and coffee 3-4 minutes walk away. How many times is this not the situation, when you are looking for something specific like a restaurant, cafe or dress. You can not find the right place, however you need to eat/buy something and after you have eaten/brought, many more options turns up with a much better selection !!! Do you know this feeling ?

So the day after we went straight to this patisserie called Cafe Fiedler for our afternoon break. We had a Lübecker cream cake (cake with cream filling with walnuts and marzipan cover layer) served together with coffee/tea and a drink called "Hugo", which was sparkling wine with elder flower cordial, ice cubes, slice of lime and mint leaves. I will later share my version of such a "Hugo" drink.

Karin´s 1 minute strawberry cake

One of my good girl friends needs plenty of energy, as she is eager triathlete, and one of the things, which she really likes to eat is Digestive biscuit with Nutella and slice of marzipan !!! However, for me having a "sweet tooth" this combination sounds toooo sweet, so I have been staying away from this fast energy fix.

Sometime during a short afternoon tea break I was served this specific combination with a strawberry twist, and I must admit I really liked this combination, which my girl friend referred to as 1-minute strawberry cake. So I am dedicating this extremely easy "cake recipe" to my good girl friend.

Karin´s 1 minutes strawberry cake: - 1 serving

• 1 Digestive biscuit
• Nutella
• 1 slice of marzipan
• 1-2 strawberry in slices
• chocolate sprinkles

1. Start by spreading Nutella on the Digestive biscuit
2. Add the marzipan slice on top of the Nutella
3. Add strawberry slices on the marzipan
4. Finish off with adding chocolate sprinkles on the strawberry slices.

Apple Mac with modification

I was introduced to this recipe on the drink called "Apple Mac" in the TV programme "Anne og Anders på sommerferie", and I noted down the ratio between whiskey, ginger wine and apple juice. As I already had one of the important ingredients in form of ginger wine, I decided to make this drink for the annual illumination evening.

We started out with the original ratio between whiskey, ginger wine and apple juice, which was 1 part of each ingredients. However, the majority of the guests found it to be strong alcoholic in taste, so we decided to increase the amount of apple juice. And later on I did my best "to get ride of" the leftovers, I decided to made a slice of lemon to bring some freshness to the sweet apple taste.

So I am sharing this recipe with you, which is the final drink after a few modifications.

Apple Mac with modifications:

• 1 part of whiskey
• 1 part of ginger wine
• 2 parts of apple juice
• ice cubes
• slice of lemon

1. Mix everything together in cocktail glass
2. Cheers :-)

Sweet Love for my tea pot 20

Another wonderful Kusmi tea is Sweet Love in it´s pink tea tin.

Sweet Love is an exquisite blend of black tea, spices, guarana and liquorice, that stimulates according to the text on the tea tin. The tea is made from black China tea, liquorice roots, spices, guarana seeds and pink pepper.

I do not know, if this tea is stimulating my senses besides from stimulating my taste buds, as I drink yet another fantastic Kusmi tea.