Christmas Toffee with Chocolate and Orange

Last night we were invited to an impromptu glögg and Christmas baking party! It's been snowing like crazy and my feet are ankle deep in huge drifts of snow no matter where we walk, thankfully I have my Grandmother's hardcore winter shoes (and what a difference those make in the winter. Thank you Grandmama). With all of the snow it feels soooo Christmas-ey, so it was perfect timing, the weekend before Christmas, to hang out with dear friends and bake.
We made pepparkakor and some of the best candy I've ever tasted: chocolate orange toffee. And it's easy. So easy. With so much butter. Easy and Butter? That's a great combination right?
If you need a last minute Christmas gift you should make some of these toffees while listening to your favorite Christmas album and sliding around the floor in your thick, winter socks.

Chocolate Orange Toffee
100 grams of butter
2 dl of cream
1 dl of light colored baking syrup (Americans- corn syrup works)
3 dl of sugar
3 tbsp of honey
1 vanilla bean
1/2 dl of cocoa powder
1 zest of an orange or clementine

Bring the butter, cream, syrup, sugar, honey, and vanilla bean to a boil (for the vanilla bean you can just cut it in half and throw it the pot). Stir continuously and bring the heat down once it reaches a boil. You need to mixture to thicken and it should take about 30 minutes. Keep stirring! Have a bowl of cold water near you and once the mixture starts to thicken put a drop of it in the cold water. If you can form a semi-hard ball it's good to go. The mixture should be dark, toffee color.
Remove the mixture from the heat and pour in the cocoa powder and clementine zest. Mix thoroughly with a fork. Then pour the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and set it outside or in the fridge so it can chill and firm.
Once firm, cut into medium-small squares and eat. Or your can cut out small strips of parchment paper and roll the toffees in them.
Last night I ate about 15 of these. They're addicting. And have Vitamin-C.

Roasted Sunchoke Mash

If you look at the photo above and exit this page, I understand. It's not very appetizing. But it's what food baked in a casserole dish, mashed together, usually looks like. So I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
So what is it? It's a roasted sunchoke, twice baked potato, onion, and garlic mash. It is winter comfort food.
I had a very bad experiences with sunchokes once. It was a few summers ago and we were eating at a fancy restaurant with a snooty waiter. Ew. And the only vegetarian item on the menu was a sunchoke puree with something (I can't remember what!) underneath. So I ordered it. And the puree came out half ice cold and half lukewarm. I asked the waiter about it and he was like, "it's supposed to be that way."
What? Since when did restaurants serve a food that was half ice cold and half warm? Like I get it if it was hamburger (warm patty, cold lettuce, etc) or a pasta salad (warm-ish pasta with cold avocado)
But not a puree. I asked the waiter to rewarm it, please. He wasn't too happy. And I decidedly hated sunchokes.
So how did I come into possession of a bag of sunchokes? They were cheap at the store.
I did a lot of research on sunchokes last night. Just their name is disturbing. They are also called jerusalem artichokes or in Swedish "jordärtskocka." In my research I couldn't find anything terribly wrong with them: i.e. nothing about people choking. However, supposedly some people can't handle the carbohydrates in them and they can cause terrible stomach pains, but the majority of people have no problems. Dinner in our household is always an adventurous risk!
Last night was the Great Sunchoke Experiment and it was successful. They're good you guys! Especially served at the same temperature throughout. They're kind of nutty and earthy.

Winter Mash: Roasted Sunchokes, Potatoes, Onions, and Garlic
4-5 sunchokes
3 medium sized potatoes*
1 large yellow onion
4-6 garlic cloves
Olive oil to drizzle
Salt and Pepper
Oregano
Parmesan cheese for grating
Fresh spinach

Preheat your oven to 200c. Wash and peel the sunchokes. Slice into medium-thin discs (as you would with potato gratin). Wash and peel your potatoes, slice into medium-thin discs like the sunchokes. Chop your onion into long, thin slices. Remove the papery skin from the garlic cloves and chop each clove in half. Throw everything into an oven proof baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and oregano. Mix together. Bake for about 30-40 minutes until all can be pierced with a fork.
When out of the oven, grate a fine sprinkling of parmesan cheese over the mash. Serve in a bowl on a fresh bed of spinach.
It's good!

Notes:
* We had three potatoes that were already baked sitting our fridge so I used those instead of starting with raw potatoes. I put them into the mash about halfway through the baking times for twice-baked potatoes a la Central Market.

First Advent

I've never celebrated Advent. But they celebrate like crazy here in Sweden. Most of the windows have their Christmas lights now, most streets have decorations, all of the bakeries are serving lussekatter. I woke up on Sunday and opened Facebook to discover that all of my Swedish friends had Advent candles lit in their photos.
We didn't have any Advent candles.
I turned to G, "Why are you depriving me of Advent?"
"What?"
"You're Swedish, you celebrate Advent, but why don't we have any Advent candles?"
I was terribly upset. G had to leave the house to meet up with a friend but came home later that afternoon not only covered in snow but with Advent candles and the fixings for our first Advent fika. I am no longer deprived and feel throughly Christmas-Swedish.

Here you can see some typical Christmas fika foods. Pepparkakor, lucia buns, and glögg. I'm not the biggest fan of pepparkakor but I like to dip them in my glögg. They are also really good with blue cheese.
Hopefully this year I'll make some lucia buns and some gingerbread cookies. And my own glögg. But we still have to put up our tree and all of the other decorations.
You guys, it's less than a month until Christmas. How did that happen?

A Thanksgiving in Stockholm

I hope you guys had a good Thanksgiving. We had a snowy one. Very snowy.
We decided to spend our Thanksgiving in Stockholm with all our friends. We currently live about seven hours south of Stockholm and traveled by train up to Sweden's capital city on Wednesday.
We celebrated on Friday instead of Thursday since it's not a real holiday here and you don't get the day off.
In my usual obsessive-planning way, I sent out a list of typical Thanksgiving foods and asked everyone to pick a dish to make. At first G did not understand, "isn't Thanksgiving just like any potluck? You bring what you want?" "No, you can only have certain foods at Thanksgiving, it'd be like if I were to bring a bowl of hummus to Christmas dinner." "Oh. Ok."
I'm glad we got that straightened up.
I made the stuffing and the cranberry sauce. The stuffing is a family recipe and my favorite part of Thanksgiving. The cranberry sauce was a bit too soupy but got the job done.

Apparently Thanksgiving food is really hard to photograph. Especially after a glass of wine or two. So I mapped it out for you guys.
Our friend Oskar made a tofufurkey (most of us are vegetarians) which ended up being baked in a form-spring pan. We sliced it like pie and it tasted like Thanksgiving.
Anders made the sweet potatoes, he was skeptical of the marshmallow topping. It's an acquired taste.
Sofia, who hosted us, made the amazing dinner rolls and set the table with cute leopard print napkins.
Ivan and Vanja made mashed potatoes and a really cinnamon-ey apple pie (not pictured).
Also not pictured is the pumpkin pie our friends Niklas and Therese made. It tasted like home.

Despite the modern day conventions, I'd imagine that this was what the first Thanksgiving was all about. People coming together, enjoying each other's company, and being thankful. I definitely was thankful to celebrate a holiday that would've otherwise made me feel terribly homesick if it hadn't been for our amazing friends. Thank you guys.

the first glögg of the season

This is glögg. Glögg is a spiced wine you warm up and serve with almonds and raisins in little tiny cups during the Christmas season.
On Friday, we had our first snow here in the South of Sweden. It was a heavy, wet snow. Almost like sleet but a bit more solid. I didn't get any pictures because it was 4:00 in the afternoon and pitch black outside. We were out on a walk. A cold, wet, snowy walk. And even though my husband claimed it was "too early in the year for glögg" I convinced him that the first snowfall should be celebrated with a warm  cup of glögg. So we bought ourselves a bottle of glögg, lit some candles, and settled down to a cozy evening with Dexter Season 3.

Come December 1st we'll be drinking more glögg, eating saffronbuns, gingerbread cookies, and my new favorite Julknäckebröd- which is a hard bread flavored with anise and fennel. I'll be making that later today so be looking forward to that recipe.
In the mean time, you can go here to see a few photos of our apartment. Not very food related except there's a photo of our huge kitchen and the "bar" area.

Carrot Cake

You guys, my husband made this cake. Homemade icing and all. It's carrot cake by the way. It was delicious. I love cream cheese icing.

We're new in marriage. It's been a year and nine months. So it's still new. And we're learning about each other and ourselves with each other. To work as a team. It's really easier said than done. But I guess, it's also not very hard. Not when it matters. And this (us) matters.
So sometimes we take each other for granted and pick stupid fights. My favorite fight to date is the one about G using the good bread. This was back when we were newly-married-poor. I was freaking out about not having a job. G was making a SANDWICH with our FANCY bread. Fancy bread (this was actually very basic bread not that fancy) costs more money. Yes, I yelled at him about it. It was a beyond stupid fight and we laugh about it all the time now.
So sometimes there's that. And other factors too. Jobs, school, friends, family. Other factors that can be both joyous and toxic. And we forgot that working as a team makes all of the joy better and all of the bad parts conquerable.

I'm just writing to say that I'm grateful for my husband. He's nice and funny. He's understanding and motivated. He has sparkly blue eyes and is always warm. And he bakes me carrot cake in the middle of the day.

Simple Soup

First, sorry I haven't written in a few days. We've been eating, just not any food I've made (except a pumpkin pie but we were ate my in-laws and I didn't have my camera on me). This darkness got the best of me and finding the motivation to cook right now is just not happening. I'll get over it, but it just takes some adjusting. The sun is starting to set at 16:00 these days and it's dark by 17:00- like pitch black. It's just, you know, hard to get used to.
Anyways, last night I finally made something. Soup. I mustered up the motivation to make soup. You see, I wasn't feeling great at all last night. We were supposed to have a friend over for dinner. I was going to make cheese enchiladas. But a few hours earlier I devoured about 500 grams of cottage cheese with Sriracha sauce. I like my cottage cheese spicy. And I don't know, something about the cottage cheese just didn't sit right with me. I usually have no problem eating a whole tub of cottage cheese, spice and all, but this time I felt awful.
So we cancelled on our friend and I miserably sprawled out on the couch.
Cheese enchiladas sounded terrible. Soup sounded good.
After I awhile I went into the kitchen, grabbed everything we had in the fridge, and made some soup. It's not the most groundbreaking recipe, but it's a reminder: that sometimes the simple things are exactly what you need.

Simple Soup (What's In Your Fridge)
3 onions
3-6 garlic cloves (boiled garlic is awesome)
3 carrots
4 potatoes
8-10 cups of water
1 cube of bouillon
Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste

Extras:
A handful of fresh spinach for each bowl
Crumbled feta cheese
Olive oil

Fill a large pot with water and the cube of bouillon. While it's getting warm (not boiling), chop your onions into long, thin slices. And peel as many garlic cloves as you want in your soup. Leave them whole. When done, put them in the soup pot.
Then peel your carrots and chop them into medium-thick rings. Set aside. Wash and scrub your potatoes. Peel off any bad parts. Chop the potatoes into medium-small cubes. You want them to be a similar size to the carrots. Set aside.
Let the water come to a slight boil and add in your carrots. About five minutes later, add in your potatoes (unless they're chopped into larger pieces, then you want to add them at the same time).
Lower to heat and let simmer for 30 minutes or until the potatoes and carrots are soft. Not mushy. You want them to be easy to pierce with fork but still a bit firm. The onions and garlic should be soft and slightly mushy.
Add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to your taste. I prefer a saltier soup, but that's just me.
Ladle into bowls and drizzle a tiny amount of olive oil over the soup. Garnish with handful of fresh spinach and some crumbled feta.
And enjoy. It was just what you needed, right?

Cheese Crackers

Did you know that cheese crackers were the easiest things to make? Ever. I didn't. But I saw this recipe and I knew, I just knew, I had to make these. And I had all of the ingredients. Which was great because we were out of eggs and there aren't many things you can bake without eggs.
The recipe was so easy, even without us owning a food processor. I just used a potato masher and my hands.
And when I ate the first one, I almost died. How have I missed out on this? Cheese crackers! They tasted like Cheese-Its but one million times better.
They're buttery and spicy and cheesy. When G came home from work I ordered him straight to the kitchen to try them.  We had guests coming over and we did a bad thing. We hid the crackers. They were that good.  I knew I could make more. Eventually. But we wanted them all to ourselves. It was bad. I'm not sorry.

If you want to impress your guests or yourself, make these. Go here. Follow the easiest recipe ever with the stuff you already have in your kitchen. And then cry, hide, and covet these. Share them only if your nice and giving.

Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk, Rum, and Christmas Spices

I don't like white rice. At all. I hate the taste and the smell. I used to like rice. But three-four years ago I ate too much rice and got a stomach ache, a really bad one. Since then I've hated rice.
On Sunday, I felt courageous enough to buy black rice. Which doesn't taste like rice at all. It tastes nutty and is crunchy. I also like risotto rice because it doesn't taste like white rice either. I like black rice. I like risotto rice. White rice, not so much.
So you can be as perplexed as I was when last night I declared "I'm making rice pudding with coconut milk!" (I also don't like coconut milk due to a Thai food poisoning mishap a few years ago). But part of me, the really smart part of me, knew that this was going to be an awesome rice pudding. So awesome that I would enjoy eating rice with coconut milk.
Maybe I was inspired by the fact it's November aka Almost Christmas. And here in Sweden, they eat rice pudding around Christmastime. So maybe I was subconsciously being Swedish and craving a creamy, Christmas-spicy dessert? I become more and more assimilated everyday.

Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk, Rum, and Christmas Spices
I was inspired by Alton Brown's recipe but altered to become the best thing I've ever tasted.

1 cup of uncooked white rice (we had Jasmine rice so I used that)
1 cup of whole milk (plus more as you go, keep the carton nearby)
1 cup of coconut milk
50 grams of butter
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of cardamom
1/4-1/2 teaspoon of vanilla (I used vanilla bean)
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of rum

Place your one cup of milk and one cup of rice in a non-stick pot). Bring to a boil with the lid on.  Reduce the heat to low and let simmer, the mixture will begin to thicken so stir frequently.
Then add in your coconut milk, butter, sugar, cardamom, vanilla, cinnamon, and rum. With the heat on medium-low let the mixture simmer with the lid on. Stir occasionally so it won't stick. The mixture will begin to thicken and once it does, taste your rice. If your rice is ready to eat then you can go ahead and serve it. I like it warm.
But, if you had rice like I did and it was still crunchy but you already had a really thick mixture, add some more milk. And let it simmer. Stir and stir. Every time my mixture got really thick and goopey, I added a bit more milk, about 1-2 tablespoons. I would then stir it again and let it simmer. This lasted about 10-15 minutes.
Once your rice is soft (not mushy), remove the pot from the heat and serve into bowls.

It's an incredibly rich and creamy dessert. It's easy to make. It's cheap to make. It's satisfying and indulgent. My husband, who eats rice pudding every Christmas, said it was the best he's ever had. And me, the white rice hater, has a new love for rice. Well, rice pudding at least.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

This morning my husband had to wake up earlier than me. I stayed in bed, pretending to sleep for about 30 minutes after our alarm went off. I might've actually fallen asleep if it hadn't been for the garbage trucks collecting the trash right outside of our window (we live on the ground floor). My husband came in to say goodbye and kissed me with coffee breath, it was fresh coffee breath and therefore it was romantic.
We usually eat yogurt and granola for breakfast but this morning I knew that we had pumpkin chocolate chip cookie dough sitting in our fridge. And pumpkins are really good for you and chocolate has caffeine so baking these cookies for breakfast was a no brainer. I've had four today so far.
We made these cookies yesterday to celebrate Halloween. They don't really celebrate Halloween here like they do in the States. But I wanted to make the most of it despite the lack of trick-or-treaters and the fact we wouldn't be going to any Halloween parties this year. Instead, we watched a lot of Halloween movies and made Halloween-ish food.
We first watched Edward Scissorhands while eating a black rice and purple cabbage stir fry. Then we watched Hocus Pocus and snacked on pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Later, we watched Scream while eating pumpkin gnocchi with lemon, spinach, butter, and goat cheese. And then we watched It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and drank hot apple cider with whiskey. The photo above was our decor, a lone candle in a dark room. Spoooooky.

We made nine of these cookies yesterday and ate them all. And I made more today and devoured four of them faster than I should've- it must be the beta carotene.
They taste like pumpkin pie cakes with chocolate chips. They are soft, like feather pillows. They are spiced like pumpkin pie but they have that distinct chocolate chip cookie taste too. They're cakey-cookies. They're good. They're addictive. The soak up milk better than Bounty Paper Towels.
I made them using this recipe. It was easy to follow. The hardest part was finding pumpkin puree in Sweden. Instead we found half a pumpkin, roasted it and then pureed it.
This is not just a Halloween recipe. You should make them for Thanksgiving, you could sandwich them between whip cream like real pumpkin pie. Or you could just eat them all in less than 24 hours which we will be very guilty of very soon.

Raw Red Cabbage Salad

It's Halloween weekend. Friday night we were invited to a dinner party by my Dutch friend. Being a foreigner myself, I've gotten to know a lot of other foreigners. I was put in charge of a starter. I knew I was going to do a pumpkin and goat cheese dish but I wanted to do something else as well. So I made a red cabbage salad with fennel, dried cranberries, a red pepper, and mustard vinaigrette. Originally there was going to be edamame in the salad, for color, you know? But finding "exotic" foods like edamame in Sweden is usually pretty hit and miss. This time it was a miss.

This is a picture of me with my husband acting as antlers. He's creative sometimes. Our friends, the Dutch girl and her sambo (the Swedish word for two people who live together but are not married) fed us extremely well and never allowed for an empty glass. Also at the party was my South African friend, his Swedish sambo, and their friend also from South Africa- who (get this!) lives in England now and is Jamie Olivier's nanny. Yes, that is right. Jamie Olivier's nanny was at dinner and ate my red cabbage salad.
We had a great time at the dinner party. We had so much fun that we didn't once look at our clocks and suddenly it was 2:30 in the morning. We got home around 3:30 and I made early morning spaghetti while we watched The Office. We fell asleep after 4:00.

I started chopping cabbage late Friday afternoon while listening to "The Rocky Horror Picture" show and dancing to the Time Warp. I'm totally fascinated with red cabbage and a bit angry with myself for never using it before. I mean, it's purple! And looks like a brain. It's awesome.

Red Cabbage Salad
1/2 of a large red cabbage, sliced into thin bite sized pieces
1-2 fennel bulb, diced
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
1 package of dried cranberries (about 1/2 cup)

Dressing
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
2-3 tablespoons of dijon mustard
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of chili flakes
1-2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of lemon juice

I started with a whole cabbage and peeled off the outer layers. Instead of chopping it in half, I sliced off sections which made it easier to deal with. I then cut each section in small, thin ribbons and cut those into "easy" bite sized pieces. Once you have pieces that are easy to eat put them in large bowl.
Next, chop up your fennel. I had only one bulb but I think two would work even better. You'll want to discard any bad spots on the fennel. You can save the fronds if you have fennel with fronds and put those in the salad as well. Place your diced fennel in the bowl. Since we were eating raw fennel, I didn't use the very middle of the bulb which I always find a bit tough the eat. Same with the cabbage.
Next, dice your red pepper. Toss it in. And then add in your cranberries. Mix everything together well.

For the dressing. I never measure dressings, I go by taste and by what I think would be good. I started by pouring a bit olive oil over the cabbage. You don't need a ton. I then added about the equivalent of 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. I like really vinegar-ey dressings so I added more in towards the end. I used three huge spoonfuls of dijon mustard. And about about 1 teaspoon of honey. I then mixed it all together in the salad bowl. After that I sprinkled a bit of sugar on top, about 1 teaspoon. (You already get a lot of sweetness from the dried cranberries). And then I added the salt, the lemon juice, and finally the chili flakes. After that, I adjusted the dressing to my taste accordingly. The recipe above is a good base and I know there are better and more professional ways to make a dressing- but remember I was dancing the Time Warp at the time.

After you've dressed your salad keep it covered and in the fridge until ready to serve. It was great several hours later and still great the next day.

Notes
This is one of those salad that so easy to make and you can be really creative with. I mentioned before I wanted to add edamame and I also think raw apples would be good, as well as walnuts or oranges. I love this salad because it's raw, fresh, sweet, sour, and very seasonal. Please make it and dance while you do.

corn cakes with chili and feta. oh, and easy black beans

Tuesday night I was laying in bed thinking and I realized I've only posted one recipe that features jalapeño or any type of chili pepper. And the truth is that I eat something spicy almost everyday. And much to my husband's dismay, I cover most of my food in cayenne pepper or Cholula sauce. I figure it's because most of the food here lacks spice and my body is used to spice so I have to keep up. Imagine being in Texan in Texas and not eating something because it's "too hot." That just not Texan. I'd have my statesmanship revoked (is there such a thing?). So I have to keep up. And I do.
Another thing I miss here is corn tortillas. I haven't been able to find masa harina in the stores so I can't even attempt to make my own. I make due with flour tortillas most of the time. But sometimes I crave that corn flavor.
Back in Fort Worth there was a famous diner called Ole' South. It was opened 24 hours and was famous for their dutch babies which are really good at 2:00 am. They also served belgian waffles in the shape of Texas and hoecakes which are pancakes made with corn meal.
So Tuesday night I was laying there thinking about chili peppers and Ole' South and hoecakes. I decided I wanted to make a savory hoecake. And I did.

Corn Cakes adapted from Epicurious
1 cup of stone ground yellow corn meal (Swedes, you can find this at ICA easily)
1/2 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of butter, melted, and cooled- plus more butter for the griddle
1 large egg
1 cup of buttermilk (or filmjölk)
1 cup of canned corn
1 fresh chili pepper, seeded and minced
1/2 a yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup of shredded cheese
1/2 cup of cubed feta cheese


In one bowl mix together the cornmeal, the flour, the salt, baking soda, pepper, and sugar.
In another bowl mix together the butter, the egg, and the buttermilk. Mix in the corn, onion, chili pepper, cheese, and feta cheese. Add the flour mixture and then mix all until just combined.
Heat your griddle on medium high heat with a small dab of butter. Drop about 1/4 cup of batter to the griddle and cook each side for about 2-3 minutes or until golden
I am terrible at the cooking part and had G took over. He's great at making pancakes and can even do the flipthing.
Read further for another (quick) recipe.

I also made black beans to go with the pancakes. It's hard to photograph black beans.
I make these easy ones when I'm in a hurry but you can make them fancier if you want.


Easy Tex Mex Black Beans
1 can of black beans
1 seeded and minced chili pepper*
1/2 a yellow onion, diced
A few dashes of lime juice
Salt to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste


Throw the beans with their juices into a sauce pot. Let simmer on low heat while you dice your onion and mince your chili pepper. Throw those in the pot too. Bring to a boil for just a few minutes, keep an eye on it. Bring back down to a simmer and then get out your potato masher. Or a wooden spoon. And start mashing the beans. Let it simmer and mash every few minutes. Just until the beans fall apart a bit. 
I keep my pot on a low simmer while I'm cooking other things but if you can always speed up the process. 
Reduce the heat even more and add in your lime, salt, and cayenne until you're happy with the taste.


Notes
*If I have salsa on hand I usually just use about 1/4 a cup (or a bit more) of that in lieu of the chili peppers, unless I'm feeling extra spicy.

Oreos, clementines, chiles, and peppermint ice cream

I haven't had any time to cook lately. We've been super busy. We had friends from Stockholm stay with us this weekend. It was the type of weekend where you stay up till 2:00 (or 4:00) in the morning and sleep in until noon. We went to Copenhagen one day and had tapas there and then had Vietnamese food the next night. It was a good weekend.

This evening G and I walked all around the city. We were kind of aimless in our walking and ambivalent in our plans. At one point we bought two little Gin and Tonic cans (!!!) with the hopes of having an adventurous Tuesday only for the both of us to almost fall asleep during dinner.  We saved the cans for later. So much for adventure.
Anyways, we walked to our bus stop and since we had 17 minutes before the bus came we went into ICA (a grocery store) to browse.
This is what we bought:
A package of Oreos and I was totally jonesing for Oreos last Friday. It was fate.
A bag of dried ancho and chipotle chilies! I have so many ideas for these guys.
We filled a big bag with clementines for Vitamin C.
And then I saw my favorite ice cream by my favorite ice cream maker: Lilla Glassfabriken. I love, love, love Peppermint ice cream (Polka in Swedish is Peppermint). I get it every time we go out for ice cream. Lilla Glassfabriken's pints are pretty expensive but it's totally worth it.
(Other flavors I like: gingerbread, saffron (!!!), cherry dream, chili chocolate, 50/50 (raspberry and licorice), cinnamon, and chocolate brownie).

I guess in our own food crazed way it really was an adventurous Tuesday.

Red Onion Marmelade

Autumn is here. It's a season we never really had in Texas, at least not like the autumn here in Sweden. Here there are colors everywhere. The temperature drops to a cold chill. When the sun is out it's beautiful, when its not it's cozy. It's the perfect time of year.
Last year around this time my husband was working crazy hours at his job and he wasn't home until around 8:00 each night. Which was late to eat dinner. But I grew used to the few hours I had alone. I'd work on elaborate dinners, have a glass of wine, listen to music. When we moved to our bigger apartment with a bigger kitchen, I'd just sit in our kitchen while sauce simmered or potatoes roasted. Making dinner became comforting. It still is.

When we were invited to a dinner party last weekend G and I wondered what we'd bring. We decided on a roasted pumpkin and feta cheese salad with red onion marmalade as a side. 

The red onion marmalade was a hit. It went with everything and it made a lot (as 2 kgs of onions will) so we've been adding the leftovers to our food all week.

It's the perfect fall condiment. Sour, sweet, onion-ey, caramel-ey, with hints of wine. 

It takes a long time to make- a lot longer than we expected it would. It's a lot of onion slicing. But it's good. It's so good. Even good on toast as a savory snack.

If you know me, then you'll know that I have an extreme aversion the winter. The darkness is hard and the cold seems like it will never go away, even come April. We light more candles this time of year. We huddle in scarves and hats. We hold hands. It's ways to get through the "darker months" that Sweden's winter brings. And we make hearty, good food.

Sleep Stupor Vanilla Chocolate Brownies

I didn't go to school on Monday. Instead I stayed home, read my Swedish book, and then took a nap. I woke up from the nap hungry. Not just hungry but HUNGRY. I always wake up from naps super hungry and super grouchy.

My first thought after waking up was "brownies." After reading THIS recipe the night before I guess brownies were placed into my subconscious.

Have you ever tried cooking or baking while still in a sleep-stupor? It's hard.

First of all, I didn't have enough ingredients to make the full recipe so I halved it. Have you ever halved anything while still in a sleep-stupor? It's hard.

The kitchen was a mess, I was very much asleep and very much grouchy. I really wanted brownies.

The brownies themselves are easy to make but in my stupor I made a few mistakes. Awesome mistakes.

As I mentioned before I followed a recipe. And you should follow this recipe too. And make my mistakes.

Sleep Stupor Mistakes

- I did not have enough chocolate so I used about 1 1/2 teaspoons extra of cocoa powder which I placed in with the melted butter and melted chocolate.

- I barely used more sugar than the (halved) recipe called for- about 1 1/4 cup because I didn't want them to be too bitter from the added cocoa powder.

- I used 2 teaspoons of vanilla (so the full amount). This originally made the brownies too vanilla-ey.

- To combat the vanilla-eyness of the brownies I made a chocolate sauce using the recipe found here (under the section about substituting cocoa for chocolate) AND pierced holes in the brownies so the sauce would saturate them. 

The brownies were amazingly fudgey and moist on the inside and crisp on the edges.  The taste of vanilla was super intense but after adding the chocolate sauce it didn't overpower. It was like a vanilla ice cream with brownie bites and fudge sauce.

The verdict: sleep stupor mistakes are awesome mistakes.

A Fancy Sill Sandwich

I know this is a vegetarian food blog but I had to share the sandwiches my in-laws made the other night.
We went to their house for part of the weekend and as always we ate amazing food, drank copious amounts of wine, celebrated with champagne, and drank snaps.
My in-laws are very Swedish traditional in that at almost every dinner I've ever had with them we've had: potatoes, sill (pickled herring), hard bread, cheese, snaps, and songs. It's become so familiar that whenever G and I have been with friends drinking snaps I feel a bit out of sorts if we don't sing every time.

I'm very much a vegetarian* when it comes to pickled herring and even the squeezable caviar Swedes put on their eggs and toast. But I loved the construction of this sandwich so much- my father in law and husband worked hard to style it.

Fancy Sill Sandwich
1 slice of bread
1 slice of hard, strong cheese
A few pieces of sill of your choice
A dollop of creme fraiche or turkish yogurt
Part of a cucumber, peeled and sliced into medium sized slices
1/2 a hard boiled egg
Squeezable caviar (like Kalles)

Take your bread, place the cheese on the bread, place the sill on the cheese. Dollop the creme fraiche or yogurt on top of the sill. Artfully place the cucumber on the sandwich. Place the half of the egg next to the bread, top with a dab of caviar.
And there. There is one fancy sandwich you can have as a starter with your snaps.

Notes
*I made a vegetarian version to the sill which was: one can of large white beans (drained), a bit of red wine vinegar, a bit of turkish yogurt, half a chili (seeded and sliced), and some salt and pepper. It was very good too.

Truffle Macaroni and Cheese

When we were in New York we ate at Cafeteria. I ordered something with salsa and guacamole. I'm a sucker every time. My step-sister, Becky, ordered the Mac Attack. Three different types of macaroni and cheese. The one that stood out the most, the one that I kept sneaking tastes of was the Truffle Macaroni and Cheese.
I don't even like mushrooms.
When we got back to Sweden I wanted to make comfort food. Food from home, from America. It is very much autumn in Sweden right now. Chilly days, chillier nights. I wanted food from home that would compliment the amazing autumn we are having. And what would be better than truffle mac and cheese?
The answer: nothing.

























Truffle Macaroni and Cheese
200 grams of macaroni

30 grams of butter
2 tablespoons of truffle oil
4 tablespoons of flour

A few drops of Worcestershire sauce
About 1/4 a teaspoon of dijon mustard

2 cups of milk

2 cups of cheese shredded*

More truffle oil to taste.
Salt and pepper to taste**

Preheat your oven to 200 C.

Prepare the macaroni using the directions on the box. Set aside when done.

Heat the butter and truffle oil in a pan on medium heat. When melted, mix in the four tablespoons of flour to make a roux. Mix well. Add a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and the dijon mustard. Pour in the milk slowly, keep stirring. Let the mixture come to a boil and then reduce to heat to low and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Keep stirring.
With the heat on low, slowly add the cheese, let each addition melt into the sauce before adding more. The sauce should be thick and creamy. If too thick add a bit more milk.
Season your sauce with salt and pepper. And then add in your macaroni. Mix well. Make sure each little macaroni is coated.

Oil a baking dish (I used a bit of truffle oil mixed with olive oil) and pour the macaroni and cheese mixture into the dish. Top with extra cheese.

Bake for about 20-30 minutes until the top of golden brown.
Let cool and then lightly sprinkle a bit of truffle oil over the cooled macaroni and cheese.

Notes
*I used really low grade cheese. Most of the high grade cheese here come in blocks and I didn't want to spend time grating the cheese so I went ahead and bought pre-grated cheese. It was fine.

** I had some porcini mushroom salt in the pantry from a trip to Central Market in Texas a long time ago. I used a bit of this for extra flavor.

Also, we had leftovers and it was even better the next day. Like, so good.

Roasted Fennel Mashed Potatoes with Balsamic Vinegar

Do you ever have an idea in your head? Like a really good one. But it doesn't turn out exactly how you thought it would. It turns out good enough. But not like the really good idea you had in your head.
That was what happened with these mashed potatoes with roasted fennel. Ideally, I would've made a fennel puree to mix into the mashed potatoes. Ideally, I would've had more fennel than the two small bulbs we had. But it was still good and after almost a week of eating nothing but soup it was warm and comforting and the perfect food for a Sunday night.

I probably shouldn't be telling you about food that didn't turn out how I wanted it to. But I really like the idea of mixing fennel and potatoes. I really like the idea of roasted fennel mashed potatoes. And I think you would too.
I'm providing a basic roasted fennel recipe and a basic mashed potato recipe. I'm assuming that you know how to make mashed potatoes so you can use whatever mashed potato recipe you are most comfortable with.
So you can try roasted fennel and mashed potatoes the way I did or the way I would do it if I did it again.

Roasted Fennel Mashed Potatoes

How I Did It:
2 fennel bulbs with fronds
Olive oil
As many potatoes as you want to eat
70 grams of Butter (give or take)
Enough Cream or Milk for creamy potatoes
Salt and Pepper to taste

Garnish: Balsamic Vinegar

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Prepare the fennel by washing it and discarding any wilted parts. Remove the fronds and stalks, set aside the fronds. Slice the fennel bulb lengthwise into thirds or fourths. Lightly coat the fennel in olive oil. Place in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until it's golden brown. When done set aside to cool. When cool dice the roasted fennel. Wash off the fronds and chop them finely.
Meanwhile boil water for the potatoes. Make sure the potatoes are cleaned and if you want a fast boil halve or quarter them (depending on the size). When the potatoes are done, drain the water, and start to mash! Mix in the butter and the cream. You want a creamy, slightly lumpy potato.
Mix the diced fennel and finely chopped fennel fronds into the mashed potatoes. Season with salt and pepper.
Dish up and serve with a bit of balsamic vinegar.

How I Would've Done It:
Made a fennel puree. Made mashed potatoes. Mixed the two together. And enjoyed.

Regardless of how I did it or would've of done it, I like the flavor combinations and I like the idea. And sometimes, ideas are all that matters.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Caramelized Onions and Fresh Jalapeños

We got back from New York City on Wednesday morning. Tired, exhausted, jet lagged. I used up all of my energy being nervous on the plane. G became super sick within one day. He's had a sore throat, cough, runny nose- typical plane virus symptoms. We've been on a soup diet ever since. We've had garlic soup, Vietnamese soup, and then last night I made huge pot of pumpkin soup.
After being under house arrest for three days we were both ready to get out of the apartment. So we went to our favorite autumn farmer's market. We picked up fennel, beets, potatoes, onions, spaghetti squash, a small sugar pumpkin, bread, and blue cheese.
I knew I wanted to make something with the pumpkin and debated about a pie or maybe quesadillas. But ultimately decided on soup. I imagined a thick, creamy soup with caramelized onions and fresh jalapeños. 

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Caramelized Onions and Fresh Jalapeños
Preparing the Pumpkin
Pre-heat oven to 175c.
Cut one sugar pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and string insides. Set those aside for later so you can make roasted pumpkin seeds.
Then butter the inside of the pumpkin and place it face down on a foiled baking sheet. Bake for about 45 minutes or until you can pierce a fork through the outside.
Once throughly baked, let the pumpkin cool for about 30 minutes*
Then remove the inside flesh from the skin. Keep the flesh, discard the skin.

Soup

I used a basic pumpkin soup recipe for my base. But I tweaked it a bit to what I had in my pantry and for the kind of heat I was going for.

Large pad of butter

2 small to medium onions diced

2 garlic cloves crushed

A pinch to several pinches of cayenne pepper (depends on your heat tolerance)

A pince to several pinches of chili powder (same as above)

A pinch of oregano

5 cups of water with vegetable bouillon 

One sugar pumpkin

75 grams of melted butter

3/4 cup of milk

1/4 to 1/2 cup of brown sugar

More seasoning to taste (salt, pepper, more cayenne)

Garnishes for the Soup

4 onions sliced to be caramelized (recipe further below)

1 fresh jalapeño, seeded and thinly sliced.

Creme fraiche (optional)

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Heat a large soup pot with your pad of butter on medium-high heat and fry the onions and garlic until soft. Then add in your spices, mix. Let simmer for a few minutes stirring every so often.**

If using bouillon add in your bouillon with the onion and garlic mix. Stir and simmer for a few seconds. Pour in your 5 cup of water (or your vegetable broth).

Add in your roasted pumpkin and let the mixture come to a boil and then reduce the heat. Let simmer for about 15 minutes. If you have an immersion blender then remove the mixture from the heat and blend until smooth. If not, use whatever type of blender you have to blend the mixture. Just be careful, it's hot.

Put the soup back on the stove on low heat. Add in the melted butter*** and then the milk. Add the brown sugar. 

Add salt, pepper, or more spice until the soup is to your liking. 

Put the soup in a bowl. Top with a dollop of creme fraiche, a few fresh sliced jalapeños, and a bunch of caramelized onions. Enjoy!

Caramelized Onions

Heat a large saucepan on medium high heat with about a tablespoon of olive oil. When the pan is hot throw in the onion slices. Let simmer and fry for a few minutes, stirring every few. You don't want them to burn to black crisp. Turn the heat down a bit once the onions start to brown and continue to let simmer. You want them to be brown and soft. Sometimes I add a bit of water halfway through to help them retain their moisture. Once they are dark brown, remove from heat and set aside until your soup is done.

Notes

*While the pumpkin is cooling I suggest to start your prep work- slicing and dicing the onions and then caramelizing the onions.

** If I were to make the soup again I would probably make a roux in the beginning. I had to add a bit of flour halfway through making the soup to help thicken it. I think the pumpkin I used was a bit too small and therefore the soup was too watery at first.

*** If you soup is too watery add a bit of flour to the melted butter mixture. Mix well with a fork and then add to your soup to help thicken it.