Poor Knights

There has been much discussion about the proper name for these things. Guess that is what happens when you have three languages to choose from. We made them anyway, the title now being a simple translation from the Swedish (and Finnish) name. And if anyone out there has another suggestion, leave us a comment! Also, on a side note, if Knights really did eat these they can't have been very poor. 

With a pot of hot coffee your Sunday, or Saturday, brunch is off to a good start.

These were made from sweet wheat bread, the same dough in fact that we used to make Semlor. We simply cut up the left over buns, fried them in butter and turned them in a mix of sugar and cinnamon. They can be made in a more "proper" way by mixing together 2 eggs and 1-2 dl of milk and add little bit of flour. Let the bread (if you got some bread going stale you can use that too) soak up the liquid and then fry them before turning over in the sugar, easy-peasy!

Of course, what nice brunch would be complete with out a steaming pot of really dark coffee? Honestly, even if you don't drink the stuff it is pretty to look at - and smells divine - on our brunch, not to say all breakfast mornings, coffee has become an essential ingredient. Perhaps that is what they call caffeine addiction..?

May Day Preparations - part1

Our mayday project started with the idea to make Sima (simple enough, one would think) - a Finnish drink of sugar (loads), lemons, water and fresh yeast. The first problem was locating the dark sugar we needed; Farinsocker or Dark Brown Soft Sugar in English - took us awhile to find a translation for that!

2nd problem...which we did not foresee, was the Quest for fresh yeast.  The shop were we are usually able to find this has unexpectedly shut down, which presented a slight problem and a very long walk. The walk involved pitstops at Waitrose to start, where Nina was directed to Peckhams, (which does not sell fresh yeast). From there the quest took her to different cafes until finally meeting a lovely informative baker, at the always lovely Cafèzique, that pointed out THE PLACE that would for sure sell fresh yeast, across from the street. Arriving at a lovely Polish deli that HAD YEAST. Dried yeast works fine for baking, but with this drink the fresh version was rather essential, because there is no need to be as exact with temperatures. After that there was a very long walk back again, but at least it was sunny (a miracle in itself).

 In the end we got the brewing started for our May Day drink. Stay tuned for part two of May Day preparations - any guesses what it is -leave a comment!

Avocado Pasta

 

A while ago avocado pasta was THE thing to try, at least according to food blogs out there in the bloggosphere. The simple truth is that it is yummy - if you like avocados that is. And to continue our obsession with foods that can help your thinking muscles, we though avocados would be great to try, as it seems to quite useful (as are tomatoes). The following is my version of the dish, which is quick (takes the same amount of time as for your pasta to boil) and easy and will feed two people.

 Avocado pasta

• two avocados
• two handfulls of cherry tomatoes
• garlic and chili infused oil
• squeeze of lemon
• salt 
• Pasta of your choosing 

While your pasta boils, peel the avocados and smooch them with a fork in to a paste. Squeeze some lemon on top and add salt. Mix in the quartered tomatoes. 

Drain your pasta and drip a generous amount of the garlic chili oil on it. Mix the avocado/tomato mixture with the pasta and leave it on the hob for a moment so that the tomato pieces are warmed up. 

Serve it as it is or with some parmesan cheese. 

If an infused oil, like the one I used, is not available, add some heat from chilies in a different way by either dried chilies or fresh. Avocado pasta really needs that little punch that chili offers. Some dried garlic powder might be nice to add as well with a drop of olive oil.

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Indonesian inspired stew

This is one of my favourite dishes. Not only because it tastes good - a lovely mix of Asian spices and apple cider - but it is extremely easy to make, especially if you are in a hurry or want to make something nice and filling for a lot of people. This dish takes about 20 minutes to whip together and you can let it rest in the fridge over night, say make it Thursday evening for dinner on Friday evening. It need to simmer for at least 20 minutes, time enough to boil some rice and put together a salad - and you're done. Volià!
         It goes almost without saying that garlic bread is practically made for this dish and if you are a fan of nuts and pineapple they work well on the side too.

Indonesian inspired stew

• 500 g of pork (fillets, chops or already diced pork)
• 1/2 dl dark soy sauce
• 2 dl apple cider or concentrated apple jucie (or by all means something cheaper like this)
• 1 onion (for a milder flavour use leek)
• 1 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp of ground ginger 
• 1 tsp of Sambal Oelek - a strong Asian spice, although it won't make the stew hot/spicy (unless you use a lot more that is), it just adds flavour but it can be ignored.
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp of vinegar (Apple cider vinegar ideal)
• 1 tbsp of flour

1. Mix in a bowl or a pot: soy sauce, cider, chopped up onion, curry, ginger, sambal oelek, crushed garlic cloves, and vinegar.
2. Dice the meat, add to the marinade and let sit in the fridge for ca. 6 hours or longer.
3. When you are ready to eat, place pot on the stove, sprinkle over the flour and let simmer under a lid for at ca 20 minutes. If there is time, there is no harm in letting it simmer for a lot longer, and feel free to add more flour etc if you prefer the sauce to be thicker.
4. Serve with rice and salad.

Enjoy! X/N

Lets Face the Music!

 It is time to face the music! We cannot ignore it any more - it is time to study. Easter is gone, the sheep (goat in some cases) has been eaten, chocolates and sweets all gone and exams are looming around the corner. All those relaxing mornings (which you all hopefully experienced, if just a little) are done and apparently it is time to see just how much one learned during those lessons not so long ago. Life is not always as lovely as it is made out to be in numerous songs, and you have to accompany your breakfast/brunch/lunch, whatever you want to call it, with lecture notes, books, power points... Today my study session is accompanied by a enormous cup of coffee and a tuna sandwich. Bring on the good times!

 Tuna Sandwich Filling 

• 1 tin of tuna flakes (well drained)
• 200 g of créme fraîche
• 1 small/medium red onion
• capers 
• pinch of salt and ground black pepper
• a splash of lemon 

Chop the onion as finely as you can and make sure there is no extra moisture in the tuna or capers. Mix everything together and let stand in the fridge for 30min to give it time to marinade. 

Fill your chosen fresh and crunchy bread with freshness - I chose cucumber and little lettuce leaves. 

Time to Meringue!

A lovely meringue recipe from one of my favourite chefs/bakers. Her cook-books are beautiful and colourful and as inspirational as could be wished for. Visit her blog here! And yes, you can view it in English.

Leila's Meringues

This is the original recipe, which could give ca 8 BIG meringues. I only had 5 eggs so I altered the recipe slightly and still got 14 medium/muffin sized meringues. 

• 7 egg whites
• 5 1/4 dl sugar
• Juice from almost half a lemon
• 100 g dark chocolate 70%

1. Put the oven on 130 degrees
2. Mix the egg whites, caster sugar and lemon in a bowl.
3. Place the bowl in a Bain-Marie (in a small pot with a bit of boiling water, place the bowl on top) Whisk it by hand until the sugar is melted and the meringue is ca 60-65 degrees warm.
4. Remove from heat and whisk it for a long time on high speed (you might wanna use an electric whisk for that) until the meringue batter is cool. 
5. To make it chocolaty, melt the chocolate and careful fold it into the meringue batter. (You could also add different food colours to the batter if you want them pink etc)
6. Place on a baking tray, either just on top of paper or in muffin cups..
7. Put in the oven for ca 1 hour, the meringues will come out a bit chewy in the middle.

Finding Inspiration

Sometime you just don't feel like cooking. Especially not with the stressful 'revision period' looming over you.

And isn't it lucky when, on those hopefully rare occasions, you have some one who is willing (or bribed) to cook for you. We are lucky enough to have people to feed us occasionally, and we are hoping that more lovely guests will eventually grace us with their presence here. For now though, we had a lovely dinner with homemade battered fish, potato wedges made from scratch and salad (not made by us) but thought it would be nice for you all to see - and make! 

Courtesy of our guest chef Stephen, we can now all enjoy some Omega3 BUT if you do have to make this yourself and are unable to force your flatmate to do it for you: watch this clip for some entertainment and get ready for the good news. Or this one. (At least if you are a Finding Nemo fan!) 

    With any luck you will now have found both a little inspiration and Dory. 

Keep on swimming everyone! 

       - which btw is an excellent thing to keep in mind during revision.

Guest in the kitchen: Battered fish with potato wedges! *

*Avoid clown fish 

Potatoes: Wash potatoes and cut them into strips or boats (your own preference). Put them in an ovenproof dish and pour some oil (olive or sunflower, either work) on (a tablespoon or so is all you need). Add some mint (doesn't have to be fresh) and cayenne (not too much, that ends badly). Stick them in the oven at 180 celsius for about 40-45 min.

The fish. What you need:
White fish, haddock or cod work.
Breadcrumbs (if you want, mix in some flour as well)
Egg (a couple, depending on how much fish you have)
A dark heavy beer. Guinness is commonly used, but I tried with a chocolate porter.

What you do:
batter the egg and add a bit of the beer (and drink the rest yourself)
In a separate bowl (this part is important, I did this wrong, I think...) mix the flour and breadcrumbs (or just the breadcrumbs).
Now, roll the fish in the egg and beer mix, making sure it gets nice and wet.
Then, roll the fish in the breadcrumbs to make it stick to the wet surface of the fish.

Hopefully, this works better than what I did. Which was mix the breadcrumbs, beer, and egg and rolled the fish in it. The beer and breadcrumbs and egg turned into a paste/dough. Still worked by trying to wrap the dough around the fish, but it gets quite thick.

Stick the fish in the oven along with the potatoes for about 20 min (depending on the size of the fillets or the type of fish. The haddock took 20 minutes, and that was with a thick batter and quite thick fillets)

The Sauce:
A simple mix of a packet of créme fraiche, dill, spring onion, and lemon grass. Mix well and chill in the fridge.

Goat to see this!

Easter is a holiday (or nightmare) for sheep across the globe. Although it is common to eat lamb - which by the way have always seemed a bit sad to me, little lambs being so cute and all. I have always hoped (this frail thing which is hope) that people, including me, were really eating grown up sheep rather than baby sheep, but ah well...

       Goats, on the other hand, have had a way better time lately with their sudden surge in popularity. For example with the ever growing trend of "goating" popular songs and making memes such as these:

We like goats too, especially their CHEESE. Or rather cheese made from goats milk. Yum. This, see below,  is a lovely savory pie, or quiche to use its french and fancy term. Also yum. Try it!

Spinach and Goat's Cheese Quiche

Crust

• 3 dl flour (preferably a mix of wheat and some darker flour)
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 0,5 dl (ca 50 g) melted butter
• 1 dl of milk 

Fill with!

• ca 250 gram of frozen spinach
• 2 cloves of garlic
• dash of olive oil
• half a jar of Red Pesto
• 100 g Goat cheese
• 2 eggs
• 2 dl milk
• 1, 5 dl grated cheese  
• Salt and pepper

Start by making the dough, spread out in a baking tin - push the edges quite far up so there is a lot of room for the filling. Put the oven on 200 degrees and pre-bake the dough for 10 minutes.

Fry the spinach lightly with garlic, olive oil, then adding the pesto. 

Original recipe included sun dried tomato an fresh basil instead of pesto,
but this was a cheaper and quicker alternative. Or as we like to say:

Put the spinach mix in the tin, then stir together the rest of the ingredients - apart from the goat cheese - and pour on top of the spinach and mix together lightly.

The final, and most important step: crumble the cheese and sprinkle generously on top. 

               In the oven for 30 minutes.

Serve with a simple green salad! 

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