dill.

Dill might be my favourite plant in the garden. I love its strange, wispy leaves and nodding, blowsy flower crowns. Most of all, I love the smell. It reminds me of summers at my grandparents' farm like nothing else can. My grandfather died eight years ago and I haven't been to that old house since then, but still the smell of dill filling my small garden takes me back there, to those warm warm warm afternoons picking red currants, looking for frogs at the pond, wandering in the pasture with the horses, running back to the house with the smell of dill heady in the yard.

 If you see some yellow flowers in this picture, they are cucumber blossoms. I'm hoping to make pickles this summer. But right now these vines boast just one, oddly shapen little vegetable, so I brought home a big field cucumber from the market and made snabbgurka ('quick pickle') instead.

This is so simple but makes the perfect, fresh, summery side dish. Kaninen's mother showed me how to make it. Use your trusty vegetable slicer to slice very thin rounds of cucumber (however much you want to eat) into a bowl. Peeling it first is up to you. Mix with 1/2-1 tsp each of salt and sugar and a lidful of white vinegar (ättika). Try to get a balance of salty, sweet and sharp. Cover your cucumber with finely chopped dill (or other herbs) and cover it with a little dish. Let it sit while you are preparing the rest of your dinner, say, boiling the potatoes to go alongside it. After twenty minutes or so: Eat!

Snabbgurka goes well with meats or with starchy vegetables like potatoes or roasted beets, anything that wants a nice sharp taste alongside it to cut through starchy or fatty foods.

PS I just noticed on my calendar that today marks the start of crayfish season. Timely, as crayfish are traditionally eaten with lots of dill crowns!

This guy likes dill, too.

♥

översättning:

ett enkelt recept för snabbgurka!

golden courgettes

How to make a simple and refreshing salad:

Start with a yellow summer squash.

  And a handful of basil leaves.

Use a vegetable peeler, mandolin or the large slot on a box grater to cut the squash into very thin rounds. Tear the basil in small pieces over the courgette.

 Add lemon juice.

 Add a Serious Amount of olive oil. Grind over black pepper and toss with flaked salt (for extra crunch and flavour).

 

Yum!

Extra good with a dusting of grated parmesan or over sliced fresh mozarella. I like to use mini bocconcini, torn into pieces.

Summer food!

Amaranth, and garden eating

I harvested a handful of massive amaranth leaves for my dinner.

I mentioned before that I had never heard of amaranth until I began growing it this summer. Now I love it. It grows so quickly, doesn't mind the heat, has been bug-proof (knock on wood) and despite being eaten down to the quick by rabbits last month, the plants are now all about 30-50cm high and covered with big leaves. If you garden, grow amaranth! I have only a few plants, in a tiny area, but they are so vigorous that I seem to be getting a large harvest anyway. You can eat the young leaves like lettuce, which is great now, at high summer, when lettuce is a bit fussy about high temperatures, and cook the large leaves like spinach, good for when the spinach is not yet ready (at least mine isn't).

Amaranth is popular in all around the world. I found and made this Indian curry recipe (the first one on the page). Try it with spinach if you don't have amaranth. Yum yum yum.

Of course curry doesn't exactly 'go' with the insalata calabrese I served alongside it. That's just how it is with garden cookery. Sometimes you simply have a basket of rapidly ripening tomatoes, a basil plant that's longing to be eaten, a small jungle of amaranth needing to be picked, and a serious craving for buffalo mozzarella all in one day. Of course there are surely ways to work all these things into a single cohesive meal, but I don't have anything against a mismatched salad and main course. After all, it's just me I have to please!

lemonade

For hot days, how about lemon balm lemonade?

Take 3-4 tablespoons of sugar in the bottom of a glass. Tear up some lemon balm (or mint) leaves and muddle them into the sugar with a spoon or a proper muddler, if you have one. Stir in the juice of half to one lemon (depending on juciness, of course). Add ice and top up with cold still or sparkling water. Herbs make good things even more refreshing!

(add an oz of gin if it's that kind of party)

Best enjoyed through a straw on a sunny afternoon!

green (and red)

 I made this small salad for lunch from things in the garden, and it looked so pretty. It's fresh shelled peas, radish, dill, thyme, and red and green amaranth leaves. I had never had amaranth in my life before, or even heard of it, but I read an article extolling the virtues of growing red leafy vegetables, including amaranth, so I tried it. It's good! Slightly bitter and very fresh. On the side is a grilled sausage and a pool of grainy mustard. Perfection.

cocktail hour

I was looking around on the internet to find a nice drink recipe, something refreshing to beat this heat, and I have thus learned about a great drink, the Country Club Cooler. Don't let the posh name put you off, it's really good: simple and refreshing. Just 2 oz of dry vermouth, a teaspoon of grenadine, ice, and a twist each of lemon and orange zest. Top off with club soda. The drink is pink and fizzy, and it's a great way to put that bottle of vermouth that you keep around for martinis to use. Personally I hate having things around that see no action, although you wouldn't know it to look at my house.

Incidentally, sorry for the lack of posts around here lately. I have been having some technology issues (card reader refusing to read for a while) compounded with time management issues. Everything should get back on track after today though.

Happy sipping!

♥ Dawn

breakfast

Yoghurt with brown sugar and strawberries from the garden, toast with gooseberry jam, water and tea.

Those strawberries were so lovely but I kind of wish I had saved them for tomorrow, so I could have a proper strawberries-and-cream breakfast-with-Wimbledon Saturday morning! Perhaps some more will ripen by Sunday.

♥ Dawn

översättning: min frukost: yoghurt med hemodlade jordgubbar, te och rostat bröd med krusbärssylt.

Summer lunch

I grilled a steak for lunch today with caper sauce and a lettuce salad. It felt so luxurious, but was so simple and delicious. In principle I don't eat a lot of meat, but a good rare steak is better than almost anything.

The best cooking trick I ever learned is how to check if meat is done without cutting into it. The trick is to learn how to judge the meat be feel, by gently pressing it with your finger or a utensil. If it's raw, it's squishy, and if it's medium-well done, it feels like pushing on a mattress. Rare meat has a feel somewhere in-between. Another way to think of the texture is to compare it to the fleshy bit between your thumb and first finger. When your hand is held loosely, that spot is soft, like raw meat. In a loose fist, your hand will feel like rare-medium, and a tight fist will show you what well done meat feels like. I've had good luck with this technique with every kind of meat, from chicken breasts to pork roasts and steaks.

The caper sauce is easy as anything. Saute a quarter or half an onion, chopped, in butter and olive oil until it is lightly browned. Add a few spoons of capers (I like lots) and a big splash of red wine and let it putter for a few minutes. I also added fresh thyme from my garden. The sauce is fast, but make sure to start chopping the onions and getting your ingredients out before you put the steak on the grill, since it won't take very long to cook, if you like it rare. You can also pan-fry the steak, just let the onions cook for a minute or two and then put the steak in with them. Extra steak flavour in the sauce is always good.

Inlagd sil

While I was in Sweden in May, I decided to try my hand at making soused herring (I believe this is how you call inlagd sil in English!). It is preserved herring in a vinegar bath with dill, apple, red onions and elderflower cordial (fläderblomssaft). The result was good but not so flavourful as I wanted it to be. On the other hand, it looked so beautiful that I really couldn't have any complaints. The recipe is from Amelia Vår.

Asparagus pie

I made dinner for my mum on midsummer, parmesan and asparagus pie (super good and simple recipe here). Pie (or quiche) is one of the best foods I know for leftovers. Alongside is lettuce with the cream salad dressing from Camilla Plum's book "The Scandinavian Kitchen." It's one of those recipes that's so simple and perfect that once you've learned it you feel silly for not having known it already. I can recommend the book too, it focuses on ingredients and is a good choice if, like me, your Danish is not quite up to snuff enough for her other books!

fettisdagen

Today in Sweden it's Semladagen! (Semla Day) A semla (semlor is the plural) is an incredibly delicious sweet bun, flavoured with cardamom and filled with almond paste, topped with a bright white mound of whipped cream.  Since I couldn't be in Sweden today, I had to bake some myself.  I don't think they turned out quite as nice as a semla from the bakery, but they're still really good and I'm so happy I made them.  I hate missing semladagen! My mum came over and helped me to eat one or two after supper. She thought they were so delicious that now she too wants to move to Sweden!

Lördag frukost

70-talet katalogstilen ungefär!

Müsli med fil (hemmagjorda förstås, från en liten bunke med fil som jag smugglade hem från sverige i somras - den lever forfarande!), kaffe, och havtornssaft.  Härligt början till en snöig dag!


BTW - - - Bloggen kommer att flytta i närmaste dagarna - jag håller inte på med att vara en del i den googleimperiet, och så ska jag flytta.

Blueberry pie

I was feeling unaccomplished yesterday, so just before I went to bed I made a blueberry pie.  So easy, so good!

Make a pie crust using your favourite recipe, and let it chill in the fridge for 15 minutes. Then smoosh half the dough over the bottom of a greased pie pan to make a roughly flat, even crust.  Bake for 8 minutes at 350.  Take it out and spread about 1.5 cups frozen blueberries over the top.  Sprinkle half a cup of sugar over the berries.  You could also grate some lemon zest over, which is a very yummy, but not necessary, addition.  Take the rest of the dough and smoosh little flat pieces of it and lay these over the blueberries.  Bake for another 20-30 minutes at 350.  You'll know it's done when the top crust turns golden. Of course you could also be fancy about it and roll the dough out and everything like a proper pie, but this way is so easy and so good.  You end up with something between a pie and a cake.  Really nice with coffee and vanilla sauce, or ice cream.

Of course it is winter, not blueberry season, and these are not frozen.  They are shipped (sigh) from Peru (sigh).  My dad bought them for me because he knows I like blueberries, so what could I say.  I wanted to give in to my tendency to lecture - especially my tendency to lecture on my favourite topics of local, seasonal, organic.  But it was a thoughtful thing for him to do, so I swallowed my lecture and baked a pie.

the one where I get an andra adventsfika after all

I wanted so much to finish my paper today.  And I tried so hard, but it just wasn't working. So finally around five o'clock I gave up and made cookies, which I had been dreaming about doing all day.

I should probably rename this blog "Cookie Mountains." Or "Wierd iPhone Photos of Greedy Mounds of Baked Goods"

I used Underbara Clara's recipe here, the one I mentioned the other day, and they are so delicious.  I used a tiny bit more cardamom than the recipe calls for, on account of my cardamom addiction, and mine turned out a little rounder than hers - I forgot to flatten them out before baking. Ooops! I also made two batches because the first time around I was really not paying attention and accidently added an extra 100 ml flour.   Like all good recipes, this one can stand a little bit of screwing up by the chef and still give super tasty results.  I ate MANY of them.  Studying makes you hungry!

While eating many, many cookies I also finished the buttonholes for my pyjama top and sewed on the buttons.  I just need to get more thread and then I can finish sewing the pants.  Why do I always imagine that I can finish any project with just a single spool of thread?


The very important thing on my "to-do list" that I didn't get to today is finding my camera's charger! Meanwhile, you get a lot of instagrammyness.

Instagrammyness.  I told you I can't write today!

Första Advent

Dear Imaginary Future Readers,

yesterday was a day that is known in Sweden as Första Advent: the first Sunday of the four advent Sundays before Christmas.  Well, I dont know very much about advents, or any of that, but I do know about pastries and other tasty baked treats, so I decided to make some very traditional buns called Lussekatter, or saffron buns in English.  As you can see, I made a great heaping mound of buns:

It turns out its not a real great idea to make 50 pastries on a holiday-ish Sunday when you are home all alone.  You end up eating a lot of buns and feeling slightly depressed.  But it turned out alright, my mum dropped by today and I foisted a good lot of the remaining buns off on her and all is well.  Although I am totally, utterly failing in my resolve to eat very healthily in the weeks leading up to the holiday so I can blissfully indulge when I get back to Sweden.  Oh well!

I used this recipe which has both quark and an egg in it, and promises to deliver an extra soft and yummy bun as a result.  I think the results make good on this promise.  Shall I translate the recipe into English for you, Imaginary Future Leaders? Well, okay, I will.  Meanwhile, heres another picture of my little robot climbing Bun Mountain:

Saffron dough:

• 50 g yeast (for sweet doughs)
• 150 g butter or margarine (but butter is better!)
• 5 dl (500 ml) milk
• 250 g quark (fresh cheese?)
• 1 egg
• 1 g saffron
• ½ tsp salt
• 1.5 – 3.0 dl (150 – 300 ml) sugar
• 17 dl (1.7 l) flour

Glazing:

• 1 egg

Decorating:

• About 1 dl (100 ml) raisins 

Pre-Direction:

Preheat oven to 225 °C (435 F). 

Directions:

1. Break up the yeast in a big bowl
2. Melt the fat (i.e. butter or margarine) in a pot. Pour over the milk, stir and warm slowly until it reaches 37 °C (lukewarm).
3. Pour a bit of the liquid (i.e. milk and melted butter) over the yeast and gently stirr until the yeast is dissolved.
4. Add the rest of the liquid, quark, the egg, saffron, sugar and salt.  Work the dough with a machine or by hand, gradually adding almost all the flour, until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl and comes together. Cover the bowl loosely with a dish towel and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.
5. Get the dough out of the bowl onto your floured work surface.  Knead well (until smooth and satiny).  Separate into five pieces.  Divide each of these into 10 small pieces and make them into Lucia cats: i.e., roll each small piece into a narrow, long roll, then curl it up into a funny S shape (see photo for ideas).  Stick a raisin in each curly end. Lay the Lucia cats on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.  Cover gently with your dishtowel and let them rise until they double in size, about 20-30 minutes.
6. Whisk the egg.  Brush the top of each bun with whisked egg.
7. Bake in the middle of the over for about 8 – 10 minutes, until golden on top.
8. Let cool under the dish towel.  These freeze well but if you’re going to freeze them, do it the same day you bake them. That way they’ll taste very nice and fresh when you eat them later!

I hope my future readers are comfortable with metric in the kitchen!

I will probably not get any baking done next Sunday, and will more likely be hunched over my desk, working furiously on the 30 pages I need to have done by Monday.  But if I do, it will certainly be one of these really tempting recipes by wonderful Underbara Clara, especially the cardemummy chocolate cookies, which Im really dying to make! I do love cardamom.  Its my favourite spice, besides cumin.  In fact, I eat it every morning on my breakfast.  But you know, breakfasts probably deserve a post of their own, so I had better hold that thought.

Now, let me apologize for the Instamatic-ness of my photos, a feature that will be prominent over the next few posts.  I have made the grave error of letting the charger for my proper camera get out of my sight, and am paying the price for it.  Oh well.  Ive seen great iphone photos from lots of people, so I am inspired! Also, please allow me to apologise for the absence of apostrophes in this post.  My keyboard is being uncooperative.  

Tune in soon for a post about sewing! Ive been making a lot lately, and sometimes remembering to take photos! 

  Your pal,

Dawn