Rosen in Malmö, Sweden

Published on by Hanna3 Comments

Since I left Malmö and Sweden two years ago, the town has changed a little. In the old part of the town, the west end, a new hotel has been built. I was very sad when they announced it as they had to tear down the old Saluhall (food market) to do it. I loved that food market, even though there weren’t many shops left, but nice cafées and restaurants. This west part of the town is my favourite, with old houses, nice cobbled streets and a very cosy feel to it. The new development still houses one of the old restaurants, a nice fish restaurant called Johan P, a new TGI Fridays and Malmö’s first five star hotel.

A different display of a dry martini

Even though I was against this development I can’t hold a grudge to something I haven’t experienced, and according to another blogger, the bar Rosen, the rose, in the hotel serves Malmö’s best cocktails. I met up with my friends here last Friday for a drink before dinner. Some chose a glass of cava, and some of us tried the cocktails. Claes went for the classic dry martini and it was served in a very original way, a glass cone holding the drink, but down in a bowl of ice to keep cool and olives scattered in the bowl. I went for an Elderflower Fizz, because one ingredient was my favourite liqueur. The drink was lovely, but I couldn’t really taste the elderflower in it. A shame.

Elderflower fizz

The bar was quite full up at 7 pm, a good sign, and people seemed to enjoy themselves. I didn’t think the bar looked very fancy for being a five star hotel, but maybe we want it a bit understated in Sweden, here in England it is a bit more full on with the decoration.

Picturesque Devon

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It feels like longer ago, but it was only last week that Christopher and I went down to Devon for a few days to visit his grandmother. It was lovely to se the countryside, the sea, the woods and breath fresh air. I got to try the very English dessert trifle for the first time. Will try and make it myself soon, it was really tasty!

We ate enormous award-winning icecream cones in Sidmouth, with Ferrero Rocher and honeycomb flabvour. Yu-um!

We bought some cheese and chutneys at the farmers market in the grandmothers village. It was pouring down with rain so thankfully it was hel inside. The Sombrero cheddar was absolutely lovely, can’t wait to have it with enchiladas or fajitas or maybe just melted over nachos.

When we saw a fudgeshop we just had to buy some fudge, chocolate, clotted cream vanilla and butterscoth.

It is pretty isn’t it?! It was great to explore more of my new country and I highly recommend a trip to Devon.  It is mostly as picturesque as one thinks, but of course there are a few exceptions.

I love London and have visited a few other places around the UK, but I want to see more. The countryside is so beautiful and the people so friendly.

Wonderful Sweden

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It has been quiet here the last week, I went back to Sweden for a few days and didn’t feel I had time to sit by the computer when I see my friends and family so seldom. It was lovely to see them all and catch up.

When I arrived on Wednesday my dear mother had made meatballs for dinner. So much easier to make in Sweden where you can buy mixed beef and pork mince. On Friday I went out for dinner with my friends and on Saturday we had some lovely fish with scallops and the best sauce for fish ever (will post the recipe later).

I also got to spend a whole day with my best friend, and it was great to go shopping, walking around town, have lunch and chat a lot. We don’t see each other that often but when we do, we certainly make the most of it.

I also managed to sort out all my things I have packed in boxes since I moved here, and found the two things I’ve been looking for for two years. Silly things really, but needed; steak knives and a rotating grater. I’m so geeky, haha. 🙂

It was lovely to take some time off, and it actually felt like more than a week, which is great.

A trip home to Skåne, Sweden

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Even though we just got back from Devon last night, I am going home to visit friends and family in Sweden today.

It will be lovely to have dinner with friends, enjoy my mother’s lovely cooking, spend a whole day with my best friend, go for walks in the woods and just chill out in the quiet countryside.

I promise to post updates about Devon and the supperclub when I have a little more time to spend in front of a computer.

Pasta bake with spicy sausage, mushrooms and chilli

Published on by Hanna4 Comments

I really love pasta bakes, they are the ultimate clearing-out-the-fridge-companion, as you can thow anything in it and it still tastes good, and I love the crispy cheese on top, very comforting. So Christopher and I have been debating the pasta bake for a few weeks. Me pro, he against. But then suddenly, he gave in and said we could try it. That means I won, right? 😉

This is the sausage I used, but if you haven’t been to Hungary recently chorizo works just as well.

When I put the dish down in front of him, he said it looked really good and smelt lovely, and to his surprise he really enjoyed it, he didn’t just have a second helping but a third. Smugly I said ‘Well I wasn’t going to make a crappy pasta bake’, and he explained that he ate a lot of pasta bakes at Uni but they weren’t as good, so that was he expected. I think I have converted him now. 

Adding the cheese to the sauce. Yum!

I find it much easier to make this creme fraiche based sauce instead of a proper bechamel, it is much quicker and perfect for a weekday dinner. And you can use the half fat creme fraiche, I sometimes do.

I promise your kitchen smells good by this step! 🙂

Pasta bake with spicy sausage, mushrooms and chilli, serves 3-4

250 g dried pasta (any shape but spaghetti/tagliatelle)

150 g spicy sausage/chorizo

1 can sliced mushrooms

For the sauce:

300 ml creme fraiche

3-4 tbsp chilli sauce (I used Heinz and Reggae Reggae)

2 tsp Gourmet Garden Parsley blend or 1 tbsp chopped parsley

100 ml grated cheese and more to put on top

a splash of concentrated vegetable stock

salt & white pepper

Cook the pasta and drain it. Fry the mushrooms in a knob of butter and olive oil until they have a nice colour, remove from frying pan. Cut the sausage into slices and fry these in the same pan until the have a nice colour (this intensifies the flavour). Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a saucepan and bring to a boil, season to taste. Grease an oven-proof dish with butter and pour in half of the pasta. Distribute half of the mushrooms and sausage on top, and add some of the red cooking juice from the sausage too, it will add some more flavour. Then pour nearly half of the sauce on top as well. Repeat with another layer and sprinkle plenty of grated cheese on top. Bake for 15-20 minutes in 200C.

A trip to Devon

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Christopher and I will take the train down to Devon today. I’m really excited as I haven’t been there before but I have heard (and seen on TV) that it is beautiful there. We are going to stay with Christopher’s grandmother Joan. She is absolutely lovely, and it will be great to spend a bit more time with her.

I look forward to nice walks in the woods and along the coast, to breathe fresh air and to relax and drink lots of tea. Hopefully we will have time for a visit to The River Cottage for lunch. I really like the series, so it would be great to experience it properly. I imagine the life in the countryside here to be a bit like in the series with lots of village fairs happening all the time. In Sweden people keep to themselves a little bit more, or meet up in smaller groups, but here the culture is more sociable. Having said that, Swedes are very sociable too, just in a different way.

So I am very much ready for some countryside life, I love London but I am a country girl at heart! 🙂

Butternut squash soup with chilli

Published on by Hanna2 Comments

It felt like winter yesterday evening. Cold wind and after a short short walk I was freezing. So when I finally got in I put on sheepskin slippers and made a warming soup. As much as I hate being cold I love when you finally get into your warm home and get the body temperature up again by making and eating something warming. That’s what autumnal food is all about, and this soup is a pretty good example of this.

Christopher was very pleased with the result as I didn’t use any cream in this soup (which I often do in soups) but this one doesn’t need it, and I’m not sure if butternut squash and cream is a great combo. The soup was slightly hotter from the chilli than I expected, so a dollop of creme fraiche was nice with it. I also made some parmesan sticks from leftover puff pastry and some quesadillas with spicy Hungarian salami.

Quite out of focus, but you get the idea...

Buttnernut squash soup with chilli, serves 2

1/2 butternut squash (I know I should have weighed it, but was way to hungry, mine was a medium-sized one)

1 medium potato

olive oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1 clove of garlic, grated

1 pinch of salt

water

a splash of concentrated vegetable stock

1-2 tsp chilli flakes

1 tbsp chilli sauce (a mild sweet one)

1 tsp ground cumin

adjust with more salt and stock

Take the pits out of the squash with a spoon and cut the skin off. Cut the squash into 1 inch cubes. Peel the potato and cut it into equally sized cubes. Heat up some olive oil in a large pan and add the cumin and garlic and then the squash and potatoes. Let it soak up the flavours for a few minutes without browning, then add boiling water (or cold, but boiling water is quicker) to cover, add a splash of stock or a piece of a stock cube and bring to a boil. The squash cooks soft in a few minutes, but wait until the potato is soft too. Then remove the vegetables from the saucepan and mix them, adding a bit of the cooking water until you have the thickness you like. Pour the rest of the cooking water out of the pan and pour in the mixed soup. Bring to a boil and add the chilli, more cumin, some salt and maybe some more stock, all after your own taste. Serve with maybe a dollop pf creme fraiche to take the edge off the chilli, some nice bread or quesadillas.

Parmesan sticks

Cut puff pastry into 10 cm long and 1 cm wide strips and place on a baking tray. Grate over plenty of parmesan and bake for 8-10 minutes in 200 C.

Quesadillas

Spread salsa on two soft tortillas, sprinkle grated cheese over one of them, add some salami, a little more cheese and put the other tortilla on top. Fry the tortillas in a dry skillet until they’re brown on both sides and the cheese has melted. Cut into wedges and eat straight away. These are great with soups or with guacemole as a snack.

Tasty Kitchen’s mushroom soup with garlic cheese bread

Published on by Hanna2 Comments

Via Pioneer Woman (a blog I really like with insight to American cooking) I found this recipe posted on Tasty Kitchen. I really enjoyed this creamy mushroom soup, whereas Christopher’s comment was that it tasted really nice, but he didn’t think tomato, cream and mushrooms was a good combo, not what one expects. I must say I only expected one thing – for it to taste good, and it really did! 🙂 I had the leftovers for lunch the next day and it was really tasty then too.

I served Pioneer Woman’s cheesy garlic bread with it, (with a few changes of course) and we both really liked it!

When it comes to cooking I rarely follow recipes properly, I guess I see them more as inspiration. Even if I have the intention to actually follow it, I always end up adding or substituting something. With this soup I had been a bit silly and printed the measurements in US style and not metric, and couldn’t really be bothered to convert it, so I used all the ingredients (apart from the wine, didn’t have any at hand) and only added some chilli sauce for a punch and sweetness. If you want the original recipe, click on the link above, and below is my modified version. Tasty that one, too!

Creamy mushroom soup, serves 3-4

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

1-2 small carrots, finely chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

250 g closed cup mushrooms, sliced

1 clove of garlic, pressed

200 ml passata

500 ml chicken stock (1,5 stock cube + boiling water)

300 ml cream

some finely grated parmesan (approx 2-3 tbsp)

thickening agent (I used Swedish Maizena, made of corn starch)

2 tbsp chilli sauce

salt and white pepper

Heat up the olive oil in a large sauce pan, when hot throw in the celery and carrots and let them soften a bit. Then add the garlic and next the mushrooms. Let the mushrooms reduce in size for a few minutes, and then add the passata and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and let it boil for five minutes or so, then add the cream. Bring to a boil again, adjust the seasoning and add the chilli sauce, and let it simmer for a few minutes. Then add the thickening agent and let it boil on low heat until the soup has the thickness you desire. Maybe add some chopped parsley and serve.

Cheesy garlic bread

Cut crusty baguette lengthways. Melt a knob of butter and add some pressed garlic ot a frying pan and fry the bread (soft side own) until it is golden. Make sure the garlic doesn’t burn. Then mix mayonnaise and grated cheese (cheddar and parmesan) in a bowl. Add some salt. Spoon the mixture onto the crusty bread and put them high up in the oven on 225C until the cheese mixture is nice and golden too. Dig in!