The perfect weekend breakfast is here! I made Oeufs en cocotte (eggs in ramekins) this morning and it was absolutely fantastic. This is great to serve for breakfast when you have people staying over or just at a treat at the weekend. It is really easy to make and only takes 15 minutes in the oven. Perfect! Promise me you will try this.
I do like Nigella and add a little bit of truffle oil, but that is optional. I added some chopped smoked ham too, but you can add anything you like (chopped spinach, cooked mushrooms, chives) or keep it plain.
Oeufs en cocotte, serves 2
Butter two ramekins, and add the chopped ham for example. Crack an egg into each ramekin, sprinkle over some sea salt and, pour in 1 tbsp cream and a little (1/4 – 1/2 tsp) truffle oil. Put the ramekins in an oven-proof dish and pour boiling water into the dish to come halfway up each ramekin. Bake in 190 C for 15 minutes. Serve with some nice bread.
In the second round of the quest for the perfect Madeleines, Christopher is the one baking. They have started a bake off in his office, and these were his contribution.
The recipe is from the book How to eat in by Adam Byatt, the chef at Trinity, one of our favourite restaurants. We were actually a bit disappointed with the recipe… Just like the last recipe we tried, the cakes are lovely, light and fluffy, but they don’t taste like perfect Madeleines should. We think they need more vanilla to them, and maybe more butter too, even though there is plenty in this recipe. The quest continues.
Has anyone got a great recipe we could try?
Madeleines, about 25
1 vanilla pod
400 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
400 g butter
9 eggs
450 g caster sugar
35 g clear honey
Preparation: Split the vanilla pod in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds. Sift the flour and baking powder together in a bowl. Roughly dice the butter and melt it in the microwave or in a bowl over simmering water, making sure it dies not get too hot. Remove the bowl from the pan.
Brush the cups of your moulds with soft butter, then dust them with flour, place in the fridge to get cold.
Method: Put the eggs, sugar and honey into a bowl. Add the vanilla seeds and beat well with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer until evenly mixed. Now add the flour and baking powder and continue mixing until well incorporated. Add the melted butter and incorporate further. Transfer the mix to a clean bowl, place in the fridge and leave to rest for at least an hour (up to 2 days).
When you are ready to bake the Madeleines, preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Spoon the mixture into the cups, filling them three-quarters full, and bake for 12 minutes, until they become firm to the touch. Remove the moulds from the oven and allow to stand for 1 minute before turning the Madeleines out of the cups and dusting them with icing sugar.
I seem to spend every Sunday in the kitchen lately, and I absolutely love it, although I nearly overdid it this Sunday with the slow-cooking casserole, eggs benedict for breakfast and baking in between. It was quite late when I got to sit down and I realised how tired I was. And happy! Cooking and baking really makes me happy. On Sunday I tried a few new things, and fairly complicated recipes, but sometimes making a simple weekday dinner can make me just as happy. Or baking an old favourite recipe that I know by heart…
This cookie is related to the crumbly vanilla cookie I mentioned not too long ago, and it is really yummy. I can’t really say which one I like the most, but this combination is more unusual and the crunch from the cornflakes is great. Try them both and see which one you prefer! I promise, they’re both really good!
Crumbly vanilla cookies with cornflakes and chocolate, about 25
100 g softened butter
200 ml granulated sugar
100 ml rapeseed oil/cooking oil (one without strong flavours)
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp cooking ammonium
400 ml plain flour
2 tbsp potato flour (can be excluded, just add a tad more wheat flour)
200 ml cornflakes
50 g dark chocolate, chopped
Beat the butter and sugar fluffy, beat in the oil. Mix in the other ingredients and spoon the mixture onto a baking sheet. It is quite stodgy and crumbly already here, so I help the mixture to stick together by pressing it into a ball with my hand as well. Bake for 13-15 minutes in the middle section of the oven in 175C.
Leave to cool on a wire rack, and if you want to make them look pretty, melt some chocolate and pour over them with a spoon to create lines. Leave to dry on the wire rack.
I love aubergine! So this is a weekday favourite of mine. Christopher doesn’t love them, but tolerates them, and together with pasta he quite enjoys it. This is a speedy version of lasagne as you use a tub of cream cheese instead of the bechamel sauce. Together with the soft vegetables the cheese becomes nice and creamy.
Quick lasagne with aubergine and courgette, serves 4
1 aubergine
2-3 courgettes
oilve oil
lasagne sheets
1 tub (200 g) Philadelphia
1 can chopped tomatoes with basil (I love Ciro’s)
vegetable stock
salt pepper
grated cheese
Wash the vegetables and cut the ends off, slice in 5 mm thick slices. Fry these until soft in olive oil on medium heat. Make them in batches. Meanwhile, pour the chopped tomatoes into a saucepan and reduce on low-medium heat, add vegetable stock and season. In an oven dish, start with a layer of tomato sauce, next a layer of pasta, a little bit more tomato sauce, a layer of courgettes, dollops of cream cheese, and start again from the pasta layer but substitute the courgettes with aubergine this time around and use courgettes in the top layers. Finish off with pasta sheets, tomato sauce and the grated cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes in 200 C.
I never know what to serve with this dish, it feels a bit unnecessary to serve a salad with this amount of vegetables, have you got any tips?
I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but the last two months or so I have cut out a lot of fiber. This was my doctor’s orders and to prevent my stomach cramps.
In the beginning I saw it as an excuse to eat everything unhealthy, as I had to cut out fruit, berries, seeds, nuts, vegetables and everything whole grain. But it wasn’t as fun to cut out vegetables as I had imagined. I really suffered, not being able to eat avocado, asparagus, berries… Cutting it out makes the food you eat seem really dense, and sometimes I was really struggling with motivation on what to cook. But it did help my stomach enormously!
I have also learnt that maybe society exaggerate the importance of fiber, my stomach has worked better than before without it, and I haven’t gained weight from eating white bread and pasta. I think variation in your diet as well as normal-sized portions is the key rather than eating a lot of fibers.
Since a week and a half I have started to introduce certain vegetables, berries and fruit into my diet, so we’ll see how that works out. I am thrilled to be able to eat vegetables again, and enjoy the fact that my food seems much lighter now.
In spring and summer I prefer salads, but in the autumn and winter I love my soups and am so happy I can have it for lunch everyday if I want to! This is what I had today, at my desk, as you can see. 😉
Parsnip and sweet potato soup, serves 1
1 parsnip
1 sweet potato
olive oil
vegetable stock
cream/creme fraiche
persillade
chilli flakes (only a few)
salt
Peel the vegetables and cut into pieces. Heat up some olive oil in a pan and add the vegetables, cook for only a few minutes to add flavour. Pour boiling water into the pan, and add a little stock, cook for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are very tender. Drain the cooking water into a bowl and puree the vegetables, gradually adding the cooking water and cream until you get the thickness you want. Bring to a boil again and adjust the salt with stock and salt, add the seasoning and serve with a dollop of creme fraiche.
I liked to bake even as a little girl. I think I was eight or so when I made sponge better than my mum (that’s the only thing I can cook or bake better than her though, but it kept me going) and made it again and again for my dad, who had to eat a lot just to please me. This non-oven recipe I usually ate myself, and I still like it. It’s like a children’s truffle or something. It still helps against any chocolate cravings and it is so easy to make.
Pretty little things!
Chocolate oat balls, about 20
100 g softened butter
300 ml oats
4 tbsp granulated or caster sugar
1 tbsp cocoa
1 tbsp water
sugar strands, hundreds of thousands, desiccated coconut, chopped nuts etc.
Mix the ingredients thoroughly, the last thing you want is a lump of butter in there. I use thedough hooks on my electric whisk, otherwise you can do it by hand with a wooden spoon. Roll the mixture into small balls, and roll them in for example sugar strands or whatever you can think of. It is traditionally made with desiccated coconut, but I prefer it with something sugary. The white sugar pearls are Swedish, and that’s normally what I would use, but they look pretty with sugar strands or hundred and thousands too.
Put on a plate, cover with clingfilm and let them set in the fridge for at least 45 minutes. They keep for about a week in the fridge, but they usually don’t last that long. 🙂
An easy and tasty everyday dinner are these tasty greek lamb scewers with tzatziki, a simple sallad and toasted pittas. The meat doesn’t need to mariande for more than 20 minutes, so it is easily done when you get home from work, or why not put the meat in the marinade in the morning and it’s all ready to get cooking when you get home from work?!
Use a very hot pan The tzatzikiYum!
Souvlaki, serves 2
400 g lamb
oilve oil
soy sauce
1/2 lemon, juice from
2 cloves garlic, pressed
3-4 tsp oregano
salt
black pepper
Cut the fat off the meat and cut it into cubes. Put the meat in a bowl and pour the ingredients for the marinade over it (more oil than soy), stir, cover with cling film and put in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
Put the meat onto scewers and fry in olive oil in a very hot pan until the meat is cooked through and they have a lovely colour. It would work even better on a grill pan or on the barbecue.
Tzatziki, serves 2
300 ml strained greek yoghurt
5 cm cucumber
2 small or 1 large cloves of garlic
salt
white pepper
Pour the yoghurt into a bowl. Grate the cucumber coarsely, and squeeze it to drain from water. Add the drained cucumber to the yoghurt, add the pressed garlic, salt and pepper. The garlic flavour will become stronger after a while, so leave it for 10 minutes or so until you taste it and add more garlic if needed. Pour over a little olive oil before serving.
I made a simple salad of cucumber cubes, thin slices of red onions, olive oil and lemon juice to serve with this, but make any salad you like and maybe add some feta. Serve with toasted pitta bread.
This is not a dish I can take any credit for at all, apparently it was a very popular veggie dish in the 80’s (at least in Sweden) but I found out about it a couple of days ago on this blog. I really wanted to try and make it because a) it sounded really nice, and b) because I had half a celeriac left in the fridge and no idea how to use it. So ok, b) was the strongest motivator! But this is a great way of using up left over celeriac and it tastes great together with the mushrooms. We were soon thinking of other ways to use it, maybe with some parmesan mixed in with the breadcrumbs or some chilli flakes? We will see how we do it next time. There is definitely a next time.
This is my version, with what I had at hand, but do have a look at the blog above and google translate it.
Panfried celeriac with mushrooms, serves two as a starter or side dish
1/2 celeriac
soy sauce
1 egg
plain flour
breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
a large handful mushrooms
some parlsey
1/2 clove of garlic, pressed
Peel and cut the celeriac into 1 cm thick slices. Boil them in water and a little soy sauce for about 10 minutes, or until it is nearly cooked through. Drain. Coat the slices with first plain flour, then beaten egg and last breadcrumbs. Fry on medium heat in a frying pan with a lot of olive oil, first one side and then the next until golden (about 2 minutes on each side). Add salt and pepper. While you fry the celeriac, fry the mushrooms in some oil and butter over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, add some salt and pepper, pressed garlic and parsley. Serve with tzatziki or another cold sauce.
After the autumnal casserole on Sunday I made an old-fashioned semolina pudding for dessert. I vaguely remember mother (or maybe grandmother?) making one with raisins when I was a child. I am no fan of warm raisins so I made mine without and served it with strawberry jam. It was the first time I made it myself, and I liked, it is a very comforting dessert, but Christopher didn’t like it much. He had pictured it as sweeter and more like the semolina porridge his mother just to make for him as a child. It starts off with the porridge, but it sets in the oven.
Semolina pudding, serves 2-3
450 ml milk
75 ml semolina
a pinch of salt
1/2 tbsp butter
some lemon peel
75 ml granulated or caster sugar
1 egg
50 ml double cream
Start off by making semolina porridge. Bring the milk to a boil, then add the semolina and salt. Add raisins if you prefer. Cook the porridge slowly while stirring for 3 minutes. Add the butter and lemon peel. Put aside and leave to cool.
Add sugar (I used double the amount), egg and cream (which I whipped lightly before adding, but I don’t think that’s necessary). Pour the mixture into a buttered ovenproof dish and bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes in 200C. Serve with strawberry conserve and maybe some whipped cream.
How many of you have seen the film Julie and Julia? As soon as I finished watching the film I just had to buy the cookbook at Amazon. I have read it and love it, but most recipes are time consuming and not everyday dinners perhaps. At least not for me when I come home grumpy and need something quick. But yesterday, I had a whole day to cook, and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to start autumn in my kitchen, with a nice stew. Even though I worship the sun, I am actually longing for the autumn. I want it to be a few degrees cooler so I can start wearing autumn clothes, and enjoy the season as the trees drop their leaves. Instead it is 18 degrees and the flat is roasting when I have the oven on for more or less a whole day. Supper, however, was delightful! It was exactly so delicious I had pictured it in my head, and that is usually quite difficult to live up too.
I converted the recipe to metric and centigrade and divided it by three to serve two.
The cookbook!The finished casseroleBoeuf bourguignon with roast potatoes
Julia Child’s Boeuf bourguignon, serves 2
60 g streaky bacon
olive oil
450 g stewing steak, cut into cubes
1 small carrot, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
salt & black pepper
10 g plain flour
230 ml red wine (Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, Burgundy, Chianti)
130 ml beef stock
2 tsp tomato paste
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/4-1/2 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
6 small onions (such as shallots)
150 g button mushrooms
Cut the bacon into lardons. Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in water. Drain and dry. Preheat oven to 230C.
In the casserole dish, sauté the bacon in oil over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Leave casserole aside. Reheat until fat is almost smoking before you sauté the beef.
Dry the beef; it will not brown if it is damp. Sauté it, a few pieces at the time, in the hot oil and bacon fat until nicely brown on all sides. Add it to the bacon.
In the same fat, brown the sliced carrot and onion. Pour out the sautéing fat. Return the beef and the bacon to the casserole and toss with salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Place casserole uncovered in the middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to oven for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and covers the meat with a light crust.) Remove casserole, and turn oven down to 165C.
Stir in the wine, and enough stock so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic and herbs. Bring to a simmering point on top of the stove. Then cover the casserole and place in lower part of the preheated oven. Regulate heat so that liquid simmers very slowly for 3 to 4 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.
While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms. Leave them aside until needed.
Put butter and oil in a frying pan and wsit for it to get bubbling, then add the onions and sauté over a moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling the onions about so that they brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break their skins. You cannot to expect to brown them uniformly.
Then pour in 100 ml or so of beef stock and a small bay leaft, some parsley sprigs and a little thyme. Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but retain their shape, and the liquid has evaporated.
Place a frying pan over a high heat with some butter and oil. As soon as you see that the butter foam hasbegun to subside, indicating that it is hot enough, add the mushrooms (washed, well dried, left whole if small, sliced or quartered if large). Toss and shake the pan for 4 to 5 minutes. During this the mushrooms will first absorb the fat. In 2 to 3 minutes the fat will reappear on their surface, and the mushrooms will begin to brown. As soon as they have browned lightly, remove from the heat.
When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve placed over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms over the meat.
Skim fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two, skimming off additional fat as it rises (I didn’t need to do this). The sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. if too thick, mix in a few tablesppons of stock. Taste carefully for seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables.
Cover the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times. Serve in its casserole, or arrange on a dish surrounded with potatoes, noodles or rice, decorated with parsley.
Tradionally, boiled potatoes are served with boeuf borguignon but we chose to serve it with roast potatoes, and it was perfect. The middle of the potatoes are a bit liked boiled potatoes, but the outsides are nice and crisp.
I have never roasted potatoes this way, but it seems to be the common way of roasting potatoes for a Sunday roast.
Roast potatoes
Peel potatoes and either leave them whole or cut in half, or if exceptionally big potatoes, cut in quarters. You want quite big pieces. Boil the potatoes nearly done, for 15 minutes or so. Place on a hot roasting dish and coat them lightly with either vegetable oil or (even better) goose fat. Roast in 200C for about 40 minutes.
We roasted them for 30 minutes or so on the same temperature as the casserole, 165C and then turned it up to 200C when I was thinning/thickening the sauce and roasted them for another 20 minutes. It works fine to heat up the vegetables in the casserole on this temperature for a few minutes.
Scandelights 