Tag: Cooking

Pasta

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I love pasta. It makes everything taste good. I think pasta is under rated these days. Everytime it’s talked about it has to do with that it contains too much carbs. You need both carbs and protein but carbs have become something bad.

Like pasta I find comfort food under rated. Today all restaurants serve “new” food but it’s hard to find uncomplicated things. In Sweden we have something called “husmanskost” which is food that has been around for long. It’s food like boiled pork and fried pork with onion sauce. Everyone is crazy about it but it’s hard to get when you’re out to eat.

Pasta bolognese has become “husmanskost” and it’s no restaurant that serve it. They do but there is always something “new” to it. It can be that the sauce is made with pickled meat or onion and it doesn’t taste right. Today I made pasta bolognese. Simple bolognese. Minced beef with tomatoe puree, milk, cream and onions. I always use milk to make it into a sauce. Water is too thin I find. I used to add water but milk is better. Cream gives is a good taste.

I used to be bad at making bolognese sauce. Now I’ve learned and I think there are two important factors that makes a successful bolognese.

*”Boil” the liquid out of the minced meat before you add the rest of the ingredients.

*If you put tomatoe puree in the sauce let it cook for a while in the pan with the meat before adding liquid.

Delicious.

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Potatoe omelette

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I love omelettes. The dinner idea of the day is potatoe omelette.

I often think a plain omelette doesn’t fill you up. Put lots of things in it and it will. This omelette has potatoes, peppers, broccoli and bacon in it. Broccoli is a healthy vegetable and I try to make something with it often. It is good in omelettes and with the salty bacon it’s delicious!

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I cut the potatoe in thin slices. I fry it for a while before I put the rest of the filling ingredients in. When it has been cooked for a while I put the eggs in.

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Dinner party

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I don`t think having dinner parties is enjoyable. The party I love but not the dinner part. I`m not confident in my cooking and think no one will like what I serve. I know I can cook reasonably well but when it comes to feeding others I`m very uncertain as to how it will taste. When I go to friends for dinner I`ve never been disappointed at what they serve. The food is only a small part of the evening and even if it isn`t that good I don`t care. I know the friends that come to my dinners think the same but it doesn`t help.

Speaking of dinner parties, when I was younger one of my mom`s friends use to come over for dinner and I normally made the desserts. She is hilarious and I remember those dinners to be full of laughter. Anyway there are two of those dinners that stand out from the rest.

The most important when it comes to dinners is that there is enough food for everyone. I remember one time my mom was making lasagna. She was supposed to do one lasagna for the three of us. The oven tin she was using would serve maybe four large servings. I said that I thought one lasagna wasn`t enough. We talked back and forth about it and my mom ended up making two. They say mom`s are always right and oh boy how right she was. We ate half a lasagna! We had to eat the rest for days!

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The other dinner party involved me doing more than I should. My mom`s friend loves desserts and I went all in that evening. I decided to make a cake with many layers and soft caramel on top. The thing was I had never made that many layers in a cake or (!) caramel before. I almost cried! When I tried to cut the cake into all these layers it fell apart and I ended up with bread crumbs instead of slices. The caramel………. It was far from soft. It became chewy toffee which I tried to put on top of the crumbs. I ended up making short bread! Not jam filled short bread with whipped cream that would resemble a dessert , only dry short bread.

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I love cooking at dinner parties! Not.

Beef pirogue

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I love puff pastry. I would be happy eating baked puff pastry and nothing else. It`s crunchy and soft at the same time and the taste is good.

I love pirogues because of the puff pastry. My favorite pirogue is with minced beef. I made a big beef pirogue that served two the other day. It was delicious.

I began by making the beef filling. I fried onions and minced beef in a pan. I added tomatoe purèe and spices. I also added a bit of milk to get the texture I wanted. I let it cool before I filled the pastry.

20170331_154832I bought the puff pastry. The thought of making it myself makes me tired. All that rolling and all the butter that has to be added is overwhelming.

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I put the minced beef in the middle of the pastry.

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I rolled the pastry into a pirogue. The pirogue got brushed with egg. I made cuts on it to prevent it from breaking.

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I baked it at 200 C for 20 minutes.

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Delicious.

 

 

Dinner

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It’s not blackened beef on the plate. It’s black pudding! I don’t know why I think it’s delicious but I do. I never think about what it contains because then I wouldn’t eat. It has animal blood in it among other things. It’s the same with sausage. If you knew you wouldn’t eat it.

In Sweden black pudding is everyday food. It’s often served with bacon. Lingonberry jam is a must. Without jam it’s not tasty at all.

Today I served the black pudding with lingonberry jam, bacon and potatoes. I made tomatoe and melon salad to go with it. Delicious.

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Health

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I`ve been sick the last couple of days and that got me thinking. I almost know my non functioning thyroid has something to do with the cold I`ve had. A thyroid that is “broken” makes your immune system weak. I`ve never been sick this often as I have been lately and that`s why I think it has to do with the thyroid.

It`s much more common that women suffer from thyroid malfunctions than men. That`s what got me thinking. It`s not easy being a woman. We are prone to many diseases. As a woman it`s important to do whatever you can to stay healthy. In Sweden you automatically get summoned every two years after you`ve reach a certain age to have a mammography. I always do it. It only takes a couple of minutes and it doesn`t cost much. I wouldn`t be able to forgive myself if I didn`t go and then found out I had breast cancer.

Another thing I always do, also every two years, is to go to my gynechologist and have him take smear tests of the cervix. He also summons you automatically which makes it easy. I`ve had two cervix operations to remove possible cancer. Because most changes in that area don`t show symptoms it`s hard to spot them yourself.

It`s not easy being a woman but I love it!

Now something completely different. Today is the first day in a while I`ve been able to cook. These last couple of days I`ve been to sick to do that. I`ve only made instant soups. Today I made “recovery” food. Pasta with “falukorv”. “Falukorv” means falusausage. It`s a meaty sausage. This dish gives you lots of carbs from the pasta and lots of proteins from the sausage. All the things you need to get well. I served it with melon and orange salad.

 

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Glamorous!

 

 

 

 

Bacon

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I sometimes get a craving for greasy food. Fast and greasy food. My favourite greasy ingredient is bacon. You can`t go wrong with it. Everything tastes better with bacon.

This dish takes no time and it gives you all the grease you want.

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I place a baking paper on a baking tray (no washing up!) On the paper I put oven potatoes (I bought them) and sliced bacon. In a oven tin (some washing up) I whisk eggs, butter and milk into kind of a omelette.

I bake the potatoes and bacon in the middle of the oven and put the omelette at the bottom. It all cook at once! Oven: 200 C.

Not all was greasy. I made a salad from peppers, melon and orange to make it a little bit healthy..

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I serve this luxurious meal with ketchup.

 

Fridge

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I think many first world problems are problems made by the people. Many of these have shouldn`t be a problem in other parts of our planet.

One of the biggest “problem” has to be one thing we keep in our fridge. Milk. Nothing creates more “non” problems than milk.

-Is the milk too old?

-Doesn`t the milk taste funny (is it too old?).

-Who took the last of the milk without buying some new milk?

I don`t know how many times I`ve stood and smelled milk to tell if it`s good enough to drink. I`ve thrown tons of milk away before the exp. date cause I thought it smelled bad. There have probably been lots of marriages that have ended because of fights that has been about milk. I don`t mean milk has been the biggest issue but it has certainly been the last straw to a bad marriage.

Often the biggest milk problem is that there isn`t enough of it. It seems to just vanish before your eyes. Especially if you have a big family. One moment you`re planning on making dinner with some milk in it because you know there are lots of milk boxes in the fridge. Next moment someone has finished the milk and you`re off to the grocery store. All those arguments in big families.

“-What are you sisters fighting about?

-She drank the last of the milk and didn`t leave any to me.”

Puh!

 

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Travel

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I have stayed in many hotels through the years. I think it`s relaxing to spend time in hotels cause you can`t do anything but take it easy. You don`t have any must do`s and can refresh your mind. I have stayed in hotels both on the cheaper and more expensive side when it comes to the cost and I think some things are the same in all of them. One thing that comes to mind is the behaviour around the breakfast buffet. In all hotels in Sweden breakfast is included (I`ve never heard of anything else). The buffet consists of bread, fruits, eggs, bacon and much more.

There are two ways most approach the breakfast buffet. One is to only think about yourself. Those are the ones that don`t care if there are people waiting in line for something. “I think I`m the most important one in this room and I`m not waiting for no breakfast”. Without any shame they reach for a sausage in between all the people waiting for their sausage. They take the last bread roll right in front of you that you`ve been waiting thirty minutes to get to.

The second approach to getting breakfast is to act like you`ve never seen food before. These people take forever when they`re at the buffet. They annoy me! They see the juice machine and it`s like they`ve never seen a juice machine before. “What is orange juice.” They stand in front of the bread and analyze every roll and loaf like they`ve never seen bread like that before. Sometimes these slow people think they are the “only think of themselves” breakfast ones. They say “let me just get that and I leave you to it”. They say that and aim to quickly grab something before you do. They say that and then you have to wait while they stand in front of the juice machine. Confused like they`ve never seen one of them before.20170217_083120

 

 

 

 

 

Easy loaf

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I get stressed sometimes when it comes to cooking. I get stressed when there are too many pots, pans and spices involved. Some recepies have all these spices in it, many of which you`ve never heard of, that you have to buy. Then you have to measure them all up like it says in the recepy and some you might even have to toast in a pan in order to get the flavour you want. Then there`s the cooking. You might have to use a lot of different cooking techniques just to get one dish. Roast, boil and deep fry. Puh! Today I made meat loaf. That`s a dish that causes me some stress because of the preparations. It`s not a lot of preparations but it`s enough to make my heart go faster.

I begin the meat loaf preparation by mixing bread crumbs and milk into a paste. I let it rest for a while. I add the minced beef to the milk. I always use minced beef only. Then I chop some onions and add them. Then comes my secret ingredients. In Sweden there`s a dish called biff lindström, “beef lindstrom”. You make burgers from minced beef, pickled cucumber and beetroot. My meat loaf is kind of a bigger sized “lindstrom” burger and I add the pickled cucumber and beetroot to the minced beef.

I put the beef mixture in an oven proof tin and I put some liquid butter on it. That gives some depth to the flavour.

 

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Pink meat loaf.

 

I bake the loaf in the lower part of the oven for 50 minutes at 200 C. I also bake slices of potatoes in the oven at the same time. After a while I add some cream to the tin in order to get some sauce. Serve with lingonberry jam. Delicious!

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