Strawberry jam

Tags

Food, Home made jam, Jam, Recipe, Strawberries, Strawberry jam

Strawberries are probably the best thing about summer and to preserve them is a way of having that wee bit of summer all year round. I have made tons of jam this year, it’s my very first time trying, but it’s so easy, it’s something I’ll be doing every year!

When making strawberry jam you have two options: you can just mix the strawberries together or you can boil them. The flavours of the two types are very different! I wrote about the easiest version here. Boiling the berries will however preserve them better, have them last longer, and will not be as runny as strawberries that have simply been whisked together. It’s still easy as pie (actually a lot easier than pie…)

Add as many strabwerries as you have to a fitting pot. Strawberries can be fresh, but you can also buy frozen berries. No need to defrost. Add to the pot and place the pot on low heat. Put a lid on and go do whatever you want for half an hour or so. Come back and take the lid off. This will send those wonderful odours travelling around the house giving you memories of summer and sunny days. The strawberries will turn into mush, a lovely pinkish-red mush. For every pound (half a kilo) of berries you have add about 3/4 of a teaspoon worth of agar. After adding the agar you let the mush boil for about two minutes (turn the heat up and make sure to stir often) before you turn the heat way down low again. Add as much sugar as you (or any other type of sweetener) but make sure you taste while adding. You’ll never know just how sweet the berries are without any added sweetener, if you don’t taste! Add the sugar and let it dissolve (it will do so almost immediately).

Leave the jam in the pot and wait until it reaches room-temperature before placing in the fridge. You can also can the jam or freeze it. And what an easy way to have home made fresh jam any time of the year! Enjoy!

Preserving berries and fruit

Tags

berries, Food, Good tip, preservation, Vinegar

I crave fruit and berries these days. I desperately crave them. And for days I wanted grapes. I found some big juicy grapes at the local supermarket and was thrilled. But the joy was short-lived. With a pregnancy comes superpowers, some are cool, some not so cool. The senses of smell and taste improve immensely! And thus as I put the first grape in my mouth, it was spit out again just as soon. The rest of the grapes were torn from Son’s hands. I could taste the pesticides and yuck that are sprayed upon these delights. The taste was foul! It felt like I was poisoning both myself and Son.

I discussed this with a colleague of mine a few days later. We are both inclined towards buying organically grown fruits and vegs, but juicy grapes and other foreigns fruit are too hard to resist. My colleague explained how she thoroughly cleans all fruit she buys. Especially if it has already travelled the globe.

I came across a tip on pinterest, and have had great success following it. The clue is to rinse all berries in a bowl of water, in which you have added just a tablespoon of regular vinegar. The vinegar helps reduce yeast and bacterias that result in mildew and rot. I tried this with the berries I bought over the summer. I also did it to the berries before making them into jam or ‘saft’. And it works! The berries stay fresher for longer. Now I have started doing the same to all the fruit and vegs I buy that I don’t boil or peal.

The vinegar does leave a hint of smell (that could be just me picking that up, Husband and Son cannot smell it), but by quickly running the fruit under cold water gets rid of that too.

Simple summer salad – peach, tomato and avocado

Tags

Avocado, Food, Peach, Recipe, Salad, Summer food, Tomato

I’m a regular at Saffron and Honey and am often inspired by her mouth-watering recipes. Some time ago she had a post on green tomato and peach salad that fit perfectly with my current cravings for fruits and greens. I promised her it would go on my to-do-list, but it took me longer than expected (things are always postponed these days…). However, when I suddenly decided to make it I didn’t have my phone or computer nearby and just had to whip something together from memory. I couldn’t find green tomatoes that week, so they were red. But I did find some perfect peaches. Husband had left for work, so I only made enough for me and Son (and although he has to taste he didn’t really help me clear the platter). Here’s what I put in:

• one peach (skin removed)
• one tomato
• half an avocado
• a few basil leaves
• olive oil and sea salt

The salad was a complete explosion on the taste bud. So fresh, sweet, delicious and full of taste that I’m telling you: You have to try this! Slice everything as thin as you can and drizzle or sprinkle the last two ingredients on top. You won’t be disappointed!

Thank you Saffron and Honey for your inspiration!

Plukkfisk – simple and easy fish dinner

Tags

Cod, Cod fish, Codfish, Easy dinner, Food, Recipe, Salted cod, Weekday dinner

Plukkfisk is a dish I have grown up with. It is a dinner that would make gourmet chefs cringe, sigh, or shake their heads in disappointed frustration. It’s quite bland, it’s easy, it doesn’t look like much on the plate, and it’s wonderful, healthy, not at all time-consuming, and the perfect weekday dinner. Kids tend to love it and it’s an easy way to get them to eat fish, and loads of it!

What you need is:

• One potato pr person
• One carrot pr person
• A quarter of a cauliflower pr person
• One small filet of salted cod pr person
• Half a spring onion or some chive
• salt, pepper and a knob of butter

Rinse and peel the potatoes, dice them and add to a pot, cover with water and add a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil. While these boil, rinse and peel the carrots. After 5 minutes of boiling add these to the potatoes. When you can pierce the potatoes with a knife, and the potato doesn’t follow the knife out of the pot, you rinse the cauliflower and add to the water. Leave it to simmer under a lid while you get the fish ready. When the cauliflower is tender (only takes a few minutes) add the fish and turn of the heat. When the fish flakes it is done. Pour out the water and mash everything with a potato masher. Add the onions or chives, finely cut, and the knob of butter (if it looks very dry you can also add a small splash of milk or soft cheese). Season to taste and enjoy!

Strawberry and mango jam

Tags

Food, Jam, Mango, Recipe, Strawberries, Strawberry and Mango Jam, Summer

A bird told me (or I came across it somewhere on the great interwebz) that strawberry and mango compliment one another quite well. It was during my first experiments with jam production this summer that I decided to try them together. It’s so easy, and sooo good, that you really should consider doing the same. 

Rinse the strawberries and add them to a pot. Slice and dice the mango, see how here, and add to the same pot. Put a lid on and low heat to slowly warm the fruit and berries. Slowly bring the pot to a boil and watch how the strawberries and mango become one. The mango is so sweet that there’s no need to add sugar, but if the berries are a little sour, or the mango not quite ripe, add a bit, but make sure to taste! Add a squeeze of lemon for preservative reasons. After the jam has boiled for a wee bit (if it has boiled, it is done, but mine is usually left to itself for some minutes because I’m busy doing something else) then mash it gently with a potato masher. The jam is just divine. It’s sweet (with no added sugar) it’s not runny (much like plum jam) and it tastes of summer and long summer nights. Enjoy!

Solbær- og ripssaft – Black and red currant drink

Tags

Black currants, Cold drink, Currants, Food, Hot drink, Recipe, Red currants, Saft, Summer drink

My parents have several bushes of black and red currants and I was so excited to get my hands on them this year. I was very disappointed. From in all 10 bushes (or thereabout) we ended up with only half a litre of black currants and half a litre of red. I was first set on making jam. With those small amounts I figured jam would last longer and could thus be enjoyed far into next year, if used sparsely. But then I came across a blogger who talked about the benefits of black currant ‘saft’ during colds or flus during the winter. I wouldn’t get many drops of ‘saft’, but what I got will be worth it’s weight in gold when winter sets in. I thus decided on ‘saft’. 

Here is what you need: I had about 650grams of berries and simply halfed the amount, added a comma and litre instead of kilos for the measurement, resulting in (650/2=325) 3,25 dl of water. Divide the weight of the fruit by 3 to find how much sugar you need (650/3= approximately 200grams of sugar).

For one kilo of berries you then need:

•  half a litre of water (1000gr/2=500) 5 dl
• about 330 grams of sugar (1000/3=333)

Add the berries and water to a pot and let it boil for about ten minutes. Add a muslin cloth to a pasta drainer (or similar) put this over a bowl and sieve the ‘saft’ through the cloth. Tie the corners of the cloth together, and hang it over the bowl and remove the pasta drainer. Hang it for about an hour or until it is so cold that you can squeeze what remains of the juice out of the cloth. 

Put the juice back into a pot and add the sugar. Heat it until the sugar has dissolver and leave to cool under a lid. Add to boxes (for freezing) or sterilised jars or bottles (for storage).

When the winter comes with its viruses and colds you will now have some proper c-vitamin shockers to aid your immune system. Drink it hot or cold and enjoy! 🙂

Rørte jordbær – easy strawberry jam

Tags

Food, Homemade jam, Jam, Recipe, Strawberries, Strawberry jam

My mother-in-law makes a killer strawberry jam. I have never done so myself, or at least not been aware that I was actually making jam. But this year I wanted to take advantage of the many berries we have every summer, and also to try and reduce the amount of store bought jam Son eats (and thus also the sugar he eats every day). Husband and I tried ourselves, but it was nothing like his mom’s. I was also keen on trying to keep it as natural as possible and did not want to add store bought pectin or acids where I was unsure about the content (I don’t mind either, but the pectin usually found in stores here is rarely simply extracted from fruit…). We ended up with a runny, but still tasty, goo. It was good, but not what we had set out to make…

I read up a bit and found agar. We did some experimenting with that, but were quite disappointed. And the jam we wanted to make was supposed to be quite runny, so we didn’t really need it. We then went directly to the source. Home made, non-cooked, strawberry jam is supposed to be lumpy. It’s supposed to be sweet without being to sweet. And it has to taste like freshly picked strawberries. A normal mixer will make it into smoothie. But mother-in-law showed me the whisker! And that’s all you need to make the jam! Simply dice the strawberries (cut them in half or into four), put them in a bowl and whisk them together with a bit of lemon juice (this will slightly increase the life expectancy of the jam). Find a big spoon and add a little jam to a smaller spoon (the taste-spoon) and taste (this way you don’t have to put your fingers in the jam, nor add your saliva to the mix). Strawberries vary much depending on type, season, weather etc, so you don’t know how much sugar you want to add unless you taste it. You’ll be amazed at how little you need at times.

I freeze my jam in smaller boxes that will easily disappear after a few days, and that are also easily defrosted in the fridge. That way I can whenever I want add a little taste of summer to the table in during the coldest winter days, with all the goodness of freshly picked summer strawberries. Enjoy!

A’hoy matey Chocolate cake

Tags

3 years old, Birthday, Birthday boy, Birthday cake, Chocolate cake, Food, third birthday

I have to show off this cake from Son’s third birthday. As mentioned earlier he’s in a pirate period of his life and nothing in this world is cooler than scimitar-wielding, one-eyed, shanty-singing bandits.   For this cake I made a simple chocolate cake, drew an outline of the hull of a ship, cut out two identical pieces from the cake, and placed these on top of one another. Then the rest of the cake was used to make the bridge and quarterdeck. Afterwards the cake was covered in icing and decorated with various types of candy.

The cake was an absolute success and Son has already wished for the same cake for next year’s birthday party.

Elderflowers and ‘saft’

Tags

Domestic goddess, Elderberries, Elderflowers, Food, Saft, Squash, Summer

For the first time ever I managed this year to take advantage of the many tress with elderberry flowers in the area. So I made (what I think at least in Scotland would be called) squash. A sirupy drink containing quite a lot of sugar, which is made to be rather strong, but is added water to before drinking. We call it saft (we also have ‘jus’, ‘nektar’, and ‘sirup’, which are all similar but not the same).

After trawling through dozens of blogs and cooking sites online, I finally found a recipe I was willing to try. Many called for what seemed to be extensive amounts of sugar, only to be balanced by quite a lot of added citric acid. After reading up, I set out with my own recipe made up after comparing many others.

What I used was:

about 50 bouquets of elderberry flowers

4 lemons (washed well and preferably organic)

1 kg demerara sugar

2 litres water

I picked the flowers while visiting my parents, and thus simply froze them to keep them from wilting completely. That resulted in a ball of brown flowers that were lumped together so much that I did not manage to rinse them. I imagined the cold would have killed of most bugs, and the forthcoming heat would kill the rest, so I simply shrugged and got on with it.

Then I measured up two litres of plain, good, cold water and added to a large pot with one kilo of demerara sugar. I’m not a big fan of white sugar, even though that makes the colour of the ‘saft’ a lot nicer, so that is the reason for the brownish colour of my drinks. I brought the mix to a boil and let it simmer until the sugar had dissolved. Meanwhile I sliced (I lie a bit here, it was actually a friend of mine who sliced the lemons, but I think he would prefer to keep that a secret, so shhh!) the lemons and added them to a big bowl with the ball of intertwines flowers. After the sugar had dissolved I poured the water over into the bowl.

Now, as you can see, this process is easy peasy, and takes no effort at all. I was so impressed with myself, I was keeping this old tradition alive, feeling like a domestic goddess, and it was no hard work at all! But then on to the final part 😉

Take the bowl and cover with plastic, a lid, or something that will keep away yucky things that are attracted to sugar. Then leave somewhere that is not too warm (out of the sunshine!) for about three days. If you manage to stir it once a day, you’ll do a better job than I did!

After those three days, sift it through a muslin cloth (or similar) and either freeze in smaller boxes (glasses, etc) or add to sterilized jars or glasses (I froze boxes of ‘saft’, so much easier).

To one part ‘saft’ add about two parts water.

I found the saft to be a little too sugary. Next year I don’t want to add more lemons as the taste of the lemons can easily overpower the delicate taste of the elderflowers. I was so pleased having made all organic saft this year, but might have to turn to powdered citric acid next time. Unless you have a good idea?

And here is, btw, where I found most of my inspiration.

Jamie Oliver and Yorkshire Puddings

Tags

Codfish, Food, Jamie Oliver, Pate, Recipe, Smoked trout, Yorkshire Pudding

Few inspire me more in the kitchen than Jamie Oliver. These days his show “Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain” is on and now I enjoy one show per week and try to take on some of the recipes as challenges. Last week I saw an episode where he made Yorkshire puddings. It looked easy enough but comments connected to the recipe online suggested it wasn’t as easy as it first seemed.

The dish was made as a starter with yorkshire pudding and a creamy pate with horseradish and smoked trout. I wanted to serve it as dinner and thus served it with crispy cod filets and asparagus.

The dish was divine! The combination of the soft pudding and the pate was incredible. The pate was a bit on the sour side, but I have a tendency to squeeze out more juice from a lemon than recipes seem to expect. Son used the pate to dip the cod, he wasn’t too fond of the asparagus, but the pate worked wonderful as a dip for that too. The yorkshire puddings were easier than expected and rose more than I expected them to.

The recipe for Jamie’s starter can be found here. The cod was simply dipped in eggs and breadcrumbs and fried in a non-stick pan with a wee bit of oil. The asparagus were treated to a few minutes in the pan as well, drizzled with a few drops of lemon juice and a sprinkle of sea salt.