Italian

Hello friends! Sorry for not posting in a long long time! But bought a house so a lot of time has been spent at moving and working and eating out...

But now I have time to cook again since I have vacation! Next week I'm going to Slovenia though so then I won't post that much again for two weeks.

But we had guests over for Italian food, so 

I made bruschetta for starter, the pizzas on the grill and finished of with tiramisu, forgot to take photos of the pizzas though... Sorry!

I made three though:

Pizza 1: Tomato sauce, cheese and salami

Pizza 2: Tomato sauce, cheese, caramelized onions and minced meat seasoned with Italian herbs.

Pizza 3: Tomato sauce, pesto and mushrooms

Bruschetta was pretty simple, red onion, tomato, olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper and finished of with some fresh basil.

The Tiramisu was more complex but I followed this recipe: http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2014/02/tiramisu-it-will-pick-you-up-and-not.html

I had never made Tiramisu before but I love the taste, and this was awesome! I used Rum instead of wine and it was delicious!

//Stay full my friends!

London, baby!

Hello!

So I have not posted in a while because I have been away to London and also been packing boxes because next weekend we are moving to our new house!!!

But here is a few photos in random order from London where me and Sara had some amazing times! 

MeatMarket

Ranked third best burger place in London, and oh boy was it good!

Perfectly pink cooked juicy meat with really nice bread that didn't get soggy from the juices! I went for the Dead Hippie burger and Sara a cheeseburger!

And for sides we went deep fried! Deep fried pickles and fried onion rings. That were perfectly crispy and delicious!

The money shot!:

Krispy Kreme!

Chocolate frosted and chocolate filled... Perfect after breakfast...

And talking about breakfast...

Full English breakfast... I don't understand the beans but the rest is awesome! Something luxurious about eating war breakfast since its seldom done in Sweden... (Did not touch the beans, just don't see the point...)

Second full English breakfast.. You can see Saras small breakfast top right, she goes crazy for the toast :D

Bangers and Mash

Typical English pub food, sausages, mash and gravy and some onion rings.

Sara went for Pie filled with Mushroom gravy and chicken. Both were delicious! Even though hers was a bit better but I had already tried it. :)

Borough Market!

As a foodie I always visit Borough Market and I am hard to get away from this place... So much fresh produce, amazing street food, beer, cider, sausages, cheese... And anything else you might fancy!

Appetizer, Scotch egg, Sara just had to try em... We see them often in Master Chef, nothing really delicious about them I think, but fun to try! 

For dinner I went with Salted Beef sandwich with melted cheese, mustard, cabbage slaw and pickles.. YUMMY!

Yeah roast that cheese! 

Eat eat eat!

Sara went the Swiss route, melted cheese sandwich! 

mmm Raclette cheese... 

Saras sandwich, deliciously cheesy! 

Dessert we went with Gellato and some semi-sweet cider. It was ok, but I was expecting more. Tastes: Stracciatella and Raspberry

Indian! 

Garlic Naan, wonderful!

And with it, Lamb curry! 

Hyde Park breakfast!

Day after Borough Market we had breakfast in Hyde, we bought some fresh stuff from Borough you see. Raspberries, salami, cheese, bread and cornichons! Perfect weather and really peaceful.

And coffee...

 Camden Market

Camden had so much to choose from in street food but we went for Fish N' Chips to try it, it's never special I think, its fried with fried and tartar sauce. It's not bad, but not spectacular either..

And for seconds we went for falafel wrapp that was really nice but I forgot to take pictures of that.

Chocywokydoda

We visited chocywokydodas shop, everything made from Chocolate! Amazing but super expensive, lucky us though they were handing out tastings when we got there, so we got to try the chocolate and it was amazeballs!

Cupcake!

Cupcake from Lolas, raspberry with white chocolate frosting and chocolate cake.. Really delicious, but not enough raspberry flavor :( 

Afternoon Tea at Rubens at the Palace

To end our trip we had booked Afternoon Tea just behind Buckingham at a lavish hotel called Rubens at the Palace. 

We had never been to afternoon tea but we had heard it was something special so our expectations were high, and we were not let down! We got a long list of teas to choose from, really nice service from the staff and a big tower of pastries, scones, sweets and sandwiches.

And the best places in the house! A sofa to sit in and a cute table in front of us and directly in front we had a large panorama window facing the street and the back of Buckingham, what more can we ask for?!

The sandwiches were tasty and I am to tired to write out what they were, but our favorite was the one with Salmon in it.

The scones were ok, nothing special but the Strawberry preserve you got with it was probably the best jam/preserve I have ever had. Really tasting of fresh strawberries and not that sweet!

And the pastries/desserts where lavish and quite tastefull.

Our favorite here was the small tarts with fresh fruits on top while the small glasses at the top fell short, was suppose to be rhubarb and cream but tasted nothing of Rhubarb the rest were really tasty and when we left we were really really full!

Quite an experience but nothing I will be doing again unless we are in London for some special celebration, since it felt quite extravagant and was very relaxing and quite fun trying all the dainty small nibbles... Felt very posh! :P

So this was a small summary from what we ate during our trip.. Sorry for so much text!

Will probably not have time to post any more stuff next coming weeks since everything is packed we will be living on salads and fast food.. My BBQ is in pieces in storage!! DAMNIT!

Now, back to packing boxes!

//Stay full my friends

Easy banana bread!

Hello!

So I had 2 ripe bananas at home and decided to make a banana bread on the fly that came out really moist and nice!

First mix:

2 cups of wholewheat flour or any kind you want (Dinkel fullkorn)

1 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Baking soda

1 tsp salt

Then in another bowl mix:

2 mashed bananas

1 egg

½ dl of olive oil

a dash of vanilla extract

1 tbsp of milk

some hirs and sesame seeds (Or any other nuts/seeds you want, optional!)

Then mix the two things together until fully combined, might need to add some more flour but the mixture should be very wet and sticky.

Put it into a bread pan and sprinkle some seeds on top for looks and cook in middle of oven on 170 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes (Toothpick should come out of the dough clean).

Let it rest for a bit (If you can, we could not...) will make it easier to cut into! But eating it warm with butter and cheese is delicious! mmmmm!!

Sorry for out of focus pictures, but I was hungry!

Really nice moist bread that takes about 1 hour to whip together. Not to shabby for a luxurious weekend meal!

//Stay full my friends!

Birthday breakfast!

Hello hello!

So on Saturday my wonderful Sara became 28 years old! (So old!)

And the best way to spoil her for me is of course with food. (Also the 4 day trip to London, but whatever).

So for breakfast we had Blintzes! Which I had never tried making before or heard of but that are apparently very popular in New York...

Basically stuffed and wrapped pancakes with raspberry sauce...

So first for the pancake dough we need (For about 2-3 people)

2 Large eggs

½ cup of milk

½ cup of white flour

½ tablespoon sugar

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon cold water

a smudge of vanilla extract.

Mix this with a blender or with a whisk thoroughly!

Then let sit at room temperature and do the filling:

Mix the following:

1 cup ricotta cheese

1/4 cup cream cheese or mascarpone.

½ the zest from one lemon

pinch of salt

½ tablespoon of powdered sugar.

1 large egg.

Then make the crepes. About 1/4 of the batter a time in a well oiled pan on medium/high heat. The crepes should be large and quite thin (Like Swedish pancakes)

Keep making until batter is gone.

Then let pancakes cool and then put some filling into the crepes.
This video shows how to do it nicely and easily: https://youtu.be/XhQU7gWTemM?t=107

I'm not very delicate or good with details so I struggled a bit :D

After all are wrapped put oven to 160 degrees celsius and brown the Blintzes in butter in the pan, until they are a golden brown.

Then pop them into a lightly buttered oven proof pan and pop em into the oven for about 12 minutes...

And while we wait for that we can make our raspberry sauce!

For 2 people I used about 100grams of rinsed raspberries and about 1 tablespoon of sugar. And just let that come to heat on medium and then strained all the seeds and pulp away. Took me like 10 minutes and was lovely. Not too sweet and not to tart either.

Such a lovely color!

Plate and serve! With some fresh raspberries and blueberries and blackberries if you got em! (I did not...) and sprinkle some powdered sugar.

We also went crazy and covered one extra each with nutella ;)

Really nice breakfast that requires some work but really has a "wow factor" I made the Blintzes the day before and browned them and popped them in the oven the day after for breakfast. Worked really well so you don't need to make everything in the morning :)

Sara was mucho happy! :P

And the recipe is borrowed from:
http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2015/04/cheese-blintzes-in-new-york-state-of.html

http://foodwishes.blogspot.se/2015/02/fresh-raspberry-sauce-easy-and-effective.html

With slight modifications of my own... But Chef John is amazing!!!

Cozy time:

Also gotta show a quick pic of our cozy dinner that evening:

10 kinds of salami

3 kinds of brie

crackers

blue cheese

fig marmalade

garlic mayo

Slovenian wine

daniels special orange cocktail

alive tapenade and some more stuff.

Really good charcuterie board!

Hamburg!

Hello friends!

So I went to Hamburg over a long weekend with my "crew", we always go on a guy trip every year. 

6 guys, lots of beer, food, funny subject and just a awesome awesome time! Real quality guy time!

First stop was Brauhaus Joh. Albrecht.

A really nice weissbier brewed at the pub just behind the bar. Probably the best beer during the entire trip.. We stopped by here 2 times during 3 days for a few beers every time... Sooo good!

And for food I had a schnitzel with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and beer gravy.

Was really tasty but the schnitzel was not flattened as much as it should have been. Still tasty but not the best schnitzel ever... But the beers made up for it!

At dinner we stopped by another Brauhaus with real hamburgers from Hamburg. So we had to try em out. With horseradish dressing. Perfectly made with really nice bread and nice potato slices. But that burger! Yummy! And perfectly medium in the middle!

And they had a nice tasting tray of their own beers we had to try... Also a few beers on the side ;)

The beers were really nice, except the "rotbeer" (redbeer), tasted like water...

And of course then we had some drunken food.. We were going for döner kebab but ended up at KFC... And it wasn't even my suggestion! :D 

Fried chicken always tasty!

Second day for lunch we went to "Block Haus" in the Harbour, Europes second largest harbor. Were they also make their own beer.

Also here I had Schnitzel and the beer was ok, nothing amazing but still good (Just nog German good)

Schnitzel was over expectations. Looked so plain but was really good!

Last night we went to a place called "Old Commercial Room"

and they had "The biggest Eisbein in Hamburg" on their menu... 1500grams!! (With lard and bone though)

But even with bone as you can see, the thing was huge, bigger than my lower arm!!! And served with sauerkraut, mashed peas and some boiled potatoes.

It did not look appetizing with all the jiggly fat on the outside but damn did it taste good. Really succulent pork that had been cooked at low temp for a long time. Meat just melted and was really good! 

And as you can see I finished all! (Except potatoes)

And after we cooled down with some clubbing and then shots on fire!

All in all Hamburg was really nice, good beer, good food and a real nice city center with a lot of shops and nice cars, parks. Will definitely go there again (Maybe this summer even!) Really fell in love with the place!

//Stay full my friends!

Pizza friday with Neapolitan pizza dough!

Hello everyone!

So I have made pizza before on the grill but never gotten a good dough out or even given it a good try. So after reading and watching videos I thought I would try my hand at a "Neapolitan style pizza dough". Airy puffy sides and crispy outside and fluffy on the inside.

The "problem" is that you need to make the dough about 4 days before. So I made mine Tuesday for Fridays BBQ.

Neapolitan Pizza dough

This makes about 2 normal size pizzas that will make anyone full...

283 grams of flour, fine grain (if possible).

6 grams of salt

4 grams of instant yeast (torrjäst)

212 grams of water.

1. Mix the dry ingredients
2. Mix in water and combine until no flour remains on the sides or bottom of bowl.
3. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap or something and let rest 8-12 hours in room temp
4. Put into fridge for 2-4 days.
5. Take out of fridge 2 hours before you are making pizzas and portion the dough into 2 equal balls and put under plastic wrap in room temperature.
6. When you make your balls into pizzas, dont use a rolling pin, or you will squish all the air out, instead push gently with fingers and then stretch the dough! Check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD7Qusvea_Q

Pizza time!

So I make my own pizza sauce because it's easy, pure tomatoes, add garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, basil to taste. Heat on stove and you are DONE!

Spread sauce on pizza!

I added Ricotta and Mozzarella on my pizzas.

Then added caramelized red onions, some mushrooms  and minced meat with Italian spices (Parsley, Oregano, Basil, Salt, Pepper, Sugar, Paprika, Garlic powder, Onion powder, Thyme, Red pepper flakes. I kinda wing the amounts. Just mix it with the minced meat.)

The second pizza was tomato sauce, mozz, ricotta, mushrooms and covered it with thinly sliced salami.

Make sure your oven/BBQ is really really hot about 250-300 degrees Celsius. And buy a pizza stone!

Makes the pizza so much better, the heat transfers better to the dough and it cooks much more even.

Look at that pretty pretty pizza... mmm hungry again now..

And perfectl cooked underneath.

Obligatory side pic of the dough after cutting and chowing it down! :)

Salami pizza! We took this one of the grill a bit earlier and the dough came out even better, not as crispy and much fluffier.

All in all me and Sara were full and very very happy. Jesus this is much better than pizza you buy out. I mean you can't even compare. Sure it takes some time and when you are hungover this is not really what you start putting together but for a planned romantic dinner or just a fancy pizza dinner this is worth every effort believe me!

The only hard part is getting the dough right and there are a lot of dough recipes out there that are much easier to follow and make than this (Just search no-knead pizza dough!).

Yummy yummy!

//Stay full my friends!