Easy-peasy-ratatouille

For this vegetarian vegetable overdose you will need:



1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced
1 eggplant, diced
1 courgette, diced (I used the yellow one this time)
1 red bell pepper, cut
1 yellow bell pepper, cut
1 whole single clove garlic, peeled and thinly sliced (or 2 cloves of regular garlic)
2 spoons of frying oil
1 can of tomatoes
150 ml of water
1 bay leaf
1 grain of allspice
crushed pepper
thyme or/and parsley (though I used fresh turnip leaves this time)

Fry the eggplant, then add onion, garlic, courgette, peppers. Stri fry. Add the spices, tomatoes and water. Lett it simmer for half an hour.

Granola everything

Ever since an American friend of mine introduced me to granola I could not free myself from it. It's not easily accesible here in Norway so I'm always on the lookout for it when abroad.

Both Costa and Starbuck sell granola bars and after tasting both, there is no doubt as to which is best!

Iced Green Tea

Here at Lady Mju's we have started a new project - dive into the cupboards month.

First off was the green tea. It's been in our cupboard for a long while - or maybe ages. Luckily it was stored in a proper tea box and didn't loose too much of the original jasmine flavour. This was also the first time I cold brewed tea. In fact I learned it was possible to prepare tea in this manner only yesterday, after some browsing and reading up on the topic of iced tea.

The result proved pleasant and the beverage didn't turn too cloudy, which supposedly is a plus in the eyes of iced tea connoisseurs.



Recommended on a warm August day like this one!

I don't have a green thumb but...

I like the idea of growing your own food. In practice, though, this is limited to herbs such as cilantro and watercress. This year I wanted to try something new.

Today we bought tomatoes and sweet pepper - and roses as you can see...



And a pot of lovely minature basil (minette basil?) which hopefull will live longer...



I was also considering cucumbers. Any other ideas what we can grow on a balcony with a roof and windows? And what to I call such a balcony? It's not a porch, is it?

Dish of the day: chicken with apples / Danie dnia: kurczak z jabłkami

I saw the recipe in one of the newspapers and simply thought this should be good. Maybe because the couscous salad with apples is very popular in my house. I modified the original recipe slightly: skipped the bacon, used red onion instead of yellow.




You will need:
4 chicken breasts, cut
2 red apples, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
1 green pepper, also diced
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
3 teaspoons of curry spice (I know I should make it myself, but I was rather tired)
crushed black pepper
3 tablespoons of rice oil (very nice)

Heat the oil in a casserole, fry the chicken. When it turns "white" add the garlic, onion, peppers and fry some more. Add some water if needed. Add the curry spice and apples. Cook until the apples turn yellow.

I served it with brown rice cooked with black cumin.

Yummy!

Potato salad with walnuts and pesto / Sałatka ziemniaczana z orzechami i pesto

Since it's barbecue season here in Norway, and despite the fact that such activities are not allowed where I live...



You will need:
12 small potatoes, cooked
2 dl of light sour cream, or anything lighter than that
2 tablespoons of pesto of your choice
50 grams of walnuts, chopped
1 dl of chopped ruccola salad
salt and crushed black pepper

Prepare the dressing. Pour over the potatoes. Done.



Easy food for lazy days.

On request: chili sin carne

You will need:
2 onions, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2-3 button mushrooms, cut
1 tablespoon of oil
1 red capsicum, cut
2 cans of red beans
2 cans of chopped tomatoes
1 small can of sweet corn
2 dl of water
1 tablespoon of tomato paste (this you can skip)
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder (less if you are delicate)
1 1/2 teaspoon of cumin (this you cannot skip)
a pinch of turmeric (it brings out the colour, skip it if you don't care)
salt and pepper
oregano, fresh or dried

In a large casserole heat the oil. Add the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Fry and stir well. Add all the spices. Then add all the other ingredients. Cook until done. Serve with tortillas, some sour cream, cold salad and cold beer. You can make it cheap by buiyng your cans of food at Rema1000 (the beans there are decent), you can make it expensive using SW beans and fresh tomatoes. In any case it tastes better the day after. And the day after that again...

Oh, and excuse the lack of illustration. Forgot it thrice.

Wakey-wakey! Massaman curry at Bangkok Thai

The past few months were rather lazy in terms of cooking. The food spark has gone out of me and even when I did prepare something interesting and remembered to take pictures, I could not bring myself to posting about it. Closing of the only vegetable shop in our neighbourhood and trouble with Kolonihagens deliveries only added insult to injury. But now that spring is here I want to start cooking and writing about it anew. Let me start with a post about eating out.

Yesterday I tried the massaman curry at Bangkok Thai here in Oslo. It was prepared with chicken, potatoes and cashews. The sauce was creamy and not that heavy. I wish the potatoes were cooked better, but otherwise it was great to taste something new. I am too fond of green curry and the endless variations of it, so I order it way too often. The name of massaman curry supposedly refers to Muslims but here I wish a had a better reference than a standard sentence reiterated by all the on-line recipes out there.

Otherwise the dishes were good (Thai fishcakes in particular) though different from what the favourite Rice Bowl serves. The company was even better and from the restaurant we went on further downtown on this quiet evening.

Now dormant / I dvale / W uśpieniu

But I will be back...

Until then: enjoy your dinners!

Yellow turnip mash / Kålrotstappe / Brukiew purree

Yellow turnip, rutabaga, Swede: a simple vegetable with almost too many names. Actually a cross between cabbage and turnip. It's good, it's cheap and in plenty at this time of year. In Norway it is closely associated with festive occasions around Yule. In Poland it is considered to be poor man's food. But I wanted to try and prepare it for a simple - lazy - dinner.

You will need:
1 kg of yellow turnip (choose small roots)
2 carrots
salt and crushed black pepper
1 spoon of butter
some cream

I cooked the turnip with carrots in my pressure cooker - it took eight minutes. Otherwise cook in salted water until done. Mash all the ingredientes with an old-fashioned potato masher or a large fork.



Goes well with distinctive flavours.

Smacznego!

The Absolute Supper - Carrot salad / Gulrotsalat / Sałatka z marchewki

The last meal of 2008 consists of the following:

Didrik's rice (cooked rice spiced with turmeric and other good stuff)
Chicken breasts marinated in rosemary and slices of lemon, fried with garlic
Carrot salad


For the carrot salad you will need:
2-3 carrots, shredded
1-2 tablespoons of parley, chopped
3 tablespoons of olive oil
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of crushed coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar

Mix carrot and parley in a large bowl. Mix all the spices, olive oil and lemon juice in a small bowl until the sugar har melted. Add the dressing to the vegetables and mix well. Store in the fridge for an hour or so before serving.

Cheers and see you around next year!

Tagget av Snirkelsnorkel - matprat kun på norsk

Jeg har blitt tagget to ganger i løpet av desember. Den andre gangen av Snirkelsnorkel

Utfordringen er/var følgende:

1. Du må linke til den bloggen som tagget deg. Lenken finner du her da min bloggroll til høyre tar for seg kun matblogger.
2. Lag en liste med seks (u)interessante ting om deg selv. Mitt andre forsøk på det finner man nedenfor.
3. Tagg fem andre blogger, la dem vite det ved å kommentere på deres blogg. Jeg har ikke flere venner igjen og tør ikke tagge ukjente :P

Listen min:
1. Jeg kan ikke fordra tørket fiken. Årsaken er muligens forbundet med fikensyltetøy fra husker-ikke-hvor-i-Midtøsten som utrolig nok var å få kjøpt i Polen på tidlig åttitall.

2. Jeg pleier å si t man kan kjøpe meg for en kilo nougat.

3. Alternativt kan man prøve med en kilo fersk hellefisk.

4. Jeg har drukket kaffe siden jeg var ti – på legens anbefaling.

5. Jeg har førti kokebøker på kjøkkenet (for ordens skyld: felleseie i huset). De fleste brukt.

6. Jeg er oppfostret på amerikansk pulvermelk. Nammenam!

The Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me:
A tasty halibut fish!



This pure goodness was served with Tartar sauce and black olive tapenade.

Yum!

Yule and mixed cuisine

Menu Thursday 24th of december - prepared with my Mom:

Barszcz (clear beetroot soup) with pancakes filled with green lentils and button mushroom


A variety of cold meats


Reindeer roast served with onion and apple juice sauce, potatoes, yellow turnip and three condiments: beetroots with horseradish, apple jelly, and rosemary pesto.



Polish cake, Norwegian Snowballs from Den Lille Kokosbollefabrikken, and coffee for dessert.

Also served was a choice of alcoholic as well as non-alcoholic beers and a few other things. The reindeer tased better the day after. So did barszcz. I guess we should celebrate as the Anglo-Saxons do.

Lekker Mat fra Marokko til Iran, Den Hemmelige Kokken, Fisk & Vin

During the last weeks of December this little household was enriched with several food related gifts. Among them were three books:


1. Delicious Food from Morocco to Iran by Helen Flink
This is a welcome addition to the collection and yet another incentive to prepare Harissa at home – and place countries such as Yemen on my mental food map of the world.

2. The Clandestine Cook by Mats-Eric Nilsson
This I have read today at one go. Food for thought. This is interesting stuff and a wildly popular book in Sweden and now in Norway but the book itself is rather chaotic and repetitive. Also some arguments are weak. Like that we only should eat original mozzarella – without one mention of scandal with dioxin tainted product. It was translated and adjusted for Norway by Jan-Tore Egge of Slow Food Norway. All in all, taking up an interest in food ingredients and industrial production methods can only be healthy. Only that, in the end, what shall we have for dinner?

3. Fish & Wine by Trond Moi and Toralf Bølgen
I like fish a lot; I should have liked wine (in particular red wine) better. This might be a nice opportunity to extend the horizons and buy some new fish sorts – and choose more carefully what to serve them with?

Taco à la Sørkedalen

Sørkedalen is a place where I lived for a good while after moving to Norway eight years ago. In many ways an idyllic place and a source of many good experiences in my life.

Foodwise it was a place of many good tastes and great freedom. One of the dishes, served typically on a Friday evening and made with chicken breast, was taco. Or perhaps "taco". I'm sure it had little to do with the original - also because it was served with lompe - but it was good and easy to prepare. Later on I have developed my version of taco à la Sørkedalen. I have retained the lompe instead of taco shells which are impossible and greasy and full of conservants anyway, and mixed my own taco seasoning, rather then rely on a readymade one.

Due to a phenomenon dubbed by the newspapers as a price war about minced meat I bought into it, so to say, and made my taco with minced meat this time.

For this you will need:
Taco spice mix made at home (recipe below)
some 500g minced meat or any other source of protein (beans, quorn)
1 medium onion, chopped
a few button mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon of oil
150 ml of water
6-10 lompe (2 packets of it) or taco shells, if you have to
tomato, cucumber, ruccola, sprouts, bell peppers, any other vegetables you like (washed and cut into pieces)

For the spice mix use:
1 tablespoon of plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder
1 teaspoon of paprika powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Mix everything in a small bowl.
Meanwhile heat the oil in the frying pan. Add your proteins with onions and mushrooms and fry until almost done. Add the spice mix, stir well, then add water and let it simmer until the water is almost gone.

Place a lompe on a plate, fill it with everything, roll and eat.

Vel bekomme!

Also I strongly recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on lefse and lompe since it is not well known outside of Norway. In case you would want to serve it to the underaged, the mix is slightly more spicey than the usual stuff.

Harira / Harira / Harira

When shadows grow longer
and the sun sets for the forthcoming night...
Then you can brighten your evening and strengthen your body with a Moroccan soup/dish known as harira. Tada! Here is a quicker (I don't have two hours to prepare my dinner) and vegetarian (costs less and friends can eat) variant.



For a large soup pot I used:
too much chickpeas (due to a slight miscalculation; soaked overnight and cooked as described here). I guess 1-2 cups of chickpeas should be enough (if so, you might use just half of the spices below)
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon paprika powder
1 pinch of saffron threads (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
quite a lot of parsley, chopped
500g canned tomatoes
some zacierka makaronowa or soup pasta
1 egg beaten with the juice of 1/2 lemon
some more lemon to garnish and season with later on

Begin with the spices. Chop the ginger, mix with all the other spices in a small bowl. In another casserole start cooking the chickpeas (takes 20 minutes for me) - or simply open the canned ones. In a large soup pot melt the butter and add the spice mix. Let it cook for a moment or two to release the flavour and colours. Add the onion, parsley and celery. Cook stirring, then add the tomatoes and let it simmer until the chickpeas are done.

Add the chickpeas with some of the cooking water and pasta or zacierka, simmer for a while more. Add the beaten egg and stir.

Serve with some more lemon and eat, eat, eat!

Couscous salad with apples / Couscoussalat med epler / Sałatka z kuskusu z jabłkami

You will need:
2,5 dl couscous
2,5 dl vegetable broth
a dash of butter (which you can skip)
a dash of turmeric powder (in Polish: kurkuma)
2 apples (rather sweet and not the sour green ones), seeded and sliced
1 very small red onion, cut into halves and sliced
juice of half a lemon
2 slices of lemon, cut onto fours
some ruccola
olives of you choice, drained
other vegetables (tomatoes, cucumber) sliced
100g feta cheese, drained and diced
crushed black pepper

Cook the broth with butter in a rather large casserole. Add the couscous and turmeric, stir. Let it stand for some 10 minutes (check on the couscous packaging, as cooking times may vary). When done, add the lemon juice, then apples, onion, bits of lemon, feta cheese, olives and all the other vegetables. Serve with pepper and maybe some sweet chilli sauce.

Cheers!

Hot & spicy pasta with trout / Krydret pasta med ørret / Pikantny makaron z pstrągiem

For this spicy dish you will need:
Ca 500g of trout without skin and bones (or simply remove the bones at home)
1 tablespoon or more of pepper mix

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped

1 red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
1 can of hermetic tomatoes
fresh basilicum (I used parsley instead)

pasta of your choice

Prepare the pepper mix first by crushing one teaspoon of black pepper, one teaspoon of white and some dried cayenne peppers.



Then turn to the fish: wash it, dry it and cut into pieces, then spice with the pepper mix and let it rest in the fridge.

Prepare the sauce now: mix tomatoes, chilli and basilicum/parsley with a hand blender. Heat the oil in a casserole, fry garlic and onion together. Add the tomato sauce and let it cook on low heat.

Prepare the pasta. While preapring it, turn to the fish again. Heat a frying pan, add a little bit of oil and fry the pieces of fish. When the past and fish are done, serve with the sauce.



Smacznego!

Tartar sauce / Tartarsaus / Sos tatarski

You wil need:
300 g good mayonnaise or less if you see that other ingredients drown
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon of chopped onion (for example red)
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of chopped pickled small cucumbers, spicy ones
1 tablespoon of capers, chopped if large, otherwise just drained
¼ teaspoon of Dijon mustard
fresh chopped parsley

Mix everything into a spicy and chunky sauce. Serve with seafood or meat!
My question now is: is this the same as the Norwegian remulade?
Anyone?