Swedish Fika Treats: Kokosbollar

Hello Monday!

It's been awhile since I shared a recipe so I thought I'd share a fun one today. Yay! This weekend I had a major sweet tooth but hadn't bought any special ingredients for cupcakes or something even fancier. But then I remembered a childhood favorite, kokosbollar! What's great about this classic Swedish recipe is that the ingredients are all something you'll find in your pantry, plus they involve no baking. Easy! Kokosbollar (or coconut balls in English) can be found at every Swedish café for good reason because they are really really yummy!

Recipe: Swedish Kokosbollar (Coconut Balls)

Ingredients:

• 100grams browned butter (or just melted butter if you prefer)

• 3 Tbsp strong coffee (Just remember to save some from your morning cup)

• 3dl rolled oats (1 heaping cup)

• 3 Tbsp cacao powder (I use raw cacao powder)

• 1dl sugar (1/4 cup)

• Shredded unsweetened coconut flakes to roll in

Melt the butter and simmer until fragrantly nutty and browned. In a bowl combine all of the ingredients including the melted butter, except the coconut flakes. Place in fridge for about 30mins to harden slightly. After 30 minutes remove from fridge, roll into balls, then roll in coconut flakes. Place in fridge for about 1 hour to completely set. Then enjoy!

5 of my Favorite Cookbooks

Hello Friday!

I'm obsessed with cookbooks. So much so that I have a buying ban for the time being (I think I'll have to donate a few or at least not buy so many all the time.) But I really love them not only for their great recipes, gorgeous photos and food inspiration I adore them for all of the stories that accompany the recipes. I love reading through a new cookbook like a novel!

Though I adore all of my cookbooks these 5 really stand out in my collection.

The Songs of Sapa by Luke Nguyen

This book is amazing, and so heavily packed with stories, and recipes you have to carry it with two hands. I've long had an interest in Vietnamese cooking. I love the simple flavors and use of lots of fresh herbs and vegetables. Not only does this book have very authentic recipes with tons of ingredients I've never heard of (and probably will have a hard time finding in Sweden) it also acts as a travel journal outlining the differences in culture and food in the different regions of Vietnam. This book took me more than a week to fully read through, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

Another Asian cookbook, specifically Sichuan cuisine, I completely adored reading through as Fuchsia has spent so much time exploring and discovering Chinese cooking. (I also recommend her biography/cookbook Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper to learn more about Chinese cuisine and all the  funny strange interesting differences in our cultures.) These recipes also seem very authentic but are presented in a way that is easier for us Westerners to mimic. The book has lots of notes for good replacements to exotic ingredients too which is helpful. There are so many recipes in this book that I've already created and adored and there are also so many more I can't wait to create.

Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

There is something so very exciting about Middle Eastern food. I love all of the spice mixes and the use of lots and lots of vegetables. It's healthy, hearty and never boring. This book also presents more than just amazing recipes but the premise that food goes beyond religion and brings people together. I really like that idea!

The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit

Not quite a cookbook as there are no recipes in this book, but no less helpful when creating meals. As the title suggests you can look up flavors/ingredients and it outlines all of the different taste combinations that would work really wonderful together. I'm great at looking into my fridge and creating meals from unlikely ingredients (if I say so myself) but sometimes you just need a little pinch of inspiration.

Sucré by Ladurée

Last but not least the most elegant and pretty cookbook in my collection. This book is so gorgeously packaged it's far too pretty to get anywhere near my messy kitchen. The book comes packaged in a pretty pistachio green box with light purple tissue paper and features a flocked cover and gold edged pages. Oooooo! It also houses the most elegant French desserts I've every seen. The recipes may take a lot of steps, but they're not completely as impossible as they look. I've had much success with lots of desserts especially a strawberry topped pistachio macaron cake!

What are your favorite cookbooks? I'm looking for a great vegetarian healthy eating cookbook. Recommendations? :) Also I hope you all have a really gorgeous weekend!

Breakfast: Buckwheat Porridge, Homemade Granola + Bee Pollen and Chia Seeds

Hello Monday!

I used to hate breakfast. I always ate it because "it's the most important meal of the day" but I never really enjoyed it until about a few months ago. Since I adore food and preparing food I was determined to make breakfast my new favorite meal of the day. (Breakfast will never be as delicious and exciting as dinner but it sure is pretty close now.) So what did I do? I decided to make breakfast more interesting by not eating boring dry store bought muesli and runny yogurt or a cheese sandwich, and started looking up more exciting and healthy alternatives. I discovered tons and tons of warm and cold porridge recipes, both soaked, boiled, or baked, fun smoothie recipes and I've started to make my own granola so that I can manage the sugar content myself and I've started collecting jars of nuts seeds, and other super foods to top my yogurt/fil breakfasts. (Fil is a Swedish dairy product that tastes more like sour cream which I usually eat instead of yogurt. If I eat yogurt it's usually the Greek/Turkish kind. Oh and I always eat full fat.) 

I love waking up, going to the kitchen, boiling a kettle of tea and taking out all of my little jars and placing them on the breakfast table to top that mornings breakfast. Another great side effect of eating and enjoying a proper breakfast is that I feel so much better for the rest of the day. My energy is up and I'm satisfied until lunch time.

Time to share a few of my breakfast recipes and what's in my pantry. This is quite a long post, hopefully I won't bore you to death. :)

Homemade Granola is the easiest thing ever and doesn't have to be full of sugar. You can play around with tons of variations and flavors, so it's really fun too. 

My recipe for Homemade Crunchy Granola:

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup buckwheat or an assortment of your favorite seeds

Pinch salt

1/2 tsp of Your choice of flavorings. Vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg.

3 Tbsp coconut oil

3 Tbsp honey

1 egg white (this makes the granola clump together and extra crunchy, still great granola if you omit this ingredient.)

• Pre heat oven to 170°C/350°F with fan. 

• Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

• In a microwave safe dish melt the coconut oil and honey together for about 40 seconds.

• Whisk in the egg white into the melted coconut oil and honey. 

• Add to dry ingredients.

• Pour onto a parchment covered baking sheet in a thin layer.

• Baking time. Time can vary depending on your oven and if you have a fan or not on. If you've added the egg white bake for about 10 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Without the egg white half way through the cooking time mix the granola around.

• Allow to cool on baking sheet. Then break apart into small chunks and add to air tight container. 

• Enjoy on your morning yogurt etc.

So what do I keep in my pantry? I always have an assortment of seeds such as pumpkin, or sunflower seeds. I also love to have ground flax seeds as they're really good for you. I usually have some nuts as well such as almonds, cashews and walnuts. Roasted coconut is another fun favorite (Johan especially loves this). Coconut palm sugar is so delicious on it's own but great to add a little extra natural sugar sweetness to granola (or just take a spoonful when you've got a sweet craving.) And super foods! Bee pollen and chia seeds are really exciting and have sooooo many health benefits it's crazy!

I'm no expert on these new popular super foods so I highly recommend you google all the benefits of adding bee pollen and chia seeds to your diet. 

Chia is packed with protein and omega 3 fatty acids and much more so I adore adding it to my morning yogurt, or drinking water for added texture, plus it's tasteless which is nice. Chia triples in size as it soaks up added moisture and gets a bit of a tapioca texture. Kind of, it's difficult to describe... just try it!

Chia Pudding Recipe:

For 2 portions.

1 Tbsp Chia Seeds

3-4 Tbsp water, coconut water, coconut milk or other nut milk.

• Mix together and allow to sit for at least 2 hours or over night. I love the coconut option for mixing into my morning smoothie, yogurt or porridge.

• If making chia water, you don't have to wait for the chia to soak for more than 10 or 15 minutes. I recommend to add a squeeze of lemon or lime or even mint to your water for added flavor. And make sure to have a straw as the chia seeds tend to fall to the bottom so you'll need to mix them around.

Raspberry Chia Jam Recipe:

For 4 portions.

1 cup frozen raspberries

1 Tbsp Chia Seeds

• Defrost the raspberries and mush to a paste.

• Add the chia seeds and allow to set for 2 hours or overnight.

• Use as a traditional jam or add to your breakfast for added natural sweetness and tartness.

And my last recipe of this long breakfast post is a new favorite cold breakfast porridge from blog Green Kitchen Stories. I've adapted it only slightly.

Buckwheat Cashew Soaked Cold Porridge:

1/2 cup buckwheat soaked overnight

1/2 cup cashews soaked overnight

1 green apple, chopped

1 orange, just the juice

• Rinse the soaked buckwheat and cashews.

• Add to blender (or I like to use an emersion blender) with the apple chunks and the juice from 1 orange. 

• Blend until smooth-ish.

• Enjoy with fresh fruit, granola, chia jam, or anything you'd like.

Hope this was interesting! What do you eat for breakfast?

How to Grow Your Own Pea Sprouts

Hello Friday!

I must confess I definitely don't have a green thumb and don't particularly enjoy gardening. The boyfriend luckily takes care of all of our houseplants, and he does a great job at keeping them very happy. As much as I love to look at succulents, palms and the such they're just not that exciting. Edible plants however are very exciting to me, and make me want to put on my gardening gloves! 

Every Spring when Sweden decides to warm up just ever so slightly we plant lots of fragrant edible herbs on our sunny balcony. I absolutely adore picking out the herbs to grow and getting to use them fresh in cooking all Summer long. I even freeze the herbs to use all Winter long as well when the Summer growing season is over. This year I wanted to branch out to try growing something else edible, why not sprouts!

Not only are sprouts incredibly good for you, they are also delicious and really really really easy to grow.

What you'll need to grow your own pea sprouts:

• Organic dried yellow peas (the kind you make split pea soup with)

• A pot

• Potting soil

• Water

• and love ;)

Fill pot with soil, sprinkle your dried peas over and then cover with about 1 cm of more soil. Now place on a sunny windowsill and water every day for about 10 days until they look like my photos. Then you are free to just cut and eat on sandwiches, salads, or just as a snack. I felt like a kid again watching the little greens popping through the soil and growing into gorgeous green shoots. It's amazing how quickly they grow!

 I really want to start sprouting other seeds and beans. Do you sprout? What would you suggest me try next?

Recipe: Baked Oatmeal

Hello Monday!

Let's start off the week with a great filling gorgeous breakfast, my new favorite recipe to start off the day with!

I've always eaten breakfast (because it's the most important meal of the day) but I've never really enjoyed it. It's just so boring and bland sometimes. Since I discovered this alternative to a traditional oatmeal I've been obsessed. It's both healthy and delicious and it keeps me full and energised until lunch time. Perfect too since you can bake it in the weekend and then have enough for a few breakfasts to reheat throughout the week.

Recipe: Baked Oatmeal

Adapted from a recipe from Swedish Grocery Store Chain ICA.

Ingredients for 6 servings:

5 dl Rolled Oats

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Cinnamon

2 pinches salt

1/2 dl chopped dried apricots

2 Eggs

4 dl Oat or Almond milk

1/2 dl Honey

2 Tbsp. Coconut Oil or Vegetable Oil

1 dl seeds (Sunflower, Flax, Pumpkin etc.)

2 dl Frozen berries (Raspberries, blueberries, strawberries etc.)

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 175°C (350°F).

• Combine all first 5 dry ingredients and pour into a lightly oiled oven safe dish. (Mine is about 8 by 8 inches.)

• Next whisk the eggs lightly with the milk, and pour over the dry mix in your dish.

• Make your seed crumble by combining honey, coconut oil and your mix of seeds, and sprinkle over your oatmeal.

• To finish top with your choice of frozen berries.

• Bake for about 30 minutes until slightly golden. 

• Store in fridge for 1 week. Just microwave a portion for yourself every morning, and serve with a click of Greek yoghurt. 

Hope you enjoy!

Swedish meets Parisienne Bistro Sallad

Hello Thursday!

It's been a long time since we talked about food around here. I've been busy in the kitchen as always just haven't really been in the sharing mood. But today I am.

Salads aren't really my favorite meal unless they look something like this. (None of that boring iceberg lettuce, tomato and cucumber. blah) I like a mix of warm and cold veggies, some sort of protein and a flavorful homemade dressing. In Paris, bistro salads are topped with roasted potato slices, or other roasted veggies. Since our Paris trip a few years ago we've loved making these filling salads at home.

This salad is made up of: 

a mix of salad leaves

fresh tomatoes dressed in red wine vinegar

blanched green beans

roasted spring onions, red peppers, and potato slices

a warm vinaigrette (olive oil, red wine vinegar, thinly sliced spring onions, capers, and fresh tarragon warmed in a frying pan on low heat.)

and... Tjälknöll

To give our sallad a little Swedish twist we tried making a Swedish classic called Tjälknöll. Not only does this beef dish have the ugliest name it also is rather strange to prepare. 

You are not going to believe me when I say that you put a 1 kilo frozen (yes deep frozen) roast of beef in the oven at the low temperature of 75°C for about 8 to 10 hours. No salt no pepper no nothing. After about 2 hours the meat is soft enough to put a thermometer in. We roasted ours until the inner temp reached 60°C, we like our meat rare. Ummm strange. It also doesn't look too cute when it comes out of the oven.

Now if that weren't weird enough, you then throw this plain slow roasted beef straight into a salt brine for about 4 or 5 hours. (1 liter water, 1dl salt, 3 Tbsp sugar, bay leaves, crushed black pepper, and a few sprigs of rosemary.) Serve the meat cold in thin slices.

My verdict, a little salty and weird, but incredibly tender. The salad was of course yummy!

Celebrating New Years Eve!

Hello Thursday!

Let's take a look at what I did... ate and drank to celebrate the coming New Year.

Our celebrating started on Saturday with a Champagne and Oyster tasting with Johan's wine tasting society. Each person brought with them a bottle of Champagne to share, with about 20 people who came to the tasting, there were quite a few bottles to try. I'm not too fond of Champagne (gasp I know) so I stuck to gorging on seafood... definitely ate more than my share of oysters. :)

And then on the actual day, New Years Eve Johan and I and four of our friends had a lovely 6 course dinner together. We met up at 6pm and cooked and ate together until midnight. It was a great grown up change to stay in and have a quiet dinner with friends and really ring in the new year with style. It was also rather nice waking up on New Years Day without a pounding headache. A great way to start off the New Year I think!

I must say all 6 courses were just as delicious as we had hoped, and definitely just as good as they looked. Hope you had a lovely New Year too, whether you stayed in or partied all night!

Fancy Dinner Time

Hello Monday!

Did you have a nice weekend? I had an amazing really "weekend" kind of weekend. The boyfriend was free for a change so we could enjoy some lazy time together in front of the television, do a little home fixing, go grocery shopping so the fridge is stocked for the week, and could treat ourselves to a fancy dinner (or two).

It's been awhile since we've had the time to treat ourselves to something special to eat.... when before this was almost a weekly occurrence. I think it has something to do with the darkness and coziness of Fall. Summer dinners just don't feel so special because they can't be eaten by candle light. (Remember I live in Stockholm, the sun doesn't set until Midnight during the summer months.) I'm actually really glad it's getting darker so candlelit dinner can be had in plenty.

So on Friday night I set the table for one of my favorite simple dinners, a Swedish shrimp dinner. I love relaxed dinners like these. You just buy loads of shrimp to peel and eat (our Swedish shrimp are like nothing else, you must try if you come for a visit to Sweden.), and serve with some freshly baked baguettes, a piece of cheese, and maybe just a spoon of mayonnaise for dipping. I'm happy with just eating the shrimp with no other sides, but for fun I also made a little appetizer, oeuf en cocotte. It's beautifully rustic, simple, and just elegant enough to look as though you've made a real effort. We usually eat this as a simple dinner when we're not so hungry or when we can't think of anything else to make... but it was extra fun to eat it in such an elegant setting with Champagne no less.

p.s. I'm not too bothered by Champagne. There are many other wines I'd prefer to drink, but I can't deny how festive it is. ;)

Recipe: Oeuf en Cocotte

What you'll need: (for 2 filling servings)

Large Oven-safe Ramekins 

4 eggs

Creme Fraiche

Smoked Salmon

Lemon

Dill

Salt Pepper

Olive Oil

Preheat your oven to 150°C with fan.

• In your two ramekins smear a generous spoon of creme fraiche into the bottom of each. 

• Tear a slice or two of smoked salmon into each on top of the creme fraiche.

• Crack two eggs into each ramekin (making sure not to break the yolks.)

• Spoon in a few more dollops of creme fraiche around the eggs.

• Now garnish with whatever you like. I chose a squirt of lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of dill, and some salt and pepper.

Once the oven is hot place your ramekins in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes for runny yolks (what I like), or 20 minutes for medium yolks (what the boyfriend likes.)

Allow to cool for about 5 to 10 minutes before enjoying with freshly baked bread or toast... or Swedish shrimp as we had.

Hope you like it!