Tea time!

http://quotesgram.com/tea-quotes-alice-in-wonderland/

Imagine a lazy Sunday morning, you wake up to the sound of rain tapping at your window and the world is covered in a sorta grey filter.

It's chilly inside, and everything is so silent and you slowly realize that it's almost noon but you don't have to Be anywhere, because it's Sunday.

Your stomach decides to growl at you for sleeping so late, so the next thought is breakfast.. or lunch.. brunch.

Too lazy to get properly dressed and go to the corner store to buy bread, you decide that this morningnoon will be a scone one.
Ah! Tea (or fresh coffee) and warm scones. Mouth watering thought, isn't it? With melty butter, or cream and jam if you follow English customs.

I have here for you, for this perfect little dreamy scenario, the best foolproof scone recipe, handed down by my late Grandfather. They can never fail, they're easy peasy to make and it takes next to no time at all.
Ready? Let's get a'sconing!

The Best Scones

• 4,5 deciliters of flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp bakingpowder
• 1-4 tbsp of butter *
• 1 1/4 - 2 deciliters of milk

* I always put more butter than the recipe says because they get yummier that way. Trust me on this!

How To

• mix all the dry ingredients
• add the butter and gently, using your fingers, work it in. I always leave some bigger pieces of butter so they'll melt in the oven. Adds to the yumminess.
• add now the milk and with a wooden spoon gently mix the dough. Don't work it too much, the consistency should be a bit sticky and barely keeping it together - that is perfect!
• divide the dough into two pieces, and on a gently flowered baking table make two flat round, sticky cakes.
• make holes in the scones with a fork and into the oven they go now!
• Bake at 200º Celsius for 15-20 minutes. They are done when they smell divine and look golden brown.

Tip! - this recipe is so versatile you can add whatever extra ingredients you want, from nuts to honey to cheese... the possibilities are endless.

If you decide to make a two flour scone, remember to divide the flours so they add up to the same amount as the original (either 4,5 one flour or 2 rye and 2,5 spelt or whatever) otherwise you'll have odd scones.

You can also top them with goodness. I used peeled sesame seeds, but anything yummy goes.

Look at these perfect scrumptiolicious scones! This is what they're supposed to look like.

Now add to the earlier Sunday scenario a kitchen that is filled with the delicious smell of freshly baked scones, coffee (or tea) and a feeling of pure tranquilité. Rain is still tapping on the window, a dog is barking and there you sit by table reading the morning paper in all your lazy Sunday glory.

Here comes the part where you add your good looking SO to keep you company, alas I have no such person in my life atm so I'll happily spend this time with my dear Grandmother (with whom I live at the moment).

Enjoy your life, enjoy the little things and bake these scones. You will not regret it!

-L-

Mandrake soup

'Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorative,' said Hermione, sounding as usual as though she had swallowed the textbook. 'It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed, to their original state.'

- Hermione Granger, The Chamber of Secrets

I'm not really going to talk about the mandrake root, even if I do find it fascinating, but rather about the Jerusalem Artichoke (helianthus tuberosus), also known as sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple or topinambour, that may at times bear a resemblance to that of the root.

Now this funny little chubby root has been the hot topic in the culinary industry for some time.
It has a fantastic underground nutty flavour and resembles the potato as far as starch goes. It's eaten like the potato in many parts of Western Europe and Mediterranean regions.

It is said to be one of the finest sources of dietary fibers, minerals and various vitamins. Basically this chubby, funny looking root is a health bomb, and rightly so because it is Delicious!

The other day I decided to make a rich, creamy soup for me and my grandmother with whom I am living nowadays. I always try to cook as healthy as possible as Gran is a fragile old woman who rarely cooks anything other than the usual potato-carrot food, so it does her good to eat healthy and nutritionally.
So, bombs away for my recipe for a super Jerusalem artichoke soup!

Creamy Jerusalem Artichoke-Potato Soup with Thyme 
...and spring onions, cream and grated grana padana cheese.

Recipe

• butter & olive oil for frying (about a couple of tbspns each)
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• 1 semi-big yellow onion, chopped up
• 500 grams of Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and diced
• ca 400 grams of potatoes (all around or soupy kind), peeled and diced
• roughly 1-1,5 of cream, depending on the consistency you want your soup to be
• ca 12 decilitres of water
• 1 vegetable buillon cube
• salt, pepper, thyme ...*
• Optional: a couple of decilitres of white wine, Chardonnay.

* As far as seasoning goes, I mostly go with the flow and add whatever I feel for in the heat of the moment.

For this soup I used dried thyme, a couple of pinches of cayenne pepper for warmth, aroma salt (without glutamate) and roasted garlic from a mill.

How To

• heat up olive oil and butter, add onions and garlic
• fry until the onion is pretty and glazed, then toss in the chokes and taters
• fry these for a little while (a couple of stirs, like chefs do on the tv)
• Optional: If you add wine, now is the time for it. One dl for the soup, one for you, one for the soup.. one for you..
• Add the water and the buillon cube, brig to boil then lower the heat to medium and let boil until the taters and chokes are soft and mushy
• Either pour it into a mixer or use a hand blender and puree the soup, along with the cream, into a smooth richy goodness. At this point you can also, if you want to, add a tbsp of butter.
• Put back on heat, season until you feel like it's the best you've made (perhaps add a drop of wine) and Violá! You have yourself a super creamy, rich, falvourful soup.

I served this topped with lightly whipped cream (try whip it with sherry or brandy), grated grana padano parmesan cheese and chopped spring onions. It also goes well with a grilled cheese or a light salad.

Grilled cheese sandwich with grilled aubergine and champignons. Omnom!

Enjoy your masterpiece, bon apetité!

-L-

Jammin' with blueberries

Instead of writing school assignments (read: portfolio) I decided to take a break and post a quick recipe here instead!

So my parents brought me roughly 3 litres of blueberries. I thought, what do I do with 3 litres? well, usually people bake pies. I don't want to bake a whole pie when I live alone. Then a thought struck me: Blueberry jam! Of course, I will make blueberry jam.

So I began to google and research different kinds of recipes, because I wanted something different than just blueberries and sugar. After a while I found the most exotic recipe: Blueberry jam with basil and lime.

Wow, I thought, I must make this. And so I did.

I figured it's what heaven tastes like on bread. Absolutely fantastic! Naturally I have to share this recipe.

"Remember when your mom used to drop you off at the movies with a jar of jam and a spoon?"

Blueberry Jam with Basil and Lime

Recipe

• 2 litres of blueberries
• zest from 2 limes
• juice from 3 limes
• 2 tbsp chopped basil
• 6 decilitres of gelling sugar (jam sugar)

What you do

(remember that the lime in itself has a very sweet taste and brings forth the sweet taste in the jam)

• Boil the berries with the lime juice for about 10 minutes.
• Remove from the heat, add lime zest and basil
• whilst gently stirring, add the sugar little by little, then let boil for 5 minutes
• de-foam if needed
• pour the jam into hot, sterilized jars
• seal them tightly
• store in cool place (fridge)

Violá! Now you are the master of divine blueberry jam.

Pro tip: Make some tea, get fresh croissants and enjoy heaven.

It's funny, people in general don't seem to know of the existence of blueberry jam. Some of my friends have never tasted it.

I wonder, is it really that unusual?

Back to schoolwork then.

Peace!

-L-

(quote is from Joey from the tv-show F.R.I.E.N.D.S)

Preparing for the cold seasons

"Oh the bitter winds are coming in, and I'm already missing the summer. Stockholm's cold, but I've been told I was born to endure this kind of weather"

Autumn is at our doorstep. The signs are everywhere; fresh cold winds, leaves turning from green to gold and the sound of people coughing and blowing their noses in every street corner and home. Truly a magical, phlegm filled time.

Having the flu, for me at least, entails dozens of movies, hankies everywhere, soup for breakfast lunch dinner, woollen socks, jammies all day and hot beverages such as tea and juice.
What kind of juice? Red currant juice.
The best remedy for the cold (aside for the hot gingerlemongarlichoney one, but not today).

As a kid I remember my mother bringing me hot redcurrant juice with honey. This was the best thing ever. I'd feel better in an instant, and was awake long enough for a movie, such as The Land Before Time.
Let's talk about these redcurrants for a while...

The redcurrant (ribes rubrum) is native to parts of western Europe, Scandinavia, Portugal, Spain and Poland (and many more). These beautiful, delicious red berries are rich in vitamin C, which is very good during the cold seasons. They also contain iron and magnesium which is very good for the body and bone structure.
Depending on which country you consume them, redcurrants are served in many different ways, shapes and sizes. France, for example, have the Bar-le-duc (lorraine jelly), the UK serve them with lamb or with the Sunday Roast, most of Scandinavia has summer puddings & fruit soups, Germany use them in combination with custard or meringue as filling for tarts.

In Finland we make juice.
Sweet, fantastic, deep red juice.
So fantastic in fact, that I will give you the recipe so you too can devour the awesomeness that is redcurrant juice.

They taste as red as they look

Make your own Redcurrant Juice

If you have your own juicer (Saft Maja in Swedish), then that's fine. I don't own fancy things like that, so I use what I have, and do it the old fashioned style!

Recipe

• 2 litres of redcurrants
• 6 decilitres of water
• 6-7 decilitres of sugar/litre of liquid. The sugar acts like a preservative so no other preservatives needed.
• lemon juice from one lemon

What you do

• scrape the berries off their stems and rinse in cold water
• pour berries, lemon juice and water into a thick bottomed cooking pot
• bring to boil for about ten minutes. Mash the berries so you get as much juice out of them as possible
• pour the juice through a clad sieve (using a scrim or a kitchen towel), into a bowl and let drip for about an hour

After the hour is gone you will have approximately one litre of juice, give or take.

Also during this hour, it'll be wise to rinse the bottles you use with boiling water, just in time so they'll be hot when you bottle the hot juice.

• pour back into cleaned cooking pot, and bring to boil while gradually adding the sugar whilst stirring
• at this point you need to de-foam the juice
• pour into hot, sterilized bottles. Screw on the cap as tightly as possible.
• Store in fridge or in freezer

Now you are a juice expert. This can't go wrong. 

The most important thing is to taste. It's supposed to be ickle sweet, that's good. Ickle sweet means it'll preserve without additional preservatives and also that you'll get one hell of a good juice.

For serving you might want mix 1 + 8. Although this is no exact science. Some people like their juice super sweet, some like it less. 

At the moment I have about 3,5 litres of juice in my fridge.  I am well supplied for the incoming cold season.

Keep warm and happy juicing!

Peace

-L-

New Beginnings

This blog is a sign of new beginnings, new choices to be made and a new me.

In February 2016 I am graduating from culinary school and after that my choices in work are endless... I hope.

For a very long time I've had a dream, a dream to travel to Thailand and learn the secrets of Thai-food.
Thai food me is a form of art. The colourful dishes, the perfect balance between sweet and savoury, the techniques used when slicing and dicing, the perfect timing between preparations and cooking. It fascinates me.

The reason for my fascination with thai-food began many years ago when my now ex-boyfriend introduced me to a chicken wok with ginger, garlic and fresh greens. It also came with a lemon-fish sauce and fresh chilies (preferably habanero).
This dish, to me, was the perfect combination of heaven.

Ever since I tried my hand at cooking and it worked out pretty well. 5 years after that I applied to culinary school. I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life.

So here I am, closing up on 26, a third year culinary student with an exotic plan to travel the culinary world.

Of course this will not be a Thai-food only blog, as I have many recipes I want to try out or just share with people, and other ideas and tips for those who're interested in culinary secrets. For example what effect lemon has on raw chicken, why I never use table salt for anything and different kinds of jams and juices...
Exciting! I hope you are too!


Be good.
Remember Karma.

Oh! And you can also follow me on Bloglovin!

Peace

-L-