Monday 21 December 2009

I'm on....

CHRISTMAS BREAK!!

I'll be back in 2010. I have a bunch of recipes in "draft"-mode that I'll post during the holidays.

To be continued...

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Moussaka

You should know by now that I love my food magazines and websites such as BBC GoodFood, Martha Stewart and Jamie Oliver. I love how easy it is to find good, healthy and affordable recipes online, especially since I can't afford to buy all the fancy food magazines each month.


Browsing through BBC GoodFood yesterday I came across this recipe for moussaka. I have never made moussaka, can't even remember ever eating mousaka but this recipe intrigued me, so I decided to give it a go.

I was very happy with how the dish turned out, however, next time I'm making it I'm going to fry the aubergine (not microwave it as the recipe tells you to, and as I therefore did), and I am also going to make a proper sauce since this sauce got a rubbery surface.

But over all I was delighted with this easy to make moussaka and I will definitely be making it again.

Moussaka
Adapted from BBC GoodFood
Serves 4

500 g lean ground meat
1 large aubergine
150 g non-fat Greek yogurt
1 egg, beaten
3 tbsp Parmesan, grated
400 g can crushed tomatoes in garlic and herbs
4 tbsp tomato-purée
400 g boiled potatoes, cold and cut into disks

Set the grill on high

1. Start by browning the meat in a hot pan for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, prick the aubergine with a fork, and place it in the microwave on high for 3-5 minutes or until soft.

2. In a bowl, mix yogurt, cheese and egg. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Stir the crushed tomatoes, tomato-purée and the potatoes in with the meat, and allow to heat through. Place the meat mixture in an oven-proof dish. Smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Slice the aubergine and place on top of the meat. Pour over the yogurt sauce.

4. Place the moussaka under the grill and grill until the sauce has set and turned golden.



Cinnamon swirls/buns

Cinnamon buns... oh the word sends my taste buds spinning and my nose fills with the smell of freshly baked goods!

The sweet smell of cinnamon buns takes me back to my childhood. I dare say my mum is the queen of cinnamon buns. Whenever we had a birthday party, guests or a school event my mum always made cinnamon buns. She would get up early in the morning to prepare the dough, and put the first tray in the oven just in time for us wake up to the promise of a cinnamon bun for our 11 o'clock fika.

I made cinnamon buns for the first time today!



Cinnamon buns

Makes 25

25 g fresh yeast
75 g butter, melted
2 ½ dl milk
1 ml salt
 ½ dl sugar
1- 1 ½ tsp ground cardamom
7 dl flour

Filling
50 g room temp butter
½-1 dl sugar
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 egg, beaten

Decoration
pearl sugar

1. Crumble the yeast into a large bowl. Mix the melted butter with the milk and heat until tepid. Pour some of the liquid over the yeast, allow the yeast to dissolve completely before adding the rest of the liquid.

2. Add in salt, sugar and cardamom, mix. Now, slowly add in a little flour at the time until you have a dough that does not stick to the edges of the bowl or to your hands. Set the dough to rest, covered, for 30 minutes.

3. Divide the dough into two. Roll out each part to a large rectangle. Spread with butter, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Roll into a long snake-shape, starting at the long edge. Cut each "snake" into about 12 pieces, 1 ½ cm thick. Place each piece in a small muffin paper cup. Place the cups on an oven tray.

4. Brush each piece with the beaten egg, and sprinkle the pearl sugar on top. Set to rest for 30 minutes.

5. Heat the oven to 225°C and bake the cinnamon buns for 8-10 minutes on the middle shelf.
Allow to cool, covered, on a wire rack.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee, tea, or a glass of lemonade.


Sunday 6 December 2009

Gingerbread cookies

My entries are few and far between, I have no excuse other than that I don't do all that much "inspirational" cooking these days. And when I do cook something that might be suitable for the blog I don't have a camera around.

Anyways, Christmas is around the corner and what better way to celebrate that than to bake gingerbread cookies. It's such a Swedish/Scandinavian tradition and I love it.

Growing up I can't remember my mum making her own dough, I just remember her buying the dough and then trying, and mostly failing, at keeping me from eating the dough before it was time for us to bake the cookies. I can still remember some of my more clever ways of eating the dough without her noticing. Once she bought the dough in a plastic tub/box kind of thing and I figured out that if I took the dough out of the box, and cut myself a piece of dough from the bottom, the bit that would be laying on the bottom of the box, she wouldn't notice that I had been there for a treat. That idea worked brilliantly and I don't think she ever figured that one out.

Other not so smart ideas by me involves me stealing chips/crisps from the bag. I am a real sucker for chips and especially Dill & Chive flavoured chips. Growing up my brother and I were allowed a bag of chips to share on Friday nights, as a treat. Mum always bought the bag real early in the week, which meant that knowing the bag was in the cupboard without having any of it was pure torture. I remember once I opened the bag in the bottom, took out some chips and glued it back together. Once I stapled it shut, and once I taped it, those where the less good ideas as staples or tapes along the bottom of the bag is a real give-away for suspicious activity.

Ok, let's get back on track again. Where were we? Gingerbread cookies. My bf's mother makes her dough, I have to say I prefer the bought version, maybe I wasn't too keen on the home made dough because she put pepper in her dough, I don't know. Anyways, she and I made the dough on Thursday and yesterday she invited her grand kids and me and my bf to come bake cookies. It was great fun, however the kids got fed up real quickly and left us adults with a rather large batch of dough to deal with on our own.

Excuse the quality of the photos. I didn't bring my camera so had to rely on the camera on my mobile.