They are healthy, they are delicious, they are full of fiber and minerals, they are really, really cheap (you should buy them dried by the bag), and yet many people here in the West have no idea how to prepare them, nor how to eat them on a regular basis.  Granted, that may be due to the fact that if you want your beans and chickpeas to taste really good, you don’t want them to come out of a can – you need to pre-soak and you need to boil them yourself.  So, while it is not difficult, that method does require thinking ahead.

But, not all legumes are created equal.  Lentils, especially the red ones, cook in minutes without any pre-soaking, and green peas these days are sold frozen in large inexpensive bags which are very easy to just store in your freezer for when you need them.  And thankfully, the Middle Eastern kitchens – Persian, Lebanese and many others – have long ago come up with a fantastic way to feed people based on those, cheaply and in a hurry.  Frugality and convenience attended to, the easiest way to incorporate legumes into your diet in a gloriously delicious way, is a lentil soup.  And you can then impress your friends with your creation, presenting it as a Mid-East inspired dish rather than “I have some leftovers in the fridge that we can probably do something with.”

Because red lentils cook so fast, and because legumes go with a huge range of savory seasonings, this soup pulls together in about half an hour, and it is a wonderful way to use up various leftovers looking sad and forlorn in the corners of your fridge.  Or freezer.  And the result is a warming, hearty soup that is thick and satisfying enough to serve as a large lunch, or even a dinner if served with some bread on the side.  And you can feel good for having done something great for your health in the process, to boot!

It can even be made vegetarian, or indeed, vegan, if you omit the bacon, and if needed, the dairy I like to garnish it with – and for all I am a definite carnivore, this soup will really be not much worse for the omissions.  Or if you have aging smoked lamb or pastrami, or ham, it can be sliced and tossed right in alongside with everything else to make the soup richer.  Though if you are skipping bacon, I would suggest a teaspoon of smoked paprika to add the smoky scent without the smoked-pig component.

And if you are cooking for yourself only, and are daunted by the prospect of having a large pot of soup, this both, keeps fine in the fridge for a few days, and freezes fantastically well if you have some of those plastic tubs handy.

There is no set-in-stone recipe for lentil soup, as it literally uses up whatever you have around your fridge, but there are a few simple guidelines.  It needs onions, it needs a good amount of greenery, and it needs enough fat to cook those onions.  The rest is honestly mutable.

You will need (this will make about 3L of soup):

• 1-1.25 cup (3 dl) red lentils
• 2-4 tablespoons cooking oil or bacon fat
• 2-3 onions, chopped
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped finely
• 1-2 dl green peas (frozen – if you have fresh, I’d just eat those fresh!)
• A couple of handfuls of frozen chopped spinach pellets
• Half or whole pack of bacon (75-150g), cut into small bits (can be omitted, or substituted with shredded cooked beef, chicken, smoked or roast lamb, pastrami, or whatever you have handy)
• Salt and black pepper and chili flakes to taste
• 1 very heaping tablespoon of curry powder, or Middle Eastern 7-spice (Baharat), or a thyme-based mix like Zaatar, or really whatever you have on hand and feel like – toss in that Italian pasta or salad seasoning, it will work just fine too.
• 1 teaspoon hot paprika or hot smoked paprika
• Leftovers:  in my case – a couple of aged salad onions, trimmed, but you can use up a slightly-mushy tomato, some root celery (peeled and chopped into small bits), green celery (sliced crosswise), a potato or two, and you get the idea.

• Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle on top – or you can be like me and use up herb-infused olive oil that some sun-dried tomatoes were sold in.
• Greek or Turkish yogurt or creme fraiche or sour cream to serve – optional, but really nice.

How to achieve soup in record time:

• Put a large pot (enough to fit 3+ Litres) on the stove and add 2 tablespoons of oil or bacon fat.  Start heating it on medium-low heat.  Put a non-stick frying pan on the stove, add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil or bacon fat and heat that to medium heat as well.
• Toss your chopped bacon into the frying pan, stir and allow to cook on medium heat while you add your “leftover” vegetables to the pot, and saute them gently in it.  Add your seasoning (curry, 7-spice, seasoning mix – but not the paprika), whatever the choice is.
• Once bacon is cooked, lift it from the pan and add to the pot with leftover vegetables.  Add your chopped onions to the pan, and fry them in bacon fat on medium heat until they turn golden and a little crispy on edges.
• While your onions are frying, rinse your lentils and add them to the pot.  Add approximately 2 L of water (the process is made faster if you boil it in your water boiler while at it), and bring soup to a slow simmer.
• When the onions are nearly done, move them a bit to the side, add a tablespoon of oil if needed, and toss the garlic into the pan.  Cook just until it goes bright white and fragrant, a few seconds – now this is ready to add to the pot, whatever stage that is at – soup is forgiving like that!
• Bring your soup to a bit higher boil (higher simmer?  We don’t want this at rolling boil, not really!), and cook for approximately 15 minutes until lentils are nearly cooked through (they will fluff out at edges and will be nearly soft to the bite).
• Add the frozen peas and spinach, and enough boiling water to make 3L of soup in total.  Add the teaspoon of paprika.
• Cook, stirring, until spinach pellets are completely dispersed and the soup is back at a low simmer.  If the lentils are not cooked through at this stage, give the soup another 3-5 minutes until they are.
• Season with salt and pepper and chili flakes to taste, and serve with yogurt or creme fraiche and a drizzle of olive oil.

The bread in the photo that we ate it with, is a rye-blend folded cheese sourdough (I promise a recipe with stage-by-stage folding photos another day!), but this soup would go just as well with any – or none at all.

Lemon and Orange Cheesecake with Shortbread Crust

Unless you are like me, that is, and have gone easy on the chocolate – or, unless you are like me, and the thought of proper, creamy, tender and oh-so-good real New York-style cheesecake makes all else not matter.  I am (last I checked) myself, and therefore I believe that cheesecake is always in time, occasion and season.  So if you are a fellow Cheesecake-worshipper, keep reading.  On second thought, even if you are an infidel among us Cheesecake-believers, you should stay and hear the gospel as well.

So what about the eight-year deprivation, you ask?  Well, as it happens, I adore cheesecake.  In fact, I ate it on any occasion that called for dessert when it was available, back when I lived in the USA, the holy land of cheesecakes.  You may not know it, but Americans actually have a restaurant chain called “The Cheesecake Factory”.  I am not kidding!  And as far as I am concerned, it has to be American cheesecake.  No, I am not interested in the ricotta cakes, or the Swedish traditional ostkaka, give me the tall, creamy but definitively non-gloopy beauty that is NY-style cheesecake any, any day of the week.

Except that I have not lived in USA since 2004.  That is… 8 years, people!  And in that time, between Sweden and UK, I have not had any cheesecake, because I refuse to have any that is less than what cheesecake, in my mind, should be.  And you know what?  Eight years is simply too long to go without cheesecake!

So, having gotten thoroughly cheesecake-frustrated, I have decided that I’ve had it, and I think I’ve completely talked T’s head off about the real cheesecake that I so desired, and in the end I ended up promising him to make the real thing myself.  Because, if you want something done right, you bloody well should.

There is a lot of talk, both in word-of-mouth and on the net and even in cookbooks about how difficult it is to make a cheesecake.  Some people say you have to cook it wrapped in foil on a water bath (really, wtf people, haven’t you heard of the invention of the this thing called an oven thermostat?!  It’s been around for several decades!*), and nearly all preach about how hard it is to mix, and how it will get air bubbles and oh god oh god crack and burn and explode and collapse and… guess what?  After reading a bunch of different sources and then making the actual cheesecake (I write this in a cheesecake-satiated glow after eight years of deprivation!), I came to the conclusion that it is all a bunch of over-hyped hoopla.  Similar, in some ways, to the way people describe sourdough bread-baking – anything to preserve the elitism and scare newbie bakers away from their holy grail.  So, pfft at them!  Making a cheesecake is really really easy.  You need to think about it, and there are some instructions you really ought to follow and not try to improvise, and you need to chill it overnight – but that’s really that!

And if the top cracks a tiny bit – who cares?  If you are serving it to guests, it should get topped with something anyway (melted, chocolate, caramel sauce, good tangy preserves or fresh berries – whatever takes your fancy!), and if you are just cutting a greedy slice to share over the morning coffee, then you can cut along the cracks.  Or simply ignore them.

So, if I have managed to impress upon you that to prepare this dessert royalty you really do not need much effort, what do you need?  Well… first of all, you need time.  Cheesecake must be allowed to set overnight in the refrigerator.  Which means you need to bake it the day before you are going to serve it (or several days – it keeps easily over a week in the fridge if wrapped properly!).

What else do you need?  Ok, here we go:

• An oven.  One of those modern ones with a thermostat knob.
• A mixing bowl.
• A mixer or a whisk and a really strong arm.  I use a small, handheld mixer and it works just fine.
• A springform pan, with bottom inserted upside-down (yes, I mean that!) – meaning, lipped side down, flat side up.  The upside-down bottom ensures there is no “lip” on it once the cake is ready, and it can be easily sliced, or transferred off the flat surface onto a plate.

Recipe is adapted fairly heavily from a saved recipe card that I got mailed as a promotion back when living in USA.  Adaptations include not being able to get my hands on brick cream cheese, not using egg whites, and removing flour from batter (because I like my cheesecake better without).

Ingredients:  (This will make one standard 9-inch form)

Shortbread crust:   Yes, I like that, but if you prefer crumb crust, it’s just some digestive biscuits crushed with a bit of melted butter.  In my personal and highly biased view (as in, it’s going to go into my mouth-biased), lightly spiced shortbread crust is far superior!

• 200g plain all-purpose flour (1.5 to 1.75 US cups)
• Small pinch of salt (1/5 tsp)
• 2 tsp ground ginger (optional, can be replaced with nutmeg or omitted)
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 dl confectioner’s sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 150g butter, cut into small pieces and slightly softened

Cheesecake batter:

• 1kg full-fat cream cheese.  In Europe that translates to 5 little tubs.
• 200g 10% (full-fat) quark cheese (Kesella or other brand – can be substituted with 10% Greek or Turkish strained yogurt)
• 1 dl full fat creme fraiche (I believe that is 34% fat here in Sweden).  This can be substituted with full-fat sour cream.
• 300ml caster sugar (I used golden caster).
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract.  I used sugar this time, as my vanilla extract isn’t ready yet (I make my own, it’s easy).
• Zest of 1 lemon+1 orange.  If you like your cake less citrusy, you can use either orange or lemon or half of each.
• 1 tablespoon (15ml) lemon juice from aforementioned lemon (try to avoid bottled lemon juice here, it does not taste nearly as good as fresh).
• 3 egg yolks
• OPTIONAL! 3 tablespoons of flour – I did not use those, but they can help the cake set and lessen the chance of cracks.  (Or so I am told.)

Method:

Make and bake the shortbread crust.

• Preheat oven to 175C.  Cut a circle of baking parchment to match the bottom of springform pan.
• Grease the pan and line the bottom with parchment.  Flour the sides thoroughly.
• Mix together all dry ingredients of crust except sugar.  Whisk to combine.
• In another bowl, mix sugar with butter until completely combined and light in color.
• Add egg yolks and mix until incorporated.  You may need to scrape down the sides of bowl at some point here.
• Add all the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until mixture resembles crumbs.  Remove mixer and squish with hands until dough comes together (should be very easy and quick).
• Place clumps of dough into the prepared springform pan, and push at it with your fingers till it is sort of uniform thickness on the bottom and up the sides.  Fork the bottom thoroughly to help avoid puffing up in the oven.  IF the bottom begins to puff up, open the oven, and fork it carefully at the edge of puffed up area.  That should deflate it.  Continue to bake as normal.
• Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes (watch it) until the top edge is just beginning to color and the crust is entirely baked through and opaque.
• Cool on rack without removing from the pan, until completely cool (this may take an hour).

In meantime, bring out the cheesecake batter ingredients out of the fridge and allow them to come to room temperature or close to it (don’t go nuts if it is a bit cool to the touch after sitting on the counter for that long, really).

A useful note on mixing the batter, which comes next – use low speed of mixer.  On low speed, you have far, far less chance of introducing excess air bubbles into it, and it is more than powerful enough to mix softened cream cheese, etc.

• Preheat oven to 250C (475F).  Yes you want it that hot!
• When the crust is completely cool, make the batter:
• Place all the cream cheese into a bowl.  I shook each little tub over the sink a bit to get rid of excess water that is sometimes found in the tubs.  Mix the cream cheese on low speed until it is smooth or close to.
• Add sugar, lemon and orange zest, and quark.  Mix to incorporate.
• Add egg yolks and mix in.  Add lemon juice and creme fraiche and mix until the batter is homogenous.

• Pour the batter into the cooled crust.  Some people suggest banging the cheesecake or such, but I did not bother as the batter mixed on low speed is not very bubbly at all.  It should more or less come up to the top (or over, which is fine) of your crust.

• Put your cheesecake on an oven pan to catch any drips, and slide that into the oven so that the cheesecake is roughly in the middle of it vertically.
• Sit and watch cheesecake for 12 minutes on 250C.  It may start to puff on sides a little bit towards the end of this period.  To reduce the chance of surface singing during this step, I turned the oven setting to only use the bottom element after preheating on top+bottom setting.  If the surface starts to brown at any point during this step, go to next step immediately.  Otherwise, proceed to next step at end of 12 minutes.
• Without opening the oven door, turn oven to use top+bottom elements (no fan setting if possible), and turn the thermostat to 95-100C.  Bake cheesecake at this setting for an hour and a half to an hour and a quarter, until the surface is set, but the center of the cake wobbles under the surface a little when it is jiggled gently back and forth.
• Turn oven off and use a piece of cookware (loaf pan?  Rolling pin?)  to prop the oven door ajar, or take the cake out of oven and set it on a rack to cool.  I used the oven method as it is supposed to reduce cracking.  I suppose I can use the take out onto rack method another time and see if that cracks more, but either is supposed to be fine.
• If using the oven to initially cool the cake, take cake out after another 15-20 minutes and continue to cool on the rack.  When pan is cool to the touch, carefully run a thin spatula or spreading knife around the crust to loosen it from the sides.
• Allow to cool until just warm to the touch before wrapping the springform pan in plastic wrap and placing in refrigerator.
• Refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours to set the cake completely.
• The next morning, check that the sides of the crust are not attached to the springform pan sides, carefully unlock and remove the sides.  Now you can either keep the cake on the bottom of the pan, or slide a thin spatula between the parchment paper and the pan bottom to loosen it and use the parchment to grab the cake and slide it over onto a serving plate.

The cake will keep for days in the refrigerator, but please do replace the pan sides (to prevent it from mashing and cover/wrap with plastic wrap to prevent it absorbing odors you and I would rather it didn’t – like garlic for example.

Now, I imagine this would have gone amazingly well with a topping, but after trying just one bite, my boyfriend decided he just liked it plain, and that the lemon-tinged lushness of this did not require any additional dressing.  So, I didn’t.  Does not mean you should not, you know.

The batter for this is very accommodating to added flavoring.  I think next time, I will get my hands on some pumpkin puree (or make it if I must), and make proper pumpkin-pie-spiced pumpkin cheesecake.  Or else go crazy and try a pineapple or mango flavored one, or plain with caramel and chocolate shavings… who knows?  The point is, because it is not baked on water bath, it sets much, much easier and less problematically.  If you are adding fruit or vegetable puree, I would suggest using the optional 3 tablespoons flour with the batter to help set the cake with lower cheese to batter ratio.  Or you know, you can always wait for me to test it first.  I promise you, I will.

Cheesecake baked in this manner, is both, easy, and incredibly forgiving, and yes, it tastes, looks and feels exactly like the really good luxury American cheesecakes that I had missed so much all those eight years.  The moral of the story is that if you want something done right, do it yourself.  I should have.  Years ago.

* As I understand it, the incredible necessity of the foil-wrapping cheesecake and cooking it in a tray of water in your oven harkens back to the times when you baked your cheesecake just outside your cave in the fire on that lightning-struck tree stump.  Yes, back then you’d have certainly needed a water bath to ensure it did not suffer from heat spikes when you tossed another log into the fire.  Or you know, if another tree branch got tossed in by the wind.  But really, with an oven that has 10-degree increments on a thermostat, saying water bath (and consequent mess, boiling water splashing, possible leaks and ruined soggy cheesecake) is necessary is just so much of you know what.

Several weeks ago I had such a day.  I was lamenting in conversation with a friend, about how my boyfriend is allergic to egg whites, and how that deprives him of chocolate mousse.  My friend Nils replied incredulously: “… but why would you ever need eggs for chocolate mousse?  You only need…”

And there it was, my chocolate mousse epiphany.

Because, apparently (to me now!), when it is stripped down, chocolate mousse only has two ingredients.  Four if you want it to be luxurious.  I did – it was made for Valentine’s Day, and T deserves all there is wonderful in the world.  Every day, actually.  But, I digress.

This mousse has no eggs.  But despite that, it really does have it all – it’s light (in texture, people!), it sets beautifully, it is easy to make, it literally melts on your tongue into a whisper and a kiss of chocolatey bliss – and it can be made with anything from milk to 70% dark chocolate, with brilliant results.  I imagine you could go darker if you are a serious chocaholic!  I have not tried it with white, but that should definitely be attempted!  It can be dressed up with vanilla and a tablespoon or two of your favorite booze, or orange zest or – your imagination is the limit here, but understand this – it does not need these adornments.  It is perfectly perfect on its own, with its two ingredients: whipping quality cream (36-40% fat), and good quality chocolate.  Everything else is frills.

If you want the mousse stiffer and chocolatier, use more chocolate (though I think the 100g specified for 70% cocoa chocolate is pretty chocolatey!), and if you want it softer and silkier, go with a bit more cream.  Incidentally, if you use the darker chocolate, this is also fairly (for a luxury dessert!) LCHF-friendly and low-GI, and so also diabetic-friendly!  Not much sugar in the dark chocolate, and little or none (depends on vanilla sugar) gets added in the making!

The recipe and method could not be simpler.  (You will need an electric mixer with whipping blades unless you are really, really pro with a whisk and have strong arms!)

This will fill two large ramekins, or 2.5 of the non-standard sized ones pictured.

• 2 dl whipping cream
• 100g chocolate of your choice – the mousse in the photo was made using 70% cocoa, but if you like milk chocolate, go for it!  Just buy the good dessert-quality stuff!
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar (the stuff with real vanilla) – optional!
• 1 tablespoon of your favorite liqueur or alcohol – I used Jack Daniels here.  Entirely optional as well.

How to do it – you will need to do this 3-4 hours to allow the mousse to set properly.  It may do so faster or slower depending on the fat content of your cream and chocolate.

• Put chocolate into a bowl over a water bath (double boiler), so that it does not touch the water.  Bring water to low simmer and stir chocolate occasionally till it has nearly melted.  Take off heat and allow to melt completely and cool slightly.
• In the meantime, whip the cream.  Add vanilla sugar mid-whipping (before it is in soft peaks), and alcohol once the cream reaches the soft peak stage. Mix a few seconds more to incorporate.
• Pour the melted chocolate in while whipping the cream further.  The mixture will thicken quickly – beat until it is in stiff peaks.
• Scoop or pipe into ramekins.  I simply scooped it in, and smoothed the top with the back of a teaspoon.
• Cover with cling film and put in the fridge to set.

Decorate with fresh berries, a dollop of whipped cream, or whatever floats your boat.  This is amazing with a glass of port wine, if that is to your liking.

I was thinking to post about my chocolate mousse for the dubious occasion of Valentine’s Day, until I realized that 1. the mousse post would be late anyway, as it would be ready to photograph too late for anyone who’d want to make it for this specific Valentine’s day (I am not one of those food bloggers who makes food just to take pictures of it!), and that 2. the mousse is a fantastic recipe to post anytime, and not just when the entire internet is drowned in chocolate recipes for Valentine’s day.

So therefore, you get chocolate mousse with bourbon later, and today there is a post about another one of my favorite-ever things to eat: Insalata Di Caprese.

Insalata Di Caprese, at its most basic, is a ripe tomato, a good ball of mozzarella sliced thickly, and basil leaves, all dressed in a simple extra-virgin olive oil.  The marriage of textures and flavors is perfect, and the way tomato and fresh greens infuse into the trembling softness of mozzarella is… well, there is a reason why the salad is famous the world over.  It is not actually known if the recipe originated on Capri, but when something tastes so amazing, do we really care?  I certainly do not!  Nor am I one of those snooty purists who say that adding anything at all other than the above ruins the salad.  I never believed that some fresh garlic, black pepper, bacon or parsley did it any harm, and I love it with the peppery bitterness of arugula in particular.  Since arugula, tomatoes, mozzarella and good bacon are all fridge staples in our home, this makes arranging the lunch that much simpler – and yes, we do eat endless variations of it on a fairly regular basis.

The testament to how great this is, is that for all we eat it often, it is still enough of a favorite that I turned to it without a second thought when it came to figuring out what to do for a light and festive Valentine’s Day lunch for T and I.  And, going by the adage that bacon makes everything better, I decided to add some crisped slices of really good smoked local bacon – and the celestial pigs sang hallelujah, for we ate it and it was very, very good!  The smokey and not-too-salty crunch of the pork set off the tart sweetness of the tomatoes and the milky mozzarella di bufala campagna, and made for a salad that was both, fresh, savory and satifying – a perfect lunch to precede the likely indulgence of the evening meal.

Oh what, you need a recipe for this?!  Fine, then!  This will serve two.

• A few handfuls of arugula with a few optional basil leaves mixed in.
• A ball of good-quality mozzarella (buffalo mozzarella being the luxury for today), sliced gently.
• 10 thin slices off a piece of dry, warm-smoked bacon (or any bacon of your choice), fried slowly on low heat to render the fat until they are crisp.  I found that scooping the fat out of the pan as it renders, makes these crisp a lot faster and better.
• 1-2 ripe tomatoes, sliced.
• A drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, a sprinkle of flaked salt, and some dried lavender or black pepper to taste.

Toss the greens into wide salad bowls, arrange the sliced mozzarella on the greens, and the tomato on the mozzarella.  Sprinkle with salt and spices and drizzle with olive oil.  Top with crisped bacon.  Serve.  If the boyfriend hadn’t had to work in the afternoon, a bit of sparkling wine would have gone amazing with this!

But by the time I had this brilliant idea, it was already late afternoon and I hadn’t even started, nor checked what I have in the pantry.  Having rummaged around, I came up with a couple of eggs, a half-carton of aging sourmilk (filmjölk, which is like a luxury version of buttermilk for those of you outside Scandinavia), and some flour.  Mhm.  And then, then I remembered that I had an opened box of a bilberry (wild blueberry) and raspberry mix in the freezer.  So, with time being short and me being lazy (I am always lazy), the solution presented itself – I would bake a quick bread loaf.

Quick bread, for those who aren’t American, is essentially a muffin loaf but with less sugar or fat.  More like the muffins were meant to be, long ago before Starbucks popularized the giant cake-batter muffin.  In fact I imagine it can be baked in cupcake molds for muffins instead of a loaf, but I don’t own a cupcake mold.  And I do own a loaf tin.  And I am lazy, have I mentioned that?  So, quick breads can be made with just about any flavoring – they are essentially a soda, buttermilk (sourmilk for me), and baking powder-leavened loaves that can be sweet, or savory, or plain or chock-full of nuts, berries, cheese, chilies, bacon bits or whatever.  Though you know, if you are baking a savory one, you probably want to modify the sugar quantities and use a tablespoon or so instead.

How is this quick?  Essentially, because it is, and easy to boot.

You simply mix all the dry ingredients, mix all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, and rougly stir the wet into the dry until a lumpy batter forms (overmixing = bad, lazy stirring = good!), then scrape the thick batter into a greased and floured loaf tin, sort-of level the top, and bake at 175C for 50-60 minutes (how long this bakes will depend on what you put in it – wet things such as frozen berries make it bake longer), until a toothpick or bamboo skewer comes out clean.  Then you let it cool on the rack for about 20 min in the form, run a knife around it and dump it out onto the rack for another 10 minutes.  Best thing?  You don’t even have to wait for it to be completely cool to cut it!

The results are well and beyond worth the minimal effort – this breakfast sweet bread is moist, flavorful, not too sweet, and the sharpness of berries cuts through the warmth and spiciness of cinnamon.  The result is so heavenly aromatic , that it is literally damned irresistible with a cup of coffee, and with or without a bit of butter and honey on it.  I say irresistible, because I tried pretty hard to resist having any alongside T, and failed.  And I do have a pretty high resistance to sweets.

In fact, if you want to take photos of it, you should not do like I did, and figure “I’ll photograph it tomorrow”, because by the time you realize there are photos to be taken, you may just have nothing left to photograph.  Or like me, find one last little slice off the end crust, with huge blueberry-explosion holes left over, and have to take pictures of it… or bake again.

My quick bread recipe is based with a few modifications on this one (which is also very good), but obviously due to an allergic boyfriend, I have adjusted it to remove egg whites.  In fact, I imagine this would work without any eggs, but with additional 60ml of sourmilk (buttermilk or yogurt).  This batter is very forgiving, so feel free to experiment!

What you need:

• Loaf pan, something to mix with, and 2 bowls.

• 5dl plain all-purpose flour.
• 1.2dl sugar
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1 tsp finely ground cinnamon
• 2-2.5dl frozen berries of your choice (blueberries and raspberries for me)
• 2 egg yolks (substitute additional 60ml yogurt or filmjölk for eggless, and omit the 1 tablespoon of water in initial batter mix)
• 2.5dl filmjölk or buttermilk or non-strained (regular) plain yogurt
• 1 tbsp water (+1-3 tablespoons more to adjust consistency of batter – filmjölk is thicker than buttermilk, so may not be needed if using buttermilk)
• 60ml vegetable oil or 60g butter (melted on gentle heat and cooled a little)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 175C and grease and flour a standard loaf tin.
• Melt butter if using.
• Mix all the dry ingredients+berries in larger bowl.
• Whisk all the liquid ingredients (including 1 tablespoon of the water) in another bowl to combine, adding melted butter last.
• Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour mix, and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula till just combined.  Add water by tablespoonful only if batter is too thick and does not incorporate all the flour.  Resulting batter will be very thick.
• Scrape batter out with a spatula into the loaf pan and smooth the top a little.
• Bake in preheated oven for about an hour (start checking at 50 minutes), rotating once about 30 minutes into the baking time.
• Take out, cool on a rack for 20 min, get out of loaf tin and cool another 10 minutes.

Curl up on sofa, make sure your toes are warm, and eat, looking at the snow outside.

We have -15C in daytime, sparkling white snow everywhere – it only really sparkles when the temperature outside is way below 0C – and the city is bright and beautiful and inviting to wander out and around in, now that there is no more horrible wet and dark November muck that lasted entirely too long this year – about two months too long if you ask me.

This sort of weather calls for comfort food, but not the heavy rainy-day fare, no – this calls for satisfying textures and earthy flavors; and the fact that there is NO way to overheat the apartment (all it takes is opening the kitchen vent and the problem is solved!), it is also a fantastic excuse to indulge in baking.

Rye bread is both, healthful and enormously satisfying to eat, and I happen to adore the flavor of it – nothing, nothing beats real and heavily buttered rye bread for things like pickled herring, Skagen seafood salad, charcuterie or smoked salmon.  Unfortunately, good sourdough rye is not that easy to find in even an average Swedish supermarket (it’s easy to find average quality there, heh!), and I can imagine that in most English-speaking countries it is a specialty item, and many people consider wholemeal rye flour difficult to bake with.

I know, I have been there myself when I tried to make the 100% wholemeal Finnish rye.  It turns out great, but it is a pain in the head dough to work with, really.  Now, that one is a traditional recipe so not up to me to change (I may well come up with a better way to make a high-percentage rye bread later), but this specific recipe I came up with on my own the other day.  And, guess what?  It is easy to make.  Really really easy.

Two things which gave rise to this recipe are my incessant reading on the subject of food, and my recent experiments (the failed and the successful) with no-knead bread.  I wanted rye bread.  I have read that rye flour works far better after a long sourdough fermentation, and I have seen how well and easily gluten develops in long, sourdough no-knead method fermentation.  The difficulties with bread that has a large part of rye are normally:  1. that it does not rise very well because rye gets in the way of gluten development, so you get a brick or a doorstop; and 2. that the dough is awful to work with and even look at – it is unattractively grey, gloopy and it is sticky above and beyond all reason, to the point of resembling actual carpenter glue.  So the problem is that you really don’t want to knead rye bread – and you have to knead to get the gluten to develop… oh wait – the no-knead method… Eureka!  And so this recipe came to be.

As the name suggests, the recipe is two-fifths rye and three-fifths wheat, although that is approximate.  I will test a half-and-half one at some point later and let you know whether that works as well, which I think it will.

The method used for this bread is simple, and is described in detail in the (successful) no-knead post.  I suggest you read that once as then you will not have to ever read it again (it makes sense).  The only things I can add that are specific to the rye bread are that:

• I was really really generous at covering the banetton with wheat bran (fearful of the stickiness).
• The first rise for this much rye is longer than I suggest for wheat – this bread was left for approximately 18 hours (from late afternoon and overnight till next morning).
• The 2nd rise (in banetton after folding) can also take longer than the 1.5 hours for wheat – I left mine for 5 or so hours in a cool kitchen and then baked it.
• The baking time after the 30-minute mark removal of lid or bowl (whatever you are using), is minimum another 20 minutes, but I watched the bread for about 10 minutes after those 20, and simply took it out when it reached the right color for my liking.  Since the ovens and baking dishes vary, so may your mileage.  My advice is that if this is your first rye bread, watch it.  It should get beautifully deep chestnut-golden brown (rye bread color), and if it is too light it is underbaked.

The recipe is even simpler – and here is where I would like to kick a few of the things you commonly read on the internet, and even in reputable baking books about baking bread, where it hurts.  Why?  Because among a lot of good and useful advice, there are also sites and books (no names or links as usual, you will know them when you see them), that tell you that unless you do X in exactly Y way, your bread will not work and it’s your own fault for being a bread sinner not doing it as the holy internet church of bread bakers preaches.

In my opinion, all four myths mentioned below (I think I will probably point things like this out as I go along, but only four of them make an appearance in this recipe) are so much of what comes out the back end of a cow.  If you do one of those and your bread does not work, something else is wrong (weak starter, wrong flour, etc.).  It is not because you have sinned against the holier-than-thou principles which are nothing but so much hot air being blown where the sun don’t shine.

So, recipe!

• 100-150g sourdough starter, (I feed mine with mix of about 2/3 rye and 1/3 wheat flour before baking rye, half-and-half for wheat breads).  100% hydration (1:1 ratio of flours to water).  It should have been taken out of the fridge and fed at some point within the past 48 hours.  Myth: a lot of baking purists say you should feed your starter every 8 or 12 hours or oh god oh god it will die and nothing will work… that’s a load of [unmentionable substance].  If you have a strong and healthy starter (one that wakes up and rises within 12-24 hours of being taken out of the fridge and fed), then it is more than fine to do like I do:  I keep my starter in the fridge, and a day or two before I want to bake, I take some and mix it up and let it rise.  It is then fine to bake with the next day or two.  No, I am not hallucinating all those well-risen breads on this blog.
• 350ml cold tap water.  Myth:  you must gather the first morning dew from the petals of lilies, or get the purest mountain spring water you can find, because the chlorine in tap water kills your yeast!  No, it doesn’t.  Your water does not need to be bottled, brought in a wooden pail from a mountain spring, or filtered unless you live in an area where it is otherwise not safe to drink (like London).  But if you can enjoy drinking your tap water, so can your starter.  People who go on about how you should use bottled water for baking bread are… let’s not go there.
• 500g flour (200g wholemeal finely ground rye and 300g bread-quality high-protein wheat flour).  Myth:  you must always sift your flour.  No you don’t need to sift any of it for bread-baking – weighing it and dumping it into a bowl, adding salt and spices, and swirling around a bit with a dry whisk or a spoon before adding liquids is also just fine.
• 2 teaspoons salt.  Use a measuring spoon.  Myth:  you should use un-iodized salt of one fancy and expensive variety or another or it kills your yeast!  Truth – no; regular iodized table salt is fine.  The trace amount of iodine in it is not enough to kill the microorganisms in the starter.
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds.  If you don’t love caraway as much as I do, use 2 teaspoons.  Or none, if you don’t want any.  (No, I do not feel the need to toast mine before adding it, but you can if you like.)

Method (the post linked above details it better, but here is the summary):

• Mix starter and water.  Mix all the rest in a bigger bowl.  Mix liquid into flour mix.  Cover with clingfilm and let stand for 18-20 hours.  Dump out onto a VERY well floured board.  Fold, rest 15 min, stick into banetton to rise.  I left mine to rise for nearly 5 hours but it may have been ready before I came home from my walk, so when it is puffed up, it is ready.  May be as little as 1.5-3 hours for the rye.  Bake, cool on rack, do not cut until completely cooled (more important for rye than wheat breads for flavor development).

Enjoy.  And don’t take [manure] from those who tell you baking bread must be difficult.  It really, really does not have to be.

Submitted to Yeastspotting.  :)

Before I go any further, let me just say that as someone who never wins anything, really, I was very happily surprised, especially as the winner was getting picked by the blog’s author rather than a random number generator, which is very flattering!  But all this aside, I was excited because I have never really encountered African food (other than Moroccan) up close and personal – and here it was, about a week later, delivered to my door in a neat little box.  With a card of pretty English landscapes which now sits on my refrigerator!

So what is the deal with the African sauces you ask?  Well, as the story goes, Juls met the proprietoresses of the rather new business Pepper&Stew at a food show, and heard their story – and the idea that they would make homemade-tasting no-funny-ingredient sauces and try to bring African food to the mainstream more, which she figured was a good enough reason to try and also to promote them, and besides she liked the name.  I would have, too.

Image courtesy Pepper and Stew, http://www.pepperandstew.co.uk/

So, onwards to the sauces! – I have now tried both of the sauces that Juls sent me.  The African Fish sauce has been opened and tried and declared by T and a friend to be “more up my alley than theirs”, which is to say – bloody spicy or gloriously warming, depends on who you ask.  If you ask me, I loved it – and while I am not one of those fire-eaters that love to chomp on scotch bonnets fresh, I do love spicy food and I do love the almost tangy and earthy flavor that the fish and shrimp base gives this hot sauce.  Think harissa but refined into a silkier, more glamorous and sophisticated dish, and you are nearly there.  So yes, I heartily recommend this to anyone who loves their food spicy, and who loves to have something spicy like Sambal Oelek or the Prik Nam Pla on the side with their restaurant offerings.  Their African cousin certainly does not disappoint!  I sincerely hope they ship to Sweden, because when my little jar is out, I am going to want more of this, oh yes!

The Egusi (melon seed) stew sauce got used last night to make (unsurprisingly) Egusi and beef and spinach stew.  That was the suggested use of it, and the traditional dish it was meant for so it seemed only right.  First of all, as Juls mentioned, there are no suspicious ingredients in this sauce – no E numbers, no starch to thicken it, no water, no other signs of industrial shortcuts.  No, it was composed largely of tomatoes and hot peppers and a few other things.

And you know what?  It did taste homemade!  It did not have the telltale whiff of “factory sauce” when you crack the jar seal, and it tasted like something I’d literally make at home in my own blender if I went crazy with chili peppers (which I often do).

What did I do with it?

I fried some onions till golden and a bit crinkly, added them to the pot, tossed in a little chopped garlic and let it turn aromatic, and then browned some good-quality stewing beef in small cubes, and that went in as well.  Then I poured in the sauce, about 1 dl of cold water, stirred and covered it and allowed it to simmer on very low heat (3/9) for about an hour and a half.  Why?  Because I do not like tough beef chunks in my stew – the low, slow simmer is what you need to achieve melting tenderness (it is very much enough time if you do not use huge hunks of meat – mine were about 1.5-2cm on the side max).

Then, as per instructions, I added the ground Egusi (melon seeds) which came in a little packet alongside the sauce, and the frozen spinach – and that I just eyeballed and tossed a few of those chunky pellets from the freezer bag in.  I allowed it all to come back to simmer, stirred till spinach pellets melted, and then allowed it another 5 minutes.  And I steamed some rice on the side at some point in this process.

It was almost entirely effortless (unless you count cutting up an onion, 4 cloves of garlic and a bit of meat effort), and very, very good.  And, as food from a jarred sauce goes, it was utterly amazing – as it neither looked nor tasted like any part of it has ever been through an aseptic bottling!

If you wonder whether you should try these, and love African food (and it is rather hot, be warned!), or just love spicy hot food in general, then yes, by all means, find a stockist or order the sauces online from their very helpful and pretty site, and use it instead of those questionable “curry” sauces you find on supermarket shelves all too often – full of sugar, and starch-thickened, gloopy and weight-gain inducing.  Buy this because it is wholesome, delicious, healthy and really, really wonderful on a cold day when you are too tired to do much more than open a jar of sauce and steam some rice – it is about all you need to do here, especially if you omit the meat, and just simmer the sauce with spinach for the vegetarian version – I think that would take about as long as the rice steaming, really! – and then you get to curl up on sofa with a bowl of spicy hot, warming and comforting stew.

My only comment on this would be that to me, the Egusi stew tasted a tiny bit flat.  Do not be discouraged by this, as I am the person who normally wants the garlic, the chili, the ginger and lemongrass, the cumin, the entire pantry of spices in her bowl, often at the same time – the boyfriend said it was a very nice homemade-tasting stew.  I think it was more that it does not have that much of a distinct seasoning to “place” it within a cuisine for me – and I sort of hope that the site brings back their palm nut sauce, because I would love to try that!  But, this is not a criticism, or not an objective one – so please, take the objective “this is very, very good” to heart more than my “I want 30 more spices in my food” ramblings.  Just saying!

So if you love spicy hot food, you should definitely visit their site and buy the gorgeous amazing wonderful hot fish sauce condiment!  And while you are there, check out the Egusi stew sauce as well!

Alongside all their culinary virtues, they are also one of the most ridiculously easy things to make, so the reward to effort ratio nears infinity here – my favorite sort!  The only excuse for not posting it here sooner has been the fact that these are usually gone before I have a chance to grab the camera and snap a few photos.

Well, today was different – I made them to take along to an informal dinner this evening, and so they were not ravenously devoured by the hungry horde before I could sneak the camera into the kitchen.  So I did, and now I am posting about them, and then I will pack them into a box, put on a pretty top and head out into the winter night in anticipation of excellent food and a good time, and the rest is history.  Or well, at least now I can just point all the “how do you make those cheese things…?” questions here, and you, too, can make your very own savory and spiced just as you like and oh-so-cheesy and fluffy and light cocktail snacks.

Disclaimer – when I say they are light, I mean it as in not a heavy mouthful of chewy stuff people – this is no diet food of any kind, nor will I make any health claims for it, other than the fact that they are likely still better for you than all their sugary cousins.  So there.

What do you need to make your own?

(This will make about 1.5 baking sheets worth of cookies, depending on how thin you roll the dough and how small you cut them)

• 3-3.5dl plain flour
• 3-3.5dl grated cheeses of your choice – I tend to use a mix of about 2/3 random aged cheese such as strong cheddar or brännvinsost (a Swedish cheese made with spiced vodka of a local variety), and about 1/3 of some hard cheese such as Parmesan, Grana Padano and the like.
• 1/3 – 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 tsp salt
• 1/5 tsp cardamom seeds (not pods), pounded in a mortar, or a large pinch of ground cardamom.  (Note:  It can probably easily stand up to 1/2 a teaspoon of those really, if you like cardamom!)  Or you can use a little of your favorite savory spice – fennel, rosemary, lavender, whatever floats your cheese!
• 1 egg yolk
• 125g unsalted butter (omit salt above if using salted), cut into small pieces

What you do:

• Preheat oven to 200C (fan) or 210C (regular).  Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment.
• Mix flour, salt, cardamom and baking powder.  Add butter and cut in till it is the size of small peas.
• Mix in cheese and mix till fully incorporated.  Add egg yolk and mix with spatula for a while, then stick your hands in and start rubbing the crumbly stuff together till it comes together into a dough.
• Wrap dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 10-15 min while you clear the counters from the mixing clutter.
• Flour your work surface and rolling pin thoroughly, roll the dough out to desired thickness (I go for about 5mm, approximately), and use a small cookie cutter to cut these out.  Generally 2.5-5cm is a good size for these.  The ones pictured were made on the small side.  Space cookies about 1cm apart on the baking sheet.
• Place sheets in oven and bake for 5-10 minutes (depending on oven, thickness and size of puffs, use common sense people!) until puffed up and just barely beginning to turn golden.  You do not want them to brown much at all.
• Cool on a rack, and place into a baking parchment lined airtight container (a tin box works really well).  Puffs will keep for 3-5 days (if they survive to keep that long!)  I have not tried to freeze them so I have no idea how well that would work, but I would hate for these to get soggy.

In my very biased view – and I am a cheese addict! – these work equally well with a glass of bubbly or a glass of a good red wine, or even a coffee if that is what you fancy.  Me, I will have it all, thank you very much!

If something defies me, I will hammer at it until I have gotten it.  That goes for most things I have encountered so far, with the notable exception of tennis.  Notable because after having had friends and an ex-boyfriend try to teach me, owning decent rackets, and having taken a course in it, I frankly, suck at tennis still, for all I would love to play it.  But exceptions only prove the rule, and so it was that the no-knead bread that ought to be easy enough for kiddies to make, had dared to defy me.

Once.

Which, of course, resulted in frantic reading of everything I could find and alternative recipes on the internet, and interrogating bread-baking friends regarding their experiences.  And adjusting the flour/water balance some, and calculating a hydration percentage to check against something a friend had read in this very good book (Swedish, sadly no translation available – but I plan to both, get it and post recipes, so rejoyce!).  And, obviously, more baking.

And boy, did that make a difference!

The bread rose, and it puffed up further in the oven, and the crust crackled gratuitously as it cooled on the rack when it came out – and the crumb… it was truly impressive, just the right amount of moist chewiness and large and well-spaced holes.  This, this is what I had been going after in that previous attempt!  Moreover, I had used 2 teaspoons of dried (and pretty well pounded in a mortar) culinary lavender in the dough, so the aroma was utterly amazing.

If you haven’t ever used lavender in baking, I would really urge you to try – just please, for the love of little green apples, get the culinary-grade one.  You don’t want a mouthful of soap with your bread, and that is what you would be getting if you tried using something out of a potpourri sachet or something intended for a bath preparation!  But, I digress.

Now, after having made all the adjustments, it is a truly lazy-sofa-dweller-easy recipe for gorgeous bread, and the best part is that if you have a sourdough starter, it is also a completely painless, really novice-proof method for sourdough breadmaking.  One that is, arguably, easier than making bread with regular yeast and other methods.  Now, do I have your attention?

If you make it with sourdough starter, it will also keep like a sourdough.  Which is to say it neither molds, nor goes tough outrageously for several days when kept unwrapped, with just the cut side covered in foil, or in one of those neat bread bags that I do not have.  So not only is this easy, it is a good way to make bread that is not in a hurry to go off, making it a good option when you count pennies and do not want to waste what you have bought.  In this case, that is just flour and salt and the optional lavender – sourdough starter, while not free, only needs feeding about once a month if kept in the fridge, so it is virtually free as well.

Behold, the glorious remains of the no-knead bread!

Since my camera was not at home when the bread was cut open originally, and there was daylight around, it was photographed two or three days later, which has done it really no harm!

So, to the recipe (minimal as it is), which is this time NOT adapted from any website, nor do I agree with the original New York Times no-knead bread article – neither about proportions, the time to raise it, nor about the whole proofing-in-towel idea, which is frankly asking for a stuck-dough disaster.

The idea, however, is downright brilliant!

You will need:

• A bowl, a dough spatula, a dutch oven or clay baker or a bottom of a cast-iron casserole and a large steel bowl to cover it (for baking – do NOT preheat the bowl if using).
• To get the pretty stripes and domed shape, a banetton is really helpful.  I imagine you could also raise this bread on a sheet of floured baking parchment or a silpat (non-stick baking mat), and it would turn out fairly decent too.
• If using a banetton, you will need a bit of wheat bran or rye flour or whatever it is you use to powder it before using it for bread to avoid sticking.  I used wheat bran this time.

• Sourdough starter (about 50g, bubbling and awake).  I feed mine with some rye and some wheat flour, it appears to like the combo best, but a pure wheat one will be juuuuust fine!
• 475g bread flour.  I will experiment more with various flours, but pure white bread flour (about 11-12% protein) works fine.
• 1.5-1.75 teaspoon salt.  Iodized table salt works fine, though you can go fancier.  I couldn’t be bothered to grind my sea salt so that is what I used.
• 3.5dl (350ml or 0.35L) cold water.
• 2 teaspoons dried herb of your choice (lavender, oh yes, make it lavender if you have some!), pounded to soft shreds in a mortar.  Bashing is therapeutic you know!  I would say fresh would work too, just make it an even tablespoon then and chop finely instead of pounding.

• Note:  I use a 100% hydration starter so it can be counted as 25g flour and 25g water.  This brings us to 375ml water and 500g flour.  375/500*100=75% hydration.  If you want to adjust the size of the dough, keep the math in mind.  If you just want to use the recipe, it’s a useful thing to remember but not necessary as the quantities are already written above.

What you do:

• Put flour, salt, and any seasoning if using (lavender in my case) into a bowl.  Swirl with a dry whisk to mix.
• Whisk your sourdough starter into your cold water in another bowl.  Trust me you want to do this and not skip this step – since there is barely any mixing, left alone kneading in this method, you want to distribute the starter well into the dry ingredients from the start.  So whisk whisk till it’s all murky water and no large starter blobs clinging to bottom of bowl.
• Pour the water+starter mix into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon, silicone spatula or whatever.  It will be shaggy and not appear too wet.  Keep stirring and poking it till most of the flour is incorporated.  Or you can cover it and let it sit 10 min to soak through and then stir a bit, pushing bits of dough down the sides of the bowl if any get stuck there.
• Cover with plastic wrap (clingfilm), or put the entire bowl into a plastic bag and seal with a clip.  Put in non-too-cold place in your kitchen.  Doesn’t have to be very warm (don’t stick it on the radiator, but say half a meter from it is good, or on a counter).  Don’t get hung up on temperature as long as your kitchen isn’t freezing cold.
• Leave for about 8-12 hours.  If you do not intend to bake it the same day, leave out for 6-8 hours and then stick the bowl in the refrigerator till the next day.  If your dough was refrigerated, give it about an hour to come to room temperature the day after and then go to next step.
• Flour a board or surface generously and poke the dough out of the bowl onto it.  It will be somewhat sticky but it will not be liquid and it will not actually get stuck to anything.  Or shouldn’t.  It will flatten out some under its own weight.  Flour your hands and sprinkle the top of the dough with a bit of flour too, and do a single stretch-and-fold.
• Powder the top of the folded dough with a bit more flour, cover it with the plastic wrap you used on the bowl (unless it is wet then get a new piece), and leave it be for 30 minutes or so.
• Sprinkle the banetton with wheat bran, or flour a baking parchment/mat.  Pick up your dough, lightly shape it into a ball with your hands, and rest it seam-side down if using banetton, but seam side up if you are using baking parchment or a mat.
• Cover with a towel and allow to rise for 1.5 hours or until approximately 1.5-2 times the size.  About an hour into the rise, pop your dutch oven, pan or clay baker into the oven and begin preheating it to 250C  (yes, that high).
• When the dough is ready and oven is preheated (read this post about safety and handling of really hot cookware for baking!), invert the banetton onto a piece of baking parchment or gently slide the dough off the mat onto baking parchment right-side up (silicone mats are not rated for the sort of temperature we are talking here).
• Take the hot dish out of the oven USING THICK MITTS! and place the baking parchment with dough on it inside.  Edges sticking out are not a problem.  Cover with preheated lid, or the upside-down bowl if using.  Stick back into the oven.
• Bake for 30 minutes covered, then remove the lid or bowl (latter may need a bit of help with a spatula stuck under an edge to lift), reduce heat to 190-200C and bake for a further 15-20 minutes uncovered until the bread is no longer pale.
• Remove from oven and out of the baking dish and cool on rack for 2 hours minimum before cutting.

Trust me, the wait (and lack of effort) is worth it.

Or perhaps even a few of those (morals).  And no pictures.  And no recipe.  No, not today.  You’ll see (or not see, as it may be) in a minute.  But, you do get a moral, which is something I tend to like in my stories – hope you do too.

… Once upon a time, so it came to be that after being largely absent from the blog (and my kitchen) for a while, I figured that I would ease back into cooking after the essay-writing and being somewhat ill with something no more complicated than ordering a pizza or frying a few sausages to eat with a pile of arugula.  Something simple.  Easy.  Something everyone has been saying works, and is oh-so-easy to do – even a four-year-old can do it!

Yes, you’ve guessed it – I have decided to try that no-knead bread that virtually every food blogger wrote about in the past six years or so since it came out.  There are whole websites, with videos, dedicated to this and its apparently utter effortlessness.   So, I thought, this is the ticket – let me make this lazy bread and enjoy the fruit of my [not] labor tomorrow.

Now before I get into this… I have lived in USA.  I own a food scale which measures in metric and in pounds/ounces, and I own a measuring cup with American volume measures too.  Down to 1/4 cup.  And a calculator.  And a brain, too, though sometimes I do feel that might have misplaced it.

I faithfully wrote the recipe down – the version adapted for sourdough starter – and checked it against the original New York Times recipe.  Looked rather close, so I did not worry.  I did as the recipes suggested (and the video demonstrated) – mixed the dry ingredients, then whisked my sourdough starter into the water, and added that to the bowl.  Mixed further.  The dough became sticky and shaggy – and looked remarkably like what the video showed, to boot.  Ok, thought I, I’ve got it made.

But no.  None of the above has, apparently, helped.  Yesterday morning, I happily bounced into the kitchen anticipating carefree bread baking.  I floured my board and scraped the dough… I mean, poured the dough out on it.  It immediately stuck like glue despite my generous flouring (more so than the video demonstrated), and was nowhere near the consistency it would need to be to be stretched, and folded.  I tried to panickedly flour the board some more, scraping the dough off it, and add more flour to my hands, but to no avail.  While I was flailing about, the dough attempted to leak off the board and onto the counter.  That was the final drip (haha), and so after a few feeble attempts to get it to behave, I poured it off the board back into the bowl and contemplated it.  I really do not like throwing away food, and it did look fixable.  And not actually that far off from a really wet-but-possible-to-handle dough.

So I sighed, got out my handheld mixer and dough hooks, and more flour.  In all, I had to add 2.5 ounces (that’s about 90g) of flour before the dough could be handled.  With effort and a lot of flour on surface, hands, and virtually my entire kitchen, I heroically managed a stretch-and-fold, and allowed the dough to rest.  Then I said a quick prayer to the kitchen gods that it would not stick to my well-covered in wheat bran banetton, pre-shaped the dough gently and stuck it into the banetton.  The kitchen gods were, apparently, merciful, or else they were particularly well-disposed to my faithful banetton this day, for it was not ruined.  The dough did not stick.  So I proofed it, preheated my cast-iron pan, and baked it.

It was a total and unmitigated disaster.  The bread looked sort of ok, but once it has cooled and I cut into it, I found a combination of giant (not large, large is good – but giant!) holes and bricky, gluey crumb.  Which left me truly scratching my head and wondering what in the seven hells went wrong with it.  Other than my attempts to fix it by adding more flour later (likely at least a contributing factor), that is.

Having slept on it (well no, on my bed actually – I did end up tossing the bread out, as the results of this failure weren’t even fit to make croutons!), I have decided that I am going to do this again, until I have gotten it right.  Many photos of gorgeous no-knead bread beckon from the google image page, and besides, I am just too damned stubborn to let a recipe defy me in my own kitchen.  And gawdamnit, I am good at baking bread!  I should be able to deal with this touted-for-beginners recipe!  [insert foot stomp here]

So I did some more research, and I think I have pinpointed what went wrong – too little flour in the initial mix (I did follow the instructions, but I guess Swedish water is just a lot more wet *snicker snerk* – another site said that the consistensy should be adjusted if it looks too wet, thank you that first site for not telling me to begin with!), and possibly a too-long fermentation time as well (some authors suggest 12-14 hours, not 18-20, or else a refrigerator overnight – that makes sense to me, my levain usually does rise in about 8-10 hours and this is just a salted version of levain, essentially).  Some more photos of the mixed initial dough suggest it should be more solid.  In short, there will be a rematch, and this time, this time I will master and overcome!

And so the moral of today’s story is this:  Don’t believe all you hear.  This is really rather important, and I normally do follow my advice – shame on me for failing!  And, I really should know better, and remember that it applies to everything, including “trusted” cookbooks.  I’ve been there before.  Trust your gut feeling – if it [whatever it is you are making] looks like it’s too [something] for what it should be, it probably is.  It’s not true just becase you’ve seen it on tv/read it on the internet.

In the words of Arnold the Governator of the State of California, I’ll be Bach.  And next time, no-knead bread, I will return victorious!

I am sorry I haven’t been writing as much lately, but between the holidays and the need to write an essay for my Masters course, I have not had time to cook much of anything (subsisting on Caprese salad and snacks is not a bad life, but I was a bit too busy to grab a camera).  Now that the essay is done with, I am back (at least until the next one), and I return to you with some newly-gained insights into food and international law.

Pictured above - local Swedish pig. Bought inexpensively at a supermarket as a fast and easy dinner solution.

Among other fascinating things that I have learned in the course for which I was writing the essay was that both, EU laws and the WTO (World Trade Organization) agreements (to which both, the EU and USA are signatories, among many others) tend to try to lower food standards to lowest common denominator.  Why?  Because they’re mostly free trade laws (which isn’t bad in and of itself), and not food laws.  So they’re not really meant to protect the quality of food, but facilitate its trade.  Simplistically speaking.

What can you do to combat the disadvantage that puts you as a consumer?  My advice is pretty simplistic (this is what I do myself) – it is that you should shop responsibly – towards yourself if nothing else.  Buy meat and poultry locally whenever you can, and if you can’t, buy it from reputable producers (say, New Zealand lamb if your country does not produce it).  If you can afford it, don’t buy the cheapest discounted meats (especially if they are from a questionable source far away).  I compensate for the bigger single-instance expense by eating less meat, but better quality.  I’m not telling you to never buy things on sale – just that, when you do, check their source.  It’s going in your mouth, so it makes sense to consider where it came from.  The source really does make a big difference (and in flavor, too), believe me!

Being worn out from the holidays and the stress of an essay, what I really want is easy food.  And yes, this here is easy food, no matter how fancy it looks.  In fact it’s on my list of all-time easiest-to-impress-with recipes.  It also pulls together in literally no time.

It is not nearly as fiddly as it looks, and the tangy-sharp and very aromatic combination of apricots and fresh sage cut through the juicy porkiness amazingly well, and it really needs very little on the side – although if you want to make a more substantial meal, boil a few baby potatoes and toss them with parsley and butter, or simply add a bit of good bread.  But me, I am happy to shovel this away with nothing but a pile of greens and a slathering of some béarnaise sauce.  Especially seeing how I am trying to be good and lower my carbohydrate intake following all the sweets and indulgences of the holiday season.  And this, while incredibly luxurious, fits the bill very well indeed.

Yes, I do know dried apricots have carbohydrates in them.  But consider the amount I use for the entire meal, and it isn’t that much – and furthermore, they also have fiber which is never a bad addition.  Not to mention the out-of-this-world flavor!

What you need (it’s a really very short list):

• Meat mallet and some butcher’s string.  If you don’t have a mallet, a rolling pin will also work.
• Roasting tin and rack
• Meat thermometer (optional but very helpful here).

• A pork loin (size depends on how many people you are feeding – mine was 0.6kg and fed 2 to stuffedness)
• A generous pinch chili flakes
• A generous handful fresh sage (I just bought one of those fresh-herbs pots and chopped all of it up)
• 50-75g dried apricots (increase as needed if your pork loin is larger)
• Sea or fine salt (not coarse!) to taste
• A little bit of olive oil to brush the meat (if you are so inclined).

Here’s what you do:

• Preheat oven to about 225°C.  Foil your roasting tin for easy cleanup later.
• Finely chop your dried apricots and sage, mix together.  Set aside.
• Take your pork loin, rinse, pat dry, and lay out on a cutting board.  Remove all connective tissue.
• If it’s flat, butterfly it – cut into it from a side like you’d into a cake to make more layers, but not all the way, then open it up like a book, and if it’s thick, cut it open in a spiral, like a log gets cut into making veneer.  You should end up with a roughly rectangular piece of meat about 1-1.5cm thick.
• Cover it with some baking parchment or clingfilm (plastic wrap) and hit it with a mallet some to flatten it out further.  I use a combo of the large and small toothed sides of the mallet, and the flat end to finish, but be careful with the large teeth – the meat is pretty tender and you don’t want it falling into shreds.
• Remove plastic wrap, and scatter the chili flakes over the meat.  Salt lightly, and spread the apricot and sage mixture over most of the area, leaving a couple of centimeters (about an inch) on the longer side of the meat clear.
• Roll the meat up starting from the side opposite the one with a clear margin into a log.  The clear margin is there to avoid stuffing falling out too much.
• Tie with buther’s string at about 2-3cm (1 inch) intervals.  It helps to have someone else hold the knots while you tie if you aren’t so handy with those – I’m not!
• Brush with olive oil, and set on the rack seam-side up.
• Roast for about 30 minutes for a small (0.5-0.6kg loin), or until internal temperature is between 72-75°C (160-170F).  Former number for medium-well, latter for well-done.  Since this is pork, I prefer to rely on the thermometer to be sure when to take the meat out of the oven.  Underdone pork is not just dangerous but also not at all appetising to me, and overdone dried-out meat is never any fun.  So, invest 5€ in a simple metal one, it’s worth it!
• Take out of the oven and let rest tented with foil for about 10 minutes.
• Place on cutting board, remove string and slice into neat pretty apricot-jewelled slices.

Impress people.  Or just munch yourself happily.

Not one, but TWO poisons? (And there isn't any sugar in there!)

Why food?  Because I love food.  Why media?  Because media sells itself by sensationalism, and when they apply this to food, I hate the inevitable result.

The reasoning here is simple and unambiguous:  you can’t make headlines by telling people what they already know – say, that a pile of green veggies is good for your digestion, or that protein or vitamins are good for you.  People will just look at it, shrug and go “so what else is new?”  It is a simple and sad truth of newsmaking, that what doesn’t create a stir, doesn’t sell articles.

Add to this the fact that obesity epidemic is real, and that whatever the times, people always have to eat, and food becomes a field ripe for the plucking for media scaremongering with a sprinkling of political lobbying here and there.

We have all seen it.

• Some of us who are old enough to remember it, remember the “eggs are awful and full of fat and cholesterol and no one should eat them or you die of heart disease!” scare of approximately 20 years ago.  (According to British Heart Foundation some years later – no, not really.  And in actuality, as the site states, eating cholesterol does not raise cholesterol levels in the bloodstream.  In little-known fact, cholesterol molecule is too large to pass the intestinal/blood barrier and is broken down before it reaches the bloodstream.  So where does it come from there?  Well, eating sugar is what creates excess triglycerides in the bloodstream – by stimulating production of insulin which triggers synthesis of fat, including excess cholesterol.)
• I doubt there are many people alive now who remember the campaign to replace all natural saturated fats with hydrogenated shortening (aka trans fats) in the 1930s “because it’s cleaner and healthier than lard and [what they euphemistically called] tropical oils“.  I don’t even need to add a source here because by now (40 years after it was discovered in the 70s and hushed up, by the way!) everyone knows trans-fats are deadly.  Washing the stain off reputations of the very healthful saturated coconut and red palm oils will take longer.
• And a couple of years ago there was a “eating red meat causes cancer!” (2007) headline too.  Actually, the study noted it was a “modest” increase if processed meat was also consumed, and that the relationship between meat intake and mortality is ambiguous, as the increase in cancer risk is associated with increased and excessive consumption of iron.  In layman’s terms, the relationship cannot actually be established, and is only examined in the study due to the fact that red and processed meat are sources of iron.  (By the way, so is spinach.)
• There is a piece of actual legislation (2008) enforcing that a bunch of chemical food colorings when used in food, should carry a warning label (which I do not disagree with in spirit, as I think they don’t belong in the food), that does absolutely nothing for its professed goal – the reduction in children’s ADHD.  Why?  Because they removed the colors from sugary drinks and candies – three guesses whether that also removed the “sugar high” (which, incidentally, has the same symptoms as ADHD – inability to focus and hyperactivity).  Moreover, the actual study which led to this legislation (via media scandal) was, simply put, bad science – there were no control tests performed properly, etc.  But, media picks up on it, and there you go – legislation!

Now, it appears, it’s the dairy’s turn to take a beating.  All around articles have cropped up in newspapers and press releases about how dairy is awful, and causes prostate cancer, and we just should not eat it.  My reaction to this newest craze is the same as to all the previous ones – a healthy dose of scepticism.  So, what gives?  The actual scientific papers (here and here) regarding dairy consumption, calcium and prostate cancer essentially say that in cases of really high (above-recommended) intake of calcium from milk, there may be a possible small increase in prostate cancer risk in older men.

Sounds familiar?  Yes, the same wording as was used on the “red meat causes cancer!” scare, actually.  Scientists postulate a possible link, and then media writers take it and create a headline – because nothing sells better than telling people that something they eat every day and think healthy is actually GIVING THEM CANCER OH MY GOD, OH GOD THROW AWAY THAT MILK, MARIE!!!

*cough*  Excuse me.  I tend to react harshly to such fearmongering.

A conversation I had with someone about this the other day ended (on my side) when I had pointed out that he ought to read the actual scientific papers behind the populist article and make his own conclusions.  His response was (more or less verbatim) that “he does not feel the need to read the scientific papers because the article sounds good and in agreement with what he already knows”.  Sadly, this is the response of many people when faced with an easy-to-read article vs. a head-numbing paper chock-full of biochemical and clinical terminology.  Doubly sadly because said paper usually contains little or NO support for the populist garbage that is being spewed in such headline-producing articles – and yet, no one lets the science get in the way of a good story!

So, have you heard about the cucumbers?  Every human born in 1603 that ate cucumbers – they all died!  100% mortality rate!  Screw the science, cucumbers WILL kill you, people, you hear me?!

*cough again*

So, what should we believe, if not the newspapers and the paid-for articles?

For some of us, the solution is to read and follow the actual science.  Read the papers being published, preferably the ones not funded by someone with some sort of interest – which are few and far between.  However, I am aware that the average consumer would struggle to make heads or tails of the studies.  This is not a put-down, it’s a fact, like with any technical text.  Heck, I’d not make heads or tails of a text in theoretical physics myself nor do I expect to.  So what to do?

To begin with, take all sensationalist articles with a large sack, not a grain, of salt.  The actually dangerous things, such as the finding of carcinogen and poison acrylamide in French fries cooked at too-high temperature caused immediate WHO (World Health Organization) action in response – because the scientists when they find something scary enough, tend to scream pretty loud.

The second thing to do is to take it in moderation.  Even trans-fatty acids are not actually that dangerous (and even beneficial for some things if they are natural, like trans-palmitoleic acid) in small doses.  Eating them as blocks of hydrogenated fats kills you.  Calcium and iron are good for your health – but overdo them, and they aren’t anymore.  It’s a well-known fact that overdose of iron (such as from iron supplement pills) can be lethal, and the bottle will carry that warning.  I am not surprised that overconsumption of calcium beyond daily recommended intake level is not healthy.  For that matter, taking too may vitamins and supplements also carries a health risk – but the key words here are “overconsumption” and “too many”.

So what to do?  Eat your egg.  One egg, or two but not every day.  Not six of them a day, maybe.  Eat your steak.  Eat it once a week or maybe twice, not half a cow daily.  Drink your milk.  Drink a glass of it, not two litres a day.  Think about what you are eating.  Avoid chemically processed foods.  You don’t need me to tell you that those are not healthy.  Use your head, and for the love of gods and little green apples, don’t listen to people who want to make food a political issue, a politically correct issue, or a matter of a fad.

I will leave you in closing with a funny which ought to illustrate the stupidity of the press pretty well.

Here is an article from BBC News about the discovery of the fatty acid in dairy (the aforementioned trans-palmitoleic acid) which supposedly may reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome, diabetes and obesity, sensationalizing it.  So far so good?  It even links to the actual study it refers to.  But, reading through the article, it is sadly and abundantly clear that the journalist is not only not a biologist, he doesn’t even have the common sense he ought to have writing for the public.  It says:  “…Milk and dairy foods can be high in fat, which if eaten in excess can contribute to weight gain. So it’s advisable to choose lower-fat dairy foods instead.”  Way to go Einstein – which part of the fact that it is a fatty acid did you miss?  Or was it the political correctness that stuck in your craw and made you feel the need to negate the point which is being made – that full-fat dairy consumption is associated with lower adiposity and lesser chances of diabetes?  I suppose I will never know.  But here you go people  – this is about how much credit you ought to give those who write for the press where it comes to food and scientific discovery.

The scientific papers tend to take a longer, less sensationalist view of their own findings – and, speaking of the recent issue, dairy, here’s one:  “Children whose family diet in the 1930s was high in calcium were at reduced risk of death from stroke. Furthermore, childhood diets rich in dairy or calcium were associated with lower all-cause mortality in adulthood.  Replication in other study populations is needed to determine whether residual confounding explains part of these findings.“  (65-year-long study by Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Australia)  Yet do you hear screams of mandatory milk which ought to be forced on children?  No.  Because 1. it’d be bad science to, and 2. it doesn’t sell a newspaper.

So in the end, all you can do is learn critical thinking, and not believe every populist piece of news garbage you read, even if it sounds like something someone said that you’d like to believe.  Learn to use your own head.

Ramses and The Salmon Snacks

This is why.  Because in between all the preparation, running around, baking, making tiny snacks, and two bazillion other things, this is, perhaps, the only photo of what we’ve eaten that got taken.  And, right alongside it is the fact that not only did I not have a chance to photograph the food, I didn’t want to be bothered with remembering.  After all, this blog is something I do for fun, and while I frankly enjoy the heck out of writing this, when I am entertaining or being entertained, it may not be the first thing on my mind – nor should it be.

So here, you get treated to a photo of the Cat That’s Got At The Salmon Snacks – and yes, both of them (he has an equally beautiful other half, who is even more pampered) are well-behaved gentlefelines, who do not stick their noses into the food – and they did get treated to both, salmon and snippets of silkily-pink entrecote (ribeye) roast that was served, and much happiness and prosecco (because I like it better than champagne) was had by all!  Belatedly, I also realised that since I was the one taking the photos, I do not have a single one of myself in my floor-length black dress, but fear not – both the dress and I survive, and the one for whom I put it on (other than the mirror!) got to see it, and that’s what matters.

The salmon snacks in question were my real-quick solution to “we need canapes and we need them an hour ago and I am not at home” – tiny crostini topped with bits of folded smoked salmon, dill leaves, a bit of fish roe (not beluga caviar, I’d not treat it so!), and sprinkled with lime juice.  Instant classy canapes!  No recipe needed, and feel free to add what you like – a dab of cream cheese under the salmon, sub lemon for lime or parsley for dill – the crostini is your canvas!

As to the several gorgeous roasted joints of meat we’ve eaten over the holidays – the rack of lamb over saffron rice, the tenderloin with horseradish, and the entrecote roast for New Year’s Eve … no photos.  I will just have to get another one (or several!) and photograph it before it gets eaten!

Oh and speaking about roasts – and gifts – I may not be very commercial-oriented but everyone loves gifts, especially thoughtful ones – I give people fudge.  They think it’s lovely and thoughtful.  Everyone loves fudge!  But, as it happens, I received two amazing foodie gifts from T’s parents – a butane kitchen torch (the pyro in me is hopping up and down like a crazed squirrel!!!  BUTANE TORCH!!!  And, it’s RED!), and Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall’s (aka The River Cottage dude’s) monumental Meat book.  A short browse told me I am as in love with this book as I thought I’d be, and there will be recipes cooked and posted from it, I promise you!  And, I totally need to figure out what to do with the torch.  I am not a fan of creme brulee, but we’ll figure something out!

And now, the other thing!  While I was off partying, cooking and eating and petting the cats, the illustrious deft-fingered Ping of Ping’s Pickings has tagged me in one of those Bloggers Unplugged answer-questions-about-blog things!  And, knowing myself, I do not want to get sidetracked with the eleventeen projects I have planned for after New Year’s (i.e. now), so here we go!

1. What, or who, inspired you to start a blog?

The who is easy – the veritable army of my friends who love eating my food and wanted recipes and all told me I should start “one of those food blogs with pictures and all” and that it’d be great.  They were right.  It is!

The what was slightly different – and it was wanting a place to say what I think about food, eating, food industry, food scams, and other things which outrage me professionally and personally and make me want to stomp my feet and throw things.  That, in combination with loving the idea of typing up my recipes with pictures and all (as suggested) is what resulted in this blog.  Thanks to all those who encouraged it!

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?

There are many.  Since I am entirely self-and-book taught, I do not have a foodie inspiration in my family (no offense, folks, I cook better than any of you!).  So, in no particular order – and at a risk of sounding cliche – of the well-known ones, I have Nigel Slater, Ina Garten, Nigella Lawson, Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall, Andreas Viestad and Marcus Samuelsson.  But, and I would say even more so, I would have to thank a host of other great but lesser-known (perhaps they are less photogenic, or just don’t have what it takes for TV fame, I do not know) cookbook writers such as Debra Mayhew, author of the Cook’s Encyclopedia of Soup, Michele Scicolone for Italian food, Joanna Farrow and Jacqueline Clark, and Louis P DeGouy, whose ancient (originally published in 1911!)  “The Soup Book” taught me what I needed to know years ago when I realised that I love soup and can’t, for the life of me, cook it.  In fact, I think I will have to write several blog posts about my favorite cookbooks and why the are such to do them all justice – watch this space!

3. Your greasiest, batter-splattered food/drink book is?

Mediterranean: A Taste of The Sun by Jacqueline Clark and Joanna Farrow.  With several runner-ups.

4. Tell us about the best thing you have eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

“Another country” to someone like me who’s lived in five different ones, is an interesting thought.  All right, thing I’ve eaten in a country where I haven’t lived – I’ve had the most amazing rock lobster tail broiled with lemon and garlic butter in Yucatan, Mexico.  The special thing about it was that it’d been fished the morning of the day I ate it – and nothing, nothing compares to shellfish when it is this fresh – nor does it need any more frills or trimmings to make it truly shine!

5. Another food blogger’s table you’d like to eat at?

Uuu… so many!  There’s Ping of course!  Though at her table, I might just stare at all the pretties she makes and be afraid to touch them!  There’s Zoe (tag coming your way, Zoe!), whose taste is a near mirror-image of mine (I’m sure I’d eat most anything found on her table at any time!), and there’s Gary whose passion for good meat and wine I share wholeheartedly!  There’s Rufus at whose table I would probably get spectacularly and gloriously drunk on beautiful cocktails and fall under said table happy.  I could go on but like Ping said, it’ll be one humongous table and that’s that – the only caveat I’d add is that I am not sticking any “huge” names on this list.  Why?  Because I suspect some of those people’s tables would be like a tasting menu – lots of frills and not much substance.  Call me eccentric, but I love having some food in front of me, not just a fancily folded napkin on a plate decorated with chocolate sauce and gold sprinkles!

6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

I am greedy.  What I would like, is a larger kitchen, to be very honest, or a house with a yard where I can have a properly huge grill.  Barring that, I would love an Electrolux Assistent (Swedish answer to Kitchenaid Mixer), or another large stand mixer like it – I am tiny short (154cm in my socks!), and though really high heeled house slippers help (15cm and platform!), using a hand mixer over a bowl on a counter made for people 15-20cm taller than me is exhausting to the back.  That said, my original wish was for a dishwasher for same reason – handwashing dishes over a tall sink is painful! – but my amazing bf bought me one already.

7. Who taught you how to cook?

Self taught, entirely.  See #2.  As I don’t watch TV (haven’t owned one in years), it’s cookbooks all the way!

8. I’m coming to you for dinner, what is your signature dish?

A large piece of good beef, roasted medium-rare, with green salad and homemade sourdough bread.  Preceded by some sort of soup, and followed by either a cheese board with fruit, or a cake.  That said, I now have a new favorite signature dessert and that’s Margarita cookies!  Ye gads, and now I want to go make a batch of those again!  No!  Not till the happy pounds are off!  Only meat and fowl and seafood and greens and tons of butter and cheese till then!  :D  Don’t you just love my weight-loss habits?  The boyfriend does!

9. What is your guilty food pleasure?

Cola (coke or pepsi) light (sugarfree) and Twix™ Ice Cream Bars.  I did say diet because I can’t stand the sugar in the regular – but I still think that the drink is a vile commercial brew that I shouldn’t touch.  Yet when I am out and it’s hot and I need caffeine, there I go.  And the twix ice cream?  No words.  Just try the stuff, it’s dangerous!!!

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

Uhm… other than things that really don’t need to get mentioned on a food blog, I am not sure, actually!  I babble a lot about everything, and I tend to be really upfront about my origins, education, likes, dislikes, etc.  But… there was this one time that I got so distracted chatting over skype with my then freshly-new long-distance boyfriend (still my much-beloved boyfriend I live with now) that I burnt an entire potful of fudge.  Completely and irreversibly ruined.  The horror!  The sacrilege!  Yep, I was already that much in love!

I hope you enjoyed reading the ramblings and babblings, and didn’t fall asleep till we got to this point!  And now, for the last bit:

Zoe – tag, you’re it!

I have considered making an upcoming Christmas post, a Hanukkah post, a New Year’s post and then I realised that I also have friends who are Taoist, pagans of several different descriptions, atheists, agnostics and you name it.  Can you tell I don’t pick my friends based on their faith (or lack thereof)?  In the season of celebrations, it’d be silly to single out some and not the others, so this is a postcard to everyone, for whatever – really! – it is you celebrate.

I am posting this now because cannot promise to write with any regularity during the holiday season – the food that gets made between parties is generally leftovers, shortcuts and the like, and the food that gets made for parties may or may not get photographed, and then I may or may not have time to blog about it.  In fact, there are several things which I have wanted to write about, and a post which I had planned to reblog (with permission) that I will still write about as well – possibly after the holidays, when everyone is in New Year’s resolution mode (except me, I don’t do those).

I decidedly reject the commercialized nature of the holidays.  I’ve proudly bought a heap of holly twigs and some glittery spray-painted birch from a corner flower stand, and arranged it myself.  I will not cave to the plastic non-shedding tree fad!  I have found a couple of fir branches and hung them up on the wall to scent the apartment like evergreens.  But, that’s what I like.  Have you considered, for example, the color selection for napkins?  Red for Christmas or blue for Hanukkah?  Or white for … boringly politically correct stuff?  Bugger it, I like red and it’s not like Christians have a monopoly on Santa Claus or his red suit.  Or holly.  Because you know, some pagans I know may have a prior claim… so decorate your home as you like, celebrate what makes you happy, and above all, don’t forget what it is all about.

So with this, I will wish all of you a wonderful holiday season, glittering parties, beautiful clothes, eating too much and likely drinking too much (stock up on Alka-seltzer or Samarin, depending on where in the world you are!), utter absense of any hangovers, and in general, a wonderful time spent with friends and loved ones.  Let us all be thankful for the life we have and how amazing it truly is – because this, this is what there is to celebrate.  Best of happy whatever-holiday wishes to you all!

I have recently made the best cookies I have ever made.  Also, quite possibly the best cookies I have ever eaten.  If you love citrus, if you love tequila, if you love margaritas, if you adore just the tiniest hint of saltiness in your sweets, or any or all of the above, and you never thought their essence could be contained in a cookie – you’d be wrong.  It can.  It is.  And you need to try this.  They are crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth delicately textured and oh so aromatic!  The cookies are not overly sweet, but the sugar-and-salt crust adds just the needed edge of sweetness with the very light, not at all pungent salty fleck.

Yes, I know that’s a pretty astounding claim to make, not to mention prideful, but there it is.  These have, as of last weekend, become my favorite cookies to eat.  Move over lemon shortbread, and gooey triple-chocolate chocolate chunk cookies, these, these are the cookies which I place upon the throne and hand the holy scepter of cookie royalty to.

Erm.  Yes, they’re good enough to wax poetic about.  No, they aren’t actually my idea, though now I feel it should have been – I have come across these on a great foodie blog I read on a regular basis, namely Zoe’s Dare to Eat a Peach, the same place which has given me the foodgazmic cast-iron home pizza-making method.

Zoe’s blog is one of the few that I have stumbled over while randomly browsing wordpress “food” tags.  I cannot even remember what it was on her blog that attracted me – it may well have been that pizza post, but after reading a few posts on it, I ended up bookmarking and following it, because Zoe is not just a great amateur chef, but her writing is incredibly inviting, in the sense that it convinces you that yes, despite the fact that this (whatever this may be) sounds a bit new and strange, it is worth trying and really very accessible – many food bloggers try the “if I can do this, so can you!” ploy, but in Zoe’s case, she actually does convince you that you can.  And, with spectacular results to boot!  It also helps that the food she writes about is as good as these cookies.  Or the aforementioned pizza.

And it’s not just the food – as I’ve said, her writing is wonderful to read (Zoe, if you publish a cookbook, I’d buy it!), and that refers to the rants that are sprinkled in-between the recipes, which are well-written, to the point and poke the social conventions in the eye.  With a sharp twig, which is very needed and more than deserved.  So, before I get to the actual recipe, there are two things which need to be said:

In fact, I will say them in all caps too:

YOU SHOULD MAKE THESE COOKIES FOR YOUR NEW YEAR’S PARTY!

And

GO READ ZOE’S BLOG!

So, now that I’ve gotten the important bits out of the way, here’s my adaptation of Zoe’s recipe (in turn adapted from Smitten Kitchen, but with Zoe’s valuable notes about the dough which were a lot of use, at least to me).

Special equipment:

• A hand or stand mixer.
• Cling film (saran or plastic wrap).
• Baking parchment.

Ingredients:

• 230g unsalted butter, softened (room temperature)
• 70-75g confectioners’ sugar  (my scale only does 25g increments, so I erred on the side of excess and it worked fine)
• 1 egg yolk (large, free-range and organic if you can get it – eggs bought that way are notably better than not, unlike many other things where you can’t tell the difference)
• Small pinch of salt
• 1-1.5 tablespoons good tequila (mine was cold from -20°C freezer)
• 2-3 limes’ worth of zest (I used 2 and wished I had another one – so if your limes are small, use 3.  I will, next time.)
• Zest of 1 large orange.  Or 1.5 smaller ones.
• 5dl or just over 2 cups of all-purpose (plain) flour.

• Coating:
• 1 1/4 dl (1/2 cup) granulated or caster sugar (I only had caster but it works fine)
• 2 teaspoons flaked sea salt (if using regular non-flaked salt, use 1 teaspoon or less!)

What you do:

• Beat the butter with a mixer until it’s fluffy, add the sugar and beat until it’s incorporated and pale.
• Add yolk, zest of lime and orange, salt, and tequila.  Beat to incorporate.
• Add the flour and beat on low speed until it’s barely combined into crumbs.  Stop.
• Using a silicone spatula or your hands, carefully mash the crumbs into a ball of dough.  Warning!!!  The dough is incredibly smooth and buttery and will tend to want to melt into your hands and pretend to be hand lotion.  Don’t let it.  Handle it as little as possible.  In fact, I wrapped it in some plastic wrap and then mashed it together.
• Refrigerate the dough for about 10-15 minutes wrapped in plastic, then take out, and cut in half, placing halves on prepared pieces of plastic wrap.
• Shape each half into a rough log by wrapping it in the plastic, and rolling and mashing it out a bit.  Wrap and refrigerate another 30 minutes.
• Take the logs out of the fridge, and finish shaping them (they will be noticeably firmer).  I used a wooden cutting board on top of them and rolled them (still wrapped in plastic!) between the board and kitchen counter to get them to more or less even thickness.  You can make them as thick or thin as you like – mine were about 3.5cm across when I was done.  Note that cookies will expand a little bit when baked, and shape your log accordingly.
• Rewrap the logs tightly in the plastic wrap, twisting the ends to seal, and place in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours or overnight (I did the latter).
• When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 180°C (350F) and place a piece of baking parchment on a cookie sheet.
• Mix coating ingredients together by putting it all in a mug and stirring vigorously with a fork.
• Place a piece of baking parchment on your counter (to avoid mess), and pour half of coating sugar/salt onto it.  Spread a little.
• Zoe recommended painting the logs with another egg yolk, but I found that unnecessary.  Unwrap one of your logs, and roll it around in the sugar, pressing down a bit, to coat well and thoroughly.
• Slice into 0.7-1cm thick slices, and place those on the baking sheet.  If any slices get coating on one cut side, place them that side up.  Repeat with the remaining coating and the other dough log.
• Bake for 12-17 minutes (depending on your oven and size of cookies).  Mine baked in about 16 minutes.  Take them out when the edges just barely, barely begin to turn golden.
• Cool on their sheet, and finish on a rack if you have one.  Store in an airtight container for as long as you manage to store them (apparently they are meant to keep for up to 5 days.  I suspect a week won’t do them much harm, but really, who in their right mind can manage to keep them around that long?!).

Certainly not us.  I baked them for a party last Saturday, and they are already gone.  All gone.  I feel the urge to go out and buy a few limes and an orange already, to repeat the divine experience – but I won’t.  I need to pace myself else I won’t fit into any pants after this holiday season.  But… soon.  Soon.