Eggplant and Ricotta Rolls

This isn't the quickest thing to make but it's delicious so it's totally worth it. The trick is seasoning the ricotta so that it's full of flavour.

You also need a grill pan or a bbq so that you don't have to fry the eggplant, although you can if you like.

 

For 4 as a main or 8 as an accompaniment

2 small eggplants (6in each)

1 cup of ricotta (equivalent of about one tub)

1/2 cup of grated parmesean

3 tbsp feta cheese

1 small onion

1 bunch of basil

1 tsp oregano

1 egg

a few grates of lemon rind

salt to taste

pepper to taste

cooked tomato

3 sheets lasagna

Instructions

Set your oven to 350. Ready an 8x13" pan by placing a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom.

Cut your eggplant lengthwise into 5mm slices and grill them until they are cooked, place these on the side. 

Dice the onions and sautee them until they are translucent, let them cool a tad. 

Mix the cheeses together in a bowl and add the egg, rind, salt, pepper, basil and oregano. As the cheeses are quite salty, taste the mixture before it gets over salted. Adjust the seasonings to your liking adding or subtracting what you enjoy. I think sundried tomatoes or porcini could work quite well in addition to what is in the recipe. When all has been mixed, add in the onions and do one last thorough scoop around.

Begin boiling your water for the lasagna pieces, when they are cooked place them at the bottom of your prepared pan and spread some more sauce on top. The pasta will make a nice bottom for the rolls and also make it easier to pull them out!

Now we can start rolling our eggplants. One at a time, smear a generous amount of ricotta mixture on the eggplant slices and roll them up placing them directly in the pan. When all your rolls are finished pour a generous amount of sauce on top, spread it around and top with some fresh basil leaves. Cook this for about 45 minutes until it smells good and is slightly dry on top. The ricotta will puff a bit but the rolls should stay nicely wrapped for service.

When cutting it, slice right through the pasta so you get a nice piece of it along with the rolls.

Enjoy!

Martina

Dark Chocolate, Raisin & Honey Cake

I've wanted to make a chocolate loaf cake for some time now. Usually chocolate cake is reserved for desserts or more elaborate evenings but being an addict I tried to find something which could be snacked on during the day. The result is this super dark chocolate cake, sweetened only with honey and raisins and made solely with cocoa powder, so its not actually that bad for you ;) If you like sweet chocolate things, this is definitely not a good option though.

The cake ends up being quite cocoaey (bitter sweet) so if you would like to make it sweeter, add an extra 1/3 cup of sugar. 

Recipe for an 8" loaf pan:

2 eggs

3/4 cups honey

2tsp vanilla

(1/3 cup sugar if you want it sweeter)

1/2 cup veg oil

1/2 milk

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups flower

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt 

1/2 raisins or more to taste

Butter and flour a 9" loaf pan or equivalent baking form and turn your stove to 325. Take all your wet ingredients and mix them in one bowl until they are combined. Slowly combine your cocoa into the wet ingredients until you get a yummy sticky chocolate syrup consistency and all the cocoa is absorbed. Take all your dry ingredients excluding the raisins and put them in a bowl. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients. If the mixture seems too thick add a splash of milk at the end, it should have a heavy yet smooth consistency which is slightly denser than a white cake. Add your raisins in and stir them evenly. Place into your baking tin and bake for 45 minutes, testing at 30m. with a wooden stick too see doneness. 

Let the cake cool a bit as the cocoa flavour develops as it sits. Serve with a sprinkle of powdered sugar or a drizzle of honey and whipped cream.

Enjoy, 

Martina

Back! Spring Soup.

Yes, we've been very bad not updating our blog for so long. Since September a lot has happened and it's been quite an eventful year. The blog sort of stopped when I started looking for a house and was busy with all the arrangements and never picked it back up. We moved in together in February and have been having a great time decorating and occupying ourselves otherwise, that all the lovely things we've made have gone un-photographed. 

I've been meaning to upload something exciting lately and since I've been home sick today with a bit of a chill and some extra time to make lunch, a VERY quick pea and mint soup materialised from the stove! I was surprised at how delicious it was considering it took less than 15 minutes and uses only a handful of ingredients.

Pea & Mint Soup

for 2 large portions

· 1 cup frozen peas (ssshhhhh)

· 1 small onion

· 1 1/2 - 2 cups water

· white pepper to taste

· salt to taste

· 1/2 cup liquid whipping cream or milk 

· 10 mint leaves or more!

Quarter and roughly chop the onion and sautée it in 1tbsp of olive oil until it is soft and translucent. Pour in your peas and sautée them another 2 minutes to get them coated in oil. Salt and pepper the peas and onions to your liking and pour in the water, let this cook for 5 - 10 minutes which you stir it around. After said time, take a hand blender to the soup and purée it until there are no chunks left, when the soup is completely green and radioactive looking (!) place your mint leaves in and slowly pour the cream or milk while you attempt to blend the mint leaves to little green bits. You don't want to cook the mint leaves as it will be too strong a flavour and what you want is fresh and light. Your soup is now done and enormously delicious! I would totally serve it to guests too.

Bon appetite!

Martina

Potato and Sweet Potato Gratin

Lovely lazy sunday. We spent a whole sunday afternoon shopping and cooking and this was one of the delicious things we made. I almost had a heart attack when I saw how much cream Mr. Olsson put in this but it tasted outstanding! He will proceed with the recipe.

I will indeed and thank you for the flattering introduction Love. It was a lovely day indeed but for the one who wants to know what it is in this delicious little thing are very welcome to continue reading.

Ingredients:
1 Sweet potatoe
6 Regular potatoes
2 dl cream
2 dl soup/broth (= 1 cup)
3 Garlics
1 Yellow onion

1/2 cup white cheddar
Salt and Pepper

I like stuff that takes up space in your mouth. The more the better. Therefor I decided to make thicker slices than I usually do. I would guess that my slices this time were about 7.5 mm thick. So what you need to do is to peel the potatoes and then slice the potatoes. Then you need to cut the onion in desired sizes, and do just the same with the garlic. Now smudge some butter in the Oven pot so the Potatoe is less likely to stick to it and follow these instructions to make it exactly as we did it:

1. Place one layer of regular Potatoes on the bottom.
2. Salt and pepper and cheddar
3. Onion

4. Place a new layer with sweet potatoes
5. Salt and pepper and cheddar
6. Onion and Garlic
7. Place a third layes with Regular Potatoes.
8. Salt and pepper and cheddar
9. Onion and Garlic
10. Place a fourth layer with the rest of the potatoes.

Finnish with some Salt and Pepper=)
Now pour 2 dl of delicious Cream and 2 dl of Broth over the layering. Put it in the oven on 200 degrees celcious for X amount of minutes. This depends on how good your oven are really and what kind of potatoes you are using. So stick a knife, fork, needle, kane, scissors or whatever you can find, into the Gratin to see if it is done. It is done when it is soft. You don't want to eat hard potatoes.

Whatever you do, don't forget Salt and Pepper after every layer. And if you like you can put some cheese on top just some minutes before the Graitn is done. It is much cheesier that way.

Serve with Lingon.

Smaklig måltid!
Andreas & Martina

Grilled Peach and Prosciutto Salad

I saw this on a cover of a magazine at work and said that I had to try it. We do a lot of food brands so it makes me happy that I can look at recipes during the day while I pretend to be getting inspiration for our products designs. One thing which I recommend you have is a stove top grill — I have a super cast iron one. Or you can grill the peaches on the bbq.

Salad for 2

1 bag mixed greens or baby spinach

1 peach pitted and sliced flat

50 gr goats cheese

100 gr prosciutto

4 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp honey

salt to taste

Heat up a stove top grill and grill up your lovely peaches until they are warm and marked. In a large bowl put all the dressing ingredients in and whisk them around with a fork until they are incorporated. Throw in mixed greens and mix it all up. Lay the salad on a plate and lay on your slices of grilled peach and uncut pieces of prosciutto, crumble on some goats cheese and serve.

Enjoy!

Martina & Andreas

Plum Upside Down Cake

We haven't posted any desserts on the site. This is a nice breakfast cake (or dessert I suppose) I made the other day and although it may not be Andrea's favourite, I had glowing reviews from my room mate... and I liked it too!

One 9 1/2" Plum Cake

8 people

10 purple plums

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1/4 cup port

2 tbsp sugar

pinch of cinnamon

1 cup flour

1/2 cup ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

6 tbsp room temperature butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk

Cut your plums in half and de-pit them. Heat up the port, sugar, butter and cinnamon and cook it down until it coats a spoon and pour it into a 9 1/2" pan. Place all of your plums in a pretty circle, cut edges facing the sauce, until the whole pan is covered. Now they wait.

Cake time! Preheat your oven to 350F (180C). Mix all your wet ingredients including the sugar together and mix until creamy and combined. Sift all your dry ingredients, then slowly add them to the liquid until everything is incorporated.

Pour the cake batter over the plums and stick it all in the oven and bake until a toothpick comes out clean — 1hour ish. Wait until it cools down before you serve it so the plums stick to the cake. Run a knife around the edges to loosen it a bit then turn it upside down and show the pretty or just cut pieces out and eat one slice at a time.

yum!

Martina & Andreas

Port Steak with New Potatoes

This type of food is one of my favorites. Lots of taste, takes a long time to make and many ingredients that sums up to one special flavour. In Sweden this meal could be quite common as a Sunday steak. I do not think though that it is that common nowadays. But in earlier times I can imagine that when people had worked hard all week that wanted something hearthy to eat on the sunday.

If you would like to try this recipe sometime, which I think you should, you should do it on a day when you don't have much else planned, which most often is sundays I guess.

This is what you need to do the Port steak.

1 Bug chunk o meat. (We used 600 g but 1,5 kg would be better)

3 Garlics

1 Yellow Onion

15 Black Pepper corns

Thyme

3 dl Port Wine

2 dl Black Current Juice (concentrated)

4 Carrots

First off you need to fry the steak on all sides and you need to do this in a cast iron pot. Do this with high heat and don' fry it for too long. The purpose of it is to keep the meat juice inside the meat so it does not get dry. Once you have fried all sides of the steaks you should lower the heat. Now throw down crushed garlics, shopped onion, big pieces of carrot and let it fry for a bit until the tastes come out. You will be able to smell it. If the pot is too hot though you will burn the garlic and that will defeat the purpose of putting garlic in. Once you are able to smell the wonderful scents of the onion and garlic you can pour in the Port Wine and the Black Currant juice along with the Thyme and the Black Pepper corns. All you now need to do is to put a lid on and leave it there or 2-3 hours.

To make the potatoes you need the following:

Potatoes

Fill a big pot with water and throw in the potatoes, sprinkle a lot of salt as well in there. Wait for half an hour up to 40 minutes and they are done.

When the meat is finished you simply pick up the chunk and place it on a cutting board. I would recommend a wooden cutting board because it looks more professional. Place it up side down so the juices that are now on the bottom will pour down, inside the meat. I have know idea how this works but trust me, it does.

To make the gravy :

Cream

Liquid from the steak

Now you will have a big pot filled with delicious liquid with chunks of carrots, garlic and what have you. To separate the chunks from the liquid you need a strainer.  So, pour the content of the pot through the strainer and make sure you have a bowl under the strainer so you don't lose this liquid. Now you need to pour the liquid into the pot again. Add cream as much as you see fit, not more than 50% of the liquid though. Stir for 5 minutes and you have one of the best gravies you'll ever taste.

Serve it all as the picture describes.

Smaklig måltid.

Andreas & Martina

End of Summer Strawberry Salad

Well it's just about freezing here in Amsterdam, still sunny though! We decided to have one last shot at bringing some summer into the house. Last night we made a strawberry and soft goat cheese salad which was super nice and quite refreshing. The lettuce was a mixture of mâche and baby greens so the whole feel was quite tender. 

Strawberry and Goat Cheese Salad

2 people

salad

100gr mixed baby lettuce

10 - 15 strawberries

100gr soft goat cheese

1 handful chopped and toasted walnuts

2 handfuls home made croutons

dressing

1/4 cup olive oil

3tbsp balsamic vinegar

2tsp honey

salt to taste

pepper to taste

croutons

1/4 a whole wheat baguette

oregano

salt to taste

olive oil to coat the pan

First I would suggest to make the dressing. The easiest and least clean-up required way, is to take the bowl you will serve the salad in and put your oil/vinegar etc. in and whisk it around a bit then taste to see if you like it and adjust it if you don't. Once your dressing is done you can empty your lettuce into the bowl on top of it and it won't wilt and you've saved yourself a dressing bowl! The croutons come next. Cut your bread into small cubes and fry it in as much olive oil as it takes to crisp it up. I would say about 1 - 2 table spoons. When the bread is fried, season it with your herbs and salt and let it stand until it cools down a bit. At this point you should also quickly toast up your walnuts and let them cool a bit. 

Clean up your strawberries and chuck them into the awaiting lettuce, put in the croutons, walnuts and crumbled goat cheese and gently toss it so the dressing on the bottom is evenly distributed all over. You can drizzle a bit more balsamic vinegar on top if you would like. And it's all done!

Try a Beaujolais wine to go with this salad, it's fresh and fruity and goes well with strawberries.

Enjoy!

Martina & Andreas

Rökt Lax med Råraka — Smoked Salmon with Rosti

More fish! we had a bunch of smoked salmon lying around and were bored of eating it raw or in pasta so Andreas suggested this great recipe he's made once before and i suggested we serve it with rosti potatoes — ie. råraka.

Smoked Salmon

2 people

200 g Smoked or Cured Salmon

1 Red Onion

8 Cherry Tomatoes

200 ml Creme Fraiche

hand full of dill

First you need to chop the onion in very small pieces. The smaller they are the easier it is to handle the salmon package that is to be. Cut each tomato in 4 pieces. Place a plastic cutting board on a table with a comfortable height. Now spread a thin piece of salmon on the same cutting bord and put some red onion and tomatoes in the middle of the salmon and then just fold the one end of the salmon over and then the other end over the first end so they over lap like a little parcel. There is no need to put any tooth picks for stabilization as long as you are gentle with the fish because the heat in the pan will keep the salmon in a firm shape. Continue rolling up your tomatoes and onion until your salmon is done

Pour some oil in a pan and heat it up to below medium heat. Put the salmon packages in the pan and let them sear for about 5 minutes. Then pour the creme fraiche on top then add the dill over everything and let it cook for about 10 - 15 more minutes (do not stir!) just let the creme melt overtop. You don't really need to worry about the consistency of the fish here, it'll be fine. I would worry about the tomatoes becoming too soggy and bland first of all, so don't cook it too long.

Råraka

2 people

4 Potatoes

Salt & Pepper

Grate the potatoes with the big holes into a bowl. Then add salt and pepper until you sneeze. Heat up about 2mm of oil in a frying pan and scoop all of your grated potatoes in the pan like a large pancake. Fry them on low heat until the top of the potatoes looks cooked. Flip the pancake trying not to break it and cook until the bottom becomes brown. In all this should take about 20 - 30 minutes depending on the thickness.

And you're all done.

Bye!
Andreas & Martina

Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Quiche (Ostpaj med Spansk Peppar)

Quiche Quiche Quiche, it's been a while since I had it and I've never attempted to make it before so last night I decided I HAD to. It turned out really well!  I put a bunch of basil and parsley in and I think I could have put more so it would have had a more standout taste. Andreas said he's made it with broccoli... maybe this will be our next variant! Since I'm on a whole wheat binge I made the crust with that, but please use white flour if you prefer.

Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Quiche

3 - 4 people

CRUST- (8" plate)

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1tsp salt

6tbsp butter cold and chopped small

2tbsp ice cold water

FILLING-

6 eggs

2 tbsp creme fraiche

3 tbsp whipping cream or milk

5 tbsp goat cheese

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper chopped into strips

1 medium onion chopped into strips

1 small bell pepper

handful of parsley

handful of basil

The quiche crust is the exact same as making a pie crust. Combine all the ingredient for the crust and gently fork them together until they form a ball, touch the dough sparingly. Again they say you have to be gentle with crusts but it's not true, just don't melt the butter too much with your fingers and it will turn out ok. Refrigerate the crust for one hour. During this time you can prep the other ingredients. 

When the crust is refrigerated long enough heat your oven up to 375º and roll out your dough to fill an 8" pie plate. Press the dough in, poke the bottom with a fork (keeps it from puffing) and bake it for 20 - 30 mins until it's done and slightly golden. 

While your quiche crust is resting and baking sautee your onions and peppers. Mix all the other ingredients for your filling except for the cheese in a bowl and when the peppers and onions are cooked put them into the egg mixture as well.

Pull your crust out of the oven and although other recipes tell you it has to cool... it doesn't. Pour your filling in and evenly crumble the goat cheese into the filling. Bake at 350º for 30 minutes and you have quiche!

Bon appetite :)

Martina