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