one head of cauliflower
olive oil
fresh basil and oregano
garlic
handful of hazelnuts
salt and pepper
juice from ½ lemon

grated parmesan

Rinse the cauliflower and break up the florets into smaller pieces. Place them steams down in one layer on an oven dish. Chop basil and oregano finely and mix with olive oil, minced garlic and chopped hazelnut. Season with salt, pepper and some lemon juice. Pour mixture over the cauliflower and blend together. Let soak for 15 minutes. Bake in the oven at 400°F (just over 200°C) until al dente. Sprinkle a rich amount of grated parmesan on top. Serve immediately.

I don’t know what this has to do with marmalade… but I have a friend who once poisoned a whole scout camp, just because he didn’t wash his hands!

for the marmalade you need

some pears
less than a ¼ part of brown sugar
small piece of fresh ginger, minced
a splash of water

Peal the pears and chop them into small pieces. Pour the sugar over the pieces and stir. Add the ginger and a little water. Bring mixture to boil, then lower to a gentle heat and cook for about an hour until pears are soft. If you want a smoother texture, process the jam in a blender. Pour the warm jam into a clean jar, screw the lid on and turn the jar upside down on the counter. Leave to cool. Serve with ripe goat cheese or / and aged cheese that has been taken out of the fridge for at least a half hour.

Note: as this jam is not conserved I suggest you eat it while its fresh!

In Manhattan it’s hard to find great pierogi. I often find them too thick and heavy. Well M:s mother happens to be a great pierogi maker. She makes them so thin and light and fills them with sauerkraut and mushrooms, meat, or cheese and potatoes. I easily end up licking the plate. After all she is from Poland and as lovely as she is, she makes tons of them when we are around.
This summer I asked her for her dough secret. I was hoping to get the whole recipe written down, but her answer and recommendation was very short, “make them with warm water”!

dough (approximate 75 pierogi which serves about 6 people)
700 ml (3 cups) regular flour
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk (I used the egg white in the potatoes and cheese filling later)
1 tea spoon salt
175 ml (¾ cup) warm water (heated up, not directly from the tap)

Mix the flour and the salt together with the eggs. Heat up some water and mix small parts at a time into the flour mixture. I did it by hand but I think it works perfectly well to use a food processor. On a flat surface knead the dough until it’s firm and soft. Cover with a damp tablecloth and let it rest on the counter top while you are making the fillings.

mushroom filling
Here I made M:s Spicy Portobello Mushrooms. I used less water, as I didn’t want the filling to be too loose. Instead I used some cream to make it thicker.

cheese and potatoe filling
4 – 5 boiled potatoes
4 table spoons butter or olive oil
50 ml (0.2 cup) milk
1 egg white
about 120 ml (½ cup) farmers’ cheese
salt and pepper
cilantro

topping
melted butter
fine chopped and fried bacon
fine chopped and fried onions

Mash the potatoes with the egg white, some melted butter and milk. Add the farmers cheese as noted or to your own taste. Mix well and season with salt and pepper. Lastly add chopped cilantro. Note that cilantro is not really a traditional ingredient for a pierogi filling but I don’t think there are any strong rules on how to make fillings. You take what you have at home. I used a very mild type of cilantro. However many recipes seem to use fine chopped onions or chives. I will try garlic next time.

filling the pierogi
Uncover the dough and if necessary knead it some more. Divide into 4 pieces. Use lots and lots of flour while rolling one piece at the time to a 1/16” (1 mm) thickness. Make 3” circles and divide the fillings on top. Cover the filling and pinch the edges firmly to seal. Pat some more flower on every pirogi so they don’t stick together. If necessary add some more warm water to the dough as the flour makes it dryer in the process. Repeat until you have about 75 lovely pierogi.

Heat up salted water. When the water is boiling drop some of the pierogi in the water. When they are floating up to the surface let them boil approximate 1 minute more. Fish them out with a strainer. Top with melted butter and fried bacon and onions (chopped finely). Serve with a salad and some sour cream.

Well it is a long process… but luckily it was worth every minute. The pierogi ended up super thin and didn’t last very long.

There are many different versions on how to make pierogi. Some use sour cream and some use the egg yolk in their dough. My dough was inspired by several recipes but are quite similar to Kate Hopkins version.

So we went to Madrid and stayed at the quite stylish hotel, Hotel Room Mate Mario. I would not say it’s fancy like this one but it is a fun place. M:s comment was that the hotel is a perfect place for the Daleks in Dr Who, especially the dining room. I don’t know what the Daleks eat or if they eat at all. But the hotel is located in the heart of Madrid with hundreds of great tapas bars and restaurants around the corner.
Anyway at home we often have meetings and workshops. Depending on the time of the day we make either brunch or just appetizers. This is not really tapas, but something I make up from what happens to be in my fridge.

Warm Goat Cheese Tomatoes

3-4 sliced fresh tomatoes
some chevre or other stronger goatcheese
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Grease an oven-proof plate with olive oil. Arrange the tomatoe slices on the plate (they can overlap each other). Drizzle some olive oil and balsamic vinegar over. Season with salt and pepper. Cut the chevre in smaller pieces and divide them over the tomatoes. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes at 175º (350F). Serve with fresh bread, dry ham and olives.

M:s Spicy Portobello Mushrooms

2-3 portobello mushrooms or 10 smaller field mushrooms
dried chili
one clove of garlic
40 ml (1/6 cup) tamari sauce
40 ml (1/6 cup) of water
fresh rosemary leaves

Heat up some olive oil in a pan and fry the garlic and the chili. When the garlic starts to get a little soft, add the chopped mushrooms. Sauté until the mushrooms get softer. Add the water and the tamari and season with salt and pepper. Spread some leaves of rosemary over and cook it for three minutes.

Serve with fresh bread, dry ham, feta and olives.

Spinach Packages

any filo dough
one bunch of fresh spinach
dried chili
one clove of garlic
salt and pepper
feta (or parmesan)

Clean the spinach carefully and chop or break it into smaller pieces. Heat up olive oil in a pan and fry the chopped garlic together with some dried chili until it’s golden brown. Add the Spinach and sauté until it gets softer. Season with salt and pepper. Lastly mix in the feta and take the pan from the heat.

Make squares out of the filo dough and brush every layer with some olive oil. Place a spoon of spinach on the square and package them well. Arrange them on an oven-safe plate and bake them in the oven at 175º (350F) until they are golden brown.

Sometimes I also make olives with parmesan in filo dough.

Well Alice on her lovely Swedish food blog Brax on Food asked me for a kitchen confession and here is one of them…
The other day we had some friends over for spinach lasagna. Just a half an hour before everybody arrived there was a small crisis in the kitchen. I had forgotten about the cheese sauce on the stove, it cooked for at least 45 minutes too long. Even though it was on very low heat the sauce had separated and the cheese had transformed into some kind of porridge that was floating in the saucepan. It did not taste burned or bad it just looked a little uneatable. One solution could be to try to get some new cheese in the supermarket. But they would probably not have a great replacement for the Gorgonzola that was floating in my saucepan. I had nothing to lose, so I poured everything in the blender and out came the smoothest cheese sauce I have ever done…

(Serves 4-5 people)

You will need lasagna noodles enough for three layers. Precook the noodles in a big pan or use already precooked noodles.

spinach sauce

2 bunches of spinach
olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
chili
40 ml (1/6 cup) tamari sauce
40 ml (1/6 cup) of water

Clean the spinach carefully and let it dry while you peel and chop the garlic into small pieces. Heat up some olive oil in a pan and fry the garlic and the chili. When the garlic starts to get a little golden brown, add the spinach and sauté until it gets softer. Add the water and the tamari, cover the pan and let it cook for five minutes. If necessary season with salt and pepper.

blue cheese sauce

50 gram (about ½ stick) butter
50-60 ml (¼ cup) flour
700 ml (3 cups) milk
about 250 ml (1 cup) of any blue cheese (depending how strong taste you want)
salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter and stir in flour. Cook under very low heat for 2-3 minutes. Constantly stir the flour mix. Add the milk gradually and stir to a smooth blend. Add the cheese and stir until cheese is melted. Season with salt and pepper.

Grease a baking tin. Start the layering with some cheese sauce and some spinach in the bottom. Keep layering with pasta in between layers of both cheese sauce and spinach. At last cover the last layer of pasta with only the sauce. Bake the lasagna in the oven at 375º for about 20-30 minutes. When the lasagna is nearly done sprinkle some fresh grated Parmesan over. Put in the oven for further cooking until the cheese is melted and got a nice color. Serve with a nice mixed salad, for example arugola, apple, grated carrots and walnuts.

… and the guests loved the lasagna.

My sister dances tango wherever she goes. Barcelona, Berlin, Manhattan, Buenos Aires or the Pyrenees Mountains. Once she danced with a man who got so happy that he gave her a bottle of Bordeaux. Mushroom picking is also a thing my sister does well, and in her kitchen you will find glass jars of dried ‘funnel chanterelles’ (tratt kantareller), ‘king bolete’ (karl-johan) and ‘horn of plenty’ (trumpet svamp). My sister often crumbles some dried funnel chanterelles into her bacon sauce.

6-8 slices of bacon
½ or one onion
one clove garlic
tiny amount of chili
200 ml (0.80 cups) cream (or half and half)
150-200 ml (0.6-0.8 cups) cheddar cheese
(dried funnel chanterelles)
salt and pepper

Shred the bacon into thin slices. Chop the onion and the garlic thin and sauté them together with chili in some olive oil. When they are starting to get soft add the bacon and sauté them together until the bacon gets a little crispy. Add the cream and let it boil slowly for one minute. Lower the heat and add the grated cheese. When the cheese is melted, season the sauce with salt and pepper. Last night I served it over fresh pasta topped with fresh grated parmesan and a tomato salad with fresh cilantro balsamic vinaigrette. An earthy Bordeaux will probably work well whether it comes from a tango dancer or not!

Yesterday we had Sophia over for dinner. Sophia used to live in our building long before I met M and moved over here. M remembers her as the girl with the blue hair. Some time ago M was teaching architecture, he had told the students to draw where they came from. Suddenly he recognizes his building and the girl with the blue hair, she is one of his students! She had drawn their house and she had also added some Manhattan likely crowns on top of the ugly buildings across the street. She thought they needed it. I think it would be more fun too.

salmon filet
shallots
dill
olive oil
vinegar
lime
pepper
tiny amount of chili

cold sauce
mayonnaise
sourcream
dill

feta
potatoes
arugola

Marinate the salmon for half an hour with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chili, pepper, lime and the shallots. Bake it in the oven in a covered dish or foil for about 15 minutes at 350 F. Prepare the sauce by mixing one part mayonnaise and one part sour cream together. Add some chopped dill. Serve the salmon together with the mild sauce, boiled potatoes, feta and a simple arugola salad.

Once I met a woman who didn’t like to wash up after cooking, so she threw all the pots away. What a waste! She got new pots when she was robbing personal basement storage lockers. Well this salad is for her. I hope she has met somebody who likes to do the washing up.

fresh beetroots
arugola
goat cheese
sour cream
walnuts

Scrub and wash the beetroots, but keep the skin. Boil them in salted water until they are soft (can take up to an hour). In the mean while you can wash the arugola carefully and let them dry. Mix the goat cheese with the sour cream. Proportion to your own taste. I think a strong taste of the goat cheese works really well with the sweet beetroots.

Place the dried arugola leaves on a wide plate. Peel the beetroots and slice them in thin slices. Place them nicely over the arugola and dived the goat cheese mix. At last drop some whole or chopped walnuts over the salad. Serve with bread and dry white wine.

This cheese pie is made after being inspired by my former neighbor Inger’s great pies. I just had to do my own version as we don’t see each other often enough any more. The pie is great to do when you have some old blue cheese left over that is too ripe to eat by it self.

filling
blue cheese
chopped walnuts
3 eggs
300 ml milk
salt and pepper

dough
75 g (2.6 ounces) butter
flour 300 ml (1 ¼ cup) white flour
salt
some water

Mix the dough together and let it rest for a while in the fridge. Spread it on a round dish and poke at it with a fork. Pre bake the shell with pie-weights for about 10 min at 200°C (392 F). Remove the pie weights and keep baking the pie shell for about 5 minutes. Let cool.

Mix the eggs and milk together in a blender. Add the blue cheese to your own taste. It often tastes more intense before it’s baked so don’t be afraid to add a little too much. Blend it to make a smooth filling and poor the filling into the pre baked shell. Add the chopped walnuts and bake the pie until the filling is firm.

I serve my cheese pie with a salad and some red whine.

fresh spinach
1-2 gloves of garlic
a piece of good strong ripe cheese (cheddar, blue cheese)
small package of cream (half and half or thick milk)
walnuts
salt and pepper
parmesan

Clean the spinach and let it dry while you peel and shop the garlic into small pieces. Heat up olive oil in a pan and fry the garlic until it’s golden brown. Fry the spinach together with the garlic. When the spinach is soft you can add the cream and add the cheese when it’s starts boiling. Use salt and pepper to your own taste.

To get a spicier version you can fry some chili peppers with the garlic before adding the spinach

Serve the spinach with fresh pasta, tomato salad and top with parmesan.