It has been literally ages since I published any Wednesday recipe, maybe because I haven’t been a very inspired cook in the past years. But I am slowly getting back to cooking, trying new recipes and having the time to do so. Fortunately we have been blessed with a little boy who eats almost anything! (touch wood, as I know that children can go through different phases of not liking different foods)
Here are some of V’s favourite dishes, that are very easy to make – necessary as we both work full time and V is absolutely starving when we get home in the evenings:
Veal strips in a mustard sauce
Boil or fry strips of thin veal slices with some onion. I still try to boil V’s meat instead of frying it, but I add garlic cloves, laurel, and other herbs to the pot while boiling. When the meat is cooked, drain the water, remove the garlic etc. Add some olive oil / butter, a spoonful or two of French Dijon mustard, tarragon and cream and let it get warm.
Serve with mash of potato and parsnip, and green peas added at the end, or rice.
Spaghetti with courgette, ham & feta sauce
Grate a courgette and fry it lightly with some olive oil and maybe a chopped onion. Add mushrooms if you have some at home, some diced ham, feta cheese and cream. Season with fresh herbs (basil) or dry (I really like tarragon / estragon / dragon). Serve with spaghetti.
Green veggie soup / puré with chèvre
In our local supermarket we can find frozen “green veggies for soup” (broccoli, leek, peas, brussels sprouts etc) that we boil with 1-4 potatoes and some herbs (fresh or dry). Drain most of the water but keep maybe a 1 deci-litre / cup, add some chèvre or feta cheese and blend it in a blender to a semi-smooth soup / puré (depending on which consistency you want!). Decorate with some ham, lightly fried mushrooms and drizzle some olive oil on top (the Spanish touch 😉 ).
Et voilà, there you have three quick, simple and delicious everyday meals that are at least as tasty for grown ups as for babies (at least our baby)! We tend to cook without salt nowadays as we want to avoid V eating salt for a while longer. With the ham and the cheese the food gets salty enough.
I just realised the other day that the top shelf in our tiny kitchen is colour coordinated and representing “our” four countries. Maybe not all of them are brands originating in the different countries but we have bought them in: Sweden (soft “pepparkakor” from Skane* and a bag of Swedish dry yeast that is almost not visible leaning against the vanilla sugar), Belgium (Imperial vanilla sugar and baking powder), Spain (Royal baking powder) and Puerto Rico (coffee). Also interesting that the baking powder is either Imperial or Royal!?
*) I loved these cookies when I was a child but my mother refused to buy them as they were not “healthy” but nowadays she always brings them… for O! Same thing with the so-called shrimp cheese sold in a tube – I was never allowed to eat that as a child but when we lived in Puerto Rico my parents would pack their suitcases full of the stuff – for O!!
Not really a recipe this Wednesday but a list of stuff that you can serve if you want a Spanish tapas evening! And not much cooking involved, just opening cans, slicing and arranging on plates and in bowls:
Leftovers from a Spanish-themed dinner a few weeks ago…
Wednesday Tapas
olives, both green and black – the classical Spanish green olive is stuffed with anchovies
marinated anchovies – sometimes served on a small skewer with green olives (one of my favourite tapas but O usually thinks it’s too expensive)
tortilla (Spanish potato omelette – I have forgotten to publish a recipe on this classic and simple Spanish dish – promise to do it soon!)
jamón, chorizo, lomo and other Spanish cured meats
lots of thick bread slices (baguette)
tomato salad with tuna and olive oil
Manchego cheese in slices (O usually cuts the cheese in triangles)
This kind of dinner is all about the presentation! Get out all your small bowls and pretty serving plates and lay out the food. Serve with Spanish red wine / beer / clara (shandy / panaché, i.e beer with lemonade). ¡Buen provecho!
Our Spanish Christmas Day dinner in 2007 in Puerto Rico!
I am not going to tell you what I thought that this looked like but rather have you guess what it is! What do you think O and his sister feasted on when we were in Spain?
This is actually not my recipe, I found it on the great blog of Havtorn Design – run by two sisters-in-law who blog about interior design, flea market finds and family life. They also have a little web shop. Check out the two links, their texts are in Swedish and English (since a few days!) but the pictures are very inspiring!
I realised when reading the recipe that I have never cooked with sage, but what a lovely herb. Both O and I discovered that we love the smell of sage which coincidentally is called salvia in both Swedish and Spanish (and Italian, but sauge in French). The smell actually reminds me of the childhood, but I don’t know why – maybe my mother used to cook with it, or did we just have the herb growing in my father’s small herbal garden?
Sage potatoes with Bacon
1 kg potatoes / cut in pieces
Olive oil
Bacon / cut in strips and lightly fried, dry off excess fat on a plate covered with kitchen paper
Sage leaves
Salt and black pepper
Boil the potatoes almost soft. Spread them on an oiled oven-proof dish; sprinkle about 1 decilitre of olive oil on top. Bake in the oven, 200 degrees (Centigrade) for approximately 20 minutes. Add the bacon and a handful of sage leaves. Bake another 10-20 minutes until golden. Season with salt and black pepper. (original recipe in Swedish from Havtorndesign)
Bizarre food related observations:
O had bought eggs one day, we put them in the plastic egg holder in the fridge as we usually do, and threw away the packaging. When I made pancakes a few days later I had the funniest experience: double yolks in two eggs! All in all I think four out of six eggs had double yolks – what kind of eggs had O bought?? We don’t actually know since we hadn’t kept the box… Have you come across a lot of double-yolked eggs?
And what about this jam? I thought that “The Old Factory” was Danish, at least it is sold under that name in Sweden – with the exact same label, in Danish (but when reading on the back it said Eslöv, my home town in Sweden!)… Isn’t it a bit of false marketing, “Founded in 1834” – yes, but in which country? Denmark or Spain?? Does the jam and marmelade brand exist in other countries as well? Ok, so I googled “Den Gamle Fabrik” and the label is slightly different but the names (and founding year!) are definitely the same, in different languages…
It has been a long while since I published a recipe, and for that matter an etiquette poll, but since my blog inspiration in general has come back, I am also more motivated to take up this Wednesday theme! If anybody wants to join in the Wednesday recipe / Etiquette poll, just let me know and I will link you up.
Since the Belgian summer has been so warm and sunny so far (this week a little less even though I can see a blue sky at the moment), I have been making a lot of light and simple salads. Here are two of my favourite ones:
Cherry tomato and rucola pasta salad
– cherry tomatoes
– pasta; such as farfalle or torti / fusilli
– a handful of rucola / rocket / arugula
– Optional: some slices of cured ham such as Parma ham or Spanish jamón AND / OR canned artichoke hearts AND / OR feta cheese
– fresh basil
– olive oil, salt & pepper
Haricots verts and potato salad
– new potatoes – boiled and halved if small, otherwise in quarters (I usually boil the potatoes already in small pieces, saves time!)
– fresh haricots verts (string beans) – boiled to desired texture; I like mine crispy, O prefers them more soft…
– cherry tomatoes – halved
– feta cheese – cut in pieces
– Optional: some slices of cured ham such as Parma ham or Spanish jamón
– olive oil, (balsamic vinegar, optional), salt & pepper
As you can see I am going through a feta and jamón period at the moment! I have these phases when I completely focus on one or two ingredients – previous obsessions have included soft-boiled eggs, lemon and gorgonzola. Rucola is another current favourite, probably because I never bought it (only exceptionally found it but in small, expensive packages) in Puerto Rico! And of course – I am eternally obsessed by potatoes, O calls me “Mrs Potatis” (potato in Swedish) 😀
Etiquette Poll on Nakedness:
I read in a Swedish magazine (Damernas Värld, nr 8/2010) a few weeks ago about “the new prudeness” – in the article it was discussed that Swedes (women) have become more prude / liberal and less prone to sunbathing topless, taking a sauna naked or breastfeeding in public than previous generations. It made me think about my own attitude towards nakedness. I have never seen myself as prude, I am after all Swedish but no, I never sunbathe topless, however I wouldn’t wear a swim suit when in an unmixed sauna and I have so far never had to consider whether breastfeeding in public or not.
Nudist beach, in the winter…
I will never forget the embarrassment of an Italian male friend when on the beach with four Scandinavian girls – the two Danes were sunbathing topless, while my Swedish friend and I had kept our bikini tops on. The poor guy was trying to completely focus on us Swedes and not glance over to the Danish girls… It was probably especially uncomfortable for him as one of the Danish girls was the girlfriend of one of his friends! When I go to the beach in Sweden nowadays it seems, interestingly enough, to be more common among the older generation to be topless than among women my own age.
A few years ago I went to a Belgian spa for the first time for a French friend’s hen party. We were a group of mixed nationalities – mostly French, but also Greek, German, and Swedish. Initially we were a little disappointed by the smallness of the spa until we saw a door saying “No swimsuits”. A bit perplexed we opened the door slightly and discovered a huge area with big swimming pools and jacuzzi … and lots of naked people! It was quite interesting to see how the group split into two; the French girls who took off their swim suits and giggling entered the main part of the spa which was the mixed, nude area and the Greek, German and Swedish contingent that decided to stay in the small, dressed women’s swimming area.
Those of us who decided to stay clothed questioned why you would have to be nude in the mixed area and not in the unmixed one? None of us knew that this is apparently the Belgian tradition! I have since then been with a Swedish friend to another Belgian spa with the same division between nude and clothed areas, and we both had the same reaction – why would we want to be naked with male strangers? When I discussed it with some Belgian female friends they just didn’t understand what was the issue. Well, personally I don’t mind being naked among other women, but I just don’t see the point in taking my swim suit off among men. What do you think? How would you react if you had to be nude in a swimming pool / spa?
Wednesday again and even though I don’t really have a recipe to share with you, I thought that a food post could be in order. Belgium is, as you might know, famous for fries or frites / fritjes as they are called in French / Flemish. In Brussels one of the most famous places to go for fries is Maison Antoine on Place Jourdan. The two times I have been on Place Jourdan since I came back to Belgium, I have actually seen bus loads of tourists queuing for some “frites avec sauce andalouse” (spicy mayo-ketchup sauce) or a mitraillette (baguette filled with fries, the word actually means a machine gun).
Frites on Place Jourdan is a Brussels classic. The fries are either served in a cornet (like the paper cone the girl is holding in her hand) or ravier (a small paper dish) and you eat them with a small plastic fork
My first evening in Brussels, the 9th June 2002 (yes, I am a sucker for remembering dates!) my Irish and Scottish friends took me to a terrace on Place Jourdan. We didn’t have any fries but I was told that I had to try them as soon as possible! Ever since then Place Jourdan has been “my” square in Brussels – I used to go there for lunch with my colleagues as I worked close by, I used to go to the bakery Au Vatel’s night-open atelier (workshop where you buy bread straight from the bakers) for newly baked pain au chocolat after partying all night and I even had a falafel one early morning in the other friterie (Maison Antoine is not open in the middle of the night).
BYOF to the bars around Place Jourdan (Bring Your Own Fries), as long as you order something to drink in the bar they don’t mind…
O and I even met at a party in an apartment on Place Jourdan almost five years ago (21st May 2005). I bought him a pain au chocolat in the bakery after the party and he gave me and all my friends (actually his as well as it turned out that we had mutual friends) a lift home.
A new classic, Mamma Roma’s delicious pizza! You can see Maison Antoine in the background through the wooden slats
However, nowadays my new Place Jourdan favourite is the pizza at Mamma Roma’s. They sell the slices by weight and they are absolutely delicious with yummy toppings such as courgette and fontina cheese, mozzarella di bufala, fresh mushrooms (I loathe canned mushrooms), and sliced potatoes. The lunch offer is two big slices plus a drink for 7 EUR, which isn’t too bad at all. O and I actually went to [another] Mamma Roma’s for O’s last dinner in Brussels before moving to Puerto Rico in August 2007!
No eating or drinking in the supermarket!
What is great about Place Jourdan is also all the terraces that are open during the [more or less] warmer season. They get packed during lunch time and after work when it is sunny. Most of them don’t mind that you bring your own fries (or other food) as long as you order something to drink. My father has his favourite bar where he always drinks a Leffe Brune (Belgian beer) when my parents visit Brussels.
On Sundays there is a market on the square and you can buy all sorts of delicious cheeses, sausages and fruits and vegs. The grilled chicken with roasted potatoes is another classic!
Orange kitchenette
And to round up, some photos of our new temporary home in Brussels! It is an apartment-hotel apartment (sounds funny, doesn’t it?) and it is definitely an ok sized apartment. Even though I don’t just loathe canned mushroom but also the colour orange, I guess I can live with an orange kitchen for a few months!? 😉
The plastic boxes above the kichen cupboards were bought in Ikea on Monday and filled with food stuff since there isn’t much storage at all in the kitchen. The lower cupboards contain a fridge, a dishwasher and the rubbish bin and below the micro-wave oven to the left there is a Nespresso machine…
Bath room with both bath tub and shower
Living room with a view over the big roundabout
Bed room
We are off to the big Carrefour (supermarket) tonight to stock up on some more food and necessities…
What do you say, isn’t it high time for another Wednesday recipe? The last few weeks I have lost count of the days and not realised which day of the week it has been. You might have noticed that I have finally cleaned up the back-log of unanswered comments, dating all the way back to March… It was actually thanks to Bejla and Anna in Stockholm that I got around to reply to the comments, since they both did catch-up reading sessions today and wrote lots of comments (thanks girls!). I think that all comments have been answered now, give me a shout if I have missed any! Thanks for reading and commenting even though I have been so bad with responding lately.
O was supposed to have gone back to Puerto Rico yesterday but his flight was cancelled, and I have to admit that I was quite pleased that I got to keep him in Europe. We are staying with our Greek-French friends Y and S, however Y managed to fly to Greece today so we are keeping S company while her boyfriend visits his family. Fingers crossed that the situation doesn’t get worse again and that he will be able to get back to Belgium on Sunday!
A Spanish-Swedish breakfast at Ikea in Zaragoza
It is no secret that O and I love Ikea, but our 4 (yes, f-o-u-r!) visits to the big furniture store in two days (in a row) while we were in Spain recently, was just a bit exaggerated even for me! Especially as we weren’t looking for anything for ourselves but for O’s brother… We did treat O’s father to his first ever Ikea meal and I stocked up on Swedish sweets (Polly and Daim!). The second day we started by having breakfast in the Ikea restaurant, something we have done several times now and it is always surprisingly good (and cheap). To be honest, much better than the meatballs!
Un bocadillo español (a Spanish sandwich)
This is a typical sandwich that Spaniards eat as a morning snack. Since a Spanish breakfast usually just means a cafe con leche (coffee with milk), and some magdalenas (Spanish-style muffins / cupcakes), I guess most people end up hungry after a few hours… Many cafés serve small tapas, and sandwiches with jamón (ham) or a piece of tortilla (Spanish omelette with potato).
1. Sprinkle some olive oil on a bread roll / slice of white bread (eg baguette or ciabatta)
2. Spread grated tomato. O has taught me that grating tomatoes is a perfect way to remove the skin. Just grate until you are left with only the skin that you throw away (also great for tomato-based sauces, paella etc).
3. Add a slice of Spanish ham and you have a classic bocadillo español con jamón y tomate
Since it is Wednesday, let’s continue with an etiquette poll:
During our week in Spain I managed to meet up with a Swedish(-Dutch) girl, L who lives in Zaragoza. Her mother and my mother are work colleagues and when they figured out the Zaragoza-link, they thought that it would be nice for us to meet, which we did last year. It was the first time though that we had time to really sit down and talk, we met in a bar / café* where we spent two hours comparing notes on Spanish experiences. It was great to get to know her better and hopefully we will be able to meet next time with our respective Spaniards.
What do you see in this photo from a Spanish bar / cafe that is not very common to see anymore in other countries
One indication that the two of us are not so Swedish anymore was how we handled the whole “who-should-pay-for-what” thing: When I went to order a coffee at the bar, the waitress asked me if I wanted to pay for everything on the tab, which included my fellow Swede’s coffee and water (I was a little late, another sign of my un-Swedishness**). I said yes, and paid. Later on I ordered a sandwich (incidentally one with tortilla and tomato as seen in the middle of the photo above) and L had something more to drink, and she paid for the two of us. No big deal for either of us, but I am not so sure the same thing would have happened in Sweden… However, in Brussels this is also the way things usually work when you are in a bar / café with friends, and I like it!
Same thing with splitting the bill after a restaurant dinner ifeverybody has eaten and drunk for more or less the same amount. I do not like it when you are a big group of people that you might not know (when out with friends and their friends) and everybody ends up drinking and eating so much more than yourself (maybe you are on a budget or you just don’t feel like having a big meal) and you feel forced to subsidise their dinner (or look very cheap if protesting!). However, among our friends we usually keep the same level of consumption and in those cases I think that it is an ok way of doing things. What do you think?
*) Quite a typical phenomenon in Europe that a place acts as both café and bar, serving coffee, alcohol and light food such as tapas, sandwiches and salads
**) Or quite simply due to the fact of being married to a “time optimistic” Spaniard!! (who by the way loves that expression – being a time optimist…)
Only one week left in the apartment here in Puerto Rico and we are trying to finish all the food we have at home (pantry, fridge & freezer). Our friends will probably get some food packages, just like when we moved from our home in Brussels and the farewell party guests went home with bottles of alcohol and canned food 😉
Enter our kitchen
I made the following recipe last week and it was delicious! I merged two different Rachael Ray recipes* and then adapted them to what we had at home:
Lemon & Butter Fish and Fake Risotto
5-8 grape tomatoes (or whatever kind of tomatoes you have at home)
garlic cloves
1 deci-litre of rice per person
fish filets (e.g. white fish such as cod or mahi-mahi)
a handful of mushrooms – sliced
a handful of fresh / frozen spinach
1 onion – chopped
fish stock
butter
olive oil
parsley
lemon (juice + peel)
whole-grain flour
Saute the chopped onion in olive oil. Add the rice, fish stock cube and water to cook the rice as usual.
If you are like my O who hates tomato skins when the tomatoes are warm, sink them into some boiling water for a few seconds and then peel the tomatoes. Cut them up and put aside.
Fry the sliced mushrooms with a clove or two of garlic in olive oil.
Dry the fish filets and turn them over (dredge) in whole-grain flour. Fry them in olive oil, and season with salt & pepper.
Remove the fish and melt some butter in the frying pan, when brown add lemon juice & peel, some fish stock and parsley.
When the rice is ready, add the peeled and chopped tomatoes, fried mushrooms and spinach to the rice and mix.
Serve the fish on top of the fake risotto and add a little bit of sauce.
This was one of the best and most simple fish recipes I have ever made, but it tasted so good – even as left-overs the next day.
Not the best photo but I was so hungry and didn’t have the patience to take another one
Have you noticed that I hardly ever make a cream-based sauce? Living with a Spaniard I just never have cream / crème fraiche at home, and the sauce above is one of the few times I have used butter in the last year (except for pancakes, baking and making quiche). I have realised that a tomato-based sauce or just some lemon juice, stock or white wine is just as delicious! (and I never thicken my sauces, I like them thin and runny!)
The second lift in the apartment goes straight from the garage to the kitchen, very practical!
No etiquette question today but some photos from the best kitchen I have had so far – and we are planning to use it as a model for our next home (in case there isn’t already a great kitchen in the place we buy!?). I would only change the colour scheme – the busy red-brown granite makes it almost impossible to see dirt**, which I guess could be a good thing 😉 and I would choose white kitchen cupboards. O doesn’t agree so let’s see who has to do the furniture compromise in the kitchen! We do agree on one thing though – the cupboards should go all the way to the ceiling; less dust and dirt to clean and more storage!
The kitchen isn’t actually very big but since the dining area of the living room is just next door, it doesn’t have to be bigger. It is well-planned and there is definitely plenty of room for at least two persons to work at the same time. I would like to have a separate book shelf for all the cook books in a future kitchen, in order to free up counter space, and why not a big larder / pantry as well!
A sink with a view is just the best – why stare into a wall when doing dishes or preparing a meal?
*) From her book 365: No Repeats (Lemon and Brown Butter Fish Fillets + Grape Tomato-Arugula Rice)
**) Or tiny ants which we have had problems with lately… Can you believe that they climb up the wall and in through a crack by the window on the 9th floor!? Well, they do and it is really annoying!
All the foreigners we have met in Puerto Rico swear allegiance to the Costco tomatoes!
I think they sent the wrong ad to Puerto Rico – it’s in French… Actually it is quite common to see that labels on products in Puerto Rico are in English and French, instead of Spanish! I guess because of Canada (Quebec), but there is definitely more Spanish-speakers in the US than French-speakers in Canada…
A normal Puerto Rican supermarket is quite well-stocked and we can find most of the products that we are used to from Europe. However, without Costco we would never eat tasty [red] tomatoes, cheese that has an actual flavour, fresh-looking meat etc… In this day and age it feels so wrong to buy imported fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, but living in an island where there is very little agricultural activity, we don’t have much choice. It is even difficult to find locally caught fish, despite Puerto Rico being an island.
We do try to buy locally produced / grown food stuff when we can. Puerto Rican bananas, pine apples, mangoes, avocados – even though the fruit is sometimes from the Dominican Republic, which is still more local than Canada (where the red tomatoes come from!).
Roots and tubers in a Puerto Rican supermarket. NB The Xmas decorations are still up – not an unusual sight in February!
However, there are more Puerto Rican products that we could have tried to learn how to cook and enjoy:
Malanga blanca
Two types of ñame, i.e yam, from Costa Rica and Puerto Rico
Batata (sweet potato) from the Dominican Republic and green plantains from Puerto Rico
Yautía blanca from Ecuador
Apio (celery) from Puerto Rico – I have never seen celery like this! Chayote according to Fran, thanks for the correction!
Huge papayas from Puerto Rico
Beach chairs above the frozen produce section
At the end of our 2½ years of living in Puerto Rico we will have had over 40 guests! It has been a very interesting and mostly great experience to be able to show family and friends our life in the Caribbean. Nevertheless, it was very interesting to read about other expat Swedes’ experiences of over-night guests in the etiquette column of Margareta Ribbing (for once I read all the comments!) a few weeks ago.
Here are some tips and rules if you are going to be the host / hostess to holidaying friends and family, or ifyou are going to be staying for an extended period of time at friends’ places – please take note!
Explain any kind of “rules” or habits in your home – from which towels to use for the beach to which kitchen ware to use for what (e.g we have glasses, plates etc that belong to the apartment that we don’t use, instead we use our own things), if you take off the shoes by the entrance etc
Tell your guests to feel at home, which means that they can make a cup of tea, have a drink or a snack whenever they want and don’t need to wait for your suggestion or preparation
Feeling at home also means that you as a host[ess] should not have to entertain your guests 100% of the time (if you don’t necessarily want to); hand out maps with your address marked, show the bus stop and explain how public transportation works (tickets, timetables), provide a few tourist brochures and tips of what to see in the neighbourhood
Do NOT: hand out a map with your old address marked – I did that once in Brussels and my poor-at-the-time-pregnant-with-pelvic-pain (foglossning) Latvian sister + family wandered around for hours trying to find my apartment. It is incredible that she actually has forgiven me!!
Suggest that your guests take care of cooking a meal at least once during their stay! Maybe they have a signature dish – our Mexican guests cooked a Mexican dinner for us one night when they visited us.
A real home-made Mexican dinner
If you don’t have time to drive the guests around (or don’t have a car available during the week), don’t hesitate to suggest that they rent a car if they want to see more of the country – they already get free accommodation so they can’t complain…
Explain to the guests from the beginning that you might not have time to do everything with them. Regardless whether you work or not, there are things to be taken care of around the home, you are not on a holiday and might not want to spend your days on the beach!
It is great to have guests coming to stay, but what some guests might forget is that yes, it might seem like a B&B but your home is not an all-inclusive resort and it is very welcome to suggest paying for a restaurant meal or maybe the supermarket shopping.
Both my and O’s conclusion after all the visits we have had, is that independent guests are the best. We have enjoyed showing Puerto Rico to everyone, but it can be tiring (and expensive) as well, especially for O who works hard and long hours during the week and then having to play tourist guide on the weekends. Of course we have been very happy to be able to spend time with family and friends when living so far away, and we have felt a little disappointed that some haven’t been able to make it (or haven’t shown any interest at all).
And now I am counting the days to Sunday when my parents and Mrs N[eighbour] arrive from Sweden! O always says that my parents are the easiest guests – just make sure that they have books to read and they will be happy! 😉
Sorry, no etiquette poll today as I am not feeling very motivated, but I will at least give you a Wednesday recipe. I will try to answer your comments on yesterday’s post during the course of the day – I am very happy that you liked my nostalgic ramblings about 90’s music!
My first cook book from 1980! The title is “We bake. Recipes that everybody can manage”
The recipe is straight from my first cook book that I got as an pre-Christmas present in December 1980 (presentadventskalender, eller vad det nu heter!?). I have made the recipe so many times, but not in ages. But then I read about Emma’s scones baking with adorable son G on Saturday + baking inspiration by on maternity-leave “domestic goddess” Erika, and decided that it was time for scones last weekend!
I had forgotten that my Canadian friend, C, who I by the way have known for 10 years right about now (many friendship anniversaries lately!), got the scones recipe from me when he studied in Lund. My friend Å and I used to say that we wanted to marry him; he was (still is, I guess – but he’s already taken!) the perfect guy who would call us up to ask if he could come and bake in my apartment (no oven in the student dorm), or borrow my sewing kit! That he also is a very talented photographer was of course an extra plus. We last met when O and I were visiting California, almost two years ago.
Swedish Scones*
4 ½ deci-litres flour
2 tea spoons baking powder
½ tea spoon salt
50 grams margarine / butter
2 deci-litres milk
Mix the ingredients together, first the dry and then add the margarine and milk. Make two flat scones out of the dough. Cut a cross in the middle and prick some holes with a fork.
Bake in a 225 degree C / 450 degree F hot oven for 10 minutes.
I am thinking of pimping the recipe next weekend, maybe adding some oats and wholewheat flour (we only had regular wheat flour and no oats at home)…
Weekend brunch with scones, Swedish Port Salut cheese and a kiwi salad
*) Swedish scones should not be confused with the British version, which is usually baked with raisins, and eaten with clotted cream (something in between whipped cream and butter) and jam during Afternoon tea. Tips about Afternoon tea here (in Swedish).
Afternoon tea at the Orangery, Kensington Palace in London – highly recommended!
I am Swedish and lived in Brussels for 5½ years before I moved to Puerto Rico in November 2007 with my Spanish love O. We came back to live in the European capital in April 2010. Our son V was born in September 2011 and our daughter E in September 2013.
I write about my life as an expat, my travels and general thoughts. Please feel free to comment on my posts, it makes me happy to get some feed-back.
If you have any questions, send me an email: [blog title in one word, 18 letters] at [hotmail.com].
Right now I am…
READING: Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada * books about bringing up a child *
CHECKING: house / apartment ads in Brussels *
LOOKING FORWARD TO: introducing little V to his Swedish and Spanish families
MISSING: our great friends in Puerto Rico *
HOPING: that we will find our dream home in 2012 *
REGRETS: that the parental leave in Belgium is not as long as in Sweden *
Countries I have lived in so far…
Sweden (1975-2000)
England (1988-89)
Switzerland (1994-95, 2002)
France (1998)
Italy (2000-2001)
Belgium (2002-2007, 2010-)
Puerto Rico (2007-2010)
The P&O B&B…
NOVEMBER: my 2nd cousin E & boyfriend M *
DECEMBER: My family *
JANUARY 2008: French C *
FEBRUARY: Swedish P & Cypriot M * Finnish P *
MARCH: We are off to the East & West Coasts (US) * English A *
APRIL: Spanish friends LC & A *
MAY: My parents (again!!) *
JUNE - JULY: CLOSED - we are off to Europe *
AUGUST: O's mother, sister & niece
OCTOBER: Irish MT & B * Flemish S & I *
NOVEMBER: closed, we are on holidays *
JANUARY - MARCH 2009: we are going back to Europe (Spain, Belgium & Sweden) *
APRIL: Annika & family *
MAY: Mexicans J & D * Desiree and her C *
JUNE - JULY: closed for European holidays *
AUGUST: O's brother C & German girlfriend G * my aunt K *
SEPTEMBER: Saltis & her family * French S *
NOVEMBER: O's brother J-I for Thanksgiving *
DECEMBER: closed due to a Caribbean cruise + Christmas in Spain *
JANUARY 2010: closed due to holidays in Sweden *
FEBRUARY: my parents & Mrs N[eighbour] *
MARCH: Closed due to move back to Brussels *
Petchie's adventures 
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