How to be good: update your blog!

Forgive my short leave of absence!
These last two weeks have been crazy. However, now the summer holidays have finally arrived!

Monday I leave for Iceland with my mother and sister. After that it’s a couple of weeks with doing _nothing_ (while doing all the things I haven’t had time to do)

Saturday I had my graduating class over for a graduation-party, and I thought I would be clever and make tapas!
Now, you might think; what a wonderful idea! When your goal is to try 200 new recipes in 500 days, tapas must be excellent! You could try several at once!
And yes. I could have. I should have. I was planning to.

How many did I actually use? 1.

For all the 18 dishes I made, I used 1 recipe. 1.

That one however turned out really good.
It was a recipe for hamburger-buns, and I nicked it here I used them for mini hamburgers (technically what you American-readers [ for some reason I have more American readers than Norwegian ones] call sliders I think) And the recipe was really good!
However, we don’t have instant yeast here, so I used normal dry yeast.

Well, it was a successful tapas table at least, and included these dishes;
Potato salad with yoghurt dressing and mint
Chicken rolls with pesto and feta cheese (wrapped in bacon, always fun)
Mango Chutney
Tomato and Mozzarella salad
Mini Hamburgers (sliders)
Mini pizzas
Roasted potatoes
“Pickled” sugar snaps and red onion salad
Chick peas and spicy sausage
Teriyaki pork
Orange honey pork
Sausage mix
Tzatziki
Stuffed mushrooms with rice, mushroom and thyme
Stuffed tomatoes with meat, onions, mozzarella and spicy tomato sauce
(Shrimp) Scampi with a mango/chili marinade (these were really good!)
(Shrimp) Scampi with a Greek marinade
Deviled eggs (these never came on the table)

Request recipes if you want them!

I also started two more dishes that I didn’t finish.

I’ve also decorated myself a new pair of shoes. Here’s a funky “before and after” as well as an even funkier “after”.

I think they turned out pretty good the green line was there when i bought them, and it's really not that bright. I just messed it up in photoshop, and couldn't be bothered.

I promise to be back soon with more tips and tricks (I’ve made a whole section on domestic “natural and easy cleaning” tips, as well as the continuation on “how to be good).

Until then;

Be good!

Good cook: How to make marmalade!

Guess what I’m doing right now?
If you guessed “Eating bread with warm marmalade” you are absolutely right!
If you guessed something else, you are probably (depending on what you guessed) way less creepy!

I did it!

Granted, I did a couple of mistakes. This follow-the-recipe-thing is hard to get used to. I have to develop a technique for recognizing all the small things in the text, and not assume.
However, the taste is really good, just like normal marmalade!

I’ve written the recipe like I did it, not like the cookbook said, just because… this is how I did it. I will however point out what I did wrong. (I will however count this as a success since i TRIED to follow the recipe and didn't fail on purpose)

Marmalade of this and that:
(“inspired by” Andreas Viestad’s recipe in the book “Mine beste sider”)

1,5 kg mixed citrus fruits (I used one grapefruit, four oranges and several kumquats)
1,5 (or more) kg sugar
1,5 liter water
2 cloves
1 star anise
1/3 vanilla pod, sliced in halves.
3 teaspoons citric acid
Liquid or powdered pectin (if you want thicker jam)

First wash the fruit and peel of the zest (here’s my first mistake. You’re supposed to use the entire peel, I just used the zest. I don’t really mind though, because the jam got really delicate)
Cut the zest and the fruit meat in very thin pieces.

The white stuff between the peel and the fruit meat as well as the seeds (and in my case some of the peel) you put in a small kitchen towel or a cotton bag to be boiled together with the jam. This you will take out at a later time.

This takes a lot of time, but don’t lose your patience towards the end. Smaller is better!

Cover the fruit, the cotton bag and the zest with water and add the spices (here is mistake number two. You’re supposed to add the spice towards the end of the boiling, but I put it in from the start. The taste was still not very spicy, so I don’t think this is a bad idea)
Leave it to soak overnight.

The next day (I waited until I got home from work in the afternoon) put to boil on medium heat.
When it has boiled for an hour add the sugar and the citric acid, and let it boil for another 1,5 – 2 hours. If you turn up the heat you’ll get the dark kind of marmalade.

Add the pectin as explained on the box. I’ve got two types, one that’s added from the beginning, and one that’s stirred in towards the end, so check with the box. Take out the cotton bag with the seeds and squishy things, and squeeze out all the jam you can from it.
Extract the spices as well. (You can leave them in the jars for a stronger taste if you’d like)

Remember to use heated jars, and boil the lids right before you put the jam in. If you use normal jars (like those of pasta sauce) put them upside down until they’ve cooled down.

As you can see, I got enough for one really full big jar, one small jar (this is a present) and one half full will-soon-be-gone-jar.

Inspired by this I’ll try to do it right, and make another type of marmalade this weekend.

Velbekomme!

Shrimp with homemade mango chutney

For the shrimp:

16 shrimps
1 squash
1 clove of garlic
oil

For the Chutney:

1 ripe mango
1 small onion
1/2 chili (take out the seeds)
1 lime
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon (or a little mor) of oil
Salt and pepper

Start with the Chutney as it gets better when it is left to set for while.
Cut the mango, chili and onion in to pieces, squeeze the juice from the lime.




Mix in sugar, oil, salt and pepper (go by taste).
Here I needed to resist the urge to blend it all in a blender. But i did as the recipe said. Good girl.


Peel and rince the shrimp (if you're insecure how, use youtube, I will spare you the details)
Chop the garlic and the squash.

Fry the garlic, shrimp and squash in some oil, for a couple of minutes until the shrimp are pink and the squash looks delicious.

Serve with rice and chutney for a main course, or with just the chutney for a starter.
With rice it looks like this;

The taste? Really good!
Both me and the husband was sort of surprised how good it was. The sweetness of the mango and the acid of the lime worked really well with the rather bland squash and the lovely shrimp.
Simple, easy and really tasty.
And i didn't stray of the recipe once!

I found this recipe in the book "Bordet fanger" by Norwegian food writer Andreas Viestad.

Next project is marmelade. Looks hard!

As we say in Norway when the food is served;

Velbekomme!