Aha sirup...

John has a very sweet tooth, and he used to buy a lot of a lot cookies, cakes and ice cream not really focusing so much on quality as quantity (Sorry Honey...) . His habit's has changed, and now he likes more natural flavored and sweets of a general higher quality. Nearly every evening he eats homemade yogurt with granola and maple syrup.... But maple syrup is quite expensive, so... Then I stumbled on this recipe (in danish...) that tries to mimic the flavor profile of maple syrup. It has the flavor of caramel, orange and licorice. The syrup has a beautiful golden color and of course it is not maple syrup, but in my opinion a very good syrup...thanks Max...one liter of syrup lasts about 3 weeks... yep that's what I said, he has a sweet tooth.... 

I caramelise 5 dl. of sugar. The darker you make the caramel the less sweet the syrup gets but with a stronger taste of caramel. Then I pour in 7 dl. of water, 5 dl. sugar, and depending on how strong and big they are one or two crushed licorice root, and the zest and juice of one or two oranges. I normally have juice and zest frozen down in cubes.

I filter the syrup and put in a bottle. This way it is easy to pour from

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The syrup is boiled till it reaches the temperature 106 degrees

Eat your greens...

One of the things I have promised myself this year was to take the challenge of eating primarily what was in the garden. off course...its obvious...

So here it was From the garden: potatoes, fennel, onions, carrots, parsley, basil, savory, chives and some edible flowers

From the kitchen: Celery, capers, toasted almonds with salt, sausage. cherry vinegar, Dijon mustard, grainy mustard, olive oil, and some sausage

Notes: make a rather acidic dressing with lots of attitude, and if making for two days boil the potatoes the next day and have the dressing and everything ready to assembly... boiled potatoes that's been in the fridge are just not very taste

Do I have to say that the kids didn't really eat. Seth had bread and sausage. Dea was very interested but only ate bread and sausage

But they are nice kids even if they don't eat my food...

with the possibility of sounding like one of  "those mothers"  I just cant believe he is only 5 years old...I mean look at that drawing...Maybe if I could convince him that this is exactly the kind of guys that would come after him if he don't eat his vegetables...hm mm....maybe I should not get these mixed up...

Busy week ahead...

Tomorrow is the end of my holiday, and I have a very busy week ahead. That's alright as long as I have the feeling of being on top of the situation. There is no way that our house can be totally organised, and to be honest that is also not something I am striving for. Activity is a messy thing...fine with me. But one area that has to be in perfect order and up to date is the calender and my desk ( which is actually just a couple of shelves in a closet...)

There are many ways to organize things... I like to keep it simple and flexible. I have a little metal tray that holds important papers just simply organized with clips and a little cream colored strip with the subjects that concerns our everyday life....

Examples are Freezer inventory, weekly baking recipes, meals, Seth, Dea, Work schedules, My cookbook, Stickers for Seth  ( Rewards...). In the bottom of the tray are extra clips and strips of paper.

At the wall we have a year planner, and a more detailed 2 week ahead plan ( that's where we put all plannings like what to eat, shopping memo and whatever is important to remember. At the end of the weekend I normally take a look at the week to come, and try to jot little things down

Thats really all... It is simple but it works

The perfect bread...

If you are interested in cooking there are two things you might have stumbled upon: Heirloom tomatoes and the no knead bread. So today I am adding one more blog posting about This subject.

I have done a lot of baking in my life, and more and more it seems as if I don't really need that many different types of bread. One of the bread types I cant live without is a white fluffy bread with big holes and a golden cracked surface. This is the bread to use for Bruchetta and crostini. This is also the bread I put on the table for a tapas style dinner. It is a great bread to use for vegetables since it does not have the strong whole wheat flavor.

Jim Lahey is the guy behind the no knead bread method. Somehow a very moist dough that is left to rise for a long time develops the gluten network similar to that of bread dough that has been kneaded for a long time. I would really like ti know the food science behind this... So please let me know... 

I call my version of this bread the one/one third bread. The most important in a bread dough like this that only consist of water, a tiny tiny amount of yeast, salt and flour, is the ratio between water and flour, and that has a lot to do with the flour you are using. The flour gives the dough the right consistency at the ratio one / one third between water and flour. That's it dead simple. Decide how much bread you want to make. I used 400 g water, 530 g flour, yeast at the size of a pea, and 6 g of salt. Just stir it together.Leave to rise for a minimum of 12 hours. Shape the bread, and let it rise on a flipped over baking sheet. Put a pizza stone in the oven with a oven thermometer and turn it on the highest temperature possible and let it heat while the bread rises.

Take the rack with the pizza stone out of the oven and close the ovens door. Slide the bread over on the stone and put it back in the oven. Throw ½ a deciliter of water into the oven to create steam, and do the same after 3 minutes. When the first brown spot shows I turn it down to 200 degrees C and leave to bake till it has a golden color 

I want more cracks like this....

I normally don't just make two breads I make a lot and I bake them for a shorter time. Into the freezer they go. One bread is enough for one dinner based mostly on bread.

The bread has the perfect size and toasted they give a good surface structure for rubbing garlic on.

Today's dinner was bruchetta with tomatoes, garlic basil, lemon juice and olive oil

The 3 small tomatoes in the front are our own from the greenhouse ( did anyone say heirloom... )

I store tomatoes hanging in a basket at room temperature. This keeps them very and makes sure they don't loose their flavor.

This year I have been experimenting with different types of organic fertilizer. Cant seem to get it right, but I guess everyday is a learning day.

So this was dinner. No leftovers... I have been a good girl ...kept it simple and I didn't cook to much. I guess my new problem is I write to much. Certainly have to change that...