Just a short notice. I’ve decided to move out blogging about food to a separate blog. I’ll still keep this site up, at least as an archive. I might also do some personal blogging sometime. I have copied the most recent entries about food from here, and I might go on and copy some of the more interesting ones, but the new blog is mostly for new content.

It’s also available in both English and Swedish. In English, it’s called Juniper Smoked, and in Swedish, it’s called Enrisrökt.

I (although being partial) recommend that you check it out. There’s already some new content there.

It didn’t really work out that well. I cooked it for 25 minutes in the pressure cooker as per the original recipe (which was made for pressure cookers), and after releasing the pressure and opening the cooker I expected to be greeted by a lovely chili. However, I was instead greeted by a way-too-liquidous chili which was somewhat burned in the bottom. The situation was salvageable, the burning wasn’t that bad, and I just reduced the liquid, however, I feel there’s a definite need to improve this (I mean, even with the reducing, it cut the cooking time from 3 hours to 45 minutes).

I’m also not excluding the possibility of a mistake on my part. I did use a bit too much beer. That could explain the viscosity, but not the burning. I also believe that part of the explanation may be further differences between American and Swedish pre-made salsas and tortilla chips.

Tomorrow I’m gonna use the pressure cooker to cook me up batch of frijoles refritos. I’m hoping for better luck tomorrow.

The holidays was just upon us, and I did receive many great gifts. Some of them were even kitchen related, but I wanted to focus in on one of them here in this entry.

This a WMF Perfect Plus Pressure Cooker, 6.5 Liters. I’ve been wanting a pressure cooker for quite some time now, and boy, do I have plans! First of all, I’m going to cook up a batch of chili, for two reasons. The recipe I’ve based my recipe off was originally made for a pressure cooker, so I’ve been wanting to try how it’s “supposed to be”. Secondly, I promised some co-workers I would invite them over for chili, and I need a dry run to make sure that cooking the chili in the pressure cooker will work fine.

I’m also going to try to make some refried beans (for the very same occasion), and lot’s of other exciting foods, like broths, soups etc.

There’s also another new addition to my kitchen. This one hasn’t arrived yet (I only ordered it yesterday), but I sure am excited to welcome a candy apple red KitchenAid Artisan with a couple of attachments to my kitchen!

It did cost a lot of money, but hopefully it will be worth it. For one thing, it looks gorgeous, also, it’s great for oh-so-many things. Baking, cooking (to a limited extent), and with the attachments, I’ll be able to have even more fun! I’ll be able to grind my own meat, to pulp my own tomatoes, and many other exciting things!

In the future, I also aspire to make my own sausages, and my own pasta.

My copy of River Cottage Every Day is here! Happy days are here again, as they say. It really is a great book. I really love the River Cottage books, since Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a philosophy about food that I really can agree with.

There are many interesting recipes, a few of them are so exciting that I will try them as soon as possible (e.g. when I get appropriate vegetables in my box). These include:

• Tabula Kisir
• Mussels with cider, leeks and bacon
• Spiced lamb burgers
• Ten-minute veg stock (Okay, this will have to be used for something, but anyway)
• Potato and fennel soup
• Butternut and nut butter soup
• Roast Jerusalem artichoke, hazelnut and goat’s cheese salad

Then there are some recipes which I would be really excited to try, but that use ingredients that are hard to come by here (like kale, which for some reason is next to impossible to find in stores here). These recipes include:

• Leeks with greens
• Jerusalem artichoke and nettle gratin

All in all, this is a pretty awesome book, and I expect a lot of it to be delicious. There were even some fish recipes in there which looked exciting (which, for me, is a big deal, since I want to be able to eat more fish).

Oh yeah, and my copy was signed. Totally awesome!

A new day, with new delicious food. Today I made a roast tomato soup. There was a recipe for one in the River Cottage Cookbook, and I thought it looked interesting

While I had a slight hiccup with the rice that the recipe called for, and thus left it out, the flavor was great. It really was easy to make, as well!

Although the recipe uses chicken stock, I’m sure that vegetable stock would work fine, in order to make the soup vegetarian.

The recipe is available at Béchamel: Roast tomato soup

I have a new recipe for you today, a delicious lamb stew. Stews are perhaps the ultimate proof that investing time in your food gives excellent return on investment. This stew is, like I said, a lamb stew. Growing up, we didn’t eat a lot of lamb. In fact, I cannot recall having lamb at all, until I moved out. I can certainly say that I missed out, but what with eating being a daily thing, I have had some time to make up for it

The recipe is available at Béchamel: Lamb stew

I didn’t write anything yesterday, even though I ate. Yesterday I had a steak, with a baked potato and a cob of corn. I didn’t even take a picture, because it’s just too easy

Sadly, if you were looking for a new recipe today, you’re out of luck. I haven’t made dinner yet, but I already know what I’m making, and I have already posted the recipe to Béchamel earlier. It’s pasta salad, as you might have seen from the leading picture. It’s not going to be exactly like pictures, because I’m going to use another kind of lettuce, but it’s pretty similar.

Tomorrow there’s a new recipe about though! A lamb stew. Stay tuned for that!

In the meantime, if the salad looks tempting, the recipe is available at Béchamel: Pasta Salad

I’ve been meaning to do this for quite some time now, but it’s hard to find real chard here (any greens that aren’t baby greens or lettuce are difficult to find here, except for collard greens at christmas). When I saw that I was getting chard in this weeks box from Årstiderna I was of course very excited, and whipped this up.

Growing up I didn’t have a lot of beans, but that’s something I’ve been trying remedy and acquire a taste for since I’ve moved out, and I am glad to announce, that these beans, are certainly cool beans.

The dish is entirely vegetarian, so most folks can certainly have a go at it. I do try to eat a lot of vegetarian food, since it allows me to buy better meat, on the occasions when I do eat meat. I’ll be writing a post on how I eat, and why I eat like I do some time, so stay tuned for that… The recipe is based on a recipe I found at 101 cookbooks, but this being Sweden, I had to make some adjustments.

My recipe is available at Béchamel: Chipotle white beans with chard.

I know, I really should make real chicken broth, but I don’t eat that much chicken, so it’s not like I can just save the carcasses. It’s just a hassle for me to eat chicken, because they don’t have any acceptable chicken at the stores where I usually shop, so I have to go to another store to get it.

Also, it’s a pain in the ass to prep without having full access to you right thumb.

On a brighter side of things, tomorrow I’ll get a new box of produce. It has some really great things in it:

• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Cantaloupes
• Carrots
• Parsley
• Red Onion
• Swiss chard
• Corn
• Lettuce

I’m especially excited about the chard and the corn. Now I’ll have to get back to the stove and check on the soup. Also, I have to soak some white beans for tomorrow.

I have a lot of carrots right now, so I searched for a recipe which would allow me to use them up. I found a carrot casserole. I was a bit skeptical, but I decided to give it a go. In many ways, this wasn’t quite what I had expected.

For one thing, I cut myself on my mandoline while slicing the carrots. Ouch. After the bleeding stopped, I did however carry on. Perhaps the end justified the means? Perhaps the carrot casserole was a gem in the rough? Perhaps the slightly odd-looking exterior hid a delicious interior? Short answers: It didn’t, it wasn’t and it didn’t.

It wasn’t awful, I could still eat it. It was just pretty darn bland. Let’s put it like this, I will eat the leftovers, but I won’t cook it again.

Needless to say, it’s not good enough for me to publish the recipe on Béchamel.