Today it is possible to pre-order this year's glögg. As you can see, 2010 is a golden year. The glögg has been flavoured with saffron, a typical Christmas spice here in Sweden.

Images from Blossa.

When we were in Germany a few days ago, we decided to buy a few more bottles of what has become our own "house wine," the Argentinian Piropo from Argento Wine Company. The word piropo means "an amorous compliment or flirtatious remark made by a man to a woman as she passes on the street" according to the text on the bottle. The wine itself is said to share and inspire the fantasy and confidence of a piropo.

So far we've only tested the Malbec version — and it's certainly very nicely rounded and almost chocolaty — and we've also bought the white Chardonnay and intend to taste that too — very soon.

A little later than usual, but they are indeed on their way, the elder flowers. Apart from cherishing their beauty I'm also happy that T.'s sister makes wonderful lemonade out of them. At some point I ought to learn how to make elder flower lemonade myself, I think.

A week ago T. and I decided to buy a package of chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. They looked really delicious and two boys seemed to agree when they got a chance to try them out. We adults loved them too. In fact we loved them so much that we decided to try the recipe which we were happy to find printed on the package. Equally delicious! And now it feels as if we have cookie monsters everywhere. I'd better try to store them in a safer place...

Images from Göteborgskex.

Using my parents' neighbour's old recipe for making crisp bread, we decided to put the newly bought baking stone to the test. It worked perfectly. The bread was actually as good as when it has been baked in a real wood heated stone oven and it is actually much easier to make when you don't have to pre-heat such an oven for at least 24 hours before using it. My mother was thrilled at the result because this means that she finally will be able to make this type of bread again.

It's usually pretty hard work since they, my mother and her neighbour, bake almost uninterruptedly for two days, and it's nowadays a bit of a mouthful for her. The dough is, in their case, made of five litres of milk, 6 packets of yeast and a mix of rye, wheat, and graham flour. We made a smaller version of it where we basically divided the original amount by twelve, and then tweaked it slightly. When my father returned from the hospital earlier today, after yet another successful coronarangiography, he was pleasantly surprised to be able to taste the wonderful crisp bread he hasn't had for years.

Today T. decided to bake some "källarfranska" (buns made of wheat and rye) on the baking stone and they turned out marvellous. We ate them with some jam and cheese. My mother got inspired and decided to bake some Greek bread as well and the smell in the kitchen was fantastic. She tried the baking stone as well, liked the result, and decided that she will try to make some "knäckebröd" (crisp bread) on it as well. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to it. Her crisp bread is one of my absolute favourites.

The images are unfortunately not my own. I found them at Kryddburken and Kaksmulan.

T. and I received a joint present for our birthdays last year, a Weber Q100 Gas Grill, and we used it frequently all summer. Since we live in an apartment, barbequeing has been difficult, but with this baby it works very well and the result is really good too. I really look forward to start using it again, and even though we did have lunch outside on Sunday, it still feels a bit too cold to actually have a barbeque for real. Soon!

Image from Waring Industrial Tool.

We have been baking a lot lately. I made a blueberry pie yesterday which turned out excellent, and a potato, leek and cheese pie which we will have for dinner today together with some pork fillet. I'm sure it will taste nice as well.

We also decided to start looking for a baking stone on which to bake homemade pizzas and bread, but while googling for it we came across a suggestion to use a large floor tile instead since this apparently would work just as well. We decided to try it out, went straight to Jem & Fix, found and bought a granite floor tile and went home to clean it thoroughly and make some naan bread in the oven. We were definitely pleasantly surprised as we saw the absolutely perfect result. It indeed seems to work just as well as a proper baking stone and on top of it all it is much less expensive. Subsequently we're now on the lookout for a wooden bannock spade and this one from Lyckas med mat just might work. We'll see...

Following a recipe given to me by T.'s sister I baked a wonderful cake yesterday. The children as well as T. and myself have all been eating happily. T. was especially happy when he found out that the cake worked really well together with the raspberry sorbet he had made. Thank you so much for the recipe, S.!

UPDATE:
Ingredients: 125 g melted butter, 400 g sugar, 400 g flour, 4 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoons sodium bicarbonate, 1/2 litre milk. Whisk the melted butter and sugar and add milk. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Pour the batter into a pan (size 23x33 cm) and bake in the oven (200°C) for about 30 min. Let it cool slightly. Then whisk 50 g of melted butter, 250 g powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla powder, 1 tablespoon cacao powder together with 4 tablespoons of hot coffee. Pour it on top of the cake and let it set. Done!

T. has just left to attend a couple of meetings at the end of this week, but before he left we treated my parents, who are visiting at the moment, to a couple of very tasty dinners. On Saturday I made lasagne and an orange salad dessert, on Sunday T. made one of his signature dishes, fresh pasta with chicken and mushrooms in a white wine and cream sauce, and yesterday we made what you can see above, a dish called "shooting stars." It's both cooked and fried fish, shrimps, black caviar, lemon, asparagus, lettuce, cucumber and some Thousand Island dressing mixed with some whipped cream on a piece of toasted bread, and it tastes wonderfully.

A few days ago, on February 5th, they celebrated the "Runeberg day" in the honour of their most famous Swedish-speaking poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg. His favourite pastry was apparently this type of cake, and they have since then, been named after him: Runebergare. I've never tried them before, but I have to say that I agree with Runeberg and Lina K who has posted this Runebergare recipe on her blog. They are really tasty. Thanks, Lina!

Yesterday evening, my oldest son went on a skiing trip and I made these apple cupcakes as a treat for him. (Well... I did save a few for myself as well to be honest and they are delicious.) I used the small cupcake tins for the first time and I think they turned out pretty well.

T. thinks my cupcakes are too big. And since I obey him in everything (hrmpf, hrmpf!) I managed to get hold of small cupcake baking tins. They cups are indeed very small and, since I usually use paper cups inside the holes of the tins, I need to get hold of paper cups in the right size.

Lucky me! I just found out that the same company that has produced the large paper cups I used when I made the chocolate muffins yesterday, [kala:s får:m], also makes smaller ones — they call them truffle cups — at exactly the right size. The diameter at the bottom has to be 28 millimetres. I think I'll just try to get hold of a few.

Together with the rest of the children at their school, my boys will be spending the entire day out in the snow. When they are to go on outings, such as this one, they usually beg me to bake chocolate muffins especially for the occasion, and of course I did. Since it's rather cold outside they have also brought some hot chocolate, pancakes and hot dogs to be grilled over an open fire. I hope they are having a lot of fun today.

...but trying out very fine Italian chocolate from Cuorenero (which literally means black heart in Italian) makes me realize that I do. The one I tasted had small pieces of mango in it and I simply loved it.

I made this apple pie following a recipe given to me by a colleague and friend and it is so good. An oatmeal shell filled with fresh, green apples decked by a mix of crème fraîche, sugar, eggs and almonds to be served with ice cream, custard or crème fraîche. Yummy!

We'll be on the road again soon, this time travelling yet another 470 kilometres back home. There was a storm last night and it is still pretty windy, but I don't think it will be a huge problem. At least I hope so. Perhaps there is some more apple pie waiting for me when we get home...

Yeah, I know... It does feel weird to think about Christmas at the moment, but for the sixth year in a row Blossa has the annual variant of glögg. Glögg is simply the Swedish equivalent of mulled wine, traditionally drunk together with gingerbread, almonds and raisins. This year's taste will be clementine, which does indeed sound festive enough. Another addition to the glögg family is the glöggs flavoured with lingonberry and orange. These will be recurring items together with the three-star cognac and rum versions. All of a sudden I'm somehow looking forward to autumn and winter.

Images from Blossa.

This is something I truly love about summer: wild strawberries. They are delicious to eat from a straw, to have with vanilla icecream (which I seldom eat otherwise and it has to be a really good vanilla icecream in this case), or to just pick and eat directly. My oldest son really loves them. This is his favourite kind of berry and he looks forward to spending time at his grandparents where they have tons of them. And they tend to spread like wildfire. At the moment we only have these small plants (taken from the garden of T.'s parents, where they also have a lot of them) on our balcony, but I can assure you that they taste wonderfully!

This recipe was new to me when I met T., but it was already one of his huge favourites and has become one of mine as well. Well-known chef Jamie Oliver has created a simple pasta dish with mushroom, spicy sausages, lots of parmesan cheese, fresh thyme and parsley, and it is truly delicious. We had some nice white Argentinian wine, Aberdeen Angus Chardonnay, with it and it is certainly a very good way to end a wonderful, relaxing day!

T. and I are always on the lookout for good chocolate (as some of you might have realised), and today we found these when we were exploring in the vicinity. Sockerbageriet was founded in 1904 and Björn Holmgren is now the fourth generation making exquisite — and beautifully packaged – candy and chocolate. I promise, it tastes really good!