Pulled pork and coleslaw

First day of summer in Iceland was last Thursday, it´s a national holiday.  People dress warm and go out for a stroll in a parade with a big band and scouts holding the Icelandic flag.

Pulled pork

• A piece of pork shoulder
• Salt
• Pepper

Put the shoulder in a pot and fill it with water so the water goes over the pork.  Put in an oven for 6-8 hours at 150°c.

We were at a summerhouse and didn´t have a steak pot but thankfully we found a big pot that fit the oven and the pork.

When the pork is ready you need a good bbq sause to go marinade it with.  I made a pot of sauce and threw the pork in after tearing it a part from the bone, that was easy after all the cooking in the oven.

Use your nicest bbq recipe. It might be something like this.

• Scalott
• Onion
• Fennel
• Chile
• Garlic
• Brown sugar
• Sherry vinegar
• Can chopped tomatoes or can of tomato sauce
• Mustard
• Butter

Chop, melt butter, fry veggies, mix everything together, boil…

Coleslaw is a must with pulled pork.  It freshens it up a bit.  I did a homemade coleslaw and it was very good.

• Cabbage, schredded
• Carrots, shredded
• Creme fraishe
• Salt
• Pepper
• Apples, scredded
• Lemon juice (fresh)

I served it with melted mozzarella and fresh spinach  as well.  Use the best sandwich bread you can find. I used Ciabatta.  Even a homemade naan might be really good.  If you got no good bread a Mexican tortilla or a Roti might work.  (Homemade of course!)

While the pork was boiling we went for a drive around the country side and to see hot springs.  The weather was a bit cold so the hot water made lots of steam.

The group photo

The green.  Sweet colors of nature

The bubblee hot spring…very hot

Chinese Dumplings and I had few interviews last week

Homemade is the best, fresh and you know what you are eating.  I am not much of a pig person, but I can buy organic Icelandic pigs, fed with Icelandic corn and it was very good.  This is the best meal I´ve made so far this year.

Make sure you´ve got quality ingredients.

Chinese Dumplings

Dough

• 4 cups flour
• 2 cups water
• Flour for dusting

Mix, kneed until smooth, set aside for 30 minutes.  Roll it out into a long sausage. cut into small pieces, about 2 cm.  Roll out like a pizza dough

Filling

• 500 g ground pork
• 1 Napa cabbage
• 1-2 spring onions
• 1 tablespoons grated ginger
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil

Dipping sause

• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tsp finely chopped garlic
• 1 tbsp finely chopped spring onions
• Finely chopped chili pepper (if you like some spice to it)

Mix well.  Serve in a bowl on the side with the dumplings.  You might need to double the recipe or just make as much as you think you need.

Mix everything well together

Flatten out the dough and make thin, round cakes.  I cut mine with a large glass.

Add a tablespoon or two of the ground pork mix to each cake.

First I fry them, then I add water water and boil it.

Serve the dumplings with a good soy sauce

Dip the Dumplings in the Soy

Eat.

I think it´s important to get the bottom of the dumplings fried, not only boil them, to get some texture.

I had some left overs, both dough and ground pork, what do you do?

 Of course you flatten out the dough and make dumpling pizza.

I have been interviewed few times last week because I made apps for kids teaching them the alphabet, numbers, colors and more.  There are no apps like that in Icelandic for kids, probably because this is not a big market.

All our apps so far are for free and we made it in English as well.  Take a look at the website, www.soffia.net,  where you can also play the alphabet and the numbers if you do not have an Android phone.

I made few apps a year ago, then I was on a maternity leave and wanted to do more apps.  I  teamed up with a girl named Helga and we call our project Lean Laundry.

I am very proud of us, we are both on maternity leave now, and between taking care of babies, the house, doing laundry and cooking dinner we make educational multimedia material for babies and kids.

Check us out on Facebook and put a little LIKE on us.

Learn the Icelandic alphabet or if you have kids, take a look at the English version.  More to come!

Tuna under a roof – the first meal I cooked for my husband

This was the first dinner I made for my husband, it was soon after we started dating..  We are talking about almost 20 years ago I put a nice table cloth over my writing desk (I was living with my parents in a small room)  I served the dinner with a  bottle of Lambrusco, not my first choice of a bottle of wine today but….good old days.  I was not the red wine drinker then that I am now.

This was before the time of digital cameras and instagram so I don´t have any photos from this event, yet it truly lives in the memories, like it happened yesterday, almost!

I have a little suitcase full of recipes I´ve been collecting from papers and so on.  I found the recipe I made for my husband in this suitcase the other day and completely forgot how it tasted so I decided to make it again.  It tasted nicer in the memory, but not to bad though.

The list of ingredients is rather basic, not very processed, if you buy a nice can of tuna it not too bad, but with butter and cheese it is not very slimming.  I am sure many kids might like this dish.

This is how it goes:

Tuna under a roof (from Gott úr ofninum, NR 95.  Osta og smjörsalan sf.)

• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1/4 red pepper, sliced
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 7 1/2 dl milk
• 200 g tuna, canned
• 3 boiled eggs, cut in 6 pieces each.
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

 The roof:

• 225 g flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 1/4 dl milk
• 75-100 g 26%cheese, shredded
• 2 red peppers, chopped

Heat the oven to 220°c. Melt butter in a pan, add onion and red pepper, cook until soft.  Add flour, then milk.  Stir well until it thickens  Add salt, add tuna, egg and  lemon juice.  Put the mixture in an oven proof dish.

The roof: Mix together flour and baking powder, add salt and pepper.  Put in the butter (with your fingertips). Add milk, kneed well until soft and shiny.  Roll it out in a square.

 Spread the cheese and red pepper on the square.

Roll it up.

Cut it in 2 cm slices.

 

Put the slices over the tuna mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes.

This is how the picture looks like in the recipe brochure, very tasty looking …

 

Happy New Year – Burger of the year

Happy New year.  I love the beginning of a new year and I love love love Action Planner Diary.  I love when I get a new one in the beginning of the year.  It´s so sleek and “unwritten”.  I always tell myself that this year I will be organized and write with a nice handwriting on each page.  But each week in the diary ends up with poor handwriting and very unorganized scrabble and doodle all over the place.

It was the same when the school year started.  I sharpened my pencils and was really gonna do my homework every day.  Not many days passed when all my pencils were broken, the sharpener gone missing and I totally had something better to do than homework.

From all this I have learned, I don´t make any New Years Resolutions.  I am not gonna eat less or better because I already eat well enough.  I am not gonna exercise more because I find my walks with the kids and housework enough exercise.  I am not gonna quit drinking because…!  : )

Instead of resolutions I like to make focal points.  This year my focus will be on 4 things. Family – Work –  Food – Art.

And talking about food.  I made a really nice dinner tonight.  I was gonna make a huge hamburger but then I decided to change it to sliders.  For those of you who wants to eat less… Make sliders instead of a big burger.  One slider is more than enough with some veggies on the side.  I would say a slider is about 1/3 of a regular burger.

I did make some Croquettas as well.  I had leftovers of Brandade, salted cod.  I will tell you all about it later.

I was watching this show called Man VS Food the other day and he was in Texas and the burger he had was AWESOME.  It had a pile of cheese and jalapenos.  I have been thinking about it since then.  Since I am not in Texas, but Iceland and not everything is big in Iceland I made a slider.  : )

Okey I had 2 sliders, I am not on a diet you see…

Hamburger with jalapeno

• 500 g  ground beef
• 1/2 onion
• Garlic cloves, 3-4
• Handful of old  foccacia bread (put in a mixer) with a splash of milk*
• 1 egg
• Salt and Pepper

Mix everything well together.  *I made foccacia the other day with olives, rosmarin and feta cheese.  I put it in a mixer to make breadcrumbs then added some milk.

Make hamburger patties.

On top

• Jalapeno, fresh and canned…I used both
• 4-6 tablespoons Creme Fraiche
• 4-6 tablespoons shredded cheese
• Salt and pepper

All mixed well.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the paddies.  Spoon the jalapeno cheese on top and put under a broiler until the cheese melts and gets some brown spots.  Put in a burger bread.  I put the burger bread on the pan I fried the burgers on for few seconds and threw them under the broiler as well for a minute.  I also used a regular burger bread I cut with a champagne glass to make the same size as the burgers.

I had nothing else on the burger.  The jalapeno cheese mix and the foccacia in the patties are very flavorful.  This was so good.  Day two of the year and I already peaked when it comes to making the best burger ever  :P

So, anything planned for 2013?

Christmas Countdown …1

I have been pinning so much Christmas stuff on Pinterest, but not much time to do it all.  It is not crazy to do things over the whole year instead of planning on doing everything  in December. I have a Christmas board here with lots of cool Christmas Ideas.

Pin There – Done That

I did this tree after pinning the Idea and It really works, the felt sticks to felt, so no glue needed.  With more time I could make nicer Christmas Ornaments, some thing for me to do in like February or something, not December  that I have learned.  I think February is also nicer than June to be making Christmas stuff, when It is still cold out and even snow.

You can find the pin here.

It´s the final Countdown..

Christmas Countdown …2 – Salted Cod, Mediterranean style

Tomorrow is what we call Þorláksmessa, the Mass of St. Thorlak.  You can read all about it here on Wikipedia.  It is a custom that day to eat fermented skate.  It stinks so badly from ammonia.  I don´t eat fermented skate but I really like to have salted cod instead.  I usually just like my salted con plain with boiled potatoes and lots of butter.

Salted cod it is really good  with zucchini and eggplant, Mediterranean style.

I don´t have a picture of this dish, but I will give you the recipe anyways.  If you don´t have salted cod I am sure this goes well with any kind of white fish, plain cod or haddock, but salted cod is so goooooood.

This is one of my favorite dishes.
Salted cod with zucchini, eggplant and tomatoes(From a cookbook by Siggi Hall)

• 1 kg salted cod, with no skin or bones
• 1 dl flour
• 1 dl Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 eggplant, roughly chopped
• 1 zucchini, roughly chopped
• 1 can tomatoes
• 4-6 cloves garlic
• Handful of finely chopped fresh basil
• Little bit of finely chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1 dl White Wine
• Salt and Pepper

Cut the fish in nice pieces, roll it in the flour and fry it in the oil on a frying pan, about 2 minutes each side. Set a side.

On a frying pan, lightly cook the eggplant and zucchini with the garlic.  Add tomatoes and herbs.  Stir well together.  Add the vinegar, syrup and finally the white wine.  Boil it together.  Salt and Pepper.  Put the veggies on a plate and put the fish on top.

We went to a Christmas ball for kids at my husbands work.  My little one really liked the santa.  Here is a photo of her, she is the one in the middle of the photo

Window number 22, yay!

Christmas Count Down …3 – The ultra chocolate chip cookies with lots of chocolate

Are you still baking for Christmas?  I am, If I do it any sooner it´s all gone by the 24th… right?

I did 3 types this year.  The ugly but tasty toffee one I talked about in the last blog, gingerbread cookies and these the Ultra chocolate cookies.  I usually bake Biscotti as well some times during the holidays between Christmas and New Years Eve..

I am not a big cookie person, but it´s nice to have some if people stop by and for the little ones and of course I do grab one or two oooor three now and then.  These were more easy to make then the fancy ones, just a scoop of teaspoon on the plate.

The ultra chocolate chip cookies with lots of chocolate

• 175 g chocolate
• 125 g butter
• 2 eggs
• 100 g sugar
• 75 g brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 75 g flour
• 25 g cocoa (Dutch Cocoa, I use 70% from Black & Green)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 200 g Chocolate, chopped
• 100 g hazelnuts

Heat oven to 180°c.

Melt the 175 g of chocolate with butter on low heat, stir constantly.

Put eggs, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl ( I use Kitchen Aid). Mix well until it becomes light and fluffy.

While the machine is on low speed add the melted chocolate with the butter .

Add flour, cocoa and baking powder, mix well.

At last add the chopped chocolate and hazelnuts.

Put the dough with a teaspoon on a oven plate lined with parchment paper and bake for 7-8 minutes.

They are gone now

And so is December basically, all gone almost…

 

Christmas Count Down …4 – The ugly cookies, but tasty they are.

So, I told you about the cookies I made.  I was running out of time and didn´t do a good job.  Therefor,  don´t be fooled by the photos,

“That´s just me,  not the recipe” (I´m a poet…)

Here is the recipe …with photos!  BUT I was clever enough to take a picture of the cookie in the magazine so you know what they are supposed to look like.

This is the lovely girl who won the competition (lots of people participated).  I even know her.  We  used to work together long time ago, and she is really nice

The Winning cookies of Gestgjafinn 2012 by Margrét Th Jónsdóttir

The cookies

• 180 g butter, soft
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon milk

The caramel coconut flakes on top

• 300 g coconut flakes, sweetened or regular, I used regular
• 320 g toffees (I bought Icelandic toffees but any store bought cream caramel toffees are good)
• 4 tablespoons heavy cream

On top

• 225 g good chocolate
• 1 teaspoon butter

Heat the oven to 180°c .

Mix together butter and sugar until light and creamy.  Add the dry stuff, then vanilla extract.  Mix well.  I use my Kitchen Aid.

Use the 1 tablespoon milk if the dough is too dry.

Roll out the dough, use flour to roll it out if you need, about 1/2 cm thick.  Cut out a hole in the middle of the dough.  Place the cookies on a parchment paper on a plate in the oven.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Cool.

Melt the toffee  with the cream on a low heat or in a bowl over hot water. (or in a microwave).  Stir the coconut flakes in the melted toffee and pour over the cookies.

Melt chocolate with butter.  Dip the cookies into the chocolate, bottom down.  Decorate the cookies with the rest of the chocolate .

Here you can see what those cookies should look like.

And this is what I did… I am so embarrassed.

And to be exact…REALLY EMBARRASSED 

Just look at the photo from the magazine to know what it is supposed to look like.  They can be very pretty because they are very good and just the basic cookie dough is very good and then you can improvise with the rest.

I told you, the sure are ugly  :P O my COD…How did I do this?

I made cookies today as well, chocolate chip cookies.  They are awesome.  I will post the recipe probably tomorrow or Saturday.

What are we talking about? 20th of Dec. already…4 days for us in Iceland, 5 for most of you

Christmas Count Down …One Week

If the evening of the 24th is Christmas Eve, what is the evening of the 25th called?

I went to get a Christmas tree.  It was a gorgeous day, no snow this time.  Like I told you, last time I was running a round for an hour trying to find the perfect tree.  This year my husband said he wasn´t gonna run after me all day looking for a tree and he was in luck!  the first tree we saw was really nice so 5 minutes later we had our tree.

We even ment one yule lad there, called Stekkjastaur.  As you can see our yule lads are getting some fashionably advise from the American one.

 

Sunny and nice, but really cold though

 

 

 

Here is my tree from last year.

 

 

Now we have a week to go.

Christmas Count Down…9

O my COD, we are down to one digit…9 days until the 24th of December.   I went to a Christmas ball for kids at my husbands work with our kids.  i took few photos.  I´ll post some soon.

Don´t you love these trees?  I am a sucker for nice looking Christmas presents.   I found it here.

 

 

9 days kids!