The singer that surprised me

I love Spain and the food culture there.  I lived in Madrid few years ago and I got the chance to travel around.  We went to Rioja, it was in December, not quite the tourist season, but it was really nice.  No tourists, good food and lots of nice Red wine.  We went to Logroño, Laguardia og Haro.  I am sure the atmosphere is different during summer and I will visit Rioja again one warm summer day.

Our first stop was at a gas station and where else but in Spain can you get a great red wine at a tapas bar in a gas station.  I had Callejo, Crianza 2005.  That was a good start on a great culinary trip.

Logroño was awesome. So many tapas bars, door to door.  We met 2 older local guys and they took us all over town to great bars that served brilliant tapas.

Culinary highlight: Bar that sells nothing but wine and grilled meat on a stick.

Cultural highlight:  An old man sat in the corner. He looked lonely.  When we got in our 2 friends started singing Flamengo,  The old man in the corner lit up, he came over and started singing as wel.  He sang like an coir boy.  what a voice!!

There you can see him in the corner, before our new friends started singing…

And then he came over…

Started singing like an angel!

And that´s me and the singer that surprised me!

Teaching me not to judge by the look, he ain´t no Enrico Iglesias  but when it comes to singing he is even better  😀

Eating lobster with avocado and enjoying the sunset

I have a great view from my living room window over Snæfellsjökull, the glacier Jules Verne wrote about in A Journey to the Center of the Earth where the entrance to the center of the earth was.

These days the sun is sitting above the glacier, it´s very pretty.

 

Snæfellsjökull

And zoom in…

Lobster and avocado is a great match.  If you got that you can play with spices and other ingredients.  This is how I usually do it.  I don´t use much because I like to keep the flavor simple.  Garlic, butter and lobster…that´s a must.

After you scoop out the avocado you can use the avocado skin for bowls, that´s  a nice presentation.

Lobster with avocado

• Lobster tail or any lobster cut into bite sizes
• Avocado
• Garlic
• Salt
• Red onion, cut small
• Red pepper, cut small
• Fresh cilantro (optional)
• Butter

Scoop out the avocado, do it gently if you want to keep the skin for bowls.  Cut the avocado into bites and sprinkle Maldon salt over it.

Melt butter on a pan, sweat the garlic, onion and the red pepper. Add the lobster (that you´ve already cut into bite size parts.

Put the lobster mix with the avocado and mix gently.  Put the lobster-avocado mix in individual bowls and serve.

Make sure you use soft avocados.

Don´t over cook the lobster.

You could also use tiger prawns.

Say cheese and when I met Kiefer Sutherland

We had a cheese and red wine fiesta.  What a combo!

And talk about cheese.  I was downtown Reykjavik one evening, having drinks with friends.  At a bar we saw a guy dressed up as a rabbit.  That was funny, at least funny after couple of beers.  We asked the rabbit if we could take a picture of my friend with the rabbit.  And to get them both in the picture I needed to step back and ask this guy to move a bit, that guy was Kiefer Sutherland.  I am sure we was more used to people asking rabbits to move so they could take pictures of him.

I´ve spent last 2 hours trying to find this photo, no luck, but I will post it when I find it.

Until then I got pictures of the cheeses we had the other night. This is fun, invite people over for dinner and serve cheeses, baguette and some good salami.

What to serve:

• Lots of fresh good baguette
• Few different types of cheeses
• Few types of salami
• Jam
• Red onion, thinly sliced
• Red pepper, thinly sliced
• Fruits, f.x melon, strawberries and grapes
• Red wine and White wine

My favorite combo on a slice baguette is camembert, jam, slice of green pepper salami with a slice of red onion and red pepper.

 

 

Grilled salmon with blueberries and thyme

I love salmon. I love going salmon fishing but it is rather expensive to go salmon fishing here in Iceland.  One day in a decent salmon river like the one that is close by where I live can costs about 1000 $.

So I just go to the store these days and buy my fish there.

The other day friends invited us to dinner.  They were smoking salmon on the bbq.  We were at their summerhouse so they used what was around in the yard to spice up the fish, thyme, blueberries, crawberries and smoked it with birch.

You can use f.x a metal cookie box to smoke it in.  Put the birch you chop down on the bottom of the box, then the salmon on the rack, the lid and then seal it with aluminum paper. Cut some air holes on the sides.

Smoke it for 20 minutes or so on your bbq, until it´s cooked all through.

The recipe would be something like this…

Smoked salmon

• 1 salmon fillet
• Salt pepper
• Crawberries
• Blueberries
• Fresh thyme
• Birch for smoking

Cut the birch into little peaces and put it in the smoking box.  Put some salt and pepper on the salmon and but the berries and the thyme on top o the fish. Seal the box like I mentioned. Put the box on the bbq, close it and cook the salmon until it´s done.  About 20 minutes in this case.

Svartá (Black River)

On of my favorite salmon river in Iceland is called Svartá, that means Black river.

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Two very different cauliflower soups and the underestimated Calzone

My next door neighbor and I decided to cook together, though separately, as we do rather often. She cooks at her home and I cook at my home, then me meet up at either home and our families eat together.  We slightly talk about what we will be cooking to have some Ideas what the other is doing to synchronize the food and every time what ever we cook it always goes perfectly well together.

Even when she made a carrot soup and I did chile-sour cream flatbread and a calzone.  While we ate,  a huge calzone, full of salami, cheese and other goodness was baking in the oven. I was very sure we wouldn´t have room for a slice of that.  I was wrong.  I put it on the table after we finished the soup and chili bread and it was gone in 10 minutes.

It was the best calzone ever.  I have underestimated calzone.  I will be making it again veeeery soon.  Can´t wait.

Anyways… This time my neighbor and I had some cauliflower.  We decided to do a cauliflower soup contest, we both won!

It´s remarkable how many completely different soups you can make with cauliflower.  I don´t have very accurate recipe this time, but i doesn´t matter.  Just use what ever ingredients you have with the cauliflower and taste it until you´re happy with the taste.

Cauliflower and potatoes are good base for a soup.  I never use the little msg soup cubes.  I find the ingredients I use when making soups give me enough flavor.  Fresh herbs and little salt can also help flavor up a good soup.

I did not have heavy cream or milk this time.

Cauliflower soup with good bacon

• 1 cauliflower
• 4-5 potatoes
• 3-4 good quality bacon
• Walnuts, a good handful
• Bit of butter
• Black pepper
• garlic cloves
• Heavy cream if you like
• 2 apples

Boil Cauliflower, potatoes and apple in some water.

Fry the bacon and add to the cauliflower pot.

In a mixer make a paste of the nuts and tiny bit of water

Add the nuts, pepper, butter and pressed garlic cloves to the soup.  Put the soup in a blender for few spins.  Use as much water from the pot as you like , depending on how thick you want your soup.  If you are adding cream put the soup back in the pot with some cream and heat it up.

Cauliflower soup with grilled pepper

• 1 cauliflower
• 5-6 potatoes
• Grilled red pepper
• Garlic cloves
• Fresh basil
• Curry
• Milk or heavy cream

Broil the red pepper in the oven.  Boil everything in a water in a pot.  Add the grilled pepper and spices.  Puree in a blender.  Serve.

IF YOU LIKE FOOD YOU MIGHT LIKE

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Strawberry fruit roll ended up being Strawberry Nori sheet…

I tried making fruit rolls since I am always looking for healthy snacks for kids.  I failed big time this time.  I guess I made it too thin so I ended up with strawberry-paper.

I will try again…

My strawberry-paper looks like pink Nori sheets so maybe I can use it for sushi…hmmmm, strawberry dessert sushi??  Any suggestions for the filling?

Here is a  recipe the way it is supposed to be.  I was going for strawberry fruit roll and used only strawberries.  Everything looked good, the puree was nice and all, I just spread it too thin.

I did not warm the berries first. In the recipe from the link above they do, but I´ve seen other recipes where they don´t.  I don´t know if it is better to warm them up or not.

Doesn´t look good 😛  hahah!

Strawberry fruit roll 

• 2 boxes fresh strawberries

Puree the berries in a mixer.  Spread the puree ona parchment paper.  Oh oo…Don´t spread it too thin…

Bake for 5 – 8 hours at the lowest heat, my oven was at 50°c.  Keep the oven door slightly open.

If you want to do the strawberry “Nori” sheets, spread the puree very thin  🙂

It´s that time again, it´s getting darker around midnight, so dark I need to turn on the light when I´m reading before going to bed.  This summer has gone by so fast. Time sure flies, and like someone said:

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you´re the pilot.