Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

 

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  😛 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…5 – Ugly Cookies and Fluffy muffins

I made the ugliest cookies ever.  They are probably the tastiest I´ve ever made …but I din´t have good quality time when making them…stressed about 100 other things I should be rather doing aaaand I am not a good cookie baking the first place.

 

THANKFULLY I have a 3 year old and I can tell everyone that she helped me make them… she really did for the first hour but when it came to decorating it was all me.. yes I have photos and yes I will post the recipe very soon…BECAUSE they are really good.

This was a winning recipe for an Icelandic Food Magazine for a Christmas baking recipe and I know the girl who won, that´s why I wanted to try them.  They are really good cookies but all I can say, make sure you have time to make them because it takes at least 3 hours to do this recipe properly.

BUT, I like to bake muffins  because it´s no fuzz when it comes to mixing the ingredients, you just put everything in a bowl and whisk it together with a fork or a wooden spoon for few strokes,  the less you mix the better I´ve heard.

I´ve been doing the same recipe (with blueberries)  for a while, but decided to try a new one, a chocolate one.  I saw a tasty photo of a muffin with a recipe to try.  I changed it a bit by using butter instead of oil and a little bit less sugar.  It was a good one.  Very fluffy and not too sweet.

Fluffy muffins

• 1 3/4 c flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons cocoa (a good one)
• 3/4 c sugar (I used a liiiittle bit less)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 c butter (or 1/3 oil)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tablespoons espresso coffee
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Handful of good chopped chocolate

Put dry ingredients in a bowl, mix.  Add the rest and mix well with a wooden spoon or a fork or something.

Enjoy with a cup of tea or glass of milk…or red wine

Window 19…

Christmas Count Down …6 – Gingerbread cookies

I made gingerbread cookies yesterday with a recipe I got from my mother in law, very old.  It is actually called syrup cookies due to the amount of syrup. If you need a good recipe for gingerbread cookies this one is very nice.

You can either make the cookies very thin or a little bit thicker.  Then you get more chewy cookies, I like that.

Gingerbread Cookies

• 250 g flour
• 125 g sugar
• 75 g butter
• 1/2 cup syrup(150 g)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
• 1 teaspoon clove, ground
• 1 teaspoon ginger, ground
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg

Mix everything together in a Kitchen Aid or some electronic mixer. First the dry ingredient and then the rest.  The butter should be at  room temperature.

When you got a nice dough put it in the fridge and let it rest for 1-2 hours.

Now it ´s ready to be flatten and cut how ever you like.

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes at 180°c.  Don´t bake them for to long.

6 days left…

 

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…8

I am soooo tired now, almost midnight..zzz…

 

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!