Christmas Count Down …day 12

The famous 12.12.12 and window number 12.

I love this star and easy to make, You can find it here.

Christmas Countdown …18 – Salmon with soy, ginger and cilantro

I like cute homemade Christmas ornaments.  Here is a very nice printable fromwww.vintagejunky.com for making snowflakes.

(Image from VintageJunky.com)

This is a really nice dish, a great starter and would be perfect to bring to a Christmas party.  You can make the dressing a head and then mix it with the salmon about 30 minutes or an hour before serving so you don´t overcook it in the juice.

• Juice from a lemon
• Juice from an orange
• Soy sauce
• Fresh ginger
• Fresh chili
• Fresh Cilantro
• Very fresh salmon, to be eaten raw

Chop the ginger, chili and cilantro rather fine.  Mix it with the juice from fresh orange and lemon and the soy.  Keep in fridge until you mix it with the salmon.  Cut the salmon in bite sizes.  Mix with the juice-dressing and let it “cook” for at least 30 minutes.

I once kept it, the salmon in the juice-dressing,  in the fridge overnight.  It was good, the salmon was more firm though.  The less time you keep the salmon in the juice the less cooked it gets.  (same as ceviche)

Opening number 6

 

Christmas count down…20

I love Charlie Brown. Doesn´t this  get you in the right mood?

And number 4.

This year x-mas is on a Monday so that means only 17 days until Christmas vacation for some of you working crowd…yay!

Christmas count down…21 – Bailey ´s with espresso coffee ice

Day 3 of December, I warn you if you are going to do ALL those things before Christmas you better start now.  Like I said once before…Time flies but thankfully you are the pilot.

I find this recipe being perfect for the holidays, either  having a little drink BEFORE going shopping…you might need it!  or after a lovely meal over Christmas.  I think this is brilliant. Fill your glass with liqueur and cool it down with espresso coffee ice cubes, so when they melt they end up flavoring your drink  instead of thinning it out with water.

Get a bottle of good liqueur, Bailey´s or Amarula for example…

ice baby ice

Let´s open up window number 3

 

Christmas count down…22 – First of Advent

Today I officially start doing what ever I do for Christmas.  I am not the over excited x-mas kid but I do enjoy the Christmas lights, occasional song, baking and everything jolly seasonal thing I do with my little girl, like opening the advent calendar every morning, this being her first chocolate advent calendar and the first Christmas she is old enough to have fun with what ever we do.

Today I did a little baking. I really like Biscotti, I find them some how very sophisticated cookies and I like saying Biscotti, feels like I´m Sophia Loren, all dress up and looking lovely eating Biscotti and drinking vino rosso : )

I am giving you the recipe I use for making Biscotti.  I really like this recipe because I am a big fan of almonds, hazelnuts and 70% chocolate.  These go well either with my morning tea or my afternoon glass of red wine. Then you can make an extra batch to give to someone nice : )

Biscotti with hazelnuts and almonds

• 100 g hazelnuts (I used flakes)
• 100 g almonds (flakes or whole)
• 120 g 70% chocolate
• 210 g brown sugar
• 230 g flour
• 30 g cocoa
• 4 g instant espresso (optional)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 150°c (300 °f)

Cut the chocolate and mix it with the brown sugar in a food processor until it´s very fine.

Whisk together flour, cocoa, instant espresso, baking soda and salt.

Use the food processor or an electric mixer to beat the eggs and vanilla extract, add it to the brown sugar mix.

Add nuts and mix a little.

Put some flour on the table so the dough doesn´t stick and make two logs out of the dough, each one about 25 cm long and 5 cm wide. Put them on a baking sheet and bake for about 40 minutes.

Take it out, let cool for 10 minutes. Slice each log in 2 cm slices. Put them back on the baking sheet and in the oven for 15 minutes each side.

Cool down before serving.

Here you find the video on how to make these. They are good.  They talk about roasting the nuts, I didn´t do that.

Now let´s open nr 2.  We will be opening number 24 before we know it hah!

Christmas count down…23

In Iceland we count down to the 24th of Des.  That´s the day we celebrate.  At 18.00, or 6 o´clock on the 24th we ring ring dinga ling in Christmas.  At my parents house by six everything was ready and we sat down to eat, usually a smoked lamb, something we call Hangikjöt.  Now that I have my own household we say cheers at 6 and dinner is ready at some point after that.  I don´t have a special dinner for that day.  It depends on the mood and where in the world we are because I have spent Christmas in quite a few countries with my husband.

 

 

For the fun of it I made a little advent calendar

Every day until Christmas I will post something in the spirit of Christmas that I stumble upon while browsing the internet, recipes or fun things to make.

I love finding cool stuff to do for Christmas, specially something that doesn´t cost much…This being one of it.  We have those guys lying around all over the place.  I love this Idea.

You can find how to make these here at sayyestohoboken.com.

And now we get to open number 1. YAY!  Did everyone find the number 1 ?