Chili roasted almonds

A very simple recipe, but a yet so tasty snack!

Ingredients:
200 g almonds
2 tsp salt
1 tsp raw sugar
1 dash of cayenne pepper

Directions:

• Heat the oven to 200 degrees.
• Place the almonds in a strainer, rinse with water and let drain thoroughly.
• Place the almonds in a pile on an oven tray covered with baking paper (or an oven dish).
• Add the spices and mix everything with your hands.
• Roast the almonds in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. (Watch them carefully so that they don´t get burned!)

Easy as pie!

A delicious chocolate-cake, similar to brownies (The Swedish Kladdkaka, (smudge cake))

A traditional chocolate-cake recipe can be found almost anywhere, but the taste of it varies a lot! This cake is incredibly yummy, smudgy and also very easily made, need I say more?

Ingredients:
3 dl sugar
1,5 dl plain white flour
4 tbsp cocoa
1,5 tsp vanilla powder
1 dash of salt
2 eggs
1 dl melted butter (or margarine in a bottle)

Directions:

• Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl.
• Add the eggs and the butter.
• Pour the mixture in a springform pan (or something alike) and spread it out.

• Bake the cake in the oven for 30 minutes at 160 degrees.
• Serve as it is or along with whipped cream, vanilla cream or ice-cream and fresh berries!

Chickpea stew with coconut milk and spinach

This stew is very tasty hot as cold and also very easily prepared. I usually serve it along with whole wheat pasta, but it tastes just as good with rice, noodles, couscous, etc.

Ingredients:
1 can of coconut milk á la 400 ml
500 g crushed tomatoes
2 yellow onions
2 tbsp curry powder (I'm using a spicy one)
1 tbsp oil
2 pkg chickpeas á la 380 g (canned)
300 g frozen chopped spinach
2 vegetable bouillon cubes
3 cloves of garlic (more or less depending on the desired strength)
1 tbsp sambal oelek (more or less depending on the desired strength)

Directions:

• Chop the onion and the garlic and fry it in oil along with the curry.
• Add the coconut milk and the stock cubes.
• Boil for 5 minutes. 

• Add the crushed tomatoes, the frozen spinach, the chickpeas and the sambal oelek.
• Stir and let boil.

VOILÀ!

Berry-pie with crumb topping

Yet another heavenly dessert! It´s practically a plain pie recipe, but when you add the almond paste to the dough it makes a great difference!

Ingredients:
(Dough)
2 dl plain white flour
100 g butter
1 tbsp sugar
75 g almond paste
(Filling)
500 g berries/fruit (I used raspberries and blueberries, another tasty combination is raspberry/rhubarb)
1 dl sugar
1 tbsp potato flour

Directions:

• Pour the berries/fruit into a pie dish, sprinkle with sugar and potato flour and mix.
• Mix the ingredients for the dough.
• Crumble the dough over the berries in the pie dish.

• Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 220 degrees.
• Serve with vanilla cream, whipped cream or as it is!

The pie was well recieved!

Grilled eggplant with crumbled feta cheese

This combo is T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C! Eggplant and feta cheese, yummie! It can be cooked both on the grill and in the oven, which makes it a flexible veggie option!

Ingredients:
(two halves)
1 medium sized eggplant
50-100 g feta cheese
1 clove of garlic
Salt, pepper & oregano (approx. ½-1 tsp of each)
1 tbsp olive oil (optionally)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven (grill function) to 225 degrees.
• Split the eggplant in two halves and put them in the oven.
• Let them bake on both sides approx. 10 min each until they become soft and slightly wrinkled.

• Meanwhile: Mix feta cheese, pressed garlic, (oil), salt, pepper and oregano.

• Remove the eggplant from the oven, place it on a paper towel and squeeze it to remove the liquid.

             

• Place them in a greased baking tray (for oven) or in foil (for grill) and add the filling.

• Place the tray in the oven at 200 degrees (still grill function) or the foil on the grill and let bake for 10-15 minutes.
• Ready to be served, bon appétit!

Cashew and avocado sour cream

My personal favorite, always well-recieved! Cashew nuts and avocados, can it taste anything but good? The answer would be "No".

Ingredients:
2 dl cashew nuts
Just under ½ dl water
½-1 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 pressed garlic cloves
1 tsp vegetable stock
1 avocado
Herbal salt

Directions:

• Mix the nuts into a fine powder in a food processor.
• Add the remaining ingredients and season with herbal salt.

Ready to be served, enjoy!

Whole grain baguettes (with a taste of swedish crisp bread)

Here comes the recipe for the bread I baked last saturday. It´s a match-up of ingredients I found at home. I was a bit worried about finding the right balance between the liquid and the dry ingredients, because I´ve never improvised a whole grain bread before, but it turned out to be very tasty! And packed with fiber too. Mom described the taste as soft version of the swedish bread, and I fully agree!

Ingredients:
4 baguettes
5 dl graham flour (whole wheat flour)
5 dl rye flour + some extra for the baking (It´s supposed to be a different kind of flour, a mixture of plain white flour, rye flour, leaven, etc. but I don´t know if it excists outside of Sweden. It´s called "Lantbrödsmjöl" in Swedish. So you could either do your own mix or go completely with the rye flour)
1 dl wheat bran
½ dl sugar beet fibre (you can find information of what it is here: http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/gluten-free/gluten-free-ingredients/sugar-beet/ )
1 dl kibbled rye
½ dl linseed
½ dl sunflower seeds
½ dl pumkin seeds
½-1 tbsp salt
50 g fresh yeast
8 dl water

Directions:

• Boil 4 dl water.
• Mix sugar beet fiber, kibbled rye, linseed, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds in a bowl.
• Pour the boiling water over the mixture, stir and let cool until it´s lukewarm.

• Heat another 4 dl water until it becomes 37 degrees.
• Crumble the yeast into another bowl. Mix it with a small amount of the hot water.
• Add the salt, the seed-mixture and the rest of the water.
• Mix wheat flour, rye flour and wheat bran and pour into the mixture while stirring.

• Flour your hands and knead the loose dough. Let it rise under canvas for an hour.
• Then pour the dough onto a well-floured surface.
• Flatten the dough into a rectangle and sprinkle with flour.
• Cut four lengths (in width), turn them into baguettes (without kneading) and place them 2 and 2 on an oven grid covered with baking paper.

• Let rise under canvas for another half an hour.
• Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.
• Sprinkle some bran over the bread, cut some slits in the top and bake for 15-20 minutes.
• Leave to cool on the grid (without canvas)