I am spending this Easter in Canada visiting my fellow Gourmandine blogger, Dorthe. While I’m here, Dorthe has been kind enough to invite Andrea, one of her lovely Canadian friends, over for dinner. I find it only fitting to try and dazzle her with my cake skills to make a good impression, so I’ve decided to make an Easter version of this flavorful citrus cheese cake. Baking cakes takes time and precision and knowledge of the oven you are working with. Since I’m not in my own kitchen I want to make a cake that I am sure will be a success, because it doesn’t even have to go in…
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Moroccan (low-carb) lasagna
This Moroccan style low-carb lasagna recipe is a twist on ordinary lasagna. With three kids still living at home, we tend to make a lot of lasagna in my household. Therefore it’s nice to mix it up a bit and bring in new flavors to the Italian classic. So here, we’ve fired up the aromatic spices typically found in the kitchens of the northern part of Africa. Furthermore, we’ve experimented with substituting pasta sheets with zucchini, making this a healthier, more low-carb and less heavy lasagna. Add a good green salad, and you’ve got an amazingly tasty, good for you dinner that’s entirely pasta guilt free. Making this Moroccan (low-carb)…
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A tribute to grandma style cooking
My mom…not only is she the best mom in the world. (Well, I guess everybody feels that way about their mom). She is also the best grandma to my kids. I could say she wins hearts by always being ready to take care of my kids when they are sick, or being the matriarch who cooks dinner for the whole family almost every Sunday. And this is no small feat as we are 11 people and my mom makes everything herself so the rest of us can relax. However, all of this is nothing compared to the love my family bestows on her because of her cooking. Actually she is…
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The no fuss showstopper
Vitello Tonnato is a delicious dish for the taste buds, but not always so for the eyes. It tends to have a greyish color and with the capers on top it sometimes ends up looking more like a bowl of oatmeal gone bad. That doesn’t sound at all like the showstopper advertised above, but with a little twist or two it can be. Instead of the classic Italian starter, this version of Vitello Tonnato serves as the main course of a dinner where you finally have time to entertain your guests while wooing them with your fabulous cooking skills. The garnishing sauces for the veal can be made a day ahead, and…
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Pretty cheeky
Pork cheeks are an overlooked cut of pork in my opinion. So when some friends of mine told me they had bought too large a bulk of cheeks from Ibiric black foot pigs, I didn’t hesitate to say yes to the offer of taking them of their hands. One of the most efficient ways of tenderizing pork cheeks is adding wine or beer and letting them stew slowly for a few hours, so I decided to go all in on the booze and literally drown the cheeks in Marsala, and what do you know? All the dinner guests ended up with af smile on their faces. A cheeky one of…
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Not too hot for kids
When the weather turns cold, I like to eat something that’s a little hot and spicy to get the warmth back in my body. The problem is that my kids won’t eat anything hot and spicy, except this very mild version of the Indian dish murgh makhani or butter chicken as we Westerners like to call it. I only use the hot spices in this recipe in sparse amounts, and I use honey to soothe down the taste to accommodate the delicate taste buds of little ones, and yet there is still heat enough to get the internal fire going, but not enough to burn or scare off anyone. And…
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Creamy fish and lemon
Since Denmark is a country that basically consists of islands only connected to Germany in the south by the big peninsula Jutland, the tradition of eating a lot of fish for dinner should be a given. But actually I grew up in a home where we didn’t have fish for dinner at all (except the 2 times a year when my mom treated us to a piece of salmon). And chowder would have been a completely foreign word. It’s not that we didn’t eat fish, because I can’t remember a lunch at home that didn’t include pickled herring, but for dinner fish simply wasn’t an option. Now I love fish…
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Perfect side dish for BBQ
In my house we have 3 barbecues!! You might think that we would never have the need for using all 3 at the same time, but we do. If we are making different dishes for a family gathering it is nice to have the option to cook at different temperatures and have room to cook more than one thing at the same time. While I am busy barbecuing, I don’t have time to make a complicated potato dish to go with the meat or sausages. That is why it’s necessary to have a potato side dish that I can make ahead and that goes perfectly with almost anything with the…
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Pan + cakes + lemon = Best pancakes ever
So you thought you already knew the best recipe for pancakes? I can tell you now, you don’t. Unless, that is, you’ve ever swung by my mom’s house in Denmark and nicked her recipe. These pancakes not only look, smell and taste heavenly, they also have a medicinal effect. I figured this since every time I can remember having bumped my knee or fallen off the bike as a kid, my mom’s pancakes would make all pain go away. You might argue that this is not sufficient evidence to claim that a pancake has healing powers, but it works on my own kids too. I usually serve these flat delights…
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Sweet and sour!
Every Sunday my family and I go to my parents house to eat Sunday dinner and catch up on what’s happened during the week. My mom makes traditional Danish dishes that are almost always accompanied by this side dish. It goes well with a wide variety of dishes from roast to ‘smoerebroed’ (traditional Danish rye bread open sandwiches). I actually can’t remember the last time she didn’t make these sweet and sour cucumber goodies. But beware!!! Once you tasted them you won’t make a sandwich without them again. Pickled cucumber salad – Danish style (Agurkesalat) Ingredients 1 cucumber sliced as thinly as you possibly can 1/2 cup (100 ml) distilled…
