It’s a hot and humid summer in Toronto. So easy, lazy, tasty dinners are in high demand in our house these days. I came up with the idea for these cauliflower steaks with grilled shrimp skewers and chimichurri last week when I needed a fast, healthy dinner that left me feel less guilty than devouring a beef steak with herb butter and fried potatoes. As some of you may know, I love using cauliflower when I cook. Not only does it taste amazing, it’s also a wonderful substitution for carbs. First time I came across the term ‘cauliflower steaks’, I must admit I thought it was a bit of an…
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Gravlax…gravad lax…gravet laks…gravlox…
Gravlax with dill. It can hardly get more Nordic. It’s a lunch classic throughout Scandinavia, but not surprisingly it has also become a popular delicacy around the world. It’s really very easy to make, and I promise you the homemade gravlax beats any good quality store bought gravlax you can find. It’s equally delicious for lunch and as a starter, or as an palatable buffet feature. The idea of preparing the fish in this manner goes back to the Middle Ages when fishermen in Scandinavia came up with this ingenious method for curing and fermenting salmon in order for it to keep longer yet still be fresh and edible while…
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Divinely decadent shrimp appetizer
Here is our second appetizer for our Roaring ‘20s Gatsby themed New Year’s dinner. We started out with oysters, or what we called Roaring Rockefeller oysters, and we thought that a natural next step is a fresh little bite with shrimp and herb cream with a touch of lemon and watercress. We recommend you use a very small type of shrimp, as we thought this would be one in a row of appetizers, and small shrimp will make this dish look very elegant and delicate. North Atlantic shrimp are great, or maybe you can even get your hands on a batch of Danish ‘fjordrejer’ (frozen as the fresh ones are…
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Killer soup? Well, it is Halloween
It’s beginning to look a lot like Halloween out there! I’m getting ready with my Halloween menu and thought we might warm up with this creamy pumpkin soup with scallops. In my book, this is a real killer soup: creamy, sweet, spicy with a hint of citrus, garlic and finished off elegantly with pan-seared scallops. What is not to like? Serve it before or after you go out there trick or treating with the little ones, either way it will surely make you feel warm and guard you against the chill. Without a doubt the chili and garlic will keep any monsters or vampires that might be lurking out there…
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Lobster, cream, cognac, pasta…I’m in!
This lobster pasta with cognac cream sauce is somewhat extravagant, I admit. But if you can get you hands on lobster without breaking the bank, or in the unlikely event that you should happen to have lobster leftovers, you owe it to yourself to try this dish. It basically contains pure goodness, if you ask me: lobster, cream, cognac, ripe cherry tomatoes, pasta and of course a generous sprinkle of good Parmesan cheese on top. Really, what’s not to like? You can of course go all in and buy a couple of whole fresh lobsters and boil them yourself. But since I’m a chicken when it comes to staring a…
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Summer veggie curry
In our house we use a lot of curry in our cooking. Of course we do so because we really like curry, but also because it’s very easy to adjust the level of spiciness when using curry so it appeals to younger palates as well. One of our boys’ favorite dishes is chicken curry, which was something that was introduced to our eldest son back in kindergarten by one of his more progressive teachers. He was suspicious at first, like all 4-year-olds tend to be, but he soon grew to love it. It just goes to show that kids should not be shielded from trying new, and to them very…
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Lobster galore
The first time we made this lobster starter was for New Year’s, and it immediately became one of our lobster favorites. When Karen-Anne and I were planning our New Year’s dinner, as we always do weeks in advance, we’d already decided we were going to make something with lobster. Actually, we always make something with lobster when Karen-Anne visits. (When your friends voluntarily decide to cram themselves into a plane for eight hours just to visit you, they really deserve to be fed well!) Lobster is so elegant, festive and somewhat extravagant, but one of the perks of living in the northern part of North America is that lobster is…
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Zesty smoked salmon
Are you ready for spring? I know it’s only February, but I can’t wait for the sun to start warming up my patio and defrost my bones! I’ve already got the patio furniture lined up, and the rosé is in the fridge, so I thought I might just give it another notch with this savory zesty smoked salmon appetizer, or lunch if you like. Maybe it’s because I’m Scandinavian, but I could easily eat smoked salmon every day. It’s no secret that Scandinavians have had a particular liking for raw and raw cured fish since the Vikings, and some even claim that it was the Norwegians who introduced raw…
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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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Cod by a Frenchman
Last week my oldest friend from Denmark came to visit me in Toronto, and I was excited to show her around and had just bought a great book about strolls in Toronto. To me walking through neighborhoods in a city is the best way really to get a feel of the diversity a city has to offer. I guess it’s a bit as with food, you have to smell it to really know it and enjoy it. When we got home from one of our walks, we were tired in that pleasant way where you are ready for a nice glass of wine and comfort food. None of us, however,…
