We´re getting a new couch today and the living room looks like an empty battlefield now. I used to work with autistic people years ago and I must be a bit like them ´cause whenever things out of place I get into a bad mood. So before working out the courage to take Sam for a walk and then start on today´s fish soup, I let myself dream a bit on Pinterest.
1. Winter stew. I can almost smell it! 😉
These days have been slow and good for the soul. I´ve been cooking, decluttering and selling a few items on the internet, walking Sammy and dreaming of sunny holidays.
Friday I only worked for a few hours and it proved to be a lot of fun, we were several interpreters waiting for an hour or two in the Court House lobby and had a blast discussing beginner´s errors and such. Later on I had some drinks with a friend at Café Amsterdam, discussing professional pitfalls (how you can avoid laughing when the situation is soooo comic), Norwegian-born husbands and Romanian inhibitions. I wrapped up the day with Mr Selfridge on Netflix. I love that series! 😉
Saturday we went for a never-ending hike (6km) in the snow with Sam, part of it on the ski-lane (no fun), but it was so beautiful it almost hurt my eyes! Istagram doesn´t do it justice, I´ll give it a try anyway. We walked and walked and it felt we´d never get there. In the end it was so foggy we couldn´t see more than a meter in front of us, so we had to ask hundreds of times for Frognerseteren, where we had dinner and a beer. 😉 Tired and beat, we took a nap before some friends came over and we had some laughs over take-away pizza and Prosecco.
I´ve been making focaccia for a while with the occasional tapas, but it was never the real deal until I checked out this recipe. For my Norwegian followers I recommend this blog: www.frumaela.no
For my English-speaking readers here it goes:
1kg flour
1 small bag of dried yeast
2 spoons of honey
1-2 spoons of sugar
1-2 spoons of salt
7-9 dl finger-warm water
It´s important to sift the flour and the yeast twice, so the dough gets more fluffy.
Assuming that you´ve baked before, I go straight ahead. You make the dough, you put it on the washing machine and wash some clothes while you´re at it, close the door so the cat doesn´t get curious and then leave it for an hour to rise.
Meanwhile mix some olive oil with rosemary, oregano, thyme and basil. You can also chop some sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese or olives if you´d like the focaccia to be more consistent. Have a glass of Prosecco for the best result!;-)
Before putting it in the oven, make some pits with your fingers and pour in the olive oil and herbs. If you add some tomatoes, olives or cheese, be sure to stick them into the dough. Cut the foccacia then into square chunks. Use a sheet of baking paper under and let the dough rest a while. Bake at 220 degrees C for 15 minutes, then take it out and let it rest for 15 min again. Voilà!
Happy New Year! We started ours with a terrible head-ache and nausea, so we slept most of it away. Today, however, was more productive. 😉 I started working and came home with fresh flowers and eucalyptus branches whereas Vuong had a day off and spent it on tidying up. We threw out the Christmas tree and packed away the decorations, prepared the left-over lobster and the duck breast and now we´re snuggling on the couch ready for “The Suits”.
But let me tell you more about our New Year´s Eve party, which was awesome, loud and long, as a real party should be. Melissa, our friend who organized it, gathered 15 cool people under her roof, made enough food to feed an army and was simply the coolest and most glamorous host I´ve ever seen! And I mean it, since I´m pretty good at hosting, myself, so I don´t go around boasting about other people. 😉 haha!
One of my classic take-to gifts in December is home-made sugar-coated almonds. I also make them for ourselves,of course, as well as to spoil whoever visits us during the holidays. The recipe is easy, the secret lies in stirring. And we usually do it together, so that my husband can take over when my arm starts hurting. 😉
I hope you had a lovely Christmas Eve and that Santa was good to all of you out there. We had an amazing day, ate a lot of wonderful food and got cuddles galore from our pets. We had a walk after our nap and although “only” minus 5, it was freezing cold out there! Luckily we could slide on a frozen lake for a bit of fun and Sammy was in heaven!
For dinner we had lobster mayo (and no, I didn´t kill the poor thing myself, it came already boiled!), duck breast with Brussel sprouts, orange sauce, my famous mashed potatoes and a quick chocolate mousse for desert. We never got around to the desert, way too stuffed by then! I´ll be sure to post a couple of posts on Christmas food the coming days.
I´m starting to get old- if I´m too active in the weekends, I need an extra day off. 😉 This weekend was particularly rough: drinks and dinner with an awesome couple from Australia on Friday evening, Christmas market with Sammy and friends, dinner at friends´house later on and an unplanned party at our house and that was just Saturday. Yesterday we had pancake breakfast with our other friends who stayed the night, did some washing up afterwards and saw the Hobbit at the cinema in the afternoon. So today I was dead: When the alarm rang I thought it must be Sunday morning! Fortunately there isn´t lots to do at work this time of the year, so I was able to cut myself some slack and take Sammy to the woods. 😉 It´s been so dark lately anyway and I haven´t felt like getting out of the house, so the streak of sunshine I could spot made me feel besides myself with joy! And because we were in luck, we got a friend to meet us at Frogneseteren, the restaurant on top of the mountain. I and Sammy took the subway half the way and walked the rest. I had cream porridge and Christmas soda, my friend had a Danish and we both walked back with our lattes. 😉 I fell on the ice and almost chipped the camera, but the latte only spilled a bit. 😉 haha! Enjoy the pictures!
There are many types of thai laksa and I´m by no means any expert. Back when I started cooking for real, 12 years ago, I used to follow a recipe to the letter. Now I find myself more and more just opening the fridge putting together something out of the ingredients I already have. This one comes as a middle ground. I usually have coconut milk and some veggies, maybe even some cilantro and lime, if I´m in luck, so I mainly need to buy the fish and some extra fennel or sugar snaps. It only takes 15-20 minutes to make and it´s yummy!
This is one of my holiday speciality, I usually bake them for Christmas and every once in a while for Easter. I stumbled upon the recipe in a Danish food and lifestyle magazine- Mad og bolig – some years ago, and I´ve been making them ever since. It´s like it usually is with biscotti, you either love them, or you can´t get what the fuss is about. My family and some of my Romanian friends find them hard to chew, luckily many other friends usually lick their fingers. 😉 My husband´s ex-boss used to like them so much she “ordered” them one December as nibbling snacks for the shop´s employees.
Goulash is probably the most Hungarian dish there is. And because it´s served all over the world, I haven´t eaten the same goulash in two places, I swear! In Romania it´s common in Transylvania, as well as in families with Hungarian ties. It might very well be on other people´s menu as well, but in the south, where I´m from, people would rather make lasagna than try something traditional from other parts of the country. I myself had it for the first time in Budapest, many years ago. There it was a thin, soup-like thing, but they served study portions, so it filled student bellies well. Later on I ate it at my aunt´s, she´s a Hungarian born in Norway and was married to my uncle for many years. She makes it with dumplings and it was about the best thing I´d ever tasted! We love pot roast type of dinners, from ratatouille to chili con carne, so we had to make it ourselves at one point.
Stories and Anecdotes by Sharron Little Burnett
Created with sugar and love
Because it is all about sharing moments and creating memories
My Recipe Vault
My Coronavirus Diaries
Matblogg med mine favoritter og noen eksperimenter
bleib ruhig hier
In the end,we'll all become stories. Write and live a good one.
I sell ideas, not photos
lifestyle blog
Architect
constantly searching for my next adventure
life in a bubble 