On the grill

Saw a recipe in a women's magazine for grilled tortilla wraps that I had to try out and I loved them. As always I 'tweaked' it a little to adapt to what I had in my fridge. Ingredients for 4 wraps:

tortilla bread
1 avocado
half a red onion
mozzarella cheese
grated cheese
mache lettuce or rocket/ruccola
cherry tomatoes
fresh basil leaves
lemon or lime juice
salt and black pepppar

Chop all the ingredients and lay them on the tortilla. Sprinkle with lemon/lime juice and season with salt and pepper.



You may want to put a little less filling in them than I did!



Roll them and secure with a couple of toothpicks and lay them on the barbecue for a few minutes each side until browned. Keep an eye on them though, as they don't take long.

The mozzarella melts and becomes lovely and gooey.....

Alice's Birthday Bash Spread

My little Alice turned 15 last week and what better way to celebrate than with cake. There was lots of it too as we couldn't quite make the choice of what to make, so we made them all. Triple layer chocolate and raspberry cake with chocolate fudge frosting, blackberry and strawberry pavlova and Alice's speciality - cupcakes.

The chocolate fudge frosting was especially nice and I am writing down the recipe below in order to be able to find it here in the future:

50g butter
200g dark chocolate
3 tbsps double cream
half a standard tub of philadelphia

Melt the chocolate and butter together by stirring slowly over a double boiler of simmering water. When completely melted stir in the cream and then the philadelpia and stir in thoroughly. It's good to soften up and stir the cream cheese first before adding it to the choc mix. Allow to cool slightly - but not set - before spreading out on the cake.

These cakes aren't edible although they look yummy - they're made of felt and I ordered them from an Etsy seller. Hoping to do a tea-party themed jewelry display with them in the future.

June glorious June

Is there anything better than these lovely Swedish summer days? It is just after midsummer here and the evening light is gorgeous. This photo was taken on my veranda at 8.30pm this evening and it was still 27 degrees. The barbeque and rosé wine added perfectly to the atmosphere. Cheers to many more similar evenings......

Yum

A couple of weeks back I got take part in a Buzzador campaign and had some free and delicious parmesan cheese from Zeta delivered to my door. Later that very same day, my neighbour Lotta came by with about a kilo of wild mushrooms - trattkantareller in Swedish - so I made up a new recipe, mushroom and bacon parmesan-topped toasties....


...as Alice doesn't like mushrooms I got to eat them both myself :D

The Cake Barn

Well, Garnheim's Bed & Breakfast (aka. my house) has officially closed its doors for the season after a month of guests, mainly family over from England. We have had lots of fun and eaten LOTS of cake.

The cause of this cake gluttony is several visits to "The Cake Barn" as we have dubbed it - or "Lustfyllt" which is its Swedish title, a beautiful converted barn with an all-you-can-eat cake buffet.

If you happen to be visiting Habo (18km north of Jönköping on road 195) then this is the place to go. There are also many antiquey bits and bobs for sale, as well as the owner's pottery. A lot of thought seems to have gone into this concept as every corner is like a scene from an interior design magazine. Judge for yourself from the pics I took.......

Customer Service Part 1

Several people I've talked to seem to think that it's really expensive to eat in London. I disagree. The secret is to leave Swedish eating habits behind (like eating a big meal at midday during the week) and adopt British ones. Buy sandwiches from Boots and eat them in St. James Park, and instead have a main meal between 5 - 7pm when many restaurants have specials on.

I'm going to give a shout out to 2 places I really like in London. The first is Bistro 1 in Covent Garden where the prices are great for such a central touristy location - 2 courses in the evening for just under £10. It's a small restaurant, with a homely atmosphere, serving simple, hearty food. They even have another couple of restaurants in other central London spots. Check them out here.


The second place I have to mention is the Brick Lane Brasserie House of Spice (Brick Lane is the mecca for Indian Food in London) who win my Customer Service Award 2009 ;). We'd just done the spooky Jack the Ripper walk and I was feeling peckish and fancied taking a curry back with me to the hotel, as no one else in the family wanted to eat. This particular restaurant was pretty full, while many of the others were practically empty. Not only did the owner do me a special half portion (to suit my student budget) but actually gave me some of his silverwear to take with me, as he didn't have any plastic forks. He gave the kids little chocolates to eat while we were waiting for the food and even put in some free poppadoms for them. When we then asked for directions to the nearest tube station he came out into the street with us to direct us, even though he was pretty busy.

That's what I call great customer service folks :)

Appley-cinnamony comfort food

I have been home for the last few days looking after A who has come down with a bout of the flu. So, in an effort to keep cabin fever at bay, I decided to get out a stash of recipes I've been wanting to try out. When I was a kid myself, I remember ice cream being the only thing I really felt like when I was under the weather.

This was pretty simple to do. It's basically apple slices fried in butter (yes!) for a few minutes each side. I then sprinkled about 2 tbsps of brown sugar over them in the pan, added the chopped zest and juice of half a lemon and a sprinkle of cinnamon. The apples caramelize in a minute or two, ready to be served warm with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.