what a wonderful day

it has been a rather awesome day indeed. with ingredients such as great news, interesting information, sunshine and a simply marvellous, perfect, warm late summer evening - love the sound of crickets! - giggles and laughters, brilliant thinking, prime conversation and a fancy rawfood dinner.

it was the best of days.
a treasured one.
thank you the last week of summer,
so far you have in some aspects truly surpassed my expectations,
let's continue on this beaming path.

follow your passion

"Follow your passion" may be a cliché, but surprisingly many clichés stem from undeniable truths. Truths that we not always feel comfortable to embrace and acknowledge, truths that are not always easy to live by in a society like ours.

Nevertheless I truly believe that to live by your passion, to engage in things you believe in, things that matters, whether it be job, personal life, hobbies is one of the most important things we can do in life.

I wish everyone's circumstances would allow them to follow their passions, have the time and opportunities to seek them out, alas that isn't so. But for all of us who have the chance to do so, I think we owe that to ourselves and the world to do just that.

If you work and live with passion, you'll do a much better job, live a much richer life. And inspire others to do so too. And in doing so making the world a dash happier, better world to be in. I do believe passion is an infectious thing of the best kind.

Another kind of wonderful passion - a more tangible, edible sort - is of course passionfruit. This simple dessert is just delightful, quite the perfect treat.

~ Half a peeled, sliced and diced galia melon
~ One passionfruit
~ A few scoops of ice cream (in this case the vegan Tofuline vanilla)

A small first step to live a more passionate life, perhaps?



Have a passionate weekend ~

goodbye weekend ~

This weekend's most dominant ingredients have been great food and inspiring meetings, with a bit of work thrown in, walks and thoughts. Plus the weather hasn't been too shabby, bit of sun, bit of rain, bit windy and perfect temperatures. An overall rather grand weekend I'd say.

And a rather grand kind of weekend of course has to be followed by a grand week, right? Right.

In case you're wondering, no I didn't match the nailpolish (Essie turquoise & caicos) with the sweater du jour. Promise. But I love how colour matching constantly, as if by magic, happens in my life. Colours really are one of my greatest sources of inspiration, they have such impact on mood and perception.

And in case you happen to wonder what the best thing I had to eat today was - it really has been a food fabulous weekend - it was this raw food blueberry cheesecake (in the company of good people). It was quite awesome. Very blueberry, very nutty and not too sweet.

Just like colours, good, green food makes me really happy and inspired. As do bobbaloos.



Have a wonderful, inspired week with some sprinkle of magic!

lady bug landing strip

colourful little moments in a sunny copenhagen on a day which also held a pretty tunic, excessive walking, a rather disappointing vegan raw food dinner at a hyped place.

and acting landing strip for a ladybug. twice. surely that must be a lucky sign?

three sweet things

It's been such a long time since I baked, but inspired by the sweet cakes bakebook I've managed to throw together not only one or two but three sweet treats recently. And let me tell you, they all turned out fabulously well taste- and texturewise. And one really very pretty to look at.



First out was saffron applecake - made it because I had old apples to use up and a gang of saffron bags hanging out since Christmas. I used less butter and sugar than the recipe called for and almond milk, beautiful, moist, dense and rich, with apples and saffron in perfect harmony, neither overpowering the other.



Inspected and paw approved by Ztina.



Then there was the french applecake/pie - made with almond paste and tart apples. Not a huge fan of almond paste but I thought I'd give it a go (more apples needed using up). I am so glad I did. Not as pretty as the saffron applecake  but absolutely delicious, melt-in-your-moth so, not at all too sweet or rich as I had thought. Served with some vegan vanilla ice-cream it was indeed a spoonful of heaven.



Inspected, paw AND bobbaloo approved.



And last, but not least, one of my favourite treats at Café Tant Gredelin, the berry tart with white chocolate and almonds. It turned out so very, very well, sweet and sour, crispy and moist, lovely served with custard.

The pies were to hot to be thoroughly inspected by the usual inspectors, but at least the pretty portion sized pie tins were tried out and approved by colour matching bobbaloos.



Have you baked something really nice recently?

liquorice pannacotta

i think pannacotta is a delightful dessert, but tend to stay away from it since stupid people often make it with non-vegetarian gelatine (to ruin a dessert with that when there are more than decent vegetarian options, like agar agar, mindblowing...).

here's an easy peasy recipe for a vegetarian one, three ingredients only. it was the first time i tried jelly sugar, it worked very well. hopefully you can find the equivalent in a non-swedish supermarket too.


l i q u o r i c e      p a n n a c o t t a

3-4 servings

0,75 dl jelly sugar (gelésocker)
3 dl cream
1,5 - 2 tbsp liquorice powder

whip the ingredients together in a pot. slowly let to a boil. boil for 30 seconds then pour into small serving pots/glasses. put into fridge for 1-2 hours before serving.

it's a delicious dessert, but also very rich so even if it seems like very small portions it will be perfect. promise.

passionfruit or raspberry sauce on top might be a nice compliment to the rich liquorice flavour.

red christmas glimpses

possibly the happiest cat in the whole wide world hopes that you've had a lovely three days.



a bowl of ris á la malta (creamy rice, classic swedish dessert served at christmas. my only xmas must-food alongside, but not served together obviously, beetroot salad) with a dollop of raspberry jam.



glittery red/navy nails (essie midnight cami + opi gettin' miss piggy with it).



formerly known as possibly the happiest cat in the whole wide world now little miss nosy redhead sniffing out candy.

red pig bowl is of course the only pig happy to be on christmas table.

yelp elite icecream testing - 18 smaker

18 smaker - 18 flavours - is my favourite place for icecream in stockholm. i'm not an icecream gal in general - especially not now when i shy away from dairy products - but this is really lovely, fresh, organic, no additives and not too sweet. plus they have plenty of sorbets and vegan icecreams too.

it's a hole-in-the-wall kind of place and they always serve 18 flavours, which change all the time so you can't be sure if your favourites are there when you pop by. but you'll always find a new one. or two. one of my top favourites is saffron icecream. fantastic flavour, perky and fresh.

this evening a few of us stockholm yelp elites and friends had a really nice icecream testing. a spoonful of 18 flavours, my five favourites where; blueberry cheesecake, soy chocolate, polka, banana and green apple sorbet.

least enjoy where yoghurt icecream with mint and lime, champagne sorbet and pecan maple syrup (too sweet).

when the broadband see fit to work again i'll complete the yelp review. and tweak this post. but for now, in english, this is a place you really shouldn't miss! and yes, i was surprised and happy about the delishness of the vegan icecreams. do try!

summer in a bowl

fresh strawberries teamed up with elderflower sorbet, mango sorbet and blueberry tofu icecream. delightful to look at, delightful to devour. summer in a bowl indeed.

bonus information; the ice cream scoop from zyliss has been on my wishlist for so long, finally i found the pink one i wanted. and really, its features for scooping up icecreams and sorbets are just... perfectly delightful!

raw chocolate icecream

I've had leftover bananas in the freezer for a while and making a smoothie again or bake a cake felt... boring. So I was very pleased when I found this recipe for almost raw vegan icecream (in Swedish) the other day. Only three ingredients, which certainly added to the awesomeness.

Not a great fan of soy milk I went with coconut milk instead (which made it raw icecream for sure) and it turned out... delicious! So simple, so healthy, so creamy, so satisfying and so dairy free, in other words, so many wins. Even if it's not as photo-pleasing to the eye it looks alright 'live' and the flavour way surpass the 'alright' judgement.

As I don't care about the rawness I served it with warm cherries - which of course added some extra delight - I imagine warm raspberries would be wonderful too.


R a w   c h o c o l a t e   i c e c r e a m
2-3 portions

2-3 frozen overripe bananas 
2-3 tbsp raw cacao
a dash of coconut milk

1. Either you a) peel and slice the bananas, put them in the freezer for a while or you b) take the frozen unpeeled bananas from the freezer, thaw them a bit under running, warm water and then slice them.

2. However you decide to do, the frozen slices should then be put in a blender along with the raw cacao - I used the nibs from the other day - add dashes of coconut milk while blending until you get a nice consistency.
 
Serve immediately.

The nibs weren't completely absorbed in the icrecream but instead they turned into crunchy little bits like crushed chocolate bars. Lovely.

I did re-freeze the icecream leftovers - for some reason there were leftovers - and it tasted okay, but more like sorbet, I'm thinking another whizz in the blender would make it as good as new again.

So ticked of the week-list are now also:
# make raw icecream
# another day without snow
# embroidering of socks (or at least they will be before I'm allowed to go to bed)

crunchy red currant cake

This may be a pie of sorts, this may be a cake, whatever it is it turned out delicious (and that's all that bobbaloos and me alike care about) with a perfect levelling between sweet and sour. I'm not a fan of red currants in general - the reasons for that are probably a blend of too many hours picking them shrubs at our summer house when a child (for a measly monetary compensation, that has left me scarred for life I fear) and too sour, sharp, unpleasant flavour for my palate -

but I had a couple of boxes of them in the freezer (playing in a very similar league to those vintage cherries) and I wanted to use them for something edible, something nice. Something summery. Hence this cake-pie-thing. I'm in the mood for a recipe, here goes;

Crunchy red currant cake


Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

4,5 dl white flour
1 dl caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
150 g liquid butter/oil
1 egg

Mix well together and then spread the mixture in a roasting pan of approx. 20 x 30 cm (200 x 300 mm) size.

4-5 dl red currants (it works well to mix with other berries, raspberries for example)
1,5 dl caster sugar (you might want a bit more or a bit less)

Blend carefully together. Then spread the red currants over the mixture in the pan.

3 dl rolled oats
1,5 dl caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
4 tsp cinnamon
100 g melted butter/oil

Melt the liquid butter/oil. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well together. Then spread on top of the red currants (it won't cover the berries completely but let them simmer).

Bake for about 20 minutes. Let the cake cool. Then cut into serving pieces (which also freeze well). Even more enjoyable served with whipped cream (or ice cream).

crispy apple bundles

Today I thought I'd share a really easy recipe-ish for the sweet tooth. Whether it'll become a vegan or vegetarian dessert depends on what kind of ice-cream you decide to serve it with, the bundles/wraps themselves are, if you chose sunflower oil only, vegan.

The measurements aren't at all specific - I'm all for non-specific recipes which you can tweak to meet your own flavour preferences -, but it's so so easy to make so just as long as you use a generous amount of grated apples it'll turn out great.

The packages with phyllo dough I've found in Sweden, so far, are of a ridiculous large size. The dough is brittle (you can't divide it before thawing) and since there's no way I can use it all up I have been giving it to the hungry beings in the forest who have had a difficult winter (which I suppose is a great way to use it up anyway).

I use about 1/4 of that large sized phyllo dough roll and 1,5 apple per portion. Definitely a dessert that should be made, served and eaten on the same day.

Apple bundles

frozen phyllo dough
~1,5 coarsely grated apple per portion
liquid butter/oil (what I always use, but with a dollop of sunflower oil it'll be vegan)
cinnamon, cardamom
caster sugar
if you like;
sunflower seeds, chopped nuts/almonds, raisins, grated almond paste

for serving: ice cream

Thaw the phyllo dough well before baking.

Put oven on the temperature specified on package. Peel and coarsely grate the apples. Put the amount of phyllo dough you want on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Brush with a little butter/oil. Portion the grated apples in a string on the dough. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon/cardamom and a tad sugar.

If you want, sprinkle with sunflower seeds, chopped nuts, almonds, raisins. I'm thinking a small amount of grated almond paste on top would be nice too.

Roll into a roll-up. Brush the roll-up with a little butter/oil. Sprinkle with tad caster sugar. Bake in oven until golden.

Let cool a bit. Cut into portion sizes. Serve with ice-cream.

princess cakes galore

The classic Swedish cake "prinsesstårta", princess cake (cream cake with topping, green one with pink rose being the original) amigurumi style. I have to say I am quite quite pleased with end result. They're all super sweet, in many flavours, in many colours.

I mean, for the love of colours,
why have only green ones (though pretty as they are)
when one can have...

a mandarin princess cake with a reversed-twin or...

go all the way pink, reversed-twins

(yes I totally adore the notion of that),

lavender and rose twins -

if one didn't think Valentine's Day is a complete

commercial hullabaloo than anything authentic

it would be a perfect li'l thing, I suppose -

and last, but not least, of course the classic green one
should have a reversed-twin.

Next I'm thinking it would be nice with a blueberry cake, a lemon cake (which of course would become a really Swedish cake). And chocolate/mocha cakes (like the semla).

The more, the merrier, at least when it comes to (show bread) cakes. I'm thinking Alice in Wonderland-ish tea-partyesque. These were such a treat to make, such a treat to look at. True happy cakes. From start to finish. Heart.

Edit: they are now listed in Etsy-shop,

just for the fun of it
they're just too much work
for me being able to offer them
for those often incredibly
low Etsy-prices...

false cheesecake

Swedish cheesecake "ostkaka" is quite different from the American (?) version. Traditionally it's made by adding rennet to milk and letting it coagulate, then stir in cream, egg, almonds and bitter almonds. Serve with jam and whipped cream.

The consistency is rather loose, like rice pudding and it tastes really lovely, as a dessert or a naughty meal. Though I haven't had it for years since it's sadly not vegetarian. I'm sure you can recreate it as a vegetarian version, but I've never had a real inclination to try.

When I found a recipe for "falsk ostkaka" = false cheesecake at lovely Växplats Nybyn, I was very eager to try it out though. And so I did today. It turned out lovely. I tweaked the recipe - as I'm no fan of bitter almond, the other almond kind where nowhere to be found in cupboard and I always try to use oats milk in cooking and baking instead of regular milk - and this is what went into the false Swedish cheesecake -

serves 4-6

2 organic free range eggs
0,5 dl caster sugar
2 tbsp white flour
2,5 dl oats milk
500-550 g mashed fruit pulp
(like apple, banana, pumpkin, melon, kiwi, but there's really no limit but your imagination)
0,5-1 dl sunflower seeds

Whisk eggs and sugar. Stir in flour, milk and fruit mash. Add sunflower seeds. Pour in tin and bake in oven at 200C for ca 45 minutes.

Serve with raspberry/strawberry jam and whipped soy cream.

Apparently Sweden celebrates "Ostkakans dag" (Cheesecake day) on November 14. That I didn't now until now, but from here on, there'll be false cheesecake on the table that day.

courgette cake

Today is cake day. At least as far as this blog is concerned. This is one moist, delicious, simple, very healthy cake as it contains a whole lot of courgette. Yes indeed. Health for the soul, at least and that certainly is no mean feat. So grab a courgette and let's get baking. You need as follow;

1,5 L cake pan - grease and sprinkle with bread crumbs

3 free range eggs

1,5 dl caster sugar - whisk together until pale and fluffy

75 g butter/oil

2 tsp grated lemon or orange zest

2-3 dl roughly peeled and grated courgette

2 dl roughly grated almond paste - blend all this into the egg-sugar mix

2,5-3,5 dl wheat flour

1,5 tsp baking powder - mix this carefully into the rest of the batter

Bake the cake in the lower part of oven on 175 degrees C for about 45 minutes.

Let cool, then dust with icing sugar for a prettier cake.

Make a pot of tea, pour yourself a cup, slice a piece of warm courgette cake, eat, enjoy, be instantly merry ~

berlin eating

After my initial shock of being served a what should have been a completely vegetarian potato-soup but very obviously containing pieces of ham - at first German hotel we stayed at on our way down to Berlin, with a certain old East-German flair to it. When I pointed that out to the waitress she said sorry and that the kitchen would make another bowl. I then promptly got the bowl back with the kitchen saying there was no ham in it. Ridiculous. I guess those old meat-eating habits and behaviours die hard for some chefs... - I was quite pleased with the vegetarian options at many places for food in Berlin. (Even if I do find Germany certainly and sadly to be a very dead-pieces-of-animals-eating country. Well, maybe most of them are...)

The first day's golden breakfast was one of two exception to the rule of quick, cheap and easy breakfasts. The above bagel with cream cheese and juice was the thing I enjoyed - very much so - most mornings. M popped out by himself, let me sleep some more, and snapped up some freshly baked and made bagels at the next doorish bakery. Bliss.

I enjoyed the VegOut app in the iPhone too. Few glitches but overall a practical thing to have when in out and about not in hometown. We went to two vegan/vegetarian only restaurants and loved them both. Affordable and good no-fuss kind of food. There are quite a few veggie places in Berlin I'd like to visit, but limited time, limited hunger and spread in a vast area put a stop to that. This time.

The vegetarian-vegan-vegetarian friendly places that can be found in VegOut are also available to browse online in the HappyCow, compassionate eating guide. Well worth a look when travelling as a vegetarian-vegan.

Here follow a selection of vegetarian food enjoyed when in Berlin. The drinks will have their very own post, because that they do deserve ~

This ricotta-spinach tortelloni with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and basil pesto at Reinhard's at Kurfürstendamm was quite probably the best dinner I had in Berlin. Perfect flavours, seasoning, textures, portion and pretty to look at too. Quite a bit on the pricey side compared to the other meals we had (and incredibly slow service). I guess the price reflected the posh location.

At darling Café im Literaturhaus we so enjoyed a warm evening dinner - I really could go on and on and on how much I adore that place, so I feel a post of the milieu and surroundings coming up... - summer vegetables risotto with shaved mushrooms (with a presentation that left a lot to be desired). Not spectacular, but creamy, nice and a perfect portion.

The dessert was quite quite lovely though, a warm pancake stuffed with cherries served with cardamom parfait.

The tofu steaks in peanut sauce served with beetroots, rice and cucumber at vegan restaurant Hans Wurst (that was on my must-visit-list) were nice, but I found all that peanut sauce too rich and the dish could certainly have been more pleasingly presented. And I would have liked a fresh side salad.

Non-vegetarian M did enjoy his tofu burger with deliciously prepared potato wedges and greens. (I sampled a dollop of the ketchup, it tasted homemade and lovely.)

We shared an apple-and-something cake for dessert. It was quite lovely, moist and perfectly delish (with no strange tang like my first attempt on a vegan cake).

We did return for lunch another day. Then we had vegan pizzas, M chose the one with spicy fake chicken (tofu) - one thing I really can't understand is the way some like to imitate the flavours and textures of meat, because isn't that one very essential thing one like to get away from when one turns vegetarian or vegan? - which he enjoyed and...

I had one with portobello mushrooms. Which was nice but a bit on the greasy side for my taste. And again, a fresh side salad would have made a huge difference.

That said, the online menu and the photos of dishes look quite different from reality. I had somehow hoped for something more refined and in the style of David Bann in Edinburgh...

And yup, for once this holiday I chose another shoe per diem, that day I walked the streets of Berlin in my sunny shoes (it was a cloudy dash rainy day).

Another day we just popped in at a neighbourhood bakery when out sightseeing by car. It didn't look much in ways of offering something fantastic to eat, but this sunny looking plate that ended up in front of me (scrambled eggs with paprika, red onion, carrots, tomato) was actually surprisingly delicious and well-seasoned. But quite too much to finish.

At Yellow Sunshine fast food-take out vegetarian/vegan place M opted for a veggie burger plate. Which he hugely enjoyed, he still raves about the fries which he claims to be the best he's ever had.

I chose a soy schnitzel, which came with fries and I'm happy to say a really nice, large side salad. The schnitzel was tad disappointing though, as it was exactly the same kind I have in my freezer and regularly prepare at home. But overall a really nice no-fuss meal of the fast food kind that one might enjoy now and then.

So there, some nutrition that kept us alive for walking the streets of Berlin, up and down, here and there, near and far. Next post - all about drinking of liquids.