Julie’s Kitchen

Make a delicious soup out of this!

“The soup was great, Mamma.” “Yeah, 5 out of 5.” ” Don’t give any of the leftovers to the dog – save it for us.”

When you’ve got a family that frequently takes your cooking for granted coming up with comments like this, you have to stop and think about what you’ve just produced. The recipe has to be shared with other people!

I wish I could say that I picked this bag of golden chantarelle mushrooms but I did not. They came from the overflowing open boxes of chantarelles available in supermarkets in Sweden right now. We had already started our mushroom season in the kitchen earlier in August with some sauteed mushrooms on toast.  These were from our forest and when you just cannot wait to eat them this is the best way. See Best and Basic Wild Mushroom Recipe in this blog.

However, a nip has come into the air and I caught the customary first sniffle of the season last week, so it felt like soup time. I don’t like overloading my mushroom soups with high fat creams, butter and bacon drippings as many do in these parts. However, a little creaminess is definitely in order and so here is what I came up with that seems to have left everyone feeling that this was a very special dinner without the formality.

Creamy Chantarelle Soup
Serves 4

1 liter or 1 quart chantarelle mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 liter or 1 quart water
1/2 liter or 1/2 quart white wine
1 bay leaf
Soy or oat milk
2 dl or 1/2 cup creme fraiche
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of sugar

Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil for two minutes in a soup pot. Add the mushrooms. Saute for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and sprinkle over the flour. Return to the heat and gradually add the water, stirring so that the flour blends in. Add white wine and bay leaf. Season generously with salt and pepper and add a pinch of sugar. Cover and allow to simmer for 20 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally. If the soup has become too thick during the cooking period, add soy milk or oat milk  to the desired consistency. Remove bay leaf. Gently beat the creme fraiche into the soup over heat. Check seasoning. Heat the soup for 5 minutes.

Smoked salmon, ground elder, a squirt of lemon and a dash of pepper. Don't be afraid to experiment!

I’ve stopped fighting the weeds. In fact, at an event I arranged yesterday I decided to use them to the full. And what a delightful range of taste surprises they delivered! Some types of edible weeds bring back long-forgotten flavors (if they are edible they will have been eaten by someone sometime!) which our frequently tame-tasting greens such as spinach and iceberg lettuce cannot deliver.

Anyone who reads my island blog knows by now that my garden is home to a flourishing colony of bishop’s goutweed (or ground elder). My elderly neighbor who is a devoted gardener sings its praises as an alternative to cooked spinach. However, as I picked a leaf and chewed for a while, I became interested in the delightful qualities of this zesty, juicy leaf uncooked. The thought of throwing it into the blender to make a pesto struck me and soon I was dipping my carrot sticks into an absolutely fabulous bowl of ground elder pesto. At my event, the guests, many of whom fight ground elder in their gardens too, were at first aghast that I could consider serving this up as food but after tasting wanted my recipe. Here it is.

Ground Elder Pesto

9.5 dl or 4 cups ground elder, rinsed and stalks removed
2.6 dl or 1 cup parmesan or Västerbotten cheese
1 dl or 1/2 cup olive oil
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Blend all ingredients in a food processor and serve as a dip for crisp bread or cut vegetables.

On the same day as I created this recipe I also noticed that the nettles had grown to giant size in the fertile soil just outside my garage. I clipped them down and placed them in my prettiest basket. Clipped nettles can make your fingers burn but their smell is divine and awakens that wonderful feeling of summer and soft grass. I needed a creamy alternative to the pesto and so cleaned out my blender and combined the nettle with a bit of cream cheese. The result provided a perfect balance to the other dip. I also dolloped this cream cheese mixture onto small rounds of dark bread to serve with drinks. Very good indeed.

Nettle cream cheese bites on dark bread rounds

Nettle Cream Cheese Dip

9.5 dl or 4 cups fresh nettle, rinsed and stalks removed
600 g or 21 oz light cream cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Blanch the nettles in a bit of boiling water so that they soften and the sting goes away. Drain and allow to cool. Squeeze as much liquid out of the nettles as possible and form a ball out of them. Chop into pieces and throw into the blender with the cream cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Use as a dip or a topping for bite-size open sandwiches.

So, what’s so Scandinavian about using weeds in the kitchen? There is an old saying in the Scandinavian kitchen coined by its first cookbook writer Cajsa Warg (1703-69) which says, “one takes what one has.” I’m taking what I have. Why don’t you try it too.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Not all weeds are edible. Please do your research before experimenting and ingesting!

Still working on using up last season's carrots

We’re being asked to do so many things when it comes to food and diet these days. The new drive to combat obesity spear-headed by Michelle Obama in the United States is long overdue yet at the same time opens the floodgates for all sorts of new diets suggesting a host of rules and regulations about eating and food preparation. Today it is common knowledge that rigid diets do not serve us well over the long term. They might reduce weight for a time but they won’t do anything for us as the years go by. So what do we do?

At the same time as we are being urged to think about how to eat for healthier weight, we are also being asked to choose in relation to the environment, taking climate change, pesticide use and genetic modification into account. On top of all of this we should prioritize fair trade, meaning the purchase of food products which improve the working and living standards of producers in developing countries.

All of this seems a tall order. You could be forgiven for standing in your kitchen holding your head in your hands. It was with all of these various new demands in mind, the experience of winning over a food disorder and the strong desire to have a natural relationship to food that I came up with The Natural Eater system for thinking about food choices. On the concept page you can read about this values based idea for having a relationship to food that feels freeing and healthy rather than constraining and leading only to short-term health solutions.

With The Natural Eater system in mind, I’m freeing you up with a refreshing little recipe for using up whatever is left and creating a hearty meal out of it. One of the operating principles of The Natural Eater is that food is creativity. For this to be so, it’s important to have enough food preparation skills so that you can look into your fridge or pantry at any given time and prepare something good to eat. Limitation is the mother of invention if you have certain basic food preparation skills. The idea of using whatever is left also relates to another important Natural Eater value which is that food is solidarity with the planet and its peoples and therefore we do not waste it.

I opened my fridge at about 5 pm this weekend and found a few carrots, a carton of champignons, a bit of cottage cheese, a stick of mozarrella cheese and some remaining soured cream.  I had a few other odd ingredients around and wondered whether I should instead shoot off to the supermarket to reduce my thinking time. Then I thought of one of my favorite food programs shown on BBC television for years in which a well-known chef was asked to prepare a meal with a bag of inexpensive ingredients purchased by a regular everday person who would be their assistant. Using this program as my inspiration, I came up with the following:

Carrot & Champignon Lasagne (serves 8 persons)

1 package of lasagne sheets
6 carrots, peeled and grated
dried or fresh herb such as parsley, tarragon or nettle
1 box of champignons, rinsed and sliced
1 onion, sliced thinly
2 dl or 1 cup soured cream
2 dl or 1 cup cottage cheese
500 g or 1 lb mozarrella cheese
3 dl or 1.5 cups milk
canola or olive oil
salt & Pepper

Preheat the oven to 200 C or 390 F. Grease a rectangular pyrex (mine is 30 x 17 cm or 12 x 7 inches)and cover the base with lasagne sheets. Set aside. Prepare the lasagne fillings. Toss the grated carrot with 2-4 tablespoons of herb. I used dried nettle which you cannot find in shops but parsley, tarragon and a host of other dried or fresh herbs work just as well. Drizzle over a bit of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss. Set aside. Drizzle some olive oil into a pan and saute onions and garlic over medium heat for two minutes. Add the sliced champignon and saute for another two minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the heat. In a mixing bowl blend the cottage cheese, soured cream and milk. Season with salt and pepper. Slice the mozarrella thinly.

Assemble the lasagne. Spoon half the carrots onto the bottom lasagne sheets and cover with a new layer of pasta. Spoon half the mushrooms onto the new layer of lasagne sheets and cover with half of the milk mixture. Cover with another layer of lasagne sheets and repeat the layers once more, finishing once you have spooned over the rest of the milk mixture. Cover the surface of the lasagne with mozarella slices, season with salt and pepper and drizzle over oil. Bake for 20 minutes or until the lasagne sheets are soft and the mozarella is lightly browned. Serve with your favorite salad.

I thought the dish would last us for two days. It didn’t. We probably ate one too many portions, but at least you know that this recipe lives up to the taste test!

A real winner

Now you’ve been very patient, waiting for me to test that plum sauce and see whether it works with savory foods. The good news is that a) it does and it is superb and b) you get an extra recipe for plums which cropped up in the process!

I served the following plum sauce over pork served with braised apples and red cabbage, and boiled potatoes. My children couldn’t get enough of it which should give you the heads up. It has the advantage that it is much more health conscious compared to the better known plum sauce from Asian kitchens.

Savory Plum Sauce

1 liter or 1 quart plums, halved and pitted
3 dl or 1 1/3 cups dry white wine
2 tbsps apple cider vinegar
3 tbsps honey

Cook the plums covered on low heat in dry white wine and vinegar.  Once the plums are soft, allow to cool and press through a strainer. Place the plum liquid into a clean cooking pot and add honey. Allow to cook on low heat uncovered until the volume of the sauce has reduced by half.  Serve warm or cold over pork, potatoes or other.

Making the sauce didn’t exactly take care of the copious quantities of plums I had picked from my tree. I even needed a friend to help me pick them and suggested she take a basket home. We both came to the conclusion that the best thing to do in order to bottle this sunshine was to make some plum jam. This recipe is divine:

Bottled sunshine

Plum Jam with Lemon & Cinammon

1 liter or 1 quart plums, halved and pitted
500 grams or 1 lb sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
grated rind of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp natrium bensoate

Clean glass jars with tops for bottling

Combine all jam ingredients in a pot and blend with a wooden spoon, cover and cook over low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved and the jam is gently bubbling, remove from heat and skim away the ‘foam’ at the surface of the jam. Blend the natrium bensoate in a spoon or two of jam and add to the pot, blending thoroughly. Remove the cinnamon sticks. Pot the jam immediately.

We love them at nordicwellbeing.com!

My grandmother always used to say that most things that you prepare taste even better the next day if you rehash them a little bit. I guess she had to develop this approach having lived through two world wars. The thing is, I tend to agree with her. I don’t know whether it has to do with actual taste or just the satisfaction of not wasting food.

Who doesn’t have a sealed tub of leftover cooked pasta in their refrigerator? Please raise your hand. Aha! As I suspected, no one is raising their hand. As I had just pulled this year’s beets out of the ground in my kitchen garden yet didn’t feel like spending too much time cooking, I decided to put two and two together and came up with this little number that is just superb. I know you must think that we are beet-lovers at nordicwellbeing.com (yes we are! see our Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook).

Beet Pasta
(per person to be served)

50-100 g or 2-3 oz leftover cooked pasta or cook up some new
2 medium beets, cooked*
30g  or 1 oz. Goat’s cheese: feta or chevre
2-3 tbsps roughly chopped hazelnuts
Olive oil for drizzling
Salt/Pepper

Place the pasta in a microwave-proof bowl. Chop beets into bite-size wedges and add to the pasta without blending. Crumble over goat’s cheese and add hazelnuts. Cover and heat in the microwave until warm (1-2 minutes on maximum). Drizzle over the olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss. Enjoy with a green salad.

* Cooking beets: Remove most of the stalk leaving about 2-3 cm or 1 inch on the beetroot. Wash and place in a cooking pot. Cover with water and add a bit of salt. Bring to boil and then lower heat leaving to cook about 30 minutes or until you can easily pierce the beets with a fork or other. Drain away the water and allow to cool. Remove the skin to use in food preparation. It should slide off easily.

If you do like beets (a wise health choice), please look no further, check Paavo’s Bytes and The Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook.

__________________________________________

Along the lines of food and frugality, please do check out the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm which is now home to the Manna Exhibition which has toured Sweden, Denmark and the US. The new cafe, MatMekka, established simultaneously with the exhibition is well worth a visit!

Gold of the Forest

It’s been a variable summer so far with a bit more rain than most Nordic sunseekers like to see. Yet for those of us who are chantarelle lovers it looks like this is already a remarkable year. The damp forest floors of Scandinavia are already covered in ‘forest gold’, and when my husband found them growing out of the sandy soil under the swings in our children’s playground at our island home, we realized that it was time to take down the mushroom picking baskets hanging from the kitchen ceiling and head out.

The culinary mythology around what to do with wild mushrooms once they are in the basket on your kitchen counter is contradictory as it is extensive. ‘Never do this’ and ‘never do that’ are a common means of expressing advice around the precious annual fungi finds. Butter companies adore this time of year and if you happen to be in a Nordic subway station from August until October, you’ll notice that chantarelles are portrayed on billboards as the inseparable buddies of a lump of butter.

Fine if you like butter, but my advice is not to be swayed. Years ago I walked the forests around my island with one of Sweden’s most respected mushroom experts, Bo Nylen, and he reminded me always when I got home to do the following with the most delicious edible mushrooms:

Basic Mushroom Recipe (particularly chantarelles and porcini)

Wild mushrooms (consume only if you are absolutely certain about what you have picked!)
Ecological Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1-2 garlic cloves (optional)
Salt

Clean the mushrooms with a cooking brush (anything resembling a small basting brush is fine). Preserve as much of the mushroom as possible for eating, including the stem. Do not wash in water as the mushrooms become…well…I cannot find another word: mushy. Chop the mushrooms into cross-sections or just roughly. With porcini, make sure that the insects and worms have not gotten into the mushroom first. Heat a thick bottomed sauteing pan with a few tablespoons of ecological extra virgin olive oil. Lower the heat to medium and add the mushrooms. Drain away the excess liquid in the pan after a couple of minutes of sauteing and add some extra olive oil, the crushed garlic and a pinch of salt. Saute until the mushrooms become ever so slightly browned (not burned). Serve on a slice of toast with sour cream and chives or use in a wide range of other dishes. See, for instance, Warm Mushroom Wraps.

My friend, Rune Kalf-Hansen, has just come out with a fabulous new cookbook in Swedish language called Kalf-Hansens Ekologiska Kök. If you do read and understand Swedish, you will enjoy his mouth-watering recipe for Kantarellpiroger (his version of Chantarelle Wraps). Rune’s cuisine gives eating seasonally new meaning and he has devoted decades to making people understand why it is important. An authentic work in every way!

Scandinavian Sushi

When first I came to Scandinavia I worked for a Danish company based just outside of Copenhagen. In their cafeteria on every day of the week one could choose from several different types of pickled herring combined with various toppings and several different types of bread, many of them dark and grainy. I wasn’t wild about it at first, but it grew on me. I began to miss my pickled herring smörrebröd when I sat in London pubs – England was my other base during this phase of life.

Now that I have been living in Sweden for 13 years, I know that the summer cannot pass without a jar of sill or pickled herring in the refrigerator. There are many types that you can purchase in the shops, prepared in almost every imaginable marinade. The classic in Sweden is to lay a few slices on a starter plate with boiled new potatoes (peel unremoved) and soured cream. It is an elegant and exotic start to a meal even if you come from these parts. Sill is also a highlight at Christmas although at that time of year served with crisp bread rather than potatoes….but that is too far away to worry about just now.

Sill doesn’t feel like something you want to consume too much of at once. It has a richness as a result of the fact that herring is an oily fish and a strong flavor, imparted by the marinade, that makes small quantities in starter portions just right.

For some years there have been health concerns about the consumption of herring from the Baltic sea which was heavily contaminated by PCBs (Polychlorinated Byphenals used in refrigeration), methylmercury and dioxin-like compounds during the 1960s and 70s. In addition, overfishing severely reduced herring stocks to dangerously low levels.  The news for the Baltic seems positive, with sinking levels of these pollutants and collaborative efforts to control fishing. Still, best advice is to consume Atlantic or Pacific herring up to two times per week. If you are expecting, avoid consumption of fish from the Baltic entirely.

The good news is that sill is one of three types of oily fish (the others are mackerel and salmon) rich in Omega-3 fatty acids which protect against heart disease, among other clear health benefits. These fish are a great way to get the healthy fats that your body needs without eating ‘fat food’.

So, what is the trick for coming up with that tangy tasting sill that is one of the most common features of the Scandinavian smörgåsbord? Here is a basic recipe that you can vary according to taste and what herbs you’ve got available. You can consider adding other flavors such as juniper berries, sherry or garlic.

Pickled Herring

1 dl or 1/2 cup vinegar
6 dl or 2 1/2 cups water
3 dl or 1 1/3 cups sugar
800 g or 1.8 lbs (28 ounces) canned herring
20 Black and white pepper corns
2 red onions, sliced thinly
4 bay leaves
Clean pickling jars

Blend the vinegar, water and sugar and bring to simmering. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. During this time, chop the herring fillets into 2-3 cm or about 1 inch chunks and layer in clean jars with pepper corns, onions and bay leaves. Pour over the liquid so that it covers the fish and fills the whole jar. Seal and allow to marinade for 4 days.

Serve with your favorite dark bread, potatoes, sour cream and perhaps, for that extra health and flavor kick, beet root salad. The possibilities are endless.

Dandelions in Northern Norway

Inspired by Johanna’s thrifty thoughts about dandelions this May 2009, I am including my best dandelion leaf recipe.

Dandelions are nature’s own gift to you in the Spring as their leaves have a strong cleansing effect on the kidneys and gallbladder.

Dandelion leaf has a bitter flavor which you can tone down by soaking for a half an hour or so in water before using in salads and other foods.

The slightly bitter, leafy green taste of dandelion leaf complements barbecued meats and vegetables perfectly.

Dandelion Pesto

1 liter or 1 quart dandelion leaves
1 dl or 1/2 cupVästerbotten or parmesan cheese, grated
3 1/2 dl or about 1 1/2 cups canola or olive oil
1 dl or 1/2 cup pine nuts

Soak the leaves in water for 1/2-1 hour. Pat dry and chop roughly. Blend in a food processor with the remaining ingredients until the mixture has become a smooth paste.

Asparagus and Potatoes with Lemon Oil

If you want a real lift this May, I suggest you try the light lunch prepared in under 10 minutes that I enjoyed today. What was it that I prepared and ate? Asparagus. What is that doing in the Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook, you might ask? Doesn’t that grow in a sandy, dry environment somewhere where it is much warmer? In actual fact, asparagus is a hardy plant that grows in a wide variety of climates and can even tolerate frosts. Asparagus from Gotland has become a delicacy in Sweden, for example. During the past decade asparagus has become a favorite of Nordic kitchens during the warmer, lighter season.

What’s so good about asparagus from a health point of view? Just a few of its many virtues include that it is a great source of vitamin C, B2 and one of the richest existing sources of B9 (folates) among other essential vitamins and minerals. If you’ve got diabetes, gout or fluid retention you’ll want to eat more of it. It’s also one of those foods that you don’t have to buy organic since it has relatively low pesticide residues. Since it doesn’t have a long shelf life, it’s one of those vegetables you’ll have to eat relatively fresh. There are, of course, also frozen options.

A more long-standing great favorite of the Nordic kitchen is the potato and these combine beautifully with asparagus for a delightful and satisfying meal. If you’ve got any of those boiled potatoes  left from last night’s meal, don’t throw them out! They will make a perfect lunch with asparagus.

Asparagus & Potatoes with Lemon Oil
Lunch for 2

Bunch of asparagus (green or white – up to you)
4 medium-sized boiled potatoes, room temperature (ecological please!)
1 lemon cut in half
Canola or extra virgin olive oil
Salt/Pepper

Wash the asparagus, cut off the hard ends of the stalks and place in a pan just covering with water. Sprinkle in a little salt. Bring to boil and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Pour into a sieve, draining out the hot water and rinse immediately with cold water so that the asparagus retains its crispness. If you’ve got an asparagus cooker (steams the asparagus upright so that it cooks more evenly and preserves more of the nutrients) it will take about 10 minutes.

Cut the potatoes into quarters and divide between two plates. Divide the asparagus into two quantities and pile next to the potatoes. Drizzle potatoes and asparagus with oil and serve with a half a lemon for squeezing over just before eating.

This dish is as divine as it is simple. P.S. Kids and adults alike love it.

Black Currants

As the black currant bushes around my town home and out on my island begin to sprout the first aromatic leaves, I realize that it is time to use up my frozen berries from last year’s harvest. Black currant is regarded by many nutritionists as a wonderfood due to its high antioxidant content (meaning that they offer protection against free radicals which can damage cells and cause disease). The only question is how can you use them aside from in the standard, albeit wonderful, jam pot? Black currants have a strong flavor and can be more difficult to figure out how to use in bakes, etc.

Recently I discovered a recipe for a black currant cake in one of my cookbooks, but I had to hesitate. Mounds of sugar, butter and white flour were required in order to produce this delicious-looking black currant creation. I summoned my courage and decided to make the cake with alterations. The result was divine and everyone liked it without exception.

Here we go:

Black Currant Cake

For the cake:

3 eggs
2.5 dl or 1 cup raw sugar
3 dl or 1 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar
For the topping:

4 dl or 1.5-2 cups black currants (frozen or fresh)
50 g or 2 oz butter cut into thin slabs
2 dl or 1 cup slivered almonds
0.5 dl or 1/4 cup raw sugar

Preheat the oven to 175 C or 347 F. Grease a regular-sized pie dish. Blend the eggs and sugar until creamy. Add the flour and remain cake base ingredients. Blend. Pour into the pie dish.

Scatter the black currants evenly across the top of the cake base. Follow with a layer of nuts. Scatter the sugar across the top and finally distribute the slabs of butter evenly.  Bake approximately 30-35 minutes. The cake should not be entirely firm and retain some moisture in the middle.

Allow to cool and enjoy in small pieces with tea or coffee. Remember that quantity and physical activity are key in being able to enjoy your desserts well!