Carrot and poppy seed cupcakes with lime and pomegranate frosting

I've never been a baker, a cook, yes, but a baker with exact precision... Hell no. I find it difficult to know how much I should knead a dough without it getting too compact and gross, I have a tendency to use too much flour because the dough sticks to my hands and I almost always use too little of some super important spice, like salt. 

But I am also extremely stubborn and am therefore determined to become great! ...or at least okay, at baking. Cupcakes in all kinds, shapes and sizes are super trendy so I thought I would give them a go. 

One of my best mates makes an amazing carrot cake, so I thought I'd steal parts of her recipe and mix in some of my own flavors. 

The What:

3 eggs

3 dl white sugar

3 dl flour

1 tsp vanilla sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1 pinch of salt

1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cardamom

2 tsp ground ginger

4 tsp poppy seeds

1 ½ dl sunflower oil

5 dl grated carrots

and for the frosting you need

60 g of soft butter

5 dl icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

100 g Philadelphia cheese

the peel from one lime + 1 more for garnish

lime juice from ½ a lime

pomegranate seeds, also for the garnish

The How (for the cupcakes)

Put the oven to 175 degrees.

Beat eggs and sugar until white and airy in consistency. If you have an electric whisk or mixer, use this because beating it by hand is haaaard. I used my boyfriend. 

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and carefully turn them into the egg mixture. 

Add the sunflower oil and the carrots.

Place the paper cupcake forms in an oven safe dish and fill the forms up to about 2/3 with batter. 

Bake in the middle of the oven for about 15-20 minutes, depending on your oven. 

Let the cupcakes cool before you add the frosting.

and The How to make the frosting:

Beat the butter, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, the grated lime peel, lime juice and the Philadelphia cheese until nice and creamy.

Spread the frosting over the cupcakes and garnish with poppy seeds, lime peel and pomegranate seeds. 

They actually turned out pretty good, although I may have overdone the frosting on a few of them. If you have a muffin dish to put the paper forms in, I highly recommend that you use it; with out that stability, the cupcakes float out a bit too much. They still taste great but they don't look as pretty!

We enjoyed these babies outside in the grass with a cup of lungo coffee. 

Mmmm finger lickin' good!!! (sorry for stealing your line Colonal Sanders!)

Thank you Nathalie Eklund for the inspiration <3

(and thank you Leila Lindholm for inspiring her)

5 Ingredients; Vegetarian Salad

I really felt like something light and easy a few Fridays ago, so I started of thinking about some of my absolute favorite things to eat;

oven roasted aubergine

chevre goats cheese

soy beans

sourdough bread

spinach and arugula salad mix

I had some left over sourdough bread that was getting a bit stale so I cut it into crouton sized bits and quickly roasted it in the oven with some olive oil and garlic. 

I sliced the aubergine, salted it and let it sit for about 15 minutes to draw out the bitter tasting water, after which I washed it and oven roasted it in 200 degrees for about 15 - 20 minutes. 

In the meantime, I blanched the soy beans in salted water, quickly cooled them down and removed the outer layer of skin on the bean. 

Add all the ingredients in a big bowl, cut down the aubergine when its nice and soft and add the cheese. 

I made a lovely dressing, inspired by an old friend, using olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, honey, salt and pepper. It goes SO well with the chevre. 

There´s your light and tasty Friday night meal :)

Tagliatelle Naepolitan with Pan Roasted Cherry Tomatoes & Feta Cheese

Sometimes, less is more. 

When the current food trends seem just a tad too pretentious, it´s nice to go back to the basics. This classic tomato based sauce is so simple, yet so good, and can be varied indefinitely. Make your own version and change it depending on your mood; spicy, extra garlic, with Parmesan, with pecorino, with basil, with thyme... the combinations are many and all are good. I made mine a bit more basic and added my standard feta cheese and some quick pan roasted cherry tomatoes. 

The What: 

2 cans of crushed tomatoes, I recommend Mutti if you don't want to make it all yourself from scratch, tastes a lot better than many other brands!

2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Piri piri chili, to taste

1 cube of vegetable stock

½ cup of water

feta cheese

fresh basil

cherry tomatoes still on the vine

olive oil

a pinch of sugar, if you want

salt, pepper

The How: 

Carefully roast the cherry tomatoes in olive oil on low heat in a pan, until softened. Put to the side.

Gently fry the garlic and chili in olive oil in a pan, be careful not to burn the garlic. 

Add the crushed tomatoes, vegetable stock and the ½ cup of water and bring to the boil. Add salt and pepper to taste as well as a pinch of sugar if you want. Let simmer until the tagliatelle is ready.

Boil the pasta in salted water until al dente. 

Add the tagliatelle to the Napoletana sauce and make sure the sauce covers all of the pasta. 

Add basil to taste, arrange on a plate, crumble the feta over the pasta and top with the pan roasted cherry tomatoes. 

Serve while hot! 

A very berry smoothie

Last night I forgot to make my lovely overnight oats which really annoyed me this morning since I was in a bit of a rush to get to work. I will never wrap my head around the fact that 10 more minutes in bed always means 20 minutes late for work in the morning, how does that work..?? Anyway, so I had to improvise a quick and healthy breakfast using basically the same ingredients as I would to make my oats;

The what

Almond milk

Vanilla yoghurt

Fiber oats

Chia seeds

Psyllium seed husk

Frozen raspberries 

Dried blueberries

The how

Mix all the the ingredients together using a mixer or a hand blender.

Top with dried blueberries and chia seeds, serve in a jar or something equally trendy with a nice coloured straw!

Beetroot & kidney bean patties with feta cheese & soy bean cream

So me and the boy have decided we need a bit of a healthy streak from all the snacking we've been doing lately, so we're cutting down on the carbs for a while. Easier said than done when you're a pasta lover like I am, but so far it's going pretty well. There are a lot of great alternatives and it leaves you feeling a lot better to be honest... Don't get me wrong, pasta will ALWAYS be my go to dish when I want to splurge!! I didn't get the nick name Pasta Girl for nothing... ;)

Beetroot and Kidney bean patties are really tasty, extremely healthy and have a great purple / pink color to it. They're easy to make and taste even better the next day which means they're great to bring in the lunchbox :)

The What:

3 beetroots, peeled and grated

400 g precooked kidney beans

1 egg

breadcrumbs

coriander (if you want)

salt

pepper

feta cheese

soy beans

creme fraishe

pepper

Salad of your choice to serve.

The How:

Peel and grate the beetroot. 

Rinse the beans and put in a bowl together with the beetroots. Add the egg and mix together until smooth. Add the breadcrumbs, the salt and pepper as well as the coriander. 

Crumble the feta cheese in a bowl, add the soy beans and mix together with creme fraishe, finish with pepper. 

Heat a pan with butter and make the patties straight in the pan. Be careful not to burn them!

Let cool before serving them with a nice salad and the feta cheese and soy bean cream.

Souffle au Brie - this weeks homework!

I haven't had homework since I finished university so I was super excited when our teacher and chef gave us some in this weeks class. I had to make souffle! Any kind I wanted, but I have to take a picture and bring to class for inspection next week. 

I decided to make a savory souffle since my sweet tooth is not what it used to be. I Googled around to find my recipe base, and I kept meeting story after horror story of how hard it is to make soufflé, how precise everything has to be and how difficult it is to get it right. Needless to say, I had butterflies and was super nervous and excited to give it a try myself!

I love cheese, so I fell for a soufflé with Camembert cheese. I already had some brie at home so I decided to go with that. Despite the nervousness, the butterflies and the terrible soufflé horror stories, it turned out to be pretty awesome :) I made an olive and tomato tapenade to go with it. 

The What: 

(4 portions)

2 dl milk

2 tbsp potato flour

2 tbs butter

4 eggs

100 g bire

Cayenne pepper

Nutmeg

Salt

Tapenade:

A hand full of black olives

5 cherry tomatoes

1 garlic clove

Fresh oregano

Olive oil

Salt 

Pepper

The How: 

Separate the egg yolk from the whites in two separate bowls. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they are stiff enough to turn the bowl upside down without it spilling. 

Melt the butter on low heat in a pan, add the potato flour and milk and heat up while continuously stirring. Add cayenne pepper and nutmeg, then the brie and the egg yolks. Let cool.

While the batter is cooling, make the tapenade. Finely chop black olives, cherry tomatoes and garlic. Mix together in a bowl. Add a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and top with fresh oregano. 

Prepare the serving plates so that it's all ready to go when the soufflé comes out of the oven.  

Put the oven on 175 degrees, butter forms with straight high edges. 

Carefully fold the whisked egg whites into the cooled batter and pour the batter into the buttered bowls. 

Bake in the bottom part of the oven for 30 minutes and make sure NOT to open the oven until earliest after 20 minutes or the souffle will fall. 

Serve immediately. 

Thank you Michael Krantz for lending me your base recipe, check his out here!

Hopefully I'll pass the homework assignment, I'll let you know!

Let's play - what's in the fridge?? or Avocado and cherry tomato linguine

My super smart and hot friend Lisa gave me the brilliant idea to do a post on "What do I have at home RIGHT NOW?" (Thanks Lis!! I will prove to you now that I can do a lot more than just burn electric kettles on gas stoves...)

I had this at home: 

Avocado

Feta cheese (of course)

Cherry tomatoes

Garlic

Lemon 

Linguine

Cream (because I'm a Swede at heart and stomach apparently, although perhaps also a little Italian?)

(salt, pepper, chili and olive oil are a given in my kitchen)

This became an avocado and cherry tomato linguine with feta cheese! Super easy and as you can see above, not a lot of ingredients!

The How

Finely chop the garlic clove and fry until soft on low heat in some olive oil. 

Throw in the tomatoes and let sizzle for a bit, add the cream and season with salt, pepper and chili (if also addicted, like I am). 

In the meantime, cook the pasta until al dente.

Carve out the avocado meat and throw into the now simmering cream sauce.Squeeze some lemon over it and throw in the pasta and top with the feta cheese - mix and serve. 

Super tasty!! 

Hot Salad

Do you ever feel like someone else should do all the work for you in the kitchen? Can't get your best mate to come over and make you dinner? 

Step away from the pizza menu!!

This Hot Salad is super easy and super healthy, and best part of all, it basically cooks itself! Use your favorite veggies; 

I used

Aubergine

Zucchini

Red and yellow onion

Beetroots

Whole garlic cloves (with the skin still on!)

Chop them up (no need to make it all fancy, unless you really want to make them Julienne or Brunoise!), put them in an oven safe dish, pour over some olive oil, salt, pepper, whatever other herbs you want to use and stick them in the oven at about 180.200 degrees for about 20 minutes or until they are done (cooking time depends on what veggies you've used). 

Top with arugula or baby spinach (maybe even both if you're feeling adventurous) and crumble over some feta cheese (yes, I do use it for everything. But that's because it goes with ANYTHING! Amost anyway). Give the black pepper grinder a twirl over the veggies and serve when it's still warm.

Easy, healthy and basically carb free!

Linguine with fresh asparagus, mushrooms, avocado and Parmesan cheese

My week of pasta started with a simple but amazing linguine with fresh asparagus. Unfortunately the asparagus wasn't local but I just couldn't help but to buy it anyway - and it tasted amazing, despite it being transported a few miles. It really is a sign that spring is on it's way!

The What

1 bouquet of fresh green asparagus

200 g forest mushrooms

1 ripe avocado

2 dl cream

1 tps of chili flakes (depends on how spicy you want it!)

½ freshly squeezed lemon

1 clove of garlic

salt and fresh ground black pepper

The How

Gently fry the garlic in some olive oil in a pan. Add the mushrooms and fry until they have gotten a little color, but are not burnt. 

Add the chili flakes, lemon and cream. Add salt and cracked pepper. Bring to the boil and then let simmer. 

Pick up one asparagus and hold it between the your thumb and forefinger on both sides. Bend it until it snaps and throw away the root part of the veggie. This part can be eaten, but it's more chewy and has a tendency to be a bit bitter. Repeat on the rest of the asparagus. 

Boil the linguine until tender. 

Throw the asparagus into boiling water with a bit of salt, boil for about 1 minute so that it's still nice and crispy. 

Slice the avocado.

Add the linguine to the cream sauce, add the avocado and mix together. 

Serve the pasta topped with asparagus and Parmesan cheese and some more cracked pepper, if you like. 

Enjoy!

Prawns and champagne - simple luxury

My absolute favorite thing to do on a Friday night; drink champagne and eat seafood <3 

It's so simple, the pictures say more than enough - no fancy recipe needed!

What can be better than this?

Fresh asparagus with chili oil and Parmesan cheese

Fresh prawns and langoustines

Simple luxury

What's your favorite Friday night meal?

Chicken burger on sour dough bread with mango dressing, spicy fries and baby spinach salad.

You know when you really feel like having a burger? But then you're like "No, I really shouldn't, I have to think about beach 2014...". Living in Sweden I will only get about 2 months (if I'm lucky) of sun and it won't even be strong enough to make me tanned. To be honest with you, I would love to have that will power to say NO to pasta, NO to cheese, NO to wine, NO to the occasional pizza or burger and really go for that tight sexy beach bod this year.. But I just can't, food is just too damn good!! ... and also, I am a bit too lazy.

Chicken burger on sour dough bread with mango dressing,
spicy fries and baby spinach salad.

Take some advice from one of the greats: 

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” 

― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Or as I like to say:

"The belly rules the mind".

- Spanish Proverb

The burger below is actually quite easy to make your own; you can eat it without the bread and you can use whatever dressing you like, add or take away anything really to make it more, or less, healthy. This is what I used (and it tasted amazing!):

Prepping; sliced tomatoes, mozzarella, baby spinach
 and the mango dressing.

The What:

500 g minced chicken breast

1 red onion, finely chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 egg

Buffalo Mozzarella Cheese

200 g baby spinach

Tomato(es)

2 dl creme fraiche

Mango Chutney to taste

10-12 potatoes

chili flakes

salt and fresh ground pepper

Sour dough bread

Making the chicken patties; It's a lot easier using a spoon
and make the patties right in the pan!

The How:

Put the oven to 200 degrees.

Slice the potatoes into halves and slice the halves into sticks. Put the potato sticks in an oven safe dish, add olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper and chili flakes to taste. Put in oven for about 20 minutes. 

Put the finely diced red onion, the grated garlic and the egg in a bowl. Using a spoon, mix together with the minced chicken breast and finish with some salt and pepper.

Mix the mango chutney with the creme fraiche to taste, add more if you want it extra mangoey!! Add salt and pepper here too if you want, although it's not necessary.

Slice the tomatoes, the mozzarella and wash the baby spinach.

Heat a pan with olive oil and use a spoon and make the chicken patties straight  in the pan. Fry until they are a golden brown and cooked all the way through. They burn quite easily though so be careful!

Cut the bread into slices and put them in the oven on top of the fries when they've been in the oven for about 15 minutes. 

Home made fries in the oven; letting the bread soak
up the oil and spices.

Put the bread on a plate, add the chicken patty, mozzarella, tomato, baby spinach and finish with the mango dressing. Serve with the chili fires and a nice spinach salad.

Sushi at Itsu in Notting Hill, party in SoHo and the Full English in Portobello

Saturday in London, it doesn't get any better than that! After Borough Market and some additional sightseeing, the girly gang trio (missing Chedd over in the US of course) headed over to Itsu in Notting Hill for a quick sushi dinner before rushing home to get ready for a big night out.

Royal Oak Station

The Shard - Tallest building in the UK. By London Bridge Station and Borough Market.

Excited for our Sushi and salmon teriyaki "in-a-box"!

Salmon Maki with spicy mayo.

Salmon Teriyaki "In-aBox"

After our lovely dinner in Notting Hill we stopped at the shop to buy some pre-party drinks before heading out. As a Swede, living in Sweden, I find it extremely luxurious to be able to go to the store ANY DAY, at ANY TIME and buy actual alcohol!! It should not be taken for granted, residents of... well pretty any other country in Europe! We took the tube back to my mates place and got ready for a great night in SoHo with more great friends who have decided to make London their home. 

B-Soho on Polland Street

Old and new friends

An oldie but goodie!

Gorgeous girls

An old colleague from Stockholm and an old friend from China!

1/2 of the original girly gang

BBBs

Great night!!

Waking up on the Sunday, with a slight headache from all the fun the night before, my London based pal took us for a stroll over to Portabello for brunch. It was a beautiful day and we managed to snag a table outside at one of the many places who served the all day English breakfast. 

Walking towards Portabello

Portabello

The sunnies are on!

Brunching

A nice play on the Full English, veggie style! Although I can't say the vegetarian sausages were a big hit. 

Eggs Benedict

And so it is, after an amazing weekend with my best friends, my foodie adventure in the UK has come to an end for now. Follow me as I continue my foodie journey in Stockholm, Sweden! Next challenge... Becoming a chef. Anthony Bourdain, I have read your chapter "So you wanna be a chef" and despite being too old, I'm going to take comfort in the fact that I'm not too fat, and I'm still gonna do it, for the pure love of it. In your face. 

Anthony Bourdain; destroying dreams, breaking hearts and making people laugh since... well, he's old anyway.

View over London, breathtaking.

Thank you for an amazing weekend <3