First day
of a new year, time for a new beginning. Never has that felt so… accurate and
important. Last year was a tough one, we are living a new life, and 2014 was
the year when the choice we had made showed its consequences. We moved from the
easy, civilized life in a minor city to the countryside. The place we bought
was beautiful and full of promise, but instead of living a dream we had to face
reality with lots of work, little time for friends and not enough money. By
far.
So this is
a good day to look forward and “ta nya tag”, as we would say in Swedish. To
start afresh. We love living here, we love each other and we want to live this
life. It will sort itself out. The big issue is no problem: two families have
merged into one, and that has gone almost without probIems. I say almost,
because I can’t read minds- it’s of course possible that someone has been
uncomfortable at some point, I just don’t know about it.
I’m not
particularly fond of everyday cooking. The tired Whatshallwehavefordinnertonight
combined with the whining Idon’tlikethis is no fun. What I do like is to
experiment with food, cook with wild herbs and use historical recipies. And that
I shall do here. With you. But today we just cook.
Yesterday’s
supper was lovely and filling- so filling, that our guests begged us not to
serve the last dish. That has to be good. The unwanted food, forgotten dishes
and leftovers turned into lunch today after a wonderful walk- it is beautiful where
we live even when snow is melting and the world looks grey. The walk was for
about 7 km and we are almost certain that we saw wolf-tracks among all the other
tracks.
Jan 1:
From my favourite
cookbook author, Anna Bergenström and her daughter Fanny:
Ulla
special
Boil 5 eggs
for 4-6 persons 8-10 minutes. Peel them and mash them while they are still
warm. Add 1-2 tbsp warm butter (room temperature, I presume), only a little
salt and pepper. Spread the mash evenly in a cm-thick layer on a flat plate.
Cover and leave to stand cold for a few hours.
Cover the egg
layer with crème fresh (some kind of French sour cream, high in fat and tasty)
mixed with finely chopped red onion. At the top spread a little can (100 g) of
lumpfish roe (or whatever salty, tasty roe you can get your hands on). Garnish
the edge with chopped dill (the authors wrote chives or parsil, but personally
I prefer dill here). This is a very Swedish dish. Smaklig måltid!
(Picture credentials: SSDF, Sweden)
We also ate
a dish that we forgot to serve yesterday. It is a French hors d’oevres based on
celery root and mayo, from the same book.
Cut the
celery root in very thin slices, like matches. Boil them quickly: one minute,
not longer! Let them drip off in a colander and make the sauce. For 1 l celery
root sticks: mix 1 ½ dl good mayonnaise with 1-2 tbsp French mustard and add
about ½ tsp salt. The sauce is supposed to be quite strong. Mix with celery
sticks and let the salad rest cold for a few hours before serving. Or, as we
did, forget for a night.
With a leftover
beetroot salad this became a meal in itself.
