Weekend...

... is hiking to the peak of Bjørnen (933 mtrs) together with my husband - enjoying the beautiful autumn colours, the lovely crisp autumn air and last rays of sunshine before the darkness of winter sets in...

... walking across the marshes to the base of the mountain...

... facing vertigo on the edge right underneath the peak, enjoying the view of snowcapped peaks on the horizon...

... and meeting a "lost prince" on the way down...

Another great hike, another weekend to remember !!!

Weekend...

... is relaxing on the sofa, with a good glass of rosé wine accompanied by a cheese plate, after sitting for hours embroidering on my bunad.

The rosé wine Inés de Monclús from Bodegas Monclús (Huesca, Spain) is a fresh, fruity dry (but not too dry) rosé wine with aromas of strawberry, blackcurrant, fennel and fresh grass. It's a great wine to drink aside tapas or a plate of pasta. Another wine that will turn up more often in this house!!

The cheeses I brought home this week are a Spanish Manchego and one of my favourite cream cheeses....Boursin. I finally discovered it in the bigger supermarket down in the village and just had to satisfy my craving!! I haven't tasted it for years....

I will post an update on the progress on my bunad soon!

Have a great weekend!!!

Blackberry Apple Crumble Cake

With the weather changing along with the season, it won't be long until the market stalls in the city centre disappear almost as sudden as they arrived in spring. So last Friday I took advantage of the opportunity of still being able to get some fresh berries at the market. The selection definitely had shrunk, but I got a couple of baskets of blackberries - especially because only hours before I had found a recipe for Blackberry Apple Crumble Cake on the website of BBC's Good Food Magazine.

I made it on Sunday, as we were expecting the in-laws to drop by for dinner. Well, guess what? The doorbell rang the second I took the cake out of the oven. Great timing! I served the cake lukewarm with vanilla ice cream. In one word......DELICIOUS!!!

Blackberry Apple Crumble Cake
(Ø 20 cm; serves 8)

Ingredients:
- for the cake:
175 gr butter
150 gr golden caster sugar, pluss 1 tbsp
3 eggs, beaten
200 gr all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
150 gr crème fraîche
150 gr blackberries
4 apples, peeled, cored and cut into 8 wedges each

- for the crumble:
50 gr butter
50 gr brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
75 gr all-purpose flour
50 gr hazelnuts, roughly chopped

- to serve:
3-4 tbsp clear honey or maple syrup
vanilla ice cream or crème fraîche

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2.) Butter and line a Ø 20 cm springform tin with baking parchment.
3.) Make the crumble topping by melting the flour. Then mix in the brown sugar, cinnamon, flour and chopped hazelnuts. Stir well and set aside.
4.) Heat 25 gr of butter in a large frying pan. Add 1 tbsp of caster sugar and the apple wedges. Cook for about 10 minutes until the apples are tender and golden. Set aside and cool.
5.) Beat together in a large bowl the remaining butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.
6.) Gradually mix in the eggs.
7.) Using a large metal spoon, fold in the flour and baking powder.
8.) Add the crème fraiche and mix until smooth.
9.) Spoon roughly two-thirds of the cake mixture into the tin, spread level and scatter over one-third of the crumble mixture.
10.) Top with the remaining cake mixture and level again, then scatter over another third of the crumble mixture.
11.) Arrange the apple wedges and blackberries on top, and top with the remaining crumble.
12.) Bake on the lower rack of the oven for about 1,5 hours. Loosely cover the top of the cake with a sheet of baking parchment or foil halfway through the cooking time if it is browning too quickly.
13.) Cool the cake in the tin for 10 minutes and then transfer to a serving plate.
14.) Drizzle warm honey over the cake.
15.) Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or crème fraîche.

Enjoy!!!

Third Wedding Anniversary

On this day three years ago, my husband and I got married in Barcelona....the city where our love story began nearly 12 years ago.

Thank you, world's greatest, for each day we have and will spend together! I love you!

Bacon Broccoli Spaghetti

Feeling a bit blue because it's Monday again? Had a busy day at work and do not feel like slaving in the kitchen for hours? This is a quick dinner that will cure your Monday blues! It's another recipe that I found using my Tine iPhone App during lunch break at work, and this type of carbonara spaghetti is scrumptious!!

Bacon Broccoli Spaghetti
(4 persons)

Ingredients:
300 gr wholewheat spaghetti
1 stalk of broccoli, cut into florets
200 gr bacon, diced
1 onion, diced
6 cloves of garlic, diced
oregano
salt
pepper
olive oil
1 dl of single cream
3 eggs
shredded pecorino

1.) Boil the spaghetti as instructed on the package.
2.) Boil the broccoli florets in lightly salted water for a couple of minutes. Drain and set aside.
3.) Fry the diced onion, garlic and bacon in olive oil in a large skillet.
4.) Add salt, pepper and oregano to taste.
5.) Mix the cream and eggs, and add to the bacon/onion/garlic mixture.
6.) Add the boiled spaghetti and broccoli florets, and stir well.
7.) Serve warm with shredded pecorino on top.

Enjoy!!

Weekend...

... is going for a hike on Tusten (704 mtrs) together with my husband early in the morning - in between a couple of autumnal rainshowers - to enjoy the view of Molde and all the peaks surrounding its fjord...

... and have breakfast at the top of the mountain...

Have a great weekend !!

Weekend...

... is celebrating a friend's birthday and new apartment with tapas and wine...

... and delicious chocolate-covered strawberries and cream puffs (croque en bouche) !!!

Have a great weekend !!

Cook book

Even though the collection of cook books I have on the bookshelf already is large enough, I went ahead today and spoiled myself with another one. I love the way this cook book focuses on healthy, wholesome, ecological meals without additives. The book is available in Norwegian and Swedish (Helsekokeboken / Hälsokokboken by Ulrika Davidsson). So guess what I will be doing this weekend....?

Plum Marmalade

Autumn is definitely here....It's been raining cats and dogs for days now. Leaves are changing colour and are dropping to the ground, but not only leaves - apples and plums as well. The average villa here in Norway seems to have some sort of fruit tree in the garden, with branches flecked with fruit. Evidently too much fruit for one household alone, as half of the harvest is already lying rotten on the lawn beneath. It makes me sad to see this... The fruit could have been used to make muffins, pies, cakes, jellies, jams, juices and so much more. That's probably why a little bit of conscientious scrumping, is both common and nearly accepted here in Norway.

So...yes, I admit it... I have scrumped some plums today, and I do not feel bad about it at all! But what to do with nearly 2 kg of plums....? Make plum marmalade!!! And since my husband doesn't like plum marmalade at all, I will be able to enjoy the whole batch myself! I'm already dreaming of freshly made waffles with plum marmalade....

Plum Marmalade

Ingredients:
2 kg of plums
0,5 - 1,5 dl of water
0,5 - 1 kg of sugar

1.) Cut the plums in half and remove the stones.
2.) Put the plums into a heavy-bottomed cooking pot and add water. The amount of water depends on the ripeness of the plums - very ripe equals little water, unripe equals more water.
3.) Cook the plums for about 10 minutes until it becomes a liquidy porridge.
4.) Remove the foam on top of the plum porridge with a spoon.
5.) Add sugar and stir well until all sugar has dissolved. The amount of sugar depends on whether you like your marmalade to be very sweet or not.
6.) Remove marmalade from heat, place 1 tablespoon of marmalade on a chilled plate, run a finger through it, and when a crinkly track mark is left, marmalade has set.
7.) Pour the plum marmalade directly into hot and sterilised jars, and seal the jars. (I sterilised the jars, lids and rubber rings by first washing them in hot water, and then letting them boil in water for 30 minutes. Make sure you have a large cooking pot for this and that you put a dish towel on the bottom of the pot as this will make sure that your glass jars won't start to bounce while the water is boiling.)
8.) Store in a dark, cool place.

Enjoy!

Vigil

...is the title of another novel by Cecilia Samartin that I finished reading this weekend. It was another page turner by this great author, that yet again left me crying while reading the last 50 pages. Definitely another book that I can recommend fullheartedly!

While Ana sits at her beloved husband's deathbed, she thinks back on her life and the incredible journey that brought her to this unlikely place. Ana's story takes her from war-torn El Salvador, to a  convent in the United States, and finally to a wealthy California estate where she is employed as the nanny for the wealthy Trellises, a dysfunctional family caught up in the throes of a decadent life. Despite her own emotional wounds, she is able to bring love and healing to her affluent yet spiritually bereft employers - gifts that no money could ever buy.

Ana's emotional attachment to her young charges leads to her staying at the Trellis home for longer than she ever could have imagined. As she grows to love Teddy and Jessie as if they were her own flesh and blood, they grow up and move out of the house, and her abiding love for their father is transformed into something deeper and more powerful. Faced with many challenges to her own sense of morality, Ana must confront her own spiritual longings and reconcile them with her understanding that love may have found her in the very place she least expected.

Have a good read!

Besseggen

Today my husband and I walked across the edge. Which edge? Well, the one called Besseggen!

Besseggen is one of the foot trails marked up and maintained by the Norwegian Trekking Association, and with more the 30.000 visitors completing this hike annually, it has to be Norway's most popular mountain hike. When you follow this specific trail, you walk from the cabin called Gjendesheim to the cabin called Memurubu (or the other way around, like we did), across an edge between two lakes, and return by boat to where you started or walk onwards on another trail to another cabin.

One of the reasons why this particular hike might be so popular, especially among foreign tourists, is that it is mentioned in the play Peer Gynt, written by one of the most famous writers of Norway - Henrik Ibsen. But I guess the main reason is the peculiar sight of two lakes that are lying right next to each other, but are coloured differently. One of the lakes - Bessvatnet - has a dark blue colour; while the other - called Gjende - has a light green colour due to the micro organisms living in glacier water.

The hike is estimated to normally take 6 to 8 hours, but we finished the hike in 4 hours and 26 minutes! We might be getting into shape again!

Apricot Chocolate Cake

Ever since I got my iPhone 4, I have been hooked on one specific App. I take a peak at it during lunch break at work, I take a peak at it at the supermarket.... It's an App provided by one of the Norwegian dairy brands - Tine - that has recipes for all types of dishes..... cakes and desserts as well.

So today, during lunch break, I decided to try one of the recipes, as I had most of the ingredients lying around in one of the kitchen cupboards anyway.... Apricot Chocolate Cake was going to be made!

The cake tastes really good and has a great texture as well, but as you can see from the photo above.... all the apricot and chocolate bits sank right to the bottom of the cake. Hmmm....how to solve this problem? Well, according to my colleague who is a professionally trained chef, I could solve this in several ways. Either by dusting the bits with a bit of flour before adding them to the dough, or by not adding them to the dough and just adding them first when the cake tin has been filled halfway. Anyway, here is the recipe:

Apricot Chocolate Cake
(makes one loaf)

Ingredients:
2 eggs, at room temperature
200 gr of flour
1,5 dl of whole milk
125 gr of butter, melted
250 gr of all-purpose flour
1,5 tsp of baking powder
0,5 tsp of vanilla sugar
50 gr of chocolate (70 %)
125 gr of dried apricots

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2.) Butter and dust with flour a loaf tin of 1,5 liters.
3.) Mix the eggs and the sugar for about 10 minutes in a large-sized bowl, until it becomes a light and airy mixture.
4.) Melt the butter and add the milk to the melted butter.
5.) Mix the baking powder and vanilla sugar into the all-purpose flour.
6.) Add the flour mixture and the butter/milk mixture to the egg/sugar mixture, until it forms a dough.
7.) Chop the apricots and the chocolate into small pieces, and add to the dough.
8.) Fill the loaf tin with the mixture, and bake for 45 minutes on the middle rack of the oven.
9.) Check with a cake needle or a skewer whether the cake is done (no dough should stick to the needle / skewer when you pull it out after sticking it into the cake).
10.) Leave on a rack to cool, first 5 minutes in the loaf tin, after that without.

Enjoy!

Weekend...

... is going out for a hike on Harstadfjellet (1004 mtrs) together with my husband, especially since it has been the greatest fall weather ever the last couple of days (clear sky, sunshine, nearly 20 degrees) but also because today it was the national Kom deg ut (Out and about) day.

In Norway there is an organization called Den Norske Turistforening (DNT) (Norwegian Trekking Association), that promotes trekking and other outdoor activities. They mark and maintain foot trails and ski tracks, but best of all - they operate cabins all over this northern, long strechted country where you can spend the night either completely by yourself or together with others for nearly next to nothing. Yes, there are still some things in Norway that aren't expensive! The network of trails and cabins are a great way to explore the Norwegian outdoors, but as less and less Norwegians get out and about...this Sunday was used to promote a healthy and active outdoor lifestyle.

We are definitely greatfull for living in an area of Norway were we are surrounded by many high peaks, so that we can discover a new peak and view whenever we feel like it.

Weekend...

... is going to the cinema together with the world's greatest husband, to watch old heroes join up as bad/good guys in the movie The Expendables.

I have to admit that it wasn't the greatest movie I have ever seen, but I had a couple of good laughs and it was a great date night!

Weekend...

... is trying out a new bottle of wine, accompanied with a delicious cheese plate.

I took time off from work early today to drop by the local Vinmonopolet - the Norwegian state owned alcohol stores - to get a couple of bottles of Black Tower - a delicious crisp Riesling from Pfalz (Germany) with elegant floral aromas and mouthwatering appley, ripe fruit flavours. Definitely a wine that will turn up more often in this house!

Have a great weekend!