Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Do you know how to make rømmegrøt?

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Do you know how to make rømmegrøt?  Oh, you don´t even know what rømmegrøt is? Rømme is a sour cream, grøt is porridge.
Rømmegrøt is the taste of Norway. The taste of my childhood.

Grandma Olga used to make the world´s best rømmegrøt, and my mother follows her tradition.
I have learned from them both. 

We have a very simple kitchen at Rastarbo. Simple, but perfect for creating feasts.
This time the goal was a feast for two. 

 And believe me, rømmegrøt is a feast.
For two. For twenty. 

Start with a couple of boxes of rømme. Add white flour, heat and stir.

Stir well!

The combination of the stirring and the heating force the fat out of the cream. The fat is poured over in its own bowl, and will be used on top of the rømmegrøt before eating it.

When you have enough fat, add more white flour, and then milk, a little at a time. Stir well.

Let the porridge boil for at least 10 minutes before serving.

A grøtpinne is always served with the rømmegrøt, salt meat and flatbread, and why not a few sweet tomatoes.

The porridge is served with sugar, cinnamon, raisins and the fat you got from the boiled and stirred rømme.

Dinner is ready!

Some Italian sun in The House in the Woods

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Since I started to travel to Italy regularly, about 10 years ago, Italian cooking has influenced my kitchen. Olive oil, pasta, garlic, arugula, balsamico, a million different types of spaghetti, half a million different types of beans........

The most important things I have learned are:

- make it simple

- use fresh ingredients......always

- paint with a bright palette

Many of the best cooking tips have been learned by following Italian chefs in their home kitchen. (Italian chefs read ordinary Italians.)

Two friendly kitchens in Roma, Annamaria and Sheri

Feasting on Francesco´s asparagus

Guests in Mauro´s kitchen

Making soups in a Tuscany farm kitchen (I can´t believe I never actually blogged about it......)

The making of an Easter cake in Terracina

 

I could go on, and on, and on........

 

 Another way of learning is cookbook. Like the one I got in the mail a couple of weeks ago - The Tuscan Sun Cookbook by Frances Mayes.

I have loved Frances Mayes´books ever since Under The Tuscan Sun came, many, many years ago. Then Bella Tuscany, A Year in the Worldand the Every Day in Tuscany. I have one set at the cabin, one set at home.......and often eat a few pages while cooking.....woops, read, not eat of course. Though I read them like other people eat chocolate, craving, licking up every bit, can´t stop and so on.......

Yesterday, the day I opened The Greenhouse, and planted the first flowers out in the garden (too early for planting, I know, but I couldn´t wait any more) it was time for some Italian Sun in The house in the Woods. Flipping though The Tuscan Sun Cookbook my mouth started to water when I came to Ann Cornelisen´s PASTA with ARUGULA and PANCETTA. No pancetta, so bacon had to do.

And it did! The bacon I mean.

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Ingrid and Marius could smell my cooking from where they live, and came, so we were five around the table......licking up some Tuscan Sun 

 

The recipe? Easy! Simple!Perfect!

The magic dough

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Three best friends gathered for a birthday celebration. Perfect food served led us to talk about food, and more food. Which we did.

One of us had spent a February weekend in Firenze/Florence, and had managed to get some pizza dough secrets from a pizza chef there. How to keep the dough fresh for several days, in the fridge. ready to use when you want a pizza, or some other kind of bread.

This was something I wanted to try. As I also wanted to try the magic salad the hostess served. So Friday night Marta and I were both in for a treat. The magic salad and a foccacia. I made a double foccacia dough and put half of it in the fridge. Half of the half was used for a few pastries for lunch on Saturday, the rest was used for a pizza for one Saturday night.

The Firenze chef was right. The dough was perfect.....actually I used my own dough recipe, the one I always use for foccacia and pizza, but I treated it the Firenze way.

 The wet rain loves our part of the world so much, it has no plans to travel anywhere else. From the rest of the world we get tidings of sun, warmth, spring flowers, outdoor life. Up here, in the rain, we look at each other, trying not to listen, reassuring ourselves that this shower can´t go on for ever.

How I would have loved to eat my lunch outdoors yesterday. The broccoli soup. The pastries made from the Firenze chef´s secret pizza dough. The fresh water. Yes, believe me, we have enough fresh water to last a lifetime.

Well, an indoor lunch can always be made spring green........

 

 

Back in my kitchen

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With all the travelling and all the working I have done lately, I have almost forgotten what my kitchen looks like, or how to cook. 

I cooked an Italian birthday dinner last Sunday for the whole big family, and that´s about all. Until this weekend that is!

Now it is time to get to know my kitchen again. To look through the fridge, the cabinets and the drawers to see what is there, to make grocery lists, to go to the fish market, to plan the menues, to open a bottle of white wine bought at the taxfree in Madeira, and finally start the foccaccia dough.

With the dough raising on the counter, it was time for the paella. Olive oil, garlic, leek and onion braising, filling the whole House in the Woods with the best smell there is.

Adding rise.

Stirring.

Then water, a little at a time, white wine. Keep on stirring. Sipping a little wine. Tasting a shrimp.......I must make sure that they are good, of course I must.

Salt, pepper, the dark yellow paella spices, bought in Spain by a colleague.

 

Frying some white fish.

On an impulse pouring some white wine from my glass over the fish.
Creating magic.

Just as the foccaccia was ready from the oven, the paella was perfect for serving.

Terje had already come down from his first floor studio, drawn by the smell, and had set the table. I hastily put together a green salad, filled a small bowl with black olives, and hocus pocus........Saturday night dinner was ready.

Even with a starter - marinated scampi.

Marta, her friend Elisabeth, Terje, me......candles, roses.

 

Home is where the heart is. Where the heart is, is where it is good to be.

East, west, home is best.

 

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On the menu today.........a vegetable soup (I found too many "almost not fresh any more" vegetables in the fridge), and then Shepherd´s Pie.

From The House in the Woods I am wishing you a blessed Sunday

Skrei, the Norwegian miracle

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Once a year a miracle happens up along the northern coast of Norway. Some time during January till March, millions of Arctic cods find their way to their sprawning fields along the coast. This ready to sprawn cod is called skrei.

This year is a very good year for the skrei. Skrei from Lofoten is sold at Ravnkoa, the fish market here in Norway. I stopped there after I had finished my Saturday morning walk yesterday, and when I saw the fresh fish on the counter, surrounded by cod roe, cod liver and cod tongues, I knew a party was on its way.

 

So last night was a skrei party night in The House in the Woods.

Skrei, roe and tongues boiled in salt water, liver and onion diced and cooked in a frying pan. Potatoes and carrots. Flatbread.

Seven around the table, and we ate till we were completely stuffed.

The miracle of the Norwegian skrei.

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A link to a very informative article about the skrei

Last year´s dinner for two

Christmas gifts from The Blue Café. December 20th.

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Christmas gifts from The Blue Café. Herring in sweet&sour sauce. Come over if you want a taste.

There is nothing like home made food for Christmas.

What is your favorite Christmas food?

Farfar´s havrekjeks (Outmeal Biscuits). December 19th

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One of many best things about preparing for Christmas is the smell which fills the house. Cookies, cakes, bread, different types of herring, Terje´s Christmas lemonade, cinnamon, anise, ginger........melting together, creating the advent of my childhood, of my first years as a mother, of today.

In our family we are all bakers, though in December Marta and Terje are the champions, with Ingrid coming fast up now when she is back home from Bali. One of the first things Marta baked in preparation of the holidays, were havrekjeks, outmeal biscuits, using farfar´s recipe. Always a winner. My father in law have these biscuits on the breakfast table, all year round, here in The House in the Woods we mostly use the biscuits for Christmas.

With butter, well, margarine these days in this countru of No Butter, and brown cheese...........yum! That´s the best word I can find, or namnam as I say it in Norwegian.

Farfar´s havrekjeks

250gr outmeal, 250gr white flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of sour milk (which we call kulturmelk), 3-4 teaspoon of hartshorn(??????) (hjortetakksalt in Norwegian, google translate gave me the word hartshorn which I have never heard before), 250gr butter, read BUTTER......and yes, one day we found 250gr organic butter at our grocery store.

Stir sugar and butter well, and while you do that send a special thought to the poor people of Norway who walks towards Christmas with no butter (irony of course!!!!!).

Bake at 200Celsius till finished.

Ha, as you can see this is not a recipe from a printed coffee table cook book, but one which has been handed down for generations......with a lot of you already know how to do it-stuff.

The soup apprentice

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For a long time Torgeir, our 29 years old son, has wanted me to teach him to make soup. I have saved ideas and created recipes, and finally, yesterday we had our first lesson.

Torgeir did all the work fun, following my instructions perfectly. First making the dough for foccacia, then starting the soup. As always first a mix of the onions I have, yesterday garlic, onion and leek, fryed in olive oil.

Fennel and broccoli.

Boil with water. Add salt, pepper and herbs.

Blend......

.....and oh la la......Torgeir´s first soup is ready.

Marta´s comment: just as good as mamma´s!

As we worked on the soup, Torgeir asked questions and came with suggestions. A perfect chef apprentice.

Now I wonder what to teach him next.

May be fish soup?

Borscht, Blue Cafe style

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Soup finished. Thank you Linda for the recipe, I did some Blue Cafe style changes though :-)

Fry garlic, onion and beetroot, all diced, in olive oil. Add broth, laurel, salt and pepper. Boil for hapf an hour. Blend. Eat hot with a sour cream snowball.

 

Still some soup left.

Welcome over.

And thanks for following through the day.

I will have borsjtsj for dinner tonight, and I need your help

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Two years ago Terje and I visited Krakow in Poland, and there we had Russian beetroot soup, borsjtsj, every day - for lunch, as a starter, a snack, or as the main dinner course.

I fell in love with the soup, and have always wanted to make it myself. But I have never done so.

Today I have two beetroots on the kitchen counter, and finally I plan to make borsjtsj.

Last night I started to search for recipes, but didn´t find any which suited me. My favorite one in Krakow was a thin, deep red soup, more like broth. All the recipes I found were for a thick, rich soup with a lot of other vegetables, many of them with meat as well. That´s not the soup I want.

Now I am asking you for help. Have you ever made borsjtsj yourself? Do you have a borsjtsj recipe? Can you share it with me and my readers? May be you even have photos?

I sent out this same request on my facebook profile last night, and got feedback right away. I think borsjtsj is a popular soup.

I plan to update my blog through the day, and hopefully I can invite you all to a borsjtsj feast tonight.

Now I am waiting to hear from you.........