Britt-Arnhilds matseddel

Carrot stew with nettles

text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

I spent only one morning with her. One spring morning in Tuscany. During summers she ran a B&B on Sicily, now she had come to Santa Maria to cook for a group of artist who would arrive during the day. It was my last day at Santa Maria. When the stone masons came there would be no more room for me. One morning was what I had with the cook. Enough to make a deep impring in my heart.

She came in the morning, by train. Loaded with boxes and baskets of what she needed to make food for the Belgian artists, Fresh herbs from her garden close to Etna, a basket of oranges with blood red juice, she gave me one, the best I've ever tasted, honest!, bags with food and an enthusiasm out of this world. The first thing she did when she came was to overlook the kitchen. It took her five seconds and then she started. To make it all the way SHE wanted it during the week she was going to stay. After five minutes she had started a vegetable soup on the wood over, five minutes later she was out in the garden gathering herbs.

"Doestn't the nettels hurt you" I innocently asked. "I am used to it" was her smiling reply, "and their are good for your skin"

I followed her around all morning. Glued myself to her. I will never forget her.

This morning came back to me today when I bent down to weed the rose bed and saw all the fresh nettle sprouts. I picked a small bowl full and carried it inside the kitchen. I know I could use it for dinner. For the carrot stew I was planning (with salmon and potatos)

Carrot stew with nettles

Fry garlic, nettels, leek and chives in olive oil. Add butter and a couple of spoons og white flour. Add milk, a little at a trime to make the white sauce. Peel and slice the carrots. Add to the white sauce. Add salt and pepper. Let boil till the carrots are al dente soft.

I know my recipes are nothing for a real recipe book. Hopefully you can use the anyway, or get an idea for something of your own creation.

Good luck.

Friday night is pizza night

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
Friday night is pizza night in The Blue Cafe in The House in the Woods. Some Friday nights we are two or three sround the diningroom table. Most Friday nights we are more, sometimes a lot more. Tonight we were four, my, Terje, Marta and a friend of Marta. Ingrid came on her way home from University, but expected friends and couldn't stay long. She found an icebox of left over Friday night pizza to bring home and serve her friends.

Marta is a vegetarian, so when I make only one pizza it is always without meat. The topping might be, like tonight, a vegetable stew - starting with olive oil, adding garlic, different types of onion, cellery, mushrooms, squash, tomatoes, salt and a lot of pepper. Then cheese and mozarella. The dough made the same way I make dough for foccacia.

 
A fresh salad served with the pizza.

Crisp iceberg salad, diced orange, pepper. The simpler the better.

 
Happy pizza night.

Soup on the menu.....again

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

I am out travelling, and yesterday I had a wonderful fish soup for lunch. This morning I wrote a blog post about it over in my main blog, Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods. Soup is often on the menu in The Blue Cafe. Marta's best friend has my tomato soup on the very top of the list she has made of favorite dinners, Torgeir and Ingrid both wants to come home to learn to make my soups. Gems in my crown of life.

Since Marta became a vegetarian, last summer, soups have been even more important. So many healthy vegetables can be boiled together, then mixed into a thick, yummy soup. Add bread, like the foccacia from dark flour I made the other day, and a simple meal becomes an everyday feast of health.

The soup from the other day was made of potatoes, leek, cellery and lentils. Boiled in salt, pepper, rosmarin and bouillon powder.

Add water for drinking and a couple of pieces of foccacia......and you are there :-)

What is your favorite soup?

Do you have a soup recipe to share? Or a soup story to tell?

Here is a link to my fish soup blog from this morning.

No fanatic. And a broccoli souffle

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
There has been a lot of discussions in the news lately, in Norway, and probably the rest of the western world, about our food. We eat too much sugar, too much white flour, too much fat.......and so many people tend to live on fast food, often the unhealthy type. Today again there was in our newspaper an interview with Berit Nordstrøm, mother of six, doctor and healthy food enthusiast. I read it with interest. Some of it is already part of my food philosophy, some might be, some is not meant for The Blue Cafe.

I am no fanatic. Have never been one, don't plan to be one in the future. Healthy food though is still a passion of mine. The healthy everyday food, which most of the time is easy to make, all the time better than fast food and also so much healthier.

I am no fanatic. I am not completely against preprepared food. Right before starting writing this post I had a cup of coffee out in my spring garden, with a piece of brownies Marta and her cousin made yesterday, from a packet, you know the ones with ready mixed powder, just add water, and/or butter...... I loved my coffee and I absolutely enjoyed the piece of cake. In my own cooking I like to do it from start though. I like to know what I put into what we eath, I like the process, from the buying of groceries, till the meal, shared together, with family, with friends, or even some days just by myself.

I am no fanatic. Though knowing the unhealthy meny too many people follow these days, I am seriously thinking of becoming one.

Or am I?

No, I will continue making our food the way I do. I will continue trying out new recipes, new ingredients, I will continue cooking the old traditional meals which have followed me all my life, reciped handed down by generations of women before me. I will continue to make healthy meals......most of the time......and I will continue to share some of my recipes here.

Broccoli Souffle

Saturday night my husband and I wanted a simple dinner. I had been with the Birgittasøstrene earlier in the day, having a full early dinner with them, my husband had had pizza with two of the kids for a late lunch. With a luch green broccoli in the fridge it was simple to come up with a dish. Broccoli souffle it had to be.

And a broccoli souffle turned out to be hopeless to photograph

 
I am no good at writing recipes, at least not in English (may be this blog would be better off in Norwegian).......

melt 3 spoons of butter, add white flour, stir, add a combination of water and milk till you have a thick, smooth white sauce. Salt, pepper. Boil for a few minutes. Turn off the heath. Add three egg yolks. And some white cheese. Let the cheese melt in the sauce. Mix three egg whites till it "stand by itself" - as we say in Norway. Carefully add it to the sauce.

Brush a form with butter, cover the bottom with small bouquets of broccoli (which are first boiled for a couple of minutes in salted water. Add the white sauce. Bake at 180Celsius for about 40 minutes. Eat as soon as you take the souffle out of the oven. It will fall down too soon.

 

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Here is a link to Berit Nordstrøms's blog

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I am enjoying Mahler these days, after a concert a couple of weeks ago

 

The making of the cream cake

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
Several of you have asked about the cream cake, so here is a in progress photo series.

The cake is made of egg and sugar, white flour and raising/baking powder. Between the layers I have homemade vanilla cream and whipped cream, then I cover the whole cake with whipped cream and then marzipan (not home made)

 
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I took it to church today for the party to celebrate our church's 25th anniversary. Had planned to take a photo of the cake on the cake table........but this is what haååened:

 

 

Creamcake today, and some years ago

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

Our church is celebrating her 25th anniversary this week. Tomorrow there will be a big party, starting with mass. I have been asked to bring a cream cake....... and have it in the oven right now.

I used to bake quite a lot. These days I almost never bake. I spend just as much time in the kitchen, probably even more, but I tend to cook rather than bake. So while working on the cream cake this morning, a sea of sweet memories was brought up. Cream cakes for every occation - almost. For several years I had food blog over at blog post, before I moved over to typepad with my kitchen utensils. Just for fun I went over to the blogspot Blue Cafe, and there I found this post:

 

I grew up in a big family, and my parents always had an open house. In 1971 they realised that there were not enough days during Christmas to invite everybody to our home. My granddad was a school master and for one night every Christmas mum and dad hired the gym at the school where my grandparents lived. The gym was big enough to invite our huge and fast growing circle of friends and family.
8 years in a row my parents hosted their huge Christmas party there. Then my granddad died and no party was held.

20 years ago the next generation took up the tradition again, and now we come together every year during one of the Christmas days.

 The annual party has been celebrated several different places, but last night we were back in the same old gym at the school where my grandparents lived. Where I spent so much of my childhood. Some of the buildings were gone, new had come, but the old gym was just the same. And the row of paintings of the old school masters was still there, granddad Johannes the nicest among all the old men.

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Photos: we all bring food to share at the party. The 4 photos show the creamcake I made.

The olive focaccia

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 

The smell of freshly baked bread, it must be one of my favorites. Focaccias are so easy and fast to make, I make them several times a week. Often with white flour, but trying to live a more healthy life I tend to bake more dark ones. Often I top my focaccias with olive oil and salt only, or I can vary with different toppings, even sweet ones. The one on the photos is topped with green olives. A perfect taste of Italia.

 

Blue Cafe's Focaccia

25gram fresh yeast, a little salt and a litt sugar. The sugar and salt make the yeast melt. Add 3dl fingerwarm water and flour (white or a mixture) till you have a smooth dough.

Rise for half an hour. Kneed out in a pan, ca 15x25cm. Top the dough with olive oil and salt.....and olives, sundried tomatoes or what you have...... Rise another 30 minutes.

Bake in oven, 225C for 25 minutes

 

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A piece of focaccia, a glass of wine and Yo-Yo Ma. The night is perfect.