Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

The art of breakfast

@brittarnhild

Breakfast is the most inportant meal of my day.......at least until lunchtime :-)

 During the week we never eat breakfast together. Terje is up before me and have two pieces of bread and some yoghurt before bicycling to work. I am usually up when he leaves, but I love to take my time in the mornings. And then, like Terje, two pieces of bread and may be some yoghurt before.......taking the bus downtown to work. No bicycling for me.

Then comes the weekend. We sleep longer, we are up together. I set the table, yes, I do SET the table, and it is time for breakfast. Real breakfast.

Especially when we are at the cabin. Especially when the sun shines and we can eat outdoors.

By the way, can you see the little Florentine dome :-)
Can you see what it is?

An egg cup :-)
Cute, isn´t it?

 

I love the art of breakfast.

 

 

Lagre

Lagre

Lagre

Lagre

Like a painting

@brittarnhild

If I was a painter, this is what I would paint.

Morning at the cabin.

 

 

Rainy cabin days

@brittarnhild

Rain falls in a steady flow. Not cats and dogs, still wet, wet, wet.
Cabin days are never boring. In spite of the rain, in spite of our cabin land transformed to a wet mash.

Bird watching

Baking rhuburb muffins

Reading

 

After a long period with very little time for books, I rediscover the joy of disappearing into the written tales.

 

And tomorrow the sun might be back :-)

 

 

 

Rhuburb and chilli, a repost

@brittarnhild

We are at the cabin and I have just been out to harvest the first rhuburbs. While looking for a special rhuburb soup recipe I found this old post from May 2009:

A love story between rhuburb and red chilli

 

The rhuburb stalks have grown alot since we were here a few weeks ago, and it was time to make the first rhuburb soup of this year. Close by the rhuburb plant grows a lemon scented melissa, and I decided to use a handful of leaves in the soup.

Then I remembered: "I have a few red chillis in the kitchen. May be I shoud add a couple. Woudn't that be perfect for a soup for Terje and me during our week-end alone?" Is seducing the correct word :-)

 

Cut the rhuburb and let it boil with chopped melissa, quite some time to make a smooth soup. Add sugar. Cut one to two red chillis, remove the seeds and chop finely. Let it all simmer. The different fragrances need to get to know each other.

 

I made the soup several hours before we ate, and after a while removed most of the small pieces of chilli. I wanted the hot taste to be a surprise for Terje, and as it now was hot enough there were no use of them any more.

 

Believe me - the soup was even better than I could imagine....... in all ways.

 

How do you use chilli? Do you have any tempting, seducing recipes to share?

 

 

The rhuburb stalks have grown alot since we were here a few weeks ago, and it was time to make the first rhuburb soup of this year. Close by the rhuburb plant grows a lemon scented melissa, and I decided to use a handful of leaves in the soup.

Then I remembered: "I have a few red chillis in the kitchen. May be I shoud add a couple. Woudn't that be perfect for a soup for Terje and me during our week-end alone?" Is seducing the correct word :-)

 

Cut the rhuburb and let it boil with chopped melissa, quite some time to make a smooth soup. Add sugar. Cut one to two red chillis, remove the seeds and chop finely. Let it all simmer. The different fragrances need to get to know each other.

 

I made the soup several hours before we ate, and after a while removed most of the small pieces of chilli. I wanted the hot taste to be a surprise for Terje, and as it now was hot enough there were no use of them any more.

 

Believe me - the soup was even better than I could imagine....... in all ways.

 

How do you use chilli? Do you have any tempting, seducing recipes to share?

From Mauro´s kitchen

@brittarnhild

"You must come back to our house together with us, you see we have a very special surprise for you." Barbara was smiling when she invited me to have dinner with her and Mauro and their two girls. I had already had dinner with them, and afterwards we went out in their boat to explore the laguna. It was easy to acept. Of course I wanted to have dinner with them. I have eaten in Mauro and Barbara´s home many times now, and I love their fresh, traditional Italian cooking.

Back in their house Mauro started the night´s soup while Barbara prepared the dessert. While cutting the vegetables Mauro asked me if I remembered the glass jar Terje and I had brought with us last year. A jar filled with Terje´s homemade black currant marmelade. Oh yes, I remembered, and could tell them that the jar was an old one, from Terje´s mother, originally used for some kind of medicine.

"I have saved the jar" Mauro told me, "and now I will make something special to fill the jar. Something you can take back to Norway."

 

A pot. Some boiling water. Some herbs. Dried tomatoes which Mauro had bought at the Rialto market that same morning.

Pure virgin olive oil in the jar.......if I lived in Italy I would buy this oil!!!!!

 The tomatoes were out in the jar, and Mauro´s special "sundried tomatoes in a Norwegian glass jar" was finished.

The lid was not quite tight, but Mauro wrapped it up for me in a completely safe packet. Not one drop was spilt when I arrived home a couple of days later.

Yesterday Terje and I had dinner out in the garden. Mauro´s "sundried tomatoes in a Norwegian glass jar" was perfect with the pasta :-)

 

Lagre

9pm in my garden

@brittarnhild

Time to finish the green house

@brittarnhild

I opened the greenhouse for the saseon a few weeks ago, but as we still have no floor in there, we had to rearrange all the plants last night to make room for Terje to work on the floor.

The floor will be flagstones, and their best foundament is sand, which means we have to remove a lot of the soil which is in there now. Terje is doing a great job.

Some of the soil is used to smoothen the land outside the house. Some will be used for a deep bed inside.

The other day Terje and my dad started to grow this year´s potatoes. Close to the greenhouse they left some space for me to grow vegetables.

You can see the flagstones which will be used as floor to the left in the picture.

 

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If you are interested, you find my greenhouse blog, Nederst i hagen, here.

 

Happy birthday Norway

@brittarnhild

Happy birthday Norway.
We are downtown, watching the parades.
Unfortunately Leander has been ill, so he is home with his parents.

But in the afternoon we meet, four generations, in The House in the Woods, for a traditional dinner, for icecreams, waffles and strawberries and for playing in the garden.

 

Finished just in time

@brittarnhild

May 17th is Norway´s birthday, our Constitutional Day.

I have finished Leander´s costume just in time.

Together we grow love

@brittarnhild

Terje has a few days off  from work, and spend his days out in the garden from when he wakes up till he goes to bed.......almost. My gardener. My life. My everything.

I go to work in the morning, after we´ve had breakfast together. When I come home I make dinner. We eat out in the garden. And then I join him, gardening.

Together we create our lives. Together we grow love.