Lots of new beginnings...

Hello everyone!



I hope that you are all doing well and that those of you in the northern hemisphere had a great summer and those of you on the south side of the world had a cosy winter.



Here things have been pretty crazy with a lot of changes and exciting new beginnings in my life...hence the lack of updates.

But let me share the good news with you. Here is a clue:

Yip! We are the owners of our first little house, a cute and quaint jem that needs a little polishing...okay maybe a lot of polishing. But the renovating process has been fun so far and we do it in little projects...you can't renovate all the time, we have to live as well, right? This little home is a miracle for us and we are loving it!



Okay...the next little piece of good news...

Yes, you saw right...that's a cute little pair of mini-me feet. Baby nr 2 is on its way and we are all delighted. Especially me...now that the nausea has gone over. What a terrible few months that was. But now I'm ok, as long as I eat...like all the time...it's a good thing my body uses more energy at the moment.



Anyways, now that you know my good news, maybe you'll be a little more excusing of my absence:-).



Unlike you lucky people in the southern hemisphere, who are heading in to spring and many lazy hours on the beach, up north we are going towards more cosier times with lots of candles and fiery nights. Here's a recipe for one of my favourite fruit salads that has an autumn feel with its stewed figs and cardamom syrup...enjoy!

Ingredients for 4 portions:

4 fresh figs

8 fresh strawberries (you can use frozen if you don't have access to fresh ones)

1 orange

1 banana

2 granadillas (passion fruit)

1/2 pineapple

1 dl frozen raspberries



Cardamom syrup:

50 ml (1/2dl) sugar

1 tbsp water

1 tsp grinded cardamom



1. Make the syrup first: Put the sugar, water and cardamom in a little pot and boil until it has a syrupy consistency, without it getting any colour.

2. Peel and chop the fruit into little pieces (except the figs).

3. Put 200ml water and 50 ml sugar into a pot bring to the boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer. Cut the figs into four pieces and stew them in the sugar water for a few minutes. Remove from water and garnish the fruit salad with the figs.pour the syrup over and serve with vanilla cream.



Have a happy day!



Love,

Heidi

Love conquers all...

There are times in life when love is frustrating. There are times in life when love is exhilarating. There are times in life when you wonder why and yet there are times in life when you would never let go. The longer I live, the more I realise that love is a choice and it takes a lot of hard work. There are times when love comes easy, and there are times when it doesn't come so easy. But I have learnt that sometimes it's ok to put my expectations aside and just accept and when I do that it usually turns out better than I would have expected in the first place. I have learnt that sometimes I don't need to pick on the small things, but can just let things go and it will be okay anyway. I have learnt that my way isn't the only way. I have learnt that sometimes saying a little prayer is enough and I have learnt that love is never worth giving up on!

"The fire of love stops at nothing. Flood waters cannot drown love and rain cannot put it out. Love cannot be bought and it cannot be sold. Love is invincible."

 

Valentine's Day is a fantastic time to show those around you that you love how much you appreciate them. Celebrating love doesn't need to be limited to one day a year, but there is something special with the celebration that Valentine's Day has become. 

To my one sweet love - I am grateful got who you are and who you have made me to be. The best is yet to come!

Let love be victorious! Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Love,

Heidi

 

 

Strawberry and raspberry compote

I absolutely love surprises! They always make me so happy. And the other day I got a really great surprise.

My car was parked at my church while I was at varsity, and after a long hard day of preparing for a big presentation I came to my car and saw that someone had tied a bag of rhubarbs to my car. I'm still not sure who it was, but thank you to that person! You made my day!

One of my favourite things to do with rhubarbs is to stew them, especially together with strawberries. The flavours combine so well and it can be used for so much. It's a great dessert together with some white chocolate cream. It's great with some yoghurt or porridge for breakfast. It also works great as a filling between 2 layers of cake. Fill a pretty jar up with the compote and you have a perfect present to give away!

Here's the recipe:

3 rhubarb stalks
1kg frozen strawberries (or 1 litre fresh)
1 dl sugar (can adjust to your desired level of sweetness)
2 tbsp water
2 tsp cardemom seeds, ground
½ vanilla pod

1. Trim the rhubarbs and remove the outer skin. Cut stalks into small pieces.
2. Put all the ingredients (except the vanilla) in a pot and simmer for about 1 hour.
3. Scrape out the vanilla from the pod and mix it into the compote.
4. Serve with some white chocolate cream and lots of love


Another thing that makes me happy is seeing how many new people come by and visit me on my blog! I hope you enjoy!

Have a wonderful day!

Love,
Heidi

Banana and caramel pie

One of my favourite combinations in the world is banana and caramel. I don't know what it is about the flavours that are SOOO delicious, but mmmmm. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. A while back, one of my recipes for the newspaper I write for was a delicious banana, caramel and chocolate pie!

You WANT to try this...believe me! Unless you are like my sister and don't like the flavour of bananas...then you won't like it. Otherwise it's a MUST ;-)

To see this recipe in Swedish, click here.



8 servings

3 1/2 dl flour (350 ml)
1 1/2 dl sugar (150 ml)
1 dl cocoa (100ml)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
60 g butter or margarine
1 dl sour cream (100ml)
2 bananas
2 dl cream, whipped
1 tin of caramel (if you live in a country where you can't buy ready-made caramel, or you feel adventurous and want to make your own, click here to see how.)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Sift all the dry ingredients into a bowl.
3. Rub the butter and dry ingredients together with your finger tops.
4. Press the dough onto a sheet of wax paper into a ball, about 20 cm in diameter.
5. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes. Cool of a cooling rack.
6. Spread the caramel over the pie base. Top with the sliced bananas and whipped cream.

(I made 2 pie bases so that I could make a sandwich-like dessert. If you want a more filling "fika"* then this is the way to go!)

Enjoy your day!

Love, Heidi

* Fika is a well-known Swedish term for having a coffee break together with something nice and sweet!

Birthdays and celebrations!

A few week-ends ago my wonderful parent-in-laws came down to Jönköping to celebrate Emanuel's mother's birthday. We had a lovely day together, swimming and relaxing at an indoor pool in Jönköping, eating good food, and just having a great time.

Instead of making a "traditional" cake, I thought that I would try something new and exciting.



First I made a choux pastry:

I used this recipe from taste.com

* 80ml (1/3 cup) water
* 40g butter, at room temperature, cubed
* 50g (1/3 cup) plain flour, sifted
* 2 eggs, at room temperature
* Vegetable oil, to grease

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Place water and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Put the lid on to reduce the water from evaporating and simmer until the butter is melted.
2. Add all the flour to the butter mixture at once and use a wooden spoon to beat until well combined. Place over low heat and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until the mixture forms a ball and begins to come away from the side of the saucepan.
3. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool slightly. Add the egg to the flour mixture, beating well with a wooden spoon. Beat until the mixture just falls from the spoon but still holds its shape.
3. Pipe the pastry dough into a round circle about 20 cm in diameter on a piece of waxpaper. Fill the circle with the pastry. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden.
4. Remove from oven and turn the oven off. Immediately cut the top half of the pastry off. This is important in order to release the steam and prevent the pastry from becoming soggy. Return to the (turned off) oven and leave for 15 minutes to dry out. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

That's a basic choux pastry recipe. It can also be made into small, cute profiteroles. Once the round ring was done I lifted the top half off, filled it with some vanilla cream, topped it with some blueberries and raspberries, put the pastry lid back on, topped it with some more berries and decorated it with some icing sugar.

It looked kind of like a mess, but it was charming, and tasted so fresh and lovely. It's definitely a cake that I'm going to make again!

Happy baking!

Love
Heidi

Passion for life!

Last week-end I made a delicious dessert for a newspaper that I write recipes for. I was actually planning on getting it up on the blog before Valentine's Day but this week-end and week has been BUSY! But rather late then never...and there is always time to spoil the special people in your life. So if you haven't done anything yet to celebrate Valentine's Day, here's a perfect recipe that will make just about any heart melt.

Passion fruit and white chocolate dessert:



(This recipe is enough for about 2 people)

100g white chocolate
2 passion fruit (or granadillas as they are called in South Africa)
½ dl crème fraiche (50 ml)
1 egg, separated
1 tbsp sugar
2 dl cream
6 digestive biscuits, crushed
25 g melted butter

1. Melt the chocolate carefully. Let it cool slightly. Mix the passion fruit, crème fraiche and the egg yolk into the melted chocolate.
2. Beat the cream until stiff peaks form.
3. Beat the egg whites and sugar in a separate bowl, also until stiff peaks form.
Fold the cream and egg whites carefully into the chocolate mixture.
4. Mix the crushed digestives and the melted butter. Press into the bottom of 2 small bowls. Fill the bowls with the creamy mixture. Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours, or freeze, depending on which consistency you want.
*There will most likely be some of the creamy mixture over, but that freezes very well and makes a delicious ice-cream for some other occasion.
5. Decorate with fresh raspberries and a chocolate heart.

* I have a lovely friend from Öland that organised some Tupperware rings for me. I have been longing to use them to make cute individual desserts and I finally got around to it. Once they were frozen I pulled the ring off...I think that they turned out very cute. Thank you, Elin!

Hope you all have a great day!

Love, Heidi

Malva Pudding

One of my absolute favourite South African desserts is Malva Pudding. It is AMAZING! A soft and moist texture combined with a creamy, vanilla flavour makes this pudding almost irresistible. This dessert is on almost every South African restaurant menu and found deep in the memories of many true South Africans. This is a real comfort food that is perfect for these cosy autumn evenings and especially for those of us South Africans missing home!

This recipe can be found in Swedish here!



Malva Pudding: 6-8 servings:

•1 cup sugar
•2 tbsp margarine
•1 egg
•1 tbsp smooth apricot jam
•1 tsp white wine vinegar
•1 cup milk
•1 cup flour
•1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
•1 tsp baking powder
•½ tsp salt
For the sauce:
•½ cup cream
•125 g margarine
•½ cup sugar
•1/3 cup water
•1 tsp vanilla essence
Method:
1.Put the oven on 180 degrees (Celsius)
To make the pudding:
2.Beat the margarine and sugar well.
3.Add the egg, apricot jam and vinegar while beating.
4.Mix in the milk first and then add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt, mixing until everything is just blended.
5.Pour the batter into individual ramekins. Cover the forms with foil and bake for 40 minutes.

To make the sauce:

6.Melt the margarine with the sugar and water on a stove.
7.Remove from the heat and add the cream and vanilla essence.
8.Pour the sauce over the pudding as soon as it is out of the oven. It may feel like too much sauce, so go on your feeling, but don’t be scared about pouring over too much sauce…this is what makes the pudding so mice and moist.
9.Enjoy served with some vanilla custard or ice-cream.

If you don’t have individual ramekins, the recipe will work just as well when baked in a larger oven proof dish. Just remember to increase the time spent in the oven up to around an hour.