Our Christmas ham

Traditional Finnish style Christmas ham:

The new bakery

A new bakery - Brödkultur 2.0 - has opened in one of the old Sofiero farm buildings.

Their bread is very tasty!

Caviar tidbits

Tonight we enjoyed a bottle of Pol Roger champagne and some caviar tidbits ... :-)

Cakes ... :-)

Newly baked cakes ... :-)

(Finnish recipe)

Roast beef and roasted vegetables

My dinner last night - Roast beef and roasted vegetables with a glass av red wine ... :-)

Roasted vegetables on the menu

Roasted vegetables will be really tasty tonight, with some meat -

and a glass of good organic red wine ... :-)

Close-ups

Here are a few close-ups of food items I like:

Sharon

Sharon

Finn Crisp bread

Finn Crisp bread

Chili flakes

Ecological food products that I like

Nowadays you can buy a whole range of ecological and organically grown products that are tasty and not too expensive. Here are some of my recent favourites:

The classic Swedish Christmas bread

Vörtbröd is the classic Swedish Christmas bread. It is a spiced bread made with rye and wort. Wort is "the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer or whiskey" (Wikipedia).

Christmas bread

Christmas bread with dried fruits, nuts and seeds.

Finnish style date cake

 Finnish style date cake - an old Christmas favourite of mine ... :-))

Ecological food

It is nice that there are now so many ecological food products available in my local store.

Here are a few of them:

 

The "Christmas lunch" - A popular Tradition in the Nordic Countries

"Christmas lunches" are a very popular tradition in the Nordic Countries. Most companies e.g. host such pre-Christmas lunches for their employees. In Helsingborg the Wave Restaurant on the Scandlines ferry Aurora is a favourite location for the traditional Christmas "smörgåsbord¨:

The Nobel Banquet - A Spectacular Culinary Achievement

The entrance of the altogether 260 waiters serving the over 1300 guests is always a spectacular sight.

December 10 is always the day for the great Nobel Banquet, which takes place in the Stockholm City Hall after the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. As the Nobel prizes are regarded as the most prestigious prizes in the world, also the Banquets have become major international events.

Chef Andreas Hedlund interviewed on Swedish television last night. Hedlund was in
charge of the menu also last year.

Last night's Nobel Banquet was again a spectacular culinary achievement. The man in charge of the "army" of 43 cooks (!) was Andreas Hedlund (2002 Swedish Chef of the Year) along with Fredrik Björlin (former captain of the Swedish Culinary Team) as well as Pastry Chefs Conrad Tyrsén (2009 Swedish Pastry Chef of the Year) and Ted Johansson of Dessert&Choklad Stockholm.

The Guinea hen mosaic starter.

The menu last night:

Guinea hen mosaic, carrot variation with Gotland truffle and chanterelle duxelle with truffle mayonnaise
Turbot cupola stuffed with Norwegian lobster, tartelette with lobster on a bed of cream cheese and spinach, pointed cabbage terrine, lobster sauce and almond potato purée
Chocolate silhouette with nougat and sea buckthorn explosion

The wines:

Champagne Gaston Chiquet Cuvée Tradition
Brut Premier Cru
Château l’Hospitalet La Reserve Rouge 2011
Coteaux du Languedoc la Clape
Nivole Moscato d’Asti 2012
Michele Chiarlo

A travelling open air market in Helsingborg

This week a travelling international open air market has visited Helsingborg. The colourful market stalls looked quite nice in the grey October weather. My favorite stand was the French patisserie, which offered a lot of culinary delights. Particularly their vanilla flans were tasty!

Simple pleasures nr. 20: Andalucian olives

Spain is the world´s largest producer of olives - and Andalucia is the home of the best olives. It´s just that simple.

The first Andalucian olive trees were planted already 6000 years ago. Today there are 150 million olive trees, which are used for the production of about one billion litres of the green gold of Andalucia.

Olive trees dominate large parts of  the Andalucian landscape

Jaen is the olive capital of Andalucia

There are about 200 varieties of olives in Spain. 

The considerable health benefits of olive oil are well documented. So, there is every reason for consumers all over the world to increase the use of olives - preferably from Andalucia!