The Susanne

Here’s an incred­ibly simple recipe for some­thing that tastes incred­ibly good and will lift almost any food to incred­ible height, taste wise. Yep.

Take

• a big bunch of pars­ley about 1,5 dl I should say), chopped.
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 dl olive oil to start but maybe as much as 1 dl depend­ing on how runny you like it.
• a large squeeze of lemon juice

Mix it all together in a small bowl. Eat it:

• on a sand­wich (I’ve tried it with fenalår and beef pas­trami so far, both delish),
• with your schnitzel (tried it, yum!)
• as salad dress­ing (oh my goodness!)
• on samlon (just ima­gin­ing but ohh…just the thought of it)
• or chicken (mmmmm!)
• well the list could go on forever.

These brownies will put a smile on your face any day! (they cer­tainly made the thun­der­storm that set in an hour after I fin­ished work for the summer, much more bearable…)

I found the recipe that inspired these at A Matter of Taste.

You’ll need:

• 200 g milk cook­ing chocolate
• 200 g dark cook­ing chocolate
• 1 dl margarine
• 4 eggs
• 2 dl sugar
• 2,5 dl flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 dl chopped almonds
• 2 dl shred­ded coconut

Set your oven to 175 degrees C.

In a sauce­pan, melt 100 g of each chocol­ate on a low heat with the mar­gar­ine. Chop the rest of the chocol­ate into big, chunky chips and put them aside for later.

When the chocol­ate and mar­gar­ine is melted, stir them together and add the sugar. Stir until it’s well combined.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the eggs. Pour into a bowl.

Add the flour and baking powder and com­bine well.

Stir in the chocol­ate chips, almonds and coconut. Pour into a greased baking pan, and pop in the oven.

Let the brownies bake for about 20 minutes. I recom­mend check­ing them after 17 just in case. They’re done when whatever you stick into them comes out sticky but not covered in runny batter.

Enjoy! And may your rainy days be lovely :)

Here’s the recipe for the cook­ies I wrote about, the ones inspired by the art­icle from Cook & Eat on leftover-​cookies. They’re non-​dairy and incred­ibly sweet!

Makes about 24

• 100g margarine
• 2 1/2 dl sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 dl flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 dl shred­ded coconut
• 1 dl hun­dreds and thousands
• 1/2 dl dark chocol­ate (chopped)

Pre­heat the oven to 180 C.

Mix the egg, lemon juice and vanilla in a bowl.

Use your mixer to cream the mar­gar­ine and the sugar until it is really fluffy. Pour the egg mix over and beat until it’s all mixed and creamy.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, chocol­ate and the hun­dreds and thou­sands, and add to the egg/sugar/margarine mix whilst mixing, until it’s all combined.

Scoop spoon­fuls of cookie dough onto parch­ment lined baking sheets, and place in the oven, one sheet at a time.

Bake for about 10 minutes, but my advice is to keep a close eye on them from about 7 or 8 minutes as they turn brown really sud­denly. You want them just golden!

I came up with this last night when I was crav­ing pasta but also saw there were loads of veget­ables in the fridge that had to be eaten. I even threw in a little cheese even though it makes me ill, just because cheesy pasta is so yum. This made one huge por­tion that I couldn’t finish, so I sup­pose it will feed two girls or one man.

• 1 por­tion spaghetti
• 1/2 cap­sicum (green bell pepper)
• 1/2 onion
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 8 small broc­coli florets
• 1 dl grated Jarlsberg
• 10 slices cured ham

Slice the cap­sicum and the onion thinly (about 1-2 mm thick). Cut the toma­toes in half. Cut the ham slices into 1 cm strips.

Boil the spa­ghetti in 2 L water with a little salt and veget­able oil.

In a skil­let, sauté the veget­ables (except the toma­toes) for about five minutes. Add the toma­toes and sauté for another minute. You don’t want them to turn to mush.

When the spa­ghetti is done, drain and put it back in the pot. Add the veget­ables, the ham and the cheese and toss. Serve imme­di­ately on deep plates.

Yum!

My first meet­ing with Steamy Kit­chen res­ul­ted in some pretty spec­tac­u­lar Asian spare ribs. They were so mouth­wa­ter­ingly (oh I’m sure it’s a word) deli­cious that I have since exper­i­mented with the recipe and found my own favour­ite version:

For the glaze, you’ll need

• 5 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tsp minced ginger
• ½ oinion, minced
• 7 tbsp Worcester­shire sauce
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp sambal oelek
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 dl water

Set the oven to 150 degrees Celsius, then pre­pare the glaze:

In a sauce­pan, heat the olive oil and add the onion and garlic. Sauté for a few minutes until soft but not brown, and add the remain­ing ingredi­ents. Let it simmer until it has thickened.

Pre­pare the ribs:

Brush on a layer of the glaze on both sides of the ribs, place them in a non-​stick oven dish. Cover with alu­minium foil, and then pop them in the oven for about three hours. Every 30 minutes, take the ribs out and brush on some more glaze. After 3 hours, take the ribs out and pop on the grill in the oven. Take off the alu­minium foil and brush on the remain­ing glaze, and put the ribs back in the oven until the glaze car­a­mel­izes and looks bubbly and yummy.

Take the ribs out before the glaze burns, and serve! With a salad, some coleslaw or onion rings or even plain old boiled pota­toes, these ribs will amaze you with whatever dish you choose to accom­pany them!

To make the per­fect Rote­mos, all you need is some swede, car­rots, butter, salt, pepper and water!

this feeds four:

• 1 kg swede, peeled and chopped in 2 cm pieces
• 2 car­rots, peeled and chopped in 2 cm pieces
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 3 tbsp butter or margarine

Boil the veget­ables until tender, then drain over a bowl to keep the water.

Mash the veget­ables with the butter and a little of the water from the cook­ing. Only use about 1 dl water or just enough to give the mash a lovely con­sist­ency. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

If you’re also making Pinnekjøtt, an altern­at­ive could be using cook­ing juices from the meat in the mash instead of the water from the veget­ables, but be care­ful so it doesn’t become too salty.

Yeah, that’s right. It’s called stick meat. It has its name from the method of cook­ing, which is that it’s steamed by pla­cing birch sticks, in cross­ing layers in the bottom of a pot and pla­cing the meat on top, and filling with water until just below the meat. The sticks can be bought ready made, but it feels really good to col­lect your own — I think it makes the Pinnekjøtt taste extra deli­cious as well. In Pinnekjøtt, you use the dry cured side of mutton, although some people prefer using lamb which has a milder taste. I prefer mutton because it’s much tastier.

To feed 4:

2 kg dry cured side of mutton

birch sticks

Divide the meat along each rib. Then place in plenty of water at room tem­per­at­ure for about 24-30 hours depend­ing on the thick­ness of the meat.

Layer the birch sticks in the bottom of a large pot, and fill with water so it is level with the sticks.

Place the ribs on top, making sure they’re not in the water. Let it cook on a low heat for about 3 hours, refilling the water as needed.

If you want you can place the Pinnekjøtt under the grill for a few minutes just before serving to give it that brown touch.

Serve on warm plates with Vos­sakorv (tra­di­tional Nor­we­gian saus­age), pota­toes, mashed swede, mus­tard and a reduc­tion from the cook­ing juices.