The Susanne

This tomato sauce is so deli­cious you’ll be cheat­ing your­self if you don’t try it! It’s inspired by both Gordon Ramsay’s roas­ted tomato soup and my mum’s deli­cious roas­ted tomato sauce. Basic­ally all you do is roast toma­toes, onion, garlic and fresh herbs at 220 degrees celsius for about 45 minutes, stir­ring occa­sion­ally and mash­ing up the toma­toes a bit. Abso­lutely scrump­tious! I’ve taken it a step fur­ther here and used a blender to get that lovely smooth tex­ture that is per­fect for pasta dishes, and also used some red wine for that extra little some­thing. Here’s my recipe for the per­fect roas­ted tomato sauce:

• a splash of olive oil
• 1 kg fresh, ripe toma­toes (halve the large ones, leave small ones like cherry or plum toma­toes whole)
• 5 sun-​dried toma­toes, chopped
• 2 large cloves of garlic, halved
• 1 onion, sliced
• a medium-​sized bunch of fresh thyme sprigs (or any herbs you like, I guess)
• a splash of red wine (I use about 1-2 dl)
• a little tomato paste, to taste
• 1 tbsp sugar
  

Heat your oven to 220 degrees celsius.

Start the sauce by pour­ing some olive oil in a roast­ing tin, and pla­cing it in the oven until almost smoking. Take the tin out and add the toma­toes, onion, garlic and thyme. Sprinkle a little olive oil on top, and season well with salt and pepper.

Roast for about 45 minutes, stir­ring occasionally.

After 30 minutes, turn the heat down to 180 degrees, and mash up the toma­toes to get a sauce-​like con­sist­ency. Add some red wine, to taste. I use about 1-2 dl as I really enjoy the taste. Add some tomato paste if you want, and the sugar. Return it to the oven for the last 15 minutes.

At this point you have a deli­cious tomato sauce which is great as it is — unless you want it smooth.

If you want a smooth tex­ture, pour the sauce into your blender and blend on high for about one minute or until you get the tex­ture you want. Serve — or put back in the roast­ing tin if you want to add meatballs!

The first time I tasted this was on our second night in Sicily. Imme­di­ately after my first taste I just knew I’d have to make this at home. The recipe is incred­ibly simple, and the taste of the fin­ished dish is even more incred­ibly deli­cious. This is my gift to all of you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do – every time!

Feeds two:

• 1 kg fresh mussels
• 2 dl wine (red or white, both work!)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 shal­lots, chopped
• 2 toma­toes, chopped
• 1 dl pars­ley, chopped
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Start by clean­ing the mus­sels. Scrub off all grit, ‘volcano shells’, stringy bits, all of it. Any dirt left on the mus­sels will go in the broth and you’ll have to eat it. Yeah. Throw out any that don’t close when you touch them as they’re dead and poten­tially harmful!

In a medium sized pot on a medium heat, start by heat­ing some olive oil and then sauté the shal­lots and the garlic until barely golden. Add the toma­toes and the wine and stir care­fully to mix it all up nicely.

Add the mus­sels on top, cover, and let sit for a few minutes. After about 7 to 10 minutes the mus­sels should all have opened. Dis­card any that have not opened.

Use a slot­ted spoon to move the mus­sels into a serving dish. Stir the pars­ley into the broth, add some salt and pepper to taste, and pour it over the mus­sels — then serve and eat!

Yum!

The import­ant thing about mus­sels is, firstly – check­ing that the mus­sels in your area are safe to eat (if you’re pick­ing them your­self) and secondly – only using the ones that are closed or close upon touch. If they stay open, they’re dead and pos­sibly deadly. Like­wise, once they’re cooked, only eat the ones that have opened.

So that’s it: (raw = closed + cooked = open) = good.

To serve two (maybe three) you need:

• 2 kg fresh mussels
• 4 car­rots, julienned
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tin chopped tomato
• 1/2 bottle good red wine
• 1 tbsp thyme
• salt and pepper
• a good splash greek olive oil

In a large pot, sauté the onion in the olive until soft, then add the garlic and sauté until it starts turn­ing golden and gets that nutty aroma.

Add the tin of tomato and a little salt and pepper to taste, then pour in about half of the red wine. Let it all boil for a few minutes until it comes together and starts to thicken.

Add the thyme and the rest of the wine.

Place the car­rots in the broth and then place the mus­sels on top, and cover. Steam for about eight to ten minutes or until all the mus­sels have opened.

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!