In a food mood today, so I snapped these photos of what I made for dinner.
It’s a vegetarian Thai dish, often found at street corners in Thailand for a few bats. It’s my favorite. When I found the recipe in the most recent IKEA Family (page 76) magazine I knew I had to make it.
Delicious!
If you need a recipe you can google it, or order it from your local thai restaurant. Pad-thai, mmmm!
Let’s all eat some cake this weekend in celebration of my 1000:th post and my 33rd birthday, shall we?
I would like to invite you all, but the cake I made yesterday has already been eaten by my family, and you all couldn’t even fit into the house even if you lived closer than you do. I would like to invite everyone, even if you’re new here. Even if you’ve never commented to let me know you exist. I still would invite you. And if you’re one of my blog friends I would make you come! What a party it would be!
Would you come dance with me?
I always make this cake, every year. It’s my favorite. In Swedish it’s called Kladdkaka because it’s supposed to be “sticky” and kind of gooey in the middle, though the edge is crispy. Served with whipped cream it’s the best birthday cake a girl can have. The recipe has been in my family for generations. Or at least since my mom cut it out from a magazine a couple of years ago and glued it into her cookbook and I copied that into mine. Two generations - quite a long time like I said!
Yesterday when I made the cake I had extra fun trying to experiment with taking photos of the process. I hope you’ll enjoy them!
Maybe you could make a cake some day soonish and celebrate yourself? Send me a thought if you like this cake, that would be nice.
I’m a photographer and not a cook, so this is not a recipe but a photo-journal of the Day Before the Wedding of my friend Maris and her fiancé! I had the honor this Midsummer to take their wedding photos, but before church I was involved in a lot of pre-wedding activities and I had a blast (more tomorrow). This post is about How to make your own wedding cake (or ten) looking just like a professional wedding cake! I was fascinated as I’ve never visited a cake bakery before! I was in the middle of the action, even helping!
I was rolling up my sleeves and got to be involved in the sugarpaste* part of the baking. I did a lot of the kneading and rolling out the white sugar dough that would cover the cakes. By the end of the day I slept like a baby…
So what to do? My friend would say plan, plan, plan!
Plan ahead, practice at home and reserve a lot of time off from other wedding business the day before the wedding to make your cakes! Bring a couple of crafty girlfriends and close the kitchen door for a couple of hours!
We cooked the chocolate and raspberry filling (Panna Cotta!) on the stove and then chilled in the fridge over night. The are creamy, colorful and look so yummy, don’t they?
When I sit down by the computer to write I think about craft and art. I think about sewing, embroidery, how to make little polymer clay flowers that I’ve sketched, painting on fabric, taking photos of pillows I’ve finished, drawing princesses in my Art Journal or something else I want to try right now.
Then, when I settle down with a project I come up with these great blog entries and I write them inside my head. I have titles, themes, photos and sentences set up in my head but when I come back to the computer…
I sit down and start surfing, clicking around and forget to write and what I was wanting to write about! And the weather is nice again so I want to make stuff but be outside so I…
Oh well…
Today I took mom’s sewing machine out for a spin. I’m sewing together even more stripes for the quilt, now it’s the border I’m making. It will be one long stripe of different fabrics. I took this photo with the self-timer on my camera.
I’ve gotten so many nice comments on my recent posts, and I haven’t written to any of you to say thanks. I’m writing in my newly opened Moleskine diary in the morning and reading great books during the day. I need to write a couple of reviews to tell you about them too!
My view if I look up. In my ears I have CraftCast show with Tonya Davidson that I hadn’t listened too (oh now I want to go to her art shop and buy stuff to try soldering and resin but instead I’m going here to order Moleskine Pocket Japanese Accordian Album because I’m going to be in a Moly x-change and I’m thrilled about that, plus I hadn’t looked at this Accordion Moleskine book and I think it looks like so much fun to fill one of those!) and CraftSanity podcast show number 76 with an interview with knitting book authors Larissa and Martin that wrote the book Knitalong (it has so many nice patterns in it, I want it!).
Yeah.
And while sewing you need a drink girls! I swear, it just gets better that way. This is my favorite pre-dinner drink in the summer time. It’s called Åkesson and it’s from Italy, I think? Hm.
Then we had dinner.
Summer dinners are the best!
And Miss Smilla the cat?
We made nine (9!) gingerbread houses this year. I decorated three, my cousin Charlotta made three, my brother two and my mother one.
Here they are:
The backside of two of my houses. They are happy houses, can you tell?
The house of death and the Chocolate roof house that my brother made.
I’ve been wanting to make small gingerbread houses for more than a year now, but last Christmas we went to fjällen and no houses were made. But this year my sweet cousin wanted to make houses too, so we hooked up and made a couple (nine!) together! I think it was the best day for a long time. We laughed so much and made silly houses and just simply had a good time. I want more days of 2008 to be like this one!
Lucia is celebrated in Sweden on December 13th every year. Lucia is presented as a woman (or a girl) with long hair in a white plain dress that looks like a night gown. She walks around with her maids (and gingerbread and star boys), candles in her hair, singing Christmas songs and offering the traditinoal saffron buns that I posted images of yesterday because we did a little false starting on the buns! Who could resist?
The origin of this tradition is forgotten and mixed with all kinds of diverse belives. The origin of Lucia is how ever the story about Saint Lucia of Syracuse, a martyr who died in 304.
I was very fascinated with her story when I was younger, specially the one that originates from the Middle Ages where she stabbed her own eyes out as a response to a suitor who admired her beautiful eyes; “she cut them out and sent them to him, asking to be left in peace thereafter.” She wanted to live as a nun. I’ve even written a story about this event, but I don’t know where it is now.
Anyway, just like the traditions about Christmas many of us have forgetten why we celebrate this day and why the traditions are like they are. In Sweden I think it’s important to always remember to celebrate the light in the darkness of the winter (lux means light). Halfway through December maybe we need the carrier of light and joy to come visit us in the dark morning?
I posted a lot of bun images yesterday, of the traditional saffron buns. You can get the recipe here: Saint Lucia buns!
After Swedish cinnamon rolls these are my favorite - maybe even more so because these buns are season bound and not eaten during the rest of the year (except for December)? That makes them extra disirable, wonderful and something to long for. I love a cold glass of milk and one (or three!) of these saffron buns on a plate together with some gingerbread biscuits! Yummy!
Or if you don’t want it with milk, warm some glögg (mulled wine) with raisin and almond in the cup… That’s what we’re having tonight. Very Swedish all of this, hope you can share some of our tradition, let me know about your own - and don’t forget to light a candle for St Lucia (he patron saint of the blind) too! Plus please enjoy the free downloadable labels I posted below - great for Christmas presents!
Link: More information about Swedish traditions and Lucia - very interesting to read even for Swedes!
Have a great Lucia evening!
Swedish Cinnamon rolls are called Kanelbulle. They’ve been my favourite since I was a kid and I make them the same way mom does. With hot coffee or even better, a cold glass of milk. Yummy times!
I actually filmed these clipping of mom baking cinnamon rolls in October and thought I’d make a film for Cinnamon roll Day which is 4th of October. I didn’t finish it by then but now it’s edited and I’ve added some fun music that makes me wanna do the Christmas dance!
Wanna join me?
Or maybe you are already in the kitchen baking something sweet? This movie makes my mouth water up every time, and I’m glad I’ve finished it so I don’t have to look at those yummy buns any more, I’m getting fat just by editing this, hehe. What about you, got any dough?
If you need a recipe you can visit Stephanie who after I filmed this posted about her love for kanelbullar with photos of her making them! I also googled cinnamon rolls/buns and found the site of Pioneer woman, which just lured me in and made me want to bake every day! Check out her making cinnamon rolls (not Swedish) and her latest recipe of Childhood cookies and beyond (love that name!). All the photos are yummy, and it looks both easy and fun.
You can really make a movie about anything! Or what do you think? What would you make a movie about if you could? My next one is about happiness. Coming soon to a theater near you. Mine are always this action filled and dramatic! Ha! I think it’s because I’m such an adventuress crazy flipped out person. ;-)
Take care and yes, watch this bunny cook too today! But don’t go his way just yet, ok?
Home made vegetable soup, a picture for Bokkanalen’s reviewer Jenny who acctually e-mailed me telling me that her favourit thing about my blog is the categorie Food mood! How strange, I thought, do I have such a category? ;-)
Jenny said I take nice food photos, and since I feel flattered I had to post another food photo, even though just from the zink.
I eat a lot of pasta and boring pre-cooked meals (meat balls!) right now, but when I do swirl in the kitchen I like to take out my camera to record how “good” I’ve been.
I saw this food episode on a TV show last week, I think it was called Kvällsöppet or something, and they made soup with potatoes and other veggies that they mashed together with a hand mixer. I remembered that my man bought a mixer at the flea market that we haven’t tryed out yet, so I brought it out and made a soup! Mixed together potatoes and carrots, added water, stock cube, green pepper and white beans plus some spices. Tasted very nice.
Here are some of this months beautiful autumn picture, because Studio Friday is Autumn Inspiration:
Autumn is such a beautiful season to me, specially on days when the sun is out peeping through the multicoloured leafs of the trees. One day last week when I jumped on my bike I couldn’t stop smiling, because the big yellow leafs where swirling and dancing in the air in front of me and around me in a constant flow of autumn inspiration. I think it must have been a night of frost, and when the sun came out the leafs started falling. It was pure magic as the sun rose against the sky.
The mornings comes from pitch black (when I wake up) to bright day light (when I’ve finished breakfast) in minutes right now, and at six o’clock at night the darkness is back. They are predicting snow, but I hope not yet.
The elf that lives in this mushroom has moved to a warmer place, Florida I guess.
I will have two birthday partys this year, one at my home and the other one later (at Easter) at my parents home. First birtyday party was yesterday, and even though I’m not 30 yet, I had so many friends over, giving me presents and hugs. I had the best time! I was amazed, and so happy all night. I will try to take pictures of all my presents later, but first, this:
The theme of the party was pink, as you can see. My sister in law made the cake and the pink chochlate balls. I made the pink muffins - very messy but oh so fun.
Smilla was hiding under the bed the first couple of hours, but everyone who got a chanse to meet her fell in love. And after the door bell stoped ringing all the time, she came forward and said hello to everyone, let my friends pet her and made me purr inside.
Thanks for all your nice comments on my last post (on getting Miss Smilla). Yes, she is named after the danish book Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg (any cat of mine would have a literary name), and yes, I will for sure post more pictures of her in the future!