Our last sushi meal this year

I would like to thank Katrine Anita with the blog Magiske foto for all the photo tips she has given me, I atleast think that my photogtaphy has improved a little.

I have not made this made myself, we ordered take out, but sometime during next year I am going to post something about making sushi.

Finally decorated the Christmas tree

In Norway we traditionally decorate our Christmas trees on the 23. of december and keep the tree for the 12 days of Christmas and throw it out on the 13th day. With all the stress and preparation for Christmas more and more people deacorate their tree earlier to enjoy Christmas a little longer, so was my plan too. The plan was to decorate it last week end, sadly I forgot to buy a tree but today a day earlier I did it:D

Home made ornaments

Some bought

So if Christmas is making me bussy and forget to blog, 

Merry Christmas to you all.

Love

Pizzelles

From what I understand pizzelle are one of the oldest cookies known to man.

picture borrowed from the internet

picture borrowed from the internet

First melt
250 grams of butter
 and let it cool, then beat
4 eggs
250 grams of sugar
add 200 grams of sifted flour
1 ts of finly ground anis seed
and beat until well blended
drop spoon fulls in the iron and bake.
I do not have a pizelle iron so I used a waffel iron

They may not look as nice as the ones baked in a propper iron, but they taste yummy and tured out nice and crisp, well the boys thought so;)

Took some pictures in the cold.

The Lady behind this norwegian blogg Katrine Anitas magiske verden, posts photo tips on her blog Magiske foto

I think my photos has improved a lot since I started using her tips, I took these pictures across the street from me and you can see parts of my house at the entrance of the driveway.

Decorating for Christmas

Above our dining table I have a lamp that I decorate onece in a while and since it is Christmas soon, I went outside in the garden and trimmed a boxwood and a holly shrub

added som lark branches and cones from when I raided my mother in laws garden

Made some wreaths too

The seasons in Norway has been turned up side down, the temperature is above zero and my boxwood already has little buds

Liver pate with bacon

It has been a while since I have made this. A sweet friend asked me on facebook if I had a decent pecipe for a pate:). This recipe makes about 500 grams

150 g pork liver

4 pc anchovie filets

100 g bacon, 50 g fat/lard, 1/2 ts salt

or if you do not want the bacon flavor use

100 g fat/lard, 1,5 ts salt

1 onion

1 ½ dl milk

3 tbs flor

½ ts peper

½ ground allspice

1 egg

Cut the liver, bacon, fat and onions in to small pieces and put it in a food processor with the anchovies and blend it all up, then add the rest of the ingredients and continue blending until it becomes a smooth mass.

Pour the it in to a greased pot or 2 smaller pots and place it/them on a baking tray that can hold water, add about a liter of water in the tray and bake in the oven for about an hour in175 ºC (347 Fahrenheit)The paté is finnished when the baking thermometer showes 76 ºC.(169 Fahrenheit)

You can make a big batch of this and freeze it, just make sure that the pots you yous can be placed in the freezer and oven.
For Norwegian press here

Gingerbread house

This is what you will see when you enter our house, we placed the gingerbread houses in the hall.

The children and I experimented with two types of windows

one with candy inside the cut outs

The lighter the candy the nicer the glass effect.

The smallere house we used gelatine that we glued on the back of the walls with royal icing

the gelatin gives the glass an old fashion look:)

We also made and decorated gingerbread cookies.

The four year old with her rolling pin

I think we did pretty good:)

For norwegian press here

Thanksgiving 2011

After spending a few years in the US, Thanksgiving dinners is a must in our household, spesially since my birth day is around that time. I used to serve turkey, but after a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant a decade or so back, I wanted to challenge myself and se if I could make and serve a simmilar dinner at home. This year we where 15 around the table and the menu is pictured below. One dish missing below someone ate the last lobster I was saving to photograph later.

We started with h´ordeurves toasted ryebread with herbed creamcheese with fishroe called løyrom in norwegian. 

To drink Möet & Chandon champange

Here we had the lobster au gratin

Möet & Chandon  champagne

Creamed seafood soup

Möet & Chandon champange

Confit de Canard, green beans and pickled chipotle onion

Tommasi Ripasso Valpolichella

shelf flower granite

Minced chicken with truffels and pesto stuffed with rolled chicken breast with mozerella, parma ham and basil on a ragu of red cabbage, red onion and pear cooked with balsamico and redwine, aspargess and romaesco

Tommasi Ripasso Valpolichella

White chocolate pannacotta with passion fruit,

Brownie with pecan and coconut toffee, Chocolate chip and 23 carat leaf gold

Vanilla ice cream with strawberry and raspberry coulis

coffee avec

Photos on the road

On the way home today I had to try a few tips Magiske foto  has on her blogg

I took the pictures trough the wind shield while the car was in motion, the result is maybe not what she meant.

But I like the pictures

I specially like this picture with the contrasting colors of the shiny red car and the bright green trafic light

In this picture I got the driver to pull over.

Have a nice evening