Puffpastry cheese sticks

As ha tummy filler before meals at most restaurants you get nice warm bread or breadsticks.

I made a lot of puffpastry the other day and had a hankering for puff pastry cheese sticks. Making them is very easy, spesially if you have ready store bought puff pastry

You need

Puffpastry

Luqaimat-fried dumplings from the UAE

When we came home from our trip to The UAE I had to try to make Luqaimat, fried duplings with syrup and chopped pistachios

These pictures from The Hilton in Fujairah, depicts a local lady in niqab making the duplings.

Easter in Fujairah

This easter we went on a trip to the The UAE and spent most of the time in Fujairah one of the seven emirates in the UAE

We happend to be there when the local womens college had a little project, they were to share and show the tourist their culture. I you wonder about the pictures and the faces I have posted, it is alright, I asked for permision.

I could not post pictures where the students would be recognized, but the children was fine to show of.

A little mouthful, easy pastry

A little mouthful is what my mother in law, called these wonderful soft pastry. They are similar to choux pastry but instead og water you use milk.

Cherry tart

I have a cherry tree in my garden with dark and very tart berries that we get to enjoy through iut most of the year, thanks tom my mother in law who has picked, pitted and portioned them in little baggies and put them in the freezer for me.

They say that the way to a mans hart is through his stomach, so a big thank you to my mother in law for helping me keep my husband at my side;)

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Hope everybody out there has the opportunity to celebrate the day with their loved ones.

Hugs

Liza

Place mats DIY

Sometimes things just happens, my oldest son was trying to camouflage his Christmas present for his sister and used these stiks that I use to stir paint and duckt tape

Fastelavn buns

Norwegian Mothersday and Fastelavn fell on the same sunday this year.

Fastelavn comes from the low german word vastel-avent, evening before Lent and it is the name commonly used for Carnival in the scandinavian countries. Fastelavn evolved from the Roman Catholic tradition of celebrating the days before Lent, but since the scandinavian countries became Protestant, the holiday became less specifically religious. This holiday occurs seven weeks before Easter Sunday and is sometimes described as a Nordic Halloween, children dressing up in costumes and gather treats for the Fastelavn feast. The holiday is generally considered to be a time for children's fun and family games. The Cat in the Sac is often played and is a nordic version of a Piñata.

English tea, clotted cream and strawberry jam

I had a craving for scones with cotted cream and strawberry jam. I had two choices

1. Hop on a plane and travel to england

2. Try to make it myself

Here is a recepie that I found 

Pour three cups of cream into a heavy-bottomed oven-safe pan. The cream should come up the side of the pan somewhere between one and three inches.

Cover the pan and put it in the oven on 180 F.

Leave the covered pan in the oven for at least 8 hours. 

You'll know it's done because there will be a thick yellowish skin above the cream. That skin is the clotted cream.

Let the pan cool at room temperature, then put it in the refrigerator for another 8 hours.

Remove the clotted cream from the top of the pan. 

The cream that is underneath it can still be used for baking and I used it for baking my scones.

I used store bought cream this time, but

next time I'm going to try this with unpasteurised milk and see if there is any difference.

Rillettes de canard

Rillettes was usually made with pork, but today there are meny different kinds, some even with fish.

Today I made it with duck

You need

1 duck

5-6 stalks of thyme

5-6 bayleafs

 1,5 tbs salt

1,5 tbs whole pepper corns

Cut the duck and remove the skin and fat (Cook the skin and fat in a separate pot click HERE for instructions)

Put all the ingredients in a pot and cover with water

Give it a boil and let it simmer on medium heat for about 2 hours, until the meat is tender and comes off the bones by itself

Shred the meat 

and continue simmering the meat with 1 cup of the broth and 1/4 cup of the fat for about an hour.

Fill jars or little clay pots with the meat and top it with a little duck fat and let them cool

Enjoy the rillettes with bread or use it in salads if you like.

Save the fat and broth for later, you can make nice gravy and enrich soups with the broth.

The fat is nice to sautee vegetable in.