Sushi

Ever tried making your own sushi? I thoroughly recommend it! It is absolutely awesome! You know exactly what's in it, you can fill it as much or as little as you want, and when you're finished you'll be so proud of your creation you won't want to stop eating! 
You'll need a sushi rolling bamboo mat, which you can buy from Tesco, sushi rice, sushi nori (seaweed), Japanese rice vinegar and mirin (Japanese cooking wine). All this can be bought from Tesco, or check your local supermarket. We use cucumber and avocado in every roll, and smoked salmon, cooked and peeled prawns and seafood sticks. 

Follow directions on rice or nori packaging and whatever you do, roll the sushi up tightly as it'll otherwise fall apart. Cut the rolls in slices with a sharp knife, wiping it clean between every 1-2 cuts.

Pancakes

Pancakes as I know it, is served as a kind of dessert on a Thursday night after pea soup. That's how a lot of Swedish people do it, and that's how my mum did it. I have now picked up a much better habit from a dear friend: Pancakes for breakfast on a Saturday morning! Probably not what the health visitor would recommend, but oh so nice, and a real treat for the family. This weekend included bananas and leftover strawberries from Midsummer Eve.  

3 eggs
2 tbsp sugar
1¾ cup flour (4,4 dl)
2 cups milk (5 dl)
1tsp vanilla essence (optional)

butter or margarine for frying 

Beat eggs and sugar fluffy. Add the rest of the ingredients little by little while beating. Fry each pancake in a small bit of butter or margarine on medium heat. 

Serve with whatever you fancy! I always have jam on the table, my husband's nostalgia calls for sugar and cinnamon, our newly picked up habit is golden syrup. 

Creamy tomato and basil soup

No tomato soup is as good as a home made one on fresh tomatoes. Here's my recipe for a flavourful creamy fresh tomato soup with fresh basil. This recipe makes about 4 servings. 

1kg tomatoes

3 cups water

3 carrots

1 medium brown onion or 2 small ones

2 tbsp tomato purée

6 fresh basil leaves

⅓ tsp thyme

10 sun-dried tomatoes

⅕  to ¼  tsp mixed white and black pepper

½ tsp salt

½ cup crème fraiche (reduced fat if you want to be good)

Turn oven on to 180 degrees. Put 1 tbsp olive oil on an oven tray and heat up in the oven for about 10 minutes so the oil easily spreads over the tray. Cut tomatoes in half and place face down on the tray. Make a small cut on top of each tomato half to make peeling easier. Bake tomatoes in oven for about 15 minutes or until the skin starts to wrinkle. Peel and slice carrots, and chop onion. Take tomatoes out and while they are cooling down slightly bring 3 cups water to the boil with 2 vegetable stock cubes. Add carrots and onion and let boil for 10 minutes. Peel the skin off the tomatoes using two forks if too hot (if they have been in the oven long enough the skin should fall off easily, it’s fine if small pieces remain). Add tomatoes, tomato purée, chopped basil leaves, thyme, chopped sundried tomatoes, salt and pepper, and bring to the boil. Let boil with a lid on for 5-10 minutes. Liquidise the soup with a hand blender. Add crème fraiche and stir.

Garnish with basil leaves and serve with buttered bread. 

Meatballs with creamy gravy

A true Swedish meal! That's what was served in the Minty house today. Kids were indeed starving by the time dinner was served, but they ate and ate and ate! I'll take that as a compliment. The inspiration for this recipe I have found at kryddburken, then tried a few different ways and this is now my ultimate meatball recipe.

Meatballs

500g beef mince

500g pork mince

1 large brown onion, or 2 smaller ones

4 tbsp water

1 pork stock cube

1 beef stock cube

2 slices ryvita crispbread

1 egg

2 tbsp natural yoghurt+

½ tsp salt (or less if you wish)

¼ tsp mixed white and black pepper

1 tsp all-round spice

1-2 tbsp olive oil

Turn the oven on to 180 degrees. Crumble stock cubes into 4 tbsp boiling water and dissolve. Break 2 slices of ryvita crispbread into the stock, and stir so all the pieces are wet. Leave to soak for a bit so the crispbread goes soft.

Transfer the stock mixture to a jug/cup that works with your hand blender. Chop the onion and add to the stock mixture along with 2 tbsp natural yoghurt. Puree until smooth it’s smooth and looks like this:

I do this not to have big onion pieces in my meatballs as it used to be the worst thing I knew as a child. 

Put the mince into a large mixing bowl and add the stock and onion mix, the egg, salt, pepper and all-round spice. Mix preferably with your fingers (or a fork) until it’s all smooth.

Roll meatballs and put on a plate or chopping board. The larger your meatballs, the longer they will take to cook. Put 1-2 tbsp olive oil in an oven proof tray and heat up on its own in the oven for about 10 minutes. 





Take the tray out and place the meatballs on the tray. The first few meatballs should sizzle. Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes, stirring the meatballs and turning them every now and then once they start to brown. I usually pour most of the fat out after about half the baking time, leaving only a little to keep meatballs from burning.

Creamy gravy
Dissolve stock cube in hot water and stir in the Elmlea little by little letting it heat up in between. You can of course use real cream, I only prefer Elmlea on an everyday basis as it’s a little bit kinder to the waistline (and lasts longer in the fridge). Pour in a dash of soy sauce to brown it a bit (I use a Swedish soy sauce made just for colouring rather than flavouring. This picture shows sauce without colouring soy sauce.

Serve meatballs with boiled potatoes, creamy gravy, salad, and if you want to make it proper Swedish: Lingonberry Jam which you can stock up on at IKEA.

Sausage hot pot

I absolutely adore this sausage hot pot as it's so simple with few ingredients, yet so tasty. It's always a winner with the kids. I'm not sure where the original recipe comes from, but I remember it as the first meal I cooked completely on my own for my family when I was a teenager. I have never once failed this hot pot as it's delicious every time! I have tweaked the recipe a little bit and this is that same sausage hot pot - the Minty way! 

8 Carrots

12 Medium sized potatoes

1 large leek

700g smoked frankfurters (2 packs) Herta's or Tesco's own is what I use.

2 cups water (5dl)

3 vegetable stock cubes

2-3 tbsp curled leaf parsley

2 tomatoes

Peel carrots and potatoes. Measure up the water and let the stock cubes dissolve as it heats up in a large pot. Slice carrots and add to the pot.

Let boil with the lid on while you cut the potatoes into small chunks. Add potatoes to the pot and stir.

Let boil with the lid on while you slice or chop the leek, both the white and the green. Rinse well under running water. Add to the pot and let boil for 15 minutes with the lid on. 

Cut each frankfurter lengthwise and then cut about ½ inch to 1 inch long pieces. Add the frankfurters to the pot and stir. Let boil for 5 minutes. By now you should have a little bit of thick liquid (from the stock) boiling in the pot. If it’s still very liquid boil another 5 minutes without lid to reduce. Cut tomatoes into wedges and add on top of the hot pot and garnish with a bit of cut curled leaf parsley.

When I made this last I didn't have any tomatoes in the fridge (due to the whole E-coli outbreak) and it works just as well without them, but they do add a nice touch. 

Yogi yogi berry

A great dessert or afternoon snack for the kids (or yourself) that's at the same time healthy.

½ cup natural yogurt (just more than 1dl) -a set yogurt is nice but either works

1 tbsp clear honey

3-4 strawberries

¼ cup blueberries (60ml)

Mix honey and yogurt, and garnish with fresh berries on top. Finish off by drizzling a little bit of honey on top of the berries. Voila!

Berries can of course be replaced with whatever you feel like or have at home. 

Blueberry sponge cake

Blueberry sponge cake

50g butter

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

½ cup oil

1 ½ cup plain flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

3 tsp vanilla sugar

225g blueberries

Icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Switch on the oven to 175 degrees. Line a baking tin (24cm or 10”) with baking paper and grease and bread. (I use oil spray to grease and sifted flour to bread).

Melt butter and let cool. Separate egg whites and keep egg yolks aside in a glass. Beat whites with an electric mixer until you get a stiff white foam. Add the sugar little by little while beating. Add yolks, then oil and butter while mixing. Mix flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar in a separate bowl and stir. Sift flour mix into batter little by little and fold in. Add blueberries and fold in very carefully not to mash them. Bake for 1 hour. Do the stick test (by sticking a toothpick or knife into the middle of the cake and if it comes out dry, the cake is finished) a little bit before just in case. Let cool a little bit and turn out cake. Cool further on a cooling rack.

Lemon drizzle cake

This is a super moist lemon drizzle sponge cake with lemony buttercream icing. 

Sponge:

100g butter

4 eggs

1 ¼ cup sugar (3 dl)

3 tbsp finely grated lemon zest

just less than ½ cup lemon juice (1 dl)

3 tbsp oil

2 tbsp natural yogurt

3 tsp vanilla sugar

2,5 tsp baking powder

2 cups plain flour (5 dl)

Drizzle:

5 tbsp lemon juice

½ cup icing sugar

Buttercream icing:

175 gram butter (room temperature)

1 egg

4 tbsp lemon juice

2 cups icing sugar (5 dl)

Turn the oven on to 175 degrees. Grease and flour a baking tin lined with baking paper (you can use a rectangular oven tray, or for a higher sponge use a 24cm/10" round baking tin.

Melt the butter and leave to cool. Separate eggs and put the egg whites in the mixing bowl and keep the yolks aside so long. Beat egg whites with an electric mixer until you get a hard white foam. Add the sugar a little at a time whilst still beating. The egg and sugar mix should get a bit shine as you add the sugar. Mix in egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, yogurt and oil. Mix vanilla sugar, baking powder and flour in a separate bowl, then slowly fold into the batter, preferably with a sifter.  Pour mix into the baking tin and bake in the oven on 175 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Check if cake is finished with the stick test. If the stick/toothpick/knife comes out clean and dry-your cake is finished.

Let cake cool for 10 minutes. Prick holes all over the cake with a fork and make the lemon juice drizzle by heating up lemon juice in a pan. Mix in icing sugar and stir until dissolved (if you want a more tangy and less sweet flavour, use a little less icing sugar in the drizzle).

Pour or spoon half of the drizzle over the top of the cake while the cake is still hot. Turn the cake out of its tin upside down and pour the rest of the drizzle over the bottom of the cake. Turn the cake right and leave to cool completely.

Make the buttercream icing by beating the room tempered butter until soft. Add the egg and mix. Mix in icing sugar little by little and beat until smooth. Mix in the lemon juice.

Cut the cake into two layers and spread a thin layer of buttercream between the sponges. Spread the rest of it on top. Refrigerate if you need the buttercream to set a little bit. Cut into desired pieces and enjoy!

This cake is also very nice served cool straight from the fridge.

Time for my first post! I'll start with an old favourite:

Leek and potato soup (5-6 portions)

10 medium sized white potatoes

1 large leek

5 cups of water (750ml)

3 knorr vegetable stock cubes

150ml sour cream

A pinch of pepper

Peel the potatoes and cut into small pieces. Cut into half a couple of times, then slice to get smaller pieces that cook faster. Place in a large pot.

Slice the leek, both the white and the green, and chop into pieces. Rinse under running water in a sieve. Add the leek and water to the pot. The water should be just covering the leek and the potatoes. Put the stock cubes in the pot and push them down a bit so they are immersed in the water.

Boil on high heat for 30 minutes. Mash with a hand potato masher until most of the potato is mashed and the soup has reached a thicker consistency, but not completely smooth. If the potato still feels difficult to mash, boil for another 5 min at a time. Add a pinch of black or white pepper as you wish, and the sour cream.

Stir and serve.

Serving tip: serve with a slice of ryvita topped with cress or cheese and cucumber.