Norwegian Waffles

Norwegian Waffles - Serves 4

I had my parents visiting on Saturday morning, so I decided that we could try out our new Norwegian pancake maker that we bought in Bergen a few weeks ago. We noted down a very rough recipe from our friends that we were staying with, so we weren’t too sure how they would turn out – fortunately they turned out great! Now I know that you wont all have Norwegian waffle makers lying around, but these should work well in any waffle maker, or even cooked as a type of pancake. You can serve these with whatever toppings you like; my personal favourites are honey, lemons & sugar and nutella with chopped bananas but I think savoury toppings would work equally well.

As I was going all out to impress, I also made some blueberry muffins adapted from a Delia Smith recipe with the blueberries from our garden (watch out for the recipe very soon), all in all a really great breakfast!   

 

Ingredients

• 325g plain flour
• 14g of yeast
• 8 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 knob of butter
• 4 eggs
• 100ml milk + extra (See instructions below)

Method

Add all the ingredients except the milk into a bowl and set aside. In a separate pan, gently heat around 100ml of milk until luke warm then add to the other ingredients and start to whisk together. Once the mixture is starting to bind, add more cold milk until you get a smooth ‘pancake’ like consistency, but make sure that it isn’t too watery though (The next time I make these I will try and measure this exactly and edit my post).

Once you have your mixture all you need to do now is cook the little beauties! Personally my favourite topping is lemon and sugar - why not post in the comments section which toppings you use… it may give us all some new ideas! Hope you enjoy as much as me and my family did!

Salmon and Risoni Salad

Salmon and Risoni Salad – Serves 2

It was a wonderful day yesterday so we wondered into Crouch End to pick up some food for the evening. We decided that we wanted something quite healthy and our decision was made easy when the fishmonger had salmon fillets on special offer!  

This recipe is adapted from a book we have by Bill Grainger – I love his recipes as the majority are simple to make and usually quite healthy… and this is no exception! By poaching the salmon you end up with really succulent fish, and what’s best is that you can sit and watch TV for 15 minutes while it’s cooking, without fear of it being overdone! The perfect recipe for a summers day – hope you enjoy it!

 

Ingredients

• 1 Bay leaf
• 2 salmon fillets, skin removed
• 150g risoni (sometimes known as orzo)
• 40g peas (frozen or fresh)
• Juice of 1/3 lemon
• 1 handful each of salad leaves (baby spinach, rocket, lambs lettuce are all great, or a mixture)
• 1 tbsp flatleaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1 tsp dill, chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pinch of caster sugar
• Black pepper & salt

Method

Place into a large frying pan some whole peppercorns, a teaspoon of salt and a bay leaf or two and bring around 750ml water to the boil. Once your water has boiled, remove from the heat and place the salmon into the water. Cover and leave for around 15 minutes. Depending on the size of your pan (and the salmon) you may want to turn the salmon over part way through cooking to ensure it cooks evenly, or perhaps reduce the cooking time if you like your salmon slightly pinker in the middle.

Once the salmon is cooking, you want to place your risoni into a pan of salted water and cook according to packet instructions (mine took 16 minutes). For the last two minutes of cooking, add in the peas and a tiny bit of lemon zest. Once the risoni is cooked, rise through with cool water so that the risoni is still slightly warm. Flake in the salmon and add the dill, parsley and mixed leaves then mix the sald up with your hands.

To complete the salad, make the dressing by combining the lemon juice, oil and sugar and then mix with the rest of the salad. I think this salad tastes best luke warm, but if you prefer the salad warm, then rinse the risoni with slightly warmer water. It also tastes fantastic cold, so save any leftovers for your lunch the next day!

Long weekend in Bergen, Norway

 

Visit to Bergen, Norway 

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, but I finally managed to find some time to write again. I’ve been really busy at work, had a vicious bout of ‘man-flu’, so a long weekend away in Norway was exactly what the doctor ordered! It is supposed to rain over 230 days a year in Bergen so I feel very lucky to have visited during their very brief summer… I even managed to get a bit of a tan!

My and my fiancée were visiting a family friend who works over there, and fortunately he took some time off work to show us around Bergen and the local area. The scenery is just amazing everywhere you go in Norway – I’ve posted a couple of pictures below to show you what I mean! 

Above is the view from the top of Mount Floyen that overlooks Bergen – you can get a cable car up to the top, but we decided to climb the full 302 meters in 28C heat instead… we instantly regretted our decision! Still, at least we felt like we deserved our ice creams at the top! Below is just one of the many rivers that we came across whilst driving through the fjords – the colour of the water was amazing… so clean (Sure beats the river Thames!

 

Aside from soaking up the scenery, I tried to sample the local cuisine as much as I could – however this proved difficult as eating out is very expensive! A pizza will set you back £15-£20 and a pint of beer around £7! For such a seemingly fit country (I didn’t see one over weight locals), ready meals and convenience foods are VERY popular; something I found quite strange. I suppose when you lead an active lifestyle it proves you can eat what you like in moderation! 

My friend did a great job of cooking me some fantastic food, but the highlight for me was having the chance to catch and cook my own fish supper! I’d never been fishing before so when my friend offered to teach me I jumped at the chance. I found it quite slow to begin with, but I soon got quite into it and soon caught my first fish! Below is a picture of the mackerel I caught – cooked (perfectly if I don’t say so myself) on the BBQ! We had to gut and clean out the fish and we had the foresight to bring along some mixed herbs, garlic and chopped shallots to stuff the fish with, and it tasted fantastic.          

My present to myself was to buy a Norwegian pancake maker as we ate these every morning for breakfast and got a little bit addicted to them! Anyway, we took the recipe down for the mixture, so will be sure to post a ercipe for these little beauties soon.

Finally, a quick picture of the world famous fish market in the centre of Bergen – there were loads of tasters of the salmon and it was some of the best I have tasted.

That’s all for now – I’ll be posting up a number of recipes over the next month so keep visiting back regularly.