When I was younger I thought a lot about what it meant to be grown-up. I wondered about all the things you should be able to do, things grown-ups know about. I used to dream about going to the store to buy food, all by myself. Figuring out what to buy. I'm actually serious. Still today I sometimes look forward to going to supermarkets and just wander around, with all the time in the world. When I travel, one of the main events of the trip is to explore supermarkets. I love how everything smells different, and all the different products. So obviously one of my hobbies is to buy food. (I think my husband can testify to that. I hate going to the store in a hurry when it's about to close.) And the other hobby that comes with it is making food. I am blessed to have grown up with parents who both were active in the kitchen. They always tried new recipes, they still do. Dinner was something to be made together, as soon as we where old enough me and my siblings helped out with preparing the meal. This is when my interest in food started. It's because I had role models to look up to, who shared their interests. What I've learned through my cooking journey is to not give up. If you try a couple more times you may succeed. This can relate to anything of course. When I lived by myself, in my first apartment, I wanted to be a grown-up. So I wanted to bake bread, one of the most adult things I could think about. Let me tell you it didn't turn out so good, the only way to eat it was to toast it first. But as I've continuously kept on baking bread I've gotten better, a lot better. Nowadays I hardly ever follow recipes when baking bread. I've learnt to feel it. And the satisfaction when you eat a slice of freshly baked bread, it's perfect. In that moment I'm ecstatic! I can admit that sometimes I might be a bit too exited about food. But I just love it so much!
Find your passion and keep on trying. Sometimes you might not even know what you're doing. But it's okay, cause you'll never get anywhere if you don't dare to try.
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When the autumn rain hits the windows like today there isn't so much you can do but to put on a fire. It's the first one for this autumn and oh, so much I've missed it. To cosy up next to the warming fire with a good book and a hot cup of tea. It's one of the reasons I love this season. And as much as I love autumn I love food, maybe even a bit more. It can get to the point where I spend an entire day thinking about what to prepare the next day. My instagram-feed is filled with differnt food accounts, with other words bursting with inspiration. Today I decided to make something really good to bring for lunch when I'm going to work this weekend. Often it turns out to be the best recipe when you just use what you have at home. This time I found some tomatoes, zucchini, chickpeas and some olives. Fried them up with onion, added water and just let it boil for a couple of minutes while I added some spices. Ate it with quinoa. So simple, good and healthy! Now I will continue this friday evening in the warmth of the fire, with that book.
/E I thought I'd give you some weekend reading, for when you have some spare time. Underbara Clara is a Swedish blogger living in the northern parts of Sweden. I've followed her blog for years already, it's always inspiring. She gives a lot of different tips and tricks for an alternative way of living. Green Kitchen Stories is a food blog. Fresh and good looking vegetarian recipes. You'll want to try something out. I highly recommend you to take a look! Intentionally Small is a blog viewing different small houses. If you haven't heard of tiny living or want to be more inspired you should take a look. We have been looking at different documentaries about tiny living and want to make more changes in that area.
/E Since it was such a beautiful autumn day and I had a day off I decided to bake some muffins with apples. These muffins are perfect to eat as an afternoon snack when you need a bit of extra energy, for example at school or in the forest. It's the first time I've tried this recipe since I just made it up, but it was a successful one. The ingredients you need are the following:
3 small grated apples 70 g crushed walnuts 4½ dl flour 1½ dl sugar ½ dl oat bran 1½ tbs cinnamon 3 tbs baking powder 2 dl muesli 1 pinch of cardamom 2 eggs 1½ dl milk or natural yoghurt 40 g melted butter and sesame seeds to put on top of the muffins First put the oven to 175°C. Mix the dry ingredients and the apples together, then add the rest of the ingredients. The oven time is 15-20 minutes. It's good to keep an eye on them so they don't get burned. Enjoy with a glass of cold milk! /E Today was not one of the most pleasant days, it did rain a lot. And I had to stand there in the middle of it and build some stuff. Luckily my companion borrowed me a raincoat, but either way I did get wet. So when I came home I was wet and frozen, and not in the best mood. Well, I decided to treat the bad mood with some nice and hot coffee. So here comes the story about todays lifesaver: The Cubans Those who know me and have been to our house, knows that I like coffee a lot, and that my coffee shelf have all kinds of varieties. However, while standing there trying to decide what to have, I saw behind all the others, almost hidden, a small glas jar filled with coffee beans. I picked the jar up, and saw that it was my little Cuban beans I almost had forgotten about. It was a gift from my parents in law, who had been to Cuba last year and bought these coffee beans to me straight from the grower. I opened the jar, and the scent that came out was heavenly. The scent was a mix of roasted coffee and a faint fragrance of cigar. It was a easy pick, because now when we had a coffee grinder, that maybe needed a bit of cleaning, I could grind the beans. The mood was back. I did put on some cuban salsa and started to clean the almost 90 years old coffee grinder. What a beauty! The feeling when I started to grind the beans was overwhelming. With the scent and the music it was like I was standing behind a desk at a small café in old town of Havana myself.
My evening was saved, the mood was high, all thanks to an old coffee grinder and a jar of cuban beans. /A Spent a few hours in the forest today, I went with a good friend picking mushrooms. For the first time I dared to pick other mushrooms than chantarelles, mostly because we both had our mushroom books with us to help identify our small forest friends (and because her grandmother later made sure they weren't poisonous). You can never be too careful. Hopefully these will give us some tasty dishes this autumn, I'm thinking soup. One of the best smells in the autumn is mushrooms being parboiled. I just love spending time in the forest since it's so peaceful and beautiful.
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