….. of puttering around the house in a faded, old PJ and a sad excuse for a ponytail.

….. gift at Christmas and your blessing all year through!

….. is almost ready…..

…..outside, snow lies as a thick cozy blanket.

I hope that you will have a blessed and peaceful Christmas, and that all your wishes will come true.

Homemade red cabbage:
2 onions
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tbsp. cloves
1/2 tbsp. cinnamon
3 apples
1 red cabbage
olive oil
1/2 bottle of red wine
2-3 tbsp. vinegar

Do this:

Add the rest and cook for 3 hours on low heat.

Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas

Lizzy

….. and Happy New Year 

At the close of another year, I will like to wish you a happy holiday and a successful 2013.

Instead of sending cards or gifts, I support:  The child cancer foundation

Best wishes

Lizzy

….. cold, I firmly believe that a hot toddy will make me feel better than any cold or flu medicine I can buy.

I’ve experimented with many versions and varieties and this simple soothing concoction always does the trick.

This toddy isn’t overly sweet and lets the rye whiskey shine. It is a bit jazzed up with the addition of fresh ginger and its sweet side comes from honey.

Serve it alongside a plate of holiday cookies and cakes, or sip it on it’s own as a nightcap (it will make for a deep comfy night’s sleep).

Rye & Ginger Hot Toddy
All you need (1 drink)
1 1/2 ounces rye whiskey
2 teaspoons honey
2 to 3 thin slices fresh ginger, peeled
Lemon wedge
Hot water

Do this
In a teapot with one cup of water add the ginger.

Heat until the teapot whistles.

In a mug add the whiskey, honey, and juice of the lemon wedge. Strain the ginger infused hot water into the mug.

Stir to dissolve the honey and enjoy.

Note: You may wonder what is Rye Whiskey anyway? It’s a whiskey made from a grain mixture that’s mostly rye (at least 51%) and the rest can be corn, wheat, malted rye, malted barley or a combination of any of the above. Then like Bourbon it’s aged in new toasted oak barrels. The results range from robust and spicy whiskey to smooth sips tinged with vanilla and caramel flavors, making Rye whiskey the perfect pick for whipping up some hot toddies.

The little moments?

They aren’t little

Enjoy every minute of your day…..

….. they are all unique!

Lizzy ♥

….. summer tomatoes - I wait for their arrival all year.

….. and I can’t think of anything better on a summer Sunday, than a lovely salad of warm juicy tomatoes layered with fresh basil, creamy mozzarella and flakes of maldons sea salt that burst in my mouth….. there is nothing like it and makes the wait well worth it.

When you have tomatoes this good they need very little work, as this beautiful vegetable will just shine and take the lead role in any meal.

Caprese Salad

Tomatoes
Fresh basil
Mozzarella
Sea salt
Cracked pepper
Quality olive oil
Grilled bread

Simple as it sounds its heaven. Combine all ingredients, eat it as a salad, put it on crostini, whatever way you fancy.

Enjoy and happy Sunday

….. with a very clear intention: wish a HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY to me!

I wish it to myself, cause you never know! Oh, yes, I fall into the birthday’s post cliche, too, but I won’t keep going (at myself, of course) stating my desperation for the advancing age (but the age advances, though)….. or describing everything that I prepared for the celebrations in my honor….. well, actually I didn’t prepare anything (I forgot to bake the cake yesterday) and there was no special celebration (what the heck!).

But, for my non-birthday (if I remember to bake it tonight), I will prepared this Strawberries cake with lemon curd (sort of)….

….. why I prepare a Strawberries cake with lots of whipped cream for my non-birthday, when I don’t go crazy for whipped cream? This remains a mystery to solve. But that’s another story, which I think has something to do with the mental tares I’m in at the moment…… look on the bright side, at least I don’t have to turn on the oven!

Strawberries cake with lemon curd
1 cake / 12 pieces
a little syrup (see recipe here)
a glass of lemon curd
Filling
1 vanilla stick
½ dl sugar
2 liters of fresh strawberries
3 dl whipping cream

Do this:
I will cheated a little, and buy finished cake plates.

Prepare the lemon curd (see recipe below) and let it cool in refrigerator.

Scrape vanilla seeds out and mix them with sugar. Guilt and slice half of strawberries and mix them with sugar.
Spread fruit on the bottom cake plate.

Put a cake plate on top and spread lemon curd on.

Put the last cake plate on top and cover it with light whipped cream and the rest of the quilted fresh fruit.

Tip: If you want your cake juicier, you can mix a little punch (or rum) with syrup and brush the bottom cake plate with it, before you add the fruit. This will make the cake juicy and add a wonderful liqueur flavor

Lemon Curd (1 small jar)
3 lemons
1 1/2 dl sugar
50 g butter
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 eggs
2 egg yolks

Do this:
Mix grate from 3 lemons with juice from 2 lemons and boil up with sugar and butter.

Pour liquid through a sieve.
Mix cornstarch into the juice from the third lemon and stir it into the hot liquid.

Beat the eggs together and stir them into the hot liquid, place the liquid back on the stove and let it simmer, stirring constantly until the cream gets thick.

Pour the cream into a clean glass and let it cool.

Tip: the Lemon curd should be kept in the refrigerator.

….. my birthday….. I’m going towards 50 - jubilee!

And, while someone claims that the making of one’s own birthday cake is bad luck (but why?), or simply is not very nice, I have a certain compulsion (”another one?”, you’d say) not only in preparing the dessert, but the whole dinner for a party in my honor!

Am I stupid?! Maybe.

Do I love cooking too much?! For sure!

On my birthday, however, traditionally I don’t cook. We will eat at a restaurant (preferably a surprise restaurant) and this year (we celebrated in advance and held my birthday last Saturday) my daughter and I chose to eat on the very nice restaurant “Søsterne Olsen”….. it was awesome….. I chose (as always) dessert instead of the starter (yet another lie - I ate both)….. I chose my favorite ice-cream: a little semifreddo, a soft fruit one and the three chocolates one - what the heck!

But, for all other parties, believe me, I MUST (it’s a primordial need) prepare something….. the whole dinner, a starter or just the dessert.

But this year I will skip the party, and only make the cake, which I will bring with me to the office tomorrow — I guess I have to celebrate twice as much next year.

….. and since I have not baked the cake yet, I’ll post this unforgettable desserts - perfect for a birthday party.

Ice cream bomb with raspberry meringue
2 litres softened vanilla ice cream
¾ litre softened raspberry sorbet
1 cake base (purchased is fine)
1 small (¾ litre) and 1 large (2 litres) metal bowls

Raspberry meringue
3 free-range egg whites
4 drops fresh lemon juice
325 ml sugar
200 g fresh raspberries

Freeze the bowls (so the ice cream sticks better to the sides and does not melt as quickly when the bowls are to be filled).

Soften the sorbet in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. Pack it firmly into the little metal bowl. Cover with cling film and freeze it until the sorbet is hard again, about 2 hours.

Soften the vanilla ice cream in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. Cover the bottom and walls of the larger (frozen) metal bowl with vanilla ice cream so you leave the centre hollow.

Take the bowl with the raspberry sorbet out and rinse the outside of the bowl quickly with hot water. Take the sorbet out and press it into the hollow space in the vanilla ice cream. Fill in any excess space with more vanilla ice cream and spread a layer of vanilla ice cream on top so the sorbet disappears into the middle of the bomb.

Cut a round slice out of the cake bottom so it covers the entire surface of the ice cream. Cover with cling film and freeze again until the ice cream bomb is hard.

Rinse the outside of the bowl quickly with hot water and press the ice cream out. Freeze it again so the surface freezes.

Whisk the egg whites, lemon juice and 1 dl sugar with an electric mixer into a thick meringue in a dry and clean stainless steel bowl.

Add another 1 dl sugar while whipping it.

Mash the raspberries with the rest of the sugar and whip it into the meringue at low speed. Whip it hard until it is firm.

Pipe or spread the meringue over the ice cream bomb and cook the surface with a blow torch

Enjoy!

….. I would have never left wonderland

I wonder how many times as a child, I played the “if I” game….. and sometimes I still play it….. especially if someone triggers me off….. and it’s not a game as simple as it might seem, or as we thought as children, because it’s often hard to find an answer that will fully represent ourselves.

For example, today I tried to dedicate myself for the umpteenth time to this game, and there have been some “if I” really difficult to determine! For example, I wondered, “If I were a song“….. well, I would properly be “Baby I’m a fool” by Melony Gardot or perhaps “Live tomorrow” by Laleh…. No, come on, I would be “Careless love” by Madeleine Peyroux! Nooooooo: I would definitely be “The Best is yet to Come” by Michael Bublé! But eventually, after hours of intensive listening, I realized that if I were a song, I would probably be “Piece of my heart” sung by Janis Joplin, a song about love and anger, strong and intense, sung by a female and hoarse voice, both powerful and fragile….. Yes, I think I would be THIS song. I began with the most difficult task: music contains so many facets that it’s very hard to choose a single song….. but other choices are not simple, as well!

If I were a poet I would be Pablo Neruda, but if I were a poem I would be “I carry your heart with me” by E. E. Cummings, if I were a color I would be the color blue, if I were an animal I would be a dog, if I were a drink I would be a glass of iced Chardonnay.

If I were a novel I would be “Elle s’appelait (Sarah’s key)“ by Tatiana De Rosnay, if I were an album I would be “RIO” by Duran Duran, if I were a movie I would be “Under the Tuscan Sun” (at the present time), if I were a film director I would be Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, if I were a comic book I would be “Marsupilam” by André Franquin… and so on…..

But how much exclusion, how many thoughts and afterthoughts to reach these conclusions! And I’m sure I’ll change my mind again and again!

But when I found myself thinking (thanks to a big help from the outside) “if I were a recipe, what would I be?” the response was immediate: “I would be a dish of Tiramisu“!

I would be a dish of Tiramisu, first of all because it’s my favorite dessert (I’d never be able to say no to Tiramisu), because - just like a sensible girl (with one eye on the scales) - I don’t give up so easily to dessert (I’m not a dessert-maniac, but I don’t say no to it, if you know what I mean), but especially because in this dish there is the (desired) holiday that I don’t have, there is summer, sun, southern Italy, things far away from me (some just now, others geographically) that I like to take and transplant to Denmark, anytime I feel like it….. and today I feel so!

Tiramisu

All you need:
350-400 ml (12-14 fl oz) espresso coffee
4 eggs
60 g (3 ¼ oz) caster sugar
450 g (1 lb) mascarpone cheese
150 ml (5 fl oz) marsala wine
230 ml (7 ½ fl oz) whipping cream
300 g (11 oz) Savoyard biscuits (sweet Italian biscuits)
3 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder

Do this:
Make the espresso and pour the coffee in a bowl to cool down.

Separate the eggs and beat the egg yolks fluffy together with half of the caster sugar. Save the egg whites.

Stir the mascarpone cheese until it gets creamy and mix it with the egg yolks. Add the marsala wine.

Whip the cream until fluffy and carefully mix with the egg batter.

Spoon some of the batter in the bottom of a serving dish.

Quickly dip one biscuit at a time in the cold espresso coffee and cover the bottom of the dish.

Spoon over a layer of batter and dust with cocoa powder.

Repeat with another layer of dipped biscuits, batter and cocoa powder.

Repeat if necessary one more time, depending on the size of the serving dish.

Note: This Tiramisu is to die for.