Grow your own food, a cat, a dog and food souvenirs.

Growing your own food is amazing. This summer has been a horrible one weather wise, with rain almost every day for months, and ridiculously low temperatures. There has been a few good hours in between, and last week was great, so some harvest have been possible. Above are radishes from a container on the balcony.

 Almond potatoes, grown in the allotment. I'm amazed that they grew this big and beautiful, considering they were planted in heavy mud and I've been neglecting them ever since. Amazing root.
 

When I came home from Denmark I rearranged some of the furniture, and put Lucia's cat tree in a new position. She never used it in it's previous place, but now she loves it. Maybe because she has a big plant to hide behind while spying on the birds. 

When biking, one don't want to carry a heavier load than neccessary, so I only bought some tiny and light weight souvenirs back home.  Above is finely chopped dried lemon grass and dried ground liquorice root. It's supposed to be great in chili.

Smells divine, tastes OK. 

Bonus pic! My mother's sweet little dog Goliat.

Tahini and almond butter.

My two favourite things in my fridge right now (next to the cold brewed coffee and mint syrup); almond butter and tahini. My love for tahini knows no bounds - it's great in and on so many foods!  While I do live the light and liquid-y stuff, it's kind of expensive here and I'll eat a big jar in less than two weeks, easy. So I got this one instead and it's great. It's actually not that expensive, although it's produced in Sweden, organic and only contains sesame seeds and a little salt. It's on the darker side and really thick. I love it on top of steamed veggies or stirred into whatever. Also, do try it in baked goods. Celine is the queen of sweets including tahini - go check out this banana cake for example!

I know I'm late on the train for almond butter, but this is the first time I've ever tried it! I found a small jar of it from the same brand as the tahini, and like that, it's also organic, produced in Sweden and only contains almonds. Oh my. It's heaven on a spoon. I eat it with sliced banana. I have a feeling almond butter is a friend who's here to stay.

(The brand is called Kung Markatta and is a Swedish organic brand)

Moka pot and lokumi

 

My mother travelled to Uganda in March and brought back a bag of espresso coffee for me, which resulted in her giving me her old moka pot since I didn't have one to use the coffee in. 

My friend Mikael is half greek and visited Greece last weekend, and brought home a box lokumi with rose water flavour. You might know lokumi as Turkish delight or lokum, but since this is from Greece, it's lokumi. It goes very well with the strong coffee, since it's achingly sweet and gooey.

African Rhino Peri-Peri sauce

Our fridge has a whole door shelf only dedicated to hot sauces, and it's constantly over flowing. Some of them are still haning in since the visit to the Hot Sauce shop on San Juan Island, WA, and some are new, bought from Extreme Food in Gothenburg. They are all used, for different dishes. Some works great as condiments by themselves, some tastes great stirred into some egg-less mayo and some works best if incorporated in the food while cooking.

The latest addition is one of my absolute favorites so far. We got to taste it in the store (Extreme Food) when Martin asked for something fruity. And it was! The bottle says it's extra hot, but I would say it's moderate. It has a dominant taste of tomato and lemon besides the peri-peri. We immediately felt this was a sauce that would fit well in our kitchen. And since we didn't have any peri-peri sauce, it was about time. We were even more delighted when we got to see the actual bottle, the layout is nice and I love those broad flat bottles. What rhinos has to to with it? The Kalahari pepper company donates a small amount for ever bottle sold, to Save the Rhino, an organization that works for saving and helping rhinos in Africa and Asia. The only downside is that it will be eaten way to quickly.

Chocolate chip cookies from the store

Yesterday it came to my knowledge that one of Sweden's most common chain of supermarkets now carries vegan chocolate chip cookies. They're nothing fancy, but they are crisp, tender and the chocolate chunks tastes really good. I bought them for my train ride home tonight, but admittedly ate a few when I studied earlier today.

( I should probably add; They're from the brand Ica Basic)