Family Friday: Cardamom buns

For this Family Friday I wanted to (once more) write about my mother. I wanted to share some pictures and stories of all the amazing food she has cooked for me but I quickly found I had no photos of her food. Shame on me, shame shame on me. I'll do better and snap away in the future, and share some of that with you later on.

After making this realization, I went to make a dough for cardamom buns. Quickly, my mind went to how me and her used to bake cinnamon rolls together when I was little. I got to crumble the fresh yeast, stir it with salt until melted and stir in some of the flour. When the dough was ready I got to make cinnamon rolls, while she made twisted vanilla buns. I was always so impressed by the ones she made and it seemed SO difficult. I continued to roll and slice the cinnamon rolls and now I'm all grown up. Grown up, and able to make my own pretty twisted buns.

These cardamom buns are just a sweet yeasted dough, like the one used for cinnamon rolls, filled with cardamom and sugar and twisted up and topped with pearl sugar. Yum.

Family Friday: Aunt Carina and her apricot sauce

Carina is my mother’s cousin but since they’re very close, she’s definitely like an aunt to me. Although our political ideas differ a lot, we’ve always had a good relationship. Besides being a strong independent woman who will listen to no one who tells her what to do, she’s also a fantastic host for dinner parties. I love the relaxed atmosphere she manages to create. When you arrive, she might or might not be dressed, the food will certainly not be ready and you will definitely be offered something to drink. Then, the food will be cooked together and eaten in the kitchen at the sometimes too small kitchen table. The food always tastes amazing and I’m impressed by how she always comes up with a new and interesting menu.

One time, she served me this apricot sauce. 

 Carina's apricot sauce

10 dried apricots
300 ml water

50 g finely chopped onion
1 tbs non-dairy margarine
100 ml white wine
1/2 tbs broth powder
tiny bit of cayenne pepper
2 tbs non-dairy margarine

Bring the water to a boil and pour over the apricots Let soak for at least 8 hours.

Chop the onion and sautée it in 1 tbs margarine until soft. Add apricots and the soaking water, wine and broth powder. Cover and let simmer until the apricots are completely soft.

Using a immersion blender or a regular one, blend the sauce until smooth. Add cayenne pepper and 2 tbs margarine and stir until dissolved. Eat, preferably with some kind of oven roasted potatoes.

Family Friday: Grandfather Lennart

Last week I wrote about my other grandfather, Göran, and today it's time for Lennart. How lucky am I to have got to grow up with these two? When I was little I used to stay with him and my grandmother Inger a lot, especially in the weekends. We used to eat dinner, then curl up in front of the television and their fireplace, and eat ice cream. My grandfather loves ice cream. We ate it for dessert every single time, and it was a lot of fun to assemble the plates and squeeze out loads of either chocolate or caramel sauce out of the tubes. Fond memories, that is.

Although we never ate anything other than plain vanilla ice cream, I'd thought I'd share some pictures of other (vegan!) ice creams I've been enjoying in my days.

Plain vanilla ice cream on top of a brownie waffle (+ banana and chocolate sauce)

Bilberry ice cream, home made.

Vanilla/chocolate soft serve in Portland.

Strawberry ice cream with brownie, homemade.

Espresso ice cream with chocolate covered walnuts, homemade.

Family Friday: Grandfather Göran

 
My grandfather lives in the same city as my grandmother (read the post about her here), Karlskrona in the deep south of Sweden. We never stayed with him when we were visiting, but always went there for dinner one night. It was always kind of exciting, running up the three stairs to his apartment were the food would be cooking. His walls are crowded with posters from various museums and other prints, and he used to have some giant fishes in an aquarium that we loved watching and feeding. Then it was dinner time. My memory tells me we always had meatballs, potatoes, sauce and lingonberry jam. We probably didn’t, but I think it was one of his parade numbers. Before the last person had even had the time to finish, he started bringing out dessert, so eager to serve us everything he had prepared that he just couldn’t wait. I don’t think there ever was just one dessert. There was crème brulée, chocolate pudding, ice cream and whipped cream. I don’t think we ever left there slightly hungry.

I like to make my meatballs using ground up seitan, stiffened up with breadcrumbs. This produces a quite neutral palette, ready to be seasoned with what floats your boat. But please, use your favorite beanball recipe. Although I haven't tried them, I pretty sure these lentil balls from the Post Punk Kitchen would be awesome. 

For chocolate pudding, I always use the recipe from Vegan With A Vengeance. It’s a good, simple pudding, and is ridiculously quick to make.

Family Friday: Grandmother Inger

I’ve mentioned it before, but I am really happy that I’ve gotten to grow up with both my grandmothers. This post is about my father’s mother, Inger. She grew up in a tiny place called Bäckefors, in a region called Dalsland. She moved away from there, to Gothenburg, when she was young, and sometimes talks about how she rented rooms from angry old ladies and went out dancing on the weekends. When I grew up, she lived on the same side of the city as us, and since my mother’s parents lived 4 hours away, we spend a lot of time with her and my grandfather. The number of nights I’ve spent there are uncountable, it was like a second home and my memories are only fond from my childhood when it comes to her.

Me and my grandmother when I was 16. And the food of course.

There’s one dish in particular that I remember eating there for dinner. I’ve never seen it or had it anywhere else, so I’ll call it Inger’s casserole.

Grandma Inger's casserole 

What you'll need
Boiled rice
Canned pineapple, circles or in chunks
Slices of seitan or your favorite non-meat, pre-fried in a pan until lightly browned
Vegan Bearnaise-style sauce (I make a simple white sauce (flour+oil+milk) and add ground turmeric, some garlic, loads of tarragon and apple cider vinegar). However, I'm sure a curry sauce would also be amazing. 

To assemble
Add the rice to a pan, layer with seitan, put the pineapple on top of that and spread the sauce on top. Bake for about 20 minutes. 

Family Friday: Johan

My mother and Johan

Johan is my mother’s partner. They don’t live together, and I’ve never called him my stepfather, but he’s been in our family for more than 10 years, so whatever you want to call it, that’s the role he has played in my life. When he had recently met my mother and started coming over for dinner the kitchen were filled to the brim with oh’s and ah’s. His eyes were sparkling with love for my mother, and his taste buds certainly agreed. I and my sister used to ask him what he ate before he met my mother. I’m still not sure about the answer, but I do know that he’s still crazy about her and her food.

He definitely has a weakness for Italian style foods, especially creamy pasta dishes. Serve him that with a huge bowl of arugula drenched in balsamic vinegar, and he’ll be in heaven. I have not had the time to create a recipe to Johan and Johan only, but I’m sure he’d be happy with any of these three recipes already featured on the blog:

Avocado pasta

Creamy lemon pasta bake

Gnocchi

Isabella's sausage stew

In a week from today, my baby sister is graduating from school. She is 19, and about to go out and explore the world. Isabella usually goes by "Bella", which my grandmother detests since she think it is a name suiting a cow. However, my sister couldn't be more different from a cow, so don't worry. She has many great qualities, but maybe what's most deeply rooted in her is her kindness and how she care´s for her friends. It's a care and kindness that will sometimes get her into trouble, but most of all it's an amazing characteristic. And hey, if she gets into trouble, I'll be there and fight for her. Always. 
























Isabella's sausage stew
A variation of a common Swedish dish, she has self proclaimed it to be the best sausage stew in the world. 

1/2 yellow onion
veggie sausages (as much as you want)
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 tbs non-dairy cooking creamer or milk
ketchup, to taste
1 tbs tomato paste
salt, pepper, paprika, basil and red chili, to taste

Finely chop the onion and sauté in a pan until translucent. Cut the sausage into bite size pieces and add to the pan. Sauté until a bit browned. Add garlic, tomatoes, cream, ketchup, tomato paste and spices. Let cook for a couple of minutes. Serve with pasta or rice.

Family Friday: My mother and peanut sauce

What can I say to make this woman justice? She gave birth to me, raised me and now she’s my great friend who’s always there for me. She’s my mother. She is also a very strong, caring and capable woman in many more ways than I think she realizes herself.

To choose a recipe for this post was nearly impossible, as her influence on me when it comes to food is endless. She taught me to like appreciate food, and the taught me how to cook it. She can master most kitchens and techniques, but her bread baking skills could use some perfection. However, I had to choose, so I settled with a recipe that has been eaten in my family for as long as I can remember. It’s a peanut sauce. Don’t yawn, it’s not your average peanut sauce. It’s thick, creamy, chunky and bursting with flavor. It goes great with noodles, rice or maybe best of all, barbecued veggies. I remember being sent out in the garden to pick as much cilantro as I could carry and bringing it inside for this sauce. Try it, you won’t regret it. 

Peanut sauce

1 tbs oil

5 g minced fresh ginger

1 small finely diced yellow onion
150 g peanuts

4 tbs finely chopped lemon balm leaves

1 tsp mild yellow curry powder

2 tbs sugar

salt, to taste

250 ml coconut milk

Fry the ginger and onion in a sauce pan in the oil until soft but now browned. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Using an immersion blender, blend it a little bit until desired consistency. I like it chunky. 

This time, I had it with some basmati rice, tomato, mushroom tibs from Appetite for Reduction) (loved them) and sautéed chard with garlic. 

 

Family Friday: My grandmother and carrot marmalade

I have had the luck to grow up having two wonderful grandmothers present in my life. This post will be about IngaBritt, my mother’s mother. She lives in the very southeast of Sweden, in Karlskrona, a city in the region Blekinge. I grew up in Gothenburg, which is more than 4 hours away by train, so naturally we could only spend a limited amount of time down there. But visit, we did. We took the train down there at least once every year, but often more. From what I can remember, we always stayed in my grandmother’s apartment. Then I grew bigger, and as it so often is, the time between visits grew longer. Some years ago, I went down there by myself and stayed with her for a couple of nights. I don’t really remember anything from that visit other than how she welcomed my with a special kind of bread that I’ve only ever seen for sale down there, and some homemade carrot orange marmalade.

I made my marmalade using this recipe from Canadian Living, but cut away most of the white rind from the citrus since I wanted it to be less bitter. The result is a vibrant orange marmalade with just enough of everything in it. It’s perfect on toast for breakfast.

Apart from being the best (of two!) grandmothers, she is also the only one in my family that has always had cats, and although she’s definitely not a crazy cat lady, I’m happy to pass on the love for cats.