Foodwaves

Everything is good in moderation...

2012-01-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

That is a saying we use a lot here in Iceland. The other day I was browsing through old books about food and health, it was rather old book. There was a definition of moderate drinking (alcohol wise).

The definition is:

Moderate drinking is one glass a day. Never more than seven glasses a week. Though never more than three on one day.

So, there you have it. I started wondering if this could work for other (bad) habits like smoking, drinking coffee or sodas, for people who wants to cut down but not quit.

And then it´s a question about the fast food. One Mcdonalds a day. Never more than seven Mcdonalds a week. Though never more than three Mcdonalds each day...

I made a really good and healthy fruit ball. It´s meant to be eaten with a nice cheese, like Camembert, goat cheese or even Manchego for example.

Date and apricot ball

200 g almonds
200 g hazelnuts
250 g dates
3-5 tbsp orange juice
5 tbsp cognac or water to blend with the almonds to make a paste

Put the almonds and the cognac (or water) in a food processor and mix until it becomes a marzipan paste. Take it away and put in dates and apricots in the food processor, little by little with the orange juice, almond paste and hazelnuts. Mix well.

Make half a ball from the fruit ´n nut paste.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 150 °c or 300°f.

Cooking all recipes from one book, here we go...

2011-09-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

Well, now I´ve got my glass of red, and can start writing, join me fro a glass if you like while reading this... unless you are at work...

It´s been a trend lately to pick one cook book and cook all the recipes in that book, like you see in the movie Julie and Julia.

I have seen few blogs about this and one of the most ambitious ones might be the one cooking from a book called Alinea.

I bought this book a while ago and I love it, lots of fun ideas but sometimes a little complicated.

I have been wondering about doing this for some time and I am finally gonna go with it. Because lately I haven´t been very inspired and always kind of cooking the same with the same ingredients.

So, the question was, what book to cook from. The ones I have are mostly like all Indian, all pasta, all tapas, all fish... but I wanted a book with good varaity.

One of them is The naked chef, an old one from Jamie Oliver. I browse through it a lot but I never cook from it. I find it an interesting book to cook from. There are lots of nice recipes, ingredients I almost never use but some ingredients I wont be able to get here in Iceland, like live lobster. I will improvise when needed.

So the decision has been made, I will be cooking from The naked chef. It has got good varaity of dishes, fish, meet, vegetable, pasta, soups...

I will follow the recipes as good as I can, that way I will learn new things and combinations of food.

The first recipe I am making is scallops. And this is how it went...

First of all, I am not good at doing the recipes exactly the way it is, I wanted to make changes, but this time it was not an option, I would do it the way the chef made it.

And you know what, it was delicious, a fiesta in my mouth, great combination of ingredients.

This is how I did it, I did change some of the amount of the ingredients.

Scallops with green lentils and sage. (For 2)

6 slices bacon
6 scallops
1 tbsp olive oil
8 leaves of fresh sage
Salt and pepper
Juice from half a lemon
4 tbsp green lentils boiled with rosmarin and garlic *
2 handfuls of some nice green salad leaves
Salad oil ( see below)

*You could also boil the lentils just in water since this is dish with lots of tasts. I did that because I saw too late that this was lentils from another recipe in the book).

Fry the bacon on a pan, and when that is almost done throw in the sage leaves and fry for about 2 minutes. Put this on a kitchen towel to get rid of extra fat. The sage gets really crispy and nice.

Fry the scallops on the same pan as the bacon, make sure it´s really hot. Put a little bit of olive oil on the pan before the scallops. Squeeze a little bit of lemon juice over the scallops while frying them. They only need couple of minutes on each side.

Now, worm up the lentils on that very same pan after you remove the scallops.

Toss some dressing over the salad, put it on a plate. Put the scallops, bacon and the sage on top of the salad and the lentils. Serve right away.

Salad dressing

1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together

I made a very easy bread with this.

Mix yeast, sugar and luke warm water in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Add flour and some mix of seeds (sesame seeds, sunflower...what ever you got and like) Stir it all together with a fork. Let rise for half an hour. Stir it a bit with a fork, add some flour to make it non sticky. Form it as a baguette and brush it with egg whites and even some seeds. Bake for 20 minutes at 220°c.

Bread, ingredients

2 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 glass luke warm water
2 glasses flour ( the glass is about 1 cup)

And, how was it? First recipe of many...it was very very very good. You can serve this as a main course or an appetizer.

I served a bottle of George Dubæuf, Beaujolais with this dish.

And what did I learn?

Scallops, sage and bacon goes so well together. I have to use sage more in my cooking. Lemon, also something I have to use more.

My boyfriend said, wow this is soooo goood! I will totally make this again for dinner guests.

The super duper awesome sandwich

2011-09-13T08:37:00.001-07:00

This sandwich is so so so good. The combo is perfect. I am a ground beef fan, and don´t get me started on ground beef with melted cheese, match made in heaven!

The best bread to use with this one is focaccia or some sort of a soft bread. I made my own kind of a ciabatta made of a pizza dough. That worked well.

Get a good bread or make your own focaccia or ciabatta. Cut it in half.

Lay it on the table with the cut down.

Spoon few tbsp of mustard sauce on the bread. Top it with fried ground beef and few slices of cheese.

Make a sandwich

If you like jalapeno, slice a fresh one (or use canned) and put on top of the ground beef.

Put the sandwich in a panini grill and grill until the cheese has melted. (If you don´t have a panini grill but the sandwich in the oven.)

Serve with a glass of cold beer or some nice red wine.

Here is a link to video on how to make Ciabatta.

You can also make a pizza dough and form it as a ciabatta and bake in a 200°c hot oven for about 15 - 20 minutes. I love putting poppy seeds and sesame seeds on top of the ciabatta before baking it.

For the mustard sauce

1/2 cup sour cream
2-3 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp sweet mustard
2-3 tbsp agave or maple syrup
1-2 garlic cloves
Salt and pepper

Taste it often and add more of what ever your taste bud find missing, more syrup if you like it sweeter, more of Dijon if you like that...

For the ground beef

300 g ground beef
1/2 red bell pepper, cut in small pieces
Garlic clove, pressed
1/2 onion, cut small
Dried oregano, 2-3 tsp
Salt and pepper

Fry everything on a pan.

...don´t forget the cheese :)

Pizza with colorful tomatoes

2011-07-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

If you get the chance of buying red, yellow and green tomatoes then you can make a beautiful looking tomato pizza. And what goes well with tomatoes? Mozzarella cheese and some fresh basil. And a little bit of finely sliced garlic is so good.

Pizza dough

1 tbsp yeast
1/2 tbsp sugar
500 g flour
300 ml Luke warm water
Pinch of salt

Let the yeast foam in a 100 ml of warm water with the sugar. It takes about 5 minutes. I do this in the kitchen aid bowl.

Add the rest of the water, salt and flour to the yeast mix.

Let your machine work on it for a bit, or knead with hands, I find the less I knead with hands the softer the dough becomes.

Seal the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise until it doubles. (I used a double recipe so got LOTS of dough, but good thing about pizza dough is you can keep it in the fridge for few days and it just gets better and next time I will give you some ideas of what you could do with a pizza dough).

Add a little more flour to knead it down and then flatten out to make pizza.

Top it with some crushed canned tomatoes or a nice pizza sauce, the tomatoes, sliced garlic and cheese. Bake to perfection.

When ready garnish with fresh basil and even some arugula salad, that is soooo good.

Avocado fries

2011-05-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

These are yummy and a fun appetizer at a dinner party or a part of a buffet.

Avocado fries for 2-3

2 Avocados
1 cup bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
Salt
Lemon pepper
Any spice you like...
Canola oil to deep fry

Cut the avocados in bits similar to French fries.

Dip them in beaten egg, then the bread crumbs. Deep fry for 20-40 seconds, or until it gets a nice brownish color

Healthy date confectionery

2011-05-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

I was a super housewife tonight. I cooked dinner and made two types of those sweet little "date balls" One healthy type and other with a bit of marzipan. I use the word confectionery, it sounds mores sophisticated than date balls...

Date confectionery

1/2 cup dates
1/2 cup dried shredded coconut meat (that you buy in a supermarket)
1/2 cup hazel nuts
1/4 cup oat meal
2 tsp good cocoa
2 tsp syrup
3 tbsp water if you need it more wet

Date confectionery with marzipan

Half of the recipe above
100 - 200 g marzipan, or as much as you like

Mix the ingredients in a food processor until it becomes a sticky kind of a dough.

I made balls from the dough and rolled some of it with cocoa powder and some with the dried coconut meat.

You can improvise a lot here, the measurement doesn´t have to be accurate and it´s good to add all kinds of dried fruits, seeds and nuts.

Super thin oatmeal crackers

2011-04-12T03:52:00.000-07:00

I love oatmeal, you can use it in so many different ways. It is very popular here in Iceland to eat a bowl of cooked oatmeal with milk for breakfast. You heat in a pot oatmeal, milk and salt. When you don´t finish the oatmeal bowl you can use it to make those little thicker pancakes we call lummur by adding it to a pancake mix.

Or if you have leftovers of the oatmeal you can make those really tasty oatmeal crackers.

You can use barley flakes as well as oats.

crackers

1/2 cup oats
1 cup water
2 tsp salt

Put everything in a pot, bring to boil, simmer for 3-5 minutes. Put a baking sheet on an oven plate. Spread the oatmeal on the baking sheet, as thin as you can.

2-3 tbsp some nice dukkah or good spices or nuts
1-2 tbsp Maldon salt

I put some pistachio dukkah and salt evenly over the oatmeal spread.

Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes at 220°c.

Scrape it carefully off the baking sheet and if it´s not crunchy enough turn it around and bake on the other side for 10 minutes or so.

Cool down and break it down into few parts.

Great healthy snack, just improvise with spices, oatmeal is so neutral tasting it will work with many kinds of spices.

Crêpes

2011-03-16T08:35:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite is Crêpes. I have so many good memories from Canada where we made crepes in the mornings when we had a sleepover at friends house. (Too much wine and saving a cab ride)

I ´m not a sweet tooth so I always make my crêpes savory. The morning crêpes have just what´s in the house. Usually all kinds of cheeses, ham, bell pepper, spring onion and spices. (oregano, basil, salt, paprika....)

But my "in the evening" or "for lunch" crêpes are more stuffed and so delicious!

Crêpes

Crêpes (recipe below)
Boiled rice
1 red pepper
Leek
good ham
Cheese
Mustard sause (recipe below)
Oregano
Basil
Paprika

Boil the rice.
Bake the Crêpes.
Dice the ham, red pepper, leek and cheese.

Usually I bake all the crêpes at once and then put back on the pan and fill them up one and one.

First I put the cheese, then ham, sauce, rice, red pepper and leek. Finally the spices. Fold it and heat as long as necessary. Usually just couple of minutes to melt the cheese if the rice are warm.

Mustard sauce

Sour cream
Sweet mustard
Dijon
Mable syrup
Salt

Dash of this and dash of that, to taste. If you like garlic you could add a little bit of garlic.

If you don´t like mustard a garlic sauce is also good with this. Same recipe, just skip all mustard and add garlic and some olive oil.

Crêpes

1 cup flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter (melted) or some good oil

Mix well. Bake

I´ve made this for a larger group than just me and my precious. Then I made all the crêpes at once and put it on a baking tray and heated it in the oven.

Cheers, Soffia

Lahmacun

2011-03-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

Lahmacun is one of my favorite, not something you can get just anywhere, unless you´re in Turkey maybe. Even in Spain all the kebab places didn´t make their own, if it was on the menu they took it out frozen and just heated it up. Not quite as good as fresh!

So, I sometimes make my own.

Lahmacun

Pizza dough (any recipe goes) Here is a basic one.

350 g flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp yeast
250 ml luke warm water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar to activate the yeast

Yeast, sugar, water in a bowl until yeast is foamie. Flour in a bowl with the yeast and salt, knee, rise, knee... (even rise some more) you know the drift
Turn on the oven, the highest it goes. 300°c for me.

Roll out the dough really thin.

Lamb mix

1 kg grounded lamb
1 onion
1 yellow pepper
2-3 garlic cloves
3-4 tomatoes, fresh or canned
1/2 medium hot chili (by taste)
2 dl fresh chopped mint
2,5 dl fresh chopped parsley
1 tsp cumin
2-3 tsp turmeric
Salt and pepper

(1 cup = 2,4 dl)

Chop together in a mixer the onion, garlic and pepper, but not too long, we like it a bit chunkey. Place the meat in a bowl and add the onion/pepper mixture and all other ingredients. Mix well with a spoon or your fingers.

Put the meat mix on top of a rolled out pizza dough, spread out all the way to the ends. Bake in a very hot oven for about 8-10 minutes.

This is served with red onion, chopped parsley and lemon juice, that you put on top of the pizza.

I also like to spice my meat up with some Turkish or Arabic spice blends.

Cheers! Soffía

Beet Dip

2011-03-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

I love this dip. This one is worth trying even if you are not a big beet fan.

Beet dip

1-2 Beets
100 g sour cream
1-2 garlic gloves
Salt
Pepper

Boil the beets. When fully cooked, put them in a blender with the rest of the ingredients.

Serve with grilled pita bread. This dip is so beautifully pink, love it.

Tuna tataki, served with cold glass of Cava

2011-03-13T11:51:00.001-07:00

I made Tuna, cooked with the tataki methood. And instead of having the typical glass of white wine i always have with sushi I tried a new thing. I bought a bottle of Beaujolais and a bottle of Cava.

Cava and champagne is really good with sushi. I am not much of a sparkling wine fan, but the sushi really made the wine interesting and vice versa.

The Beaujolais went very well with the sushi and the soy sauce, I recommend trying both the Beaujolais and Cava next time you make sushi.

Tuna tataki

Fresh tuna steak
Sesame seeds, black and white
Little bit of salt and pepper according to taste

Serve with

Soy sauce
Wasabi
Spring onion
Fresh or pickled ginger

Put a bit of salt and pepper on the steak. Sear it on a dry hot non stick pan, about 10-15 seconds each side. Put it in a bowl filled with ice cold water for 10-20 seconds to stop the cooking.

Cover with sesame seeds on both sides, put in a aluminium and put in the freezer for an hour or more. You can lightly roast the seeds on a hot dry pan.

Slice it really thin and serve with soy, wasabi and ginger, bit of spring onion and I put a radish micro green in the soy for extra presentation.

Gallo pinto

2011-02-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

My favorite breakfast is Gallo Pinto. Rice and Black beans, what a combo. I got used to it when living in Costa Rica for a while. I got it every day and wasn´t to fond of it to begin with, but learned to love it. So good and good for your digestion.

I serve the Gallo Pinto with an egg, sunny side up or over easy and often with maiz tortillas. I make a lot and put few portions in the freezer.

gallo pinto

3 cups rice (boiled and chilled)
2 cups cooked black beans or one can.
Red or green chile
Little bit of garlic
Half a onion
About 2 carrots
1 red pepper
Fresh coriander
Veggie oil
Salt

All the veggies diced small. On a pan in a veggie oil cook onion, red pepper, carrot, garlic, chile pepper. Then you add rice and cooked beans. Then some coriander and salt to taste.

Mais tortillas

2 cups Masa Harina
1 og 1/4 cup water
Salt

This video shows you well how this is done.

Served with a glass of chrispy citrus white wine or Mimosa...well even Bloody Mary on a beautiful saturday morning.

p.s...This is one of those dishes that just gets better reheated.

KEBAB PITA SHAWARMA DURUM GYROS...

2011-02-20T09:58:00.000-08:00

I make Roti all the time now, super simple...just luke warm water, flour and salt.

One of my favorite food is Durum (Kebab, Gyros, Shawarma, Pita). I went on a 2 week cruise around the Black Sea. There you get such a good kebab type of food. Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, and even in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine they have quite a bit of kebabish street food.

In Alexandria in Egypt they had some kind of Falafel in a hot dog bun with yougurtish dressing. It was delicious.

I remind you to take a look at the cutie pie Manjula, you find the link below. She shows you very well how to make Roti. And I find the Roti go so well with the kebab-pita type of food.

While I was making the Roti I had a glass of Carmen, Merlot 2006 from Chile. Really good wine.

My Durum

Roti
A kind of Raita
Chile oil
The filling

ROTI: Here is the recipe and here is the video

A kind of Raita:

2 cups plain yogurt
MALDON salt (by taste)
1 ts paprika (spice)
1 ts Kebab spice. Or Indian Masala, garam masala or any kebab spice you can find
Little tiny tiny bit of garlic clove. (Not too much)
2 tbs veggie oil or olive oil. ( Not EVOO)

Chile Oil:

3 fresh red chiles, taste to make sure it has a bite
2-3 cups Canola, Veggie or Olive Oil (Not the EVOO)
Little bit of salt

Put everything in an oven proved tray in a hot oven (240°) for about 20-30 minutes. Take it out and cool it down. Put the oil in a serving bowl, discard the chiles. If you want to you can keep the chiles in the jar too. Depends on how strong you want it to be.

TIP: The reason I don´t use Extra Virgin Olive Oil ( or EVOO like our friend Rachel Ray calls it) is because I find it to dominating in taste with this recipe and since it´s a lot more expensive and the chile taste will be what we are going for any other oil is good.

Filling:

You can use what ever you like, but this is what I used and think is a must

Iceberg salad
Tomatoes, diced
The rocking red onion, sliced
Cucumber, diced
Falafel

It´s also good to add a chicken or lamb that´s been marinated in an Turkish or Indian type of spices. Falafel is delicious and feta cheese as well.

The way I measure things is just in dashes or bits or circa, most of the time you can just add ingredients by your taste.

This is a fun food if you are having people over. Put all ingredients on the table where every one can fill their own durum.

The east Indian guy cooks for us

2011-02-15T05:12:00.000-08:00

Our friend from India came for a visit to Iceland. On our way to an East Indian restaurant we drove by a supermarket. So we decided to go buy food and have our friend cook Indian for us instead.

This was his first visit to an Icelandic supermarket, he didn´t know what we´d be able to buy, but spontaneously bought a bit of this and bit of that.

That was the best Idea we could have had because the food was super!

We bought:

Red lentils
Spinach, fresh
Fresh tomatoes
An onion
Red Onion
Chile and pepper season
Cumin seeds
Paprika (spice)
Sharwood Mango Chutney

NB. Make sure you use the cumin seeds not cumin powder.

DAHL made from red lentils

Boil the lentils
Put in a half a bag of spinach
2 tbs Garam masala, 2 tbs paprika and salt
Added 4 tomatos and 1 onion roughly chopped
In another small casarole he heated 1 dl veggie oil. Add 3 garlic cloves, chileflakes, 1 tbs cumin or so.
After it had been heated in the oil for about 3-4 min, he put it to the lentils pot. Had it simmering for about 10 minutes. The texture is like a thick soup.

While it was simmering he made a Roti, East Indian flat bread. Flour, salt and luke warm water.

Put 1 cup flour in a bowl. Add about 1/2 cup luke warm water and bit of salt. Make a dough. Devide it into little balls and roll it out. (So it looks like a mexican tortilla)

Heat a non stick pan. Cook the bread on one side for few secons, flip over and cook for few seconds. Press it carefully to get air into it. Then again flip.

Here is a great video to see how it is done. I totally recommend you watch it if you wanna make this. It´s so easy. I make it all the time now.

I usually don´t use oil on the pan. She uses Ghee, but if you like you can use oil or butter.

I made the Raita.

2 cups plain yougurt or greek yogurt
Cucumber
Red onion
1/2 tbs Garam masala or other good indian spice blends
About 2-3 tbs Maldon salt

Mix ingredients together, you can garnish with fresh cilantro and red chili.

Refrigerate the Raita for a bit. Serve it all with rice and Mango chutney.

So, so good!

Mustard blue mussels and Thai blue mussels

2011-02-10T03:24:00.000-08:00

Here are two really good mussels recipes. I love blue mussels. I have a land in the country by the sea and there I can pick fresh mussels. They are so good when they are cooked fresh.

The picture above is taken from my land, so this is the view from my window and the sea, the Atlantic ocean, where I get my mussels from.

If you get a chance picking your own I totally recommend it! But when I don´t pick my own I just get the frozen ones at the supermarket.

Mustard blue mussels

1/2 L cream
2-3 dl good white wine
Garlic, by taste
1-2 shallot onions
150 gr butter
3-4 tbsp Dijon mustard, or by taste
Salt and pepper

Brown the shallot and the garlic in some butter with the mussels. Add white wine, cream, more butter and mustard. Salt and pepper. Simmer until mussel is ready, 10 minutes or so.

Easy like Sunday morning...eh?

It´s a must to have a fresh baguette with this recipe because the mustard cream sauce is delicious to wet the bread in!

Thai blue mussels

1 can coconut milk
Few tbsp red or green curry
Bit of red chile
Garlic
1 Red pepper
1 Red onion
1/2 zucchini
Ginger
Cilantro
Butter
Salt and pepper

Cut the red pepper, red onion and zucchini small. Brown it on a pan with butter plus the finely chopped garlic, chile, ginger and then mussels Add the curry paste and coconut milk. Simmer until ready. Add salt and pepper by taste.

I read this on Wikipedia: It is a common misconception that unopened shells are unsafe to eat and should be discarded. The myth seems to have been started by the English food writer, Jason Gibson in her 1973 publication, Fish Book.

Interesting, I thought you couldn´t eat the unopened ones...hmmmm.

And the cat liked the red wine more than the mussels...

Plokkfiskur - the Icelandic name for a haddock stew...

2011-02-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

...it´s really really good, one of my favorite food and a must to serve it with some good rye bread.

Since I spent all January in experimenting with local ingredients I had a bit of Plokkfiskur.

In Iceland we don´t make our own flour (it is all imported), so instead I used barley, but we do grow barley in Iceland.

Here is a recipe of a traditional Haddock stew. What I really like is adding some spring onion to it as well, all kinds of onion goes well with this dish, spring onion, chives, even garlic for garlic lovers.

For a fancier version you can mix milk with cream. And even put it in an oven proved dish and top it with cheese and grill it in the oven for few minutes (gratinate it).

Plokkfiskur

500 gr haddock
5-6 medium size potatoes
1 onion (or couple of spring onion)
25 gr butter
2-3 tbsp flour (or barley)
2,5 - 3 dl milk
1 egg
Salt
Pepper

Boil the fish in one pot and potatoes in another. Put aside.

Take a bit of the butter and melt it, brown the onion.

Melt the rest of the butter in the pot with the onion and add flour and whisk together until it´s like a massive bun. Add the milk (and maybe some of the water the fish was boiling in if you like) until it´s thin enough (similar to a creamy soup or a pancake batter).

Take the skin off the potatoes and cube them. Take the fish, we want no bones, no skin, and put it in the sauce, throw in one egg and stir a bit with a spoon.

Salt and pepper, I like quite a bit of pepper. You can use any type of pepper you like. Usually people used white pepper because they didn´t sell many brand back in the days, but I use fresh black pepper.

Simmer for few minutes and then serve with rye bread.

Asparagus with mint butter

2011-02-06T05:54:00.000-08:00

I´ve been blogging about food in Icelandic for a while now. I´ve got so many great recipes that I want to share with you that don´t speak Icelandic. (I guess there are only about 300.000 people in the worlds who speak Icelandic).

I have also been doing a lot of foodwaves as well, many fun recipes there. And all January I did an experiment, I only cooked with local Icelandic ingredients, that was quite interesting and more about that later. Here is a really nice recipe that is Ideal for a tapas party.

Asparagus with mint butter

Asparagus, fresh

Fresh mint

Juice from half a lemon

Salt

Pepper

30-40 gr butter

Brown the asparagus in a little bit of a butter, season with seasalt and pepper.

Melt the butter in a pot. Ad the lemmon juice and finely chopped mint. Season it with a little bit of salt, by taste.

Serve the butter with the asparagus.

This is really good in a company of a Serrano ham.(Spanish or Italian Cured ham)
A really fresh baguette to clean the butter of the plate with is a must.

Baguette with jalapeño and cheese

2009-10-07T04:25:00.000-07:00

www.soffia.net

If you´re a jalapeño fan this is silly good and very simple.

Baguette with jalapeño and cheese

Baguette
Jalapeño (canned and sliced)
Gouda cheese (or swiss or any other good cheese
Sour cream
Salt
Pepper

Shred the cheese and mix it with sour cream (60/40 cheese/sour cream)
Cut the jalapeño slices in small bites and mix with the chesse mix. Salt and pepper.

Slice the baguette. Put about a tablespoon of jalapeño cheese mix on each baguette slice and grill in oven for couple of minutes.

The hot grill easily burns the bread so watch it closely while it´s in the oven.

Cheers,
Soffia

it´s so easy to grow your own potatoes

2009-04-19T06:24:00.000-07:00

You don´t have to have a garden or live in the country to grow your own potatoes, you cando it on your balconies as well. Here you can see how Jamie Oliver and his friends do it.

Last night I made a potato dish that was really good. As usual I had no Idea what to make when I got into the kitchen... Well I knew it would have something to do with a potato, since I spent the day growing potatoes in a garbage bag.

Potato and white wine with lemon

Potato
Rice (boiled)
Garlic
Ginger, fresh
Sour cream
Roasted seeds and Pine nuts (pumpkin and sunflower seeds)
Salt
Pepper
Butter
Cheese
garlic chives

Cut potato in half, bake in oven until ready. The potato gets a brown hard thing when baked (on top) so clean it off with a knife, then take out all the potatoes with out harming the skin and put in a bowl. (This is a Jacket potato recipe)

In a pan or pot put in butter, garlic and ginger, then the cold boiled rice. Warm up the rice for couple of minutes. Salt it.

In the bowl with the potatoes, mix the rice with the potatoes, put in some sour cream, the nuts and seed and a little bit lemon juice. Salt and pepper. Put the mix back into the potato skins. Sprinkle with shredded cheese and put in oven on grill until cheese is melted. Sprinkle some garlic chives on top.

Served with a chilled white wine (Chardonnay) in a shot glass with a lemon!

Cheers!
Soffia

Total mushroom (algjör sveppur)

2009-04-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

Mushroom bisque

mushrooms
butter
garlic
cream
milk
Campbells mushroom soup
salt & pepper
leek

Chop the mushrooms and fry'em in butter and the pressed garlic. Add little of the soup, cream and milk. Serve with a drop of cream and small cut leek with salt and pepper on top.

Mozzarella coool

2009-04-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

Mozza cool

Cheesy bacon

Small mozzarella ball
bacon
pukin seeds
canned tomatos
sal & pebre
balsamic syrup

Fry the bacon. Wrap it around each ball. Served with pukin seeds and balsamic syrup with the ball resting on the tomatos.

RAW

2009-04-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

FOODWAVES

April 1. 2009
Present: Halli, Soffía, Sigtryggur & Linda

We got couple of friends, a couple, for dinner the other day. Foodwaves it was. Here are couple of recipes from that night.

The little hacker

Entrecode beef
Raw egg, just the yolk
Salt and pepper
Lemon
Green beans
Ruccola

In a mixer lightly ground the beef. Make patties and put the yolk on top. Season with salt and pepper.

Brown the Green beans in butter, season with salt and pepper.
Serve the beef (steak tartar) with the beans, ruccola and lemon. It´s a total must to squeeze a little bit of lemon on top of the beef.

The last course was light and delicious, the time was about 01.00 am and we all had eaten lots of meat, and lots of raw meat, so a healthy dish of eggplant was really what we wanted!

Eggplant sympohny

Eggplant
Seed mix
Ruccola
Camembert
Red onion

Slice the eggplant, season with salt and let it stand for a bit in a tray. Wash the salt of and dry it. Brush it with olive oil, salt and pepper.

On a grill pan, grill it on both sides for few minutes.

Salad dressing

Balsamic Vinegar
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic cloves

Mix well

Serve with ruccola, red onion, the seeds mix, Camembert and the salad dressing

Copycat wth dandruff (deepfried brie)

2009-03-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

Now for something classical

Deepfried brie Halli (mmm)

1/4 bire
flour
egg
milk
3 berry jelly
parmigiano
Veggie oil

Create the batter from the egg, milk and flour. Make it thick enough to stick to the brie.
Deep fry until the outside starts to brown. Serve with the jelly and shredded parmigiano.

Tiny burgers

2009-03-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

March 11th 2009

Not much in the kitchen but never the less we managed to make few gorgeous Foodwave dishes.

One of it was:

Tiny burgers Soffia (mmmm)

Ground beef
canned jalapeno
Onion
Cilantro
Garlic
Salt and pepper
Hot pizza spice blend

All mixed well (onion and all finely chopped). Make hamburger patties. Mine were tiny, like an inch. Fry it.

The salsa

Canned stewed tomatoes
Onion, finely chopped
Cilantro
Canned jalapeno
Salt and pepper

Mixed together.

I cut an hamburger bread with a circled cutter, put the sauce and burger in between and that´s it..

In the spirit of Lahmacun

2009-03-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite type of pizza is Lahmacun. A Turkish recipe. For one foodwave I found ingredients to make a kind of Lahmacun.

In the spirit of Lahmacun Soffía (mmmm)

Pizza dough
Canned stewed tomatos
Red onion
Chile, rather strong one
Cheese
Ground beef
Kebab lamb spice
Arabian chicken spice (or combo of cumin, cinnamon and turmeric).
Salt
Black pepper
Chile pepper spice blend
Onion
Garlic
Fresh Chile pepper, with a bite

Pizza dough, rolled thinly. On a pan in a oil or butter brown the garlic, onion, chile and the ground beef and then spices. Add little water and cook for a bit.

Put the pizza dough in the oven for 1-2 minutes. Take it out. Spread the stewed tomatoes on it, then the ground beef, then cheese and finally red onion and the fresh chile pepper.

Bake in oven for few minutes, until cheese is melted.

Lamb, garlic, pizza...

2009-02-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

Here we got more recipes from the January foodwave

Presentation is everything Soffía. (mmmm)

Lamb, fillet
Garlic
Ginger
Chile pepper
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

I marinaded the lamb with garlic, chile, ginger, salt, pepper and oil for a bit. On a pan I browned it and then put it in a aluminum foil for 10 minutes in a warm oven. (We want it pink inside)

Thai garlic dip

Thai sweet chili sauce
Sour cream
Roasted garlic

Drain the Thai sweet chili sauce, so it´s just the liquid not the seed and all. Mix it with the sour cream. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of it´s skin and blend it well with the Thai and sour cream. Salt and pepper by taste.

Garlic butter

Butter
Salt
Pepper
Spring onion
garlic

Melt the butter with room temperature, I put it in the oven for a bit to make it soft. Finely chop spring onion and add to the butter, add salt, pepper and the pressed garlic.

Take a spring onion, the leave and cut it open, fill it up with the butter.

Then it was Halli´s turn to make some wonders in the kitchen.

The vegetarians Turkish pizza Halli (mmmm)

Pizza dough
Salt
Pepper
Canned stewed tomatoes
Red onion
Spring onion
Cheeses
Parmagiano Reggiano

Roll the dough very thin. Brush it with butter and garlic. Put it in a panini grill for couple of minutes. Put on the stewed tomatoes, salt, pepper. Grate the cheese on top. Sprinkle the onions on top of the cheese. Put in n a 300°c hot oven for few minutes.

TIP:

I really loved using roasted garlic with the sour cream and the Thai sweet chili sauce.

Spring onion is very tasty and goes well with so many things. I find red onion and spring onion taste good together

Awesome bbq wings and great mashed sweet pot

2009-02-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

Foodwaves, January 31 2009

Present: Halli and Soffía

Wine:

Wildcard, Peter Lehman,Shiraz, 2006, Australia.

Villa Puccini, Chianti, Riserva, 2003, Italy (really good)

Thornthree, Cabernet sauviogne, 2007, South Africa

1. Fillet me up by Soffia (mmm & n)

Lamb, fillet
Red onion
Spring onion
"Ukrainian Turkish spice"
Sweet potatos
Butter
Sour cream
Ginger
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Parmagiano Reggiano

Rub the lamb with the spice mix. (I got mine in Ukraine and I don´t know what´s in it, but similar would be a kind of Turkish kebabish lamb spice mix). On a grill pan, fry the lamb until medium cooked, we want it to be pink in middle.

Also put couple of slices of red onion on the grill pan.

Cut the sweet potato in pieces, take the skin off and boil until cooked. In a casserole melt butter, add shredded garlic and ginger, then add the sweet potato, mash it with a little bit of sour cream, Parmagiano Reggiano, salt and pepper. This mashed potatoes dish is really good.

I used a half a potato, small one, so I had about 1 teaspoon sour cream, 2 of butter and 2 of Parmagiano, maso menos. ( Serving 2 people as an appetizer).

Artistically cut a piece of spring onion and arrange everything on a plate.

...the meshurement is not so important here, just a dash and to taste.

2. Pub food bbq wings a la France by Halli (mmmmm)

About 1/2 dl white wine
1/3 onion
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp Thai sweet chili sauce
Little bit of oregano
Olive oil and butter
1-2 tbsp sugar or brown sugar
garlic
lot´s of black petter
Salt
1/2 dl stewed tomatoes

Put the white wine in a pot, add everything else in and cook.

Fry the wings on a pan, add them to the sauce and cook them in it until ready.

Put the wings on a dish, serve with sour cream mix and spring onion.

Sour cream Mix

Sour cream
whipped cream in a can

Whip it together in a bowl

Spring onion, artistically cut.

Cheers, Soffía and Halli

What is Foodwaves all about?

2009-02-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

Do you like

a) Food?

b) Eating?

c) Cooking?

d) Everything above?

If you answer a, b, c or d Foodwaves is for you

Foodwaves is a new concept, a new way to make a fun and different dinner party.

First of all, read the Manifesto - that will explain a lot.

Invite few of your friends and follow the Manifesto

Share the recipes that are made with us here on this site. Join Us

If you have any questions, give us A SHOUT! at soffia@foodwaves.com

Foodwaves is the next big wave. Be with us from the beginning.

The first foodwaves

2009-02-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

I´m gonna share with you the recipes that were made at the first Foodwaves we did in October 2007.

TIP: I recommend you write every recipe down after each course, I find myself forgetting what was in it even the day after if I don´t write it down right away.

PRESENT: Halli and Soffía.

This is what we made that weekend. Here we used 4 M´s being the highest grade.

1. Pita paprika by Halli (mmmm)

Pitabread (storebought)
Grilled marinated red pepper (storebought)
Fresh mossarella (bocconcini)
Maldon salt and fresh grounded pepper

Pita bread cut in triangles and put for a bit in a panini grill.

Put on top grilled marinated red peppers (comes in a jar at the supermarket if you´re not making your own)

Sprinkle with shredded fresh mozzarella (bocconcini).

2. Smoking salmon by Soffía (mmmm)
Smoked salmon with mashed avacado, sour cream and sliced, served on a paninigrilled baguette.

3. Insalata bocconcini by Halli (mmm)
Buffalo tomatos, fresh mozzarella (bocconcini) and spring onion finely chopped

4. Mango Tango by Soffia (mmmm)
Grilled scallops, avacado, boiled spinach, chicken and spring onion. The scallops and the chicken was Mango-curry glazed and marinated in it for half an hour or so.

5. Lamb inside by Halli (mm)
A fillet of lamb was marinated in tomato-pinapple based sause, wrapped in pizzadough, sprinkled with seasam seeds and cooked in the oven. (Good try and very original!)

6. Breakfast salmon by Halli (mmmm) DAY TWO!
Boiled eggs chopped and mixed with mustrad and sourcream, salt and pepper. Put on a slized avacado-oil drizzled artisan bread. On top of that smoked salmon, sprinkled on top finely chopped spring onion and touch of sour cream.

7. Lunchwitches by Soffia (mmmm)
Artisan baguette cut into few smaller slizes, bruched with avacado-oil and salt.

Sandwitch with Parma ham and mozzarella.
Sandwitch with grilled marinated pepper (from a jar), goat cheese and mozzarella.
Sandwitch with spinach, mozzarella and grilled marinated pepper.
Sandwitch goat cheese and Parma ham.
Open baguette with homemade hummus.

Each sandwitch was about 2 bites in size

8. Teaser Pizza by Halli (mmmm)
Homemade pizza dough. Topping: pinapple, mushrooms, spring onion, black pepper, salt, mozzarella and tomato pizza sause.

Brush the flatten out pizzadough with avacado oil. Put it in the panini grill for couple of minutes. Spread the sause on and the toppings, put it back in the panini grill half open or pre heated oven.

9. The lamb that went to Arabia by Soffia (mmmm)

With a piece of loin of lamb rub in the spices, turmeric, cumin, salt, pepper, Grill it on a grill pan, not too much, we like it pink in the middle. Served with Mashed avacado - potatos.

Potatos, boiled and take the skin of, mash them with sour cream, butter, salt, pepper and parmagiano cheese. (Always buy fresh Parmagiano Reggiano, not the pre shredded in the cans, that smell weird). Cut the Avacado into cubes, about an inch or so and with a fork mix it with the mashed potatos.

10. Breakfast Burrito by Soffía (mmm) DAY THREE!
Mexican tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, spinach, avacado and red pepper. Grilled in a panini grill. Open the grill in the end and melt mozzarella on top of the burrito.

11. Tapas Lunch by Halli (mmmm)
Cut chicken into pieces and fry it on a pan in an avacado and olive oil with fresh red chile. Serve it on a paninigrilled baguette sandwitch with spinach, tomatos and mustard sause (made of sour cream, mustard, salt and maple syrup).

12. Mozza Mozza Parma Parma by Soffia (mmmm)
Cut mozzarella into pieces, put it on a parma ham, salt and pepper and roll it up. Grill it in a panini grill.

Take fresh asparagus, put on a parma ham, sprinkle with lots of Parmagiano Reggiano, salt and pepper, roll up and grill on a panini grill. (One or even 2 in every roll)

We had quite a bit of wine with this, this is the one I wrote down:

Norton, Malbec, Argentina 2005. ( I also tried the 2003 and that was a lot better, so maybe the 2005 is better today, 2 years later)
La Joya, Reserve, Merlot, Chile, 2005. Really good
Peter Lehman, Wildcard, Shiraz, 2005. Fruty and nize.
Faustini IIV, didn´t write more about that one but Faustino is a classic. I really love Faustion I

And that´s it...what we ate from a friday evening untill the sunday evening.
The winner of the weekend, the most memorable was nr 9. The lamb that went to Arabia by Soffia. The Arabian spices worked very well with the lamb. The Mashed potatos with avacado go well with it.

Halli´s nr 1. Pita paprika is really delicious.

JOIN US

2009-02-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

So, doesn´t Foodwaves sound good?

We are telling you, it´s so much fun. If you love cooking and if you love it when someone cooks for you, it´s perfect. And it´s extra fun not knowing what will be served when the others are cooking.

It doesn´t have to big a big crowd, often it´s just the two of us and it´s so much fun.

Try this with your friends or family and share the experience with us. Share with us the recipes you all made and if any was a big success or total failure.

We also like to hear about who was there, what you cooked, how well you followed the Manifesto, did you make your own rules, did you have any good wine and how many m´s did the food you made get?

Send us an email at soffia@foodwaves.com

In the future the plan is to have people sign up and get a password so they can log in and write the blog here themselves.

Cheers!

Soffía

TIPS

2009-02-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

- Don´t forget the sweet element.

- Use your imagination in presentation, there´s more in your kitchen than plates.

- Don´t be afraid of trying new things that might end up tasting awful, take a chance, it could be something thrilling ...or not...

- If you have a Foodwave with just what´s already in the house, and you feel not much is there don´t forget there are lot´s you could do. For example Roti, that´s just water, flour and salt.

- It´s so good to add a bit of butter to your steaming hot rice, and a bit of salt is a must!

ABOUT ME

2009-02-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

My name is Soffía. I am an artist and a photographer. I love everything about food. That´s how and why this all started. And I´m so lucky to have a bf who loves my cooking but also loves to cook for me.

I am going to blog about various recipes I cook and recently I started cooking all recipes from The Naked Chef with Jamie Oliver. I´ll blog about that as well.

And last but not least here you can read all about the concept behind Foodwaves and the Manifesto. Invite friends over and try it!

If you want to know about me, you can take a look at my website, or just google me "Soffia Gisladottir"

And if you want the whole story behind Foodwaves, keep reading....

The story behind the concept.

One cold October afternoon in Reykjavik, Iceland we were at the supermarket. The city was filled with guest from all over the world, here to crawl between bars listening to music, it was the airwaves festival weekend. ....Instead of spending the money on a pass for Airwaves we spent it at the supermarket. We decided that each of us would put any type of food we´d like in the stroller and not pay too much of attention what each of us was buying.

This was a Friday afternoon. When we got home we decided that we would take turns in the kitchen, cooking appetizer size dishes.

This is the beginning of Foodwaves.

We ate and we had few bottles of red and white. Cooking and drinking until rather late. The morning after we still had lots of food so we decided to keep going, taking turns in cooking those appetizer size dishes.

With the first course that Saturday morning, "the breakfast", we had a good cold white wine. And after a glass your brain often give you good ideas. We came up with the name Foodwaves, in sake of it was the Airwaves festival weekend. We ended up staying at home from Friday afternoon until Monday morning, cooking and enjoying good wines all weekend.

We loved this so much, so we´ve had friends over for dinner, and when they arrive we tell them about the concept, everyone has to go to the kitchen and make a dish. And every time it´s been a blast. Some get a little more nervous than others, but always ends up being a total hit!

You don´t have to be the worlds best cook to enjoy Foodwaves, but loving food or love to eat is all you need. Or even just loving to hang out to with your friends and have a drink or two.

We got so thrilled about this so we wanted to make more of it, make it a cult. So the two of us spent another weekend, cooking, eating and drinking and making the concept behind Foodwaves, with Manifesto as well as buying the domain Foodwaves.com.

CHEERS!

Soffía

MANIFESTO

2009-02-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

1. Foodwaves is all about FUN....and food and friends

2. Every course is 3-5 bites (small appetizer size).

3. Presentation is everything.

4. Everyone present takes turn in making a foodwave course.

5. All recipes made must be written down and if possible, photographed.

6. Everyone present grade every dish together, one grade for each dish, graded in m´s, 1 - 5 m´s. 5 m´s being best. (mmmmm).

7. Everyone bring ingredients, not decided ahead what anyone brings. It can be from a potato to lobster tails, few items or many, you choose what to bring.

8. You can use any ingredient you like, what ever someone else brought is yours as well.

9. Everyone must clean after themselves when everyone is done eating your course. Or your group can decide on the next one in the kitchen cleans after the one who was there before him.

10. People are allowed to pair up after everyone has had their turn cooking once. In larger groups people can pair up from beginning.

11. Other guests must not peak at what the cook is preparing.

12. The host opens up their kitchen and you can use any food you find in there.

13. If you really hate cooking or the thought of it makes you anxious, have anyone you like with you in the kitchen to help out in any way you like.

14. You can browse through recipes before going into the kitchen, but try being without looking at them while cooking.

15. Everyone must give their own course a name. And announce it when the present their dish. (Theme song is a bonus)

If you think you´re not the greatest cook on earth or maybe don´t like cooking but love eating, don´t be afraid! And don´t make things complicated, the simplest things can be sooo good.
For fun here are some easy and good recipes people have made. If you´re invited to a foodwave party there´s nothing that says you can´t think a little bit about what you might be able to cook

It´s all about the 3 f´s...fun, friends and food. Foodwaves puts the fun in the food.