Pepper with Capers

Needing a reasonably simple sidedish? This is a very good choice if you have to do other things at the same time!
Ingredients:

• 6 bell peppers
• 2 spoons of capers
• Bread crumbs
• Olive oil
• Salt
• 1 chopped garlic chove
• 2 spoons of chopped parsley

Slice the peppers and clean them from seeds and not edible parts. Wash them and put them in a pan with some water and the garlic.

First steps: put the peppers and the garlic in a pan

Warm up the pan at a not too high temperature and mix around the ingredients. 

When the water has dried out, add olive oil and put a lid over the pan.

It will now take some time before the peppers are cooked: just stir every now and then to avoid that they get burnt and to check if they are cooked.

Once they are ready (it will take probably at least 30 minutes), add the capers (if you are used the ones preserved in salt, carefully rinse them before using them), the parsley and the bread crumbs and turn off the heat.

It's ready!

Buon appetito!

Let's open the doors to the Autumn

Or better, let's update our door decoration (dörrkrans) to an autumn version (höstkrans), with pumpkins, red berries and pine cones.

Our new door wreath

Torup Skogens Dag 2013 (The day of the woods of Torup)

This year September has been a very mild month, full of sunny and warm days. We decided to take advantage of this beautiful weather and do some outdoor activities, among which "participate" in Skogens Dag in Torup with some friends. Not that it was that warm when we went there... it even started to rain!
If our kids would have been a bit older, this would have been even better than we experienced!

Torup is a place not too far from Malmö; a beautiful castle, its park, the stables and a beech woods can be found there. I think a lot of people from Malmö take the occasion to visit the woods for a nice walk and for picking up mushroom. There is also a recreational area, with a part devoted to kids.

During this event, one walks around a specific path and have the opportunity to visit different stands. Most of them are informative about activities related to the woods, handled by different organization, and most of them offers also snacks.

The sun is shining through the trees

During the day there are some events that are planned for kids, for example an outdoor theater or some "troubadour" playing his guitar and entertaining everyone. A troll named Smulan could be also seen wandering through the trees...

One of the different stands

One of the stands was from the ornithological group and they were having not only birdhouses, but also...stuffed birds! Not exactly what I was looking for.... :-)

It is tempting with a fire when the day is a bit chilly!

Another stand, which interested Mattias very much, was about mushrooms. You can all imagine how bored I was ;-)
But for us, most of the walk was devoted to find something to eat (surprise, surprise!) and we ended up trying almost all the food from the different stands.

The theater

In one bigger area, few stands were collected and it was possible to grill one own hot dog and bread and we spent definitely a lot of time doing that! Especially the bread (not the one specific for hot dogs, the "bread stick" ) was very interesting.

Grilling hot dog and bread

Taking this walk, although the weather was not perfect (and we didn't have the right clothes for such an activity) was very nice and I hope we will take the occasion to experience Bokskogen and the area around Torup more often, although we have our own little "woods" to take care of...

Gamla Brogatan, Malmö

About one month ago, it was our sixth wedding anniversary. We had big plans for the day but we ended up changing them all, since we were tired and Isabella's rythm, like usual during the weekend, was a bit messed up.
After a lot of replanning, we decided that go and take an ice cream at Dolce Sicilia, stroll a bit around Malmö and a dinner out (which is something so uncommon these days) was good enough.
The problem was searching a new place where to eat and we picked Gamla Brogatan from the list of unexplored places. Also, it was Sunday and where we really wanted to go was closed...
I had been in the restaurant before, other three times, while for Mattias it was a brand new experience. However, the times I have been there the menu was definitely different.

The restaurant is quite cosy and has a very calm and old fashioned atmosphere. One has also to think that we were there when noone else dares to eat dinner ;-)
We got to choose our food form a decently long menu with different choices, mainly meat based (especially for the main dish).
The choice for fish or vegetarian food is a bit restricted, but still existing!

As for appetizer, I choose a soup. I was quite stuffed from the ice cream and didn't feel like stuffing myself even more.
The soup was of leak and potatoes and enriched with 200 kgs of parsley.
If we think of the 70s touch of the parsley, the soup was quite ok, not exactly creamy but more on the "minestrone" style.

The soup

As main dish, I was having a bit hard time finding something that was of my taste. If there was something I liked, there might have been that the side dish was something I would have not approved. So, the choice ended up on being a dish with rabbit, which I thought was quite unconventional in a quite classic Swedish style menu.

The rabbit

Three things didn't convince me of my main dish. Again, a big fist of parsley spread allover the dish (the chef must have had a special feeling for it), the fact that some pieces of meat tasted old and finally, that the dish was a bit too much "autumn-winter" style and I would have not expected it to eat in that format in the end of the summer.

If we think about the service, everything was ok, but I didn't appreciate that we couldn't have a bottle of water on the table. Every time we were thirsty, not having taken anything else to drink, we had to look the waiter with "puppy-eyes", hoping he would noticed us.

The evening was quite ok, but the dinner was not memorable. I think Mattias was luckier in his choice, but mushrooms and sauerkraut were not what I was looking for... :-)

Red plum and blackberry jam

As always in this period, we end up having a lot of fruit thanks to a nice combination: our own production as well as the one of others who decide to dump their harvest on us.
In this specific case, we did collect all the plums of our little tree and since they didn't seem to survive that much we planned to make a jam out of them.
At the same time we got a big box filled with blackberries.

The plums

Ingredients:

• 600 gr of plums
• 400 gr of blackberries
• 1 kg of sugar
• the juice of one lemon

The fruit is boiling

I started by warming up the plums for about 3-4 minutes, keeping them in movement so that they would not get stuck to the pot. When they looked a bit softened, I added the blackberries. I stirred for few minutes and then I added the lemon juice.
I let the mix cook at a quite high temperature for about 5 minutes more and then I blend it.

The blended mix, pity the picture became blurred

Finally, I add the sugar and since I am lazy I use the one specific for making jams, so that I don't have to spend too much time wrestling with it (and Isabella at the same time).
I cooked everything, while stirring, for about 5 minutes, then I put the content in sterilized jars, which I then store in a dark and cool place.

Another blurry picture capturing the jam

An Excursion to Wanås

Last week we have been incredibly very active, or better in a different way than our usual and that has implied that we have taken advantage that this summer, here in Sweden, the weather has been incredibly nice and we did an excursion with some friends of ours. Thanks to their suggestion, we ended up visiting Wanås.

The location is at about one hour (and a bit more, especially if you get a fine on the way) from Lund and it is huge. The main thing is the park around the castle, a quite old and beautiful building which is still owned by the count Wachtmeister and is not accessible (but admirable).
Buildings around the castle, like some old barn, have been converted to being used for the exhibitions hosted in the park. Some exhibitions are permanent, others are seasonal.

In this barn you can buy tickets, souvenirs, ecological food among other things

The park is quite huge: I think one has to be there a full day to enjoy it and explore it in its complexity and beauty. It is beautiful not only because there are art pieces spread there and then, but also because it is very picturesque with the big pond and beautiful trees and vegetation.

The pond

The most fascinating thing is how the different art pieces melt very good in the environment and are also quite interactive. In fact, the kids managed to enjoy being there and not just get bored as they would do in an modern art museum!

Mamma, look at that ball!

And also for us, adults, it was interesting to be able to be in the masterpiece or do something with it. For example, two of Yoko Ono's works there were some of the things I liked the most. One was a series of trees (apple trees? ;D) with wishes written on piece of paper, hanging on it (as they often do in Shinto temples in Japan). Another one was a collection of ladders of different dimensions and appearance, used to "reach the sky".

Wishes trees for Wanås, Yoko Ono

Mattias reflecting himself

As said, some of the buildings are used in an artistic sense, not only to host works, but to be part of them. For example, one big barn, five stores high, had each floor used for representing something specific. It was very impressive because the building in itself was huge and depending on the light coming from the windows different effects were obtained.

Light games in a big barn

Wanås, though, is not just art. In 2011 Skånemejerier (a major diary product producer in south of Sweden) had promoted Wanås for ecological products. Nearby the park, a farm is producing milk for Skånemejerier and cows are visible in the stables. As far as I have understood, in spring there is a little event when the cattle is finally allowed to go out from the stables. Kids seems to enjoy such things ;-)
But cows are not the only animals living in Wanås..

A little frog

The ecological concept is not just limited to the cows and the milk. There is also an attempt to try to promote sustainable energy and for supporting this there is a building where biogas is is produced for heating up a radiator that everyone can touch.
Most interesting has been of course the food in the cafe'. With a very interesting menu, constituted by ecological and locally produced dishes, it was lovely to have the possibility to have lunch directly there.

Pork chop

Me and Mattias took a very nice pork chop. The portion was huge and the meat tasted like a pork chop has never tasted before! It was just great! Accessories to the chops were some potatoes, aioli, pesto and a nice cauliflower and carrot salad (and note, I usually don't like cauliflower!).
We also took, as dessert, a cheesecake, and that was something from another planet! With pecans and a very lovely consistency it was something that finished too quickly...

The whole day was a great experience: it was fun, interesting and we could spoil ourselves with great food.
The only bad thing is that Isabella didn't sleep so much in the car so she was lovely the rest of the afternoon, once home... :-)
Hope we will manage to come back one day, maybe not having to rush for making her or whoever else sleep after lunch!

Portobello Market

No, we haven't been to London visiting Portobello Road Market, but few months ago we managed to organize one of our epic game afternoons (which few years back were regularly happening once a month!) and among the game played, we discover Portobello Market.

The game is over! ©Mattias Pettersson

The game is targeting a quite young bunch of players, but we thought that, strategically wise, it was not as simply as it could have been. Or maybe we made it more complicated ;-)
It is in general quite quick to learn (especially if one starts to play it) and it is also reasonably quick to play, hence perfect for us that nowadays don't have so much free time for being real geeks around some board game.

Goal of the game is to take the best location(s) for building stalls for the market and by doing that, one can be very nasty to the other players and that turned out, for us, to be the key point in order to win or lose. Nothing was given for granted and it was not so obvious which was the best strategy, neither who would have won, although it could have been guessed. What I mean is that the game turned out to be still open and not "one way" for the one that had the best luck at the beginning.

It is certainly not as exciting as Settlers, Ticket to Ride or Puerto Rico, but still, if one is hungry for a quick nice game this is just perfect!