Oatmeal crackers

Oatmeal crackers is something that has always been at the Christmas table in my family. At first it was my grandmother who baked them and after she passed away, my mother and aunt took over the baking of the delicious little crackers. This year was the first year that I didn't celebrated Christmas at home with my family and I felt that I needed something that reminded me of Christmas at home, oatmeal crackers. These crackers do not need to be eaten around Christmas, they're good enough and simple enough to do, to be eaten all year round.

 

 

Oatmeal crackers

1 l milk

1 kg oatmeal

50 g salt o hartshorn (ammonium carbonate)

500 g butter

400 g caster sugar

500 g plain flour

  

This is a large batch. It works perfectly fine to halve the batch, I did and got out about 40 crackers. Mix milk and oatmeal and let swell overnight in the refrigerator. Melt the butter and mix it with the rest of the ingredients. Place the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to obtain a dough that is easier to work with. Divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll out as thin as you can. Punch out bite-sized crackers using a glass. Bake the crackers at 180 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes.

Saffron macarons with white chocolate ganache

Now we have been back in cold, snowy Sweden for a week and I can safely say that the heat was better. We had time for Christmas preparations and christmas eve so now I would easily be able to go back. I made these macarons when we invited Johan's family to snack on the first Sunday of Advent. Saffron is a spice I like to use in abundance during Christmas because it's so good, because that's when it "should" be used.

 

 

Macarons

200 g icing sugar

110 g almond flor

3 egg whites

2 tbsp caster sugar

½ g saffron

 

Sift icing sugar and almond flour through a sieve and mix well. Beat egg whites and caster sugar to a glossy meringue. Stir in the almonds- and icing sugar mixture into the meringue with saffron. Pipe round cakes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone macaronform. Let cakes stand at room temperature for 30-60 minutes. Bake meringues at 150 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes.

 

White chocolate ganache

200 g white chocolate
100 g heavy cream 

Chop the chocolate and place in a bowl. Boil the cream and pour it over the chocolate. Stir until it becomes smooth. Set the bowl in the refrigerator and let cool until the ganache have enough thick consistency so that it can fill the cakes. Pair equally big shells and fill them with the ganache.

Butterscotch

Butterscotch is something I really have a love-hate relationship to. I love the caramel flavor, but there are few things that makes me so upset as to pour the butterscotch in these small forms when the forms begin to fall, even though I moistened the plate they stand on, and precious butterscotch flows out over the plate. This year I managed to trick one of my friends to do it so I managed to skip out on all the misery, hurray!

Butterscotch

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup syrup

½ cu of almonds (optional)

 

Mix sugar, syrup and cream in a heavy saucepan. It should be a heavy saucepan so that the butterscotch won't burn. Use a large pot too because the larger the diameter of the base, the faster it will cook.
Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. Reduce the heat when it starts to boil, but make sure it is warm enough so that it continues to boil. Let cook for 20 - 45 minutes. The range depends on the size of the saucepan you have, I obviously had a too large  pot, so for me it only took about 15 minutes. To be on the safe side, you can do a test now and then. This is done by taking a small amount of batter and dip it in a glass of cold water when you can shape the mixture into a ball after having had it in the water the butterscotch is done.
While you boil the butterscotch, cast the buterscotch molds and chop the almonds fine, if you want almond in. I usually set the molds on a baking sheet that I moistened a little before so that the molds should stay in place, not that they always do it anyways, but still .
When the butterscotch is ready, pour the mixture into the molds. Use a jug with a handle. I use one in stainless steel.
Let the butterscotch solidify at room temperature or cooler, the colder, the faster they solidify.

Dajm

The same recipe as the butterscotch applies here.
I do not know if I can call this Dajm, but it is the best that I can use to explain this. It should have been butterscotch as well, but because I underestimated the ability of my saucepan, the butterscotch was rock har at the first test. Therefore I poured the batter on a baking tray lined with baking paper and let it harden. Then I dipped it in melted chocolate and let it harden again.

Gingerbread

Gingerbread is something that is so delicious to do from scratch. Sure, store bought gingerbread is good to eat as it is but it will not be as tasty finished gingerbread I think. But even if you made the dough from scratch, or if you bought it at the store, it takes an awful lot of time to do. Me and Johan sat for at least four hours in all, with the oven on, baking the gingerbread. Then it's not fun to have a kitchen that is only about 12 square meters.

Gingerbread

150 g butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cups syrup

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp ginger

1tbsp cloves (minced)

1 tbsp of baking soda

3/4 cups water

900 g flour (about 1 ½ l)

Stir butter, sugar and syrup together smooth with the spices.

Add the baking soda and water and work the flour into the dough. Knead the dough until smooth on a floured surface. Wrap the dough and let it rest in the fridge overnight.

The day after, you roll the dough, not too thin, and punch out cookies with the shapes you like. Preheat oven to 225 degrees C and bake in the oven for 5 to 7 minutes

Leftover lamb pie

There was some leftovers from the previous lamb post where I slow-roasted a shoulder of lamb. In order to do something useful out of the left overs I made some lamb pie.

Finished pie ready to eat.

Easy ingredients:

• Leftover lamb from here
• Peas
• Corn
• Mashed potatoes
• Some leftover sauce

This will take 30-35 minutes to make, extra time to make the mashed potato is not included.

Put the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Some ingredients.

Start the pie with a layer of meet. In order to not dry out the meat and give it even more flavor I poured some leftover sauce on it.
Continue thereafter by adding a layer of peas and corn.

Sliced lamb and left over sauce.

After adding the peas and corn it is time to add an even layer of mashed potatoes. For some it will be important to make a nice pattern in the mash for presentation points. I am not sure that I judge my pattern that high.

Ready for the oven.

After 15 minutes it is time to add some grated cheese on top of everything.

Nice cheese.

Let the cheese melt and start to get some color. This will take about 10-15 min, somewhat depending on how hungry you are.

Melted cheese on top of the finished  pie.

Slow-roast shoulder of lamb

I have found a technique to slow cook a lamb in the oven that I like. It was at Hugh I read about it first. Later, I will experiment more with the meat of other animals.
It is actually very simple and straightforward. Set the lamb in a hot oven, 220 degrees, for 30 minutes to give it some color and texture. Remove the meat after 30 minutes, add 2 glasses of liquid in the pan and cover everything with aluminum foil and set it in the oven for 6 hours at 120 degrees.
Once this is done, it is very tender and juicy.

Succulent lamb.

To give the lamb a little more flavor I put on a spice paste which I rub into lamb shoulder in. The ingredients I used this time for the paste were these:

• garlic
• rosemary
• thyme
• chili
• salt
• pepper
• lemonade
• honey
• A little oil

Some seasoning.

Cut small slits in the lamb, only 1-2 mm deep, with a sharp knife and rub half of the spice paste on the lamb. Put the lamb in the oven for 30 minutes on 220 degrees Celsius.

Cut and rubbed shoulder of lamb.

Use the second half of the spice paste after 30 minutes. Add 2 glasses of water into the tin and cover everything in aluminum foil and return to the oven at 120 degrees Celsius.  

After 30 minutes in the oven.

 Make a big package of the tin and meat.

A big package.

Do something else for 6 hours, or at least 5 hours, and use the last one to do some good accessories for the lamb.

After 6 hours further.

The meat comes away easily from the bone, so it does not matter that this lamb shoulder has some big bones in it from the beginning.

The meat does not stick to the bone.

Cut the lamb and serve it with something good.

Awesome lamb and some wine.

Snowballs

I've cheated and started with the preparations for christmas already, starting of with these delicious white chocolate truffles. I usually don't start of with the preparations this early, but this year I had to start early. The reason is that we will be going abroad for two weeks now in december, and it's impossible to miss two weeks of preparation before Christmas. Though I can not exactly say that it is something that, in itself, concerns me a lot, sun and heat is a welcome thing right now.

Snowballs

½ cup of cream

200g white chocolate

2 1/4 cups shredded coconut (plus extra for garnish)

1 lime

 

Chop the chocolate roughly. Bring the cream to a boil, then add the chocolate. Let it melt during stirring. Stir in coconut and finely grated zest of lime. Let cool in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours. Roll small balls of the batter and sprinkle with coconut.

Guacamole

Guacamole is a simple but fantastic accessory. Equally tasty as a dip sauce as in burritos or tacos.

Avocado, seven star chili and a lemon.

 Ingredients:

• Avocado
• Chili, I used a seven star chili that I got from Huayu.
• Garlic
• Salt
• White pepper
• A dollop of creme fraiche
• A small squeeze of lemon juice

Mix it together.

It might not appear clearly in the picture above, but I used a hand blender to mash the avocado as it was a bit too hard to mash with only a fork.
When everything is mixed, only the imagination prevents where the guacamole can be used.

Tasting lovely but with a half arsed presentation.