Author: Adriana

Romanian Meatball Soup (Ciorba de Perisoare)

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Week 49 – 2020 This is another post from the series “I tried something new this week”. I grew up in Romania, in the region of Transylvania, in a small village with no restaurant or food delivery services. Buying ready meals was not popular at all in the area. And in all honesty, is not popular today either. Everyone cooks at home and I grew up on home-made food, which I crave now from time to time. With Christmas coming, and me not able to see all my family this year, I need to bring some childhood home smells and tastes into my own home. Today I decided to make sour soup after one of my mum’s and aunt’s recipes. They have been sharing recipes for so many years and I grew up eating food cooked by both of them so it’ hard to separate. For me, all the Romanian recipes I have come from both. They are family recipes! Sour soups are very popular in Romania so I will share more with you in …

Swedish Saffron Buns (Lussebullar)

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Week 48 – 2020 This is another post from the series “I tried something new this week”. Sunday blues are even more real in lockdown, in late November. Friends and family are far away and the overcast skies make it seem like it’s always 4pm on a winter day. Now more than ever it’s time to bring warm light and winter smells into the flat! In Sweden the Lussebullar are eaten throughout the Advent. The first Sunday of Advent is today, so we lit the first advent candle and started baking! We found a recipe online and we adapted it a little bit to what we had in the home so I am going to share it here. The recipe will yield around 30 buns. Ingredients Dough: 3 x 8g dry yeast sachets 6dl milk 2 sachets of saffron 150g butter 2 dl sugar 1 egg 1/2 teaspoons salt 16 dl wheat flour For spreading on top and garnishing: 1 egg sultanas Method: Add the yeast and saffron to a bowl, with the melted butter and the milk warmed to the …

Find Inner Energy with Kundalini Yoga

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Week 47 – 2020 This is another post from the series “I tried something new this week”. I want to share a few thoughts after my first couple of kundalini yoga sessions last week. I have been looking to improve my energy levels and my strength since I am working from home full time and do not move as much as I should. Is not enough with daily walks and the occasional run. For a while I did pilates but that became repetitive and a chore. I am clearly looking for something else that I can enjoy and is sustainable for me. Before I found the class I didn’t know much about kundalini yoga. Actually, I don’t know much about it today, I just had 2 sessions. But I am super keen to learn because it feels really good after each session! So far I was taught a few breathing techniques and a few postures. They can be challenging and I had to push myself to find more strength, I could feel my muscles at …

Swedish Cinnamon Buns (Kanelbullar)

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Week 46 – 2020 So I set a challenge for myself to start doing something new every single week. Something that I haven’t done before and poses a challenge for me. That’s the way I push myself out of my comfort zone and ultimately I learn. It can be literally anything: cooking, painting, doing a new form of exercise, writing an article I always wanted to write or starting a class I always wanted to start. It doesn’t have to be a huge and overwhelming task, it can be something silly but enjoyable! On week 46 I baked cinnamon buns after a Swedish recipe! I had home-made cinnamon buns in Sweden and this time I wanted to do my own and learn from my mistakes! And the fact is, that besides some minor hiccups, it all went well! They turned out delicious and my Sunday afternoon was brighter and fun! This is the kanelbullar recipe I followed: Ingredients: Dough: 8g of dry yeast (you can also use 25g of fresh yeast) 50g butter 3 dl …

Chanterelles on toast

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Here is a very simple recipe that you can adjust after your own taste: Toss a bunch of chanterelles in butter with: Finely chopped onion Soy sauce White pepper Cream Fry the chanterelles until they start crackling and then add them to toast with some fresh parsley on top. A variation to this is to add finely grated parmesan cheese on top, add the toast in the oven for a few minutes and then top it up with parsley. Enjoy!

“Constant Gardener” – A way to find Balance

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First thing is first, I am going to start with the disclaimer: this is not a post about gardening. I like being outdoors, I feel in my own element but gardening is taking skills which unfortunately I don’t have at the moment! Because, in all honesty, I am investing my time in other projects, So now that this is out of the way you are probably wondering why I chose this title for the blog post. Well, first time when I said to someone that I am like a “Constant Gardener” it was in an interview. It felt like a good way to describe myself on the job. I work as a software engineer and live systems are like gardens, they grow in time, they need constant attention and fixing. If you are not careful the weeds of bad and unmaintainable code are taking over. With all the rush of the world and the abundance of information everywhere I feel like being a constant gardener, always trimming and choosing, always prioritising, has become more and …

Homemade Basil Pesto

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If you like pesto why not try to do your own at home, since it takes around 15 min and it goes great with pizza, pasta and salads. Here is a classic recipe with basil, pine nuts, Parmesan and garlic. This recipe will yield 4 portions of pesto. Ingredients 2 bunches / 2 cups of basil leaves 1/2 dl pine nuts 1 1/2 dl olive oil 1 grated garlic clove 1 dl grated parmesan cheese 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper Directions Put all the ingredients together in a blender and mix them! That’s it! I have seen recipes where you mix all the ingredients with the exception of oil first but I mixed everything at once and it went all. The pesto has a great consistency. Tips I got this tip from a family friend so I thought I would share it here. In order to keep pesto for longer you can freeze it, and you can use ice cubes containers so that you can easily defrost small quantities when you need it. I …

Lingonberry Jam

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There are a few types of lingonberry jam: light jam, dark jam, jelly – made only of juices and raw jam. This recipe is for the light jam which takes only 15 minutes to cook. Ingredients 2 kg lingonberries (aprox. 3 litres) 3-4 dl water 1/2 kg sugar Directions Clean and wash the berries. Put them into a pot with water. Heat them up slowly and let them simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and then add the sugar. Stir slowly from time to time until the sugar blends into the jam. Skim the foam and pour the pot content into pre-warmed jars. Enjoy!

Pickled Cucumbers and Green Tomatoes

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For preserving a 1 litre jar of cucumbers or green tomatoes you need about 1/2 litre of salt water, so I am going to write the ingredients that you need for that. The quantity of cucumbers or tomatoes really depends on the size. You don’t actually need that much and is very simple to do. It takes about 3 weeks for the pickles to be done, but if you put them somewhere in the sun it takes even less, about 2 weeks. Ingredients cucumbers/green tomatoes (to fit in a 1 litre jar) 1/2 litre water 30g salt 1 teaspoon black peppercorns 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar 1 bayleaf 1 garlic clove 1 teaspoon dry thyme 1 teaspoon mustard seeds 1/2 teaspoon sugar a few slices of horseradish root Directions Boil the water with the salt and the bayleaf and let it cool down. In the meantime, put the cucumbers or the tomatoes in the jar and add all the other ingredients. One important thing to do here, if you pickle tomatoes, pierce them a few …