Meaty specialties

There is so much delicious German food that I can not get here in Sweden, especially various meat products.

Just take a look at these wonderful Mettbrötchen, for example:



Mmmmmh, Mettbrötchen...
For those wondering: Mett is raw minced pork meat. Yes, I said "raw", as in "fresh off the animal". Put it on a crisp roll, some fresh onion rings on top, maybe a hint of paprika and get in touch with your inner carnivore. It's pure meaty goodness.

I would also do just about anything to get my hands on some decent Bratwurst:



Dear people of Sweden, this is what real Bratwurst looks like and you might find that it does not resemble those pityful excuses for a sausage that you call Bratwurst at all. Real Bratwurst does not contain finely ground meat, it is chunky. And savoury. It does not taste like a miniature-sized falukorv. Oh, how I feel for all of you who will never know the difference...

Is there a way to improve the tasty dream that is the Bratwurst? Why, yes there is. Meet the Currywurst!



It is a Bratwurst in a tomato-curry sauce, usually served with fries and some mayonnaise on the side. Finding a place that makes really good Currywurst can be difficult. A lot of people make it easy for themselves by just using plain tomato sauce and putting some curry powder on top (and sometimes not even that), but a real Currywurst has to have a warm curry ketchup sauce. And mayonnaise to go with the fries of course. Hey, if you are already eating a Currywurst you can't be too concerned with your weight or health anyway.

Is it all meat, you ask? Do we live on pork alone? Well no, we eat lots of candy too, especially around Christmas. And I already have a whole long list waiting for you...

Flavour combinations

I cooked potatoe soup today, but when it was time to eat the mere thought of it (especially in combination with the word "chunky") made me sick to my stomach, so the whole big bowl is now standing in our fridge. Instead I got the idea that I wanted to eat cucumber sallad with dill, like my grandmother used to make it. And Kellogg's Smacks. Unfortunately my husband had never heard of Kellogg's Smacks and some research on the internet showed that they are not sold in Sweden. Obviously, without the Kellogg's Smacks I didn't want the cucumber sallad anymore either. I mean, who would eat cucumber sallad without Kellogg's Smacks on the side? Seriously.
One less nightly trip to the supermarket for my husband...

Cupcakes vs. Muffins

Tomorrow I have to go to work to talk to my boss about when I will return to work and for how many hours per week. I assume he won't be happy, considering that I won't get back to working full-time for a couple more months.

At the same time I wanted to take some cake with me to celebrate my birthday, so I spent part of the afternoon making cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes, not muffins. I researched the matter online and the most hands-on advice for distinguishing the two was this:
"If you threw a cupcake against the wall, you would hear something of a "poof!" If you threw a muffin, you would hear a "thud!"
Mine are definitely "poofers", not "thudders".

Here is the result of my labour:



Top row: Bounty cupcakes and Lemon cupcakes
Bottom row: Hazelnut cupcakes and Chocolate chip cupcakes

Before you get too impressed let me point out that I only "made" them the way my mother "made" all kinds of food: open bag, enhance content by adding a little extra, heat, serve. I had thought about making everything from scratch but then I realized that I was in fact not completely crazy and could certainly come up with a better way to spend my Sunday. It's not like my colleagues care - they will happily eat half-frozen supermarket cake as long as it allows them to take a coffee break. This here should be a real treat for them...

Uber-mother

I had bought more fruit than was needed for Saturday's fruit sallad and the usual mode of operation in this household would be to let it rot until it starts to look and/or smell funny.

Yesterday, however, my inner Uber-mother came out and demanded that I don't waste food but instead turn it into healthy, self-made fruit puree for Pontus. And so I found myself standing in the kitchen last night, equipped with a hand blender and the fierce determination to make the best damn puree ever.

The mix of 1 nectarine and 1 banana turned out to be too runny, so 2 more bananas were sacrificed to the puree god. And then 1 pear. And 1 apple. In the end the puree was just as runny as before, there was just much more of it. So much more in fact that I wasn't sure I had enough containers to fill the mud-coloured slime into. (Really, how do the big manufacturers manage to make their puree so viscous? Do I even want to know?)



I gave Pontus a spoonful to see if the puree was worth saving and he seemed to like it. Actually, he liked it so much that he ran after me in his little baby walker to get some more, constantly driving into my heels as I tried to pour freezable portions.

Being an Uber-mother hurts...

Bacon-wrapped plums

Some food pornography for I-think-we-all-know-who.
Come on, zoom in! I know you want to...