Quinoa salad

Sooooo much food left over from last night, enough to keep us going until we leave Friday morning... One of the things I made that I actually ate was this quinoa salad; pretty yummy if I can say so myself.

Just a mix of quinoa, orange, different kinds of lettuce, and some nuts, dried fruit and seeds (almonds, brazil and walnuts, apricot, dates and pumpkin seeds if I remember correctly). A squeeze of lemon, some good olive oil, salt and pepper and you´re good to go. A bit lighter than the typical christmas food!

Just got back from watching The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, good movie I have to say but what is UP with the fake swedish accent everybody but Daniel Craig has??? Is that really necessary? And Rooney Mara saying "hej hej" everytime she walks into a room.... I don´t know. It made me miss Sweden though, I´ll give you that. Maybe some "sillsalat" for dinner will help:)

Monsieur Marcel

Warning warning, don´t enter this gem of a store if you´re poor and hungry. French and spanish cheeses, olive oils, wine, super dark chocolate...

Found it at the farmers market in ... actually I don´t know what part of the city it is. Bev Hills? Hollywood? Bah. Somewhere in LA. Check it out here. Right now I´m mixing together my own little goodies, including meatballs from IKEA, smoked salmon rolls, a citrus quinoa salad and herring. Pabster is in charge of the spanish flavors; tortilla and wine. Time for a Norwegian/Spanish "christmas" dinner! Muak.

Semi-raw dinner

 

I can not believe how cold it is here right now... I´m sitting glued to the tiny little oven we have to heat us up. My feet are ice. But that´s not news I guess. Anyway, last night I made this SURPRISINGLY good dinner. Squash pasta with macadamia and tomato sauce. It took me two minutes to make. Just take a squash and a carrot and make "tagliatelle" with a potato peeler.

The macadamia sauce is just a handfull of macadamia nuts with lemon, sea salt, pepper and basil thrown into a blender. Since I wanted something warm, I heated up some tomato sauce and mixed it in there. Voila.

The warm tomato sauce kind of cooked the squash so it actually felt like I was eating real-life spaghetti. I am so amazed at this dish, really. You have to try it. Healthy, quick, GOOD. You´re welcome.

Go nuts!

Walnuts with sea salt, pepper and nutritional yeast (God, I hate that name, could someone come up with another please?). SO good!!!!! Bought them "ready-made" at Whole Foods, but it must be easy peasy to make at home. Tastes like a mix of salt pepper chips and... cheese doodles:) I am obsessed.



Little Spain

Imagine how happy we were, walking around the farmers market and finding this!!!

Felt like an hour in la latina...

Don´t know if it was the olives, the jamón or the red wine (probably), but I started dreaming about finding that perfect house in Mallorca and opening my store... Just you wait and see!:)



SuperCocoChoco

When I want something sweet, this is what I stir together:

Palmsugar, coconut flour, cocoa powder and/or carob, a dash of virgin coconut oil and a pinch of sea salt. A little cinnamon doesn´t hurt either. Then I add some coco water or just plain water until it´s mushy. It´s extreeeemely good. I know I´m weird, but seriously, it´s like chocolate mousse or something. Not saying it´s healthy, just healthiER. But listen to what my beloved virgin coco oil can do to you:

-Control blood pressure and cholesterol

-Strenghten immune system

-Help stabilize weight

-Reduce work load of liver and kidneys

-Improve digestion

You can also use it as a moisturiser or conditioner...

And it tastes so goooood!

(No one paid me to post this. I wish someone would)

What´s for dinner? Awesomeness

Aka scampi with cashewnut cream and pasta. Want to know how to make it? Of course you do. If you still read this blog that I´m neglecting even more than my evening prayers.

Chop up some garlic, chili, ginger and red pepper. And something resembling onion, but with a milder taste and a long green stalk that´s always full of mud when you buy it. It´s called purre in Norwegian and puerro in Spanish. I can´t seem to remember the English name at the moment. The cashew cream here to the left, sorry right, is simply made by throwing a bunch of cashews into a blender, squeezing a lemon in there, and adding water that almost covers the nuts. Blend. Add salt and pepper. Even idiots can do this. And measuring is for sissies. Boil spaghetti. Again, idiots can do this too. By this, I´m not saying you´re all idiots, I´m just trying to tell you it´s really really simple.

Here´s the scampi, and everything else. Besides the pasta and cashews, obviously. It´s in a wok. On a gas stove. You don´t need a gas stove to do this however, you can just do it on a normal stove. Ok. So I probably fried this for around two minutes (timing is for sissies), that´s enough. Otherwise you´ll get rubber scampi, not very tasty. Your pasta should be done by now. It really should. So mix everything together in a bowl, add some parsley and sea salt, and voila, this is what you get.

Bit of an anti-climax? You were expecting something a lot fancier-looking? Well, this is what you get. I´m not a food blogger. Now eat!



Viva España!

I haven´t been around for a while because I´ve been busy fighting off computer viruses, hiding behind pillows while watching American Horror Story (do not watch that show if you want to stay sane, and never ever say the words "Piggy, piggy" in front of a mirror), trying to learn how to drive a car again, returning to bikram yoga hell after a very long break, and that´s pretty much it. Most importantly though, I spent Saturday morning looking at this delicious plate of Spanish yumminess. Madre mía. Speaking of jamón, Almodovar was screening his new movie at USC Friday evening, but we didn´t risk standing in line without getting in. Maybe we should have.

Chili con carne!

And a freaking good one I have to say, thanks to Jamie Oliver. Check out the recipe here if you want to try. Heh, I just realised that a lot of my food pics look the same. Some gooey stew with a piece of lemon or lime. I like mushy food, ok!

Other than that, my passport fell apart today and I might have to go to San Fransisco to get a new one. Don't know if I should cry or be very joyful about that. I also chose a Halloween costume. It includes feathered eyelashes. Eventful day!

Autumn food

Guess what I'm making!

Improvised bread bonanza

Got crazy cravings for bread, think it has something to do with the extremely gray weather we're having here. Reminds me of Norwegian autumn = rain, cup of tea, books, warm and freshly baked bread. With butter. MMMmmm. And for the first time in my long, long life, I managed to whisp together a superb tasting gluten free mass that could be called bread if you're not too picky. I'm not, as long as I can put butter on it.

 

This is what I used: Sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, gluten free oatmeal, almond flour, psyllium husk, salt and water. Yup. That's it. As I said, this was all improvised so I have no idea how much I used of each of the ingredients. Probably around 1-2 dl oatmeal and almond flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons psyllium, and 1-2 dl of a mix of all the seeds. Then enough water to make it sticky. Let it rest for half an hour, so the psyllium can do its magic and bind everything together.

Pretty pretty little bread wannabes. In the oven, 180 degrees, 45 minutes.

Smoked ham and cucumber, yes please. This is the ham over all hams (besides Jon Hamm). And butter.

Fab rasberry marmalade = Stirred rasberries with palmsugar

Did I mention the butter?

Nobu

Ok, so I'll admit I probably knew about this place from reading about it in People or Star Magazine or something like that. "Gwyneth and Chris leaving Nobu after a pleasant evening with their good friends Madonna and Dalai Lama". But if it's good enough for Gwyneth... you know. Oh by the way you have to sign up for her newsletter goop, it's sometimes useful (if you're loaded), mostly just kind of entertaining. Anyway. We ooh'd and aah'd ourselves through salmon sashimi, a raw tuna salad, some tempura shrimp with aioli and lemon, a perfect ceviche, and this cod you see here which was de-li-ci-ous. I'm norwegian and have eaten a LOT of cod. I know good cod when I see it.

 

For dessert they had something exotic called Froyo on the menu. I was very curious about that. The waiter told me it was basically yoghurt with berries. I still didn't get it. When he came back I said, "I'll have the yoghurt. What did you call it again?" Leaning forward, very interested to hear about this japanese delicacy, probably pouting a bit. 

The guy is a bit perplexed. "Eh, it's froyo"

Me: "Follo?" (This is even funnier if you speak spanish)

Perplexed waiter: "No, fro-yo. Like, frozen yoghurt"

P was trying to sneak away under the table at this moment.

Well, I got my little froyo in the end.

This is how happy, full and fuzzy we looked when leaving.

Super-Saturday breakfast

This day, so far has been perfect. Long walk in the morning, sunny beach view, running moms with deadly strollers, surfers in the waves (not pictured), Vanessa Da Mata on Spotify. Trying to make up for yesterday which was just one mess of a day, all I'm saying is it ended with me slamming my phone in the wall (still missing a part).

 New day deserves a new breakfast. Buckwheat porridge with rasberries, goat cheese (!), brazil nuts, coconut oil and cinnamon. Has approximately 34 905 calories and tastes awesome, although it's not very photogenic. Porridge usually isn't. Now, beach and some Spanish speaking. Love it.

Flourless, sugarless, milkless chocolate cake!

Doesn't sound thaaat great, does it? But it is, I promise. For this one I cheated a bit and used dark chocolate (85%) in the frosting, but that doesn't count... And it looks so good. Just look at it!

So, here's what you need:

1 glass of black beans (yes, beans. That's the secret. Won't make it taste like beans though, I swear)

5 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

6 tablespoons Virgin Coconut Oil

1 small teaspoon of stevia OR 1-2 tablespoons of palm sugar (not a big fan of stevia, so I use palm sugar)

1 deciliter agave

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tbspoons cocoa

3 tbspoons carob

1 carrot

Unsweetened coconut

Frosting:

Dark chocolate (min.70%)

Agave

Coconut oil

Coconut milk

Mix all of the ingredients above in a bowl; Start with the beans (rinse them first!), add the 3 eggs, stevia/palm sugar and salt. Whisk in the cocoa and the carob powder. No lumps!

In another bowl, mix the coconut oil with agave and add the rest of the eggs.

Pour the "beanmix" into this mix, and whip it all together. It should look pretty much like this:

Then add a shredded carrot and as much coconut as you feel like! The coconut is not mandatory; skip it or just replace it with something else you like (nuts, seeds, dried fruit...). The carrot is though. It adds a lot of moist to the cake. Now, all you have to do is pour the mix into a cake pan lined with parchment paper. Bake it on 160 degrees/320 fahrenheit for around 40-45 minutes (I usually check it with a chopstick; if it doesn't stick to it, it's done!).

Now, the frosting. I melted two chocolates in a bowl over boiling water, so that it melts slowly. Then I added some coconut oil; around half the amount of chocolate. And a little squirt of agave. I didn't really measure, so I couldn't tell you the exact amounts... just try it, and when you think it's sweet enough, let it cool down a bit and put it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. DO NOT LEAVE IT THERE FOR TOO LONG, like I did, because then you have to do the whole melting thing again, as the chocolate will stiffen too much. You just want it to be thick-ish, not frozen. Then you add some coconut cream (that's the thick part of the coconut milk that you usually find at the top of a can when you open it), and mix it until you have something that can be used as frosting. You can split the cake and put some frosting there if you want to, or just spread it on top. Put the whole party in the fridge for a little bit, decorate with whatever you have laying around, and there you have it! A yummy chocolate cake without too much guilt, just pleasure.

Enjoy! Let me know if you make it:)

Church&State

In the middle of the industrial area downtown, this gem of a restaurant is, maybe not hiding, but not exactly shouting out its presence, with fab french wines, rabbit, boullabaisse, moules marinieres, roast lamb, braised veal and other goodies on the menu. I always think ambience is more important than the food though, and here you get both. I'm a sucker for bare lightbulbs, I have to admit. Think it started in Tivoli in Copenhagen somewhere around 1989. I'll love any restaurant that has a stub of rope light hanging from the ceiling. So this place just couldn't be wrong.

Mouth-wateringly good steak tartare. With homemade aioli and pickles. I even had some french fries, woooo!

This is the petite assiette of boullabaisse. I think asking the question "how bloody big is the big assiette?" is not out of place here. We left very full and happy (in both the Norwegian and English meaning of the word. The wine was gooood).

throwing together a dinner

I just got some serious pasta cravings I had to attend to. Improvised dinner! And, for a change, you don't need vegetables grown by the foot of the Himalayas by an ancient old medicine man or ayurvedan unpronouncable spices to make this, I promise.

Plain old pasta and olive oil (Well. Wholegrain and extra virgin. Obviously).

Some kind of pesto made without a mixer. I used my raw muscle power to sort of mash together pine nuts (come on, everybody has some pine nuts in their cupboards nowadays), basil leaves, garlic and oil. And a pinch of salt. As you can see I don't have that much strength, since all the pine nuts are still intact. Unimportant. While I was making this, I had a pan going with a handfull of chopped cherry tomatoes, a bit of onion, half a green squash and half a yellow squash. Just heated it in a little oil until the veggies got soft-ish. I also painted my nails somethime during the whole cooking process, because I'm such a multi-tasker!

Goat cheese! Ready-crumbled! (you're right,  I don't like that, but I couldn't find the real deal at the super)

Some boiled pasta, the veggies and "pesto" mixed in, a bit of goat cheese on top, and pasta cravings solved. So easy even Chester can do it, as they say in Spain. Tihi.