Red Grape- Vitis vin. 'Zilga'

This grape is supposedly extra hardy. Let us see if it works out in my little garden. This is the third grape plan I plant in my garden. First plant has never managed to do any use. Second neither (but I just planted it last year). Actually the second plant had some green stuff that seemed to be grapes, but I happened to break them off the plant when re-planting it.
Theoretically, this plant will give grapes in August and September. Let us see.

Latin: Vitis vin. 'Zilga'
Swedish: Vindruva 'Zilga'
English: Red grapes 'Zilga'

Producer's information
Very hardy Baltic variety.
Grapes are supposed to ripen in September.
It should be planted in a lime-rich and clay-rich soil.
Prefers a sunny position.
In July-August: Remove superfluous branches to allow the grapes to ripen better.
In November to February: Prune.
Producer: Perfect Garden www.myperfectgarden.eu

Bought Spring 2020. Planted 31st May 2020.

Glutenfree Goat Cheese Pie

This pie is actually a combination of multiple recipes. The result is very good anyway!

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Ingredients

Pie crust

3,5 dl chickpea flour

75 gram butter

1 egg

0,75 dl red quinoa  

1 teaspoon salt

Filling

2 dl whipping cream
2 eggs
400 grams goat cheese
300 gram colorful small tomatoes
2 big or 3 smaller onions
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Cook the quinoa in lots of water for around 20 minutes (follow instructions on the package).
Mix the chickpea flour with the butter and salt. Add the egg. Add the cooled quinoa when it is cooked.
Put in a buttered pie tin. Bake for 20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

Slice the onions and fry in a pan with butter until soft. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and the grated garlic. Cut the tomatoes in halves. Cut the goat cheese in slices. Mix the whipping cream with the two eggs and add 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Put the onions in the half baked pie crust. Add the cheese and the tomatoes. Pour the egg mix into the pie crust.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes.

Savory Gluten free Belgian waffles

It is hard to find good gluten free recipes of stuff that normally isn't gluten free.
This recipe gives actually quite good results even though it is gluten free. Probably not as good as the "real one" but then what can one do?

Ingredients

125 grams butter
3dl milk
1,5 dl water
25 grams yiest
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
5 dl gluten free flour

Instructions

Mix together the flour, the salt and the baking powder.
Warm up the milk. Mix in the butter so it melts. Add the water and when it is all mixed and the temperature is around 27 degrees, make sure the yiest is melted into it.
Whisk in the eggs into the mixture. Add the dry ingredients a little at the time. I normally beat the mixture for some time even though I do not really know if it helps given the fact that there is no gluten in there.
Let us put it like that. It does not hurt.
Put around 3 tablespoons into a waffle iron. That will make a waffle. Normally you need to put the mixture in when the iron is showing green and then remove the waffle as done when it shows green again. But I guess that this depends on the type of iron you are using.
Top with creme fraiche, caviar and shrimps.

Mousaca Wannabe Quick and Dirty

Let us make my life easier. Moussaka I love. But as much as I try, I will never become Greek. So I will never manage to do a real moussaka. I can't even spell it without Googling it out.
This makes for food for 4 people and it will be left for the lunch the day after.

Ingredients 

4 tablespoons olive oil

4 onions

4 garlic cloves

8 tablespoons tomato puré

2 grated aubergines

600 grams minced lamb meat

300 grams grated cheese

2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons chili flakes

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

4 dl water

2 pieces meat bouillon cubes

800 gram crushed tomatoes

1200 gram waxy potatoes

1 liter milk

100 gram butter

100 gram flour

1 teaspoon salt

nutmeg

4 eggs

Instructions

Cut onions in small cubes and put in a frying pan with the olive oil.
Grate the aubergines.
Grate the garlic.
Grate the bouillon cubes.
Slice the potatoes thin.

Fry the onion until the onion is soft.
Add the minced lamb meat, the aubergines and the grated garlic.
Cook until the meat is done.
Add then the tomato puré, the sugar, the cinnamon, the chili flakes, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper.
Add the grated bouillon cubes, the water and the crushed tomatoes.
Cook until the water has gone away and remember to mix regularly so it does not burn.

Take a gratin form and do layers of meat sauce and potatoes, starting with the potatoes and finishing with the meat sauce.

Melt the butter, add salt and flour. Mix so you have no lumps. Add the milk and mix until no lumps are present. If you get lumps, just use a mixer to mix away the lumps. Cook up until the sauce is thick.
Remove from the stove. Mix in the eggs, the nutmeg and the grated cheese.

Chunk on the reinforced bechamel sauce over the minced meat sauce.

Bake at 210 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes.

Glutenfree Mac and cheese

Ingredients

300 grams Glutenfree macaroni

6 dl oats cream

1/2 vegetable stock cube

1 pinch of cayenne pepper

1/2 dl chopped parsley

2 tablespoons gluten free bread crumbs

5 dl grated cheddar cheese

Instructions

Turn on the oven at 210 degrees Celsius.

Cook the pasta 1 minutes shorter than according to the instructions.

Cook the oats cream and chunk in the grated stock cube and the cayenne pepper. When it nearly boils, chunk in 4dl cheddar and let it melt. Add the chopped parsley and the drained pasta.

Put the mixture in a gratin dish and spread the remaining cheddar and the bread crumbs over the pasta.

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Dark and sweet glutenfree bicarbonate bread

This bread I found in a book by someone called Eleonora von Essen. She has quite a few good stuff without gluten in her book. The book is though in Swedish, so you need to either be Swedish, have learnt Swedish or be highly motivated to do so. And if you are any of these things, the book is from my perspective highly recommendable.

Or you pick an alternative recipe over here.

Ingredients

4 dl oats flour
3 dl buckwheat flour
2 dl rice flour
1 dl potato flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1,5 tablespoon psyllium husk
4 teaspoons bicarbonate
2 teaspoons salt
1 liter natural yoghurt
1 dl liquid honey
1,5 dl sunflower seeds
2 dl pumpkin seeds
0,5 dl flax seeds
2 dl sultanas
2 dl cranberries cut into small pieces

Instructions

Warm up the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Put the sultanas and the cranberries in hot water for 5 minutes or until soft.
Mix the dry ingredients and add the yoghurt and the honey.
Add the softened sultanas and cranberry pieces (without the water, of course).

You need two rectangular forms (plum cake like forms). Cover them with baking paper and put half the dough in each.

Bake around 45 minutes. Try to put the forms as symmetrically as possible at the bottom of the oven. It might be a good idea to switch their position after some 30 minutes just to make sure that the bake as evenly as possible.

Towards the end, you can try to lift out the bread from the form. If it feels humid, wait some more minutes before removing it from the oven.

When done, leave the breads cool down on a grill. When still warm, it might feel somewhat sticky but it gets better when it cools down.

Spareribs with orange barbeque sauce

This recipe has been created due to the urgent need to do something edible with the pork loin I purchased last week when it was on special price. I was inspired by the meal I ate last Wednesday at a French restaurant where I ate duck a l'orange. :) The result had hardly anything to do with the original meal, but it was good indeed.

Ingredients

For the meat
1,8 kg spareribs (or chicken wings)
2 pressed oranges
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

For the barbeque sauce
4 tablespoons coconut sugar
Juice from the pork meat cooking
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 pressed oranges
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon ginger powder
3 tablespoons cointreau

Orange yoghurt sauce
2 dl Turkish yoghurt
1 little grated garlic clove
1 pressed orange
Salt to please

Instructions

Heat the oil in a crock pot and put in the pot the salted pork loin. Steak the surface so it gets somewhat brownish but not burnt.
Add the orange juice and let the pork cook in the crock pot at max heat for about 3,5-4 hours.

Take out the juice from the meat and cook it so it becomes more concentrated.

In a pan, melt the sugar together with about 3 tablespoons of the concentrated meat juice. Then add the vinegar and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the juice and cook for some 5 minutes so the liquid evaporates a little. Add the cointreau and cook until the alcohol is completely evaporated. When the taste is good and concentrated, you can add some tablespoon corn starch and cook it up until it gets somewhat thicker. If you want more taste, add some more concentrated meat juice.

Cut the meat in smaller pieces and brush it with the barbeque sauce. Put it back in the crockpot.
Put on a side of the crockpot pieces of apple and let this whole thing cook some 45 minutes or so.

Mix all ingredients in the yoghurt sauce.

Serve the pulled meat with hamburger bun, the apple, yoghurt sauce and lettuce and, if you wish, scallions.

I personally think it would be good without the yoghurt sauce, too, so if you feel lazy, just skip it.

Crispy glutenfree pizza dough

This pizza dough is clearly superior to any gluten free pizza dough I have baked before. Those have been quite "doughy" "gummy" like. Not so good that is. This one dough was very crispy and all of us in the family were amazingly impressed!
So let me just note down what we actually had in it, as we did not follow the original recipe.
The amounts given will give 3 square pizzas (Swedish oven size). If you think it is too much, just scale down the amounts to what you want to eat. But you be warned: it was sooo good that two of us nearly ate a whole pizza in one shot.

Crusty gluten free pizza

Ingredients

16 dl gluten free flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons salt

8 tablespoons olive oil

6 dl cold water

1 dl cooking water

1 dl cold water

100gr yeast

Instructions

Mix the flour with the salt. Add the olive oil. 

Mix the 6 dl cold water with 1 dl cooking water. Then add the yeast and make sure it melts in the water. Mix then the yeast water with the flour with care for a while. Then mix in the 1 dl cold water and the baking powder and mix again.

To be honest I think it should work to actually mix in the baking powder in the flour to begin with. But as I was actually following another recipe and the dough seemed to be far too compact so I added the 1 dl cold water at the end and the baking powder afterwards, this is how I described it above.

I am not sure if it makes a difference or not. But just to be sure so :)

Oven temperature 210 degrees with ventilation (as we baked multiple pizzas at the same time) and baking time was about 25 minutes, but keep an eye on the progress in case you need shorter time.

Pesto sauce

This is a good recipe for pesto really. It tastes very near the original recipe but is somewhat easier to do. Making this recipy dairy free makes the taste very different from the original recipe unfortunately, but sometimes, you simply do not have a choice, do you?
The pesto can be eaten as a topping to whatever you want, but, of course, the most typical use for pesto is as a sauce for pasta. If you want a gluten free dish, use gluten free pasta. Personally, we use Semper Linguine.

Ingredients

30 grams pine nuts
80 grams basil leaves (I normally use frozen ones, but of course the fresh ones taste more)
2 cloves garlic
1 dl + 1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons salted pasta water
1/2 teaspoon salt

If you cannot eat dairy, just leave out the parmesan. Otherwise add
75 grams grated parmesan
If you want to be little posh, you can substitute a little of the grated parmesan on pasta with some shaved parmesan as a decoration

Instructions
Just mix everything together. If someone in the family cannot eat dairy, wait to mix the parmesan until the end or leave the parmesan out altogether. Note though that the taste will not be great then.... :/

Quinoa pie crust

This pie crust is really really really suuuuper. Best pie crust I have ever eaten. Honest!
Give it a good try!

Ingredients
Crust
4dl cooked quinoa
2dl almond flour
1dl potato flour
50gr butter
1 egg
For an egg free alternative, see Quinoa pie crust (Dairy free and egg free).


Instructions
Warm up the oven at 200degrees Celsius.
Mix the ingredients for the shell in a mixer and distribute it in a pie dish.
Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes.
Use your preferred filling and bake it again for about 40 mins or so depending on the filling.

Quinoa pie crust (egg free and dairy free)

Ingredients
Crust
1 tablespoon chia seeds
3 tablespoons water
4dl cooked quinoa
2dl almond flour
1dl potato flour
50gr milk free margarine
If you can eat eggs and milk/lactose, see the regular recipe.

Instructions
Warm up the oven at 200degrees Celsius.
Put the chia seeds and the water in the mixer and let it be there for some 15 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients in a mixer and distribute it in a pie dish.
Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes.
Use your preferred filling and bake it again for about 40 mins or so depending on the filling.

Feta, salami and tomato pie

Ingredients
Shell
4dl cooked quinoa
2dl almond flour
1dl potato flour
50gr butter
1 egg

Filling
4 eggs
4dl double cream
150gr Neaples salami
150gr feta cheese
150gr green olives without kernels
10 small tomatos

Instructions
Warm up the oven at 200degrees Celsius.
Mix the ingredients for the shell in a mixer and distribute it in a pie dish.
Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes.
Cut tomatoes in cubes and heat it up in a pan so that the water goes away and put it in the pie crust after its first bake.
Make small crumbles out of the feta cheese and distribute it in the pie crust.
Cut salami slices in pieces and distribute it in the pie crust.
Slice the olives. and distribute them in the pie crust.
Mix eggs and cream and pour the mix in the pie crust.
Bake for 40 more minutes or until the filling is stiff.

Quinoa and zucchini dairy-free salmon

I created a recipe that I really loved, but being my baby allergic to dairy products (milk protein), I did a variation of it just for him. It is not as tasty as the original recipe, but I do dare to state that it does taste rather good anyway. If you are though not on an healthy streak, nor allergic to dairy and milk protein, nor scared of fats, it might be a better option to follow the original recipe.

Ingredients

800gr salmon filé
600gr zucchini
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 dl cooked quinoa
1,5 dl oats cream
2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Grate the zucchini on a large grater. If it is old zucchini, try to press out as much water as possible. If it is small zucchinis, it is not necessary as they do not contain so much water. Fry it in the olive oil and grate garlic into it. Make sure the water from the zucchini is gone and they taste done.
In the meantime, put some olive oil in a form. Cut the salmon in 8 pieces and put it in the form.
Mix all remaining ingredients together with the zucchini and put the mixture on the salmon so it is completely covered by the mixture.
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Quinoa and zucchini salmon

This dish is very very tasty. I found a (completely different) recipe that sounded somewhat weird to me, but it inspired me to do something good out of if instead. Here is my suggestion.
If you are scared of fats, are on a healthy streak or are allergic to dairy or milk protein, you can follow my dairy free alternative, which is also quite good (but not as tasty).

Ingredients

800gr salmon filé
600gr zucchini
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 dl cooked quinoa
2 dl creme fraiche
2 dl grated parmesan
2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Grate the zucchini on a large grater. If it is old zucchini, try to press out as much water as possible. If it is small zucchinis, it is not necessary as they do not contain so much water. Fry it in the olive oil and grate garlic into it. Make sure the water from the zucchini is gone and they taste done.
In the meantime, put some olive oil in a form. Cut the salmon in 8 pieces and put it in the form.
Mix all remaining ingredients together with the zucchini and put the mixture on the salmon so it is completely covered by the mixture.
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Pear tree flower bed

After many years, it felt absolutely necessary to freshen up the flower bed around the pear tree.
So we reused the soil we had dug up in the past (which in the meantime had become from the crappy soil it was to useful soil again) and compost.  This lifted up the level of the soil some 10-20 cm. After that, we planted quite a few Automn bulbs.

Tulip Apeldoorn 

(10 pieces)

Planting instructions
Distance: 10 cm
Depth: 10 cm
To be planted in September or October
Height:  55 cm
Flowering period: April-May

Tulip Queen of Night 

(10 pieces)

Planting instructions
Distance: 10 cm
Depth: 10 cm
To be planted in September or October
Height:  60 cm
Flowering period: April-May

Tulip Sunlover 

(10 pieces)

Planting instructions
Distance: 10 cm
Depth: 10 cm
To be planted in September or October
Height:  40 cm
Flowering period: April-May

White tulip of some kind 

(some unknown amount, likely around 15 pieces)

Allium aftanutense 

(some unknown amount, maybe around 10-15?)

In the past, there were quite a few Alliums planted there but I guess the whole digging and filling up with new soil probably made the old alliums disappear too low under ground.

Broccoli pasta

One day you get up hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Or actually, you do not get up at all. You simply lie down hungry. Hungry. Hungry. You start reading Elle À la Carte, Swedish Edition. Nooot a good decision. End of the story, you are just forced to cook something out of it. Not necessarily the healthiest recipe, you might guess....

Broccoli pasta

 Anyway. Here is the result of my cooking activities: a broccoli pasta! Not really as it was described in the original recipe, but well... If you want the original one, go buy Elle À la Carte. It is a wonderful and inspiring newspaper anyway.
The pasta was rather good. Not a carbonara, but well....

Ingredients 

For 1 (hungry) person
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 anchovy filés
200gr broccoli
1/2 stock cube (I actually would use salt instead)
1/2 lemon (zest and juice)
Salt
1/2 tablespoon of olive oil (to top the pasta with)
3 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese
100gr pasta (I used spelt spaghetti, but probably any whole wheat spaghetti or linguini would be good)

Instructions

Boil the broccoli in pieces with some salt water until they are done. Spare the water from the broccoli.

Mush the anchovies and the garlic and let them melt in the oil at medium temperature in a frying pan. Then add the sunflower seeds until they become a little more golden.

Add the broccoli. Add the lemon zest and the lemon juice, some of the broccoli water and also the stock cube. Personally, if I cook this pasta again, I will use salt instead! The stock cube just gives that artificial tone to everything...

I reused the broccoli water to cook the pasta, just to spare some energy and time maintaining some of the broccoli taste and vitamins, if you get what I mean...
When the pasta was done, I just sealed it but kept the pasta water, threw the pasta in the pan and mixed it together with the dressing.
Added the parmesan and some of the water to help the creaminess of the pasta. At the end, added necessary salt and the half spoon olive oil.

Raspberry and vanilla custard pie

This recipe is kind of a mixture of recipes and ideas. Mommy likes fruit cakes and likes custard. So what else would be more ideal than this specific pie for her birthday?!

I think though the size of the pie dish I used was probably far too small. I used a 26cm dish and had some of the dough left for an additional little pie dish. So maybe a 28-29cm would have been somewhat more ideal?
I actually used 600gr raspberries, but I actually did not have enough space in my dish so I used it for the small dish, too.

Ingredients

600gr raspberries
6 tablespoons caster sugar
1 tablespoon potato starch
1 portion Sweet pie dough
1 portion Baking vanilla custard

Raspberries for decoration

Instructions

Mix the raspberries with the sugar and the potato starch.
Put the sweet pie dough in a pie dish of about 28cm.
Add some of the baking vanilla custard in the bottom of the dish over the dough.
Add the raspberry mixture.
Fill the dish with the rest of the custard.
Bake at 220 degrees Celsius without fan. I did bake it with ventilation and I burnt the shit... :(
After 20-25 minutes, the pie should be done.
 

Baking vanilla custard

This custard is meant to be used in pies and should be baked with the pie. It is not meant as vanilla custard to be eaten as is.

Ingredients

300gr milk (1,5% fat)

180gr cream (40% fat)

240gr caster sugar

145gr egg yolks

30gr potato starch

Instructions

Mix sugar and starch with egg yolks. Whip it until well mixed.

In the meantime, cook up the mixture of milk and cream. When it cooks up, take it off the heat, put in the egg and sugar mixture, cook up again and whisk together. Remove from heat.

Sweet pie dough

This is a recipe for pie dough. The recipe is originally French, but the Italians do use a similar recipe for doing a pie called "crostata".

Ingredients

250gr flour
125gr butter
75gr sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 egg

Instructions

Mix flour, sugar, salt and butter together until you get a sandy mixture. Add the egg and mix until you get a dough. Put it in a plastic bag for food and distribute the dough so it gets thin. It will cool down quicker.
After half an hour, take out the dough from the frigde and mix it again with your hands to get an elastic consistence. At this point you can use for your pies.

Note! I have had the less smart idea to make it a little sweeter by adding some additional sugar. Bad idea. The pie gets more crunchy and the taste is less enjoyable.

Spirea × cinerea 'Grefsheim'

Having an orange house requires some white flowers that tone down and contrast the house colour. We had seen these pretty beautiful plants flourishing around town and decided it would be the best of choices. Don't you agree? This plant is called in Swedish "Norsk brudspirera 'Grefsheim'".

1st May 2014, Spirea x cinerea 'Grefsheim'

From the beginning we believed that we did not want a real hedge so we just decided to go for some plants sparsely distributed in the corner area of the garden. The result looked little phony to be really honest. I remember a night some years after after we had put up a wall and planted the same kind of plant around the whole corner area and they had started to grow bigger and bigger. We then looked back at the pictures from the first plants we had and nearly cried from laughing.

Anyway, what we learnt from that is that it is a good thing to have a wall or similar to make sure that the "weeds" cannot attack the poor hedge from multiple sides.
Actually, after we planted the hedge, the ground sank and the plants landed far too low. Again, learning from your own mistakes, remember to use existing ground, too, when planting an hedge and also make sure that you plant way above where you want them to be. Taking the plants out and putting them back in was both costly and very time consuming and the plants took a big hit from it the same year.
Fertilizing did help recovery a lot.

1st May 2014, the hedge these days

Quite a few years later, 7 years I would say, this is the result. And it seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

I actually wonder how much bigger it will get.

If you look at how this plant looks like, you will see that there are very long branches covered with flowers all along.











The small flowers are really cute.

1st May 2014

They are not much larger than a 0,5 cm or so. Mh... Little unsure. Probably I should have put my fingers next to it for comparison. But now unfortunately I didn't so you will have to live with the lack of proportions to compare with it. :)
The plant flowers during a short period of time, maybe 1-2-3 weeks. Little unsure. The photos are taken a few days after the blooming came up.




Today, 13th of May, the blooming is going away. Still it is rather ok. So let us say 2 weeks minimum. But during that period, it is really wonderful.
Furthermore, thereafter, the leaves are also impressive and even though it turns into green, it is still very beautiful and flourishing. Will try to remember to take some picture this weekend and also further down the summer, just to let you see how this really looks like in late summer.