Great and simple!

I love a store where I can find ANYTHING, like Åhlens, Muji and Granit.  These 3 shops are so simple, clean and practical!  My last discovery was Granit, a swedish franchise that sells things for the home and also for yourself.  It's basic black and white and some wood, glass and metal products.  They also sell spices, teas, olive oils, soap and other goodies.

A few months back, I got myself 2 items,  a black and white stripes simple T-shirt and a black T-shirt dress.  They are both favorites in my closet, I wear them in the winter, summer, anytime and go with everything. 

Dinner on a rainy weekend

We'll be having some friends over this weekend at the cabin, since it seems like it will be raining ALL the time, Jonas and I have decided on making a cozy meal.  We have two options:

 Jamie Oliver's Roast Pork Shoulder

 or... Roast shoulder of lamb (also Jamie Oliver)

 I am not very experienced cooking meat, so I need a guide, and who else than Jamie Oliver to give me a easy to follow, down to earth, 100% pleasing recipe?  I know, I am a big fan, and I have always been, but I have never been let down, and I have learned a lot about cooking from him, so, when in looking for a good recipe full of flavour, that's my man.

I'll tell you how it went!

The Neistat Brothers

Red beet soup.

My stepmother gave me this recipe a while ago.  I never wrote it down, so I am pretty sure that it has changed a bit from the original because "I play it by ear", so, I will try to be as specific as possible.

This is a great soup for anytime of the year.

 Ingredients (feeds 6)

4 red beets

4 garlic cloves

2 oranges

half a cup of orange juice

half a cup of cream

1 lt of chicken stock

30 g of butter

salt

pepper

Extra virgin olive oil

 Preheat oven in 180ºC.  The beets will be baked in aluminum foil for around 90 minutes.  Each beet should have some orange peel, garlic, a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Once they are baked, peel the red beets and put them in the processor together with the garlic and a cup of chicken stock. Now, move the mix into a large pot, add the rest of the chicken stock and the rest of the ingredients, cook in low temperature for half a hour so the tastes sink in.  Serve!  The color is amazing, and the taste... well... just taste it and see for yourself.

The coolest kitchen products!

I was looking for enamel pots online and came across Labour and Wait, a fantastic shop in London that sells all kinds of kitchen and home products.  Here are a some of them that have stolen my heart!

Pink "Milk Pot"

White enamel measuring cup

Lasagna dish (there is a bigger one 

called the Roasting dish that is great too)

While these are amazing, as an addition to any kitchen, my heart is still pounding for a Le Creuset set.

Gracias mami,

Fabiana Cantilo, with Gustavo Cerati playing a Seru Giran song.... no more words necessary. All I can say is: Thank you mami for posting this video on FB! I love you.
How HOMESICK can one get!!!! Good homesick though.

Fake Tandoori Chicken

Tandoori powder is a mix of lots of spices (cumin, coriander, chilli pepper, ginger, garlic, smoked paprika and garam masala).  You can probably buy most of the ingredients in a exotic shop or even at your local supermarket, but I found an already made mix at Eksotisk Torg (Christies gt. 13) in Bergen and it is actually pretty good.

I say is fake because originally, the recipe should be cooked in a tandoor, which is a type of clay oven, or on a grill as second best.  Today I decided to make it in the regular oven since it's raining cats and dogs and we don't own a tandoor.

Anyways, I tried to do it as fat free as possible, so I mixed 3 spoons of tandoori mix with 2dl of natural yogurt and marinated 2 chicken breasts with it for around 3 hours in the refrigerator, after that, I baked it in the oven on 200ºC for around 25 minutes.

I made a greek salad (cucumber, tomato, red onion, olives and feta, a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and a pinch of oregano as my dad does) and some bulgur to eat beside it.

Delicious and healthy!!!

Autumn boots at Bianco.

My obsession with Oxfords is NOT going anywhere at the moment!  I found these really nice booties from the autumn collection at Bianco among some others that are not bad at all either.

Church Boot

 

Camel Boot

Lotte Boot

For a dark corner...

I found a nice blog today called Oh Joy!  Just two scrolls down and I found this cool lamps that I am quite sure would look awesome in any dark corner, window, bookshelf, night table, desk, hallway... etc.

 

At Anzfer Farms in San Francisco.

Same blog and I found this table (reminded me of an idea my sister in law has for her dining chairs):

   

Its a Paul Loebach and it can be found at Areaware.

All about weddings!

I got married some time ago, so this is past tense for me, but many of my friends are getting married this season so it has been a subject lately.  One of my very good friends has asked me to help her out with the wedding decorations, so I have taken the task quite seriously and been looking for DIY ideas wherever I can find them.  While at it, I found Once Wed website, a site that if I had seen before I got married many things would have been not only cheaper, but more me.  I am not saying that I didn't like my wedding, I loved it (even though it is just all a blur at this moment) but I think that Costarrican weddings can be way too expensive, and maybe just a bit over the top.  If I could do it all over again, it would definitely be simpler, cozier, fresher, and most importantly, more personal and with less people.  Just close friends and family.  Here are some ideas I have found.

Fabric Flower Garland

Easy, simple and sweet flower decoration

Rustic and simple table

More paper flowers... how delicious are they???

  

Think outside the box! I love the shoes! Why didn't I think of it?????

When I grow up!

I have been away and away for most of the summer, so the blog has once again been neglected.  I can't promise I will be better at updating it on the next weeks since we are spending a lot of time in the cabin and outside, but I do promise to do my best.

Today I was roaming through the usual blogs that I read and on Emmas Design blog I saw this fantastic apartment which resembles in many ways what I would like to have when I grow up!  Maybe a bit less minimalistic, but I love the materials, the built in furniture, the bookshelves, the color palette, the combination of textures and styles, the kitchen!  

Ina & Matt Studio, Netherlands

A wedding in a little piece of paradise

Fjærland has to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth... It's one of the mos tidyllic, romantic and impressive spots I have ever been to.  Fjærland is a branch of Sognefjord, the longest fjord in Norway.  Well, just look at the pictures and you can get an idea of how ridiculously beautiful this place is.

Silly me, forgot to take pictures with the water... duh!

 Click on the image to see in large.  This is the front and back view, but it was 360º of this!

 Jonas and I (with the little back dress Invild made for me!)

Katrine (next in line for getting married), me and Cecilie.

The Bergen crowd.  Couldn't ask for better friends.  Love the all.

And to top it all, A FREAKING GLACIER! The picture was taken

from the car, so, that's the best one I've got.

"Bored to Death"

The great thing about having an "almost-vacation" is that you get to be a bit lazy guilt-free.  I have been watching this new tv-series (pardon: HBO-series) called "Bored to Death" and I highly recommend it.  Like almost everything that HBO does, it is smart, and well balanced, really funny and with a great cast.

The show is about a writer that lives in Brooklyn.  He is short in cash so he decides that he is going to put an ad on Craigslist offering services as an unlicensed private investigator. It has a very good film-noire feeling/Woody Allenish vibe.   Jonathan Ames is the creator and he lends his name to the main character (played by Jason Schwartzman).  Ted Danson plays his boss, George and Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover) plays his best friend Ray.  Together they have all sorts of adventures with one new case to solve on every episode.

Ted Danson is hilarious!  I missed him on TV.