semiswede

Your eyes are not deceiving you. Those are indeed some very rosy beef patties. Why? Because they’re mixed with chopped pickled beets. Not a beet lover? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. My kids have detested beets before now and they gobbled this up.

In early September I made a post about my first experience with foraging havtorn (sea buckthorn) and I was determined to make it back for a second picking before the season was over. At the end of September, after a an intense couple of hours of foraging on the second go-round, I stopped in at our little neighborhood market to […]

Whole crawfish are a big part of Swedish culture with the kräftskiva celebration that takes place in August. But year round you can find crawfish tails in a dill brine in the supermarket. They are tasty little morsels that are infinitely easier to use than dealing with a whole crawfish.

There is a saying “as American as apple pie,” but I think you could just as easily say “as Swedish as apple cake.” It’s everywhere and I certainly see it on menus here much more than I ever see apple pie on a menu in the U.S.

Here is a bit of a Scandinavian twist on good ‘ol applesauce. My in-laws have a fantastic apple tree that lost a lot of apples in a wind storm. We gathered two bags full of apples just from what had fallen and there are still loads of them on the tree.

On my first trip to Sweden in 1998 I fell in love with prinsesstårta (PRIN-sess-TOHR-tuh). The spongy layers of cake alternating with jam, vanilla custard and whipped cream topped with a thin layer of bright green marzipan had me hooked from the first bite. But it wasn’t until recently that I really started to wonder about […]

In the recent rose hip jelly post I promised a rose hip glazed chicken recipe. This is inspired by Hank Shaw. His blog is absolutely fascinating with a wealth of information about foraging and hunting and how to cook up the bounty.

  One of the easiest, and most gratifying foraging finds in Sweden are wild rose hips, particularly the large rosa rugosa. From beaches to front yards the bright vermillion-red hips are generally ripe from August to October. There are masses of them to be found at Lomma Beach on the southwestern Swedish coast. In just […]

I can’t remember how I first heard about havtorn (sea buckthorn), but it was definitely within the last year because I couldn’t wait for September to arrive so I could find some. Everything I read said they were extremely laborious to pick but for an admitted berry-picking addict I thought it couldn’t be that bad. I was […]

What do you do when you have picked 30 pounds (13.5kg) of plums at your friend’s place? You leave 15 pounds for her to deal with and take the rest home to begin on chutney, jam, cakes, jam, liqueur, jam, and then you consider force feeding the rest to your family. Anything to use them up fast.