semiswede

We had a lovely summer, and an unseasonably warm fall, but now the dark and rain are settling in. It’s time for soup season and looking through the pantry for inspiration, I came across a lonely bag of wild rice. I love the nutty flavor of wild rice, and this slow cooker soup has turned […]

Despite the fact I have now lived in Sweden for six years, I still have not adjusted to the reality that summer can be downright cold. It hovered in the low 60s for much longer than I appreciated, and then suddenly we had three weeks of temperatures that reached up to the 80s. It was a […]

There are some recipes you come back to again and again because they are good, fast, and you can easily have the ingredients on hand.  This is one of those recipes. I have made it countless times and for some reason my kids can’t seem to get enough of it.

I hadn’t heard of anything edible being made from prickly, stinging nettles until my first spring in Sweden. My mother-in-law served nettle soup for lunch one day and I loved it. Now I look forward to it every spring and this year I asked her to show me how to make it so I could […]

One of the things I really enjoy about Sweden is the access to wild meats. Moose, wild boar, reindeer, and venison are readily available in supermarkets. The cost is generally comparable to beef and you can get wild meats ground or in the form of roasts. I don’t have a lot of experience with wild […]

Pea soup on Thursday has been a tradition in Sweden since the Middle Ages. It stems from the Friday fasting historically observed by the Roman Catholic church as a reminder of Jesus’ suffering and death on Good Friday. Thursdays had a somewhat festive aura and peas were considered a luxury item. 

It’s kräftskiva (crawfish time) in Sweden and after celebrating at home with our family I couldn’t bring myself to toss out the shells. There is such a minimal amount of meat in those little crawfish bodies and such a vast amount of flavor in the shells that it seems a waste to just bin them.

It’s been a bit of a weather rollercoaster in Malmö lately with some days feeling more like early fall than July. Yet another rainy day seemed to call for soup. Fisksoppa (fish soup) is common on menus in Sweden and I’ve ordered several tomato-based versions that are really lovely and I was anxious to try making one […]