This summer Maggie insisted that her Grandma teach her how to make her very special & extra delicious veggie soup. I’m so glad she did!

You’ll need…

A large soup pot
An immersion blender
8 carrots
2 potatoes
2 red peppers
11 celery sticks
1 celery root (2 if small), if you can’t find celery root use celery sticks
4 cloves of garlic
2 cups of chicken broth
1 onion
Powdered spices to taste (we use cayenne pepper, coriander, cumin, tumeric, garlic powder, paprika, and ginger paste) (more…)

Tomas and I were playing around with iPhoto’s book-making tool & one of the pages it made from our photos jumped out at me. My daughter, Maggie is eleven now and has really glommed on to the social arts (I can’t think of any other term for it, so feel free to help my English).

One of her favorite things to do when we have guests or will be a big group for a meal, is to help set the table, she always comes up with the prettiest arrangements for flowers, simple, natural, and lovely. {yep. I’m her Mom – super proud- can you tell?}

The last picture in that row is of a desert she and Bjørn (9) invented: fruit salad in tartlettes, topped with home made whipped cream and a yummy chocolate.

I make this every year, it’s based off of a pie my parents used to buy at the Danish Pastry shop in our town that burned down years ago. This is the closest I’ve gotten to replicating the recipe, but I’m determined to track down the original baker to see if he’ll share his with me (my son’s third grade teacher’s lawn guy is his son, so I’m sure I can reach him) — I tease the kids that I married a Dane because I love this pie so much. Funny thing is it turns out the baker’s name is Christensen, too! I also still dream of his almond macaroons – swoon! (more…)

Yesterday, I had a ricotta emergency and, naturally, tweeted it. Tomas had bought way more ricotta for the Lazagna I’d made a few days earlier and I knew it was doomed to curdle if I didn’t take action quickly. My Tweeps and Facebook pals came out en force with some wonderful suggestions. I opted for the one I had all the ingredients on hand for, and which I could easily recruit a kiddo or two to help prepare. (more…)

This is so incredibly delicious, you are going to want to run out & buy shrimp right away.

For reals.

Shrimp Pil Pil is one of our family’s favorite dishes & whenever I need a pick-me-up I have Tomas make it for me (I make sure to keep frozen shrimp in stock at all times & buy extra whenever it’s on sale). (more…)