Vegetable Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Vegetable Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

I love pasta, and I love spaghetti. But to tell the truth, I always eat to much when we have pasta for dinner. It's so easy to eat, and I love the texture. I tried to have spaghetti squash, instead, but this combination works well in my family,

The most common dinner in Denmark nowadays is pasta with meat sauce, but it's a trend that started in the 80's. Before that it was most likely meatballs with potatoes and brown gravy, or at least meat and potatoes.

When I moved out of my parents house, I didn't have boiled potatoes for moths. I was sick and tired of them. I had pasta and rice with my dinners. 

I know vegetable spaghetti is done before, but this is my take on it. I don't put measurements on my meat sauce, Season after taste.

Ingredients:

Vegetable Spaghetti:

• 2 small squash, julienned

• 3 leeks, julienned

• 3-4 carrots, julienned (or a bag shredded carrots)

Meat Sauce:

• extra virgin olive oil

• bacon, in bite size pieces

• onions

• garlic

• ground beef (lean)

• canned crushed tomatoes

• beef base (bouillon)

• water

• red wine

• rosemary

• thyme

• salt to taste

Directions:

Meatsauce:

Heat a drizzle of oil in a pot over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until the fat is rendered and the bacon is turned brown. The bacon doesn't have to crisp up. Transfer the bacon to a plate lined with kitchen towel, to drain of the excess fat. Discard the bacon fat. Add oil to the pot again and brown the ground beef, crumbling the meat with a wooden spoon. Add the garlic, onions, rosemary thyme, a little salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Add the wine, beef base, water, the crushed tomatoes, mushrooms and bacon. Simmer for at least 30 minutes. The longer it simmers, the better it gets. 

Vegetable spaghetti:

Cut off the dark leaves of the leeks and discard. Cut of the root and the bottom 1/2 inch of each leek. Cut the leeks lengthwise in half and wash well under cold running water. Wash zucchini and peel the carrots. 

Cut all the vegetables julienne.

Heat a skillet, add oil and sear the vegetables until tender, but still having some bite. Season with salt and pepper..

Lemon Scones

Lemon Scone

It's really hard to find really good scones. They have to be flaky and soft. One of the only places you can get these in Copenhagen is at Reinh van Haun bakery. Well you can probably get real scones in the UK.

Recently I had a really god and flakey scone at Tartine Bakery & Cafe in San Francisco, but it's not just around the corner from here, so I won't be hanging out there a lot. But if you're ever in San Francisco stop by Tartine, even if you have to wait in line, It's worth the wait.

I got this recipe at a cooking class in Sur La Table from Chef Nikki B. Frias. I'm sad to see that she's no longer at the Los Gatos Store - I miss you Nikki! 

Makes 10-15.

Ingredients: 

• 450 g all-purpose flour
• 85 g sugar
• 30 g baking powder
• 7 g  salt
• 115 g  cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 475 ml heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Topping:

• heavy wipping cream
• demerara sugar (raw cane sugar)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F  (205°C) For a convection oven. Non-convection preheat oven to 425°F  (220°C) 

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl, by hand. Add the butter. I used a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter in the flour mixture. Mix until the the butter resembles small pebbles.

Getting ready for the oven.

Add in your cream and lemon zest and mix until it just comes together and resembles biscuit dough. This step is very important because if you over mix, the dough will become dense. If you use berries in the scones, add them now

Using an ice cream scoop, take the scones dough and place the dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Brush the top with heavy whipping cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown in the mottle of the oven.

Note: 

You can make the dough and set them on a baking sheet and then freeze them in advance. When you want fresh baked scones - just take the frozen scones out and brush the top with heavy whipping cream and sprinkle with sugar, and bake. No need for defrosting.

You can add fruit to the batter. Use about 115 g, but don't use strawberries, they contain to much water. 

Danish Liver Pâté - Leverpostej

Danish Liver Pate.

I have had liver pâté all my life, well after I started eating solid foods. I love this stuff.

If you are danish, you'll have an open faced sandwich with liver pate in your lunch box from kindergarden and up. Because we are raised on open faced sandwiches with liver pâté. We will eat it for lunch with sliced cucumber or pickled beets on a weekday, but it's also served at holidays with crispy bacon and sautéed mushrooms. The liver pâté came to Denmark in 1833-1847, and was sold to the very wealthy. It became more common after the bacon export surged and the excess of pigs liver grew, making the liver pâté affordable for most people.

My mom made her own liver pâté, but she didn't grind the liver herself, she bought a frozen liver mixture and added onion, eggs, milk and spices. Much easier but it's not an option here in the US, to my knowledge at least.

Danish people are like al others, most of us doesn't like to eat liver. But even people who hates liver, can love liver pâté - it's a whole different thing. 

Making liver pâté is not a pretty process. The liver mixture looks kinda gross. Grinding the liver is a messy process. But It's worth the effort in the end. I always make a big batch, and freeze the unbaked pâté in small loaf pans. That way you can have a fresh baked pate for lunch or dinner within an hour.

(See other version here.)
Makes 5 small liver pâtés.

Ingredients:

• 875 g liver (I use calf/veal liver)
• 135 g fat (I use pork back fat)
• 2 small onions
• 3  eggs
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2/3 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3,5 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 25 g anchovies paste

Directions: 

Pass the fat and then the liver through a meat grinder at the finest setting, and mix it together. Now pass the mixture through the meat grinder again alternating with the onions.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix it well.

Pour the mixture in small aluminum loaf pans.  

Bake the liver pâté in water bath at 360°F (180°C) for about an hour. 

You can freeze the uncooked pâtés and bake them, when needed. 

Enjoy!

Crepes - pandekager

Crepes or danish pancakes

I grew up on crepes like these. We had them for dinner when my dad worked nights. Normally it's a dessert, but my brother loved them, and it was so much easier for my mom, than making a real dinner, after a long day at work. If we were really lucky we could get a scoop of ice cream inside of one of them. But normally the crepes was served with sugar and/or jam and roiled. 

Makes 10-12 crepes mad in a 8" skillet. 

Ingredients:

• 4 large eggs, room temperature

• 250 ml (little over 1 cup) whole milk, room temperatur

• 15 g butter, melted and cooled slightly, plus more for crepe pan

• 160 g all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• ¼ teaspoon salt

Directions: 

Add all the ingredients in a blender. Blend until combined. 

Let the batter rest for 20 minutes. OK - I always forget to rest the batter, and it works fine. 

To cook crepes, heat a crepe pan or 8-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Brush bottom of pan with a thin layer of melted butter. Using a ladle, pour just enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, tipping it to coat evenly. Place pan back on heat and cook until batter is set and turned light brown. Flip the crepe with a spatula and cook another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Transfer cooked crepe to a plate and continue with the rest of the batter, brushing the pan with more butter as needed and stacking finished crepes on top of each other.

Serve crepes with jam, sugar, fresh fruit, nutella or ice cream, or mix and match.

Enjoy!