Another cool thing about Sweden is that almost every employer buys a fruit basket for employees so that there is always a healthy snack around for coffee break. I learned about this the very first morning I woke up in Sweden (groggy and jet lagged) at Svend Eriks house and we were eating breakfast. I reached for an extra banana to bring with me and Svend Erik said I wouldn’t need it, there would be plenty of fruit for me at work. What a bonus!
After the University’s reorganization we have some more people working in or building, so now we get 2 baskets of fruit delivered twice per week. However, the new folks don’t seem to be fruit eaters so we haven’t really been keeping up with all the fruit delivery. The bananas and kiwis and pears get eaten, but the apples can sit around for a while. This week Hasse and I made a fruit salad to use up some of the extra, but there were still several orphan apples.
I took some of the extras home on Thursday and made a Swedish-style apple cake with a recipe from my new cook book. This one was pretty popular at Friday fika the next day. I still had a couple apples (and the skins were a bit wrinkly) so I made apple muffins. I froze some so I will have snacks another day.
While at the grocery store I found some organic milk for half price – although the expiry date only two days away. Swedish milk is fantastic but I am not a huge milk drinker so it is a bit of a challenge for me to drink a liter of it in two days. Enter Swedish-style stove top rice pudding!
Food photography is harder than I thought. Maybe it is my little point-and-shoot or the fact that it is always dark when I cook, but everything looks pale and sickly compared to real life.
Food photography is harder to do well than almost anything else I’ve tried. Two things make a big difference: sunlight (not in my kitchen) or a light box (don’t have one), and a macro lens (don’t have that either, so I don’t bother much). I think you do a great job! And it’s fun to see what you make.
I did such a good job pitching in with the apple cake consumption … now are you sure you don’t need help eating the risgrongryta too? 🙂
Excellent work with the apples this week, Catherine – and thanks so much for sharing!
Way to go Catherine using up the not perfect “blemished” apples. Nanna would
be proud. She usually made jam with
sour/small/wrinkled apples to make the
berries go further and have fewer seeds
and of course all that good pectin.