Num num num

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Photo: Sydsvenskan

Click to view full size image

Photo: Sydsvenskan

The mouse restaurant is getting ever more popular, and people keep adding things to it. In the picture at right, you can see a tiny pig, a miniature dinosaur, a very diminutive mouse, a very small Christmas tree and two nicely wrapped Christmas presents, a few nuts on the steps outside the nut shop and several posters on the wall. Someone has apparently tried to break into the electrical cabinet at far right. Three big cheese packages are waiting for a lucky guest on the little table outside the restaurant. Note the smart black jacket and elegant purple scarf that a guest has left on a clothes hanger.

Ann

[orin stepanek]

OMG! my wife spent the better part of two days making all kinds of Num num nums!

[Ann]

OMG! my wife spent the better part of two days making all kinds of Num num nums!

Yummy! My sister-in-law fixed all sorts of good things too, and I just sat down and ate it! (Well, I brought along a lot of chocolate and stuff, but she had already fixed all the food when I arrived...)

Ann

[Ann]

So I decided to celebrate yesterday's lovely day of spring (today was much colder) by cycling to Katrinetorp for a delicious lunch.

For starters I had tartar of venison, except I told the maitre d' I don't like raw meat, so would they please fry it for me? They did, and it was delicious. It was served with pickled salsify, thin crisp slices of dark purple bilberry bread, cress oil and lots of cress. It was yummy!

The main course was pike quenelles in a lobster stock served with finely sliced black radish. This was also good.

The dessert was divine! It was a scope of lovely black currant ice cream resting on a chocolatey base resembling a mixture of mudpie, chocolate fudge and chocolate truffle, with the barest hint of licorice. It was served with leaves of oxalis and a lot of semi-frozen, slightly sweetened black currants. Like I said, it was absolutely divine!!!

Oh, so yummy!!!

Ann

[Ann]

Yesterday I visited my friend, and she cooked a veritable spring feast for us, with some help from me!

We went searching for small tender stinging nettles and the impossible-to-eradicate weed, ground elder, which was reportedly brought to Scandinavia by Catholic monks, who couldn't grow their usual crops in our harsh northern climate - no monastery wine here! - and so they brought ground elder with them, so that they wouldn't starve. Sounds like a tall tale to me. Anyway, ground elder is ubiquitous, and in the spring it tastes quite good in a pie.

Click to view full size image

[c]...and transform them into a delightful nettle soup!
Source: https://www.coop.se/recept--mat/recept/oe/oertgazpacho/[/c]

Click to view full size image

You pick nettles...
Source: http://catfriend.blogg.se/2008/may/

The soup was delicious, and the ground elder pie was really good. Afterwards we had waffles with ice cream and frozen black currants from my friend's giant black currant tree. I helped her pick the black currants last summer, and now they tasted of spring!

Ann

[rstevenson]

That soup looks deliciously spring-like, Ann.

Rob

[Ann]

Well! I'm reviving this very old thread!

So restaurants aren't closed in Sweden, although they are struggling. But today, when the weather was lovely, I couldn't help myself. I had lunch at a restaurant and coffee and cake in a café!

A Japanese Bento Box. Photo: I don't know.

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A piece of Burnt Basque Cheesecake. Photo By Chelsie Craig, Food Styling By Kate Buckens.

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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

I should have taken pictures of what I ate, but I didn't. But the page where I found the Bento Box image wrote this:

NDTV Food wrote:

The Japanese single-portion take-out or home-packed meal, known as a bento box, is also a shining example of a cultural diet that has encouraged the idea of a wholesome meal, which contains all the essential nutrients required for a balanced diet.A traditional Japanese bento contains rice or noodles and fish or meat, along with pickled or cooked vegetables, in containers that have compartments to house the various contents separately.

The Youtube video at right shows a woman of Japanese descent making Bento Box lunches for her husband. I found it fun and interesting.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

The Youtube video at left shows how you make a burnt Basque cheesecake. It contains no traditional crust at all, but a little flour in the batter, and you bake the whole thing in the oven.

I had never eaten a burnt Basque cheesecake before, but I found both the taste and the texture to be lovely!

Ann

[orin stepanek]

I love Cake donuts; plain; chocolate glaze; or white glaze!

[rstevenson]

I love Cake donuts; plain; chocolate glaze; or white glaze!

Hi Orin,
From 2002 to 2006 I owned and operated an independent coffee and donut shop with two outlets here in Dartmouth and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first product out the door was a cake donut based on a recipe from the mid-30s reprinted in a book called The Donut Book, written by the grand-daughter of the man who invented the automatic donut machine. It’s a fun read if you can find a copy. For most of the time we were in business I was the baker. I attempted to use organic ingredients to the extent possible, but more importantly I refused to use the widely available bags of donut mix. My donuts were “scratch” made, using the same ingredients you’d use if you made them at home: flour, spices, baking powder and soda, milk, eggs, and vegetable oil. They were fried in a Donut Robot machine that had a batch size of almost 100 cake donuts, with which I made about 8 batches a night of cake donuts as well as about the same amount of yeast donuts. During those 4 1/2 years in business I ate 3 donuts a day, six days a week. (Quality control, right?) Luckily I was so overwhelmed with work that I didn’t turn into a happy balloon. But I did lose 10 pounds in one week after closing the business!
My favorite donuts, no matter how fancy some of them got, were a few varieties of cake donuts. I particularly liked the cinnamon sugared ones, with my second favorite being the glazed ones with a shop-made orange icing. (Everything was made in-house, including my glaze, icings, and fillings for the jelly donuts.)
It was a fun time, but the marketplace just didn’t care that the donuts were so good. I was competing against a chain with at the time almost 4000 outlets across Canada, and the advertising budget to match. The result was depressingly predictable, but I’m still glad I did it.
Enjoy your cake donuts, Orin!

Rob

[rstevenson]

Here’s a pic from early on in the business, before I was doing yeast donuts. You can see the Donut Robot in the background...

[Chris Peterson]

I love Cake donuts; plain; chocolate glaze; or white glaze! :wink:

Hi Orin,
From 2002 to 2006 I owned and operated an independent coffee and donut shop with two outlets here in Dartmouth and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first product out the door was a cake donut based on a recipe from the mid-30s reprinted in a book called The Donut Book, written by the grand-daughter of the man who invented the automatic donut machine. It’s a fun read if you can find a copy. For most of the time we were in business I was the baker. I attempted to use organic ingredients to the extent possible, but more importantly I refused to use the widely available bags of donut mix. My donuts were “scratch” made, using the same ingredients you’d use if you made them at home: flour, spices, baking powder and soda, milk, eggs, and vegetable oil. They were fried in a Donut Robot machine that had a batch size of almost 100 cake donuts, with which I made about 8 batches a night of cake donuts as well as about the same amount of yeast donuts. During those 4 1/2 years in business I ate 3 donuts a day, six days a week. (Quality control, right?) Luckily I was so overwhelmed with work that I didn’t turn into a happy balloon. But I did lose 10 pounds in one week after closing the business!
My favorite donuts, no matter how fancy some of them got, were a few varieties of cake donuts. I particularly liked the cinnamon sugared ones, with my second favorite being the glazed ones with a shop-made orange icing. (Everything was made in-house, including my glaze, icings, and fillings for the jelly donuts.)
It was a fun time, but the marketplace just didn’t care that the donuts were so good. I was competing against a chain with at the time almost 4000 outlets across Canada, and the advertising budget to match. The result was depressingly predictable, but I’m still glad I did it.
Enjoy your cake donuts, Orin!

Rob

Pikes Peak is one of only two 14ers in Colorado accessible by road (and also by a cog railway). So a lot of people make it up there. And for many years it's had the Summit House, famous for their donuts. Well, that place was finally torn down, with the intent of replacing it with a more modern structure (and an observatory). Although slowed by COVID, that project is nearing completion. Of course, they couldn't skip ensuring that there were donuts for all the breathless people arriving at that altitude (can sugar substitute for oxygen?) So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete.

[orin stepanek]

I love Cake donuts; plain; chocolate glaze; or white glaze!

Hi Orin,
From 2002 to 2006 I owned and operated an independent coffee and donut shop with two outlets here in Dartmouth and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first product out the door was a cake donut based on a recipe from the mid-30s reprinted in a book called The Donut Book, written by the grand-daughter of the man who invented the automatic donut machine. It’s a fun read if you can find a copy. For most of the time we were in business I was the baker. I attempted to use organic ingredients to the extent possible, but more importantly I refused to use the widely available bags of donut mix. My donuts were “scratch” made, using the same ingredients you’d use if you made them at home: flour, spices, baking powder and soda, milk, eggs, and vegetable oil. They were fried in a Donut Robot machine that had a batch size of almost 100 cake donuts, with which I made about 8 batches a night of cake donuts as well as about the same amount of yeast donuts. During those 4 1/2 years in business I ate 3 donuts a day, six days a week. (Quality control, right?) Luckily I was so overwhelmed with work that I didn’t turn into a happy balloon. But I did lose 10 pounds in one week after closing the business!
My favorite donuts, no matter how fancy some of them got, were a few varieties of cake donuts. I particularly liked the cinnamon sugared ones, with my second favorite being the glazed ones with a shop-made orange icing. (Everything was made in-house, including my glaze, icings, and fillings for the jelly donuts.)
It was a fun time, but the marketplace just didn’t care that the donuts were so good. I was competing against a chain with at the time almost 4000 outlets across Canada, and the advertising budget to match. The result was depressingly predictable, but I’m still glad I did it.
Enjoy your cake donuts, Orin!

Rob

when I was a kid (I was a kid once ) growing up in Schuyler; we had a bakery with one of those a automatic cake donut machines! It was really fun to watch! It was Don's bakery! The donut machine was on display in the front of the store show window! You must miss it!

[orin stepanek]

I love Cake donuts; plain; chocolate glaze; or white glaze!

Hi Orin,
From 2002 to 2006 I owned and operated an independent coffee and donut shop with two outlets here in Dartmouth and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first product out the door was a cake donut based on a recipe from the mid-30s reprinted in a book called The Donut Book, written by the grand-daughter of the man who invented the automatic donut machine. It’s a fun read if you can find a copy. For most of the time we were in business I was the baker. I attempted to use organic ingredients to the extent possible, but more importantly I refused to use the widely available bags of donut mix. My donuts were “scratch” made, using the same ingredients you’d use if you made them at home: flour, spices, baking powder and soda, milk, eggs, and vegetable oil. They were fried in a Donut Robot machine that had a batch size of almost 100 cake donuts, with which I made about 8 batches a night of cake donuts as well as about the same amount of yeast donuts. During those 4 1/2 years in business I ate 3 donuts a day, six days a week. (Quality control, right?) Luckily I was so overwhelmed with work that I didn’t turn into a happy balloon. But I did lose 10 pounds in one week after closing the business!
My favorite donuts, no matter how fancy some of them got, were a few varieties of cake donuts. I particularly liked the cinnamon sugared ones, with my second favorite being the glazed ones with a shop-made orange icing. (Everything was made in-house, including my glaze, icings, and fillings for the jelly donuts.)
It was a fun time, but the marketplace just didn’t care that the donuts were so good. I was competing against a chain with at the time almost 4000 outlets across Canada, and the advertising budget to match. The result was depressingly predictable, but I’m still glad I did it.
Enjoy your cake donuts, Orin!

Rob

Pikes Peak is one of only two 14ers in Colorado accessible by road (and also by a cog railway). So a lot of people make it up there. And for many years it's had the Summit House, famous for their donuts. Well, that place was finally torn down, with the intent of replacing it with a more modern structure (and an observatory). Although slowed by COVID, that project is nearing completion. Of course, they couldn't skip ensuring that there were donuts for all the breathless people arriving at that altitude (can sugar substitute for oxygen?) So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete.

I took my family up Pikes Peak in my little Ford Pinto! That was 40 + years ago! That was a good endurance test for that little car!
Sometimes, I wish I had kept it! I didn't go inside the shop; now i wish I had1 If I ever go again; it'll be with the cable car!

[rstevenson]

... So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete.

I don’t suppose you have a link to a local news item about that, or maybe to whatever organization will operate that machine? I remain fascinated by donuts and the machines that make them, though I don’t eat three donuts a day anymore.

Rob

[Chris Peterson]

... So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete.

I don’t suppose you have a link to a local news item about that, or maybe to whatever organization will operate that machine? I remain fascinated by donuts and the machines that make them, though I don’t eat three donuts a day anymore.

Rob

You can Google for stories, there were a number of them. Here's one with a picture of the new machine (although under plastic). https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/01/14/ ... t-machine/

[rstevenson]

... So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete.

I don’t suppose you have a link to a local news item about that, or maybe to whatever organization will operate that machine? I remain fascinated by donuts and the machines that make them, though I don’t eat three donuts a day anymore.

Rob

I found it. Lots of news videos about it from a few years ago. In one of them I saw the shipping container it was in and the name of the unit. It’s one of Belshaw’s Donut Robot Insider systems. Not really a larger fryer per se but the fryer is part of a ventless system which has its own fire suppression system built in, so the all-in-one unit is about the size of a small room.

I could also see the donuts being made in an old video. They’re white flour cake donuts. Mine were 60% whole wheat which gave them (I might be prejudiced) a much better taste. Nevertheless, I’ll definitely go up there to try them if I ever get down that way.

Rob

[Ann]

... So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete.

I don’t suppose you have a link to a local news item about that, or maybe to whatever organization will operate that machine? I remain fascinated by donuts and the machines that make them, though I don’t eat three donuts a day anymore.

Rob

I found it. Lots of news videos about it from a few years ago. In one of them I saw the shipping container it was in and the name of the unit. It’s one of Belshaw’s Donut Robot Insider systems. Not really a larger fryer per se but the fryer is part of a ventless system which has its own fire suppression system built in, so the all-in-one unit is about the size of a small room.

I could also see the donuts being made in an old video. They’re white flour cake donuts. Mine were 60% whole wheat which gave them (I might be prejudiced) a much better taste. Nevertheless, I’ll definitely go up there to try them if I ever get down that way.

Rob

Rob, why don't you check out the Youtube channel called Glen and friends cooking? Glen is a really nice person, and it's fun to see him cook. Plus, he's Canadian. Here is a video of him making donuts:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[rstevenson]

Rob, why don't you check out the Youtube channel called Glen and friends cooking? Glen is a really nice person, and it's fun to see him cook. Plus, he's Canadian. Here is a video of him making donuts:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Thanks Ann. I’ve seen a few of his videos on YouTube but didn’t know he did a donut one. If anyone else watches this one he says one odd thing. After frying them he says if you keep them overnight they’ll be a bit dry but you can stick them in the microwave “for like 30 seconds”. No, not that long! Maximum 10 seconds is fine and will warm the donut through. If you’re warming up more than one at a time, add just a few more seconds for each extra one. Thirty seconds for one donut will almost re-cook it.

Rob