Meatball recipe with a twist

The dish Sweden is most famous for is meatballs. I mean, who hasn’t been to IKEA and tried their meatballs in creamy gravy with potatoes?

It’s a classic!

I’d say I will never get tired of meatballs, but to make things more exciting and get away from those everyday tastes, it’s great to experiment with some new meatball recipes.

Us Swedes tend to be drawn to Mediterranean flavours when we experiment with our food, and I’m not an exception – I absolutely love garlic, basil, feta cheese and sundried tomatoes.

Another way of varying the taste of your meatballs is to swap the standard pork or beef mince to another meat. We eat a lot of wild meat in Sweden as well, and I’ve grown up eating both elk and venison, so when I came across this video recipe by professional huntsman Mike Robinson I was hooked straight away!

Looks delicious, doesn’t it?!

There’s currently a whole series of Mike Robinson's Wild Kitchen online, with everything from wild meat to vegetarian mushroom dishes.

This particular recipe was recently tried and tested by blogger Foodsessed.

My own favourite meatball recipe with a twist is of the creamy kind, and this is the recipe for it:

Recipe for 4 portions

Ingredients

• 500 grams of minced meat (pork or mixed pork and beef)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 table spoons of chili ketchup
• Butter
• 1 tub of reduced fat crème fraiche
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 teaspoon of dark soy
• ¹⁄₂ teaspoon of thyme
• 3-4 tablespoons of water

This is how you cook it:

Mix the minced meat, garlic, chili ketchup and salt to an even paste. Shape into approximately 8 meatballs (2 per person), and fry them in the butter – ca 3 minutes on each side. Take out the meatballs and put them to the side whilst you mix the sauce. Add crème fraiche, pepper, soy, thyme and water to your pan, and bring it to boil. Lower the heat, put the meatballs back in the pan into the sauce, and let simmer for a few minutes.

Serve with pasta or potatoes, and a fresh salad.

Delicious!

I usually find my food inspiration on Swedish recipe sites, but you can find lots of great recipes on sites such as Homemaking Hacks.

What’s your favourite meatball dish? The classic Swedish, the tomato sauce based Italian, or the garlicky and creamy Greek style?

For the Love of Food - street food festival

 On the last weekend of September, the food festival 'For the Love of Food' came to Leeds. It was all set up on Millenium Square in the heart of the city, and it sure was a different experience.

 With street food from all over the world including Scandinavia, Asia, the Caribbean and more, there was something to suit everyone's taste. There was even speciality food that doesn't belong to a certain part of the world, but that would work anywhere - the one I'm thinking of in particular was a stall that served smoothies out of donated fruit and vegetables that were going out of date, that would otherwise just have been thrown away and become landfill.

The different street food companies are all part of a competition, and they tour England to gain votes to win an award for Best Street Food. You can read more about it on For the Love of Food's website. 

I was really amazed by all the different stalls, with the unique decorations and quirky and unusual menus. All companies had something really unique with their food - either ingredients wise, or the way they were cooking it.

How about this funky street style caravan from Fresh Rootz for example? Doesn't it look unique, if anything?!

Myself and my other half, whom I visited this food festival with, tried a few different dishes - one being this slow cooked venison in a flatbread from The Moocher. Their unique thing is that they cook their food on an original Sankey Army Field Kitchen. It looks delicious, and it was - except for the insanely hot scotch bonnet sauce that almost made me cry!

Being from Sweden, I was extremely curious of what they would serve in the Nordic Street Food stall, and I hurried over straight away...

I almost screamed with joy when I read the menu and saw that they served chanterelles - a sort of mushroom that is classed as a delicacy, and that only grow up north. Me and my parents used to go out in the forest and pick these mushrooms every autumn, but unfortunately they don't grow in England. If you're lucky you might find them in Scotland, but nowhere near the same amounts as in Sweden. 

The wrap looked and tasted absolutely delicious. Very fresh flavours, with sour cabbage and soured cream as well as the chanterelles. I was in heaven!

This is what chanterelles look like when they're fresh - bright orange-yellow, and they smell amazing. I was so close to grab the whole basket and just run off with it ;)

We walked around the food festival for a couple of hours, and it was so lovely just taking in the atmosphere; the Caribbean music that blasted out from one of the stalls and filled the whole square with its rhythm, the fantastic smells from all the food being cooked, and the general noise from happy people munching on food.

I'm loving how it's so trendy to be environmentally friendly nowadays. This is what the people behind The Cauldron says about their company;

-“All our power is supplied from the solar panels on the roof of the van. And all our packaging is 100% compostable. Our mission is to prove that fast food CAN be delicious and ethical and give the towns and beaches in our corner of the world a taste of something different from the usual fish ‘n’ chips and frozen burgers.”

We tried the pulled pork wrap from The Cauldron, and it disappeared so quickly that I didn't even get a chance to take a photo of it. I guess that's the best feedback they can get ;)

We were very happy with our little day out in Leeds at For the Love of Food festival. It was a lovely day, and something different to do. If this festival comes to your city it's definitely worth visiting! Even if you're not hungry it's worth it just for the atmosphere.

The only thing we thought could have been different is that we would have liked to see an option of half sized portions, so that you could have gone around and tried more food without getting too full. Something to think about for next year, perhaps?

Always look on the bright side of life

A couple of years ago I discovered the witty brand The Bright Side, and was immediately hooked! I found a makeup bag in a local store, and was giggling away to what was written on it; ‘Real life photoshop for my face’. It couldn’t get more honest than that!

And that’s what The Bright Side is all about – blunt and hilarious comments written is a scrappy style, that makes people laugh. 

Even though it was a makeup bag I bought at this time, The Bright Side mainly focuses on homeware, such as biscuit tins, mugs and baking items, but also note pads, signs, etc. You can see the majority of their range at Mollie & Fred – prepare to giggle!

I recently invested in a cake stand and some cake plates from this brand as I thought they looked really cute, and at the same time were hilarious

I mean – just read what it says on these plates!

‘The voices say I must eat cake”, and “Goodbye waistline, hello cake!”

As I said before – very honest and witty comments, that reflects what people really are thinking in this situation.

The other 2 plates in the set of 4 say;

‘How bad can it be when there’s cake’, and ‘Me & cake are in love’.

And I’ve saved the best one for last – the main item in this set, which is the cake stand, says the absolutely brilliant comment of;

‘Put the cake on the plate & nobody gets hurt’

The white fabric napkins with a lace edge and an embroidered ‘M’ on each of them, as well as the shabby chic style heart shaped napkin rings in white, were a gift from my grandma.