More Brussel Sprouts and Pork Loin

Still no photos, since the university computer shop didn't have cables when I dropped by this afternoon. But we did make a quite nice dinner from leftover pork loin, some freschly made risotto and some more of the brussels sprouts mentioned in an earlier post. The risotto was a rather plain risotto variety, except for some apple cider vinegar, and some apples. We also used up the last of our bottled chicken stock in it, and after reading (in my case all of, in D:s case most of) "Den hemlige kocken" (The secret cook in English) about what kind of things go into modern food we almost decided not to buy a replacement. I guess we'll have to have another go at making chicken stock. I wasn't very much impressed by my last try (probably because I didn't watch it close enough, so it started to boil), but in the name of fewer food additives we'll give it another go.

I did start up a new sourdough yesterday! Now I only have to wait for it to start to bubble properly. I choose easy (my tries with more involved sourdoughs as the one in "Bröd" by Jan Hedh didn't impress me with yielding better results than easy so far) and used only organic rye and water (with a small addition of honey). With some proper feeding and some warmth that means that it should be rising very well quite soon. I'm looking forward to some more sour rye bread. And D. is looking forward to some more of "Olof Viktors ljusa bröd" (Light bread of Olof Viktor) from aforementioned "Bröd".

By the way, D. wasn't as negative to the brussels sprouts today as the other day. Today it was "vegetables - of the better kind". I did make them a bit different in order to maybe appeal to him more though. A little more cheese (he'll probably eat anything served with cheese, though he'll be upset by my claiming this), and I used oil from "raps" (Wikipedia translates this with rapeseed, Latin is Brassica napus according to the same source) instead of olive oil. I like it both ways. It's still by far the best brussels sprouts I ever had. And we have some leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

Books, books, books

I keep buying too many books, both fiction and food books. This weekend I got some help (he's usually happy to help with this) from D., the man I'm sharing both a kitchen and a life with. I ended up with for example "Bröd & Marmelad från Rosendals Trädgård" (Bread and Marmelade from The Rosendal Garden in English. Or maybe jam rather than marmelade? I'm not 100% certain of the difference, and what to translate how) which was the first book I ever read that was serious about bread, from which I made my first sourdough. That was back in 2002 maybe, and I had only borrowed the book from the library, then forgotten which one it was. I bought it because someone recomended it, and realising it was the same as the one I read years ago made me very happy to have bought it. Since I used up my last sourdough a week ago, I just considered startin up a new one. Maybe I'll use the recipe that got me hooked in the first place...

We also bought "Den hemlige kocken" (The secret cook) about which it has been a lot of talk around here recently. For those who haven't heard (it's in Swedish after all) it's about what the food people buy really contains and how it's treated by the food industry. Maybe I'll get back to this book later this week. But - so far not to many surprises. On the other hand, I'm the definitive food nerd, reading ingredient lists on most things we buy. Still, some things are kind of funny, and others kind of gross...