Since it has been season for pecans now a while ago, me and my husband have been out to pick lots of nuts. So – now they are in a big bucket on the kitchen floor, reminding me to use them for cooking.
I’ve been good enough to bake a traditional pecan pie, and also these wonderful and healthy Banana Pecan Muffins.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour (I used half white flour and half graham flour)
• 1 tsp Baking soda
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 1/8 tsp Salt
• 1 3/4 Tb Sugar
• 1/2-1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 Beaten egg
• 1 cup Milk (I used soy milk)
• 3 Tb Oil
• 3/4 cup  Bananas (mashed)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Grease a muffin tin, or you can use paper muffin cups.
Combine flour, baking powder, soda, salt, chopped pecans and sugar.

In another bowl, combine egg, milk and oil. Add this mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients.
Blend in bananas.

Pour in batter to fill 2/3 of each cup. Decorate with Pecans on top.

Bake at 375 degrees until toothpick comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes.

One of my favorite simple suppers during fall/ winter evenings, is hot open sandwiches.
To really enjoy this very simple but delicious supper – you’ll need to enjoy it with hot chocolate!

Ingredients

• Bread
• Butter
• Salami sausage
• Onion
• Pickled cucumber.
• Cheese

Simply enough, put butter, thin slices of salami, onion, pickles and cheese on bred – bake in oven 350 degrees 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy these hot open sandwiches, with a big cup of hot chocolate! Delicious…! Trust me .

This might be one of the easiest but still most luxurious way of cooking potatoes. This goes so well with grilled chicken, steak or baked fish in BBQ-sauce. I’ve served it to some guests – and they have loved it.

Ingredients

• potatoes
• rosemary
• garlic
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Bake the washed potatoes in the microwave oven, till they are almost fully cooked.

Slice the potatoes in cubes.

In a hot pan, heat up sliced garlic and rosemary with olive oil – then add the potato cubes.

Let the potatoes get some color in the pan with the garlic and rosemary. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt and pepper, when you serve the potatoes with your favorite grilled dish.

A good idea, is to make crepes the next day, if you have made too many swedish pancakes the day before. I usually take whatever I can find in the fridge for my crepes; here is one of my ideas :

Ingredients

• Swedish pancakes, see recipe here.
• 1/2 cup green peas
• 1 can mushrooms
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 cup sliced ham
• 1/2-1 cup sour cream
• shredded cheese
• salt and pepper

Fry diced onion in a pan with a little bit of olive oil. Add green peas, mushrooms and ham. Let everything cook together for some minutes. The add the sour cream and salt and pepper.

Fill the pancakes with the sour cream mix. Add a little bit of shredded cheese, and roll the pancakes into crepes.

Place the crepes in a casserole, and top them with shredded cheese. Bake in oven, 350 F 15-20 minutes, till the cheese is all melted.

Serve the crepes with your favorite sallad.

October 4. is a day in Sweden when everyone is eating Kanelbullar – Cinnamon Rolls. The day is called Kanelbullens dag. Because of this, I thought I need to make some Kanelbullar too, because the scent of cinnamon in a home is so inviting and belongs to every good home during the beginning of autumn.

Ingredients

• 4 tsp dry yeast
• 2 cups milk
• 4-5 cups flour (I used half white flour, other half whole wheat flour)
• 1/2 sugar
• 1/2 butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbs cardamom
• 1/2 butter
• sugar and cinnamon
• 1 egg
• tiny bit salt
• 1 tsp water

Mix yeast with room temperature milk. Add flour, sugar, salt and cardamom, and room temperature butter. Mix everything well, and work together it into a good dough.Let the dough rest and rise under a kitchen towel, about 30 minutes, till it has doubled its size.

Divide the dough in 2.Use rolling pin to roll out large rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick.Spread with margarine, some cinnamon and sugar. Roll up to a big roll, about 2 inches in diameter. Cut 3/4 in thick slices, put onto greased cookie sheet.

Let the rolls rise 20-30 minutes. Baste with whipped egg, add a little bit of sugar on top, or Swedish pearl sugar (available at most IKEAs or Swedish specialty stores).

Bake 450 F (225 C) about 7-10 min, until golden brown.

I made some so called American pancakes some weeks ago – and now I’ve made traditional Swedish pancakes!
These are thin, and delicious, since you can have these how ever you like; with melted chocolate, berries, whipped cream or some simple home made strawberry jelly.

Ingredients

• 3 egg
• 2,5 cup milk
• 1 cup flour
• 0,5 tsp salt
• 1 tbs melted butter
• butter for cooking these on a pan

Combine eggs, milk, flour, salt and melted butter into a batter. Mix well.
I used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, and 1/2 cup white flour.

Fry the pancakes in a hot pan with a little bit of butter, one big scoop of the batter at the time.

Serve the Swedish pancakes however you like… use your imagination…
But – if you want to be extra Swedish in your style, serve them with a little bit of sugar, strawberries and whipped cream. There’s your Swedish Dream!

We visited our dear friends down in Texas during last weekend, and had some wonderful time with them…
We had Italian food and wine on the menu – and one night with chocolate fountain! What could be better than that?!

I had some tasty Lobster Ravioli at a Italian restaurant – it was really good!

We all enjoyed the company, food and wine, while listening to live jazz band. The band and atmosphere was charming.

We had some luxurious chocolate fountain with fruit, marshmallows and cookies…. tasty!

The trip was very refreshing and enjoyable…

_________

The Italian restaurant was Devolli’s in Denison TX,
and there we had a bottle of delicious wine from the Homestead Winery.

_________

So, this is one of my absolutely favorite dishes; I love cooking it, and I love eating it!

Ingredients

• 4 Tilapia filets
• 1 big onion
• 1 cup Ketchup
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs white vinegar
• 4 tbs Worcestershire sauce
• salt and pepper
• hot sauce

Start with the onion. Cook a finely sliced onion in a small skillet with a little bit of olive oil. Cook till they get some color.
Place half of the cooked onions on top of the fish fillets in a casserole dish.

Add ketchup, sugar, worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, vinegar and salt and pepper in the skillet with the rest of cooked onions. Stirr and heat up till its boiling.

I sometimes add about 2 tsp mustard in the sauce – but this is according to what mood I am in…

Place the sauce on top of the fish and onion.

Let it all bake in the oven, in 400 F for about 20-30 minutes.

Serve with rosemary- and garlic potatoes!

We got Asian inspired Tilapia the other night for supper. It was served with rise – and afterwards we were very full and pleased!
This dish is very easy to make – and delicious.

• 3 tilapia fillets
• 1 onion
• 2 Poblano hot pepper
• 1 celery
• 5 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbs white vinegar
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp dried crushed chili
• 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
• some drops of hot sauce

• rise for 2
• 1/2 cup green peas

Cook shredded onion in a small skillet with a little bit of olive oil. After some minutes, add soy sauce, brown sugar, minced garlic, salt and pepper, vinegar, crushed chili, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. Let everything melt together.

Place the fish in a casserole with salt and pepper. Add shredded celery and Poblano hot pepper on top of the fish. Top it all with the onions and sauce made of soy sauce and seasoning.

Bake the fish in oven, about 20-25 minutes in 400 F.

Serve the Asian inspired Tilapia with rise and peas.