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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Date balls

We bought a couple of boxes of juicy dates (dadler) lately. They are so sweet, they are like candy. Halfway through the second box I thought of doing something other than just eating them as they are, and decided to try some kind of raw date balls. They perhaps don't sound that delicious, but they are really good - just enough chocolatey-ness from the cocoa, nice crunch from the almonds, sticky sweetness from dates. Not to mention, they (obviously) don't require any cooking and came together in about ten minutes.

(makes 10-12 depending on size)

1 cup pitted dates
1/3 cup whole almonds
2 tbsp cocoa powder
desiccated coconut for rolling (optional)

Put pitted dates, almonds and cocoa in a blender and whizz until reasonably pasty but still with nice chunks of almond. Switch off and unplug, and then scoop out teaspoon sized pieces with a teaspoon and roll into balls in your hands. Scatter some desiccated coconut (if using) on a plate and roll the sticky ball in it. Transfer to a storage box. Repeat for the rest of the mixture. Store in the fridge (if they get that far).

Monday, July 13, 2015

New potatoes, peas, radishes and skyr

D+Sh visited last weekend. For the first time in ever. It was fun. It felt very different from any time we ever spent together before. They were on holiday, and if anyone was in charge it was S+me. Perhaps I am grown up at last.

We made quite a lot of adventures: the zoo, Louisiana (both really good), Relae. But spent a fair bit of the inbetween time chilling on our balcony (it was very hot out, like over 30C), listening to jazz drifting up from the bar across the canal, and more of it from boats floating past with bands on. We ended up having some nice salad+bread type meals on the balcony too - it was salad weather, and Danish bread is sooo good. This was one of the salads. It makes very pleasing use of in-season fresh peas, new potatoes, radishes and chives. Plus skyr, which forms a creamy dressing while remaining fresh and light and not overpowering.

20 or so new potatoes (adjust according to size / taste)
500 g bag of fresh peas, shelled
1 bunch of radishes, trimmed and sliced
1 tbsp chopped chives
4 tbsp skyr mixed with 2 tsp lemon juice and 2 tsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Cook the new potatoes until just tender and set aside to cool while you prepare the other ingredients. Blanch the shelled peas by pouring boiling water over them then draining pretty much straight away. Put all ingredients in a serving dish and mix together. Serve warm or cold.