Since moving to this small town of Askersund in the middle of Sweden, I've been able to indulge in my interest and some may call passion, much to the husband's enjoyment.

Since my school days, I've always enjoyed cooking. My gang of school friends have always been subjected to the cooking whims and experiments of me and my dear friend, Sar. It's always a matter of meeting up either at my house or Sar's house one afternoon where we will have a little hang out 'party' in which we try out new recipes or just repeat old successes. I've always thought that Sar was the more taented and 'brave' one, willing and usually very successful in whipping up greatness in a plate. My gang love the food we make and to be honest, I LOVE and MISS all those parties we had where we would cook, watch TV and just hang out. And during our Uni years, to also help babysit my niece, Sofia, which they seemed not to mind too much.

But now I turn to the husband as my guinea pig and enjoy it he has. Some of the experiments of cos turn out bad sometimes, especially when I am unfamiliar with a particular ingredient and am unable to gauge properly the impact it would have on the overall taste of the dish. Or how some dishes may or may not be compatible with others.

Sometimes I manage to take pictures of my creations but mostly, they're just captured by the strange and sometimes faulty camera I have in my mind.


I made chocolate muffins for the Christmas party that the Sjöberg clan has every year. These muffins are a little different in that I place a Lindt chocolate ball in the midde of every muffin before I put them to bake so that when you bite into it, gooey chocolate will ooze out. Mmmm--yummy! I then topped it with some vanilla cream just cos it tastes so good. Since I had no clue of what a traditional Christmas celebration in Sweden is like, that is my safest and thankfully only contribution to the festivities.

Since then, I have increased my portfolio of successful baking creations:-

These are gingerbread cupcakes that I made after husband dearest kept whining about how much he loves gingerbread cookies and how good gingerbread cakes taste. So I took the midway road and made these.
He LOVES these...


This is not exactly what I would call a baking success. What is it exactly, you ask? Well, it's supposed to be chocolate dipped shortbread oatmeal heart cookies. The hearts were tough to cut out and they shapes tended to expand and misshapen in the oven so it ends up not looking like hearts at all. If you thought this cookie looks bad, you should have seen the cookies cut out in the shape of a man...or rather the crooked woman that it turned out to be. Still tasted good though.

This is my virgin bread bake and it turned out surprisingly FANTASTIC!! I made these cos the husband likes sandwiches as do I. And unlike most bread recipes I've seen, these were relatively easy to make. They turned out beautiful and golden brown, with a slightly sweet taste to it. I call them simply my Tasty Buns. But next time, I might reduce the sugar content just a tad so that it would taste more of a sandwich bun rather than a sweet roll.






Yesterday, husband had a sudden craving to make a Swedish treat that we call Chocolate Balls. To me, they are nothing but candy but he is quick to disagree. Anyway, he started on this on his own so technically this is his cooking success although it is actually a no bake ball. That is why it is a successful bakeless ball. The white stuff on the ball is actually coconut flakes. But he did make some with pearl sugar cos I don't like coconut much.

It is Friday today and we had decided that Fridays are special. We do something special and I generally try to make something special for dinner too. Instead of the usual chicken ham sandwich in between tiny pieces of bread or the traditional Swedish hard ass bread that seems to me to be more like crackers than bread, I try out a new recipe or make a favourite dish of hubby's.

So today I was confused. I knew I wanted to make something with chicken but what??! Since I was chatting online with dear friends Cheryl and Francine, they helped me to decide on a nice glamed up sandwich. So I baked some chicken pieces with Dijon Mustard marinade and whipped together Honey Mustard dressing for the sandwich.

Husband got very excited by my Subway inspired sandwich and we got baguettes and cheddar cheese, shredded the chicken and popped it into the oven so the cheese could melt on the bread and the chicken would sink into the melting cheese. YUM! Topped it off with lettuce and it was a great Friday night meal as we watched the Swedish version of Dancing with the Stars.

How cosy.