Sandwich & preparing for New Year’s Eve

I spent the last couple of days with April, a Danish friend of mine that I met back in Barcelona, as she was here for the holidays. We have been brainstorming a lot about the New Year’s Eve dinner. We will be celebrating New Year’s with 3 of her friends and the idea is just to prepare a nice meal and enjoy it together. After midnight we will probably be going out to watch some fireworks and maybe attend a party if we stumble upon one. The menu for now is as follows:

Starter:

– Salmon with fresh lime and fennel

(served with cava)

Main course:

– Roast beef with beetroot and green beans

– Homemade vegan mushroom/broccoli ravioli with green pesto

– Side salad

(served with red wine)

Dessert:

– Raw chocolate cake

– Kransekake (traditional danish cake made of rings of marzipan)

– Lime & Basil sorbet

– Banana & Ginger sorbet

(served with champagne)

I’m pretty excited about it! I’m in charge of the raw cake which I just finished and is now in the fridge, ready for tomorrow. It’s the first time I’m trying it but it looks pretty awesome (now let’s hope it also tastes good). I got the recipe in a new cookbook I got for my birthday: 250 pages of recipes only with chocolate: you can imagine how happy I was with it!

Me and April are also making the ravioli (as we prefer not eating the meat main dish): we tried them out yesterday and after a couple of tries we got the right proportions in dough and filling and we are pretty confident we can make it tomorrow.

To get a break from all the elaborated food we are planning and making these last days, here is a simple but fresh and filling sandwich I made a couple of days ago: pesto, a boiled (organic!) egg, cottage cheese, arugula & cucumber. Enjoy and happy 2014!

Traditional Christmas Meal

What a lovely Christmas eve with a very copious dinner! There was roasted duck stuffed with apples and prunes, pork with crackling, brun sovs, sugar potatoes, normal potatoes, red cabbage, and so much more. A real festive meal and even though I normally don’t eat meat (and I have been eating lots since I came here) I still enjoyed this dinner, because of the tradition behind it.

Lots of wine, presents and chocolate followed and of course a dance around the Christmas tree. I also made some Chocolate Cupcakes (which is my specialty, you can see more on my facebook page “Milou’s Cupcakes”) which we had with the coffee. I really think I need to start a serious diet after the holidays!