Midsummer and pretty much everything on the barbecue

Posted by petra08 on June 30, 2014 · 2 Comments 

Midsummer in Sweden is a celebratory affair. It symbolizes the longest day of the year and there are strong traditions. The first thing you do is to leave town if you live there and head for the summer house or friends/family in the country. There will be a maypole, in Swedish called a midsommarstång. There is dancing around it, a lunch, often with pickled herring and dill boiled new potatoes. Finished with strawberries and cream. Later there is usually a barbecue and in some cases there is a slightly alcoholic theme throughout the day. Dinner can be a barbecue and I didn’t have a maypole in the garden but I did a pickled herring and dill boiled new potatoes as a starter and then a barbecue.

 

The work on the kitchen is progressing nicely but there are some delays and I had a makeshift kitchen for the weekend. What a luxury it was to have a sink! The hob and the ovens worked as well but I was careful not to use them too much before it is all finished.

 

Most of my spices are still packed so I bought a chilli pesto that I mixed with some oil for flavor. My friend mixed this and she used it on chicken breasts cut in to strips, the asparagus and the courgette.

 

 

 

The pesto had a nice note of herbs and a little chilli kick.

 

We stuffed mushrooms with a gorgeous blue cheese mixed with about 2 tbsp of buttermilk. Any cheese works but I prefer blue cheese as it has so much flavor and that salty taste that is so nice with mushrooms.

 

 

The cheese melted beautifully when they were cooked.

 

 

I went to the market before my friends arrived and could not resist buying this bread. It was just too cute!

 

 

I almost never buy white bread but it wasn’t just cute, it was also delicious.

 

We barbecued beef kebabs, I bought them and some sausages ready made from the new butcher in town, The Black Pig, it is tucked away in St Georges Passage in Deal. If you are around pop in! The quality is great, the sausages delicious and they are so friendly!

 

 

I did two salads to go with the barbecue. A tomato and mozarella salad, as simple as it is delicious. I only added balsamic glaze before serving and scattered some marigold leaves over.

 

 

I also did a cucumber salad flavored with dill and spring onion.

 

 

In the end we barbecued vegetables, sausages, kebabs, salmon and chicken. To aid digestion I put some pineapple and some fresh apricots on the barbecue for dessert and we ate the fruit with cheese. (We did eat the salmon before I remembered to take a picture.)

 

 

All was washed down with cava and then some red wine. Food always tastes better with friends around and we sat outside until it was almost dark, it was a lovely but not quite Swedish midsummer!

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Filed under Allotment/Veg, Asparagus, Beef, Bread, Cheese, Chicken, Cucumber, Dessert, Fish & Seafood, Fruit, Herbs, Main course, Meat, Mushroom, Pineapple, Salmon, Saussage, Spring onion, Wine · Tagged with Barbecue, Cava, cucumber salad, pickle herring, stuffed mushrooms