Garden d'Lights in Bellevue Botanical Gardens

To many people Garden d'Lights has become a tradition. More and more people are visiting this light extravaganza at the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue each year. A lot of volunteers and more than 10,000 hours have been put into decorating this garden with lights for the holidays. And it is well worth a visit.

Have a stroll in the garden and then have some hot cocoa before you head back to your car. Garden d'Lights is open until the end of the year and cost $5.00 per person.

For more pictures, check out the Garden d'Lights' gallery.

Big balls

I had an errand at the upscale shopping mall Bravern in Bellevue last week. It was my first visit there and I discovered the biggest balls I have ever seen. Yes, they are baubles, but in Swedish we call them balls.

Too big to fit any Christmas tree. Actually, the fireplace was pretty big too.

No happy socks today

I was going to blog about the Swedish brand Happy Socks today, but today is not a happy day here in the US. I guess there are horrible things happening every day in the world, but we humans usually become more affected and emotional when bad things happen close to home.

So today I just want to say that I will be thinking of all the families affected by the elementary school shooting in Newtown this morning. It is just so sad.

Have a good weekend and think about all the things and friends that you have and be thankful for that.

Lime and orange marinated salmon

A lot of people have asked for my lime and orange marinated salmon, so time to share the recipe with anyone interested.

Ingredients:
2 lbs (1kg) salmon
4 tbs sea salt
3 tbs sugar
1 lime
1 orange

1. Freeze the salmon for 48 hours.
2. Thaw the salmon.
3. Mix the salt and sugar together and rub into the salmon on the side facing up.
4. Marinate for 24 hrs.
5. About 2hrs before serving, thinly slice the salmon and place the slices on a serving plate.
6. Sprinkle the peel of 1 lime and 1 orange on top of the salmon. I use a zester for finer peel.
7. Squeeze the juice of the orange and lime on top of the salmon and put the salmon in the fridge for about 2 hours. 

Enjoy!

Gluten and dairy free gingerbread cookies

This year I did not want to only make raw gingerbread balls for Christmas. I missed the baked gingerbread cookies, so little I and I decided to make the kitchen messy by baking gingerbread cookies and Lucia buns.

I use my mother's old recipe which is super easy and the dough only needs to cool down a bit before I can start making the cookies.

It is very dangerous once the dough is ready because there is a risk it will be eaten before we even start making the cookies. The mix of spices is, oh, so delicious.

Little I thought that we should decorate it while we were waiting for it to cool down.

It turned out that little I has a skill that I was not aware of; getting the cookies from the table onto the baking trays without altering the shape of the cookie. I always find this step hard and several cookies have to be redone.

Once the cookies are out of the oven, you have to open you nostrils wide to breathe in as much goodness as possible. An aroma of Christmas and Lucia and festive mode.