Dinner at Grethe's House - Århus, Denmark

Huge Sunflower

(post from September work trip to Denmark)

Day 2 of our meeting in Denmark ended with a home cooked dinner by our other colleague , this time still in the town of Århus.  

Grethe and her husband lived in a cosy cottage house just a little bit outside of town and we were greeted by tall sunflowers in front of her house - hi sunflower ! 

So nice to see something bright and summery on another gloomy autumn evening in Denmark :)

I'll let the pictures do the talking in this post otherwise this would end up being a super long post and you guys will get bored with my "narration" :P

By the entrance door 

A functioning fire place ; Flowers and Danish flags everywhere

Lounge Area

Second house I've been into in Denmark and once again I felt as if I've stepped into a display house.

The Danes really know how to style their home !! Loved every little things that they placed randomly around the house, see below :

Birdies ! ; Just like store display don't u think ? ; Colourful bull ; Angel & Witch 

Apple wedges & dip ; Wine ; Grapes

Grethe has an organic garden growing in her backyard, the apples were picked fresh from the garden and served with a beetroot hommus dip - so healthy and refreshing.

Prepping in the kitchen 

We, the overseas visitors were shooed away by our Danish colleagues from the kitchen LOL

Since we are not allowed to help them prep in the kitchen, we ventured out into the backyard and snooped around :)

Picked some juicy and sweet plums off the trees and just taking photos of things around the garden.

Snail: "I'm almost there oh green parsley" ; Red currants growing by the wall ;
Juicy Plums ; Pretty lil green tomatoes

Grethe draining the lamb

We stepped back into the warm house just in time for the lamb to come out from the oven :)

Look at that leg of lamb - HUGE !! It was simply roasted in the oven with sprigs of rosemary, the wafting smell was amazing.

Drained lamb fat >__< ;

Tzatziki in the making

Anne-Marie who was in charge of making the tzatziki simply loves her garlic...perhaps a tad too much.

She put all of those raw garlic into the bowl of yoghurt and shredded cucumber. Needless to say we came to the meeting with garlic breath the next day *minties moment*.

Table is all set 

Homemade Grissini ; Meat & Cheese Platter

Truly, nothing beats home made and freshly baked grissini with bacon bits and thyme...sooo sooo gooooddd....

We had it with some mini salami, hams, sausages and cheese.

Another loaf of homemade & freshly baked loaf of bread
Cherry Tomato & Onion Salad

I ate so much bread that night, just can't stop eating them :P Another loaf of freshly baked bread was served during the dinner. 

The salad of cherry tomatoes, spanish onions, dukkah, balsamic vinger and olive oil was simple but delicious and refreshing. 

Perfect to go with the rich lamb roast. 

Roast Leg of Lamb & Potatoes

As you would already know, I don't usually eat lamb as I found the smell too strong.

Thankfully the lamb was done well that the smell was barely noticeable, partly masked by the aromatic rosemary as well I think. 

Add a dollop of garlic loaded tzatziki and a scoop of tomato salad and you get a hearty and delicious home cooked meal :)

During the dinner, I asked the others, what would be a traditional Danish meal, since we had a Greek feast at Grethe's and Western feast at Eva's the night before.

There was no clear answer LOL 

I suppose it's as if you asked "What would be a traditional Australian meal?" - hmm....meat pie ?

Dessert Time

For dessert, we have this dessert that I didn't get the name of so I'll just describe it here.

It was 2 disc of hazelnut meringue, sandwiched with fresh cream, whipped with some plum compote. 

Served with some fresh berries, scoop of vanilla ice cream and vanilla plum compote

Yep, you guessed it, the plums were picked from the garden :)

Love the crunchy, chewy and nutty meringue and the simple flavours of plum, berries and fresh cream.

Thanks to Grethe and her husband for welcoming us to their lovely home. It was actually her husband's birthday that day and he had to cook for us ! 

So as a thank you, we all sang him "Happy Birthday" ala Chinese, Brazilian, English and Danish.

No Indonesian version as I don't want to make them cringe on my non-existent singing skill , plus I'm from Australia, so it's English ! (any excuse will do to avoid singing really :P)