Help in the kitchen

I don't know how much time you spend around babies (toddlers) but they are interested in Action. So when something is going on Chester does not want to miss out. If I am trying to cook something, for example, he wants to be held so he can see what is going on, thereby making it quite difficult for me to continue the action. Conundrum!

If I was a non-thrifty parent I'd buy him a learning tower. Or if I was more handy parent I'd DIY a makeshift learning tower.

But then I decided I'd just let him stand on a chair. And he didn't fall off, so there we go!

So I let Chester help cook dinner and he was very happy to get his hands in the food. His first task was to take tater tots out of a bag and place them on a baking pan. He put each and every one on the pan individually, and when I took the pan to put it in the oven he burst into tears. Apparently the tater tots were a new fun toy and I took them away!

We quickly moved onto Chester's second task of making the salad. I showed him how to rip the big pieces of lettuce into small pieces, and that task kept him occupied until it was time to eat. Win!

Sportlov, day 2

What kind of sporting did you do on Tuesday Meghan?!

I'm so glad you asked.

1. Walking Greg to the office. I once again enjoyed the longer route through the woods home. I saw two dogs and a man on his balcony in a robe smoking a cigarette.

2. Duolingo. I can't keep my bars up, and I'm trying really hard to fix that this week. Here is an actual duolingo sentence:

Vargen hoppar över stolen.

It means:

The wolf jumps over the chair.

This is not the only gem I've gotten.

3. Knitting.

4. While listening to podcasts.

5. Fitness for core strength.

6. Cooking dinner. There is usually a pretty long turnaround time between when I find a recipe online and when I actually make it. However, when you have had an idea to make tomato soup in the back of your mind for months, and then a recipe that looks super good appears, there is just a one day turnaround. I'm happy to say that you would not regret it if you made this tomato soup. Top it with some avocado slices and you won't regret that either.

7. Reading.

This day was pretty much exactly like yesterday only different and better. Because, Tuesday!

A lot of words about salad

Here is a theory I have. When I was doing research, my life needed a creative outlet, so I turned to cooking to fulfil that need. Now my days are spent submerged in a creative outlet, and maybe this explains why I have little desire to cook.

Until last night, I hadn't done any dancing in eighteen days, and keeping with my theory, I had really been wanted to do some cooking. Plus, I think I spent the entire holiday not eating vegetables, so that needed to be addressed.

Food in bowls had a lot of appeal to me in my search for the perfect thing to make yesterday. (As an aside, how do you google that for recipes? I just kept getting info about foods to make for the super bowl, which is pretty much the opposite of vegetables I think.) I ended up taking inspiration from this kale salad bowl, this big vegan bowl, this big salad, and this other salad to come up with a bowl full of food that required no separate cooking (one day I'll try the sweet potato thing though). Then I topped the whole thing with the dressing from this kale salad recipe, which was a wildly delicious choice. I'm kind of into reading about salad dressing these days. Tahini is a brilliant emulsifier (or is it only a stabilizer?).

I hope my future self looks back on this post one day and thanks her former self for the documentation of this thing.

Also, to future self, here is my current run-down of kale salads (or non-salads, I guess).
-the recipe I make 98% of the time I have kale on hand
-the backup recipe, which is also really good, but not as good as the above recipe (even using half the sugar that recipe calls for seems abundant, and tastes just fine)

I did also make the one with the tahini dressing from above, and that was pretty tasty, but I think that is largely due to the dressing. And I also used this recipe once when I felt like I was eating too much raw kale, which worked out well for me.

The End!

The phases of the pumpkin

Photos Lately

1. Remember that time I got excited about the pink beer we made? Well the pink beer will remain a dream, because this is what became of it.





Maybe the photos are self explanatory, but I'll write some words to go along with them. Maybe writing words can be part of my grieving process.

The pink beer was over-carbonated. We've never had a batch of beer over-carbonate, so this was a new experience for us. Normally when home brewers face this problem it means exploding bottles---glass and beer and danger everywhere. I guess we were lucky though? I managed to not put at least one cap on properly, so one evening we just heard it start to make a fizzing sound. Greg sprang into action, knowing the cap had to come off to avoid the risk of an exploding bottle. If I was as quick on my feet as he was, I would have made him wear the safety glasses. The first bottle got its cap removed indoors, and as you can see from the above photo, this resulted in pink beer dripping down our wall. The rest of the bottles were opened outdoors, using the open-inside-a-plastic-bag technique we learned from our experience eating surströmming.

2. Our garden is not a complete waste!



We got these three carrots recently. I was really excited to grow these because of their unique radish-like shape. They may be small, and not very substantial when split between two people, but we were really happy considering the last time we tried to grow carrots they got eaten/trampled by a cow (I have never owned a cow).

3. We took a long-ish bike ride to explore a new section of town.





4. I made some really delicious pizza.





I used this recipe and this recipe, both of which I'd recommend.

5. Right now there are blue skies, but about an hour ago there was a total downpour, resulting in all sorts of rainbow delight.

7QT: ginger, beer, swedish quizzes and introductions, & a banana

1. On Monday I had a low blood sugar moment, and I ate a banana. I haven't eaten a banana that wasn't disguised in a smoothie since I reached the age of reason. Bananas are the one food that I claim to despise. But on Monday I was desperate, and the banana was the only option. So I ate it, and it wasn't actually terrible. My mother is smiling the biggest smile in the world right now (am I right?).

2. I made progress in my goal to make my own ginger beer! I made a ginger simple syrup that can be added to bubbly water to simulate ginger beer. The ginger simple syrup was made by heating 1 dL water with 1 dL sugar (1 dL is about a half a cup) just until it started to bubble. Then I added ginger. I got about a 5 inch piece which I peeled (not perfectly) and sliced thinly. Once the mixture began to bubble again, I removed it from the heat and let it steep for about an hour. After filtering out the ginger pieces I was left with a super delicious concoction, which I intended to add to bubbly water except that I accidentally bought still water (language fail). But still. Tasty!

3. An advantage of going to the grocery store practically every day and only buying food for one or two meals is that you increase your chances of finding discounted, soon-to-expire foods. 30% off local thick-sliced bacon? YES Please! Change of plans honey, we are having three packages of bacon for dinner tonight!

4. In my Swedish class I got to participate in my first 'tipspromenad.' This is a thing that is maybe popular to do in Sweden? Or at least it is very popular with some Swedes. The tipspromenad, also called tipsrunda, is a quiz that involves going around to various questions which can be posted around a house or around a park outdoors even, and choosing the correct answer from the three choices. Sometimes it is competition style, involving prizes for the winners. I guess this is an activity you can do at parties. Which brings me to my next take!

5. I have this idea to include a tipsrunda the next time we have people over for brewing. It could involve all questions about beer/brewing. Yay or nay?

6. In Sweden, when meeting new people, you simple shake hands and state your name. No extra rambling or other words that would be the equivalent of "hi, I'm" or "hi, my name is" but just your name (super nice when you don't speak Swedish). Likewise, when answering your phone, it is typical to just state your name. Some people answer their phone by saying "hi, this is ____" and I'm not sure if one way is considered more polite than the other. What I do know is that answering a phone by saying "hello?" causes a lot of confusion. I won't claim that my way is better, because really, what do I even mean with that question? And why (in both cases) are we acting like it is unlikely either of us knows who the other will be without first stating it?

7. Have we talked about Penny In Your Pants?

Penny In Yo Pants from Johanna Holtan on Vimeo.

I was super fascinated when I first saw this video, and I filed the information away in the back of my head for future use. That use came on Wednesday. I wanted to wear a skirt, because it is super hot here (tropical, I believe (based on temperatures remaining above 20C throughout the night)), and because I was going to a dance in the evening. Normally I'll just put bike shorts under my skirt, which works well for both biking and for dancing. It can get warmer than necessary though, what with the extra layer of clothing and all. So I decided to try the penny trick, and I was pleased with the results. I actually just left my skirt 'buttoned' all day, because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of re-buttoning, and also because a really wrinkly spot on your skirt is inevitable and I didn't want to end up with multiple wrinkly spots. What I'm trying to say is that I spent the whole day wondering why culottes aren't a thing anymore!!

_____________

The End & The Link-Up!

7QT - mostly on food/beverage

1. Sometimes it is the perfect day for sushi, and you spend most of your day thinking about dinnertime, and then it is time to leave the office, and as you pull your bicycle up to the sushi place you realize things are looking a bit dark. The sushi place is closed for summer vacation! Why??

2. Then it took me an hour to decide egg salad sandwiches would be a suitable replacement. I almost never eat egg salad sandwiches, but I don't know why. I made this with hard-boiled eggs (I used to start the eggs in cold water… shameful), an avocado (makes the color questionable, if you care about that sort of thing), a scoop of mayo, a scoop of mustard, some shakes of hot sauce, salt, pepper, and paprika. On a sandwich with some cheap-o lettuce? Super tasty.

3. Speaking of mustard. I bought a new mustard the other day. I was trying to twist the lid off of the jar when I realized it was just a pop-off kind of lid. And then I realized that the 'jar' the mustard was in was eerily similar in size/shape to our drinking glasses. And I now I am 99% convinced that our drinking glasses originated as mustard jars.

4. Lemonade-Beer. I did a quick check to see if I had written about this gem of a beverage before and I was led to this post. I am definitely wearing the same exact shirt as I type this, but I am not located in France (no worries, I like Sweden better).

5. I have a small obsession with beer in cans. I just love been in cans, okay?! Sometimes I pretend like I am a beer snob, but really I think this makes me the opposite of a beer snob.

6. Yesterday I made the perfect dinner to accompany beer in cans - nachos! Greg thought I was not being serious when I suggested nachos as a meal, but I was as serious as a thing that is incredibly serious. I even made some nacho cheese, loosely following this recipe, which was super delicious!

7. I have just returned from a little city walk with my Swedish class. I had seen most of the sights that we stopped by, but I learned some new and interesting things. Plus it is a gorgeous day to be spending several hours out wandering around.

Mostly I guess that wasn't so interesting to write, but I felt the need to mention one non-food item this week(:

_________

The End & The Link-Up!

7QT: highest latitude swim, sweden/swedish,

1. On Monday I set a new personal record for the highest latitude at which I've swum. I consider being fully submerged in the water a 'swim' but the Swedes would refer to that as bathing. Anyhow. For the record:

64°31'51.8"N

2. I think my previous highest latitude swim took place at 59.7 degrees. I'm pretty happy with my almost-five-degree improvement. That was a year ago, and I can't quite decide which swim was colder. A river at 59 degrees versus a lake at 64 is a tough call…

3. I'm really pleased that so much of my summer holiday is being spent in various places in Sweden. I really like this country, so I think it is good for me to see more of it (even if the 'more' really just means dance floors in different places).

4. For my Swedish class we had an assignment to write about a musical artist and a song of theirs that we like. It was a fun and short thing to do, but then I felt a little vulnerable when the class listened to the song. It is an interesting thing to share musical preferences with people you don't know well, and I found it really interesting (and sometimes surprising) to hear what songs the others chose. Here is my contribution:



5. When I switched from the evening Swedish course to the daytime course, I also switched my normal seat. Now I am one place closer to the center and one place closer to the front. I always always like to sit on the very edges of the room, often no closer than the middle. But I think I read that it is supposed to be better for learning to sit in the center and toward the front. I'm not sure if it is having a big impact or not, but I like to pretend it does, mostly to justify putting myself in a place that is not my ordinary.

Let's pretend like I have a great plan for these seven takes and am not just rambling…

What else…

6. Have you ever made pinnbröd over a fire?! Apparently we call it twist bread in English, but the literal translation is 'stick bread.' I had never heard of this or seen it before, but it was super tasty. Here is the recipe, using Swedish units. 1 dl = 0.42 cups, and 1 tsk = 1 tsp.

5 dl flour
2 tsk salt
2 tsk baking powder
2 dl water

Mix the ingredients in the order listed, if it is too dry add a bit more water, too sticky a bit more flour. Then you pull off a piece, roll it into a long strip, wrap it around a stick, and roast it over a campfire until the outsides are brown/black. It tasted like one of those soft pretzels to me. yum.

7. Last night for dinner I made pinnbröd, and then wrapped it around hot dogs and put them in the oven for 12ish minutes on a 'hot' temperature. It was a super tasty dinner. On a similar but different topic, I've gotten so laid-back about oven temperatures. Most of the recipes I use have the temperature in F, but Sweden ovens are in C. You would think I'd just need to remember a few important conversions (350/375/400), but somehow I am always mixing them up. I often end up arbitrarily picking a temperature. I think I've written about this before actually… using my oven with the temperature knob set to 'straight down' but when I need a 'hot' temperature then it is a bit higher, maybe like 7 or 8 o'clock :)

_____________

The End & The Link-Up!

Initial ginger beer research

There is so much information to know about making ginger beer! I have spent my entire Saturday morning reading up on the different options.

Now I just need to decide how 'hardcore' I want to be about this. The simplest option would be to boil some water with ginger root and sugar, essentially making a ginger simple syrup, which I could add to bubbly water.

Taking it up a notch, I could do the same sort of thing, but add a bit of yeast. This would result in a (probably negligible) amount of alcohol, and a time-sensitive beverage. Here is a really nice article about this method, designed for school children to make, I guess.

The thing is, it is tricky to have and store a sweet and carbonated beverage. The addition of yeast in the beverage will carbonate the beverage by turning sugars into alcohol + CO2. But since you want your beverage to also be sweet, you have more sugar than you want to turn into alcohol. So when you make ginger beer this way, you need to drink it within a day or two of putting it in a bottle. This is probably not a huge concern (especially if you avoid glass bottles), but it does mean making very small batches. And if you have small batches, then you don't really want to use champagne yeast, because the amount in a package would be total overkill. Maybe there is dry champagne yeast, which you could just use as you need? We normally buy liquid yeast packages though. And I'm getting disorganised in my thoughts here, but I've read that using bread yeast can add strange flavors.

The ultimate project then would lead to pasteurization. This allows you to put a beverage with sugar and yeast in a glass bottle, cap it, let it ferment a tiny bit to produce carbonation (while leaving some sugar to result in a sweet beverage), and then you pasteurize to kill the yeast, thus preventing further fermentation and the risk of bottles exploding. Pasteurization is a whole other animal. I'm not sure if I'm ready to tackle these risks just yet.

Actually when I was doing all this reading it reminded me of the time I gave away all our de-labelled and cleaned bottles when we moved from NH to Sweden. Basically I was thinking that we had spent many hours taking labels off of so many bottles that it would be a shame to just recycle them all. So I put an ad on freecycle, just to see if anyone wanted them. I actually got a few responses in a timely manner. I gave them to the first guy to contact me, who told me he was so glad to get them since he had tried making a batch of rootbeer which had resulted in exploded bottles, so his supply of bottles was lacking.

This is getting really wordy, but I have to say, I have a pretty big concern about exploding bottles. That isn't something you want to take lightly.

At the same time, Greg and I (mostly Greg) have a slight interest in making cider, so learning the art of pasteurization could be a useful skill for our future.

For me, it all sort of comes down to my goals for making ginger beer. A few weeks ago I was trying to find an interesting restaurant in Stockholm, and I found a dumpling place and they had ginger beer on the menu, and ever since then I've just been wishing I could more easily get myself some ginger beer. (That restaurant was, sadly, not open on the weekends, which I didn't realise until we were standing outside the door.)

So if I just want the experience of ginger beer, any of these methods should suffice, so logically it makes sense to just do the simplest and cheapest option, which would be one of the first two. Both are really simple, and I'm sure both are quite economical, but I could check the numbers to maximize that benefit.

I think my plan will be to start with one of these methods, because I just really want to drink a ginger beer. Then, after I can do more research on pasteurization and gain some confidence in my (our) skills in that area, step up the ginger beer-making game.

Also, for reference (for my future self, mainly), I read this entire forum which was really useful. And here is one that will be useful for pasteurization research, but really? I can handle 17 pages, but 108?

I've done a lot of other reading as well, but if anyone has tips or sources I'd love to hear about it. Brian, are you still lurking? When you made cider did you pasteurize it? I think we had some friends 'pasteurize' by exposing their cider to some sort of light? I don't know, but is this a thing?

7QT - food, ballet, and needing new pants

1. Earlier this week I reached the epitome of Uppsala residency - I was about to put on a pair of pants when I realized the butt was nearly worn through from riding my bicycle. I'm a little sad that I can't wear the pants anymore because I really liked them, but I feel proud of myself too, like I earned a badge.

Then I spent some time reading about commuter pants, which are specially designed to look like normal pants you can wear at work, but are built with reinforced fabric in the bike-seat-regions. (The really cool ones also have some reflective material that is on the inside of the legs, so that it shows when you cuff your pants!) Unfortunately, most of the available commuter pants are made for men only. I don't know what is up with that. I'd like some commuter pants please. Although I'd probably have better luck getting the men's pants to fit than any option they could come up with for women…

2. I've gotten so much better about not letting myself get needlessly stressed out about work since my days as a PhD student. This week I had some things that absolutely had to get done by the end of the week, and I was not entirely convinced they would get done. Luckily they are done, and now that I am past this I realise that I was more than a little stressed about them.

Now I'm just basking in the post-task completion (and trying not to think too much about how this all sort of has to be repeated once I get more data). My current activities include things like cleaning my computer screen and installing updates on my computer, both of which I had been putting off for far too long. Having a fresh computer makes me feel so fresh by proxy(:

3. Even if I already said this, it is worth saying again. For Easter I made homemade Reese's eggs following this recipe from Natalie. The recipe was such a completely perfect match. Just so much deliciousness. I can't even make sentences about them. I also sprinkled a tiny bit of sea salt on the top, so I have to say, these were even More amazing than the original.

4. On my last day of my third decade I get to go to the ballet! Ballet fascinates and amazes me, and I'm really excited to see something other than The Nutcracker (which I love, don't get my wrong, especially the Swedish interpretation).

5. This reminds me that there is a new ballet documentary that is out or soon to be out called Ballet 422. I really really need to not forget to see this when I figure out if/when it is released.

6. All week I've been really lazy about cooking (a result of #2, being stressed about not having enough time to finish work tasks). Last night I decided I better eat something more healthy than frozen pizza. I had some salad greens already, so I decided I'd make some hummus to put on top, plus add some chopped carrots and tomatoes, and call it a meal.

However, when I got home I started to dread the amount of time it would take to actually make the hummus properly with the immersion blender. This is when I realized that I could just dump the chickpeas on my salad, and make a dressing from tahini + olive oil + lemon juice. Same ingredients as hummus, just a different presentation. It wasn't as tasty as hummus, but it was a passable substitute. Most importantly, I didn't feel like I was wasting any time with food prep. Some days are just not for prepping food.

7. This final take is made possible because I just started cooking dinner and decided to go ahead and let my onions and garlic rest after chopping and before cooking. I read about this on Kate's blog, and normally I'd enjoy doing more reading on the topic instead of blindly trusting, buuuutttt…. what have I got to lose? So my onions are resting!

__________________________

The End & The Link-Up!

Recipes from blogs

I'm normally a girl who takes recipes from tried and true sources. But then again, I'm also a girl who will search endlessly for a recipe that matches the ingredients available in the house, sooo…

Anyhow.

What I mean to say today is that I have been finding really delicious recipes on blogs, so then I just need to try them because they look amazing, and then they do end up being SO amazing.

On Sunday morning I made a dutch baby for breakfast after reading about it here (although I used this recipe instead because I only had two eggs, plus it actually called for vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract).

And the same day I made this delicious salad for lunch! I switched it up a little and skipped the strawberries, and used a grapefruit instead of a blood orange. I had never sectioned a citrus before, so that was fun. I collected the juices while I was slicing and made a grapefruit + olive oil dressing.

Pumpkin bread!

Last week we found a cooking pumpkin in the grocery store! Greg is a major pumpkin pie lover, so I had to let him down gently when I told him I wanted to make pumpkin bread. I think we need to go buy more pumpkins so that pies can happen. I also remembered that I once made a pumpkin lasagne which I loved so much! (recipe here, if you are interested)

The store had a few pumpkins, with short descriptions in Swedish. I don't remember the name of our pumpkin, and I can't be sure of all its qualities, but I do know that it had an orange flesh and was good for soups. And it turned out to be good for pumpkin bread.

I don't have any photo documentation of this, but here is what I did. I chopped the pumpkin in half, and also chopped off the stem. Then I removed the goop and seeds (the seeds were HUGE, and Greg baked them the next day). Then I put the two pumpkin halves in a baking dish with the cut side up, and put a little water into each pumpkin half. I don't know. One time my friend who is a nutritionist introduced me to the concept of spaghetti squash and she put the water in the squash halves, so I now do that with pumpkin halves. Also, the pumpkin descriptions at the store listed a spaghetti squash, but there were sadly none in the bin, but either way that is the closest I've gotten to getting a spaghetti squash in this country. So I baked the pumpkins at a temperature that was probably too high, maybe like 190C? They were done in only a half hour, which is a shame, because the heat hadn't been turned on yet and our apartment was getting cold, and I was banking on an hour of oven-use.

After the pumpkins were cooled I scooped out the flesh. Then a couple days later when it was time to bake the pumpkin bread, Greg used the immersion blender on it, so that it was a nice pumpkin puree. I used this recipe, which calls for one 16 ounce can.

So here is a really important thing, which the internet world doesn't always understand. The ounces in '16 ounce' are a measure of weight. Since I don't have a kitchen scale, I needed to figure out what volume (aka how many cups) of pumpkin I needed. I did some searching, which informed me that a 16 ounce can of pumpkin contained either 2 or 4 cups of pumpkin. That is a pretty big discrepancy, but there is no way that you can fit 4 cups into one of those cans. Plus since I had just shy of 2 cups, I just used all the pumpkin I had.

Now that I look at the pumpkin lasagne recipe, I see that a 28 ounce can of pumpkin is equivalent to 3 cups of pumpkin. So that means I should have used 1.7 cups of pumpkin in the recipe that called for 16 ounces of pumpkin.

This is my attempt to get some blog hits via google searches for 'how many cups of pumpkin are in a 16 ounce can?' and also my attempt to never again have to do that very same google search because the results are painful.

Pumpkin Conversion

16 ounce can = 1.7 cups

28 ounce can = 3 cups

So anyhow, the pumpkin bread was really delicious, and I've been taking it for a snack every day this week. Since I like to keep the quality of the photos here high, behold.

7QT - food things

- 1 -

Apparently grape seed oil is a new popular thing? I've read about it in at least two places in just the past week, after never hearing about it before. That is, after never hearing about it in English before. You see, here in Sweden, when I wanted to buy something like vegetable oil or canola oil, I ended up with rapseed oil. I didn't even know what it was when I was buying it, but this was when I used the method of buying the item that was available in the largest quantity, because that meant it was reasonable to think many people used said item. This technique worked particularly well when I wanted to buy flour, just plain regular white flour, and I encountered at least a dozen different options.

- 2 -

Come to think of it, I find that things in Sweden work like that most of the time. There is very little variety of items due to personal preference it seems. Usually there is just one of a thing available. I think that says something about Swedes being practical maybe? So like, here is a baking soda, it is the best one, everyone knows that, everyone buys the same one, so places only sell the one option. Also, for example, the same candle holder lantern thingy that is a decoration in my apartment was also a decoration at the little snack shop in the airport. True story.

- 3 -

And you can easily figure out where Swedes have strong and differing opinions based on what items come with a lot of variety. Knäckebröd (a sort of cracker thing) and cheese in tubes fall into this category.

- 4 -

Two weeks ago was Culture Night in Uppsala. Culture Night is a full day of activities showcasing culture all throughout the town. Tons of people roam the streets and there is street food. Greg and I saw an a capella group consisting of four young men who sang a medley of Backstreet Boys songs. It was spectacular.

- 5 -

A little while ago Greg made a comment about earl grey tea smelling like fruit loops. I thought it was madness, but well, it really sort of does. Now when I have a cup of the earl, my entire tea-drinking experience is something different and a bit strange.

- 6 -

We tried our beer and it is yummy! It is still a bit 'green' as in, not quite at its prime, flavor-wise. The banana flavor is mellowing out, which I appreciate. I think I wrote before that when we bottled it, we tasted it and the overwhelming flavor was banana.

We were going to start our next batch tomorrow, but we didn't order ingredients/supplies in time, so it will have to wait a week. It is time to brew a Christmas beer! I found this recipe for an award-winner called Bad Santa that is made with cherries and vanilla and cinnamon!

- 7 -

And since I wouldn't want any 'quick take' to exclude the topic of food, we found a cooking pumpkin! In a grocery store near our apartment! Last year we had a really hard time finding pumpkin, which is a big deal since you can't buy canned pumpkin. Or at least, it was a big deal last year when we thought we could not buy canned pumpkin. But we found this cafe that is run by an American and he sells poptarts and canned pumpkin.

- The End and The Linkup -

7QT - bicycle repair, cooking, and other fun things

- 1 -

Here is an unexpected thing that I miss about my husband. He is pretty good at keeping me informed of big current events. I have always been terrible at current events. The weekly current events quizzes we were given in seventh grade were the worst.

So when my husband is living in a different country, I miss out on so many little conversations, including the ones about current events. Maybe I should care enough to seek out that information on my own, but I honestly don't see that happening.

I think if there was a blog that posted several times a week with the briefest of brief news summaries, that might be good for me. The other problem is that biased reporting really gets me down.

- 2 -

Although I do prefer to watch hockey games that have a sportscaster who is a fan of my team. It just makes things better than an unbiased sportscaster when there is agreement with me and the tv.

- 3 -

- 4 -

I got a flat tire on my bicycle this week. Punka is the Swedish for that, apparently. Punka, indeed. I watched this video on youtube (as well as a few others, but this one most resembles my bicycle) to learn what I needed to do to fix it.

Even if you don't watch the video, notice that it took this man less than ten minutes to complete the task. It took me about one hundred minutes to do the same exact thing. Not bad for my first tire change though! Although, full disclosure, I got a lot of help from my landlord. My progress would have come to a full stop at least once if not for his assistance.

Now I need to decide if I want to try to patch the hole in the tube or just throw it out. Does anyone have any experience with this and want to give me advice?

- 5 -

This is one of the more interesting blog posts I've read in awhile. It discusses the topic of the first known music video to feature contra dancing. Oh how I love the spirit of contra.

- 6 -

I also learned from that article the "electronic duo" The Knife is Swedish. I have been told several times that music is Sweden's biggest export, and that it happens so often that you find out a band or group is from Sweden, which you may not have known for years and years. I was slightly skeptical about the latter part, since that had never happened to me. Then I read the above article, and now I get it! And for reference, one of the greatest songs in the world, compliments of The Knife:

- 7 -

Last night I made a dinner that was inspired by this coconut chicken recipe. I changed a lot of things though, just because the original recipe is not possible for me in my current circumstances. For one I don't have a dutch oven. For two I'm not about to turn on my oven and leave it on for such a long time (my apartment is small and using the oven is like using a space heater... in the middle of summer). For three I just made this all in a frying pan on the stove and used two chicken breasts instead of a full chicken. For four I just noticed that it only wanted half of the pepper, but I used a whole one and it was yellow. For five I was not able to get cilantro. For six I somehow had it in my head that bok choy was leeks, so when I headed to the store I was planning to buy leeks (even though my list said bok choy). When I got to the produce section and saw the leeks I realized then that they were not bok choy. Somehow when I saw the Swedish word for leek, it dawned on me that it was not bok choy, even though I don't know the Swedish word for bok choy and could not tell you the word for leek.

Long story short, it was very tasty, and I am glad I have leftovers for three more meals!

- The End -

Linking up with Jen!

spaghetti squash

It has been almost a year since I heard of and first ate spaghetti squash. A squash that acts like spaghetti noodles! What a strange and mysterious food!

In Sweden I am always checking the different stores to see if one will appear. Sometimes I think I spot one, but then it is just a melon that is exactly the same shape, size, and color as the spaghetti squash. So now that I am back in the States, you better believe I bought myself one of those!

Dagens lunch (today's lunch):

Also, it seems that there are a few ways to cook a spaghetti squash. Partly for documentation, partly for my own purposes, this is what I did. Cut the squash in half. Removed seeds/goop. Placed in baking dish, with the cut side up. Put a bit of water into the squash. Baked at 375F for 30 minutes. Probably I could have baked it for 35 minutes instead, but I am pretty okay with the 'al dente' variety.

I mostly followed this recipe, but since I was putting spaghetti sauce on my spaghetti squash, I figured it wasn't necessary to put oil, salt, and pepper on the squash.

Super simple. Super delicious. Super healthful.

Happy Easter!

This is a post mainly about food. I hadn't done much cooking or baking lately, so I figured Easter was a good time for that. This is how Swedes decorate for Easter:

Colored feathers everywhere.

Last night for dinner I roasted a chicken and also roasted an assortment of root vegetables. It was incredibly delicious. I also made some paneer in preparation for tonight's dinner of saag paneer. I have to say, nothing says 'easter' like saag paneer. I plan to follow a different recipe than last time, so hopefully it turns out. But that is for later.

Here is a photo of my breakfast.

Yes, I ate all of those sausages; don't judge me. One of the items that was on my list of foods-to-eat-while-in-the-US was maple breakfast sausage. Unfortunately, that never happened. Even though they have a lot of sausage here, it just isn't like those maple breakfast sausages.

Fun fact: On the day after our wedding I cooked maybe a billion sausages for our 'wedding brunch.'

I even found proof on facebook. Here I am with Greg and his sister, as well as our classy brown'n'serve sausages. Also, I am always trying to convince Greg that I am actually taller than him, but the real reason this photo makes me look distinctly taller is the extreme lopsided flooring in the barn.

So anyhow. My breakfast (today) was super delicious. I tried to make an omelet like this one. It was pretty good, but I'm pretty sure it was not the best omelet I've ever had. Now I feel like I never have to wonder if those recipes actually are the 'best ever' so I'm glad I at least tried. I also bought some manchego, which I was going to open and have with my dinner last night, but I forgot about it. Breakfast cheese it is! I used my super fancy cheese cutter which is a favorite kitchen tool of Swedes and now I know why.

OH. I almost forgot about my dessert last night. I bought a finostkaka. Ta daa:

I always see people buying these and just recently I finally found where they were located in the store (near the deli meats?). They also have ones called 'ostkaka' which literally translates to cheese cake. I did some reading online and a page somewhere said that ostkaka was not the same as cheesecake, that the ostkaka had no layering. I don't have any idea what that meant, but I was prepared for this to not be like the cheesecake I know and love. Especially since there seemed to be the ostkaka, and then the dessert ostkaka: finostkaka. This is getting long, so to get to the point, it is Not the same as cheesecake but still quite tasty, and it sort of reminded me of the non-crust part of quiche only sweeter?

Back to breakfast. I also meant to make scones, but haven't done that yet. Those will be for lunch I think. I'm making the same ones I've made before. They are seriously delicious. I just realized that thanks to daylight savings finally coming to Sweden, it is well past noon. Scones for afternoon tea then.

Soup season

So apparently, while most people are gearing up for springtime foods, I am getting really into soups? Last week I made lentil soup, recipe here. This is one of my all-time favorite soups, actually. It is delicious and simple plus it has a great name. Originally I was going to use the chicken stock that I had stored in the freezer, but since I didn't plan ahead and didn't want to wait for the stock to thaw, I just used water with powdered vegetable broth stuff? It is like bullion cubes, but not in cube form. Just a container with loose powder, which is quite nice for getting whatever proportion I choose.

Anyhow.

Yesterday I had this great idea to make tortilla soup. This is another of my all-time favorite soups. This recipe comes from the friend of a friend.

Jenny's Famous Tortilla Soup

ingredients

3 chicken breasts

celery

carrots

1 onion

4 bullion cubes (or 6 cups of chicken broth in a box)

2 tsp chili powder

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp lemon pepper

2 tsp ground cumin

1 lime

2 cans tomatoes with green chilies

monterey jack cheese, grated

tortilla chips

1 avocado

cut raw chicken into bite-size pieces and cook on the stove.  set

aside chicken aside, leaving grease in pan.  chop celery, onions, and

carrots and saute in left-over chicken grease (mmm) and olive oil.

boil 6 cups water (or boil the chicken broth and skip the cubes). add

4 bullion cubes, chili powder, garlic powder, lemon pepper, cumin,

lime juice, and tomatoes w/ green chilies. add chicken and veggies.

simmer all 20 minutes.  crush tortilla chips in bottom of bowl.  add

soup, avocado slices, and cheese.

I absolutely love this soup. I actually love it even more if I use chicken from a roasted chicken, because I find that I always overcook chicken if I am cooking it on the stovetop, and then it is dry and just not so good. Plus I think buying three chicken breasts in Sweden would be twice the cost of buying a whole chicken (labor is expensive here?). So yesterday I had quite the cook-fest. First I roasted a chicken. Then I realized that I've only ever roasted a chicken when Greg was around to do the carving of said chicken. I think I was pretty successful with it though. I also just realized that I forgot to put lime juice into my soup. Bummer. Lucky for me, it was still completely delicious.

Today I've got the chicken carcass in a pot of water with carrots, celery, and an onion. I figured since I used my chicken stock supply it would be a good idea to replenish. I also like the idea of using the chicken to its fullest capacity. Also, broth has a bit of a cult following, similar to kale or apple cider vinegar. Basically, if you let it, it will provide all the answers to your problems. Here are a few articles I've read about the wonders of broth. This time I actually tried adding a tiny bit of apple cider vinegar (double the wonder?! broth + acv??) so we'll see how that goes.

A recipe from Ellen?

Call me crazy, but I am now getting cooking advice from Ellen. I may have a small addiction to watching the clips of Ellen that are posted on youtube. And while I was watching this one, I happened to have a stack of post-its and a pen next to me, so I made a quick grocery list.

I love lentils and I was so excited to try out this recipe. And it was super delicious!

7QT - my heart will go on

- 1 -

Last weekend my doorbell rang, which has only happened once before. So I went downstairs and there was no one there. Fifteen minutes later it rang again. I didn't bother to go down, but instead ran to the window to see if I could see anyone (I don't actually have a view of my door, but I can see a bit of the surrounding area). Mainly I was checking to see if I could see any neighbor kids sprinting away or something. This happened maybe four or five times.

THEN.

One morning I hear some sort of elevator version of My Heart Will Go On? I didn't know where it was coming from, but the second time it happened I realized that it was the doorbell! So strange (in a fantastical way). I am guessing this is the doorbell's way of letting me know it's batteries are dying?

- 2 -

On Wednesday I got to go to the regular folk dance session (not just the newbie course I usually go to) because they were learning a kadrilj (quadrille) that no one knew. This is the most Pride and Prejudice-like dance that I have ever done and it was Awesome!

- 3 -

I've been making hummus a lot lately. Most people eat it as a 'dip' but for me it is dinner. One batch of hummus, plus some pita, and a few small tomatoes, maybe an avocado if I really want to live it up. And in all this hummus making, I somehow always fail to remember that the immersion blender never further chops the coursely chopped garlic. Makes for some pretty potent bites.

- 4 -

I usually start my 'quick takes' early in the week and add a take as it comes to mind. I'm just going to go ahead and say that I wrote all of take #2 on Tuesday. Before I ever even went to the dance. But I really had no reason to believe there would be any bit of un-truth in it.

- 5 -

- 6 -

I heard it, and kind of saw it, and gathered the evidence! What's all this about?

I have this plant that I am plant-sitting. And I really love it. The best part is that it populates by firing seeds off. I've been waiting around to see this happen. The other day I thought I got one. I picked up some paper and some sort of seed-shaped thing fell out. So I gathered it up, intending to put it in dirt at some point to see if it grew. This is not the first time I've collected small things that could potentially be the seeds of this plant. But just now, I heard the seed 'pop!' and then across the room I heard a small 'tink' and looked over to see a seed sitting on a chair that is at least 5 feet from the plant. The good news is that it looks identical to the one from the other day.

So hopefully by April when my plant-sitting duties are over, I'll have my own little baby plant (or two) growing happily!

- 7 -

I just found out about this experiment in which bugs were sent to space.

Living it up on a Saturday night

If you really want to live it up on a Saturday night, here is an idea: make cheese! This was actually my second time making cheese, so I basically felt like an old pro going into it. The first time I made saag paneer, because it is one of my favorites. This time, I figured I would try something that I didn't already have really high standards for, with the hopes of really loving my final product more. So I figured I'd try the paneer butter masala that Brian posted about. I'll repost the recipe, which comes in the form of a video, in case you were interested.



I had to watch the video a couple times before I decided that it just didn't matter that I had no idea what spice comes before the ketchup. And for that matter, I also decided I didn't want to cook with ketchup, so I just skipped that. Also, Sweden has fried onions in practically every grocery store, which was not something I would have expected.


Two liters of milk in a giant pot.


curds & whey


finished cheese cubes!

It still surprises me how easy it is to make paneer. I guess this is the simplest cheese to make, but that doesn't mean it isn't incredibly gratifying. The hardest part this time was figuring out a way to get the cheesecloth to stay in the strainer without having to hold it in place. It had these loop things on it, so while it didn't fit over the edge of the strainer, I was able to use some twist ties to hold it in place.

And this is why we don't ever throw away a twist tie, Greg!


finished paneer butter masala



And then I devoured it, because it was super tasty. I think the only thing I might do differently next time is to quickly fry the paneer. I wanted to try not frying it, because I hadn't had it like that. So now I know that I prefer it fried.