Vegetable Soup with Chicken

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veggiesoup

I love veggie soup, it’s just comfort in a bowl to me. Especially on cold days, and there seems to be plenty of them in this coastal area of Norway. Looking forward to making more variations of veggie soups as time passes. And the homemade wheat bread I made was great with it!

Ingredients:

  • 33 oz water.
  • 2 carrots.
  • 1 small leek.
  • 5 oz rutabaga.
  • 3.5 oz celeriac / celery root.
  • 1 chicken breast, sliced into strips.
  • 2 bullion cubes.

Instructions:

  1. Wash and peel the vegetables.
  2. Cut the vegetables in small pieces.
  3. Bring water and salt to a boil.
  4. Put the veggies in the water and boil them for about 8 minutes.
  5. Add the chicken when the veggies are almost boiled.
  6. Add bullion, and salt and pepper to taste.

Alternatively you can cook the chicken before, that’s what I did!

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Chicken and Pasta with Cheese Sauce

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ChickenPasta

I made this with the homemade pasta I posted recently, and all together it was delicious. I think the only thing I would do different next time is to have some garlic bread with it, haha.

Ingredients:

  • 2 chicken breasts cooked to your own preference of spices.
  • 2 carrots – cut into strips.
  • 1/2 squash – cut into strips.
  • Pasta.

Cheese sauce:

  • 1 tablespoon butter.
  • 2 tablespoons flour.
  • 10oz milk.
  • 3.4oz cheese.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt.
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Instructions:

  1. Melt butter in a pot over a low heat. Add flour and stir it to a smooth mixture.
  2. Take the pot off the heat. Add the milk gradually while stirring, avoiding lumping.
  3. Put the pot back on the heat and add the cheese. Then bring to a boil while stirring often.
  4. Let the sauce simmer for about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the pasta and vegetables to the cheese sauce. Then plate the pasta, and top with slices of the chicken. Tada, all ready to be served. Like mentioned above, I’d suggest garlic bread to go with this!

 

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Homemade Pasta

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HomemadePasta

I’ve wanted to make pasta from scratch for a while now. It’s been one of those things on my list, but I had been kind of nervous about trying because it seemed complicated. Man was I wrong, it was very straight forward and easy to do. I don’t have a pasta machine, but it worked perfectly fine with the help of a rolling pin and a pizza cutter!

Ingredients:

  • 6 oz flour.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt.
  • 2 eggs.
  • 1/2 teaspoon oil.

Instructions:

  1. Sift the flour into a small pile on your work space. Make a little groove in the flour to add the salt, eggs, and oil. (Like the top picture.)
  2. Mix the ingredients together with a fork. Then knead the dough until it’s smooth, use your hands.
  3. Put the dough aside, let it rest for about 20 minutes before using the rolling pin to roll it out as evenly and thinly as possible.
  4. Using a ruler to measure up about 0.3in and use the pizza cutter to cut the pasta into strips.
  5. Boil the pasta in lightly salted water for about 2-3 minutes.

My experience was that even though I thought I had rolled it out thinly enough, it was still pretty thick so I’ll try to roll it out even more so next time. Aside from that my only tip is that if you don’t plan to cook the pasta right away to hang it over something, because if you leave it together like I did in the above picture it quickly starts sticking together and is a little hard to separate when you do want to cook it. Aside from that it was a fun experience to share with my daughter, and I’ll definitely make it with her again!

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Homemade Wheat Bread

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wheatbread

Decided to try something new, and make bread from scratch! I really love how it turned out, it was delicious! To boot this one recipe makes four loaves: Make it, freeze it, and have delicious bread when you need it.

Ingredients:

  • 59oz water or milk.
  • 1.7oz fresh yeast (Or equal amount of dried yeast)
  • 4 teaspoons salt.
  • 1.1lbs ground whole grain rye.
  • 2.2lbs wholemeal.
  • 2.2lbs flour.
  • 4.2oz sunflower seeds.
  • 2.5oz linseed.
  • 1 tablespoon butter to brush between the loaves.
  • Water to brush before baking.

Instructions:

  1. Heat the water or milk to it’s body temperature, 98.6f. Crumble the yeast in the baking bowl and stir it into the water. Add salt, flour, sunflower seeds, and linseed.
  2. Knead the dough until it’s smooth. Brush a little oil on the surface of the dough. Cover with plastic and let rise until twice the size, approximately 30-40 minutes.
  3. Take out the dough on a floured surface. Knead it a little further if the dough is sticky. Divide the dough into four equal parts and place in a pan. Be sure to brush a bit of butter between the loaves to be sure they easily come apart after baking. Cover with plastic and let the loaves rise for about 20-30 minutes.
  4. Brush the loaves with temped water and lightly prick the breads with a fork.
  5. Place pan on the bottom rack in the oven and bake the bread for about 1 hour at 410f. Turn the temperature down to 390f for the last 15 minutes. Put the completed loaves on a baking rack. Gently apply pressure to the sides of loaves, if the mark lets back out the loaves are done. If not they can be returned to the oven and baked for an additional 15 minutes. Cool on a baking rack.

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Jambalaya

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Jambalaya
Found this in one of my old recipe folders, not quite sure where it’s from, but decided to make it and share it here! It’s called Jambalaya in the recipe, but having seen actual jambalaya recipes from the states I doubt it would pass as such over there. Soooo, it’s the Norwegian twist on Jambalaya I suppose! At any rate it was delicious, and a great fast weekday dinner!

Ingredients:

  • 10.5oz garlic sausage.
  • 7 oz other sausage – The recipe calls for beer sausage, I opted for a milder one to make it kiddo friendly.
  • 1 cup rice.
  • 1 bell pepper.
  • 1 onion.
  • 1 can of tomatoes.
  • 13oz broth.
  • 1-2 garlic cloves.
  • 1 tablespoon butter/oil.
  • 1 teaspoon thyme.
  • 1 teaspoon salt.
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper.
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder.

Instructions:

  1. Boil the rice according to the instructions on the package. Dice the onion and garlic, cut the sausages and bell peppers into strips.
  2. Brown the sausage, onion, and garlic on low heat until the onion is golden and soft. Add the tomatoes (Liquids as well), bell peppers, and spice.
  3. Bring to a boil and add the rice. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ready to serve! Bread goes excellent with it!

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Chocolate cake

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I don’t usually bake too often, especially since it’s just me and my daughter here and knocking down a cake or something like that between the two of us can be a bit much. But I saw this recipe and I just had to try it, and I was so glad I did cause it’s deeeelecious! Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with chocolate decor, I died a little and went to chocolate heaven!

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Ingredients:

Chocolate cake:

  • 5 oz sugar.
  • 1 egg.
  • 8.5 oz flour.
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt.
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar.
  • 2.5 oz cocoa powder
  • 6.8 oz kefir.
  • 3 oz butter.

Frosting:

  • 5 oz powdered sugar.
  • 2.6 oz butter.
  • 4.4 oz cream cheese.
  • 1/2 egg.
  • 2.6 oz melted chocolate.

Decoration:

  • Kvikk lunsj chocolate (An alternative here would be Kit Kat, but personally I think Kvikk lunsj is far, far better tasting than Kit Kat!)

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400F.
    Whip sugar and egg to a smooth consistency. Melt the butter and stir in the kefir to a smooth batter.
  2. Add flour, baking soda, salt, vanilla sugar, and cocoa powder and mix well to a airy and smooth batter.
  3. Pour batter into a baking dish and bake in oven for approximatly 40 minutes (Or until you stick the cake with a tooth pick and the pick comes out clean.) Cool cake.
  4. Be sure that the butter and cream cheese is room temp. Mix them with powdered sugar and the egg to a cream. Melt the chocolate in a water bath and pour the chocolate into the cream mixture while the whip is running.
  5. Cut the cake into squares. Put the frosting in frosting bags and make big swirl tops on the cake slices, then put Kvikklunsj (or Kitkat) bars into the frosting.

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Still here!

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I have been absent from my blog here for a while, but I’m still around! I have two posts coming up shortly, and am working on getting myself “a little” more organized to keep on top of a good posting schedule in the future!

I have decided to widen the scope of my blog a little, to include recipes I would like whether they are Norwegian or other cuisines. I’ll be sure to have two categories though, one for Norwegian food and one for the rest of the world that way it’s easy for anyone visiting to decide what cuisines they’d like to check out! I just decided for myself that it was a little hard to keep to purely Norwegian recipes, cause we’ve gotten pretty used to more international cuisines over the years just like everybody else. And my kitchen has definitely had new flavors added after having lived abroad for 10 years!

Pavlova!

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Right after May 17th is my mothers birthday and here was my new experiment for the day. Pavlova isn’t a Norwegian cake originally, after trying to google the origin it doesn’t appear as folks can quite agree where it’s from. Just that it’s named after a Russian ballerina. But over the last couple of years I’ve seen posts about pavlova on Norwegian food sites very often, especially in May. So I decided to give it a go and try something new. I was a little nervous thinking it might be a bit to sweet to be well received, but it was a huge hit!

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Ingredients:

Meringue:

  • 4 egg whites.
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt.
  • 17,5 oz sugar.
  • 2 teaspoons corn starch.
  • 1 teaspoons white wine vinegar.

Custard:

  • 4 egg yolks.
  • 10 oz milk.
  • 1,6 oz sugar.
  • 1 tablespoon corn starch.
  • 3 gelatin plates.
  • 10 oz heavy whipping cream.

Decorating:

  • 1 pack of strawberries.
  • 1 pack of raspberries.
  • 1 pack of blueberries.
  • Really any fruits you’d like to add.

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 250F.
  2. Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip them with a little bit of salt until it lightly foams up. Then turn up the speed on the mixer until the bubbles are small and even. When the foam starts peaking, add sugar, a little at the time. Whip until the mixture is smooth and shiny and all the sugar is dissolved. Don’t whip it too long, then the texture won’t be right / will be lumpy.
  3. Sift in corn starch and add the white wine vinegar, slowly folding it in with a spatula.
  4. Put parchment paper on a baking pan and draw a circle about 9.5-10 inches, essentially to make sure you don’t spread the pavlova mixture out so it’s bigger than your serving platter (Like I did, haha!) and add the mixture within the circle.
  5. Bake the cake for about 1.5 hours on the bottom rack in the oven until the mixture is crisp. Then turn off the oven and let it stand in the oven until it’s cooled, overnight in the oven with the door slightly open if you’d like.
  6. To make the custard put the egg yolks, milk, sugar, and corn starch in a pan. Cut up the gelatin plates and add to the pan.
  7. Heat up the pan while stirring until the custard thickens up. When it has the consistency of a thick vanilla sauce (or almost like a ice cream topping), then remove from the plate and pour it over in a bowl. Cool. Then lightly whip the custard so it’s even and smooth.
    In another bowl take the cream and whip it, and then mix it with the custard.
  8. Put the cake on the platter and add the custard/cream mix and decorate with the fruits. To keep the meringue nice and crisp it’s best to not assemble everything until right before serving.

Serve and enjoy the sweet goodness!

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17 Mai bløtkake – 17th of May whipped cream cake!

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Tomorrow is May 17th, Norway’s Constitution Day!
We celebrate the signing of our constitution on May 17th 1814, one of the first major steps toward Norways independence. It was signed after a short conflict with Sweden after they took over Norway from Denmark, and Norwegians very much reacted to that fact. I guess we preferred the Danes over the Swedes, hah!

As a kid I liked celebrating it because it was fun to walk in the parades, and not to mention the day with unlimited amounts of hot dogs, soda, and ice cream haha. But as an adult, and especially an adult that studied history, I’ve found a new appreciation to all that happened 202 years ago and how it affected Norway’s history in the aftermath.

So today my daughter and I made this together, her bunad (Norways national dress) is ready, my family is here, and tomorrow we go and walk in my daughters first 17th of May parade. I’m excited!

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The bløtkake is a super staple of Norwegian celebrations. 17th of May, birthdays, you name it! The spongecake inside it has been my arch nemesis for a while, but I finally got a hang of it.

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Ingredients:
Spongecake:

  • 5 eggs (Room temperature is best).
  • 4,5 oz sugar.
  • 4,5 oz flour.
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder.

Directions:

  1. Beat eggs and sugar together until foamy.
  2. Slowly sift the flour and baking powder into the egg mix, gently turning it into the mixture with a spatula. Key here is to get it all mixed in, but still having mixed it in so gently the air is still in the egg mix.
  3. Pour mixture into a cake pan. If you add baking paper to the bottom it’s easier to get the cake out.
  4. Bake in oven at 350F for 30-40 minutes.

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Assembly:
You need:

  • Whipped cream.
    I highly prefer making my own over the ready bought version. Just heavy whipping cream and add sugar until your preferred sweetness, and let the mixer do the rest. Incredibly easy and so much better tasting than out of the can!
  • Strawberry jam.
  • Berries for decorating.

Directions:

  1. Cut the spongecake in two to be able to add in the layer.
  2. Cover the bottom layer with strawberry jam, then adding whipped cream as well.
  3. Add top layer, then cover the top and sides with whipped cream.
  4. Decorate the cake with the berries, and using piping bag you can decorate with the whipped cream you have left over as well.

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Strawberry salsa

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A quick and tasty strawberry salsa to add to your BBQ, the sweet of the strawberries and the kick of the chili was really tasty!

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Ingredients:

  • 1 lbs strawberries.
  • 1/2 red onion.
  • 1 jalapeno. (2 if you prefer it spicier!)
  • Peel of 1 lime.
  • Juice of half a lime.
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt.
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Directions:

  1. Dice the strawberries into small pieces. Finely dice the onion and add to the bowl with berries.
  2. Remove the seeds from the jalapeno and finely dice it, add to bowl with the strawberries and onion.
  3. Grate the lime peel and squeeze the lime juice in the bowl. Mix everything together, then add salt and pepper to taste.

Great to serve with beef, chicken, and pork!

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