A little taste of Summer

My Grand plan today was to bake Macaroons and share the adventure with y'all. I've even gotten the permission to use a picture, from one of the best Macaroon bakers I know of (without ever having tasted her yummies), just to show you how real Macaroons are supposed to look. But I changed my mind. You see ~ if you want a roof over your head and food on the table someone has to work. In our family, while Lille Skatt is still a baby, it is His job to do all the sweat and tears and all off that. His left home for a month on the road today. He was not happy about leaving. Hers wasn't to happy either, but such is life. To help comfort the "all by my self" rush I felt being ... all by my self..., I invited the Mother on a glass of wine. And I'm soon getting to the point ~ I invited the Mother on a wine bought totally because of the name. "Mad Housewife". If you ask half the people I know they will tell you that The Mad housewife - that is me. I don't look anything like the Purty lady on the label, but I recognize the look in her eyes and the attitude she ozzes and I can really relate to that. But enough about me ~ Buying wine solely because of the crazy name ~ that's the point. I'm used to buying wine based on criterias like grape, country and vineyard. After arriving to my new home country I realized that you can sell wine solely based on grape or even weirder ~ based on name only. I almost fell over laughing when I first spotted the Fat Bastard, the Bitch and the Elephant on a tightrope, and my latest discovery ~ Mad Housewife. I have no idea if the wine is any good but I do remember the label. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know it's all branding but Hey - it's working. And the Mad Housewife you may ask - was she worth the almost $ 10 I payed for her? Well, she is a sweet, pink, white Zinfandel lady probably best suited for a late Summer night, on the back deck, with a good girlfriend.

Oh well - enough for tonight from the Mad Housewife. Hers and Lille Skatt are leaving on a field trip tomorrow. More about Macaroons and road trips coming soon. Until then ~ so long :)

It's all Greek to me...

I Love Winter; Back home we have wonderful winters with a lot of snow. I get to go skiing, build snow men and snow castles, and participate in fierce snowball wars ~ always on the winning team of course... Don't get me wrong, I Love Summers too - it's just that the Summers up there, towards the North pole, sometimes are a "little" unpredictable. When fall arrives and you haven't really seen temperatures above 60F, and all you can remember is the rain - you're in high risk of falling into a winter depression. The solution: a week in Greece! When all the school kids and their parents are back in school and behind their desks the travel agencies sometimes decides to treat their customer to some really really good deals - I mean - who wouldn't say Y E S! to a week in Greece for the pretty price of $ 250. That is including both the hotel and plain ticket... Oh yeah - you gotta love it! You must by now have realised that I have many a time taken advantage of these pretty offers. I love Greece!

When in Greece, whether on the main land or on one of the islands, you have to try the local cuisine. Greek food has absolutely it's uniqueness and it is very very good! Today I'm (that is Hers, if you haven't figured it out by now ;0)) making Stifado, my favorite Greek dish, which is a traditional beef stew. The great thing with this dish, apart from the fact that it is YUMMI good, is that it is super easy to make. I hope you will try it and love it as much as I do.

This is what you need:

1.3kg boneless beef, cleaned and cut into portions
800g - 1kg small pickling size onions, peeled and left whole
1 teacup olive oil
3-4 cloves garlic
1 teacup red wine
1/3 teacup red wine vinegar
640g tin tomatoes, or preferably fresh tomatoes

2 bay leaves
1 stem of rosemary
1 teaspoon cinnamon
sunflower oil

Measurement: In the Greek kitchen the cooks are notorious for measuring in terms of "pinches" and "handfuls," and even in written recipes,

measurements are often given in terms of what they have around the kitchen, such as a teacup. To me - this is Greek so I found this site to help me find the correct measurements: http://gre

ekfood.about.com/library/blmeasurements.htm

This is what you do:

Cut the beef into cubes and dry the off. Heat the oil in a sauce pan and saute the meat until lightly browned. You may have to do this in batches. Saute the garlic. Pour the red wine and vinegar over the meat. It will sizzle.

Add the tomatoes, bay leaves, rosemary, cinnamon and salt and pepper. Add about 250 - 300ml water, make sure its enough to cover everything. Cover and cook until the meat is almost tender.
In a large frying pan, fry the small onions until lightly browned all over. You may have to do this in batches.
Remove the onions when they are ready and place on top of the meat in the casserole.
Shake the casserole for the meat and onions to mix a little. Cover and cook until all is tender - at least 20-30 minutes (I let the onions cook with the stew for a little over and hour). There should be just a

small amount of thick tasty sauce left at the bottom.

I prefer serving this dish with rice and/or bread, but I have had it with fries and salad ~ that worked too. And of course ~ a glass of red wine.

I hope you like it ~ Enjoy!

What to do when there is a snow storm outside, Part 2.

So when it is "stay inside" weather and we've already have baked Mormor's bread what better to do than to take advantage of the mood and bake some more? That is exactly what we did ~ We made "Boller" (sweet yeast rolls) :)

One of my good friends back home, Sjefa (the boss lady), is famous for her sweet rolls - Heitevegger. These sweet rolls are big and soft and sweet and Yummi!, and I would gladly give my left pinky to get hold of her recipe. Unfortunately or may be fortunately I still have my pinky, and thus I am now hunting for

the ultimate Sweet Roll Recipe. Today we are trying the recipe that is printed on the yeast pack for sweet goodies.

This is what you need:

200 gram butter

4 dl milk

1 bag yeast

2 eggs

2 dl sugar

1 ts

salt

1 kilo white flour

1 ts Cardamom

Raisins - amount based on how much you want.

This is what you do:

Melt the butter, mix it with the milk and heat this mixture to a "little warmer than body temp.". Whip eggs and sugar lightly. Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl (I used my KitchenAid mixing bowl) before you mix the dry with the liquid. Work the dough until it is forming a sticky ball around the mixing arm. You will see that the dough will firmer up while resting/raising. Let the dough rest and raise for 30 min.

Lift the dough over on your lightly floured counter. I have a tool - a hand spatula - that I LOVE. I use it to lift doughs out of bowls, to divide doughs, to clean counters. It is very flexible and works on all kinds of yeast doughs. Divide the dough in to 20 - 25 pices, role each pice to a ball in the palm of your hand. Place each roll on a lightly greased cooking sheet. Let the rolls rest and raise for 40 minutes. Just before you bake them - glaze them with a thin coat of whipped egg - this will make them look shiny and very delicate when they are done. Be careful when you brush the egg glaze on - if you push to hard on the brush you'll end up pushing the air out of the roll = flat roll...

Bake each baking sheet in the middle of the oven for 10 - 12 minutes on 425F.

Voila ~ Sweet Rolls!

I have never found rolls like this here in the Stats and I would therefore like to share how we enjoy them. In my family we eat them with butter (the real thing) and Norwegian Brown Cheese when they are not really cold out of the owen. It is sooooo good! If you can't eat all of them right away - which probably wont be a good thing cause if you eat to manny fresh yeast rolls you run the risk of getting really really sick.... - freezing them might be a good idea Make sure they are cold before you freeze them.

Again, Enjoy! :)

While we are waiting...

So this blogging thing - it is super Fun but has to be done in between Life. Not always the easiest :) Just to let everyone know that we have only started, and not given up before it all began ~ this is what is coming the next couple of days:

~ Mormor's (Grandma's) bread and Boller (sweet rolls),

~ Stifado for the first time,

~ Lemon chicken a la Hers, and

~ French macaroons (Franske makroner).

Please stop by and enjoy with us!