Scandinavian Cooking

This week's theme was Scandinavian cuisine. It was a loooong day of cooking. This one was tough for me because I couldn't really decide what to make. Let's be honest though, I always have a rough time deciding what to make. There isn't really a method to how we decide what to cook, but because it is our family dinner we need some kind of balance between meat versus vegetables, etc. This one ended up being meat heavy. In fact, my daughter asked me quietly if there was anything that wasn't meat while we were at the table. 

We made a cucumber salad , classic Swedish meatballs, a venison stew, which everyone kept calling deer meat stew, and  I know it actually is but it sort of turned me off lol. We also had a salmon with dill sauce and a Danish Rye. 

I attempted a regular and a low cal version of the meatballs. For the low cal version I actually used the Ikea packet for the sauce. It was nowhere near as good as the authentic version. 

Oktoberfest

     So, lots of people comment after we have our feast about what we made, how it tasted, and where we found the recipes. I thought I'd get my butt in gear and started blogging about it so I could answer the questions, and hopefully convince some of you to try our favourite recipes.

This week's theme: Oktoberfest

Because it was, well, October, we thought it fitting to go German.  On the menu was braised cabbage, German potato salad, soft pretzels, an onion tart/pizza, applesauce, spaetzle, and schnitzel. Did I forget anything? Most of the recipes came from the internet, mine came from a friend familiar with all things German. She wrote out recipes from Luisa Weiss' "My Berlin Kitchen", and Classic German Baking.

Zwiebelkuchen filling:

1 1/2 cups smoked bacon (300 g, I used pork butt, best to get a whole piece and dice it) 1 tsp canola oil 6 big onions (1 kg) Caraway seed (I didn’t use because I don’t like the taste) 2 cups of gryère cheese (I added some mozzarella, the recipe calls for Emmentaler) 1 cup cream 1 dash nutmeg

As I said, I took her list of ingredients and spread them on the store bought pizza dough. I cooked it at 400 for 30 to 40 minutes. It was perfection. Most of the other recipes I am seeing for it call for sour cream instead which would give it a totally different flavour. Hmmm.

The tart/pizza was epic. It's too time intensive to put into weekly rotation, and I even cheated with frozen pizza dough. I discreetly disposed of the bag before my sisters got to my house. Ha! The potato salad (Kartoffelsalat), however, will now be part of my repertoire. Well, at least the "sauce". 

2 pounds of yellow potatoes

Sauté..

2 tbsps butter

2 yellow onions

Deglaze pan with...

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

Simmer and reduce...

2/3 cup broth

1 tbsp dijon mustard

salt

pepper

Boil potatoes, peel, dice, and put in a serving bowl. Take remaining ingredients and make sauce and simmer. Pour over potatoes and toss. Sprinkle with fresh parsley. MAKE DOUBLE THE SAUCE. That's my best advice :)

The Feast

    So, I've been posting pictures on Facebook and Instagram of our family dinners, which my kids call "The Feast" for a couple of years?! I get lots of feedback about how great the food looks and lots of questions about recipes, etc. I decided to fire up the old blog so that I can add some recipes and some details about what we are doing. 

    After living in Brooklyn, NYC for over 15 years, my husband, two daughters, and myself decided that the time was right to move back to Nova Scotia, where I am originally from. One of the main reasons for the move was to be closer to my sisters, who live in Halifax. After we had been here for a couple of months, we decided that the Sunday dinners  a traditional we wanted to keep. The thought of a  roasted chicken or pot roast EVERY Sunday seemed like it might get old pretty fast. That's when we hatched the idea to start playing around with food from around the world. 

    We wrote down a big list of countries, and put them in a hat. Some were countries already known for being foodie destinations, some weren't. It's all part of the fun! Every Sunday after we eat, we let one of the kids pull a name from the jar, and then we spend the week deciding what each of us will cook. I love to set the table in colours and textures inspired by the region we are cooking. We also love exploring our city to find the ingredients we need. Turns out, there isn't an ingredient we haven't been able to find yet! Sometimes we have to go to the "fancy" grocery store, and sometimes we have to find a tiny specialty shop we didn't know existed. 

    I've decided to start the blogging side of things a little more, so I can write in more detail about the recipes we tried. Which ones worked, which ones didn't, what we would change, and which recipes would be added to the weekly rotation for my family. 

    There are so many benefits to this weekly traditional! Getting together with my sisters and their kids, learning new cooking techniques, introducing the kids to new flavours, and the list goes on!

    

Jar Lid Painting

So a friend of mine told be that our local bulk store is letting you bring in your own jars to be filled. It used to be that you left there with a hundred little baggies and had to try to empty them into your containers when you got home. I had a stack of jars at home so I gave it a try and I thought it was super satisfying to pour the stuff right into the jars they were meant for while you were in the store. When you get there, you go to the front counter, give the employee the jar. She weighs them, marks the top with the weight, and then deducts that weight from the total as she weighs what you bought. Super simple!

Anyway, I did that once or twice and loved it, but wasn't really pleased with the cluttered look of my jars on the counter. It wasn't the stuff in the jars, but the different lids. I had some time on Saturday, and a can of chalky finish spray paint so we turned it into a craft. We roughed up the tops with a little 120 grit sandpaper, wiped them down, and I gave them a quick spray. Now I just have to figure out what I need at the Bulk Barn!

Reusing Jars

I love the idea of reusing something instead of throwing it away. I remember my grandmother always having a box of bread bags saved so she could wrap up sandwiches for my grandfather's lunch. I'm not sure if she was being ingenious or frugal, or both. Did ziploc make baggies in the early 80's? Instead of throwing out a pickle jar, I put it in the dishwasher, filled it with salt and made a label for it. 

Le Potager

                  So, a big part of my mission to live simply but beautifully centers around our time as a family at our summer cottage. In Cape Breton, we call it the bungalow. Cottage, bungalow, cabin, shack, whatever you want to call it, it is a tiny dwelling deep in the woods where we can be wild and free. Our place was built by my grandfather in the 70's, passed down to my aunt and mother, and then, eventually, to me. It is situated on a small lake between the towns of Gabarus and Louisbourg. The cottage has only one bedroom with bunk beds which we may be outgrowing, so we have started to add other sleeping quarters on the property so that we can have guests. But that isn't the focus of this post! I wanted to share some photos of the gardens. We started tilling and making rows (what the heck are they called again?) this weekend.

I am most excited about the fence. It is a witchy and fabulous wattle fence. It is probably done ALL WRONG, and we'll have to line the inside with chicken wire, but I love it. It is whimsical andwonderful and I can't wait to get planting. 

Frugal and Delicious Chicken Curry

           

                  I stopped by Wal-mart this morning on my way to work, and noticed a giant cart of reduced produce. Everything was priced right at $1.00 a bag. I grabbed a bag of cauliflower, three giant Spanish onions, green peppers, oranges, and some apples. Then I walked over to the meat section and noticed that there were three packs of bone-in chicken legs and thighs. So, as part of mission to prove that you can eat really well on a tiny budget, I headed away with a curry in mind.
            That evening, I put some ginger and garlic mixture in a pan with some butter. I buy these purees at the local Asian grocery. They make weeknight cooking just a smidge quicker. I put the chicken in until it was crispy brown, tossed in one of the onions, the cauliflower, and an .88 cent can of chick peas along with some chicken stock. I simmered it until the meat was soft and falling off the bone. I took away the bones, added some powdered coconut milk and served it over some jasmine rice. I'm sure I was breaking all kinds of curry rules, and I have no idea what kind of curry this turned out to be, but it was freaking delicious and really cheap.