It’s a Decadent Life We Lead

As much as I’ve posted about our standard bean, carrot and potato menu, I really ought to talk about the other side of shopping and cooking in this country that was only recently introduced to ready-made-meals and cake mixes.

We live a Velveeta-less existence here in Denmark, so instead I make macaroni and cheese with melted Gouda and Brie. Per pound, these cheeses are just as inexpensive as cheddar and, wow, mixing them with your standard elbow noodles make you feel like you really ought to rename it to something more snotty-sounding than "macaroni and cheese."

We also are able to access things like Greek yogurt and Häagen-Dazs ice cream a little more readily and affordably than in the States. On the other hand, the Danes just started importing Ben & Jerry’s. I know this because on every bus they have a sign advertising a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked for only $11.86 USD. I find myself staring at that sign on a regular basis; somehow always putting a firm end to the wistful thoughts with, "Holy crap! I can’t spend almost $12 for a pint of ice cream!"

And then there is Nutella, in all it’s chocolate-y, hazelnut glory. I held off on buying any until last week. You can buy Nutella in the States at most grocery stores, but there is something about eating it here in Europe that seems very decadent and high brow. “You Americans with your pea-nut buttarh thinking you are the equal of Nuu-tella! I laugh through my nose in your general direction!” I offered Michael some on a graham cracker and he looked at it warily, channeling his inner 4-year-old who still suspects that a piece of broccoli is somehow cleverly hidden in all offers of new food. It's been five days and we're already on our second jar.

Potato Lasagna

When I'm not finding a new way to cook beans, I'm usually finding a new way to cook potatoes. This is another tasty recipe I picked up from Real Simple - Potato Lasagna. The bacon adds a nice flavor and it's also nice because it works spinach into our diet. You do need to buy whole canned tomatoes and drain them or the lasagna will end up soupy (like ours did last night).

After six weeks of experimenting with biscuits and cookies in our Glorified Toaster Oven, this was the first real baking I attempted and I was thrilled when it turned out well. The general rule of thumb seems to be lower the normal cooking temperature by about 50 degrees and shorten the cooking time. And be sure to turn the broiler on 2-5 minutes before the end of the baking depending on what you're baking. And hover over the oven constantly. See? Simple. Now next time you are faced with cooking in a Glorified Toaster Oven, you'll know what to do.

Potato Lasagna
Real Simple
1/4 pound bacon (about 5 slices), cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1 medium onion, diced
1 10-ounce package frozen spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
4 pounds Idaho potatoes (about 4 large potatoes), peeled and cut into 1/8-inch slices [I scrub but do not peel the potatoes and slice them using the cheese slicer on a standard cheese grater]
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped
4 ounces Swiss, Cheddar, or mozzarella, shredded

Heat oven to 450° F.

In a large skillet over medium heat, combine the bacon and onion. Cook until the onion is caramelized and golden brown, 9 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat, mix in the spinach, and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, salt, and oregano. Set aside.

Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with vegetable spray. Arrange one layer of potatoes, overlapping slightly. Spread the tomatoes evenly on top of the potatoes. Pour 1/3 of the milk mixture over the tomatoes. Add another layer of potatoes and then the bacon-spinach mixture, spreading evenly. Top with another third of the milk mixture. Finish with the last layer of potatoes and sprinkle on the shredded cheese. Drizzle the remaining milk mixture over the dish.

Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown. Remove from oven and let rest, covered, for 10 minutes before serving.

Back in Business!

At various times I've mourned the fact that I put my precious milk frother in storage when we moved here to Copenhagen. It was bothersome enough that I've mentioned it multiple times. Since arriving in Copenhagen I've had various moments where I've thought "And why didn't I bring [X] with us??" but I can usually chalk it up to (a) it weighed too much/was too large to fit in one of our five pieces of luggage, (b) I could do without it for 10 months and/or (c) I didn't need it in two different colors.

That milk frother though... I've thought about it longingly every other morning since we arrived and kicked myself for not bringing it. I mean what was I thinking? The one tool that can add so much to any hot drink and I didn't bring it with me to the land of the "varm drikke"?? No, I stuck it callously in a box with other random kitchen items.

My birthday was last weekend and that (combined with the fact that Michael recently discovered how much he loved chai lattes) added up to a very special birthday gift. Some girls want their diamonds. Other's want their milk frothers.

Hello, Internets. I am tired.

It's 5:00PM here in Copenhagen and already pitch dark. It feels more like 8:30PM. Michael asked if I wanted him to turn on the Glorified Toaster Oven to bake our dinner biscuits and it sounded like a reasonable idea until I realized it was 4:45PM. It seems like we should celebrate the big 3-0 before we take up the eating habits of Florida's senior citizen population.

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment so I packed in a bunch of housekeeping into one day. Two loads of laundry, one mushroom stew, one golden cream of potato soup, one vacuumed apartment, two separate shopping trips, one teething toddler and the washing of approximately 72 dirty dishes later and I'm ready to call it a night.

I have been trying a number of new recipes lately. One of my very favorites is this great recipe for vegetarian chili that my graduate school/church friend Elizabeth posted recently on her blog. I didn't have any chili powder so I substituted with various things including two red hot chili peppers and a teaspoon of ground red pepper. Needless to say it had enough heat to keep us warm despite temperatures being in the windy mid-40s.

Frickadeller

Today I’m going to share with you a traditional Danish recipe for fricka-deller. Fricka-deller (pro-nounced “frick-a-dillah”) are Danish meatballs. They are traditional made with ground pork and veal, eggs, onions, breadcrumbs or flour, salt and pepper. I was talking with a native Dane about the difference between Swedish meatballs and Danish frickadeller and was basically told that Swedish meatballs are round and cooked with a sauce while Danish frickadeller are flattened a bit and usually served with potatoes and some other sidedish.

They sell a pound of “Pork-Calf” at the grocery store very inexpensively which is partly what led us to try making frickadeller in the first place. It is mixed 75 percent pork/25 percent veal and the meat is incredibly tender.

Michael has a Danish friend who passed along this basic frickadeller recipe to him:

Frickadeller
1lb minced pork and veal
1 egg
2 tbsp flour
1.5 tsp salt
pepper

Mix everything together and leave it in fridge to 'set' for at least 30 minutes.

Form into small balls and flatten slightly with a spatula. Cook in butter on medium-low heat until done. The goal with the lower heat is to keep the balls from burning even the slightest bit.

You can spice these in anyway you like. I like putting minced garlic and a little red pepper into the frickadeller mix before forming it into balls. We like to serve them with pasta dressed with garlic, red pepper flakes and parmesan.

Back in the states we made these with ground beef.

Tzatziki

Tzatziki is a Greek yogurt dip and one of the first new recipes I made when we got to Copen- hagen. It all started when we went to the grocery store looking for yogurt and found this big tub that clearly was yogurt (we weren't so sure about some of the other stuff). We brought it home, tasted it and realized this isn't like American yogurt. It tasted a lot like sour cream and had a very rich, creamy texture. A Google search revealed that it is a goats milk yogurt that isn't widely available in the U.S. outside speciality grocery stores. I bet a place like Wild Oats or Whole Foods would have it though.

But what to do with a huge tub of Greek yogurt? I headed over to Real Simple recipes, typed in 'Greek yogurt' and tzatzkiki was the first recipe to come up.

Tzatziki (Greek Yogurt Dip)
1 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup grated cucumber
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped

In a small bowl, combine the yogurt, dill, cucumber, and garlic.

I've made this recipe four times now and the key to tzatziki is to be sure that all the cucumber juices from the grating go into the dip. The sweetness of the juices balance the sour flavor of the yogurt.

I love to dip this with cucumber slices but it is also great with carrot sticks and red pepper slices.

To Market, To Market

I enjoy cooking as a hobby and my recent lifestyle change is giving me more opportunities to expand my culinary abilities. Back in the Homeland, we belonged to the Ragamuffin Cooking Club, a group of people connected through work, school, church or random chance meeting who all shared a desire to become better cooks. In that spirit, I thought I’d post about my experiences with food, kitchen challenges and especially new recipes I’m discovering over here.

I have to start by talking about two things: grocery shopping in Copenhagen and my limited kitchen equipment. First, there are three-tiers of grocery stores that I’ll call: Independent Vendors, “Kroger” and “Big Lots”. Independent Vendors include green grocers, bakeries, butchers, and fishmongers. Your Kroger stores are expensive but have just about everything you could possible be looking for. Your Big Lots are small but numerous, carry different items from week-to-week and are as cheap as you’re going to find. We largely shop at the Big Lots stores because, despite the fact that in Denmark all food purchases include a 25 percent sales tax, we’re trying to cut our monthly grocery bill by 33 percent compared to what we used to spend in the Homeland. Thus a typical Saturday requires that we shop at at least three different Big Lots stores. It helps our budgeting goals a lot that we have to carry the food home in bags the we provide ourselves; it's either provide your own bags or pay for plastic bags at the store. A heavy, $4, one liter of Coke doesn't seems so necessary when you have to carry it three blocks home.

The other challenging thing about grocery shopping here is there are no preservatives in the food. Which sounds great at first. I mean who among us is willing to stand up and say, “Yes. YES. I want to put toxic chemicals in my body!” Well, after finding produce rotting in my refrigerator less than 48 hours after purchase on at least four occasions (and irregardless of whether I bought it at a Big Lots or a Kroger-like quality store), I stood staring at a bag of half rotten potatoes thinking, “Yes. Toxic chemicals. Sign me up!”

I’m ever-so-slowly learning that my American way of grocery shopping – meal plan on Saturday, go out and buy everything I’ll need for the week – isn’t the best idea. And the many, many green grocer stands are starting to make a lot of sense. “Eeegghhmm… so you buy your fruits and vegetables the day you plan to cook with them… ahhh….”

Second, my kitchen. Our Danish kitchen is darling. It has beautiful wood countertops, a sweet round sink and a brand new glass top range with four burners. We are lacking a dishwasher and an oven. For baked goods, I have what amounts to a large toaster oven to bake in. I’m learning it’s more than meets the eye since, after five collective failures, I’ve managed to bake chocolate chip cookies and homemade biscuits. There are a few equipment deficiencies like I don't have a blender, food processor or a mixer, but I'm learning to work around those things.

For dishwashing, I have Michael. :)

Instant What?

John had a weird night last night that resulted in my not getting a lot of solid rest. (He has all but completely adjusted to the time change.) On mornings like this, I'm glad the FDA and the good doctors at the Mayo Clinic say it's okay for pregnant women to consume 200mg of caffeine.

I am a committed coffee drinker going back 20 years ago when I was eight and my sainted mother allowed me to drink decalf coffee with skim milk when I wanted something warm to drink in the wintertime rather than hot chocolate because it had too much sugar. I'm pretty particular about my coffee. I love my Starbucks and I think McDonalds makes the best cup of less expensive coffee. I like to grind my own beans and filter the water for the coffee pot. I had a little milk frother, that I unfortunately forgot to bring with me, so I could make my own lattes. I can drink truly good coffee black; "lesser" coffees require milk and sugar

But then last fall, our Danish landlady left a container of instant coffee in the apartment and in a moment of desperation, I made myself a cup and puckered my lips preparing for the first awful sip. I liked it. It was actually good enough to drink black! Who knew Nescafé Guld Rund Og Mild could be so delicious? Taster's Choice doesn't taste like this!

During our stay here, I am determined to learn to make espresso with moka pot and the illy coffee (I have a vague memory that Ros Crinean said that was the best Italian brand). But when my son is clapping his hands at my feet and saying "ba? ba?" (translation: up) first thing in the morning, it's a whole lot easier to pop a spoonful of instant in a cup and pour on the hot water than go through my coffee snob morning ritual.