Lukas

My fabulous friend, you are awesome.

“What was your favorite food as a kid?”

“Swedish pancakes”

“What was the first meal you made that you were proud of?”

“A quesadilla”

“What is your favorite ingredient?”

He did not tell me this directly but I know that he loves cinnamon.

“What music do you like to hear when you cook?”

“Norah Jones”

“What is your favorite midnight snack?”

“Kettle chips”

“What one food would you take with you to a desert island?”

“Bullar”

“What's your favorite restaurant?”

“Locally--Puccinis”

“What food from your home country do you miss most?”

“Anything that my grandmother cooks--the regional meals of west-central Sweden.”

“What is a normal meal in Sweden?”

“For Breakfast: yogurt with oats and coffee, or roasted fiber bread with cheese.

For lunch: spaghetti or any quick carb-filled meal.

For dinner: People always have soup on Thursday. On other days people eat meatballs with whole cooked potatoes and lingonberry jam.

We drink about seven cups of coffee a day.”

Baking Some Swedish Awseomeness

because we are cool and cute

 This is the day we made our plans. We had a fun time

our masterpieces

we are awesome

conversions are hard. that's why I use the google

the beginnings of greatness

This is how we dressed to go to Kroger. I mean we are that fabulous.

flour-y

I got tired.

we were curious

still curious

On the last day of school of last semester my friends and I went out for coffee. We were supposed to go ice skating but then we decided we didn’t like exercise enough to pay the five dollars. Anyhoo, at Third Street Stuff Lukas and I both got cinnamon steamers and he told me that Swedish food had lots of cinnamon. Then, it dawned on me that one of my favorite Europeans should definitely contribute to my project. He is also the one who helped me come up with the name of my blog and my cat. Basically, he is awesome. And he said yes. Like I said, awesome.

So he came over to my house, and my other European, Lusi, joined us. We had a grand time. It was wonderful even though while the butter was melting and we were measuring out the milk, we realized that all the milk had been consumed. It remained wonderful through our quick trip to Kroger in our aprons, giant sweaters and purses. It became slightly less great when we were adding our final ingredient and realized that we needed a lot more flour than we had. That was when we all journeyed across the street to my neighbor’s house and had to beg for a cup or two of flour. After that low point we set the dough aside to rise and we made a quick lunch of soup and brie on french bread (because we are nothing but not classy). And even though the dough protested and did not rise, we had an altogether fab time. We gossiped, laughed and gossiped and managed to get flour on every part of ourselves. It was fantastic.

I highly recommend trying Swedish food that does not come from Ikea’s frozen aisle, because it is way better. And you will feel even cooler while you eat it.

Swedish "Bullar" - You are welcome for this. It is very good.

I am bad with yeast. I am pretty sure that any baked good that has to rise is out to get me. I’m really not kidding about this. Because cinnamon rolls are my favorite dessert food and I try to make them at least once a year and they fail every time. I think they just do it to spite me now.

Anyways, even those these were Swedish, they still did not rise like they should have. But after everything I was just happy that I made them. And after eating them, I decided that that they were probably just as good dense as they would be fluffy. (Lukas pronounced fluffy in Swedish floooofy. It was funny. I laughed and then had to sit down.)

Another reason this was difficult was because it was in European measurements and the recipe was in Swedish. We made it work though because we are awesome and winners.

Here is the delicious recipe for Bullar or Kanelbullar, as much of the internet calls it. According to both my friend and many other blogs, these should be eaten with coffee as an afternoon snack. I approve.

This was Lukas' Swedish Recipe.

Ingredients (from the recipe that we used):

(makes 48 rolls)

All of our ingredients. Because we are organized

Dough-

• 10.5 tablespoons of butter/ 1 stick and 2.5 tablespoons of another stick (150 grams)
• around 2 cups of milk (5 deciliters or 500 milliliters)
• 10 teaspoons of yeast (50 grams)
• ½ tablespoon of salt
• slightly more than half a cup of sugar (1.5 deciliters/150 milliliters)
• 1 ½ teaspoons of cardamom
• around 8 cups of flour (until the dough is dough like and looks like dough and doesn’t stick to surfaces)

Filling-

• 2 tablespoons of cinnamon
• slightly less than ½ a cup of sugar (1 deciliter/100 milliliters) (ALSO I JUST REALIZED THAT WE FORGOT THIS AND IT EXPLAINS SO MANY THINGS. HOW COULD WE DO THIS?)
• around a cup of room temp butter (until it is very thick and it looks like you have used too much--that is when it is enough)

Topping-

• 1 egg
• pearl sugar (this is not necessary or sold in America but delicious)

Directions:

1. Melt butter for dough in a pot big enough to pour the milk into.
   
2. Then pour the milk into it when butter is melted. Stir till it is 98 degree Fahrenheit. (That is not very hot.)
   
3. In a mixing bowl pour the milk/butter mixture over the yeast. Then stir it some more.
4. Add salt, sugar, and cardamom.
   
5. Gradually add flour until it becomes dough like and does not stick to the sides of the bowl.
   
6. Let rise for about an hour or until it has doubled in size. If it doesn't rise you will have delicious but dense Bullar.
7. Preheat oven to 425.
8. After the hour, knead the dough on a floury surface until you think it has been kneaded enough/it isn’t sticky.
9. Cut in half.
10. Roll into a rectangle.
11. Spread room temp butter over the dough until it is very thick.

    

    We used our hands to spread the butter but a knife is fine too. If you use your hands it feels like your fingers are ice skating.

12. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over the buttered dough.
13. Begin to roll the long side so that it looks like a very long, pale snake.
14. Cut into half inch pieces. (The best and most fun way to do this is to take a piece of dental floss and use it like spies in the killer movies use the metal thread to cut off people’s heads. This means put it under the dough and then cross the ends and pull so that it cuts the dough. Do not use this for killing advice. If you are boring you can use a knife. That is not killing advice either.)
15. Put the uncooked bullar face down on a cookie sheet that is covered in parchment paper.
16. Brush each bullar with whisked egg.
17. Sprinkle with pearl sugar, or nothing.
    
18. Bake for about 12 min or until they are brown and delicious looking but do not wait until they are burnt. This is a fine line. Do not cross it.

    

    We almost crossed that line.

19. Cool and eat with coffee, or tea, or milk, or whatever.
    

I have decided to include a different recipe and a YouTube video just in case you were really intent on doing this because I recognize that my recipe, while hilarious, is hard to understand.

Here is the other recipe. This person looks legit and her blog is called Table. She seems very cool and together, I am not so sure she would like me.

This is the YouTube video in case you are still confused.

Roasted Potatoes - Host Mom Style

The potatoes are to the side. Duh

My wonderful host mom, Sophie, was an amazing chef. She had breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table everyday, and in almost every meal she used Herbes de Provence. One of my favorite things that she made with this wonderful bottle of herbs were roasted regular and sweet potato. We would have this side dish around four times a week, and it was perfect for any meal. One of my most vivid pictures of us is me sitting at the island, telling her about my day, while she peeled potatoes for lunch. 

Most people went back for seconds so I'm assuming that I am not the only one that thinks they are delish.

For this greatness, one must preheat the oven to 400.Peel and chop potatoes into triangle like shapes. I’m not actually sure how to describe this but they were about an inch, basically a large bite. Anyways, put the potatoes in a pyrex dish. Cover them in olive oil, salt, pepper and Herbes de Provence. Pop them in the oven for a long time, I’m going to guesstimate around 40 min, basically when the potatoes are soft and brownish and edible looking. You will know, you will feel it.

And so you have it. Roasted potatoes.

Another great thing to roast is red pepper, feta cheese and Herbes de Provence. Basically you slice the peppers into strips, add entire chunks of cheese, cover in olive oil, and herbs and pop in the oven just like the potatoes. It is equally delicious.

Crapple

Crapple

                                                   My ginger

Crapple is the name my best ginger created for Apple Crumble. It does not mean crap.* Because crapple is the opposite of crap. It is gold. The nectar of the gods. Deliciousness.

*A joke: Annie (my best ginger), had to move her car and came back into my house and declared, “It smells like crapple in here!” I was utterly offended, until I wasn’t. The name is funny because things like that happen, we are funny people.

Here is the recipe. You are welcome.

Ingredients:

Filling-

• 8 largeish apples
• Juice of 1 lemon (or if you don’t have a lemon, half of an orange. It works well.)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp flour (white or whole wheat. it depends on how healthy you want your dessert to be)
• ¾ cup raisins*
• water or apple cider (apple cider is better)

Topping-

• 1 cup of rolled oats
• ⅓ of wheat germ (honestly I have never used this and mine turn out delicious, but go for it if you want to go crazy. If you decide to not go crazy just add more flour.)
• ½ cup flour (white or whole wheat. see above)
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp cinnamon
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ butter

*optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Peel and slice apples into the roughly the same sized, thin slices.
3. Fill 9x13” with the apples.
4. Sprinkle the lemon juice, cinnamon, flour, raisins on top of the apples and mix it all up.
5. Pour apple cider over the apples until it covers the bottom (the more, the sugary-er)
6. Make topping--mix all of the ingredients in a bowl until it looks like crumble. Crumble means that it is evenly mixed and has formed tiny little balls.
7. Pour evenly on top of apples
8. Bake for 25 min, or until apples are soft.

And there you go, you have crapple.

Serving suggestion: Pour heavy cream over, or serve with ice cream, or even whipped cream. Really, any kind of cream.

Dinner Partay

We are the most fabulous 40-year-old-17-year-olds.

Annie was to eager to eat this before we took the picture, that is why there is a tiny bit of brie gone.

Fancy

At the end of the semester college decisions were coming in and we were in need of some celebrating and some comforting. During an hour of phone call logistics my friends and I planned the perfect get together. First, we would meet up at Goodwill and do some good, old fashioned sweatering. Second, we would drive to Kroger and pick up some foods. Third, we would go home and throw the most kick ass dinner party of the year. It was a grand plan.

While sweatering we were thoroughly entertained by the gems found at Goodwill, and I found the perfect sunday man-sweater.

We managed to meet up at Kroger and proceed to make a dinner plan in the produce section. We (accidentally) bought enough potatoes to keep Idaho in business for another year or two, apples for dessert, salad greens (and reds, and oranges, and yellows), as well as a the fanciest box of soup we could find, Kroger made french bread, and appetizers.

We drove home and thirty minutes later when the stragglers got to my house with the rest of the groceries, we got to work. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong were singing from Pandora and we were hard at work. Right away, we set up a plate of crackers and brie. Then we popped open some sparkling cider (because we are that classy) and danced around the kitchen preparing our meal.

Somehow all five of us managed to peel, chop, stir and mix a great dinner together in a rather short amount of time. It was the potatoes that held us back. Damn them. We ended up having a European style dinner because we started to cook at 7 and sat down to eat near 9:30. Obviously, we ate the entire chunk of brie while cooking to keep us going and to keep the cider from going to out heads.

At dinner we toasted to being the coolest 40 year-old at heart. In the end, the soup was kinda cold and the bread was only Kroger good, but the rest of the food was wonderful and the company was better. 

  

The recipe for my host mom, Sophie’s, fantastic and mindblowingly good roast potatoes coming soon, as well as our very own recipe for Crapple.

Pad Thai

I'm serious. It is my favorite food of all time.

noodles

The market in Lexington, where you can get all of these wonderful things.

noodles. soaked over night.

This is Kookie.

Me trying to cook and getting confused.

slightly less confused

sauce. yum.

beautiful

To close out the year I will post about my all time favorite food, ever. It is Pad Thai. You might have guessed that from my title.

My mother is something else, let me tell you. She got sick over the weekend. It was the same sickness that hit my sister the week before.  The week before she didn’t let Lucy (my sister) stay home. On Sunday my mom decided to stay home. That did not sit well with my sister. And therefore my mother thought it was reasonable to let my sister stay home with her. Then, out of fairness, she said I could stay home to. I waffled. Then I decided, what the hell, I’ll skip. The next morning I woke up feeling like poop. We decided it was Karma.

I had been craving Pad Thai for weeks. It is my favorite food so I can only go around a month without eating it and my month was coming to an end. (Not having it was one of the few horrible things about living in Germany. The other horrible thing was the salsa.) As a surprise my mom went out and got me Pad Thai from Jasmine Rice while I was working on a fascinating set of notes about Indian fighting elephants. Then. Right as I was inhaling my still steaming box of deliciousness, she told me that she had arranged for me to go to the restaurant for senior shadowing day. Now don’t go thinking it was out of pure love and selflessness, she had her motives. One: I require a lot of Thai food and it was breaking the bank. Two: She wanted me to actually shadow someone on shadowing day rather than go to waffle house with my friends because she had told our class thousand times to not whimp out and to actually do something. Did I mention she is my teacher? Long story.

Anyways, she and her personable self was talking to the owner and convinced her to teach me how to make Pad Thai. So on shadowing day I went to the restaurant an hour before it opened and made me some Pad Thai.

Here is what happened:

·      Me: Knocked on door (3 times- no problem, just panicking that mom was pulling some harsh elaborate prank on me to disappoint me forever). Door is opened. I say hi to the owner, Kookie. She is nice. We go back to the kitchen. I am amazed.

·      We start talking. She tells me things. Like: She started the restaurant when she lost her job in 2009, even though she always wanted to work with kids and old people. She started a restaurant because her mom made street food in Thailand and she knew how to cook. Its been going for three years. (I knew that because I have been having Pad Thai there since freshman year.) Her favorite food that she makes is Pad Se Ew, I think.  Before she opened her restaurant she worked in Thai restaurants around town to gain experience. She moved to the US in 2002. She plans on staying in Lexington because she has a family here. And she likes it here.

·      The whole time we prep and cook. This means the conversation lasted around 20 minuets, a record for someone who is uncomfortable in such social situations.

This is how to make Pad Thai:

1. Turn on the heat under the giant wok. It is very hot. Like 400 degrees hot.

2. Add the oil. Make sure it heats up to crazy temperatures. Even hotter than scalding coffee. Which is pretty damn hot and scalding.

3. Crack an egg into the oil. Then wait for it to scramble/ cook.

4. Add chicken, which has already been half cooked.

5. Then add around a serving of noodles that have been soaked in water overnight.

6. Add your sauce. Hers was made of sugar, vinegar, salt, oil, chicken broth, and 1-2 drops of yellow food coloring. It might contain other stuff that I didn’t catch, but that is what I got.

7. Next add the vegetables. Aka the tiny bits of shredded carrot and cabbage and sliced green onion.

8. If you aren’t allergic add peanuts. And if you don’t cry when you eat spicy food, add some spice.

9. Put in take out box.

10. Garnish and enjoy.

Pretty simple. But here is the devastating fact that I learned: you CAN NOT make Pad Thai at home. Well, you can but it won’t be good like it is from a restaurant. This horrible piece of news is because stoves at home don’t get nearly as hot as they should be to make it. I was upset.

So now everyone has to order his or her Pad Thai out. If you live in Lexington, you should go to Jasmine Rice because it has kick ass Pad Thai. They have other food too, and it is also good. And Kookie is super nice. If you don’t live in Lexington and you would like to sponsor a trip for me to go sample all the Pad Thai in your city, I will be willing to negotiate with you.

So here's to a great year. And many more years, like it. Full of Pad Thai.