Mushroom Soup That Makes You Want To Scream YES YES I WANT MORE!

I really hope no one takes offense to that title I just had  to use it because my kids were giving me such a hard time about it and I was laughing so hard...I love to tease them and hear them squawk it reminds me of the good ol´days with my younger sister...she was also fun to tease....so just bear with me on the title...but it´s actually true also!!! I made the best soup...it made me giddy....who knew a soup could do that??


Now...a warning...I was so hungry after smelling this soup cook that when I finally told the kids it was ready I totally forgot that I had not made any bacon to decorate the top of the soup with, like I planned on doing. So there is no decoration BUT if you want, add some crispy bacon on top and maybe some chives..that would be scrumptious...I was going to dive into this soup and didn´t want any distractions on my way in...although bacon would have been a lovely distraction, don´t you think?

The original recipe for this is in Norwegian and you can find it HERE. It´s from that TV show I told you about the other day, 4 Stars For Dinner. (Fire Stjernes Middag) I used google translate to translate the recipe for my English readers...am I not the sweetest??? hehehehe..


500 g cleaned, assorted wild mushrooms (difficult now, but the flavor,mushrooms, portobello mushroom + frozen + possibly some dried, soaked)
2 tablespoons oil
1 clove crushed garlic
1 shallot, sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1 carrot, sliced
½ parsley root, sliced
3 juniper berries
1 thyme sprig
1-2 cups of white wine
2-3 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
crushed sea salt and ground black pepper
4 dl cream


Procedure:
Cleaned mushrooms fried in oil until it is slightly golden and aromas emerge.
Put the onion, garlic and butter, then add white wine and cook slightly.
Add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil with half the cream and season to taste.
Let simmer just under ten minutes.
The rest of the cream whipped to fluffy (not too stiff) and turn into whipped cream just before serving.
The soup is not filtered, so it's nice if all the pieces are sufficiently cleaned and cut into nice chunks.
Alternatively, you can run some of the soup with a hand blender.
Good forest experience!


Don´t you just love Google translate? Good Forest Experience...hahahahaha...so cute....funny little Google...


Now I need to correct some things that I did which weren´t in the recipe and some things I didn´t do. I didn´t whip my cream. I didn´t use Juniper berries and I didn´t use a Thyme sprig. I used about 5dl of chicken broth, instead of the thyme sprig I used some dry thyme and some garlic pepper. I didn´t use 4dl of cream as I only had about 3. So I used that and about half a box of cremè fraichè.  I also used about a quarter of the parsley root, finely sliced and then chopped into tiny pieces (same cutting method with my carrots). I used about 1.5 dl white wine. (Black Tower) I also used half of a regular yellow onion finely chopped instead of a shallot. Finally 2 garlic cloves instead of one...can you ever have too much garlic??? 


I used a blender on some of the soup so there wasn´t just big chunks but some smaller chunks. It was just soooooooo good. Serve this with the best bread you can find with a little butter on top and I promise you´ll be jumping on the first plane to Norway just to give me a hug and thank me for sharing this recipe with you. Even if you don´t like mushrooms, you´ll love this soup...trust me will ya??


My baby girl is in pain and it is really bothering me as a parent to be so helpless in helping her. 

She has a double prolapse in her back. At least she did last time they checked. She is going in for a new MR next Tuesday. When the results are back from that they will be sending her to a back specialist in Gjøvik which is about 45 minutes from here. There they will decide if she is going to have an operation or rehabilitation in a nearby town. Our doctor thinks most likely it will be rehabilitation. We´re hoping for that also. It´s times like this the Norwegian health care system sucks in my opinion. It takes so long to get her seen and get a diagnosis and a treatment plan going and in the meantime she is in so much pain, sometimes to the point of tears...like today when she called her Dad and I (two different calls) crying and talking about how it feels like she is walking around with a knife in her back constantly. I was extremely disappointed in our regular doctor who basically told me to let her have paracet (like Tylenol in the USA) as often as she needed to stay out of pain. I´m not a big believer in medicating for everything and my kids haven´t been raised to take pills for every little thing. So it felt like a big time blow off from the doctor who we were visiting in hopes of getting some help for her pain. Just take some pain killer and call me in the morning....voila...the end of all your problems! Yeah....right. 


It´s the worst feeling in the world when your child is in pain and you can´t really do anything to take the pain away. When you´re fighting a system which has all the time in the world while your child is in pain and you want some help NOW. I´m trying to muster up all the patience I possibly can and hoping that when we get to the back specialist she will finally get some help for her back and she will finally get some relief from the pain she has been in. We can hope at least. Can´t even imagine how this health care system works if you had an even more serious health issue which couldn´t wait....ugh...shiver to think about it...


Have a great evening everyone....this will be my second post for today but the first one was a quick recipe for a yummy fish dinner and since I´m now off until Monday I had time to share some more recipes with you and I promise you, that soup.....YOU WANT TO TRY IT....mark my words...


Until next time my friends....

Fish In A Hurry

Ok, this post will be as quick as my dinner last night. Oh I love you guys...just don´t have time for this BUT with that said, this dinner was so good I can´t not share it with you! I asked a friend at work what she was going to have for dinner and she said she was going to have some sort of fish up in pita bread with salad. I thought....mmmmm....sounds wonderful! I went to workout after work and hadn´t taken up any fish that wasn´t frozen so I decided to buy fish cakes. Yeah..these are definitely not as good as my mother in laws- she is amazing when it comes to fish food but they are the next best thing and were not frozen! 

Now just about any Norwegian will know how to make fish cakes from scratch which will taste a 1000 times better...it´s kind of like skiing...Norwegians are born knowing what to do and it´s the same thing with the "gold" from the sea...they just know how to magically transform the delicacies of the sea into great things to eat. Here is a recipe by Jamie Oliver if my English speaking friends would like to have a go! Anyways, back to my store bought fish cakes.

I warmed these up and while that was happening, in another bowl I mixed together garlic marinaded scampi and crawfish tails along with some Old Bay Seasoning and mayonnaise, spring onion, and sugar peas.

Season after taste, I used a lot of this stuff because...it´s just gooooooooood! Finally, you warm up your pita bread, stuff it with mixed salad, your fish cake, top it with the scampi and crawfish salad and more mixed green salad- as much as you can- it´s not easy to fill these pita breads! Voila...a healthy meal with fish and seafood in a hurry!!!

We had to use a knife and fork on this one...she was bulging out all over the place!!!! This is really really good folks so if you´re looking for something healthy and quick...give it a try! For my English speaking friends who are daring enough to try the fish cake recipe- they freeze beautifully...so give it a try!!!


Until next time my friends........

Something Sweet For My Sweeties

Yesterday was Valentine´s Day and I really struggled to decide if I was going to do something for the kids or just blow the day off. I wasn´t really feeling very well and didn´t really want to go anywhere but then I thought ok...It´s my kiddos and I love them and need to show them in some way. At first I thought instead of baking something I´d just get some Valentine chocolate at the store and a card or something...but alas, Valentines is not celebrated everywhere in Norway yet..so not every store has tons of Valentines stuff to choose from....or even a little to choose from. My local grocery store had NOTHING. ZIPPO. I thought about just buying a bag of candy...but it didn´t seem like there was much feeling in that and Valentines day is about showing you care..


So I ended up making these Coconut chocolate pinwheels. The recipe is here she calls these something else but I figured Coconut chocolate pinwheels worked...

You´d think with chocolate, coconut, and sugar these would be super sweet and heavy but they aren´t. The puff pastry makes this a light desert that doesn´t weigh your stomach down and the coconut, sugar, and chocolate is just enough to give it a sweetness but doesn´t over do it. I´m sure you all can decorate with the chocolate better then me. I just flipped it on...my kids don´t notice details like how chocolate is drizzled on a cookie...it´s in their mouth and headed for their stomach before they´d notice something like that....but if you´re into details...by all means.....drizzle nicely :-)


Now, with something sweet made for my sweeties it was time for something healthy. Hey, I´m a mamma who cares about her kiddos and while I want to spoil them with sweetness I also want them to be healthy. So dinner was inspired by a commercial which is being played here in Norway in an attempt to get you to eat more fish. A famous skier (woman) is making a oriental wok dish with salmon. So yep...you guessed it...I did the same thing. I used the same veggies I saw she had in her dish but added some red onion, and minced garlic because...well...because I love garlic and onions...hahahahaha...simple as that! I used an oysters and spring onion wok sauce and while mine doesn´t look AS perfect as the commercial´s version it sure as heck tasted great! I served this with some egg noodles and voila...a healthy yummy meal which my kids adored as much as the coconut chocolate pinwheels :-)

Sarah came in with a beautiful bouquet of white roses she said were for me from my honey in Brazil. I didn´t get a chance to take a photo before it was dark and my lighting in my house isn´t the best so I´ll have to photograph them when I get home from work. Was such a nice surprise, I love when the Captain does things like that! Although I´ll admit I´m not a girl who needs THINGS to feel loved, it is fun to get things, especially when you don´t expect it! 


Hope you all had a wonderful Valentines Day! Enjoy your hump day...only two more days until the weekend and I can´t tell you how happy I am about that. I just hope this icky feeling I have doesn´t develop into anything more serious. People are dropping like flies around me so I wouldn´t be surprised but I like to pride myself on a healthy immune system which keeps me on my feet most of the time, even when people are dropping around me.....however, sometimes I´m not so lucky....cross your fingers with me...


Until next time my friends....

Over The Hills And Through The Woods....

No, he´s not heading to Grandmother´s house...he´s not even heading to my house...he was just passing by...a lovely sleigh ride through the woods...so peaceful and charming. Do you see the poles sticking up in the back of the sleigh? When he uses his sled at night he lights those up with a fire so you can see him in the dark. I know this because he´s driven past my house at night with his sled and torches..it was charming...magical. Made me want my own horse and sled so I could do the same thing. But back to reality....while it would be fun with a horse that is one of those animals that is MUCH more difficult to get the Captain to agree on then sweet little babies like this one....

Isn´t she just the sweetest looking baby??? We went to two more puppy shows this past weekend and she was best in breed both days! The judges loved her and said she has a promising future! 

Heck, I didn´t need a judge to tell me she has a promising future! I´ve been assuring her she has a promising future since she came to live with us. She´s is and will always be a highly loved and spoiled family member. Just like the rest of the four legged gang. The only difference is with this size it´s much easier to take her with us when we explore the world. So this little baby will be with us on future trips around Europe. Her rabies vaccination is already in the bag so now it´s just to decide where we will be going and arrange that she will be with us. For the big babies we have to leave behind when we travel we will be looking for a new kennel help as ours has travelled half way around the world to Australia for a study year. Anyone reading this and living in Norway- preferably around us- and interested in coming and being a babysitter for our gang when we need it (perfect job for students) let me know! 


I´ve been really tired lately. Can´t really put it into words how tired I´ve been but I´ve tried going to bed early only to wake up in the middle of the night. Last night I was just sure I had overslept. Jumped up and looked at the clock and it was 2:15AM! I´m not sure what´s going on...but I will continue to try and get caught up on my sleep. There is a lot going on and I´ve had two very busy weekends so I am hoping my body is just reacting to that. What is your best advice to induce sleep? What´s your pre-bedtime routines?

Coffee anyone? A cup or two of coffee in the morning and I´m able to function despite a rough night but I almost never drink coffee past 2PM. Maybe I should cut coffee out completely? But it´s so good......ugh....and I have that fancy shmancy coffee machine that makes all the fancy shmancy coffees...hmmmm....


That´s all from me tonight...one of my favourite cooking programs is on TV now...Four Stars Dinner (Fire stjerne´s middag in Norwegian) where four famous people take turns having the other three over for dinner at their homes. This show satisfies my curiosity into how other people live and inspiration for new food to try :-) Do you have a favourite cooking show?


Until next time my friends.....

Focaccia Bread And Friendships

This past weekend we were at a double puppy show for Cookie. Her first! She did really well and brought home a best in breed on Sunday. Her breeder, Heidi, showed her for me. I had shown her on Saturday and since it was a first for both of us (first time in the ring, on a leash, etc etc, for Cookie and first time showing little dogs for me) we ended up in second place behind Heidi and Cookie´s half sister, Ida. The critique was great and very promising on Saturday and even more promising and glorious on Sunday! Cookie managed to charm the judge like nobody´s business on Sunday. As she skipped (hopped) around the ring she made a quick dash for the judge, where she placed her little paws up on the legs to the judge, inviting the judge to pick her up and cuddle with her. I said to my kids, jokingly, as the judge picked her up she was probably sticking her tounge out at the other puppies! As if to say, "Nanna nanna boo boo, I´m cuter then you and the judge loves me..." hahahahaha...of course this is all in my wild imagination and she didn´t really stick her tounge out...just in case you were wondering! 

Instead of driving 2 hours home on Saturday we were so lucky to be able to spend the evening with one of the dearest friends I have. Mona and I met each other 21 years ago at a picnic for the Norwegian club in San Antonio, Texas. Mona was an aupair living in San Antonio and it was Mona who introduced me to the Captain. She knew a nice Norwegian boy (The Captain) who was living in Austin as an aupair and we could spend the night with him when we went up to Austin to go out and party on the famous 6th street. The rest is as they say history! I´ve always joked with Mona that since she started this "eventyr" (Adventure) with me and the Captain that she was bound to be a part of my life forever! She has no choice! Hahahaha! Unfortunately Mona and I have moved at different speeds in life. While I was busy raising little babies and living on the beautiful but oh so quiet island of Averøy, on the west coast of Norway, Mona was living the single life in Oslo, traveling, dating, and living up life and couldn´t understand why I couldn´t do a little more exciting things just because I had young children! Now my children are much older and Mona is in the beginning of her parenthood days with a beautiful 3 year old and a baby on the way. I have no idea how she finds the energy since she is a year younger then me and we´re no spring chickens! Never the less she is a great mother and her daughter is sweet and charming just liker her mother. What I love about my friendship with Mona is that even though it can go long periods between times we visit each other or talk together, we can always pick right back up where we left off. It is always comfortable and easy going and that is a great friendship! Mona means a lot to me and always will. I love her like a sister and I think such friendships are rare these days so that makes her all the more special to me. Below are some photos of Mona and her beautiful daughter who was really good with little Cookie! Perhaps she will be a dog trainer someday? ;-) Potato chips were very effective training goodies!

 What I also love about Mona is every time I visit her she is always making something I wouldn´t have thought about trying on my own. This past weekend we got to try tapas with her. Lots of goodies and most of which I had eaten before but she served a couple things I hadn´t tried before. One was dates wrapped in a prosciutto type meat called spekeskinke here in Norway. The mixture of salt and sweet was and always will be a hit with me and I wasn´t disappointed this time either. I had never eaten dates before but will definitely try them again especially if they´re wrapped in the salty goodness of a prosciutto! I also tried green olives in a lovely herb marinade. I thought they were ok, a little strong in taste but when I ate them together with a meatball and they were heavenly! So now I can say I´ve tried those and they didn´t kill me!!! HAHAHAHAHA!! 


Being the carbo-holic I am I fell in love with the focaccia bread Mona made for us. I talked her into giving me the recipe (which wasn´t difficult) and decided to try making it tonight. Here are the results:

Here is the recipe for the Focaccia:

30 gram fersk gjær (30 grams fresh yeast)
6 dl lunkent vann (6dl warm water)
800 gr hvetemel  (800 grams flour)
2 ss sukker         (2Tbsp Sugar)
1 ts salt                (1 tsp salt)

Hev 30           (let rise for 30 minutes)

Lag dressingmix/marinade   (Make the dressing mix/marinade)
ca 3 dl olivenolje          (about 3dl olive oil....I would suggest slightly less..)
3 hvitløk                          (3 garlic cloves)
2-3 ts rosmarin(krydder)  (2-3tsp rosemary. I used about 4 twigs of fresh rosemary)
Bland i food prosessor.    (blend in a mixer until you get a a dressing consistency and everything is chopped finely)

Trykk deigen ut i en langpanne. Lag hull med fingrene og hel marinaden over.Bruk gjerne pensel for å få det gjevnt. Bruk så mye du synes er nødvendig. Kan se mye ut men det blir veldig godt selv om det er blir litt fettete. Hev så i 30 min igjen.  

Pat the dough out in a long pan. Make holes with your fingers and pour the marinade over. Use a brush so you get the oil evenly divided on the dough. Use as much as you deem necessary ( I used a little too much I think- exactly what the recipe called for- and next time I think I´ll use a little less) It can look like a lot of oil but it´s actually very good to use the majority of this marinade even if it looks fatty. Let it rise again for 30 minutes. 

Stek så i ca 25 min på 200 grader.  Bake for 25 minutes at 400F.

I also sprinkled a little coarse sea salt over the top once I brushed the marinade on!

I served this tonight with a yummy egg pasta with scampi, sugar peas, and red onion in a creamy sauce. 

This weekend we´re heading back down to Oslo on Saturday and Sunday for two more puppy shows. There are only 2 puppies entered each day. Cookie and her half sister owned by her breeder, Heidi. However, Heidi is awaiting puppies and if they don´t arrive by Saturday they aren´t coming. So it will just be us. Not very exciting being in the ring alone but we´ll look at it as great practice. We won´t be spending the night with Mona this time but the show location is only 1.5 hours away (each way) so we´ll be ok. Sunday is Mother´s Day in Norway. Isn´t that odd? It´s the only country who celebrates it now rather then in May....go figure?! I don´t mind, I think a mother´s job is so important that I tell my kids they´re welcome to celebrate me twice...once in February and once in May! I´m worth it! HAHAHAHAHA! ;-)


Have a great weekend everyone, not sure I´ll get to post this weekend but I´ll be back as soon as I can after the weekend. In the meantime give that focaccia a try, you won´t be sorry! 


Until next time my friends!

Warm Winter Sun And Warm Whole Grain Rolls

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
Victor Hugo

Up rose the wild old winter-king, And shook his beard of snow; "I hear the first young hard-bell ring, 'Tis time for me to go! Northward o'er the icy rocks, Northward o'er the sea, My daughter comes with sunny locks: This land's too warm for me!"
Charles Godfrey Leland

                      “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.”- Victor Hugo

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. - Charles Dickens

Another warming thought on a cold winter day is whole grained rolls. I guess what isn´t fair to those of you reading this and hoping for some recipe to follow is that I never follow a recipe when I make these which is why I get different results each time. But for these I used approximately the following: 1 kilo of whole grain wheat flour, 50 grams of flaxseed, 100 grams sunflower seeds, 200 grams oatmeal, 2tsp salt, 8tbsp veg.oil, 1 liter warm water, and 50 grams fresh yeast. I used my kitchen machine and mixed everything until I got a dough that released itself from the sides of the bowl. I let it rise for about 45 minutes. Then rolled them out and let them rise again for about 30 minutes and then baked them at 180C/350F for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. This is an easy recipe you can add too if you´d like...want some nuts in your rolls? Add em´! Want some herbs? Add em´! You can pretty much do what you want, but the more dry ingredients you add the more you´ll want to increase your liquids so you can get a dough that will release from the bowl or not stick to your hands. 

Have a great hump day everyone!

Until next time my friends!

Smoke On The Water

“Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen

“My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt
away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.”
― George R.R. Martin

“I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future - the timelessness of the rocks and the hills - all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”
― Andrew Wyeth

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”
― Edith Sitwell

Until next time my friends...