On A Foggy September Morning....

I don´t have any recipes to share with you today. Oh this doesn´t mean I am not doing anything, cinnamon roll dough is rising as I type this..I promised my little guy some rolls if he would help me clean...that was two days ago and he´s been reminding me of my promise ever since...a mamma can´t go back on her word now can she? The in-laws are coming by later today and I´ll be making "gratinert klippfisk" or in English, I believe we would say fish casserole? I´m out on a limb here, someone who still remembers English please help me....anyhoot- it will be good, with a Norwegian salted fish (cod) and potatoes, cream, onions, and cheese...it´s bound to be good! I think I´ve shared this with you before but I´ll take some photos and show you again next time I post :-)

This morning while I sit here and wait for my dough to rise and my family to rise I thought I´d share some photos and some thoughts with you. Enjoy...

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.

Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life -- delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay -- I hold this question as a guiding light: "What do I really need right now to be happy?" What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way.

Love is always bestowed as a gift – freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.

Love is like a butterfly, it settles upon you when you least expect it.

Friendship is when people know all about you but like you anyway.

To be nobody but yourself in a word which is working night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumblebee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.

The difference between can and cannot are only three letters. Three letters that determine your life's direction.

Positive thoughts are not enough. There have to be positive feelings and positive actions.

A smile of encouragement at the right moment may act like sunlight on a closed-up flower; it may be the turning point for a struggling life.

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday my friends...

Until next time...

Weekend Pleasures

Hello all my friends out there in blog land, I thought I would share some ideas for weekend pleasures with you, not that you can´t think of any on your own, but it´s always nice to share and you just never know, I might share something you just hadn´t ever thought about before you saw it here in my blog :-)

Hmmm...what shall we start with? What about a beautiful brisk walk in the beautiful fall colors that are surrounding us these days??

Now, I don´t know about you all, but walking always gives me a bit of an appetite...so I think our next pleasure should be something to eat!

Nothing is more in it´s prime in the fall then APPLES!

*Note, following is a discussion between my good angel on my right shoulder and my bad angel on my left shoulder* "Oooooo apples! I love apples, they are SO healthy!! An apple a day keeps the doctor away you know!"- Good Angel. "Apples Smapples, what those apples need is some SUGAR!!!"- Bad Angel. Well, yáll know how weak I am when it comes too that bad angel, so apples with sugar it was...in the following form:

William Tell´s Never Miss Apple Cake

After a pleasure like that there is only one thing you feel like doing....

Oh yeah, Stuart has the right idea here....So does Smokey...

This guy below is Tiger (Woods), he doesn´t get lazy like Stuart and Smokey...(and me)

But then again he doesn´t listen to his bad angel either...he only eats healthy green stuff...

Glad some of us are strong in this house...right Stuart??

Oops, sorry to disturb you Stewie...you can go back to relaxing now...

Thanks for stopping by everyone, hope I gave you some ideas for your weekend pleasures...no matter what you end up doing, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Until next time my friends...

Pumpkin Pull Apart Bread And Some Healthy Whole Grain Rolls

Ok, I know some people will be upset with me for posting this....not actually for posting but because I am suppose to be watching what I eat and then I go and make sinful pleasures like this..

Pumpkin Pull Apart Bread

Some people believe I shouldn´t bake and that this will help me to become healthier. Well, telling me not to bake is like telling a skier not to ski or a runner not to run or a painter not to paint....I can´t stop.

This is a hobby that gives me so much pleasure because it makes others happy. I know you probably look at all these goodies and then look at me and say- mmmhmmm...she will never lose weight when she keeps making stuff like this!! However, I dare to argue that assumption. I think it will be harder to lose weight when I make things like this..but I don´t eat all of this myself!!!! I share with family and friends and that makes me really happy when other people enjoy my baking. Not to mention that I have been a very good girl working out three days a week!! So I a burning SOME calories :-)) It´s just not going as quickly as it could if I stayed away from stuff like this...but if I did that then I couldn´t share it with you, now could I? You see, we´re all winning by my taking this weight loss business slow...hehehehe...

I love baking so much that my darling Sarah decided to try and convince me to open a bakery by starting a private facebook page called Amy´s Bake Shop. It was a support page which she hoped many would join so I would be convinced this was something I should pursue. She finally told me about the page this past weekend and we opened it publicly to continue monitoring how much interest was out there. I keep telling Sarah that as much as she loves my baking, there are kids out there who love their mom´s baking as much...this doesn´t mean we go start a bakery. I told her it would be a little difficult to go to the bank and ask for a loan to start a business based on the fact that my 18 year old loves my cooking and got about 50 people to support the idea of a bakery shop, on facebook. It was sweet though and I was of course touched that she thought that much about me and wanted to help me achieve a dream. If you´d like to visit the page you can check it out HERE.

You know, I do bake healthy things too....like these whole grain rolls...

These I just made up myself. I´ve been making up my own recipes for rolls like this at the preschool (Barnehage) where I work and so I decided I would try some at home also.

For these I used about 400 grams fiber flour(fiberbakst), 200 grams Rye flour (grov rugmel), 400 grams Whole grain flour(grovbakst), 200 grams Spelt flour(speltmel), about 50 grams linseed (linfrø), about 50 grams sunflower seeds (solsikkefrø), 6 tbsp (SS) oil, 1 liter warm water, about 50 grams fresh yeast (gjær), and then for kneading the bread by hand, I used regular all-purpose flour (hvetemel). Let these rise about 40 minutes, rolled them into individual balls and let them rise again about 15 minutes (I was hungry) and then brushed a mixture of egg, salt, and water over the top and drizzled a little wheatbran (kruskakli) on top. Baked these at about 180C (365F) for about 20 minutes.

There ya go- see I can bake healthy things too :-) It all depends which angel talks to me- the good angel on the right shoulder or the bad angel on the left one...heheheehe...ok, getting a little out there with the angel talk....uffda...

Well, hello there beautiful! My flowers are enjoying their final days of the season. Soon I´ll clip everyone back and bring in my baskets and pots and see if I can keep things alive through the winter and then put them out again next summer. I´ve never tried this before but I´ve heard it´s possible. I just hope I can handle it...I mean, I think maybe I have one or two plants in my house that are alive....oh wait, there are a couple cactus like plants in the windows downstairs- uff- forgot about those....better check on them in a bit...see, that´s me...I forget about these sweet plants and even when I don´t forget them, I seem to drown them. I can´t win really...so it´s much easier when the big guy "upstairs" can help me out- he´s a much better gardner then me!!!!

Oh yáll should have been with Sarah and I the other night when I picked her up from work. As I drove in to get her I passed a male moose off on the side of the road- I only caught a glance at him as I drove past, saw the horns (which I`ve never seen on a moose in my entire time living in Norway) and had to keep going. So on our way home I was hoping to see him again but he wasn´t where I saw him so we kept on driving and just around the corner, out in the field, there were not 1, not 2, but 3 gigantic moose!!! Of course I didn´t have my camera with me- will I ever learn to bring that thing with me??? I grabbed my cell phone but it was hopeless they were too far off. I called to them and they lifted their heads and looked just slightly in my direction. Thank God there was no one else in the area but me and Beara...several cars passed us but we had to sit there for a few minutes and enjoy the majestic view. I kept trying to convince Sarah to take her cell phone and run out in the field to get a closer photo for you all- but she wasn´t going for it- chicken!!! ;-) Will take my camera with me from now on and hopefully be able to snap a photo for you again- many of you remember my moose "hunt" last year and I finally got a great shot of one against a sunset- so the "hunt" is on again and hopefully I can get another great shot of the King of the Norwegian Forest for you :-)

Until next time my friends...

Zucchini Bread and Pasta Salad

So I am going to be selling some baked goods at a local Christmas market and so I decided I needed to start testing out some recipes to see what I want to sell and what I don´t want to sell. I have wanted to do some spice breads and there are numerous types, carrot, banana, apple, and the one I decided to try, Zucchini Bread.

This was a little more compact in consistency then I would have preferred but the recipe called for 2 eggs and one of my eggs I used had 2 yolks in it, so I in essence put 3 eggs in, which I think could have contributed to the consistency. It wasn´t a bad consistency but I would have preferred a little fluffier bread. On the other hand, the taste was fantastic. I love all the spices in this bread and the smell in the house reminded me absolutely of Christmas. So this will definitely be a bread I have to sell but I´m going to try and improve the consistency, which shouldn´t be a problem.

Then when the bread was done it was time for lunch. I decided to fry up some veggies I had and then add them to a risoni pasta. For veggies I used, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, red and green peppers, onion, garlic, and some corn we had left over from the other night. I lightly fried all of this in olive oil and added some fuet sausage at the end. Fuet sausage is a spanish sausage we can get in the stores here which is soooo good!

After mixing the veggies and pasta together I used a couple teaspoons of ricotta and pesto sauce I bought at a local foreign market and topped the whole thing with a dash of parmesean cheese. Voila- lunch....Italian style!

Otherwise folks, life has been busy, hence the silence on my blog. I promise you that I write as often as I can, but there just hasn´t been a lot of time. After being sick a week I jumped back into the gym and have been trying to be good about going to the gym 3 times a week and walking dogs otherwise. Oh...speaking of dogs...our new baby is 2 weeks old today! Can you believe 2 weeks have gone by already?? I still don´t know who exactly will be our new baby but I am leaning very much toward this girl....

You can tell this little sweetheart loves to eat..and we appreciate women with healthy appetites around here...I think she would fit in perfectly...but we shall see!!

In a week the Captain returns from Brazil and two weeks after that we head to Rome! To say I´m totally excited and looking forward to the trip would be a major understatement!!! I´ve always loved to travel and wanted to travel. However, starting off on the poor road in our marriage, didn´t allow us to travel very much and with small children it made it even harder. So finally we are starting to be able to realize our travel dreams and it´s so exciting! I believe when you travel you open your mind to new thoughts, new cultures, new ways of doing things. You become a better person I think when you can appreciate the world around you and then appreciate home just as well.

So let me ask you, which destination is at the top of your places to visit list?

I´ll be back before you know it! Have a great weekend!

Until next time my friends!

Feelin´Sorry For Myself....

I´m not feeling well....thus I have time to finally update my blog and feel a little sorry for myself at the same time. I´ve been a really good girl exercising and keeping busy so I haven´t done a lot of blogging and it´s ok. Dare I say it, life is more then a blog! I have missed writing here though..even though I don´t have a lot of people who comment, it´s fun to know I maybe touched someone´s life in some way with something I wrote...even though I will never know it. I fantasize that yáll are trying out my recipes and thinking of this little American here in Norway....whatever will she come up with next???

This wretched cold came upon me by total surprise. Little did I have any clue I was getting sick until suddenly one day after work I noticed my throat was scratchy...then the next day it was a little worse and my nose seemed to be constantly running when I was in the upright position...in a lying position I can´t breathe at all through my nose. Now I notice my ear is starting to ache...and I´m sneezing....will the fun never end??? In all this agony I´ve decided to pity myself. Hey, it´s the one time I feel it´s ok to stop up and comfort myself...usually I am the one comforting others...but when I´m sick...it´s my turn and I´ll take it...even if I have to comfort myself!

I tried to cheer myself up the other day by making these...

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1 Cup Margarine or Butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2 Cups Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

2 Cup Quick Oats

2 tsp Vanilla

About 400 grams semi sweet chocolate and about 200 grams White chocolate

1 tsp Cinnamon.

Mix everything together- bake at 350F (180C) for about 8-10 minutes.

This didn´t make me feel good though. Oh yeah...they were awesome...very possibly one of the best cookies I´ve eaten...but I´ve been such a good girl exercising and watching what I´ve been eating and when I felt sorry for myself what did I do? I went and shoved crap down my throat and ruined all my efforts that I have made lately!!! Why am I so cruel to myself like that?

Well, nothing to do about failures like that except to learn from them and move forward- no regrets. Can´t go back and get those cookies back so I just have to move forward and try to think of other ways to comfort myself when I´m not feeling well then making junk food...

Soup is always a great comfort food and perfect when the weather starts to get chilly and autumn like as it has been doing here lately.

The first soup I made was my Roasted Garlic and Red Pepper, Tomato Soup which I have mentioned before on this blog. If someone knows how I can get an index of my posts so that one could find things easier on here let me know...or those key words you can click on and it will pull up posts with those words in it- how does one do such a thing, anyone care to enlighten me??

There is no set amounts on this soup recipe..I usually wing stuff like this...just see what I have. About 2-3 whole garlics, 1 yellow onion roughly chopped, 2-3 red peppers de-seeded and roughly chopped and whatever tomatoes you have on hand- big ones, little ones, yellow ones...whatever...you can mix them if you like too- put all these things in a baking dish, drizzle olive oil over and let roast in the oven at about 360F (180C) to 400F (200C) until the red peppers start to get a blackened look to them...stir often so everything gets roasted...

In the meanwhile you´ll be warming up some chicken broth. If you can get the real thing that is always best, but if you can´t some broth cubes will work just fine. I use about 1.5 liters of water and 3 cubes which are intended for 0.5 liter each. Add a can of crushed tomatoes (I get the kind with basil and oregano flavoring) and let this cook up. After it boils turn the heat down, add your roasted veggies and let it cook up again. Add either some cream or cremè fraiche or both until you get a milder color, then I run everything in the kitchen mixer to get a smoother texture to my soup. I then let everything marinate together for as long as possible- the longer the better the flavor. Then before serving, I drain the soup into another pan and take away all the chunks so my darling children will eat the soup...they aren´t big on chunks of veggies...

Serve this soup with a yummy grilled cheese sandwich with garlic flavored bread and you have a very yummy comfort food when you need one..

Another soup I find comfort in when I´m not feeling well is chicken noodle. However, I wanted to try something new and after looking up several recipes I decided I´d just wing this one too and see what we get...

I had a couple boxes of Tom Yum in my cupboard which I decided to use. Now, in these boxes there is a bunch of chunky veggies...so I strained those and only use the broth...

I put this broth together with about 1.5 liters of chicken broth (same combination as I did above) and let this cook up.

In another pan I roughly chopped one small yellow onion, about a cup of cantarell mushrooms, and 1 giant carrot and let these simmer in coconut oil in a frying pan until the onion got see through looking. Then I dumped them up in the broth pan and let everything cook together. While that was all cooking, I cooked three chicken breasts, which once they were done I ground them in the kitchen mixer along with the carrots, onions, and mushrooms from the broth pan. Then I added everything to the broth pan again and let everything cook together- as long as possible. In the meantime I cooked up another chicken breast but this time when it was done I shredded it instead of pulverizing it and added it to the soup so you got some bigger chicken pieces...I added a little bit of cream to the soup and 1 tbsp of Cremé fraiche and mixed well. This looked really good and smelled really good but the soup wasn´t very thick. I decided to cook up about 2 big potatoes and 3 little ones and then I pulverized them as well and added them to the soup to give me a little thicker soup. Now everything is simmering on the oven together and as soon as the kids get home we will be eating this wonderful soup for dinner along with some yummy french baguettes. I can already recommend this soup as I´ve been "testing" it all day long and it just gets better and better the longer it sits there warming itself. There is a slight kick to the soup which comes from the Tom Yum broth..but not so much kick that my kids will complain......I think, I hope....??

This past weekend the first of two Bichon Havanais litters, that we have to choose our new family member from, was born. 2 girls and 2 boys. A brown female (the biggest brown pup in the photo) and a black female (the tiniest black pup in the photo).

At the moment I´m kinda feeling something for the brown female...maybe it´s her leonberger colors that attract me? I don´t know...but of course it´s crazy to try and pick a favourite from 2 day old pup photos and there is still another litter going to be born in about ten days from now...so our little "Cookie" could be in that litter for all we know? Time will tell, but be prepared to catch a bit of puppy fever over the next weeks as I share with you some of the photos we are sent and some I take once we are allowed to visit!

Might be a good idea to try some of these comfort foods if you find yourself with a case of Puppy fever...or just a regular cold like me ;-) Either way you´ll be feeling better in no time!

Until next time my friends...