Writers Take Note

Writers' Platform Building Campaign 

 

When I first started blogging almost a year ago, I saw these badges on many of the blogging sites I had come across. It didn't take long before I found my way to Rachaels blog and discovered what the Writers Platform Building Campaign was all about. Unfortunately my timing has been off, that is until now.

  

Rachael Harrie of Rach Writes  is once again hosting the Write Campaign which aims at helping writers and bloggers make contact and build their author platforms. Finally I have the chance to participate and to make even more friends in this wonderful community. If you would like to do the same thing then check out Rachaels site now while you still have the chance.

The Food Whisperer

 

 Sometimes when asked, “What’s for dinner Mom?” I have no answer. My leftovers do not talk to each other, I cannot get to the store, there is no money in my wallet or I am sick. That would be the time to call in the food whisperer. There is one inside all of us. The food whisperer tell us when food is bad and needs to be thrown out, turns old bread into new and almost magically gets your leftovers to talk to each other and make a meal.

It is Monday, the stores were closed yesterday, and I did not plan for the unexpected company of this much snow. Dig out the car or put on skis are not my only option.

Snowed in and hungry

Taking inventory of the freezer, cupboards and fridge, it is time for the food whisperer to do her job. Once again leftovers will have to work together so first they need to start a dialog.  Small spicy meatballs, Chinese leftovers and ground beef from the freezer, wild rice and asparagus from yesterday’s dinner. What do they say to each other and how could they possibly get along? As you might know I have taken to naming my appliances as a means of keeping them user friendly. Mike, the microwave oven, will have to thin things out between Chinese and ground beef. Wild rice and asparagus will have to get along together with the rest of the company on today’s dinner plate. The result for dinner tonight is Wild Chinese Meatballs. The food whisperer has once again done the job and dinner is saved without physical exhaustion.

Wild Chinese Meatballs served with a light green salad

Tomorrow I am going to tell you what you can do with old dairy products and how they can put the sweetness back in your life. 

How many times has the food whisperer saved your meals?

Chicken Breast with an Accent

 Growing up, Sunday dinners were always a big deal, often celebrated at my grandparents’ house. What I looked the most forward to was my grandmothers’ pies. There was always the smell of fresh pie in her kitchen on Sundays. Unfortunately she died before she could teach me that skill. I did however make blueberry jam last night so maybe I will make waffles for a treat later. Sundays have changed and the big family dinner tradition has become more of a let’s see what we come up with. I decided today to do chicken so I put on some Van Morrison and this is what happened:

Stuffed Chicken Breast w/stuffing, wild rice,asparagus and sauce

There is no recipe because I made it up today as I went along. This is what I did:

Melt about half a stick of butter in a pan and add 1 finely diced shallot onion and 1 celery stalk. Add your seasonings; I used a bit of sage, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper but use what you like and have on hand. I didn’t have any white bread so I used a garlic baguette that I had warmed up and then cut into small cubes. I added the bread cubes to the onion mixture and half a cup of chicken stock. Think thanksgiving stuffing. The final touch for this stuffing mixture is a handful of freshly grated Parmesan. Let this cool while you prepare your chicken breasts. I flatten 2-4 breasts and sprinkle them with seasoning (no salt).  If you use a meat hammer make sure you cross punch and the meat is evenly flattened. NOT TO THIN!  Flatten some of the stuffing mix on each breast, roll it up and fasten with toothpicks. Put the rest of the stuffing mix in the baking dish with the chicken. Brush the tops with butter and stick it in the oven at a medium temperature, let it bake until finished. How long will depend on the thickness of your breasts but I would say about 30 minutes. If you are unsure check to see there is no blood running out when you lightly stick it. Undercooked chicken is dangerous and over cooked tastes dried and bad.

Serve your chicken with whatever you want, but don't forget to take out the toothpicks before serving. I used wild rice, fresh asparagus and topped it all off with a Bretagne sauce (paprika and garlic). So what is for dinner today in your house?

Reindeer Stew

 Usually Saturdays are reserved for a special treat, but today there is no time to play in the kitchen. My spatula and frying pan have been replaced by a paintbrush and a 3 liter bucket of paint. For a long time now week-ends scream out with the sounds of materials being dragged across the floor or a saw buzzing away in regular intervals. Once the saw dust settles it is my turn to spread some more paint on the seemingly endless walls of first or second coat bliss. After scrubbing the paint out of my hands, my face and my hair it is time to check on dinner. This morning my trusty freezer supplied me with another helping hand from one of my best friends. Leftovers, once again to the rescue, has been slowly puttering away on the stove. Whenever I make stews or casseroles, leftovers end up packed away neatly and put into the freezer for a day just like today. 

Reindeer Stew over mashed potatoes w/ling-berries

When my children come here this summer and ask, "what’s for dinner Mom?" I wonder how they will react when I reply, "Reindeer stew." This would be one of the times that I put some Norwegian culture on their plates.  Reindeer tastes a lot like venison. The meat is very lean and has just a hint of wild game flavor.  I put the finished frozen stew in a casserole on low heat this morning so all I have to do now is make mashed potatoes and serve it all up on a plate. How great is that? I suppose now you want to know how I made it in the first place.

We can buy Reindeer meat in the grocery store. To make “Finnbiff” stew I use the kind that is bought in 2 kilo bags of frozen shaved meat. Since I make plenty when I first make it, I use 3 bags. This would be about 3 lbs. I fry the meat in butter until it is nice and brown and place it in a casserole. In the same frying pan I brown sliced mushrooms, (how many depends on how much you like mushrooms) and 1 finely diced small onion. I add this to the casserole with reindeer meat and add ½ a liter water and ½ a liter cream. Again the amount can vary, make sure it barely covers the meat. Add salt and pepper and let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour or so. Next add ½ liter of dark beer, 1tbs of crushed juniper berry and caramel color extract to make the sauce brown instead of cream color (this is my preference but not necessary) Take a pealed carrot and shave it off into the casserole, slice off a few pieces of brown goat cheese, adjust salt and pepper to taste and thicken the stew using which ever method you prefer. I use a finished cornstarch product that you can just sprinkle in the stew to make it thick, but as far as I know you cannot get that in the states. Let the stew simmer for as long as it takes you to make the mashed potatoes that you serve the stew over. Ling-berry or cranberry goes well on the side. 

Sound complicated and strange? It tastes great, and is one of those meals that are hard to stop eating even after your stomach screams for you to stop. So how do you deal with dinner when you have little time to prepare it and you want something good?

Have a nice week-end everyone and feel free to come back for dinner tomorrow.

Norwegian Pizza

 

Do you often hear or ask the question, “What’s for dinner Mom?” Every day for a week I am inviting you into my kitchen to show you that Norwegian cooking is not so foreign at all. There is a good reason for doing this, and that is to prove to my two children in the states that I have no intention of poisoning them when they come to visit this summer. A small culture shock may be in order but I will leave that to the rest of the family. Or maybe not, since I have serious doubts as to whether they even read my blog, they might just be in for a big surprise. 

Norwegian Pizza-Leftovers

It is Friday and as in most Fridays it is Pizza night! This has been a tradition in my home ever since the children were big enough to sit on regular chairs. When I first came to Norway in 1984, pizza was a relatively new thing to make its way into the frozen foods dept., and there were only a handful of pizza restaurants. Today frozen pizza is a number one seller, but not in my house unless I am in a very bad mood or extremely stressed for time. Even then, I spice it up with whatever is in the fridge. 

Some of you have been asking me to post recipes. The truth is that I do not follow them, cooking like most things in my life, is done by the seat of my pants. I can tell you what to do and how to do it but measurements are foreign to me. Short cuts in the kitchen are my best friends, imagination is my best tool, and leftovers are visitors that never stay long in the fridge. My Norwegian Pizza depends on what I have and what I want to get rid of. Almost anything works, but sorry if you were expecting fish. I have tried that and it was terrible! My advice is to stay away from fish on your pizza. 

Pizza crust takes too much time and is messy so I buy that finished. Here is what I found for my Norwegian Pizza today: Leftover spaghetti sauce with tiny meatballs (great to spread on the crust), Spekeshinke (cured ham), pepperoni, extra garlic and onions, tiny tomatoes, Mozzarella, Parmesan and Cheddar cheese. We like a lot of cheese in this house so I make two layers, one under the meat and one over to keep the meat in place. Sprinkle a good Italian seasoning on top and in the oven it goes for as long as it takes, usually about 20 minutes.

It won’t take long now before at least one of my kids will be coming through the door looking for Moms Norwegian pizza. Guaranteed, there will be no leftovers. What’s for dinner tomorrow? I have no idea.

So what kind of pizza do you like? 

What's For Dinner Mom?

  As many of you already know, my long lost children are coming to visit me this summer. It will be their first trip across the ocean from the land of fast food and restaurant chains, to Norway the land of fish and more fish.  We do however eat reindeer, and goat cheese as well as other assorted goodies foreign to the delicate palates of most American nationals. Supermarkets are often replaced by fishing boats or the hunters’ rifle, fast food by mothers’ speedy hands and restaurants by home cooking. 

These children of mine are terrified of coming over here and trying something new. They have been talking to each other over the phone and saying things like. “You do know that Mom is going to make us eat sheep head, pig brains, rotten fish and goat cheese, don’t you?” They still have not been told about crispy fish eyeballs, fish liver, fish eggs, fish-balls, smoked reindeer heart, seagull eggs or blood pudding. 

The truth is that my cooking is not so different than most Americans. At least I think so, although sometimes my seasoning might be a bit Viking flavored. “What’s for dinner---” will be a small series of posts inviting you into my kitchen. The meals are sometimes healthy, sometimes not... They are always tasty and cheaper than eating out, although my wayward American son would convince me otherwise. My children here in Norway have moved out, but they still call me up and ask “What’s for dinner Mom?” I haven’t scared them away from the dinner table yet. It will be interesting to see if I can get the other two to even sit down.

---Are you afraid to taste new things? Has fast food and eating out replaced a good home cooked meal because it is cheaper and more convenient? Have TV dinner children turned into Microwave addicts?---

Here is what’s for dinner today: American comfort all the way! 

Macaroni and Cheese Casserole w/Frankfurters and a Caesar Salad

 

Spare Parts

It is the first Wednesday of the month and time for the Insecure Writers Support Group. This month I would like to ask for your help.

If something is broken it needs to be fixed, if you want to use it again. If you need help you have to ask, if you need spare parts you have to buy them or find them somehow. You are the mechanic and your writing like any other thing needs to be maintained. Your tool box should have all the necessary tools. What happens when this is unavoidably no longer true? What happens when the mechanic breaks down and that mechanic is you?

The insecure writers group has in the past dealt with many issues of writers block, lack of time and self-doubt, but I am faced now with a different issue and that is physical or mental disability. How does a writer cope with the loss of their eye sight, a writers hand, or parts of the brain due to a stroke or disease? It could happen to you, it has happened to a good friend of mine. Melynda at Crazy world is going blind and the things that keep her going are her humor and the love of the people that surround her, and that includes this community of writers.

What I ask you as a group is to take just a minute out of your day and read THIS posted by another friend, Elisa Hirsch. As a group we can make a difference, we can give support in actions and not just words. We can put our hearts where are mouths are. What does it cost? Nothing but your time, some spare parts and a little love.