Wholemeal Bread

So I had a whole bunch of flour in my house I needed to get rid of, and I decided to make bread so me and my honey could have sandwiches for dinner last night. The bread went so fast I decided to make another two loaves this morning. I used a Norwegian wholemeal, so anyone outside of Norway trying this recipe might have to find a substitute but I think you could use pretty much any type of flour for this recipe.

Norwegian Wholemeal Bread

1kg flour; wholemeal, wheat and rye

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

1pk (12g) dry yeast, or 50g fresh yeast

6dl luke-warm water

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add oil and water while mixing all this together with your hand (or a machine, but I prefer to work hands-on with dough). Once the dough starts to let go of the bowl, put it on the counter and knead it until it’s smooth.

2. After you’ve worked the dough into a nice, firm (but not too firm!) ball, put it back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel. Place in a warm area and let rise for 30min.

3. Once the dough has risen, take it out on the counter again and knead it some more. While doing this, use the heel of your hand to push the dough away from you in order to release some of the air bubbles. Roll it back together and repeat 5-6 times. Then cut and roll the dough into two loaves. Cover with plastic and let rise in a warm place for 45-60min. In the bathroom while someone is taking a shower or the dryer is going is an excellent place.

4. Turn on the oven to 250 degrees celsius one hour before baking the bread. It’s important that the oven has a high temperature before baking the bread. Once the loaves are (hopefully) twice the size they were, turn the oven down to 200 degrees and make a few cuts on the top of the bread and put them in the oven. Another tip that is worth trying is tossing a few ice cubes on a tray below the bread as the steam will give a nice crisp and chewy crust.

5. Important note; try to have the oven door open as little as possible. Keep the warm air in so the bread will get as much heat as it can.

6. Let the bread stay in the oven approx. 25min, then for the following 5 minutes put a wooden spoon in your oven door to let out excess moisture. Total baking time; 30min.

Enjoy!

Butternut squash soup with chili & crème fraîche

So fall is synonymous with soups for me, and I know I’m not the only one who loves a warm bowl of soup when the crisp fall air nips at the skin. So I’ve been looking at soups on pinterest and found one that me and my honey tried a little over a week ago. The recipe is from BBC Good Food, so all credit to them. You can find the recipe here, or just keep reading below the picture.

Butternut squash soup with chili & crème fraîche

1 butternut squash (approx. 1 kg)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

2 onions, diced

1 garlic clove (I used 2), thinly sliced

1 mild red chilies, deseeded and finely chopped

8,5dl hot vegetable stock

4 tbsp crème fraîche

Cut the butternut squash into large cubes and let them roast in the oven with half of the olive oil. Roast for approx. 30 minutes or until they are golden and soft. We had to leave them in almost 45min in order to get them soft enough. Remember to turn them at least once while they’re roasting.

Melt the butter and remaining olive oil in a large saucepan and add the garlic, onion and 3/4 of the chilies. Be careful, the chilies can make you cry when they’re cooking.. Put a lid on and let this cook on low heat until the onions are soft (approx. 15-20min).

Once the squash is soft enough, put it in the pan along with the crème fraîche and veggie stock. At this point, try as much as possible to use a stick blender and mix everything together into a soup. There is a lot of liquid, so in order to get a silky smooth soup you can pour the soup through a strainer and then try to purée the leftover chunky parts. Put everything back together and then the soup is ready!

Serve with a swirve of crème fraîche, a dash of pepper and the leftover chili! A spicy soup that’ll warm your tummy as well as your tastebuds!

From Paris to Vienna

February was a busy month. Not only did I enter it in beautiful Paris with my family but I then proceeded to move into a new, wonderful apartment and then head off to Vienna with my friends and classmates. I’ve almost had an experience overload this month, but it was so exciting and I find myself with a smirk on my face when I see that it’s only March and my facebook profile is filled with so many pictures of travel. Won’t it be fun to see what all is in my albums by December?

To celebrate my turning 20 and my dad having turned 40 this past November, my family (including Paul) went to Paris in the end of January. My five years of French didn’t pay off very well, but the food, the sights, the people – it was all so fantastic.

 

 

 

 

 

For more pictures, like my page on facebook here and check out the albums.

The weekend after we got home from Paris, we moved into our new apartment. To shortly explain how great this was, I can point out that our new apartment is almost twice the size of the old one and includes a seperate bedroom. Had you only seen the smiles on our faces.

The following weekend after our move I had to repack my suitcase and headed towards Vienna. This was a class trip, and about 45 of the students at my study signed up to tag along. Vienna was AMAZING, and we had a lot of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve never given much thought to Vienna, but I was extremely pleansantly surprised at how wonderful the city was. Definitely going back with Paul next time. Again, for more pictures, like my page here.

So far, so fun. March looks to be filled with a lot of schoolwork but I’ve also been working off those schnitzels from Vienna. Mid-February I had actually lost about 7kg (15lbs) since I started exercising. Thanks to lots of beer, pretzels and schnitzels I gained most of that back but now, back in Oslo, it’s going down again.

Have you travelled yet this year?

Sarah.

Travelling at twenty

I may have forgotten to mention that I turned 20 one week ago. I had a wonderful birthday and celebrated it with my sweet boyfriend, who spoiled me rotten. We had my favorite food for dinner: sushi. I got some of my favorite treats and some classics as a gift:

And we went to the movies to see Silver Linings Playbook. The movie was great, definitely recommended!
I may or may not have mentioned before that my mom had told me she was planing my birthday gift since SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER last year. Needless to say, I’ve been dying of curiosity. Two weeks before my birthday I got my first hint:

Feel free to tell me if you got it at this point, because I definitely did not. A week later I got my second hint, a word: pastry. Nope, still didn’t get it. So I started to move on with my day, getting ready for work when the thought popped in my head. Oh no, did I know? Had I ruined the surprise? Did I say something? Or just try to act surprised? I kind of freaked out and decided I had to tell my mom what I thought it was. She logged on to skype and turned on the camera. I asked if croissant could have been an alternative hint to pastry. She looked around and said: “uuuh, oui”.

So to celebrate me having turned 20, and my dad having turned 40 this past November, the entire family + Paul will be going to Paris in the end of January! This was such an awesome, wonderful birthday present! I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, hence why I took 5 years of french classes in middle school/high school. Finally that dream will come true and I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am! Get ready, I see a Paris-pictured post coming up in the near future!!
Sarah

SQUARE ONE

Happy new year!

I love how a new year is synonymous with a fresh start, a new beginning, back to square one. We all know that in all honesty it’s not really true. What we did, ate, liked and hated last year is still kind of “here”. However, our wonderful little minds tell us that this is it, this is your chance to change and be awesome! I like it, it’s like a personal coach you get each January. Too bad that coach usually leaves by February. Oh well, I’m gonna try again!

I had a wonderful Christmas that I got to spend with the love of my life and my family. I had a great time and got AWESOME gifts, one of which was a crock pot I will try to share my experiences with right here on the blog. I also got awesome food, mama’s food. I think that says it all. After living with my boyfriend for 6 months, emphasized by Christmas, I’ve realized that I’ve fallen into that comfortable state in my relationship. In just the time I have lived in Oslo, I gained 22 lbs and got stretchmarks from the fast gain. Not even having turned 20 and never having had kids, this stung.
Now, thanks to my inspirational mother who has been doing super good since she started working on her weight and my supportive boyfriend who is trying to keep me “at bay” from snacking and such; I feel highly motivated!

Also, some exciting news! Me and Paul are moving to a bigger apartment! Our current apartment is 322ft², with no bedroom, a tiny bathroom and an even smaller kitchen. It’s been cramped. The new apartment, however, is 592ft2 with a seperate bedroom, slim but bigger bathroom and this wonderful kitchen in the picture above! We’ll be moving in February and there WILL be interior decorating pictures, I promise.
Last news of what is to come on this blog in the year 2013; I am travelling to Vienna, Austria in February. I am very excited, with high hopes for some spectacular pictures of that beautiful city.

What are your plans for the first months of 2013?
Sarah

Getting ready for Christmas

It’s officially December, and my tree is already up! I wanted to decorate as early as possible this year so I could enjoy my own decorations before going home for the holiday. That wasn’t easy though, especially since my boyfriend/roommate is used to the Norwegian tradition of decorating the 23rd of December. However, he was very nice and let me have my way! The result:

Sadly, it’s a plastic tree so the shape isn’t quite right. I’m proud though, in many ways this is our first Christmas tree. Not bad in my opinion, not bad at all…
When do you decorate for Christmas?
Sarah.

TABIBITO

In order to celebrate me and my boyfriend’s 3 year anniversary today, we decided to check out an asian restaurant called Tabibito in the Oslo city center. Definitely worth the visit. The restaurant had a nice and clean but warm atmosphere with burning candles and dimmed lights. Our coats were taken at the door (we’re students, we don’t eat at places where they usually do this…), and we were shown to a small table in the middle of the restaurant. Because of our occasion, we decided to try a five course dinner they had put together and a four glass wine menu to go with it. WOW is all we can say. The food was delicious.

For starters we had sichuan spring rolls and crispy wontons, followed by three different main courses: seafood wok with scampi, scallops, mussels and “seafood balls(?)”, chicken gong bao and fried pork coated with sesame seeds in a spicy sweet and sour sauce. Finally, for dessert, we got tapioca in a creamy coconut milk soup filled with fruit and coconut sorbet. Yes, it really was as exciting as it sounds. Everything tasted great, with tons of flavor! And as if the food wasn’t good enough, the service was excellent. Our waterglasses were never below half empty, we were checked on multiple times by our waitress and she gave us detailed descriptions of what we were served. Definitely a 5 star rating from us!
Have a wonderful week!
Sarah

Long time, no see

I haven’t blogged since September 25th. In the time since then I haven’t been able to think of anything to blog about. I’ve contemplated shutting down my blog, change my angles, shut it down again, start blogging every day, blogging just once a week. I guess we all have those times when we just don’t want to blog, we don’t know what to blog about. I sometimes wish I had something exciting to blog about, like fashion or great recipes. Posts about all the places I’m travelling or about great causes I’m working for. That I took more pictures and shared my “photography”. That this would be the blog people went to for where to travel, where to go when out on the town in Oslo, or how to cook awesome food. However, I have no fashion sense, I rarely follow recipes while making food. I’m a student, so there is no time or money for travelling, I suck about going out on the town and when I do I never bring my camera so all that “photography” is never taken.

We’ve been seeing others lately…

I think to myself: what can I blog about? There is school, but being a student doesn’t have much more excitement than books, lectures and coffee addiction. I have my work (which I have neglected to tell anyone who reads my blog that I’ve gotten) at Lindex which is fun, but again limited as to what I can write about. The new clothing we get? Cool customers I meet? Maybe.. Then there is the living-with-your-boyfriend-for-the-first-time experience which would be fun to write about, but then I think that maybe the simple things that make us laugh are kind of weird and not completely understandable to others…

Then there is those deep thoughts. They’re easy to share, but also so easy to change. I notice myself writing that I want to do this and that, then the next moment I’m writing that I want to do that and this. I’m a month away from 20, I’m going to change my mind a lot in the next years. Maybe it’s ok though? Maybe my blog should simply be a place to air my thoughts, write it out and figure out if it makes sense or not. It’s not like I’m good at writing down my thoughts. I have a diary I’ve had since 2004, and I barely write 2-3 posts a year in that. But I like blogging. It might not be my deepest thoughts and secrets, it might not make any sense, I might write posts as rarely as snow falls in Texas and that are in no way exciting to anyone else but my boyfriend (who better be happy about the fact that I actually finally blogged). But it’s my blog, it makes me happy to write about things in my life and that is probably the only reason I always keep coming back to it.
I love you blog, thanks for being here no matter how long it takes for me to come back.
Sarah

Chicken Hoisin Wraps

The other day me and Paul wanted a nice and easy, light dinner after some previous heavier meals. I found a tempting recipe for hoisin chicken wraps, which fit well since we had some tortillas to eat up before they went bad.
Now I did my own little twist on the recipe because the original called for grilled chicken, and given I have no grill or anything similar I had to be creative.

• 4 flour tortillas
• 4 small skinless, boneless chicken breast
• 4 tsp sesame oil
• 4 tsp soy sauce
• 4 tbsp hoisin sauce
• A handful of lettuce leaves
• 2 spring onions, finely chopped.

I chopped the breasts into about dice sized bites, thought that might make it easier to eat. I put it all in a bowl and mixed in the sesame oil, soy sauce and hoisin sauce and let it sit and soak a little. Then I fried the entire thing in a pan until the chicken was done and then put that, some salad leaves (I used something called crispisalad) and some chopped spring onions. I imagine that you change the number 4 out on most things above depending on how many you’re making it for.

It was super yummy, moist and light. Definitely something we’ll do again! Try it, you won’t be sorry for trying this as an easy summer dinner.

Hello City Life

Yesterday I moved to Oslo! We got in late so all I “unpacked” was my bed, the rest we’ve worked on today. I’m still using boxes as dressers because we need to get more storage for clothing, but otherwise I got everything unpacked into my new little home!

To get some fresh air and some food for this week we took a little trip on the subway to an area in Oslo called Grønland (Greenland). Our mission: to find a good foreign store. These stores tend to have the best quality on fruit and vegetables, however the quality of this differs from place to place. Luckily we googled a little and found a GREAT place!

The selection was big and the quality was fantastic. Not to mention there was tons of people there, obviously a popular place. We were even able to get some fresh corn, yum! Can’t wait to find more great places like this. It’s fun.