eG Foodblog: Anna N - Thirteen Steps to Dinner

[Palladion]

I ate the most incredible potatoes in Denmark.  They were simply steamed but I swear they were grown in a vat of butter.  They were almost the colour of butter and I could have eaten just potatoes for the whole meal.

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Right now I'm imagining a gleaming, high-tech lab in Denmark, where men in long, white coats grow perfect potatoes using hyrdoponics, but using butter instead of water...

I can dream, can't I?

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Alex Parker

[Anna N]

Might be a slow blogging day today as I really have to attend to other things but I will do my best to stay on top of it.

Here's The Dane's lunch for today. Yes, it's frikadeller AGAIN but he won't complain! This time I thoroughly drained the red cabbage and topped the sandwich with it and it makes for a completely different sandwich.

There is just one meatball left and I have frozen it and will use it as part of a mini Danish lunch - perhaps this weekend although it looks like a busy weekend. I am baby/dog sitting on Saturday evening and will have to feed us at my daughter's home and then on Sunday we will do a small birthday party for my two granddaughters - one turned 6 on Oct 1 and the other will turn 5 on Oct 31. Both get their own parties with their families and then we pick a day in Oct when we too, and their uncles, can participate. It likely will be BBQ burgers and a birthday cake - something simple that they both enjoy.

I'm off now to get my day started.

[melonpan]

love the acorn squash! sounds like im gonna have a burned tongue soon...

[tejon]

That sandwich looks deliciouis - I can just taste the cold cabbage with the meat together with a little butter

Thank you for sharing the recipe and ritual for frikadeller. It's something I haven't made before but have wanted to, and knowing how they should turn out will help quite a bit.

Now for the really important question. Do you make abelskiver?

[Anna N]

The first order of business this morning was to clean up my kitchen! I should have played fair and taken a photo first. I don't usually leave things in a mess but I was exhausted last night. I get up by 4 AM and did not get my nap yesterday as I had to fetch Miss Jess from school and by the time dinner was over I could barely even stand up.

Once the kitchen was in reasonable shape I worked for an hour on the computer and then decided that I was a might peckish and had this mid-morning snack:

It is all that was left of last night's dinner - a few bites of the cauliflower casserole. I ate it cold and it was still tasty.

Then, getting my priorities in order, I made Miss Jess some more tropical lime creamsicles. She loves these sour treats. I adapted an ice cream recipe and mix cream, milk, lime zest, lime juice and sugar and pour it into popsicles molds for her.

Then my daughter brought me a load of apples that were well past their prime but still perfectly edible so I decided to use them for a Danish apple cake for tonight's dessert. I have made a chunky applesauce, sauteed some breadcrumbs, sugar and butter and will assemble a bit closer to serving time. Just as there are many, many recipes for frikadeller, so they are an equal number for Danish apple cake. I like to think of mine as "poor folk's food" since it makes use of ingredients that would otherwise go to waste. I promise to show and tell later today.

I was raised in post-war Britain when food rationing dominated our lives and waste was anathema. The Dane grew up in post-war Denmark where the situation was often very precarious. His father served in the Danish underground. Ooops - mustn't wander too far off topic. The point I am trying to make, though, is that there is a kind of triumph in making something of nothing - a form of hubris no doubt. We both celebrate the meal and I guess the vaguely remembered attitude to food of our childhoods. We can splurge as well as anyone when it's possible to do so but also enjoy very simple food when that is what is on offer. We have often joked that we would hate to be rich because we would truly miss the meals that you cannot find in class restaurants. (But we would be willing to give wealth a try).

Here's my lunch for today - home made tomato/basil soup which I had frozen for a day like today and a radish sandwich - something I once thought ridiculous but now find really good - it would have been better though with local-grown radishes!

Now I will try again for a short nap and then continue on as I have to do some more editing, finish the prep for dinner, and vacuum up the trail of fairy dust left behind each time Miss Jess visits.

[Anna N]

...

Now for the really important question. Do you make abelskiver?

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Hanging head in shame, no. But then I'm not Danish!

[Squeat Mungry]

Wow, Anna! Thanks for the great blog. That soup looks delicious. And radish sandwiches are among my favorites. I want one now!

Keep up the good work.

Cheers,

Squeat

[Toliver]

Great work on your plating and your photos! I am so hungry now for a radish sandwich and I've never eaten one before in my life.

Wonderful blog!

[bleudauvergne]

I'm reading this and really enjoying not only the photos, Anna, but what you're sharing with us about your life. Thank you. And Basil / Tomato soup looks wonderful.

[RSincere]

I've never been one to notice this stuff, but your serving dishes are really cute. And your pictures look great!

[Anna N]

Many thanks, Squeat, Toliver, Bleudauvergne and Rachel.

Rachel,

Most of my dishes are either garage sale finds or bargains from kitchenware stores. It always amazes me what people will give away.

I have never had and have never wanted a "dinner service" but enjoy a variety of mismatches. I think it's a Freudian thing - in our home when I was growing up, because we had a pub and catered weddings, there was a full set of now priceless Crown Derby china. It was an old pattern, I think it was called something like "1184". As the business and the home fell apart, the set slowly disappeared. Throughout my childhood I listened to blame being equally showered on all and sundry for the loss of this china...

[misgabi]

Excellent blog Annna. Your pictures are really beautiful and even the "not plated" dishes beat mine hands down.

Would you mind sharing what is in the cauliflower casserole? It looked delicious.

[snowangel]

Anna, glad to know another grandparent spends as much time sweeping up the fairy dust as do my parents.

And, it is time to spend some time in the kitchen with Miss Jess telling her stories and teaching her how to do what you do, as my grandmother did for me when I was just 4 of 5 years old, and as has my mother has done for my children.

Frugality. It's the difference in me being home and working outside the house. Waste not, want not. One of those sayings of my grandmother, just as was "the good dryer gets what the washer misses."

[Anna N]

Tonight I am just too beat to report on dinner. I promise to do so tomorrow morning complete with photos -but for now, "Goodnight sweet Princes (and Princesses).

[lovebenton0]

Anna, pics are beautiful. It's so good to see I'm not the only eG'er with a kitchen comfortably packed.   

Fettucini with EVOO, anchovies, garlic, red pepper, and Parmigiano was the first meal my now-husband ever cooked for me. He still does that one by request when I want a night off. 

And please, what is your special recipe for the Danish meatballs -- including ritual of course.

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I am at my daughter's house at the moment but let me see if I can give you the recipe and the ritual.

1/2 lb ground beef

1/2 lb ground pork

1 medium onion

2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 eggs

3 T flour

3 T breadcrumbs

1/2 t freshly ground pepper

35% cream -lots (at least 1/2 cup)

The ritual. Chop the onion very finely. Combine the meats, the onion and the salt and knead together with your hands until very well mixed. Rest -both you and the mixture for about an hour - the meat should go in the fridge but you don't have to.

After an hour add the eggs, flour, bread crumbs, pepper and at least 1/2 cup of cream. Beat this mixture for a long time until it is light in colour and quite sloppy. You might need to add more cream or if you are scared of cream then some good beef broth can be used for part of the liquid.

Rest as before for at least an hour.

Take a small scoop of the mixture and saute it in butter and oil so you can check the seasoning - often it will need more salt and pepper. Then, when you think you have it seasoned right for your taste, cook the rest as below.

Wet your hands and scoop up about 1/3 cup of the mixture - it should be sloppy and just able to hold its shape. Shape it into "eggs". Heat some butter and a bit of oil in a large saute pan until the butter just barely starts to color. Add the "eggs" without crowding the pan and saute, turning as they brown until done. They should be cooked right through so cut into one and make sure.

Serve hot or let cool completely and then slice and serve on open-face sandwiches. The texture is less like a meatball and much more like a pate.

Tomorrow I will post photos of the finished dish.

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Thanks, Anna. I missed a couple days of life and your blog this week around dental emergency. Meatballs look luscious. And the red cabbage.

I've got to do these soon.

[Anna N]

As promised I am here bright and early. It's 4:30 am more or less and I logged on to my computer to find a request for some urgent work that must be done this morning. Should be fun as Miss Jess will be here by 9 AM and will stay until noon. So, I will be posting yesterday's food photos and then editing until she arrives.

Here are the ingredients for the Danish apple cake - bread crumbs and sugar that have been sauteed in butter until golden and crispy, chunky applesauce made from the apples my daughter gave me, the red currant jelly leftover from the red cabbage I made and some whipping cream. Always, when I make this, I realize I don't have the right dish for it. It needs to be in glass so you can see the layers but one of my glass bowls is too small and one is too big. I made do by putting some in this smallish bowl and the rest in individual dessert bowls. The red currant jelly went into the individual dessert dishes as a small surprise in the centre of the layers.

And here is the finished cake. There are many other recipes around and I have tried a few of them but this is the one The Dane expects and so it is the one I always make now.

Dinner itself posed a few logistical problems. The Dane does not eat asparagus or broccoli, Miss Jess refuses anything with sauce on it and is suspicious of new food. She eats an enormously varied diet for someone who is not yet 5 including lobster (her favourite), shrimp, crab and most vegetables. But she will have nothing to do with potatoes in any form. I made chicken fingers for Miss Jess, potatoes for The Dane and the other veggies for me and my daughter. Both my ovens were occupied with chicken in sauce, chicken fingers and roasted asparagus so the potatoes were "roasted" on the stove top. The broccoli was steamed.

These are boneless, skinless chicken breasts (Jinmyo please avert your eyes! ). I rarely use them but my daughter is getting a new freezer in two weeks and so we are trying to use up the meat in her current freezer and guess who getst to cook it?

And here is the dispenser of fairy dust herself. Danish apple cake is new to her so we asked that she try one teaspoon and then let her have a lime creamsicle for dessert.

Today, Friday, is always a strange day around here. The Dane normally only works until 1 PM but there is always the likelihood of overtime on Friday and today it is almost certain. He will not take a lunch sandwich just two snacks and a coke.

We reserve Friday night for ourselves. Family and friends know that the phone is turned off about 4 PM and we are unreachable until Saturday morning. We have a special meal with candlelight and wine and kick back with some soft music and let the week melt away.

[bleudauvergne]

We reserve Friday night for ourselves.  Family and friends know that the phone is turned off about 4 PM and we are unreachable until Saturday morning.  We have a special meal with candlelight and wine and kick back with some soft music and let the week melt away.

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Now that's a great idea.

[Anna N]

We reserve Friday night for ourselves.  Family and friends know that the phone is turned off about 4 PM and we are unreachable until Saturday morning.  We have a special meal with candlelight and wine and kick back with some soft music and let the week melt away.

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Now that's a great idea.

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Well we've been married (to each other!) for more than forty years and I credit all the good times to Friday nights! I recommend it to partners of every ilk.

[Anna N]

Breakfast - no photo out of respect for all of you, was leftover broccoli, topped with leftover mushroom sauce - eaten cold! My boss hit me with a couple of urgent jobs and I knew I had to have something to eat and that was it!

[Toliver]

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Okay, this picture just made my day and my week! She is adorable! I've got the biggest smile on my face now, thanks to her.

[Daddy-A]

Well we've been married (to each other!) for more than forty years and I credit all the good times to Friday nights!  I recommend it to partners of every ilk.

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J & I have only been married for 3 years, and we have the same Friday night tradition. I hope that's a good omen!

Wow, 40+ years to a Dane! I'm Norwegian, so I know that's no easy task!

A.

[eunny jang]

Anna -

This blog is marvelous. I've read your Dinner posts with lots of admiration and appetite.

That apple "cake" looks delicious!

[Anna N]

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Okay, this picture just made my day and my week! She is adorable! I've got the biggest smile on my face now, thanks to her.

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No one will believe a prejudiced grandparent but she really is as adorable as she looks - 99% of the time. The other 1% - we have urged her parents to start her college fund NOW and ensure there will be enough for her to attend Osgoode Law School when the time arrives. When she wants something, she can martial more evidence in her favour than Clarence Darrow.

[Anna N]

Anna -

This blog is marvelous.  I've read your Dinner posts with lots of admiration and appetite.

That apple "cake" looks delicious!

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Thank you.

[Anna N]

Well breakfast might have been a bit questionable so I made up for it with lunch:

No, it is not a usual lunch for me but I wanted to try out a recipe for tonight's appetizer - shrimp in a spicy sauce. It needed some beer and it seemed a darn shame to waste the remainder!

I made some ice cream this morning - a new flavour for us - lemon and it is very good. I am always amazed at how flavours change when you combine them with other things - naive I suppose - but always a surprise to me.

The ice cream maker was one of those appliances that I just HAD TO HAVE. All the time I lusted after it, I also suspected that I would use it initially and then it would collect dust on the shelf. Far from it. It has been mine for close to two years now and is used at least twice a month and often weekly. We love trying out new ice cream flavours and have quite a collection of favourites now.

That's about it for now - need to get back to work and do some housecleaning before dinner tonight. It may be just the two of us but I still insist that the house looks as decent as it would if we were having company.