Berlinerkranser – A love letter to my Grandma

I haven’t posted enough recently.  There are a lot of reasons for that.  This is not a great post for a blog about getting fit but that’s okay.  Sometimes food is about more than nutrition.  Sometimes it is about emotion, and memory, and honor.  This is a post about food that feeds something more than just the body.

My Grandmother passed away on Monday.  She was 95-years-old and lived a long and amazing life.  She walked around the lake near her condo every day until she lost her sight.  She also played bridge and did crosswords.  These simple things helped her live well much longer than most.
She inspired me with her grace, compassion, and love.  She inspired me with her education.  Mother of three, she also worked full-time as a teacher, guidance counselor, and principal throughout the years.  She inspired me with her cookies.  Norwegian cookies that still have to be baked every December before it can truly feel like Christmas.

Each year my Mom and I set aside a day to bake her cookies.  Many of my cousins aren’t the baking types, I am.  Mom has warned me that I have inherited the task of cookies.  It’s more precious to me than any heirloom.

Grandma’s burial and service are tomorrow and while there will be plenty of food, I wanted to remember her the best way I know how…in cookies.  This is the first time I’ve tried baking the Norwegian cookies without my Mom, and it shows.  They turned out a little uglier and a little more crumbly than usual.  But hey, I have 63 more years in which to get it right if I follow in Grandma’s footsteps.

No one knows that I’ve baked these and I’m terrified to bring them to Grandma’s adoring fans.  They aren’t quite right, they aren’t quite hers.  Then again, no tribute is quite the same as the original, it is merely an ode to, not a copy of.  At least this ode is delicious.

Grandma, this is my buttery, sugary, messy love letter to you.

–Berlinerkranser–

• 2 raw egg yolks
• 2 hard-boiled egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups flour
• Egg whites (for topping)
• Pearl Sugar (for topping) (Available in a fair few grocery stores, and IKEA)

The original instructions:

“Work well together the raw and hard boiled egg yolks. Add the sugar. Work in the butter alternating with the flour to form a smooth dough. Rollinto long roll with the hands. Cut this in about 30 pieces. Then form eachpiece into a little roll. Make a circle of each roll, crossing the ends. Dip each into slightly beaten egg whites, then into coarse sugar. Bake a delicate brown 10 to 15 minutes at 300 F.”

My slightly modified version:

1. Mash together the raw and hard egg yolks into a smooth paste.
2. Add the sugar and mix/mash together
3. Alternate working in the butter and flour until you have a smooth dough.  (I recommend chilling at this point as the warmth of your hands will all but melt the buttery dough when you get to the next step)
4. Roll dough into a long, thin log.  Cut into small pieces (2-3″…you have to play with it until you get the size you like)
5. Form each piece into a circle, crossing the ends.  (I recommend aiming for about 1.5″ circles)
6. Dip each cookie into lightly beaten egg white and then into pearl sugar.  (I like a light tap in the sugar, you don’t want them fully covered)
7. Bake to a delicate brown.  ***I found the original time/temp to be way too low.  I go closer to 15 minutes at 325F.

***Crossposted from Get Fit, Get Fat

Maybe the smell of charcoal will lure spring out of hiding!

It's March 12th and it's still cold and white here in Minnesota.  Very cold, and very white.  We've had snow on the ground since November 23rd and I think we're all starting to feel a bit monochromatic.

Most years Rich does a little winter grilling but this winter has been so harsh that the grill has stood lonely and forgotten.  Today, Rich got sick of waiting for robin red breast and decided to grill, despite the below freezing temps and even colder windchill.  I thought I was going to get frostbite while fueling up my car.  He's a crazy man.

We had a piece of skirt steak still in the freezer from last summer so Rich modified our usual shish-ka-bob marinade and added a bit of zip with cayenne.  He also did our favorite grilled veggies, a medley of thinly sliced onions as well as red and orange peppers.  These he puts in our cast iron skillet which then goes straight on the coals.  They end up caramelizing down to a delicious veggie "slaw," though that's not the best word for it.

The meal was simple, hearty, and filling.  He served the thinly sliced steak atop a bed of veggies, all drizzled with some reduced leftover marinade.  Plus we have enough meat and veg to make a few sandwiches in the days to come.

The marinade was an improvisation but here is Rich's best guess:

1 1/2 cups soy sauce
1/4 cup oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 TB vinegar (He used white, rice or cider would be delicious)
2 TB onion powder
2 TB garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne powder

The 1/2 tsp of cayenne gave it a nice subtle zip, but I would go for a touch more next time.  The sweetness of the veggies really offsets the spice nicely!

Well now, look at the time

Did I do that again?  Let life get in the way of my blog?  Silly life.

It's the week between Christmas and New Year's and it's a time when emotions run high and nostalgia sets in.  My Dad passed away on New Year's Eve two years ago so it's an especially hard time of year.

Emotions, cold, and snow can only lead to one thing - nostalgic comfort food!

After several days of delicious and special holiday meals, I'm turning back the pages and bring out one of my favorite family recipes - Great-Grandma Rasmussen's Meat Loaf.  It's not a frilly meat loaf, coated with ketchup  But it's delicious, easy, and filling.  Especially if you get one of the fought over end pieces.  Mmm...end pieces.

Meat Loaf

  Meat Loaf                

   Tags (edit):   

Ingredients 1 pound ground beef 1 egg 3/4 cup milk 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard 1/4 teaspoon sage 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1 cup cracker or bread crumbs 2 teaspoons salt 2 Onion to flavor if wanted

Instructions1. Mix in order given. Bake 1 hour, 375 F. Baste 2 or 3 times.



A couple of tips that I haven't added to the recipe yet:

• My Mom often used 1.5 pounds of beef and left everything else the same, it bulks it out a bit.
• She recommends beef around 90/10.  85/15 will shrink up too much.
• Grandma always ran a little water over the meat loaf before putting it in the oven, just to help keep it moist.
• Don't over mix it!

We usually serve it with baked potatoes or acorn squash.  It makes for great leftovers, even cold.  Meat loaf sandwiches, here we come!

Pancakes and bacon make everything better

I imagine that every family has a few recipes they think of as theirs.  The recipes that are made for every get together.  The foods that have become traditions.

My family has many of these recipes, we like our food.  A lot of them probably aren't even original.  I know for a fact that our Grandma's tv mix recipe is just a slightly modified version of the original Chex Mix recipe from the 70s, but that's okay, it's still delicious and it's still Grandma's tv mix.  It tastes best when you're sat in the hammock over-looking the lake, outside the cabin she and Grandpa built in the 1950s.

Another cabin classic are her buttermilk pancakes.  I found an early copy of the recipe and there's a note that the recipe came from one of her sisters.  I don't know any history past that.  We have these pancakes every time the family is together at the cabin and it's now spread to other holidays in other place.

Despite my love for these pancakes, I had never actually made them myself.  Maybe I was afraid to mess with all the memories, maybe I was afraid to just mess up.  Maybe we just rarely have a morning with enough time and motivation to make pancakes from scratch.  (Though they are good for dinner too, I learned that when staying with my brother whilst he was in college.  They were also good for lunch, and breakfast.  Turns out it was the only thing he could cook at the time - I was okay with that!)

While cleaning out the fridge earlier this week, we found a bottle of buttermilk, unopened, with an 8/2/10 expiration date.  We both had the morning of 8/1/10 off.  It seemed like a sign.  A big neon "MAKE PANCAKES NOW!" sign.  So we did.

Using a little cast iron skillet was tough.  Mom uses an electric griddle that actually has pancake shaped marks on it from the spatula over the years.  I'll have to grab a pic of it some time.  Our skillet only fit two at a time and most of our early ones were just too big, which made flipping tough.  They weren't all pretty, but they were all tasty!

Tweaks I'll make next time include cutting back on salt - I think Mom usually does a double batch with a single amount of salt, meaning my single batch had a bit too much.  Also, though the recipe calls for canola oil, I'm guessing she uses Crisco.

It was a tasty and filling breakfast, and I'm glad I finally tried the recipe all by myself.  Thank goodness we don't eat like this EVERY morning!!


Buttermilk Pancake Recipe
Ingredients:
1 c flour
1 1/4 c buttermilk
1 t baking soda
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c canola oil
1 T sugar
1 t baking powder


1) Mix flour, buttermilk, soda, egg, salt, and oil.
2) Add sugar and baking powder just before cooking (when griddle is hot).
3) Spoon or ladle on to hot griddle.  (I found a scant 1/4 cup to be perfect)

Buttermilk

Food blogging at an early age

I have no idea why I wrote down this recipe, but I'm claiming it as a sign of blogs to come.

Make sure that cookie sheet is BUTTERED!