Salvation Army thrift store

I love to shop second hand if I have the opportunity to do so. I like to hunt treasures at our lokal Salvation Army thrift store. Once in a while I also go to some neighboring towns to look at their Salvation Army thrift stores. It feels good to shop good stuff at low prices, give money to charity and be eco friendly at the same time. ;-)

Recently I have bought two new cookbooks from the thrift store. They are both in Norwegian, but you can get the one by Tessa Kiros in English at Amazon. In English it is called "Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes".

I just love cookbooks in bright colors with nice pictures of wonderfully presented food.. Inspiring but still a little bit challenging.

 I hope to share some of the dishes from my new cookbooks with you soon.

Meringue

This Easter we had lovely weather. Sunny and warm. I have been walking the beach several times. One early morning I found these treasures. They instantly reminded me of meringue and I decided to share my meringue recipe with you.

The first one I wanted to pick up crushed when I grabbed it. They are so fragile and beautiful. I picked a lot of them and tried not to crush them in my pocket. An english gentleman that walked his dogs gave me a plastic container to keep my fragile skeletons. It felt like Easter egg hunting.

I later found out that the skeletons came from a kind of sea urchin called sea potato. Funny name. Love that they are so fragile and their shape. They have got a neat pattern. Beautifully feminin just like meringue.

When I got home and had washed them, trying not to break them all, I could not resist to colour some of them with food colouring. They look just like Easter candy and it is easier to see the pattern.

To make meringue you need:

4 egg whites
1 small pinch of salt
250g (9 oz) sugar
1/2 tablespoon cornstarch flour
1 teaspoon vinegar
Pink food coloring

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.
Beat the egg whites and the salt stiff.
Add the sugar little by little.
When the mixture is smooth, add vinegar and cornstarch flour.
Add a few drops of food coloring and stir it.
Place baking paper on a tray and sprinkle powdered sugar on it.
Use a spoon or a syringe bag to create small peaks of meringue.
Place meringue in the middle of the oven and turn the heat down to 120 degrees celcius.
Bake for about 20 minutes.

Happy Easter Omelet

This is easy to make and required at Easter. :-) I went to a local farm and bought a lot of eggs for Easter. I like buying them at a farm, because they sometimes are bigger than usual. If I am lucky some of them can have two yolks!

To make this fast and easy omelet you need:

4-6 eggs

salt

pepper

onion

sausage or ham

grated chesse


If you want to add something else just do it, and if you want to leave something out, you can do that too. But not the eggs of course. ;-)

Make a hole on each side of the egg, topp and bottom, with a knittingneedle. Blow the egg into a bowl. This might take some time and you may get trumpet lips during the prosess..

Add the rest of the ingredients. Whisk everything together with a fork.

Heat a pan and add some butter or oil. Add the eggmix. When the eggmix start to stiffen, turn the omelet and fry on the other side. When it has got a nice tan, divide it into four and put it on some slices of bread.

You can decorate for Easter with painted egg shells. Happy Easter!

Bidos - traditional sami cuisine

Up north i Norway the Sami people has lived for ages. They are indiginous and a part of our contry's history. In Home Economics the pupils at my school have to learn how to make some Sami meals. Bidos actualy tastes very good, and I guess it is a healty dish. 

Some of the pupils thought it was a mean thing to eat reindeer, but at the end everybody tried it. There was not enough reindeer meat at the grocery store so they had to add some moose as well. Lovely meat!!

The dish is served with a traditional Sami bread.

Ingredients:
18 oz (500 g) steak of reindeer
4 tablespoons wheat flour
1 l (35.3 fl oz ) water
4 potatoes
2 carrots
½ onion
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper


Directions:
Cut the meat into cubes before you lay them in a casserole. 

Make a flour thickening by mixing the flour and 3 dl of the water (cold). Pour the thickening and the rest of the water over the meat. Let it boil, stir constantly to avoid lumps in the sauce. To get the nice color and good taste, it is important to add the flour thickening to the meat before you boil it.


Peel the potatoes and cut them in half. Peel the carrots and cut them into thick slices. Chop the onion. Add potatoes and vegetables in the casserole and cook until the potatoes are tender.
 

To make the bread you nead:
1/2 packet of yeast
1 dl milk, lukewarm
1 1/2 cup water, lukewarm
2 tbsp margarine
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup whole wheat
6 dl wheat flour

Directions:
Crumble the yeast into a mixing bowl. Add a little bit of the lukewarm milk and stir. Add lukewarm water, liquid margarine and syrup. Add whole wheat and knead the dough until it is smooth and flexible. Let the dough rise until it has doubled. 

Divide the dough into four parts. Roll four round bread without any cracks. Place them on baking paper on a tray. Press them flat with your fingers, 1-2 cm thick.

Cover with plastic and let them rise until they double.
Bake the bread until it is golden brown and cool on a baking grid.

Greek meatballs with olives and feta

I happily enjoy springtime and crave other kinds of food on my plate than in wintertime. These wonderful and juicy greek meatballs are one of my favouries through summer. Easy to make and they taste so good!! Maybe you should have a try??

To make this dish for four persons you need:

3 1/2 fl oz (1dl) fresh parsley
2 tbsp finely chopped onions
16 oz (450g) minced meat
3 1/2 fl oz (1dl) feta cheese
3 1/2 fl oz (1dl) black olives, seedless
2 eggs
1 tsp oregano, dried
½ tsp cumin, ground
½ tsp baking powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). 
Finely chop the parsley and onion.  
Crumble the cheese. 
Chop the olives coarsely. 
Mix all ingredients well together and make 16 meatballs.
Place the meatballs evenly spaced on a tray covered with baking paper.
Fry them until they are brown on top. 

Turn them upside down and fry until they are brown on the other side.

You can also choose to fry them in a pan with vegetable oil.


Serve with a green salad and rice and perhaps add some sweet chili sauce to your plate as well. 

woked pork with ginger

This meal I made out of whatever my fridge contained at the moment I was making my dinner.. I must admit, most of my meals are made that way..

I often find myself standing in the grocery store.. hungry like a lion.. putting the easyest thing to reach into my basket.. not concidering what goes with what.. and when I come home,  I always seem to miss a crucial important ingredience.

To make this dish you need:

Butter or vegetable oil
Sliced pork meat
Mushroom
Yellow onion
Curry
Ginger
Vegetable stock
Water
Salt
Pepper
Rice
Baby spinach

Melt to spoons of butter/vegetable oil in the wok. Add the pork and let it get a nice tan. Take the pork out of the wok and place it on a plate. Add chopped onion, mushroom, curry, ginger, salt and pepper. Fry for a minute or two. Add the already fried pork, the vegetable stock and some water. Let it boil for a short while. 


Serve with rice and baby spinach.

omnivorous me

This is my first post on my new blog, which I have called omnivorous me.. It´s a food blog where I´ll share my recipes and cooking-tips with you. I do not eat everything as you now may think, but I hope to try some new dishes.

I love to cook but I need to make more healthy food. Maybe blogging about my food will inspire me to use more vegetables and less semi-finished food.

I also want to conquer one of my fears - writing in english.. which I find very difficult. So hopefully we´ll both learn something here on my blog..