Homemade Orange Carrot Popsicle

Sorry, the picture only showed two popsicles, as the other two were eaten up by the kids, before I could take a picture :-)

Makes 4 popsicles

Ingredients:

1. 2 oranges
2. 2 carrots

Directions:

1. Juice out the fruits using a juicer (we use Hurom cold-pressed juicer with fine filter setting for juice)
2. Pour into 4 popsicle molds respectively.
3. Freeze in freezer.

Additional Information:

Baby FECS is tired of having orange juice as snack, and has been asking for ice-cream all the time again!!! When we are out, whenever she saw advertisements of ice-creams, she will pester me for it. Just as I was tearing my hair out for healthy snacks ideas, Our Little FECS gave me this idea. He asked why don't we just freeze the orange juice up like an ice-cream? This is actually a very healthy ice-cream. Although the orange juice was frozen, it still tasted really sweet. I was glad I didn't add any sugar.

The Simple Orange Juice As Snack for Toddlers

I am thinking: What can I serve as a healthy snack for Baby FECS, who has been asking for ice-cream?

Then I thought of serving her some freshly squeezed orange juice. It's easy to juice an orange, and you don't need an electric juicer, and all the clean up that goes with it.

Although it would be best to serve an orange as cut fruit to get the fibre, at least orange juice is many times healthier than ice-cream. It's all relative. Thus, occasionally, orange juice can still be quite a wholesome alternative :-)

P.S. I do give Baby FECS ice-cream, but would like to reduce the frequency, as she is requesting for it almost every day!!!

13 August 2018 (2Y2M27D)

 13 August 2018 (2Y2M27D)

Healthy & Nutritious Nordic Parsley Dressing

Ingredients:

1. A handful of parsley
2. 3 garlic cloves
3. 3 stalk of spring onions
4. 3 TBS olive oil
5. Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Wash, drain, chop and mix all ingredients together.
2. Blend in a blender.

Tips:
You can store leftovers in ice-cube tray and keep in freezer for later use.

Additional Information:

This is a very tasty dressing, despite its simplicity, yet healthy dressing. Parsley is known to be very high in vitamins, like spinach.

It is so simple and yet so good, kudos to the Danes! I was a bit skeptical at first, as I can't do without my soy sauce and oyster sauce, when I first came to Denmark 17 years ago (wow, can that be true - 17 years already!!!).

Can simply salt, olive oil plus some herbs blended together really enhance the flavor of food? But I am sold :-), or it could be that my taste buds have change over the years.

The Danes use it to make the Nordic pizza - you know, the modern Nordic pizza made famous by Gorm and Meyers that use the Danish national vegetable - the potatoes as the main topping. What, can the humble potatoes be used as the main topping for pizza???

Once again, trust the Danes for their creativity. And it is extremely tasty too :-)

The modern Nordic cuisine has come a long way and evolved through the last decade of the somewhat boring brown sauce with potatoes traditional fair. After all, the world's top restaurant for many years have been Danish - Norma. The Danes may soon outdone the French, and even more amazingly, the Danish modern food is extremely unprocessed, natural and healthy. Danes use very little processed seasoning - mainly salt, pepper, olive oil and natural herbs as seasoning.

Here is how you make it:

1. Combine all ingredients together.

2. Blend in a blender

 
Here are some tips on how you can enjoy the Nordic Parsley Dressing:

You can use it as the basic paste for pizza, instead of tomato paste, to make the white Nordic pizza. It is called white, because it doesn't use tomato paste.

 You can use it as BBQ seasoning by coating it on broccoli and grill them on the BBQ

 You can coat it on tomatoes and make grill tomatoes on the BBQ

You can coat it on the meat and BBQ it on the grill

You can use it to coat Kale and eat it raw as salad

Nordic Pizza with Kale & Potato

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 potato sliced thin by mandolin
2. 1/2 onion sliced thin
3. A handful of oyster mushrooms
4. A handful of Kale de-stemmed and diced
5. A handful of mozzarella cheese
6. A handful of grated cheese
7. A handful of cooked chicken meat or any other meat (optional)
8. 1 wholemeal pizza dough

White dressing to coat and marinate the ingredients:

1. 3 clove garlic
2. 3 stalks of spring onions or parsley
3. 1/2 cup TBS olive oil
4. Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 220 degree celsius.
2. Blend the ingredients of the dressing together.
3. Blanch the potatoes with boiling water and a bit of salt (optional).
3. Coat the potatoes, mushrooms and kale separately with the dressing.
4. Coat the pizza dough with a layer of the dressing.
5. Add a layer of kale on top.
6. Add mozzarella cheese.
7. Add the potatoes.
8. Add the mushrooms.
9. Add the chicken or meat (optional)
10. Add the onions.
11. Add grated cheese.
12. Sprinkle a few drops of the dressing on top.
13. Bake for 15 mins or until golden and the cheese has melted.

Additional Information:

This pizza is very nutritious as I have added a big handful of kale. I was afraid that it would not taste good, but actually the dressed kale gave it a lot of taste. I made this Nordic pizza for dinner tonight.  Daddy FECS gave a big thumbs up. Little FECS and Baby FECS loved it too. I will make it again :-)

It has all our favorite ingredients - oyster mushrooms, white dressing, etc. I blanched the potatoes, but I think it is not really needed. Next time, I will skip this step. In order to provide more protein, I added in some cooked chicken today. I torn off the chicken meat from the soup I cooked today and add it into the pizza.

If you don't finish the dressing, you can save it in a glass jar and refrigerate for the next round of pizza-making :-)

Here is a recipe from a very popular Danish culinary celebrity Meyers on how to make the Nordic pizza dough, just being pressed for time at this busy stage of my life, I haven't made my own pizza dough yet. Hope to try it some day.

References:

http://pilenskoekken.dk/2016/11/10/nordisk-pizza-med-kartoffel-og-groenkaal/
https://www.alt.dk/mad/opskrift/nordisk-pizza-med-gronkal-og-kartofler
https://timmvladimirskoekken.dk/opskrift/nordisk-pizza-og-pizza-pesto/
https://www.frokenkraesen.com/opskrift-pizza-kartofler-creme-fraiche-tangkaviar/
http://signesmad.dk/nordisk-pizza/hovedret/

  Slice potatoes

Coat potatoes with dressing

Coat mushrooms with dressing

 Spread dressing on pizza

 Coat kale with dressing and add it to the pizza

 Add a layer of chicken

 

This is the mozarella cheese I use

Pinch off mozarella cheese and

 Add mozarella cheese on the pizza

 Add a layer of potatoes

 Add a layer of mushrooms

 Add a layer of onion

 Add a layer of grated cheese

 I also added a layer of cheddar cheese (optional)

 Place in oven at 220 degree celsius for 15 minutes or until done :-)

Easy Bread

Ingredients:

1. 600g flour
2. 500ml water
3. 15g yeast or 1/4 tsp dried yeast
4. 1.5 tsp salt

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl, add yeast with water and mix well.

2. Add flour and salt and mix well with the spatula or hand. It should be steady, but you should not have to use your hand to knead. You only need to mix it until all the flour is wet.

3. Sprinkle a bit of flour over the dough and cover the bowl with a plastic film.

4. Refrigerate the dough for 12 hours or overnight until the next morning.

5. Let the dough raise for 2 hours at room temperatue after taking it out of the fridge the next morning

6. Turn on the oven to 250 degree celsius.

7. Meanwhile, warm an empty pot with cover in the oven until it reaches 250 degree celsius.

8. Remove the warmed pot rom the oven and fill it with the (note, it should only be half full to allow space for it to rise)

9. Bake the dough in the pot with cover on for 30 minutes. Covering the pot keeps the moisture in. You can also use a bread form, but use an aluminum foil instead of a cover to keep the moisture in.

11. Remove the cover/aluminum foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden.

12. Take it out of the oven, let it rest for 20 minutes, and it is ready to be served :-)

In the mean time, warm your pot with cover inside the oven. First bake for 30 minutes with aluminum foil on. Then for 15 minutes without the foil. Wait for 20 minutes before eating it :-)

Tips:

For a more wholemeal bread, substitute 25% of the flour with wholewheat flour.

Additional Information:

I wrote a post earlier on how to bake the easiest rolls. This is the post to bake the easiest bread. Come to think of it, it is easy bread, only in the sense of ingredients. But it is a bit cumbersome that this recipe says it has to be at room temperature for 2 hours after being taken out of the fridge. My colleague told me that she skipped this step of waiting for 2 hours. I will try it next time too.

Here is the ingredients in the Danish recipe  for my own reference (if you read Danish):

625 gram mel (10 dl (1 ltr))
5 dl (1/2 ltr) vand
2 tsk salt
gær på størrelse med en ært (Ja så lidt skal du bruge), the oven temperature should be 250 degree celsius.

References:

http://susirydahl.blogspot.com/2011/08/verdens-nemmeste-brd_5577.html
http://www.kvalimad.dk/page/verdens-bedste-brod/uuid/34228ae3-4f7c-11e6-81fa-9d8579aeffb0

 The dough should be steady, but you shouldn't use your hands to knead

Sprinkle some flour on top and refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight

This was how the dough looked after being removed from the fridge and rested at room temperature for 2 hours

Warm the empty form in the oven until it reaches 275 degree celsius. Let it continue to warm for another 15 minutes to make sure that the warmed form is 275 degree celsius.

 Place the dough into a bread form or a oven-proof pot

 Sprinkle with some flour on top (optional)

 
This is how it looks like after sprinkling with flour

 This is how it looks like cross-section

 Cover the bread form with aluminum foil

Bake at 250 degree celsius covered with aluminum foil for 30 minutes

Remove aluminum foil and bake for another 15 minutes (Since I only made less than half the portion, I only baked for 5 minutes)

 Now it is done :-)

 

Easy Bread Rolls

Ingredients:

1. 600g flour
2. 500ml water
3. 15g yeast or 1/4 tsp dried yeast
4. 1.5 tsp salt

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl, add yeast with water and mix well.

2. Add flour and salt and mix well with the spatula or hand. It should be steady, but you should not have to use your hand to knead. You only need to mix it until all the flour is wet.

3. Sprinkle a bit of flour over the dough and cover the bowl with a plastic film.

4. Put the bowl in the fridge overnight until the next morning.

5. Turn on the oven to 275 degree celsius and form into 10-12 buns.

6. The dough will still be a bit sticky, thus wet your hands with a bit of water, each time you take a lump.

7. You will notice that the buns are a little formless, but that is the whole idea.

8. Sprinkle the buns with a bit of flour or sesame seeds.

9. Bake in the oven for at 275 degree celsius for 8 minutes and thereafter 15-20 minutes at 225 degree celsius or until they are golden.

10. Now you can call the rest of the family and have a cozy time enjoying some homemade bread rolls :-)

Tips:

For a more wholemeal bread, substitute 25% of the flour with wholewheat flour.

Additional Information:

My Danish colleague is just so good at baking that it is a walk in the park for her. When I complained to her that it is so much work and so time-consuming to bake my own bread, she gave me this recipe and encourage me to try it. She said that it is so easy, the world's easiest recipe. Finally, I have a chance to try it out today :-)

Yes, this is white bread, not very healthy, but my colleague said that to get a feel of the right texture of bread baking, it is best to start with making the simplest and easiest and build it up from there. And the easiest is baking white bread. Thus, I am baking this now to try out :-) I don't think we will be eating much of it, as we prefer wholemeal bread, but we will feed the rest of it to the ducks at the lakes. I am using organic flour, thus, it will be a luxurious treat for the ducks ha ha, but in Denmark, organic food is getting so cheap that there is no difference with buying non-organic food.

Update: Surprisingly, our kids like it. Ya, white bread is always tastier than wholemeal bread, right? So there wasn't not as much left for the ducks!!!

Daddy FECS was ok, but not crazy about it - he likes his bread healthy and nutritious with nuts and seeds, and he only likes to eat his bread from Lagekagehuset. Sharks I simply can't compete with that Danish bakery chain :-( But I can always seek the consolation from our kids who always like what I bake :-)

References:

http://susirydahl.blogspot.com/2010/10/verdens-nemmeste-boller.html

 The dough should be steady, but you shouldn't use your hands to knead

Sprinkle some flour on top and refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight

This was how it looked after 12 hours the next morning

Form into 12 rolls (I made only 9 here and save the rest to make bread)

You can use a sive to sprinkle some flour on top

This is how it looks after sprinkling of flour

 Place it in the oven


Bake for 8 minutes in the oven at 250 degree celsius

This is how it looks after 8 minutes in the oven at 275 degree celsius

Bake for another 15 minutes. Since I made only half a portion, baked it for only another 5 minutes. Now it is done :-)