Danish Apple Porridge - Æblegrød

Ingredients:

1. 1kg apples peeled, de-cored and cut into cubes

2. 60g sugar

3. 200ml water

4. 1 tsp vanilla powder

Directions:

1. In a medium size pot, add apples, water, sugar and vanilla powder and slowly bring to boil. You don't have to cover the pot.

2. Simmer for an hour or until cooked like porridge (no. 3 or 5 on my stove), stir occasionally.

Additional Information:

I made this today :-) I reduced the sugar from 70g in the recipe to 60g and Daddy FECS said it was sweet enough. Farfar loved it so much, he ate 4-5 portions at one go. All of a sudden, he was so energetic. He has recovered so much since June. Praise the Lord. Farmor ate 3 bowls. C ate 3 bowls or so. Daddy FECS ate 2 bowls. or so J ate 1 bowl.

References:

https://www.valdemarsro.dk/aeblegrod/

Peel the apples (but don't throw away the apple skin - use them to make apple chips)

Cut the apples into cubes.

In a medium size pot, add 200ml of water.

Add 60g sugar.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Stir and slowly bring to bowl. Once bowl, turn down heat and simmer under low heat (no. 3.5 on my stove) for 1 hour or until the apples are cooked and reached the consistency you desire. Adjust with a bit more water if needed,

Now it is done :-)

Eat it with Danish ymer, which is a little like yogurt.

Apple porridge assembled with ymer below, a bit of chocolate powder (Baby FECS' request) and apple porridge on top :-)

19 Sep 2024 (8Y9M3D)

Don't throw away the apple peel, they are the most nutritious part of the apples. Turn them into apple chips :-)

Bake for 1 hour or until dry at 100 degree Celsius

Done :-)

19 Sep 2024: Apple-skin chips ready for after school snack :-)

Homemade Berry-Fruit Yogurt Bowl

Serves 1

Ingredients:
1. 1 banana
2. A handful of fresh or frozen raspberries or a mixture of different berries

3. 100 ml natural yogurt

4. 1 tsp nut butter (optional)

5. 1 dried date pitted (optional, if you want to make it super-duper sweet :-))

Toppings:

1. 1 chopped strawberry (optional)

2. 1 handful of nuts and/or seeds (I use sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds here)
3. A handful of chocolate chips (I use a mixture of milk chocolate, white chocolate and raspberries chocolate)4. A handful of muesli.

Directions
1. Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
2. Sprinkle with mixed seeds and raisins and serve :-)

Additional Information:

This week the children are hooked on yogurt bowls - how our breakfast rotation goes!!!

This berry-fruit yogurt bowl takes less than 10 minutes to make 3 bowls (including chopping up 1-2 strawberries) or 5 minutes to make 1 bowl, and is a healthy, tasty and nutrients power-packed breakfast filled with antioxidants, protein, good fat and good bacteria from the natural yogurt acidophilus. This is also one of the cheapest natural yogurt from the Danish supermarket and it is organic. 

Adding banana as the natural sweetener and adding the berries, and viola, it turns to a yummy fruit yogurt, minus all the preservative from the store-bought ready made fruit yogurt. You can substitute the berries with any of your preferred fruit.

To make 3 servings, we use:

Ingredients:
1. 2 bananas
2. Handful of 100g raspberries or a mixture of different berries

3. 200 ml natural yogurt

4. 1 heap tsp nut butter (optional)

5. 3 dried dates pitted (optional, if you want to make it super sweet :-))

We try not to buy store-bought fruit yogurt as much as possible. They look very attractive to kids, but they are full of processed ingredients, chemicals and preservatives. 

Do not be fooled by the ingredient called "Naturlig aroma."

Naturlig aroma, for example, is a processed ingredient: A natural flavoring substance is a flavoring substance that has been produced by suitable physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes from vegetable, animal or microbiological material, either in its original form or processed. A much better flavoring is to add real fruits into the yogurt ourselves.

If we absolutely needs to buy store-bought fruit yogurt due to lack of time, then the product below is one of the best ones:

Here is how to make the homemade fruit yogurt:

Here are the ingredients.

This is the yogurt we use. It is organic, natural with only 0.4% fat, and one of the cheapest in the Danish supermarkets.

Blend everything together in a blender.

Add the desired toppings and ready to serve :-)

Homemade Remoulade

Ingredients:

1. 5 TBS mayonnaise
2. 5 TBS cremefraiche, skyr or Greek yogurt
3. 1 tsp Dijon mustard (optional)

4. 1 carrot diced
5. 1 apple diced
6. 1/4 cucumber diced

7. 1 stalk of spring onion diced

8. 1 handful of frozen peas (optional)

9. A handful of frozen corns (optional)
10. A handful of parsley (optional)
11. 1/2 onion diced (optional)
12. Salt &pepper to taste.

Directions:

1. Dice apple, carrot and cucumber in a food processor.

2. Add all the diced vegetables, frozen peas, frozen corns, spring onions, parsley into a bowl.

3. Add mayonnaise, cremefraiche, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper and mix well.

4. Garnish with some parsley and serve as a side dish.

Additional Information:

I made mayonnaise the other day and decided to use some of it to make remoulade. We like to eat it with Danish fish fillet.

Serving the King of our home 🥰 with his childhood Danish fish dish with parsley sauce for dinner yesterday :-)

 

Remoulade originated from the French, but have been adapted by the Americans, the Danes and all over the world. With the same sauce, a look at the recipes online showed how natural and healthy the Danish recipes are compared many recipes found in the rest of the world. 

The Danes are masters at taking cuisines from other cultures and bringing it a node up in taste and healthiness ❤️

References:

https://www.valdemarsro.dk/remoulade/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remoulade
https://gastromand.dk/opskrift-hjemmelavet-remoulade/
https://mariavestergaard.dk/remoulade-hjemmelavet-remoulade/

Healthy Muffins with Apples & Oats

Adapted from https://www.webopskrifter.dk/opskrifter/sunde-havregrynsmuffins-med-aeble-23131/?fbclid=IwAR1I3DwTvC_0s6CSpuve274OSRUI_x0Uj0O2WMX3f-QyMDH2eZ32_X8VnA0

Makes 10 muffins

Ingredients:
1. 3 dl grove rolled oats
2. 1 3/4 dl fresh skimmed milk
3. 1 egg
4. 2 apples cored and grated
5. 3/4 tsp baking powder
5. 1.5 vanilla powder
6. 1 TBS honey
7. Dash (0.1 tsk) of salt
8. 1/2 dl chopped almonds

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 190 degree celsius
2. Add milk and oats into a mixing bowl, mix and let it stand for 5-10 minutes to soften the oats.
3. Add egg and blend it with a stick blender.
4. Add grated apples, vanilla powder, baking powder, honey and salt into the mixture and mix well.
5. Add chopped almonds.
6. Transfer to muffin forms and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden.

Storage:
Keeps well in the fridge for 2-3 days, but you can also freeze them.

Personal Journal:
Our Little FECS found this recipe today and made these muffins for us this morning for breakfast. Baby FECS loved it.

References:
https://www.webopskrifter.dk/opskrifter/sunde-havregrynsmuffins-med-aeble-23131/?fbclid=IwAR1I3DwTvC_0s6CSpuve274OSRUI_x0Uj0O2WMX3f-QyMDH2eZ32_X8VnA0

Colors of the Rainbow Smoothies for the Week

I am thinking of making these smoothies according to the colors of rainbow (well, almost) for each day of the week:

Monday: Red smoothie
Tuesday: Orange smoothie
Wednesday: Yellow smoothie
Friday: Green smoothie
Thursday: Light green smoothie
Saturday: Purple smoothie

Sunday: We will take a break and enjoy a Chocolate smoothie instead.

The plan is that I will go for my groceries shopping once a week to cover all the ingredients for that week. I am not quite sure whether I will keep to this order, but I guess the aim is to cover the colors of the rainbow. The sequence is not so important.

To make it simple, I might also just use all the colors' ingredients mixed in a smoothie, but that will give a muddy color, which is not so attractive to the kids, and adults alike. Let's see how it works out :-)

Btw, it's actually possible to make blue smoothies (see links below), but I think it is too much work for now...

Useful Links:
http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/eat-rainbow
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/blue-smoothie-bowl-recipe_n_57bc4f13e4b0b51733a5b417
https://thefirstyearblog.com/rainbow-smoothie/
https://www.finedininglovers.com/blog/food-drinks/purple-fruits-and-vegetables/

Red Smoothie

Adapted from Pick Up Limes

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup (250 ml) skimmed fresh milk
2. 1 tsp flax seeds ground
3. 2 cups (60 g) baby spinach
4. 1/2 cup (15 g) parsley
5. 1 tsp fresh ginger finely chopped
6. 1 banana
7. 1 orange quartered
8. 1 apple cored and quartered
9. 1 beetroot, peeled and quartered

Toppings:
1. A sprinkling of rolled oats (optional)

Directions:
Add all ingredients in the order listed above into a blender and blend until smooth.

Additional Information:
I mentioned about the green, red and orange smoothie as a start to our morning for the kids (and the adults). Our kids like this smoothie better than the green smoothie I made yesterday. Instead of some granola, I sprinkled some rolled oats on top for crunch and to make it more filling. It's actually quite nice, but be careful not to overdo it. I overdone it for the second glass, and got tired of the rolled oats.

I am amazed again, how I don't notice the parsley. The sweetness from the apple and orange completely overpowered the parsley and the spinach :-)

The nutrients from ground flaxseeds are easier to absorbed by the body. Thus, I added into the blend, rather than sprinkle it on top.

References:
https://www.pickuplimes.com/single-post/2017/01/09/Ruby-Red-Green-Smoothie

Update 25 Feb 2019: Red smoothie made with our new Magimix blender:

Yellow Smoothie

Ingredients:
1. 1.5 cup fresh skimmed milk
2. 1 tsp fla xseeds
3. 1/2 cup (30g) cabbage sliced into smaller pieces
4. 1 tsp ginger finely cut
5. 3 slices of pineapple cut into smaller pieces
6. 1 banana fresh or frozen

Directions:
Add all ingredients in the order listed above into a blender and blend until smooth.

Additional Information:
The other FECS are ok with this smoothie, although not to crazy about it. I am not really a fan of pineapple, but our Little FECS likes pineapple. Baby FECS basically doesn't want to drink any smoothies, so it doesn't matter about this yellow smoothie.

Double Green Smoothie

Recipe adapted from Pick Up Limes

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup (250 ml) fresh skimmed milk
2. 1 tsp flax seeds ground
3. 1/2 cup (15 g) spinach
4. 1/2 cup (15 g) parsley
5. 1 tsp fresh ginger finely chopped
6. 1 large orange, peeled, quartered
7. 1 banana
8. 1/4 cucumber, quartered
9. 1 apple cored and cut into smaller cubes

Toppings:
1. 1 TBS (15g) chia seeds

Directions:
Add all ingredients in the order listed above and into the blender and blend until smooth. Sprinkle with chia seeds, shake or stir the seeds in, serve and enjoy immediately.

Additional Information:
I mentioned the green smoothie in an earlier post. Apology, this is the only picture I have of it. You probably can guess from the picture, that this breakfast tray was specially made for Daddy FECS, and even a little belated on a weekend (13 Jan 2019). In between a jumping toddler, I only managed to make this very simple breakfast, and it even took me more than an hour!!! Yes, that is life right now for me - very unproductive. And I didn't even made it all myself. The egg was made by our Little FECS - thanks son for saving mommy's day. Life with kids, ya, you don't get anything done, even on a birthday.

Our Little FECS and Baby FECS actually loved the green smoothie... they actually finished most of it that there wasn't much left for Daddy FECS, so I don't know whether Daddy FECS like it or not... aarrrgghhh kids! But then I repeated it again the following day... and they didn't want to drink it. Okie, okie, I got it - good things shouldn't be repeated. Either they had gotten enough of it, or they just wanted to give me face on their daddy's birthday. They didn't like the chia seeds so much. So I will have to alternate between the chia seeds and leave it out on some days.

This smoothie contains two greens, namely spinach and parsley. Thus, I name it Double Green Smoothie.

References:
https://www.pickuplimes.com/single-post/2017/01/11/Cold-Busting-Green-Smoothie

Green Yogurt

Recipe adapted from Pick Up Limes

Serve 4

Ingredients:
1. 1 large orange, peeled, quartered
2. 1 banana
3. 1/2 cup (15 g) spinach
4. 1/2 cup (15 g) parsley
5. 1 tsp fresh ginger finely chopped
6. 1 apple cored and cut into smaller cubes
7. 1/2 cup (250 ml) natural yogurt
8. 1 TBS (15 g) mixed seeds such as chia seeds

Directions
1. Add all ingredients in the order listed above in a blender (except yogurt and mixed seeds) and blend until smooth.
2. Prepare your bowls with natural yogurt in it.
3. Pour some of it on top.
4. Sprinkle with mixed seeds and raisins and serve :-)

Additional Information:
I made this today. I am very surprised that we can't taste the parsley at all. I also save a portion the green yogurt into a small glass container that goes into the lunch boxes:

Quick Oven-Roasted Salmon

 Inspired from homemate.dk

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

1. 4 slices of salmon

2. A handful of mushrooms

3. A handful of broccoli florets

4. A handful of split peas soaked overnight (optional)

5. A few stigs of rosemary (optional)

6. 1 carrot sliced

7. 1 apple sliced

8. 4 cloves of garlic unpeeled

9. 1 onion quartered or a handful of shallots

10. 1 TBS olive oil

11. A bit of cream (piskefløde)

12. Salt & pepper to taste

13. A handful of dild for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper.

2. Roast in a pre-warmed oven for 15 mins at 220 degree celsius.

3. Garnish with dild and serve :-)

This is the split peas I bought from Meny supermarket

Baby Food of the Day: Apple for the First Time (7M4D)

19 December 2016 (7M4D): I cut 2 wedge of apples and blended the rest with a mini blender. I let Baby FECS try. Only after some time, did she decide to open her mouth. I thought she would like it, since apples are very sweet. But she wasn't that keen. Perhaps, because I included the skin, when I blended the apple. She though really like to try to eat the wedge though, rather than the apple puree.

That was what's left 

https://youtu.be/QXYsrxvrn-I

https://youtu.be/LgZA8JWK-U8