My Ikea kitchen

Living in Europe for several months sounds very glamorous, or at least it did to me.  There are certainly many times when this experience is amazing, and I'm very grateful that we're here.  However, many parts of my day still involve laundry, cleaning, and cooking.  We did bring the kids along after all!

Even the cooking part, while not the definition of glamorous, is at least interesting here.  I'm trying new things, in a new kitchen (more about my kitchen when it's cleaner..ahem), with new food, or at least new names for the food.  So here's a quick glance of a few things that have hit our table recently at the Vrtiska house...the Sweden version.

Last night I made pea soup and pancakes, because it was Thursday...that sentence makes sense in Sweden, promise.

My understanding is that this is the traditional Thursday fare in the Swedish military, so many Swedes make this every Thursday at home as well.  Scott became aware of it when traveling to Sweden on previous trips, because it's the special of the day in many restaurants.  The Swedish pancakes were SO GOOD!  The recipe I used was from Rockford, IL ("a really Swedish town" according to the contributor).  Scott said they were a bit eggier (that should be a word) than the ones he had for lunch at the cafeteria, but that's a compliment in our house.  If you're reading this and are more Swedish than someone from Illinois, please feel free to give me your recipe in the comments. :)  We topped the pancakes with lingonberry jelly, but Scott said they need homemade whipped cream on top, too, and what can't be improved with a bit of homemade whipped cream?  I used this recipe for the pea soup since I didn't have a ham bone.  It was yummy, and warm, but what can't be improved by a bit of bacon?  I'll try this recipe next time: http://scandinavianfood.about.com/od/souprecipes/r/peasouprecipe.htm  Or share your Swedish Grandma's recipe with me, and I'll use that one instead!

 

Earlier in the morning the girls and I picked apples from our backyard orchard for applesauce. We have 9 apple trees, and roughly a million apples.  If you can get to Sweden in the next few months, come over!  I'll bake you an apple...something.  I don't have canning jars or equipment here, and we'll only be here for a few months, so there's no way to put all of them to good use, but I'm going to give it my best shot!

On the other side of our yard is the plum orchard with 7 trees.

 We picked many plums from the lower branches, but there were so many yummy, juicy, tempting plums on the higher branches.  We really had no choice...

 

This is not spousal abuse...

 

 

This is harvesting without a ladder.

 

 

The plum tart helped soothe Scott's aching back.

 

We've been eating a lot of fish lately, but this was by far the largest so far.  Scott "caught" this one at ICA, our local grocery store.

 

 

Then he created a masterpiece:



We ate it with boiled red potatoes with dill. 

Roanin has a grilled salmon and pickle sandwich, and an apple for a snack in the woods today.  That sentence makes sense in Sweden...promise.  Every Friday the class goes and plays in the nearby woods for a couple hours before lunch.  Because he's 6.  And it's Friday.  And why don't we do this in the U.S.?!?!

I'm just glad we can safely use our grill again.  We were afraid to use it too soon after the forest fire .  Someone a few towns over started up their grill toward the end of the fire fight and a helicopter water bombed it for fear that the fire had jumped a line. oops.

Now I need to go clean up my kitchen before I make lunch.  That sentence doesn't make any sense...anywhere.