Norwegian eplekake may not be as synonymous with Norway as apple pie is with the United States, but it’s definitely something I hadn’t really heard of before moving here. This week I had a ton of leftover apples on my hands, and with tomorrow being May 17th, Norway’s Constitution Day, I wanted to make a Norwegian dessert with my leftover apples. This recipe is adapted from Tine Kjøkken’s, with a few modifications.
Gratulerer med dagen!
Introducing the Matzoffle: A Passover Breakfast treat.
A healthier alternative using protein-packed bread can help make this a nutritious breakfast! Plus, another excuse to justify your waffle iron.
With Thanksgiving being a huge tradition, I’ve surprisingly never had the opportunity to cook it! I have always been invited to the house of friends or family, and never actually prepared a turkey.
This year, since I’ve moved abroad, I wanted to be able to remind myself a little bit of home. Unfortunately, my fiancé is abroad for work, so there wasn’t an opportunity to share the holiday with him, so I decided to make my own “test Thanksgiving” to see if I could knock it out of the park before maybe inviting over some friends next year! From start to finish, I managed to cook Thanksgiving dinner in just under 2 hours. (Note: this does exclude some veggie chopping the night before, marinading overnight, and the cornbread I baked the day before. I also built a rough time table in advance so that I could get it all done!)
Curious to see how my first-time Thanksgiving cooking fared? Keep reading.
Click here to see more pictures and details of my first Thanksgiving abroad.!
These easy to make, versatile American biscuits/quickbread are delicious! Lighter ingredients make for a healthier alternative.
They may not be traditional, but these Nutella-filled Hamantashen are certainly delicious.
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These quick and easy individual pizzas are a great way to use up extra tortillas leftover from taco night– while having an entirely different culinary flavor!
Pålegg is an important part of Norwegian cuisine, being a staple for breakfast, lunch, and even snacks. But what is it? The easy answer is that pålegg is most closely translatable to the English word “spread,” but not entirely just in the sense of something that is spreadable (i.e. butter,) but more along the lines of anything you may choose to put on top of a sandwich.
So I’m finally going back to Norway, to spend my first Jul, or Christmas, with my boyfriend and his family. Yes, that’s right, I’ve never celebrated Christmas before! I’m Jewish, and growing up I wasn’t allowed to help my friends decorate their Christmas trees, and I was carefully instructed by my parents to not inform all the other kids that Santa wasn’t real. It was a little intimidating thinking of having my first Jul overall, but the fact that I’ll be meeting more of my boyfriend’s family for the first time is a little scary (and exciting, too!)
Being me, a million thoughts ran through my head. Norway in winter? I mean, I guess I have to get used to it eventually. But damn, isn’t it supposed to be insanely cold? Thankfully, I was relieved to find that in Oslo, it’s not actually that much colder than New York City most of the time– it tends to hover around the freezing level the majority of the winter. It is, however, much more of a wintry wonderland cast in snow, as opposed to the dreary streets of a cold New York that occasionally get shrouded in a dirtied, blackened snowy mush.
In my head I’ve begun to romanticize it; the snowball fights and the warm, cozy Norwegian sweaters (okay, so I still have to get one of these) and warming up with some Akvavit or wine. Watching kids’ faces as they open up their presents and excitedly play with them, and of course, huge family meals. My boyfriend, knowing my curious palate as he does, has generously painted word pictures of foods that might be seen: special Jul sausages, ground pork patties in sauce (medisterkaker), reindeer (reinsdyr!), Jul sodas (Jul brus), chocolates, and liquors. I’ll be bringing along a little Menorah to have a part of tradition and home with me while I’m there, and get to share it with him. Maybe if he’s lucky, I’ll have room for latke mix in my suitcase that I can share with him as well.
In the meantime, I’ve been stocking up on socks, tights, leggings, and other thermalwear! I plan on getting some appropriate boots once I’m there, since mine are a bit lacking, to help safeguard me from wintry doom. I’m getting very excited for my first Christmas, and my first Norwegian Jul. 🙂