Beans and Buns

So this week I've managed to make a pot of beans, and a batch of buns. Finally, I've felt like putting a bit of effort into cooking.

(Last weekend, I tried to make what I thought would be black beans, but they weren't. They were black on the outside, white on the inside, and had a funky flavor. These were the *black* beans bought at the Chinese grocery a couple of weeks ago - I have since re-assigned them to the art box.)

But the black-eyed peas I bought were labeled in English *black-eyed peas* and they turned out looking and tasting like black-eyed peas. To the cooked beans I added sauteed onion, red pepper, and celery as well as S&P, cumin, Sazon, and a bit of chipotle. The husband is busy with work all week, and has not and will not be able to eat any. They tasted really good on Monday, OK yesterday, and today I don't want to even look at them.


Then yesterday I finally tried out a bun recipe from the same friend that gave me the eggless cake recipe. I was having trouble taking my American recipes with American yeast measures, and making them work with the active Danish yeast. So I requested a Danish bun recipe from said friend. Here is it...

Never-Fails Roll Recipe

50 g gær (the cube yeast)
1 tsk salt
2 dl mælk, fingerlunt (I have used mini, let, and sød - all depending on what I happen to have on hand)
500 g hvedemel (flour)
50 g sukker (sugar)
100 g smør/butter (room temperature)

Optional ingredients I have tried alone or in combination:
3 carrots grated, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, 400 g squash (I noticed that with the added squash I had to knead in a lot more flour.)

Crumble the yeast, sprinkle with salt and let the salt dissolve the yeast. Warm the milk so it is still comfortable to the touch. Stir into the yeast/salt mixture.

In a separate bowl, stir the flour and sugar together. I crumble the butter in by hand (because that's the way my grandmother taught me). (And I always use real butter.) Add any optional ingredients now.

Mix the yeast mixture with the flour mixture.

Knead, adding flour as needed.

Let the dough rise ½hr in a warm place. (I often let it rise 45 minutes to an hr because I get involved in something else.)

Form rolls, and let rise ½ hr on the baking sheet. (Again, I often let the rolls rise longer.)

Bake at 225 C for 10 minutes, with a fan if your oven has one.

Makes roughly 2 dozen rolls.

I have a big old bag of rugmel, so in place of all white flour, I used some of that. However, I have now learned that rye flour does not contain any gluten...therefore it doesn't rise (that explains that botched loaf a few months ago), so my buns only turned out half-fluffy. But they are soft and moist on the inside, and the boy is just eating them up, so I'll call it a success.

Mi casa es...

hopefully not su casa. This is my entryway:


About three weeks ago, the fake wood floor in the entry was warping up at the seams and oozing a fairly clear and odorless liquid. I was hoping that it was just the cruddy design of our *new* home - when the wind blows against that side of our building streams of air come through the light switches. If its wet and cold outside, the light switches even perspire. So anyway, I was hoping to just ignore the problem.

But the oozing just wouldn't stop. Then I discovered black mold on the wall behind the washer and knew I had to call for help. I have an extremely keen nose, especially with mold. That this stuff had no smell at all, even with my face pretty near it was kinda strange. Turns out the toilet tank inside the wall has been drip drip dripping, for I don't know how long.

For all my bitching about the slowness of Danish workers, I have to say, the guy that's the leader handyman for this complex is good and fast. Now when it comes to the contractors that need to be hired say - to fix the broken tile, so that the leaky toilet can be fixed, so that the floor can be put back into place...that's another story. Really its just the tile guy holding us up now, and its simply one cracked tile in the bathroom. My husband could fix this in an hour...but he didn't go to college for that, so he's not *allowed* to.

And I just can't seem to eat enough pasta lately. I think because its quick, easy, and my kid will eat it too - making life a lot easier in general. Last night I just added red pesto, garlic, and cooked spinach.


The husband requested black beans for tomorrow. Although I'd been buying my black beans at the Bazaar, I recently found lots of bean variety at the Chinese grocery located across from the train station downtown. Plus, they looked fresher - as fresh as a dry bean can look. So we'll see if they cook up any better than the last batch, which took forever to cook, and even then were not completely soft.

Dinner (for 1) and a Movie

Planning dinner is so stress-free when the husband is out of town - I only have to think about what *I* want to eat, and when I want to eat it. Me me me me me. I opted for that great broiled broccoli again, while the boy had leftover noodles - and was totally happy with them. Ahhh, easy.


Yesterday, I also picked up a couple of movies at the library - Again, shows that I wanted to watch with no worry about if the husband would be bored - and I was happily surprised with my first choice Friends With Money. What I remember from the trailer shown during commercials in the US was a comical show about people giving their poor friend (Rachael from Friends) their money, and I had no desire to see a show like that.

But the pickings are slim at the library here, and I was happy to get my hands on something I hadn't seen. And the movie turned out to actually be very good. The friends don't give her money, and its not a feel-good-funny plot, the casting was great, and I might even watch it again tonight.

The weather continues to be crappy, and so a week has passed by, but it kind of seems like one, long, gloomy day. I did manage to make a pot of black beans, which were eaten for no less than 5 meals between the two of us.


And last weekend I made a pot of chili. I prefer to make my chili with sauteed onion and celery, ground pork, and lots of chopped garlic. I've tried all brands of tomato sauce from every grocery, and they all have a funky flavor. So its øko diced tomatoes for us for everything. For this pot I also used canned red kidney beans. Mistake! They are just too sweet. Why are these and baked beans the preferred canned beans of this country? Must be the sugar. Along with the chili I made some eggfree cornbread. It was just the simple recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook (this cookbook is essential, the recipes may not be fancy or worldly, but its got all the day to day information that you need). I substituted flax blended in water for the eggs, and topped the warm bread with butter and honey. Even the boy liked it (without the added sticky and sweet stuff of course - poor kid, if he would just try it he would like it).



I think I've been knitting a lot lately, but its hard to tell since I really don't have much to show for it. Sometime ago I mentioned that I was starting in on another attempt at a scarf with a pattern that felt right...well, I actually got to the end of that one and then decided to take it all apart. It reminded me of snake skin.


Now, with the same light colored yarn above I've started making a lace cowl. I've always been slightly frightened of lace patterns. They are usually a repeat of a number of rows (for this pattern its a 10 round repeat), and within each row its a somewhat complex sequence of stitches. Well, the stitches (and the act of knitting) are not complex, its just the paying attention part that can be hard. Since a friend of mine mentioned how much she likes this particular wool yarn I've been trying my hardest to make something nice out of it for her. This lace pattern makes a repeating heart shape, and she likes hearts...so that's the plan.

There is another girl birthday coming up. I bought a small pretty pony toy thing, but the gift list specified homemade stuff. So I made these little power bands. Some people might call them wrist warmers - but I live with a boy, and to him these are what a girl super hero would wear. It was also my frist time adding beads while knitting.

Fiske

Taking the advice of the Danish family we stayed with the other weekend - I steam cooked plaice in the oven. I don't know, is this poaching? I've also cooked salmon this way on advice from Emeril. The salmon turned out real good - lemon and oniony, while being moist and retaining the salmon flavor. This plaice on the other hand tasted fine, but mostly lemony. No big fish flavor. With the meat, we made fish tacos. (That slab of breaded frozen fish in the back is the kind my son will eat.)


But the BEST fish tacos I've ever had have to be the ones I had on Cozumel. We went for a drive around the island, stopped at some sea-side hut, and ordered them along with some chunky guacamole. The little tacos were deep fried and oh-so-good. And I can finally share this story with other people now, since the island is completely overrun by cruise boats, and...teardrop at the corner of my eye, I'll probably never return there again.

And I felt like I hit the jackpot at Lidl the other day. Except for the produce the entire store is always the same...same cheese, same milk, same muesli. But there is also this small area of about three shelves that changes. Lately its been kosher food. This last time is was stuff from Espana - Aribba! I cleaned out what they had of canned black-eyed peas, you NEVER find these things, and thinking what the hell, I grabbed a can of chick peas too. Ah, living the vida loca in DK.

Long Weekend

We have had beautiful weather for the last four days now. And each day we have been getting out, knowing that it can't possibly last.

Friday were back at Egeskov Slot - our third, and probably last time this year. The ticket we bought during our first visit turned out to be a season pass, so that's good. And each time we've gone, we see something new. Like...

The lavender garden in one of the hedge mazes was in full bloom.


One of the rooms in in the dollhouse museum was playing strip poker. Warning: Male paper mache nudity below.


And what's up with this picture? Is it 1) a joke, 2) a very unfortunate woman, or 3) a man hoping to be a woman?


And on the food front...We are off on vacation next week, so once again I'm scrounging around, trying not to go to the grocery. I made some black-eyed peas (about 1 cup dried) the other day and we had them one night with salad, the next day as a side, and then finished them off at the beach with tortilla chips.



Not a bad run for a cup of unassuming beans.

Bean Salad

Craving something different, I decided to cook up some black-eyed peas yesterday afternoon - then I had to figure out what I was going to do with them. I paged through my veg cookbook for ideas, and settled on a bean salad similar to one that I used to get from the deli at Lakewinds.


All together the *main* ingredients consisted of: black-eyed peas, tomato, onion, feta, and parsley. The dressing called for lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I only had 1/4 of a lemon left, and after tasting the salad I thought it needed a bit more tang, so I added balsamic vinegar and that worked out just dandy. Looking back, crushed garlic would have also added a nice tang too, but my mind was a bit frazzled after an afternoon of babysitting to really think all that much.

Falafel Tuesday

I ran across a falafel recipe in an old Cooking Light magazine that I brought with. The recipe called for canned pinto beans, cheese, an egg, and seasonings. Well, I changed a few things around for what I had on hand to the ingredients below. While cooking the patty, I thought that my first try was a good try, but not quite what I was going for (not falafel as you normally think of it). But, after eating the yummy little thing, I’d say if you think of it as a refried pinto burger, its DAMN GOOD!

First the Beans
Again, I only had dried. My Deborah Madson book says that the smell of beans baking in the oven is as good as the smell of baking bread. Ok, I’ll try that. I soaked them, boiled them for 10+ minutes, and then put them in the oven with onion, garlic, olive oil, and thyme. After over 1 ½ hours cooking, they still were not mushy liked the canned, but soft enough for me. Add some salt, then into the fridge for the night.

Now the Patties
I tried using my blender to mash the beans, but what was on the bottom just turned to paste (I miss my food processor Busta). So, I smashed them with a fork instead (but your cheap Ikea fork can only hold up to so much, I need to find a new way next time). Anyway, I added shredded mozzarella cheese, chopped red onion and cilantro, ground coriander, and my “other” secret seasoning – Salsa (Border Bandito's Salsa spice blend - that’s the whole name) from Old Westport Spices (put that in anything and it tastes GGGGREAT!). I fried it up (it was still a bit mushy on the inside, I think I’ll change the shape and size next time to get more crunchy surface area), and ate it with some pico de gallo (red onion, tomato, avocado, cilantro, and lime), and tortilla chips.

MMMMMMMmmmmmmm. I think it was the beans that made the meal so good. I'll be cooking those beans in the oven next time too.

Frijoles, arroz, y pollo para la cena.

So, one thing I’ve had a hard time finding here has been beans. Rich likes the “Mexican cuisine”, and that includes a helping of some kind of bean usually. The grocery stores only carry what they call chili beans (red kidney beans), or baked beans. No pintos, no garbanzos, no refried nada.

Well, my vegetarian cookbooks have lots of bean ideas, and I picked up some dried black beans at the Turkish market, so today was the day to try out a recipe. I made the basic black bean recipe (substituting leeks for onions, and thyme for oregano), and added my secret seasoning - Sazon (this stuff rocks, put it in basically anything and all the flavors go up a notch – they sell it at Cub). Then I used the nutrient rich (so said the cookbook) bean broth to make rice (substituting again leeks for onions). Put that together with some pollo, tomatoes, cabbage, and garlic, and it was a yummy little dinner.


I don’t know if this can compete with Rich’s dinner last Friday night. I bought schnitzel (flat pork steaks I think). Rich cannot (CANNOT) eat schnitzel with anything but spaetzel. Since I don’t make spaetzel, Rich was on deck. Four pans, three small bowls, two big bowls, and countless utensils later, dinner was served. Did I mention that we haven’t (can’t) used our dishwasher yet? Rich said – I thought you said you liked to wash dishes – right honey?