Swedish meat(flat)balls in the oven

This is hardly rocketscience food for the swedes, i know. It is a healthier version of swedish meatballs. You see... I am trying to cut out all the half-prepared or readymade meals out of my diet, but im just too lazy to roll all the little meatballs in neat little balls and then fry them all in the pan a few at a time. For one... I have done so, and it always ends with me going stircrazy and all my meatballs ending up flat anyways. I do not have the patience for that. Instead I have been experimenting with preparing hamburgertype patties in the oven. With great success I might add, because this has turned out to be one big success in my family. And I always make enough to freeze and use as panic-prepared lunches and omg-mommy-feed-me-now dinners.
This is what I do.. some might want to add some sort of breadcrumb/milk mixture to it as classic recepies calls for (just google swedish meatballs), but I kind of like having the protein undialuted.

My flat swedish meatballs

1200 grams of lean ground beef (10% maximum is what I use... you may use mixture of pork and elk, or pork and redmeat.. but I keep it simple. )
1 large onion, grated
salt
pepper (white and black)
worshestershire sauce (I dont measure, just drop some on.. tablespoon or more)
bullionsauce or a bullion cube if you have it.
2 eggs
soysauce

1 large ovenpan (use the deep one that comes with the oven) and paper it.

I start with peeling the onion and then I grate it roughly. This makes the onionpieces small enough not to meddle with the shapes of the meatballs afterwards. Also it makes fussy little kids eat without hesitating over the big pieces of onion I otherwise would be serving.
First I put some meat in a large bowl (preferably a bowl dedicated to use for meats.. or a stainless steel one to make sure you can clean it easily. Yes, I am germ-phobic.) and add some of the onion, salt and pepper, more meat and then onion and more seasonings. Then blend it all together well with a spoon or a large wooden fork. Do not overmix, but make sure it is all nicely mixed. Add the worshestershiresauce, bullion and a few drops of soy also, and more seasoning.. dont be afraid of pepper and salt. It needs a lot. Don't tell me if you taste the batter, because i dont want to know. It is just wrong. I wing it, I have never oversalted the meatballs. Crack the eggs and mix them into the batter. Time to shape it. Put the oven on now to 250 degrees celcius (high heat).

If I would make meatballs, i would make them tiny with like just a tablespoon meatbatter. But I am making big honking meatpatties instead, so I use the icecreamscooper to make balls in the same size. Place them close together on the ovenpan. This batter usually make about 30 big balls. Which I then promptly flatten with a spatula. Then I pour a few drops of dark chinese soy ontop and paint them with a brush and once the oven is ready I shove the pan in there somewhere in the uppermiddle and put the timer on 15 minutes. They litterary manage themselves in the oven. I took my time taking care of the kitchen and the dishes while they cooked. After those 15 minutes I turn them over (lots of liquids have spread around the pan now, which you could prolly use as a saucebase if you want to. I don't) and lower the heat slightly to 175 and keep it in the oven for antoher 10 minutes.

These are valuable minutes where you can prepare the rest of the dishes. I suggest veggies such as green beans or broccoli... Tonight I took a very big shortcut and used instant mash potatoes (with a little extra milk and a spoon of butter, little salt and pepper to make it nicer), an instant cream sauce and lingonberry jam. There was also pickled cucumber on the table. Nice nice nice. And the whole batch served 5 adults and 1 kid and there was enough patties left over for another dinner at dads place tomorrow. If I was cooking at home the natural sidedishes would be fullgrain macaroni or bulgur together with veggies or corn. Which incidently is what I am having for lunch tomorrow at work.

Cooking over at my dads place..

Little more than a year ago, my beloved mother suddenly passed away, and left a pretty much devestated family behind her. We can be as many as 17 people around the table somtimes.. on normal days we are atleast 5.. I do not live with my father, only a couple of my brothers does.. but it is a familytradition ever since as long as I can remember, that we often gather for dinner sometimes every day. This is great for me, the single mom with a desire to cook elaborate and calorieheavy desserts, and try them on the pickiest people ever. My older brothers are merciless and tells it as it is. I sometimes rebell against how it is always the womens responsibility to cook whenever one of us sticks our nose in the door... but considering how good they are to me (hey.. they took care of my dentistbills without blinking) i really should be thankful my sole responsibility is to cook every once in a while.
Anyway.. other times my retired dad does the cooking, and this is the funny part. My dad is the type that absolutly could not cook. I have deliberatly tried to forget all the retch-worthy dishes he tried out before mom died. The last year before mom died, she got sick, and he helped her cook while she told him what to do, and I have taught him even more afterwards. Now dad will happily buy cookbooks (I inspirerd him to do that. I am always hanging out in the cookbooksection when we go shopping) and try new recepies. Some really good stuff is being made in his kitchen nowadays. Some old dishes from his past still stays with him though. Like "moms" macaronicasserole. I was making him that yesterday, and while i was chopping the onion and preparing everything he was chatting about how that dish came to be. When my dad was doing his tour of duty in the finnish army, he had written to mom and said that he really missed his moms macaronicasserole and how he wished she could make him something like that on his next visit. Well my mom apparantly braved up and asked her motherinlaw for the recepie. This was way back in the early 1950's and pasta was pretty exotic in the cold north of Finland. Mom had to go to town and specifically buy that, because people just did not have that laying around at home. And ever since that time every time my dad wanted something special he would get this macaronicasserole. It is simple every day type of food, and nothing special for us pasta every day type of people at all if you ask me. I grew up on it, and it is childhood and moms cooking to me. It tastes nice, and even better so the next day when you fry it in a pan. But it just shows how different things are. This dish has been loved by my dad and our family for over 50 years. That is special, and I have never enjoyed this dish more than yesterday when I made it and it tasted exactly how mom made it.

Makaronilaatikko (Macaronicasserole in finnish)

400 g dry macaroni (half a large package here in Sweden, I use Ideal macaroni)
1 large yellow onion
500 grams of ground up beef
salt
white pepper
a little blackpepper
3 eggs
1 liter of milk
salt and pepper
breadcrumbs

an ovendish of some kind. I use an oval pyrexglassdish for this.

Put the water on and halfcook the macaroni, drain the water away and put the macaroni back in pot.
Chop the onion and fry it in a little butter and pour in the beef. Fry it hard, and for a long time.. it should be really dry and even almost reach the point of "burnt". The only seasoning you use is generous ammount of salt and white pepper and a little blackpepper.
Pour it into the macaronipot and blend it with the macaroni. Pour into the ovendish.. the mixture should almost reach the edge of the ovendish. It is fine.
Whisk together eggs and milk, salt and whitepepper. Use alot.. the "eggmix" eats salt like crazy. And pour this over the macaronimix. The mixture should cover the macaroni, but not drown it. Then you sprinkle dry breadcrumbs ontop of the entire dish.
Bake in the middle of the oven on 200 degrees celcius for 40 minutes until the top is a nice browncrisp color and the eggmixture is not runny.

For variation, you can exchange the meat for ham, salami and bacon, or use cheese ontop.

File medallions in mushroomsauce

One of my favorite easymeals for the whole family has got to be medallions of porkfile in a cream and mushroom sauce served with either bulgur, or for the "exotic foods" challenged family of mine, rice. I made this dinner tonight for me and my kid and it got the thumbs up this time too. You can make double or even triple the portions.. just make sure you make the final sauce in a large pot instead of straight into the pan. That is actually how I most of the time make it, since I have an obnoxiously large family.

Porkfile and cream..
serves 4

1 porkfile sliced (or porkchops works just as well)
butter for the pan
salt and whitepepper (finely pulverised)
1 onion, chopped
1 small can of mushrooms (any kind you like, fresh even if you got them.)
2.5 dl of creme (lowfat works very well. I used Mildas mat with 7%)
soysauce (chinese) a few drops for desired colour
boullion (i use bong, touch of taste.. ox.. about a spoonful or more, i never measure.)
a little blackpepper


This is how you do it:
Start with the sidedish. Put the water on for the bulgur or rice. They will be done just about the same time if you have everything already chopped and prepared.
Fry the porkslices in a little butter until they are done (it takes about 3 minutes per side for me). Season them with salt and pepper ofcourse. Don't fry them all in one go, that will only boil the meat instead of giving it good texture and colour. Just put the finished one to the side until they are all done.
If the pan is very messy, rince it with water. Drop another miniknob of butter in there and fry the onion and the mushrooms, season them with salt and some pepper. Toss all the meat in and pour the cream over it all. Add the soy and bullion.. some more salt and pepper if needed. Let it simmer until it is all good and gooey. If you feel you have too little sauce, feel free to add more cream or milk, creme fraiche other types of dairy.. even garliccreamcheese works like a charm in this. Done just about the time it will take for you to put out the dishes, get some rice and veggies ready.

Enjoy!

I am camera challenged right now, so there will be pictures added at a later time, not to worry.. This dish comes around very often in my family. It's kinda funny actually... It was my mom that showed me how to make it from the beginning, but as soon as I had learned it, she claimed she had never ever made it! Just because this would be a dish that I would be incharge of cooking instead of her when my brothers came and asked for it. My mom was funny that way.

The unremarkable fishgratine

Everyone needs to eat more fish, right? My shameful secret is that i don't actually have a good clue as to how to prepare fish. I can do fishsticks in the oven, and i can on rare occations, muster up a lovely salmon. But lets face it. Ordinary fish.. not really a big favorite for me.
Well.. this block of whitefish have been sitting in the very back of my freezer for so long, it was nearing my personal "omg, cannot eat somethign thats been in my freezer that long" level. And since I am a frugal and pennypinching taurus, that means that I had to find a recepie and I had to do it now. I started early this morning, preparing kiddo about the coming fish for dinner, and he looked at me and reminded me it has been a very long time since we had pizza. But no can do!
Tonight I served Fishgratine with lemonsauce and cheese, together with potatoes and green beans. And kiddo ate it all, without complaining. Could have something to do with dinner being almost 30 minutes later than usual *sheepish grin*.
I loved it though and will have to repeat this.

Lemonfishgratine (serves 2-3 depending on how large portions you want)
about 15 cm of leek, thorolly rinced and cut up.
1 block of "white" fish, such as Cod (just this once.. it was already too late for these fish to make a political statement regarding the overfishing of our waters..) 600 grams.
lemonjuice
salt
lemonpepper
1 piece of fishbroth (as power)
250 g of minifraiche (5% fat cremefraiche. I am sure you can use anykind of cremecraich, or ordinary cookingcreme)
1 tetra (2.5 dl) of pre-made lemonsauce (Keldas is the brand I used)

small handful of grated cheese ( i used lowfat cheese 12% )

Chop up the leeks and cover the bottom of a small ovensafe dish while you thawing out the fish a little in the microwave until you can separate the fish it into 4 pieces. Place the fish ontop and pour generous ammounts of lemonjuice, and seasoning ontop of the fish. Cover with cremefraiche and pour the sauce over it. Into the oven at 225 degrees celcius until the fish is done.. Start cooking the potatoes and veggies of your choice. After about 20 minutes you can take out the ovendish and cover with a little cheese.. this will give the fish a little more color and a great flavor since the sauce will basically "melt of the fish and not be much of a nuisance at all except as a flavorful cookingliquid, which is wonderful for anyone like me that hate having sauce stack up the calories. Once the cheese has a good color (10-14 minutes) you can consider the fish done. I turned the oven off at this point, keeping the food warm for a little longer until the potatoes were done.
Tasted wonderful, and I wish I had taken a picture, but i was leaning towards "failure" all the way until I ate it.
Kiddo ate it all without hesitation, and rated it "great", which is always a plus. A negative factor to a meal like this is that it wont make me stay full for long. But that is what dessert is good for I guess. Fish is so slimfood anyways.
Cannot be served to the dutchman. He hates fish.

Witlof wrapped in cheese and ham...

Witlof-endive-chicory

A loved one has many names, as well as the dreaded horrors of childhood. Stop just there though, I promise that even though chicory traditionally means something horrid (stuff you tried to stuff deep into your napkin as a kid because it tasted bitter) that you are in for a treat. But this is a fantastic way to cook witlof, which is the Dutch name for it. A guaranteed bitter free experience. You really don’t expect me to dare to tempt you anything horrible, right?

One of the most fascinating aspects of traveling for me, due to me being a total food freak, is exploring new ways of cooking. This one is a recipe my dear Dutch boyfriend and his family taught me to make.

Witlof is served as a side dish in his family. Often served together with meat and potatoes. Yummy. All good, but I happen to think this is a totally brilliant meal on its own. With the right chosen cheese it is even a nutritious meal that can be shamelessly served to anyone on a diet! And it still tastes fantastic. I served this to my coworkers after having told them about my new favorite meal for about a week and a half... I even had to bring extra “non witlof” food because they were so damn skeptical and i hate serving food that others wont like. But that was just wrong – I should have brought more witlof! Anyway, this is how to make it, and don't be afraid because it is a vegetable... I usually hate veggies, and this is totally making me drool.

Witlof for 2 dinners and a lunch the day after or as a side dish for 4-5 people:

7-8 small endives (usually here in Sweden they come in handy 250 g packages with 3-4 pieces of endive. Take two packages! Otherwise i advice you to buy 3 big endives and just cut it up once its time to wrap them.)

Small cheese slices. You will need 2 slices per endivewrap (and 3 more to top).

3 slices of smoked ham per endivewrap

Dry breadcrumbs about 2 tablespoons (i only sprinkle some on top)

This is how you do it...

Rinse the endives. Take off the bad leaves (in the small ones there is usually almost never anything to trow away) and snip off the bottom of it. Inside there is a little root. You do not want that. That is where all the bitterness of the veggie is. Cut it out like a little cone, taking out as much as you can without breaking the endive into pieces. Also snip off the very top of the salads.
Put all of them in a pot of cold water and add a little salt. Boil them whole until they are completely soft. Should take about 10-15 minutes. Don’t worry about overcooking them; there is no such thing. Also don’t worry about potentially loose saladleafs. Just wrap them with the smallest witlof. Drain the witlof completely in a sieve and leave them alone to cool for a while.
Now the fun part starts!

For ease I pre slice all the cheese I need. And take out and separate the ham.

Turn the oven on to 225 degrees celcius (hot oven!).

I use a cutting board for this. But you can use any surface you would like.

Use two pieces of ham, overlapping them a little.

Add a cheese slice.

Put the endive on top (a whole one if it is small)

Another cheese slice on that

Roll it all together with another ham to make a roll.

Put the roll into an oven safe dish.

Repeat with the rest of the endives.

When the endives are all wrapped up and in the dish (just cozy them all together), sprinkle breadcrumbs over them and tear the remaining 2-3 slices of cheese up and spread evenly. Swoosh into the middle of the hot oven and bake them there for about 20-25 minutes until they are sporting a good crisp and color. Serve as they are, or together with potatoes and meat, preferably something chicken. Food heaven – Dutch style.

Swedish Pancakes

There is fast food, and there is fast food that is not so fast. In Sweden Thursday is traditionally Pea soup and Pancake Day, but in this household, we make pancakes when we don’t feel like cooking. It is that is always easy to make, It is inexpensive, I always have ingredients for them in the cupboard and best of all – it gives instant satisfaction and I make enough to give us something to snack on later that evening or the day after. The day after there might even be reason enough to have even more fun with them since I can make crêpes out of them... but that rarely happens. Cold, natural, thin pancakes are possibly the food of gods for me. I know my kiddo gets a certain look in his eyes that translated into sound would go something like: “mmMMMMMyummmy pancakes”, when he sees the stack of leftover pancakes i keep in the fridge. I guess it is hereditary. Pancakes are incredibly versatile, you can make them salty with bacon, you can toss some sliced or shredded apples and cinnamon into the dough, pour lemon juice and sugar on it (hey i just tried that after someone British recommended me that and i loved it, cheers!) just eat them as they are with jam, or sprinkled sugar, or ice cream, or... as the new family member taught us, cheese slices and syrup. I don’t even have to ask my kid anymore what he wants on his pancakes. Far before I have even managed to flip the first pancake he is dragging the Gouda-cheese out of the fridge and hunting for syrup. Oh well, it really does not matter what we decide to do or put on the pancakes. I only have one rule, and one rule only. There is no pancake mixes allowed. That is just cheating. A real Swedish mom makes pancakes from scratch. My mom would come back and laugh at me, if I made pancakes out of a mix. For those of you who do use mixes, please do continue. You prolly live abroad and have a complete different reference to what a pancake should taste and feel like. If you do them like me though, i promise you a nice, soft and a little crispy edged sometimes, delicious pancake.

Swedish Pancakes

The batter I use, makes about 12-15 thin plate sized pancakes, or one really big oven pancake.

2½ dl flour

6 dl milk (any kind will do)

½-1 teaspoon of salt

3 teaspoons of sugar (optional, but i always do it)

3 eggs

butter for the pan, i suppose i use about half a teaspoon per pancake.. So 25 grams should be more than enough. Don’t use oil or liquid butter, they wont brown the way you want it to. I had a big problem with that for the longest time. My pancakes just wouldn’t turn out as nice as my moms did. I just assumed she had some trick I had missed out on, until I ran out of the healthier versions i fry stuff in, and ended up using regular margarine. Ha, I ain't never going back. It isn’t like pancakes are jam packed with fibres either, so I will gladly take a loss on the diet on pancake day.

Ahem.. this is what I do. Take the flour, salt and sugar; mix it with HALF of the milk (3 deciliters for those of us too tired to count). Mix it well until it is smooth and creamy. Don’t grab one of those electrical mixes for this; it’s not hard work. Then you leave it be for at least 10 minutes. You can leave it for hours if you feel like, I usually take a moment to wash up the mornings dishes, check the mail or chase kiddo around the house to make sure he isn’t bouncing off the walls for a little bit. Then I return to my batter, crack the eggs into it. I suppose your supposed to do it one by one and stir it well, but i just whack them all in at once and then stir vigorously. After that i mix in the rest of the milk. Now the batter is going be quite loose, but if you have used the amounts i have told you, do not feel alarmed. It’s supposed to be like that. Now I take a moment to prepare for making the pancakes. Start with taking out 2 plates (one for stacking pancakes on) and one for the pancake you make “extra”, like with cheese on. Or if you have kids, “the panic plate” for impatient family members.

I make my batter in a Tupperware mixing bowl with a little pipe on the side, something very handy for this. I can just pour the batter in (and i keep a piece of paper underneath the bowl for minor spills), but for reference, it’s about ¾ of a deciliter of batter for a pancake.

Turn the stove on max, add butter into a Teflon-pan (or a sturdy iron pan whatever you prefer) and as it melts and “quiets down” and feels hot in the air above it, you add some batter. Don't mind measuring up for a full pancake here, because the first one always suck. It doesn't get enough heat. But fry it on one side for about a minute, check if it has enough color and flip it over, fry for another minute. Remove to plate; try it if it tastes good. If it doesn't, then I think you should add a little more sugar and salt. Otherwise just shrug it off and use extras afterwards that will make you ignore if the batter is boring. (But it isn’t!!!!). I think Nigella said something about the first being gobbled up as a food offering to the goddess of the kitchen or something like that. I kind of like that idea.

Fry them all up, medium to high heat. If the butter is oozing too much when you put it into the pan, then lower the heat and wait a little, or you just burn the pancake. You will soon get the feel for how long it takes. These are thin pancakes though, so more than 2 minutes per side I doubt is necessary. They should have a good measure of color on them, pale means slightly undercooked. Still good, but will feel a bit doughy on your belly.

To make Dutch cheese pancakes with syrup, you fry the pancake, and as you have turned it over in the pan, add 3-4 slices of cheese to it. Once the cheese has melted completely, the pancake is done. Remove to plate, drizzle light syrup on top and roll it together (i fold it with a fork) and cut it up. Serve and enjoy.

OK, simple enough, right? It is so easy even my dad can do it. I taught him, because I got tired of being available every Thursday evening to make pancakes for 1 father and 2 brothers who has been spoiled rotten by my mother – the queen of pancakes. And their kitchen just sucks, with the oven slightly tilted. Pancakes do not turn out pretty on a tilted stove. Just so you know. Now I feel I have grown into some of her shoes when it comes to the pancake business... but that is just because no one has seen me when the pancakes break as i turn them, or the one time i tried flipping them in the air. I will wear that pancake crown even if i have to duct tape it to my head.

To make pancake dinner even easier, when i absolutely cant stand cooking at all, I make oven-pancake. For that I use the exact same batter, but i heat the oven up to 225 degrees Celsius. Take a big, deep pan (same size as a standard oven) and butter it. Pour the batter in, bake it in the middle of the oven for about 20-25 minutes. It will poof up here and there, but that's perfect. When it is done immediately sprinkle, the top of the pancake, with ordinary sugar if you want a sweet pancake.

If you wanted a savoury salty pancake, you should have added bacon or something as the oven was heating up (then the pan would of course be in the oven during that process) and then added the batter.

Serves 3 big eaters, or two kiddie portions and one Dutchman.