Dining Danish: Muesli

Part two of my Danish recipe adventure brings you the food that I ate for breakfast pretty much everyday for a month and a half straight: muesli! Muesli in its most basic form consists of raw oats with some nuts and dried fruit thrown in. The muesli you get in the United States is often baked or sweetened, which starts to veer into granola territory rather than muesli in the traditional sense. Danes love their muesli, and you can find entire sections of the grocery store devoted to the stuff.

Muesli is commonly served with yogurt, and in Denmark, you can buy yogurt in quart-sized containers (like milk) and in about a million flavors and varying fat content. I bought something called "Cheasy," which fortunately turned out to be yogurt (it was unflavored, but I figured the chances were high that it was yogurt and not, in fact, cheese in a quart-sized container). I also tried your typical berry flavors as well as more exotic ones like pear-banana (which was delicious!).

A bit suspicious. A38? What does that even mean?

My favorite mueslis came from the Coop store brand sold at the Kvickly (yes, that is really what it's called) and the SuperBrugsen. They were cheap, came in HUGE bags, and had lots of mixins. The recipe below was my attempt to recreate the tropical muesli which came in a teal-colored bag. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Tropical Fruit Muesli

3 cups old fashioned oats

¼ c almonds, sliced or slivered (raw)

¼ c pumpkin seeds (raw)

¼ c sunflower seeds (raw)

¼ c coconut, shredded

¼ c raisins

1/3 c banana chips (sweetened or unsweetened)

½ c flax flakes (or other multigrain flaked cereal)

1/3 c puffed rice cereal

¾ c dried tropical fruit such as papaya and pineapple, cut into 1/4" pieces

1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)

Mix all ingredients together in a large container with a lid. Give it a good shake to mix everything well. Enjoy over yogurt or milk. Store in an airtight container for up to a month.

Note: To make this recipe, I bought a lot of stuff in bulk at Whole Foods, which is good when you only need 1/4 cup of lots of different things!

Dining Danish: Koldskål

A few weeks after coming back from Denmark, I found myself pining...for Danish food. In order to quiet my Danish food cravings, I decided to attempt to replicate some of the recipes of my favorite foods in Denmark, especially those that were particularly unique to the country.

When the weather finally got warm in Copenhagen, grocery stores exploded with displays of quart containers and pre-made cups with cookies in the lid of this stuff called koldskål. I decided to buy a cup of it, not actually knowing what it was (as was the case most of the time when I went grocery shopping in Denmark).

Koldskål (literally translated as "cold bowl") is a traditional Danish dish served in the summer (thus, the increase of product when the weather got warm). It's kind of hard to describe, but it sort of resembles a lemony, buttermilk-yogurt soup. That doesn't sound appetizing, but trust me, it is unique and delicious. I saw people eating it on the train for breakfast, but I ate it as a dessert with strawberries and nut granola on top. The things in the container lid are a type of cookie called kammerjunker (you can't make these words up if you tried), which are akin to a vanilla wafer.

I used the recipe below and served my koldskål with blueberries and vanilla wafers. Enjoy a little taste of summer in Denmark!

Om nom nom

Koldskål
Adapted from Secret Pocket Blog

1 cup yogurt (I used nonfat plain Greek)
4 tablespoons sugar
3 cups buttermilk (I added a little bit of milk, too, to get the consistency to my liking)
zest of one lemon
juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine the yogurt, sugar, and lemon zest in a bowl. Using a mixer or whisk, mix together until the sugar dissolves. Mix in the rest of the ingredients until blended. Keep in a pitcher in the fridge. Serve with fresh berries, granola, and/or vanilla wafers.

Back in the USA

Look out, Chicago! The good people of the Department of Homeland Security at O'Hare International Airport let me back into the country. It's great to be back!

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. After I ended my work at DTU, my parents came to visit for a week, and right after that, Andy came to visit for ten days. Andy and I went on a wonderful (and tiring) trip around Europe including stops in Stockholm, Paris, and Zurich. Phew!

I took Tuesday off to get myself back together. I did exciting things such as:
Staying in my pajamas until 10 AM
Unpacking
Laundry
Going to the bank to get quarters for laundry
More laundry
Eating sushi takeout
Even more laundry

Quite the thrilling day, indeed.

Is retroactively blogging about your exploits kosher? I have lots of photos from the trip that I'd like to share with you all, but I'm trying to filter through the hundreds of pictures I took to give you S&C-ers the best of the best. More on this as I continue my photo filtering. Cheers!

Denmark: The Land of Licorice

Danish people love licorice. I mean, really love licorice. Think you are a huge fan of the stuff? Wrong. You do not like it as much as the Danes.

If you go to the grocery store, you will find entire shelving units in the candy aisle devoted to the stuff. However, the licorice here is not just any licorice. The local favorite is salty licorice, which is made salty by the addition of ammonium chloride, giving it a very pungent, slightly sour aftertaste. It is an acquired taste for sure. The concept sort of reminds me of the salted caramel fad that is common in the US. I like licorice a lot, but there are some kinds that are just too much for me. My favorite so far is the Pingvin Lakrids mix. A little salty, a little chewy, om nom nom.

How can you resist that cute little guy?

One of my colleagues from Sweden told us a story of how he was sharing a compartment with a bunch of Italian tourists on a train. Over the course of the trip, the Italian guys shared some wine with him. He was trying to think of the best thing he could share with them to reciprocate. "Ah, yes!" he thought, "Salty licorice!" However, as I said, it is quite the acquired taste, especially when you're not expecting it to be so astringent. Let's just say that he didn't get any more wine from the Italians after the sharing of the salty licorice. Ah, well. Maybe he should have brought along some kanelsnegles instead. :)

On a completely different note, I'm coming up on my final weeks at Risø. I have my last two TEM days on Thursday and Friday. Ahhh! I've got two more chances to get some awesome data to bring back to NU. I'm a bit anxious, as you can imagine, but hopefully, the experiments will go well. The upside of all this microscope time is that I can operate a TEM successfully without having a panic attack. Huzzah!

Tomorrow is a holiday, so I'll be working from home and exploring the area around my new digs. It's International Workers' Day (like our Labor Day), which is not an official holiday, but we get it off anyway. Maybe I'll go check out some political rallies? Who knows!

Malmö aka "Look, I've been to Sweden!"

It's just about the end of my third week in Denmark. I can't believe how fast the time has gone - I'm already halfway done! There's so much more to do (work-wise) and see (fun-wise)!

This past weekend, my labmates and I, as well as my advisor and his wife, decided to venture into unknown territory. And by unknown territory, I mean...Sweden. In addition to touring the sights of Copenhagen, many people opt to head across the border to the city of Malmö, Sweden, which is only about 30 minutes away by train from Copenhagen's central station. I would imagine that many of these people are like me and decided to go there to add another country to my list of places I've been. To get to Malmö, you can either drive or take a train over the Øresund Bridge, which is an engineering marvel unto itself. It used to be the longest bridge in the world, and I'm sure that it is still one of the top ones.

Just off of Lilla Torg (Little Square)

The city of Malmö is super cute and has lots of traditional Swedish squares, cute shops, and bakeries as well as elements of modern Scandinavian design.

The Turning Torso tower

It also has one of the only phone booths I've seen since I've been in Europe.

David was very excited to make a call!

Everywhere you turn, there is some sort of outdoor space with walking trails, bike paths, or waterways.

 
People in Scandinavia LOVE to eat outdoors. In the morning, I see people eating breakfast in the courtyard of my apartment building, even if it is on the chilly side that day. A lot of the cafes in Nyhavn, the region of Copenhagen that you would typically see on a postcard, provide diners with heaters and blankets when the weather gets nippy. In Sweden, at the cafe where we stopped for lunch, I had the option of dining al fresco in a new way: in a greenhouse.

Getting some horticulture with my lunch. No big deal.

Of course, I had to stop and get my requisite baked good before I left. This "princess cake" covered in violently green marzipan came from Konditori Hollandia, the oldest bakery in the city.

I got some coffee and a cinnamon bun to go. Sorry, Sweden, but Denmark still reigns supreme with the cinnamon snail. This cake was pretty awesome, though. :)

With that, I'm going to check on my own culinary creation currently baking in the oven (more on that later). Until next time, friends!

Denmark, brb

Greetings from Denmark!

I'm here working with my lab's collaborators at DTU Energy Conversion, which is on the Roskilde Fjord (yes, there really are fjords in Scandinavia) about an hour outside of Copenhagen. Even though I'm working in Roskilde (pronounce Ros-killa. More on how strange the Danish language is later), I'm living with my labmates Kyle and David in Copenhagen. Our apartment is in Vesterbro, which, I am told by every Copenhagen tourism website, is quite trendy these days, and the nearby Meatpacking District is apparently where all of the nightlife happens in these parts. So yes.

Even though we've only been here about a week and a half, I feel like we've seen a lot of Copenhagen already. We've discovered one of the most famous microbreweries (which collaborates with Indiana's Three Floyds. Who knew?), seen historic sights, and walked A LOT. I'm going to try to chronicle the journey along the way with some pictures. Here's a teaser!

Nyhavn, the waterfront district. Reminds me of Amsterdam!

Obligatory picture of The Little Mermaid.

The hardest thing here has been learning to understand Danish. It is the WEIRDEST language. Nothing is pronounced how it looks. Essentially, what you have to do is pick your favorite vowel from the word and then pronounce half of the consonants, which will get you sort of close to how the word actually sounds.

No! You snore! (It actually means "On a Leash")

I am a HUGE fan of the pastries here. What we call Danishes in the US are known here as wienerbrød, which translates to "Vienna bread." So Danishes are actually Austrian? I guess no one wants to take credit for such a delicious thing. Silly Europeans. My favorite pastries so far are the Wienerstang (a sort of long pastry with chocolate on top and some sort of almond cream in the middle) and the kanel snegle (which literally translated means "cinnamon snail"). So cute!

One of these is a cinnamon snail. One of these is an actual snail. Can you tell which is which?

I'm still learning my way around the country, and I'm happy to have you all along as I do! Skål for now!

Post-St. Patty's Day

Still recovering from St. Patty's Day? You are not alone, my friend. I take this mostly as an indication that I am getting old.

I don't know about you, but my St. Patrick's Day consisted of lots of Guinness and Bailey's, mostly in coffee and brownie form. Our friends Kellie and Lauren had a lovely St. Patty's day brunch with all kinds of delicious noms. Throw some Korean BBQ in there for good measure (I know, not Irish, but a delicious addition to the weekend), and my body is offended by the lack of vegetables over the past week.

(Sizzle)

Chicago does St. Patrick's Day to the extreme. I would compare it to a Penn State football weekend but spread over an entire city.

People wear kilts (isn't that Scottish?) and break out their paddleboards.

For the love of God, do NOT fall into that river.

Some people even take their fanciest cars for a spin.

 The elusive car-boat

There's a parade and bar specials out the wazoo starting at 9 AM and all that, but my favorite part of the weekend is the dyeing of the Chicago river.

Yes, the river is really THAT green.

You see it in pictures, sure, but you always think to yourself that it must be Photoshopped. I say to you, readers, that is the real, non-retouched version. Definitely my favorite!

After a weekend of too many noms, I was looking for a recipe that was healthy but still delicious and sort of decadent. I came upon this recipe from the nifty blog Iowa Girl Eats. I tweaked it a bit based on what I had and what I could get at the store. My favorite modification was the use of roasted grapes rather than fresh cherries. The juices from the grapes act as a sort of dressing when combined with the balsamic reduction, so you don't even have to add anything extra!

This recipe has a few parts to it, but don't be intimidated; they're all simple to do. I broke the recipe down by section so that it is hopefully a little easier to follow. When I made the salad, I reduced the balsamic vinegar while doing the other stuff in the oven, as this part took the longest. I would recommend putting the chicken in the oven first followed by the grapes and then the goat cheese. That way, you have nice warm goat cheese for your salad, and the chicken has had a chance to rest. Alternatively, you can bake the chicken and roast the grapes at the same time if you're in a rush then bake the goat cheese.

Almond-Crusted Goat Cheese Spinach Salad with Roasted Grapes & Chicken

Inspired by Iowa Girl Eats
Serves 2

Balsamic reduction:
1 cup balsamic vinegar

Chicken:
1 boneless skinless chicken breast (about half a pound raw)
Salt
Pepper

Grapes:
2 cups red seedless grapes, removed from stems (about 1/2 to 3/4 lb)
Olive oil flavored cooking spray or olive oil
Salt to taste (1/4 to 1/2 tsp)
Pepper to taste (1/8 to 1/4 tsp)

Goat cheese:
3 oz goat cheese
2 tbsp toasted unsalted sliced almonds (I bought the pre-toasted kind from Trader Joe's)
Olive oil for brushing

4 oz baby spinach (about 4 cups)


For the balsamic reduction:
1) Pour balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan.
2) Heat on medium heat until the vinegar thickens and is roughly the consistency of maple syrup. The sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.
Pro tip: If you have a fan above your stove, turn it on. The reducing vinegar is quite pungent and will burn your nose if you breathe it in!

For the chicken:
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2) Place chicken in a baking pan or dish (with sides! Or you'll wind up with chicken juice all over the bottom of the oven and the fire alarm going off. Not that I know this from experience or anything...).
3) Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Flip chicken over and repeat.
4) Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the inside is no longer pink and juices run clear.

For the grapes:
1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (or 400 F if you're doing this at the same time as the chicken).
2) Place grapes in a baking dish or on a baking sheet in a single layer.
3) Spray with cooking spray or drizzle lightly with olive oil. Roll grapes around by shaking the pan so that they are coated evenly with oil.
4) Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Roll grapes around again to coat evenly with salt and pepper.
5) Roast in oven until grapes begin to split but before grapes begin to brown, about 15 minutes (slightly longer at 400 F), shaking the pan occasionally to prevent the grapes from sticking.

For the goat cheese:
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet or baking pan with parchment paper.
2) Cut the goat cheese into four rounds ~1/4 in thick. Place on cookie sheet.
3) Lightly brush the tops with olive oil. Sprinkle sliced almonds over the surface of the goat cheese, pressing lightly so the nuts stick to the cheese.
4) Bake 5-7 minutes or until soft and warm.

Assembly!
1) Divide baby spinach between two plates.
2) Top with grapes, chicken, and goat cheese.
3) Drizzle with balsamic reduction and sprinkle with additional almonds if desired.
4) Enjoy!