Danish Rye Bread, Cinnamon Buns, Rasin Buns, Vegetarian Lasagne and Borscht

Danish Rye Bread

One of the best breads in the North is the Danish Rye Bread, and I have been looking for a good recipe many times. This recipe I have got from my Danish frind, Lars, and these breads taste almost as good as the ones we can buy at the bakers in Denmark: If you are mixing it by hand, start with the dry ingredients, but if you do like me and use a mixer, start with the wet ones: This makes 4 or 5 breads, because I think that when I make the effort, I might as well bake as many as will fit into the oven - it also saves electricity. You will need bread pans for this recipe, 4 or 5.

1 1/2 liters (6 cups) of luke warm water
2 packs of yeast crumbled in the water
5 table spoons of oil (I use olive, but canola would be more "Nordic" as we grow that here)
5 table spoons of soy sauce (to give it a dark color and salt)
2 table spoons of apple vinegar (to enhance the rye flavour)
2 table spoons of dark syrup/molasses/honey



1.4 liters (a little less than 6 cups) of finely ground whole rye flour
1 liter (4 cups) of coarsely ground whole wheat flour
1 liter (4 cups) of white wheat flour
4 deciliters (2 cups) of wheat brand
4 deciliters (2 cups) of oat brand
6 deciliters (1 1/2 cup) of sunflower seeds, linen seeds and sesame seeds - and walnuts or other nuts that you like and might want to add

This will be a sticky dough, which I take over in very well oiled breadpans, I use spray grease. I wet my hands and press the dough down in the pans, put a towel over and let the breads rise for about one hour, before I bake them at 200 centergrades (400F) for about one hour.

Cinnamon and Rasin Buns

If you are a Nordic mother and don't know how to make these, you are really a loser, and a lot of mothers here make these on the weekends and for birthday parties. I developed this recipe while I was working in a kinder garten and realised that a lot of kids actually are allergic to milk, so this is without dairy products - or the rasin ones are. I like butter in the cinnamon ones, but of course you can use margarine if you prefer that..

1.1 liters (4 1/2 cups) of luke warm water
1.5 deciliters (1/2 cup) oil
1.5 deciliters (1/2) cup sugar
2 packs of yeast
4 heaped tea spoons of cardamom
3 heaped liters (13 cups) of white flour (2 kg)

1/2 liter (2 cups) of rasins
250 grams (about 2 sticks) of butter
sugar cinnamon

Mix the six first ingredients together, but stop as soon as that is done, because the longer you mess with a white yeast dough, the heavier it becomes, and you want this light. Let the dough rise till double size (about 30-45 minutes in a warm room).

Grease the kitchen counter with some oil and pour the dough out on it (you can also use flour for this, but I prefer oil because it's less messy and also then the buns get a coat of oil on them for the baking). Now devide it in two. One part is for the rasin buns, the other half for the cinnamon. Mix the rasins into the rasin part, devide the dough in 32 pieces (or smaller if you have small children). Roll each of them into a ball, and put on a baking paper. Again, easy does it. You do not need to make them all even, they will normally rise themselves nice. Let them rise to double size again and bake at 200C (400F) for about 15-20 minutes till they are light brown on top.

Devide the cinnamon part in two and roll each one out to a flat square (slightly bigger than a lap top - can't think of another international measure that fits all hahahaha). Spread room tempered butter over it, or use cold butter and  a cheese slicer (Norway's one and only contribution to the world of kitchen tools) then  sugar and cinnamon (be as generous as you like - sugar is not good for us, but very good for cinnamon buns). Roll it together from the long side and devide each roll into 16 pieces, which you cut and put on baking paper. Or you can put them in muffin paper cups, which I will recommend, as the butter will seep out of the buns and down to the bottom of your oven, so if you don't use muffin cups, put a sheet of aluminum foil in the bottom of your oven for easy cleaning. Bake these also at 200C (400F) for about 15-20 minutes till they are light brown on top.

Borscht

Airbnb reminds me to buy orange juice whenever they send customers here, and I keep wondering: Do people really come to Norway and expect orange juice? No oranges grow here, so it'sobvious that it will have to be imported. The orange juice we get here used to be oranges in Florida some years back, before they were freeze dried, stored, shipped to Norway, rehydrated and added vitamine C, so why keep buying it, I asked myself for a while before I stopped and bought kohlrabi instead because it is called "the orange of the North", contains a lot of vitamine C and even I can grow them. Instead I drink chilled Borscht for breakfast. I make a huge portion and freeze. For it you need:

Beetroots
Onions
Carrots
Celeriac or cellery
Parsnips, kohlrabi or other spicy roots
Garlic
Oregano
Vinegar
Salt/buliong cube

How much of each is up to you, the only really necessary ingredients here ar the beetroots and the onions (and I think celeriac). Cut all the vegetables  in big hunks and put them in a big pot - you don't even need to peel them. Pour water over and let it simmer for an hour or two. Line a pasta sieve with a wet linen cloth (or tea towel). If you don't wet it, the borscht will soak the tea towel before it starts to drip out, so this way you get more liquid and also the tea towel will be easier to wash. Sieve off all the vegetables and taste it off with salt/bulion powder, pour in jars but not all the way up to the top, as liquids expand when they freeze - and freeze. When defrosting, do NOT put the jars in hot water as they will break. Take them out a day before you need them and serve chilled as a breakfast drink (WAY healthier than orange juice), or hot as soup. And it contains both vitamine C and lots of antioxydants.

What to do with the rest of the vegetables, you might wonder, because you are left with a lot of washed out looking vegetable pieces. You can eat them, but remember now they are not peeled (or in my case, not even washed) and all the nourishment they once contained is now in the broth, besides it looks like something out of a cows behind - I would not eat it. You you can use for compost, you can give it to your dog or you can wash it down the toilet.

Lasagne Bastardi (Vegetarian)

This is a very good lasagne that will make your house smell of Italy (which is really good in Norway in the middle of the winter). I got the recipe from the chef of a fish restaurant in Laigueglia in Liguria because I got sick from some shellfish he had cooked the day before (and which tasted delicious). And which obviously shows that both the Bible and the Kuran are right: Do not eat shellfish from the Mediterranean, you will get sick! (Now, had the two prophets ever been near the North Sea, which they never were - the story would have been a different one, I am sure). Anyway, I have not had shellfish from any other ocean than the North Sea ever since, and when in the Southern countries, why bother having shellfish when they have so muc delicious of other stuff? Vegetables and cheese for example. This dish contains both. I have made it so often, that some people think of me when they smell this lasagne. You need

Onions
Celleri
Carrots
Garlic

all chopped in little cubes and how much of each is up to what you have. In this particular portion I used 3 stalks of cellery, 2 carrots, 2 large red onions, 2 small white onions, 1 leek and 7 cloves ov garlic - because that is what I HAD today. I also used one can of crushed tomates, 4 heaped tablespoons of tomato paste, and about 1/2 liter (2 cups) of water. 2 tablespoons of each oregano and basil.

Olive oil
Tomato paste (and fresh tomatoes, canned tomatoes if you have, but if you have not, tomato paste is fine)
Basil
Oregano
Pesto
Sour cream
Parmesan cheese
Shredded yellow cheese -any kind

Fry the vegetables translucent in olive oil, add tomato paste, herbs and water and let it all boil for about 20 minutes. Then add pesto (a small jar), sour cream (2-3 dl - one cup) and Parmesan cheese (two handfulls of coarsely grounded) and mix together. Layer it with lasagne plates and shredded cheese in an oven proof dish. Make sure you have cheese on top. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes at 200C (400F), or till it has brown spots on top and bubbles along the sides. This portion makes two of those dishes that you see below.