10 about Christmas December 16, 2009

I got this fun Christmas meme from Gretchen (sorry dear, tried to comment with my link and had trouble again…hope you get to read this).

1. Best childhood gift from Santa: Santa pretty much brought the same things every year: socks, underwear, candy canes, and some other trinkets. He’s gotten much more adept with the gifts as I’ve gotten older. Now I get gift cards for gas and groceries!  And some socks.

2. Best childhood memories: Going to my grandparents’ homes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The two celebrations were different, but each special in their own way.

At my mom’s parents’ (Eve), there was usually just our family of four, my two grandparents, and my great uncle Ed. We ate our traditional meal (corve* and lutefisk, and some sort of red-and-green jell-o dessert cut into rectangles, always served on a separate plate), read Luke 2, Grandpa prayed (for what seemed like FOREVER when I was a kid), then my brother and I handed out gifts and we all opened them (one at a time, by age, youngest to oldest). And then Grandma finished up with her last 21 gifts while we watched and oohed and aahed appropriately at each pair of elastic polyester pants and crossword puzzle dictionary. We threw wads of wrapping paper at Grandpa, and he smiled his crooked grin and chucked it back at us when we weren’t looking. After cleaning up the wrapping paper and boxes, the menfolk and myself would sit at the table with a giant Tupperware bowl of nuts, still in the shell, and use nutcrackers to shell them. They were usually enjoyed with a can of 7-up or Pepsi.

At my dad’s parents’ (Day), we arrived shortly before noon to find Grandma bustling about the kitchen, putting finishing touches on the meal (varied from year to year). Other families would show up (everyone came to this celebration every year—our family, all 6 aunts and uncles, Grandma and Grandpa, and 9 cousins…almost everyone still shows up, too!), everyone bringing salad or vegetables or rolls to share, and we’d eat around 12:30 or 1:00. Dishes would get done, and we’d take family pictures on the staircase. I miss that staircase… Then the kids would pass out gifts, and we’d open them in the same style, one at a time, youngest to oldest. Grandma would end with her last 15 gifts while most of the cousins scrambled off to play with new toys and the older folks (and me) stayed to ooh and aah over every bathrobe, sweater and cookie jar. After clean-up, the trays of Wheatie Bars, caramels and Nut Goodies would get passed around. Friends and other, more distant relatives would show up throughout the afternoon, sometimes sharing a meal or bringing a treat. Games like Taboo, Scattergories and Pictionary were played in large groups around the dining room table. We would have leftovers and buns for supper and continue playing until it was time to go home.

3. Favorite Christmas cookies: Tough one. My mom makes way more bars than cookies, and they’re super-yummy, but my favorite cookie is probably a frosted sugar cookie.

4. Icky Christmas memory: Driving from Husband’s folks’ place up to my folks’ place on Christmas Eve through a snowstorm our 2nd year of marriage. We didn’t get there until LATE.

5. It’s not Christmas without: Jesus. He’s the reason for the season, after all!

6. Our Church Service: I remember Christmas Eve services at my mom’s parents’ church—all glowy in candlelight, kids I grew up with playing instruments and singing, scriptures being read. Loved it.

7. Christmas Pet Peeve: Feeling stressed when it’s supposed to be a time of tidings of comfort and joy.  I’ve been better with my expectations this year and made specific plans to NOT stress out.  The work part of December has driven me nutso, but I think I should be able to wrap up before the 24th, so I’m looking forward to some time to relax…

8. Favorite Christmas CD: Probably Christmas with Conniff, just because I grew up with it on vinyl, and it reminds me of so many good memories.

9. Real or Fake: Real, much to Husband’s dismay. I don’t know what he’s complaining about, though, because when his family has a tree, it’s real, too. That way we can enjoy the fragrance and we don’t have to store it, right?

10. I spend Christmas Eve: varies every year now. Sometimes with Husband’s family; this year we’ll spend it just the three of us. I am really looking forward to that, actually. I have plans for a special breakfast and to attend our own church’s Christmas Eve service.

If you play along, leave a link in the comments section—I’d love to read!

*Corve is apparently so obscure that I couldn’t find a single thing about it on the interwebs.  It’s a homemade sausage of sorts, containing some sort of meat (Mom?  Is it beef?  Pork?).  Husband’s family makes potato sausage, which is similar, but corve doesn’t have the potatoes or onions in it.  I kind of miss corve…

How to Make Lefse November 23, 2009

Today’s post is brought to you by my dear friend Hibby (with a guest appearance by Hubby’s hand).  She’s a proud former Minnesotan, a Scandinavian-blooded sweetie.  I can’t think of a better person to teach you how to make lefse.  Enjoy!

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God Jul (Merry Christmas). Välkomna till Minnesota Mammas blogg: Svenska Edition!

Today brings us 2,000 miles away from Minnesota, to my little kitchen in Los Angeles. We will be making beginner-level lefse, a yummy, cozy, Scandinavian potato crepe that evokes images of warm kitchens in the dead of winter, twinkling Christmas trees, and jingling sleigh bells. Growing up, I loved standing around in the kitchen, eating lefse with my mom and sisters. Never did I think I could make it myself! But here I am, telling you how I did. Join me?

My recipe calls for four cups of riced potatoes. To be on the safe side, I boiled four medium-large potatoes. I ended up not using the entire bowl of them riced, but I’d probably do the same amount again—just to be safe. Oh, and do this step the night before! (That’s important to mention, right?)

Now, there’s a lot of controversy on how to boil the potatoes correctly. If you’d like to know the different options, feel free to leave a comment here. In the end, I peeled and didn’t cut them.

Cover them with cold water with a tablespoon of salt and of sugar. I ended up boiling mine too long—oops! You’ll want to boil yours just until a fork pierces easily. Don’t stab them too much; you don’t want the potato flesh water-logged like mine. Mine still worked; I just needed more flour in the end to counterbalance the excess moisture. So, do what I say, not what I do.

After they’ve finished boiling, pull them out and rice them together with a stick of butter (8 tablespoons).  Hint: that nifty little gadget pictured here is a potato ricer.

Once riced, I threw mine in the fridge for a couple minutes to cool them down a little before I patted them down. If that’s too high maintenance for you, I’m sure you can just pat them down right after ricing them. Don’t smash them down, but pack them down enough that they’ll end up relatively solid. Inside the bowl, place a couple paper towels and cover with plastic wrap. The paper towels will absorb any condensation overnight.

The next day, take the potatoes out and re-rice them back into the bowl.

Now gather the rest of the ingredients and our supplies. Perhaps you don’t have that honkin’ lefse grill or graceful lefse wand. S’ok, neither do I. Along with the prepared potatoes, this is all I used.

Ingredients to gather: Milk, salt, ground cardamom (optional, but seriously? Just do it; the smell is heavenly!), flour, sugar.
Tools to gather: shallowest skillet you have, broad spatula, rolling pin with sock (I also don’t have the grooved lefse rolling pin; no problem), pastry cloth, two smooth towels, and that’s it!

Measure out roughly (erring on more) 4 cups of the riced potatoes.

In a small bowl, mix together 1/3 cup milk, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1/8 teaspoon cardamom. Pour into the potatoes and combine. Add in two cups of flour.

Work quickly to roll all the dough into egg-sized balls.

Stick the bowl into the refrigerator; we want the dough as cold as we can get it before we start working with it. At the same time, turn the heat on the skillet. I turned my stove top on the highest setting. Don’t add any oil or butter; we fry lefse dry.

In my little kitchen, there wasn’t room to have the production set up right in a row, but it still worked ok. My pastry cloth was fresh out of the pack, so I taped it to the counter and started rubbing flour into it. Keep rubbing flour into yours until it doesn’t hold any more. Seriously, you don’t want your dough sticking to the cloth. Same with the rolling pin sock; flour it up! Next to the skillet, set up the two towels. This is where you’ll deposit the finished lefse.

When you’re ready to begin, take one ball out of the fridge at a time, leaving the rest in the bowl in the fridge. Squish it flat, turn it over once on the cloth; you don’t want to over-flour the dough, but you don’t want it to stick. Roll it out using short strokes from the center out to the edge, lessening the pressure as you reach the edge.

Once it’s rolled out, use the spatula, and your other hand for support, to transfer it to the hot skillet. Depending on how hot yours is (and you can adjust as necessary), let it sit on the one side for just a bit, searing it. You don’t want the tell-tale lefse spots on this side, just light flecks of color. Flip it over, and cook until the lefse spots are light brown. Don’t cook longer than necessary, as overcooking dries it out. Play around with the temperature of the skillet (I turned mine down from the top heat by a little bit).

And guess what. My first one turned out horribly! Not circular, it had stuck to the cloth when I tried transferring it, and I left it too long on both sides.

After that one, though, I got into my lefse groove. I made sure to scrape, with a knife, any dough that had been left behind on my cloth. I also rubbed in extra flour over that spot. Remember to dust flour over the whole surface and sock between each sheet, just don’t over-flour. I rolled out subsequent balls of dough just the way my great-grandma said to: when you think you’ve rolled it thin……start rolling! Don’t know how thin you should get yours? See if you’d possibly be able to read a newspaper through it.

Once the lefse is finished cooking on the second side, transfer one on top of the other, between the two towels and cover the stack immediately. This is to help them cool, but to trap the moisture in.

Even Hubby joined in on the fun. He thinks making lefse ROCKS!

Now, for those readers who perhaps don’t know how to eat this delectable goodness, Hubby again steps in to demonstrate. The only change from the pictures below is that, depending on how big you made your lefse, I’d cut the circle in half, butter half of that, sugar it, fold it over, and roll that up. Otherwise it gets too log-ish.

Uff da, I know this was long, and if you stuck with me to the end, tack så mycket! I had a wonderful time making mine, and I hope you give it a try yourself! I think lefse-making will become a holiday tradition in our family….

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Thanks, Hibby! And because I can’t resist “introducing” you further to this lovely individual, and I know how much she would love me for posting this, here’s a photo of Hibby and I being awesome (circa January 2007–can you believe it was almost 3 years ago????). Heh heh.

Disney on Ice Princess Classics Winner November 23, 2009

We have a winner!  I used random.org’s integer generator to select one of the commenters.  The tickets will go to…

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:
11

Timestamp: 2009-11-23 05:33:33 UTC

Nildie!  Congratulations.  I will email you with information about picking up your tickets.  Thanks to everyone for entering.  And remember the discount code mentioned in the first post.

I Heart Faces – Autumn Beauty November 16, 2009

It’s been ages since I’ve had time or an appropriate photo to share on I Heart Faces.  I still read their posts every week, but this week I have this lovely photo of Anja in a sea of pumpkins.  Isn’t it fun?  She was just enamored, and went around telling us which ones were big, which were small, and telling us which ones she wanted.

Click on over to check out the other entries this week and/or submit your own!

Disney on Ice Princess Classics – Giveaway! November 13, 2009

When my firstborn turned out to be a girl (I thought she was a boy—and was I ever wrong!), my main concern was, “What if she’s really girly and I can’t relate?” Turns out she IS quite girly. She’ll ask for a tutu so she can dance if I have music on, she grabs my makeup brushes and puts “pink on her cheeks,” and just yesterday she asked if she could wear a pretty dress to “be like a princess.” I don’t really ever talk to her about princesses, so I have no idea where she gets these ideas!

That said, we’ll be taking her to the Disney on Ice Princess Classics show when it comes to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul December 10-13. And you can take your family, too! I have a package of four tickets to opening night (December 10 at 7:00 p.m.) of Disney on Ice to give away to one blessed reader! Simply leave a comment if you’re interested in winning, and I will randomly select a winner on Monday, November 23. If you’d like an additional entry, blog about the giveaway and leave a link to your post (not your blog home page, but the actual post) in the comments.

Additionally, if you would like to purchase your own tickets, here is a chance for a discount. Use the coupon code “MOM” to receive four tickets for $44 for weekday shows Monday-Friday and $4 off all tickets for weekend shows. The discounted tickets can be purchased from Ticketmaster by entering the “MOM” code in the “MC promotion” box. Small print stuff: Offer not valid on Rinkside or VIP seating. Cannot be combined with other offers. Service Charges, facility & handling fees will apply.  Here are the showtimes:

Thursday, Dec. 10 – 7:00 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 11 – 10:30 a.m., 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 12 – 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 13 – 1:00 p.m., 5:00 p.m.

I’m looking forward to taking in this event with my family (Husband? Aren’t you going to just LOVE it?), and I hope you can make it, too!

Game Over for Stellan’s SVT!! November 12, 2009

Jennifer just posted this today; what a blessing!

A Couple of Photos October 16, 2009

These were taken in late September…and now we’ve had snow several times.  So strange…

I entered them in Pioneer Woman’s Photography Assignment group today, and though I would throw them up here as well.  You know, some new content.  :)

These Days September 29, 2009

September has been one of the busiest months I remember having in my life.  In between taking care of the baby (2 yr old…still a baby?  Yes, yes she is.), I’ve been working quite a few 12-14 hour days.  Not my cup of tea.  Husband keeps trying to get me to take breaks, but it’s hard, knowing there’s no one else there to pick up the slack (self-employment is great, but has some down-sides).

This business God has given me (because truly, I never went looking for it; I really feel that He’s pushed me through one open door after another) has been blessed beyond what I could have imagined, and I owe it all to him.  That said, it has come with its stresses.

Other things I’ve been able to squeeze into September:

• A haircut (nothing exciting, just a much-needed trim)
• Bible study
• A MOPS meeting
• A visit to an apple orchard
• An overnight visit from an old friend and her baby girl
• A meal out with friends at a restaurant I’ve been wanting to try
• A couple morning trips to the zoo with Anja, which she loved

Today I took the day off from processing photos and cleaned up the house and did some Autumn decorating.  I told Husband that even though cleaning is not really a break, it seemed like one, so that counts, right?

So far I’ve gained about the same amount of pregnancy weight as I did with Anja (which was more than I wanted to gain, but still in healthy range).  I can’t imagine the weight gain will slow down with my typical menu of hearty soups, yummy breads and fall baked goods coming up, followed by the holiday season.  Yikes!  But friends have reassured me that it is oh so cozy to have a big belly keeping you warm in January, unlike in August where you just wish you could remove it and get the swelling in your legs to go down…

October will likely be less busy with photo shoots (though I have four this coming weekend), but more busy with client orders.  Can’t promise I’ll be around a lot, but I’d love to hear what you’re up to this fall!

More Fair Pics September 10, 2009

Contrary to what it sounded like, we did actually do some things at the Fair besides eat.

Anja gawked at some rides on the Midway.  She loves anything that spins and goes up high.

She also got to experience her first ride at a fair: the carousel. She chose a very rickety goat.  I don’t think I’d ever ridden a carousel A) while pregnant or B) standing and facing outward.  Round-and-round rides don’t usually bother me; I got queasy this time.

Once Anja realized she could actually ride the rides and not just watch, however, she became assertive, asking if she could go on everything we passed. Thankfully she was pacified with promises of “next time,” even though that concept doesn’t sit well with her age group.

At one point, we actually got her to fall asleep, and we used the better part of an hour to peruse the art submissions, which are always a treat.

I also spent a little of the time being a dork.

The bands in the afternoon parade woke her, and we continued on with our eating, animal-viewing, and people-watching. A day well-spent.

There’s a Baby in There! September 9, 2009

We had our ultrasound yesterday.  So fun to see Baby P #2 kicking around in there.  Actually, he/she (no, we didn’t find out) did a whole lot of transverse lying and relaxing, legs crossed, sucking a thumb. This explains why I’ve been feeling so W I D E this pregnancy!  We couldn’t get him/her to budge from that spot.  But we got some cute pictures, anyway (which I’m too lazy to scan in right now).

Anja did pretty well at first, but since my placenta is anterior (in the front), it took a little longer to get clear shots of the baby, and she grew impatient.  Daddy would say, “Look at the baby on the TV!” and she would grab his face with both hands and say, “No!  Look at Anja!”  Hope this isn’t a preview of things to come…

Speaking of Baby #2, does anyone have any good recommendations for a double stroller?  Brands, types (side-by-side or tandem, jogger or non)?  I’m in the market.  :)

I got an hour and a half to myself this morning (Anja was at half-day daycare today since they were closed on Monday).  I read a book.  I’ve really been enjoying Bryson’s stuff this summer (this is the third I’ve read; also these two), even though he occasionally branches into the bizarre or lewd.  His descriptions of Midwesterners in The Lost Continent made me howl with laughter because they are so accurate.

We’re enjoying rather mild weather, and I’m loving it.  I had sunshine for all three of my photo shoots this past weekend, which was an amazing blessing.  It’s supposed to rain this weekend, but hopefully we won’t be rained out of senior pictures.

I’ve been contacted twice by a lady nicely asking me to link to this website and inform you about this buying local initiative.  I haven’t had a chance to read through it all, so hopefully it’s something I agree with!  Here’s an article that tells more about it.  And I happen to know a fantastic little photography business you can support if you’re wanting some treasures to put on your walls or in a keepsake album!  ;)

Oh, and it’s 09/09/09.  I just HAD to post today.