Sourdough bread no.2 - part three

After 24 h of rising, the dough was still well contained in the bowl. Phew! This morning it was time to add the final ingredients to the dough: 500 g crushed rye, 1 deciliter sunflower seeds, 100 g linseed, 1 tbsp dark brown sugar and 1 can of beer (33 cl).

I mixed the dough until everything was well blended and then poured it into two 2 liter baking tins and let them sit for eight hours. In the beginning I was sure the tins would be flooded by the rising dough, but they just managed to contain the dough inside of them. :-) Now it's time for the final step, 1 h and 15 min at 200 C in the oven and then I'll let them rest wrapped in towels until the morning when Matts and I will try them for breakfast to see if they are eatable at all. I am very skeptical when it comes to the beer part, but hopefully it will add a really nice flavor to the bread...

Sourdough bread no.2 - part two

Today I fed the sourdough with 1 liter water, 2 tbsp salt, 1½ liter whole grain rye flour and ½ liter plain white flour. Now it's supposed to stay put and preferably not grow out of the bowl until tomorrow when the final ingredients will be added.

So far it hasn't risen too much, but we'll see about that at the end of today. Our kitchen might be filled with dough sooner than we think...

Sourdough bread no. 2 - part one

It's time for me to try another recipe for a sourdough bread. This time a dark and probably heavy bread with sunflower seeds and crushed rye. Exciting. :-)

This morning I started with the sourdough consisting of half a package of fresh yeast, 2 deciliter water (cold) and 2 deciliter of plain white flour. I dissolved the yeast in the water and then mixed it with the flour to a nice sludge... After a couple of hours it started bubbling and it will hopefully continue to do so until tomorrow when it's time for the next step.

Everything is bigger in Sweden...

Everything is bigger in Sweden. Well, at least compared to Switzerland (in comparison with the gigantic country on the other side of the Atlantic things in Sweden are quite moderate). But compared to Switzerland many things are bigger here.

Firstly, the area of the country is bigger, Sweden is about eleven times bigger than Switzerland. That is as long as the Alps aren't flattened out at least...

Secondly, the people are bigger. Both taller and fatter. When we came back to Sweden this summer we were struck by how "fat" people here are compared to people in Switzerland. And how much people here eat. Downtown, people were eating ice cream like crazy (ok, it was really warm and sunny) as well as big American muffins. Then we went to Ikea and had meatballs. In Switzerland the normal portion is ten meatballs. Here it's 15! And the guy in front of me didn't think that was enough - he ordered 20!!! Generally speaking, Swedes eat more and hence are fatter than the Swiss people.

Thirdly, the packages of butter, flour, sugar, yeast, baking soda, yogurt and so on are bigger here than in Switzerland. The normal size of a bag of flour or sugar is 2 kg here compared to 1 kg in Switzerland, and sometimes they even sell 5 kg bags of flour here. And the vanilla sugar as well as the baking soda comes in cans or boxes containing far more than the pathetic portion bags they sell in Switzerland. For me, who loves to bake this is a blessing. I'm not constantly running out of flour or baking soda. Pictures of the small packages in Switzerland can be found here.

Then there are things that are at least as big in Switzerland as in Sweden, like friendship and beautiful nature. And when it comes to high mountains, Switzerland has the biggest ones, without competition.

Ultrasound examination

Yesterday it was time for the ultrasound examination, that here in Sweden usually takes place around week 18. It was the coolest thing to see our little family member scratching it's eye, playing with the umbilical cord and the heart beating. I was nervous before we went, but everything looked good. Here are the two pictures we decided to buy. The little one was not very prone to show us it's best side, but it's still cool to have seen it moving around.

1. Most of the body, but not so much of the head. 2. Here it is playing with the umbilical cord. The five fingers of the hand is easy to see as well a the profile of the face. Does it resemble Matts or me?

We do not know if it's a boy or a girl and prefer to keep it a secret for everyone, including ourselves, until the baby is born. I have a friend who got pregnant in the US, and without asking if they wanted to know, they were told that they were expecting a boy. Here in Sweden you usually have to ask to be told if you want to know and sometimes, if it's not clear enough, they might not tell you anyway. Different cultures.

Lund is changing colors

In August I posted some pictures from Lund (click here to see them). Yesterday morning I brought my camera downtown once again to show you how beautiful the university library is right now. Very colorful.

I did some baking...

About once a week I bake bread (it's now been several weeks since we last bought bread in the store). Today was the baking day of this week. But I didn't just make bread (this time dark, tasty buns) but also chocolate cheesecake muffins (yummy!!!) as well as oatmeal cookies. The latter was a brand new recipe for me and they turned out to be delicious! Crispy, but not too sweet. They are extremely easy to make as well:

Frideborg's oatmeal cookies, about 30 pieces

125 g butter at room temperature
0.75 deciliter sugar
3 deciliter oatmeal
1½ deciliter flour
1 tbsp water

Mix all the ingredients well and roll them into small balls that are placed on a baking sheet. Flatten each ball with a fork and bake in the preheated oven (175 C) for 15-20 minutes. Enjoy!

The recipe comes from the book Kokbok för hjärnan (Cookbook for the brain) by Charlotte Erlandson-Albertsson that I won from a magazine a while ago.

Hike Genarp-Häckeberga

Last Saturday it was time for yet another group hike. This time, Matts and I took the bus from Lund to Genarp where we met up with four other hikers for a 2½ hour hike in the Häckeberga Nature Reserve. It was a cloudy day, but despite the dark clouds didn't we feel a single raindrop. The walk was very nice and it was great to come out in the nature and explore another small part of Skåne. Of course, there were some cows and we also walked past some buildings typical of Skåne that you don't find in the other parts of Sweden.

Lucky enough, a couple of the other hikers live in Lund as well, so on the way back we could get a ride with them instead of waiting on the bus and got home in good time for a nice bath, dinner and the movie Slumdog Millionaire that we rented on-line.

Anniversary

Last Friday I had a very busy day. First, I went to the gym, then I cleaned the apartment (those of you who know me well also know how much I hate to clean, but sometimes it has to be done), then I put on make up for the evening, then I headed off to the mall to spend lots of money on clothes that I had looked on earlier (a new winter coat, in a model that hopefully has enough space for my growing belly, a dress and some other, smaller things that I felt I needed) and then back home to leave all the shopping bags and get dressed for dinner out together with Matts to celebrate our five year anniversary. On my "to-do-list" I also had some more things, like baking muffins and applying nail polish, but I never had time to do these things. I actually hardly had time to sit down and relax on the whole day so it was nice not to have to make dinner as well.

We went to a place that serves fondue here in Lund. We had a very nice soup as a starter and then the "Stäket's fondue" (Diced pork and beef, whole mushrooms, Rhode Island sauce with garlic, BBQ-sauce, bearnaise sauce, horse radish sauce, roquefort sauce, ajvar sauce and french fries). It was good, but not as good as the fondue we had in Switzerland... But we had a very nice evening and that's the most important thing, right?

I do miss Switzerland

I just had a look at my blog from our years in Switzerland to see how we celebrated our anniversary last year since we just couldn't remember it... And I was struck by how active I was and how much I did - every week there were several things going on. Here, it feels like we don't do anything.

I guess it has three main reasons:

1. We are back in Sweden where we know how things work, so what we encounter every day is just the "regular stuff" for us.
   
2. We haven't got the limited time issue, we think that we have all the time in the world to explore Sweden, so we just don't (and then, making far less money than in Switzerland of course also helps).
   
3. We still don't know enough people to fill up all our spare time with activities and there is no such thing as the PSI ladies group here (how nice wasn't the cheese evening last year or the walks or the International Christmas parties?).

All together, we actually are much less active here than we were in Switzerland and the things we do are not always exciting enough to write about here.

My belly is growing

I know that this is not the best picture ever, but I did as well as I could on my own since I'm too impatient to wait for Matts to come home... :-)

This is, however, what I look like today, 17 weeks and one day into my long wished-for pregnancy. I can still, almost, hide my belly if I choose clothes wisely, but I have to use a hair band to be able to button my pants. And something tells me it will only get "worse"...


PS. Click on the picture to see it in a slightly larger size.

Yesterday's lunch

Yesterday I made graham rolls. Yummy. Especially together with a nice Minestrone soup for lunch. The soup is super easy to make. It contains one can of rinsed mixed beans, one can of pasta sauce, 10 deciliter water, one or two chicken bouillon cubes, 160 g pasta and some black pepper. Bring to a boil and let it simmer until the pasta is cooked. Serve with (home made) bread and cheese. Very nice on a crisp and lazy fall day. :-)