Copenhagen

Last Saturday was a really nice day. It was the first spring like day we'd had yet. It was sunny and 60 degrees. A friend of ours was having a house warming party. She just moved into a flat in Copenhagen. Since it was such a nice day we went early to hang out. As we were walking to Alex's place we realized we had been past that area before when we were with Toby and Christine. After we dropped off some black bean hummus and brownies at her place, we headed around the corner to see if we could find the restaurant we had eaten at with them. Sure enough we did! Mother, a pizza restaurant. It looked completely different to me this day, since it was rainy and high 40's when we were there before, not to mention the early sunset so it was night. Today it looked full to bursting!

 

It's been a long cloudy winter and everyone was happy to be outside. We had only 4 hours of sunlight in November and the rest of the months were not much better. People were finding anywhere there was sun, and being happy to be in it!

 

We found a street food festival and got a few choices: chorizo dog, fish and chips, and a Danish egg sandwich.

 

 

We squeezed in between two groups at one of these picnic tables.

 

 

Even though their peoples' history is very intertwined, there are a lot of differences between Danes and Swedes. One of them is that in general Danes are a friendly people and Swedes are not. Swedes are not interested in social interactions with strange people, and Danes are all about it. As we sat there, a lady next to us asked if we had visited the other food festival around the way. Then we had a great conversation with her!

A friend of ours who was also headed to the house warming texted and said they were a couple of blocks over, so we finished up and headed that way, via the other food festival. It was like a farmer's market back home. It was super cozy and hopping. There was even a DJ!

 

 

After we met up with our friends we decided we needed to have some dinner before we hit the house warming party. We just happen to find an American BBQ joint called Warpigs! The menu was even in English. There were hushpuppies with pimento cheese, brisket, mac & cheese, and homemade pork rinds! It was super delish and we were happy to explain to the Swedes what brisket and hush puppies were.

 

 

 

The hushpuppies were excellent and I was super happy.

 

Then it was on to the house warming. Alex wanted it to be a Where's Waldo theme. Although Chris and I didn't have red and white stripes, we did have stripes. Chris likes to take fun props to parties, and this time it was mustaches.

 

 

The night ended with a mad dash to the train, missing the right train by seconds, freezing wind, and a taxi ride to avoid waiting in said freezing wind. All in all, it was a great day outside...finally!

 

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Broccoli chicken casserole

I was texting with Nicole last night while I was cooking dinner. One dish that I've been making for Chris for many years is broccoli chicken casserole. Nicole asked if I had ever given her the recipe to it. I was pretty sure I hadn't, because it tends to change based on what I have available. It gave me the idea to blog it. So here's my broccoli chicken casserole.

 

Coat a chicken breast with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Sear it in butter or olive oil or some greasy come thing of your choice.

Let it sit five minutes or so before you cut it up. Meanwhile, dice onions, maybe a half cup, dice 1 jalapeño, a garlic clove, and a handful of mushrooms. I like baby bellas, but you can certainly use buttons.

Sautée these up, onions first, then soon after peppers, garlic, and finally mushrooms. I just use the chicken pan so I don't have to wash an extra dish, but you can use any sort of butter or olive oil you want.

 

Chop and blanch some broccoli, hmmmm, I have no idea how much, maybe a medium sized head.

 

Then you'll need some goo to make it bind. This could be any number of things. Last night I used about a 1/3 cup of mayo and a 1/4 cup of sour cream, with a splash of Caesar dressing and two eggs. Two eggs is always good for binding. You could also use cream of mushroom soup, or cream of chicken, even Greek yogurt would work.

 

Whatever you use, be sure to put plenty of salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder in it. It needs flavor. Then add a 1/2 to 1 cup of shredded cheddar.

 

Now, mix it all up and put it in a greased casserole dish. We made cobblers in these dishes at the Cricket and because of that, I will always call them cobbler dishes.

On top, put something crunchy. Funyuns, Cheetos, potato chips, Munchos, crackers, Chez-its, whatever you have. I used sour cream and onion "Xtra" Pringles (they were a little spicy).

Crush them up, but don't get too many or too much, it will make the casserole dry, and taste like chips instead of creamy, cheesy broccoli goodness.

Bake on 350 till the top is brown and sides are bubbly. If you've just made it, maybe 25 minutes, but if you made it the day before and put it in the fridge, more like 45.

 

It was super tasty!!

 

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Solar eclipse

Europe had a solar eclipse last week or so. A colleague from work bought some glasses for viewing and organized a trip out to the construction site as a duo see the eclipse and site outing.

This was our first encounter on site. These are all port-a-cabins where the construction company works. Come January of next year, we will also be in these cabins on site. They are super nice and it was hard to tell they were temporary. There was even an elevator.

This is a view of the accelerator tunnel construction. There's not so much to see, as the name states, it's a tunnel and therefore under the ground.

The site construction part was good. It's crazy to think that when the main building is built, it will be based on decisions I made. That seems really weird!

It had been sunny three days in a row, but unfortunately on the day we went it was super cloudy. That was good for the fact that we could look up without glasses, but we had to wait for breaks where it was less cloudy. The glasses were totally useless since the sun wasn't bright enough for us to see anything except our own eyeball reflections.

There's nothing quite like a bunch of scientists talking about diffraction, attenuation, refraction and diffuse scattering. All reasons why the cloud cover made what we saw look the way it did. I think the lady from the construction site was a bit bored. She asked us how much longer we thought we'd be because she wanted to get some work done.

We were freezing and we couldn't tell there was any less sun because there was already no light to speak of with such heavy cloud cover, but we got a few glimpses of the eclipse and it was a great way to spend Friday morning. We all had a lot of fun!

 

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Waffle Day

March 25 is waffle day in Sweden. It's actually Vårfrudag, which kind of sounds like Våffeldag (when you pronounce them in Swedish). Vårfrudag is Our Lady's Day. It's the Christian holiday of Annunciation. It's the day Gabriel told Mary she was going to have a baby. It's 9 months before Christmas. Waffles have no connection to religion, but the words sounds the same, so why not eat waffles?!

 

Chris planned a light dinner of soup so we could splurge for dessert.

 

Magnus and Christine left a waffle maker in the house. Waffles here are thin and not sweet. The waffles are shaped like hearts, ahhhh.

 

It's traditional to eat them with whipped cream and jam. We had strawberry.

 

I like waffle day!

 

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Spring??

Just like with fall and winter, Sweden goes by a temperature pattern rather than the equinox to determine what season it is. So we've been in spring for over a month now. Never mind that it's only been over 50 a couple of times in those last weeks. Yesterday was a lovely spring day without any sun and it snow flurried all day. It got up to 38 and winds were at 20 mph. Ah, spring.

 

Whether or not it actually feels like spring, there are some signs that it's that time of year.

Easter decorations are out. That just made me realize, I need to get mine out too!

 

 

 

The first signs of life are out. There are surprising patches of crocuses all over. The white flowers actually started coming up in February.

 

It's circus time! We've seen these signs all 3 springs we've been here. When they start putting these up, we know that the dark days are over.

Speaking of, and then there's the sun. The heavy cloud blanket that covers us from October has finally lifted! We will still have mostly cloudy days for a bit longer, but we won't have only cloudy days and we love it! Last weekend it was 49, sunny and pretty windy. We got our coats and hats and a cup of coffee and sat outside to soak up some sun. The sun is such a wonderful thing, and for that we love March!!

 

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Morning walk

There was a bit of sun peeking through the clouds last Saturday morning at sunrise, so I took Charlie for an extra long walk through the fields. Everything was frozen that morning, but he doesn't mind, and the morning sun was beautiful.

 

 

 

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