Because Norway and Augusta are very far apart, not many of Mike's relatives and friends could make it to our wedding in Ålesund last summer. So we decided to celebrate when we were in Georgia for Christmas. 65 people came to the party - more than at the actual wedding! We had good food, and a great time chatting with all our guests. We also got a real wedding cake this time. The vintage cake topper was Mike's grandparents!
Pretty decorations with magnolia leaves and holly, and wedding pictures scattered everywhere. With a slightly Christmassy vibe, it was perfect for the season. We also had pictures from the wedding day on a big screen showing throughout the evening, so everyone could get a feeling of what the day was like, and get a glimpse of my pretty country.
"Help! How do you cut a two-tiered cake?" We look genuinely worried in this picture... Good thing we had a professional wedding planner on board. With her help, we managed to cut the cake well, and it tasted delicious.
The happy Mr. and Mrs. Beaudreau, thankful for a wonderful celebration.
I have just turned 30! Since my birthday fell on a Sunday this year, I decided to have a brunch party. I love breakfast food, and this seemed like the perfect occasion for a fancy version. I invited some of my favorite ladies and had such a wonderful time!
Some people make big parties for anniversaries, and if it wasn´t for our recent wedding, I would have loved that too. I have a tendency of putting a lot of planning into an event, so I decided that a small party was best this time. After a little research I found an article on how to host a brunch party and still sleep inon Smitten Kitchen, which was very helpful. It gives recommendations on what to serve, and they are basically all things that can be made in advance. She writes it really well, so you should check it out if you are planning a brunch in the future. Some additional tips from me: set the table the night before, and gather your decor ahead of time (I kept postponing this and had to run outside to find some twigs and branches last minute).
The decor was very simple. I used gourds, pumpkin and citrus fruit for the centerpiece, and twigs with a welcome card on each plate. This was the first time I set a table with our new fine china, and I was very excited! The striped silver napkins match the silver rim of the china, and I also used some leftover paper straws from the wedding.
Brunch menu that can be (mostly) made ahead:
- Cranberry orange scones. These were so tasty! Can be made ahead and frozen uncooked, and on the morning of the party you thaw the scones and cook them like you normally would.
- Spinach Quiche Cups. Make the egg batch the day before, cook the day of.
- Cinnamon toast french toast. Made the day before and left to soak in the fridge overnight. Cook the day of. Serve with syrups.
- Fruit salad with pomegranate, papaya, plums and kiwi. Prep as much as possible the day before, especially something tedious and stain-inducing like pomegranates. Mix the fruit the day of. Served with a raspberry-lime sauce and yogurt.
- Cheese, crackers, dried meats and condiments of your choice
- For dessert: Chocolate cake. I had planned on making this gluten free Chocolate cake with almonds and beetroot, but then surprisingly, a birthday cake was delivered to my door and I will have to save that recipe for another day.
- A mimosa bar with a few different juices, bubbles and fruit garnish.
- And of course: a never ending stream of coffee.
Some of the lovely ladies. Thank you so much for making my birthday great!
I could never picture getting married anywhere but in a church. I had only been in Skodje church once, for one of my cousins confirmations. But when we decided to have our reception at Nedreskodje Gard, the choice was easy. The church is a 10 minute stroll away from the barn, it is quite small, and it looks really pretty too.
Here is a peak into our wedding ceremony, complete with soundtrack:
This sounds cheesy, but the moment the church doors opened and I started walking towards Mike must be the most emotional I have ever experienced. Seeing him for a couple of hours for photos earlier in the day didn´t take anything away from making it special. I was smiling and crying, and just so incredibly happy! I was not very nervous, but unusually emotional during the whole service - and grateful to have a handkerchief at hand.
Our processional was "Bruremarsj" by Jan Magne Førde. I have always loved this song, and the fact that the composer is from my hometown makes it even better. My dear friend Erika joined the organ player for this song, as well as for the hymns we sang.
We had readings by a couple of our sisters from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 and Colossians 3:12-19, and a paragraph on marriage and being in love from "Mere Christianity" by C.S Lewis. All our parents were also involved in a prayer of blessing.
We had been wearing our rings during the whole engagement and had planned to take them off before the ceremony and give them to my dad who was our officiant. As I sit there in church I see Mike carefully take his ring off and hand it to his best man, and I realize I am still wearing mine too! Just a few minutes later it was time to say our "Yes", and the next thing up was the ring ceremony, so we remembered just in time. It all happened very fast, and suddenly we were married!
During the speech we held hands and smiled. It was slightly surreal to think that we were married for real, that this was not another rehearsal. I must admit I can not remember much of what was said, though I thought it was great in the moment. Luckily it is all recorded on video (a last minute decision), and if we are lucky I might be able to get a hold of the manuscript too.
The big surprise of the day came at the end of our ceremony. My dad walked out from behind the altar, my cousin Sondre started to play the guitar, and suddenly my dad burst into song! He had seen an untraditional blessing on youtube and decided he wanted to sing it for us. Everyone was so surprised, and there was a LOT of laughter.
Finally, we walked down the aisle as man and wife, while "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen" by Edvard Grieg was played. We hugged everyone, kissed on the stairs and since the skies were bright blue we walked to our reception and into marriage serenaded by a pretty violinist.
The parade, with "Verdenskongen/The King of the World" on the front row.
In Norway we celebrate our Constitution the 17th of May every year. This year it was 200 years since this important document was signed, and there has been much focus on this, with lots of events. For example a live event where a historian lectured about Norway´s history from 1814 till today in 200 minutes - 1 minute for each year!
Posing in our national costumes, one "stakk" and one "bunad".
I celebrated with friends here in Skien, watching the children's parade in the morning, wearing my national costume "Sunnmørsbunad", lots of good food, meeting new people, barbecuing, eating ice cream in the park, and watching fireworks. A lovely day indeed! The only thing I really missed today was singing a song from my region "Å Vestland, Vestland", but luckily I found a version with Sissel Kyrkjebø on youtube...
When I get married I will have to wear black stockings.
When I came home, tired after a long day, I watched some of the national celebration online, and finally hearing the national anthem brought a tear to my eye. I am very grateful to live in a country with freedom and human rights.
The beautiful Brekkeparken in all its spring glory.
We made it!
My little household (my roommate and I), made a full Thanksgiving meal for the Americans here, and let me tell you, it was a lot of work. Americans all know this, but I was not mentally or physically prepared for cooking a 26 pound turkey and many side dishes.
We started preparing on Wednesday night, baking apple and pumpkin pies, and a southern style onion cornbread. The next morning we got up early, I walked over to the YWAM base to pick up the bird, whom Jae lovingly named Larry. My fridge is not big enough for a turkey that size, so we kept him there till it was time to cook. It is only 2 blocks away, but my arms are still sore from that little exercise!
I had never cooked a turkey before, so I am very thankful for the internet, that provided me with all sorts of recipes. It was quite exciting to see my oven filled to the brim with a huge bird, and very satisfactory to be able to serve it to our guests, only a little dry, but okay enough for a first time.
In addition we made mashed potatoes and gravy (of course), green bean casserole, candied yams (Jae´s favorite), corn bread dressing (Mike´s great grandma´s recipe!), and grated carrots, because thats´s the way Eddie likes them.
After eating all that, we were stuffed of course. But it was good, and it was worth it, including the mountain of dishes. I got to use my old china too, and it delighted my heart to set a holiday table. It doesnt hurt that my fridge is full of leftovers either. I like this holiday!
Here is another recipe from my birthday party a while back. These are really rich and decadent, and consequently very good.
Double Chocolate Caramel Cookies
110 grams butter
300 grams brown sugar
55 grams cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
a little salt
200 grams flour
100 grams dark chocolate
20 tsp caramel/dulce de leche
sea salt
First thing first: make the caramel. This time I decided to make dulce de leche. I have wanted to make that for years, but never had a good excuse/the initiative to do so. It is not hard, so you should not be intimidated. Simply cover a can of condensed milk with boiling water and let it simmer for a couple of hours. Check back to make sure the water level is high enough, I had to refill a few times. When you open the can, delicious caramel will burst forth, it is such a fun surprise. I guess you can buy caramels in the store, which helps if you have limited time.
Cookie dough: Melt the butter. Add sugar and stir till dissolved. Add cocoa powder and egg, mix well. Mix baking powder, flour and salt and add the dry ingredients to the dough till it is smooth. Chop the chocolate in smallish pieces and fold into the dough.
Use about half the batter and make 20 cookies with a hole in the middle (using your fingers to make the hole works best). Add a spoonful of caramel in the hole (see picture), and cover with more cookie batter, shaped like little hats. Sprinkle sea salt on top.
Cook for 15 minutes at 180 C.
I forgot to sprinkle sea salt on top, and I bet it would have made them even greater!
I found the recipe on this Danish site that will definitely inspire you to bake more, the pictures are gorgeous and might make you drool, so you are warned.
Many many moons ago I joined a book club, and when I convinced my friend to join as well, I got a cooking kit from said book club as a thank you gift. I still use the pots and pans, and they work fine. This must be at least 9 years ago, since I remember unpacking and using these things in my apartment in Oslo as a student from 2004-2005. There was also a hand blander in this kit (or perhaps it was from the baking kit from the same book club? I cant remember.)
While cleaning my cupboards earlier this year, I got rid of this mixer. The blades were dull and I never used the handheld whisk since I had another (better) one for that purpose. Since I had an ordinary blender I thought I would be fine. That was until the end of May, when my cheap 4,5 year old blender suddenly died in the middle of making a smoothie...
Fast forward 5 months, and imagine my excitement when unwrapping a brand new Braun hand blender at my birthday party! It is such a joy to have friends who know me well and give good gifts. It also a greater pleasure to receive something I have been wanting for a long time. If you haven´t made a wish list yet, I warmly recommend it.
Illustration of Proverbs 13:12 by artist Kyle Steed.
It is December 1st today! Soon Christmas, but first: Advent. I blogged about advent for YWAM Skien on our blog, but you can read my post here as well:
Tomorrow we start the great countdown for Christmas! During the darkest time of the year, almost everyone is excited for the fun, the lights, advent calenders (with gifts?) and many preparations for the holidays. In the midst of the business, do we stop to reflect on the reason for the celebration? We look forward to good food, time with family, days off and lots of presents, and even as Christians, it can be hard to focus on Jesus.
If you are anything like me, you need a good reminder once in a while. Now I would like to remind us, myself included, that this season can be a time to reflect on the coming of our King.
I found an advent devotional you can use to unwrap more of this amazing story of a mighty saviour, our God who humbled himself to come as a little baby boy for our sake. And as Christmas draws near, I hope we will be filled with more gratitude and joy!
I celebrated my birthday a little while ago and I couldnt resist making this amazing-looking chocolate cake from Kimberly Taylor.
To make sure I had a big enough cake, I doubled the recipe by 1,5 - since the recipe didnt tell me how many servings it would be. Well, rest assured, this was more than plenty for 13 girls. As a matter of fact, we didnt even eat half of it. Good thing I have a boyfriend to help me with leftovers like that...
Since it made so much, I decided to leave the original measurements here.
Warning: this is a lot of work, but totally worth it! So, here we go; Salted Caramel frosted Chocolate Cake in four steps.
Step #1: Bake a Chocolate Cake
Ingredients: (everything should be at room temperature)
160 grams unsalted butter
2/3 cup white sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar 2 large eggs
1 vanilla bean 1 cup buttermilk 1/2 cup sour cream 2 Tbs brewed coffee
1 3/4 cups flour 1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt
Turn your oven to 180 C. Grease your cake pans. (I used two 28cm round ones)
How to: Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at the time. Add vanilla bean. Whisk buttermilk, sour cream and coffee in a separate bowl. In a third bowl, sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the wet and dry ingredients to the sugar/butter, a little at the time.
Make sure it is well mixed, but dont overdo it either!
Bake on 180 C for 20-30 minutes, depending on pan size and your oven.
Step #2: Make Salted Caramel
Making caramel sounds a little scary, but if you follow the recipe closely and dont look away for too long, you will be fine - dont worry. Remember that melted sugar gets very very hot.
Why do Sundays seem like the perfect day for some old school jazz? Can anyone tell me?
Today is my boyfriend´s birthday, and I made him one of his favorites: chocolate chip pancakes. I had never had them before, and was surprised by how sweet and dessert-like they were. How I could arrive to the conclusion that pancakes + chocolate wasn´t going to taste like dessert is beyond me...
Oh, and for amazing cards and stationary like the one above, check out Sugar Paper!
Here is the recipe I used for the pancakes:
PANCAKES
Serves 4
1,5 cup milk
1 egg
2 TBS melted butter
2 cups flour
2,5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
50g dark chocolate
How to:
1. Whisk the wet ingredients.
2. Mix the dry ingredients
3. Add 1 and 2
4. Fold in chocolate chips
5. Let the batter rest for a while
6. Cook
7. Eat to your hearts delight!
Serve with butter, syrup etc
I have heard of Monkey Bread for years from American friends, but to us Norwegians it is not a very common treat, and I had never tasted it before. Not until my friend Jae suggested we made it for her birthday. I happily obliged, and thus we started off the analogue week. One major challenge was that we dont have canned dough around here. I thought we could just make a plain sweet bun dough and use that, and as this was planned as a breakfast/brunch treat, we decided to make the dough the night before. I dont know if that was the best decision I have ever made, but leave nothing untried, huh?
But before we started baking, I taught her how to knit. Above you can see the result, impressive for a beginner, right? After making the dough, we continued chatting and knitting (its addicitive!) the night away. I had hoped to wake up to dough that had risen, but I think something went a little wrong. Letting dough rise over night is a genius invention though, that way you can (more) easily bake for lunch/breakfast without the long wait.
We started dipping and rolling the dough in butter, sugar and cinnamon and proceeded until we had filled the pan to the brim. If this was the reason for unusual long cooking time (including basically taking the whole thing apart and putting it back together - a sticky mess I tell you) or if that was the uncanniedness (Hah! I thought I made up a word, but it actually has a fitting meaning, with slightly different spelling), of the dough, no one will know.
The end result might not look that much like your Mama´s Monkey Bread, and not taste quite the same either, but it was good, and that should certainly count for something.
"What do you do with the leftovers?" I asked innocently,
after eating as much as I possibly could handle.
"Honestly, Ive never had that problem...", was the answer I got.
Making Monkey Bread for two girls who already had eggs and salad for lunch is obviously not the way to do it, but I continued to enjoy the cake for a couple of days, though it was definitely best right out of the oven. To be repeated? Im not sure. Maybe with a different recipe.
