Mini Burgers and Fries

Sorry for not blogging in forever, but I've been gone on vacation the last week and just been crazy busy, but I promise I'll make it up a bit. This next week I'm going to Spain and Portugal for three weeks though, so I might not be blogging that much meanwhile, but I promise there'll be a lot about delicious Spanish food etc.

This other evening my sister had a couple of girl friends over for a little girl party, so I offered to make these really cute mini burgers for them, and they turned out super delicious! I made my own healthier burger buns. I don't really have a recipe, so you'll have to either just buy them or find your own recipe... 

Her den anden aften havde min søster et par veninder ovre, så jeg var så sød at tilbyde at lave mad til dem i form af mini burgere og pom fritter. Jeg brugte den her opskrift på burgerbollerne og formede dem bare en del mindre. 

Ingredients:

Thausand island dressing

ketchup

Tomatoes (tomater)

Cucumber (agurk)

Lettuce (salat)

Beef burger patties (bøffer) - made as small meatballs

Chia Crispbread

One of my favorite snacks in the afternoon when you start to feel a little hungry is crisp bread with cream cheese and some kind of dressing. It's filling, and if you choose the right kind of bread you get a lot of good fats and other nutrients which are super good for you!! This is one of my favorite kinds. 

Ingredients:

0,5 dl (1/4 cup) chia seeds (chia frø)

0,5 dl (1/4 cup) pumpkin seeds (græskarkerner)

0,5 dl (1/4 cup) sunflower seeds (solsikkekerner)

0,5 dl (1/4 cup) gluten-free oats (havregryn)

0,5 dl (1/4 cup) buckwheat flour (boghvedemel)

2 tbsp flax seeds (hørfrø)

0,5 tsp salt

2,5 dl (1 1/4 cup) water

1 tbsp coconot oil

Directions:

Mix all ingredients and let them sit for about an hour to let the chis seeds absorb some of the water.
Bake in preheated oven for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees (200 grader)

Peanut Butter and Banana Obsession

I love peanut butter. Yes, you've heard it before... I know... Well, my new thing is mixing it with banana. I used to just eat bananas with peanut butter, because mmmmm.... But then I thought, why not make a wrap with peanut butter and bananas? 

Another super easy thing to do is an open faced sandwich with peanut butter spread on top, and then topped with sliced bananas. 

There are tons of ideas, just go ahead and experiment to go beyond the classic PB+J sandwich.

Mothers Day French Toast

So today was Mother's Day, and I wanted to make my host mom a nice breakfast, since I couldn't do it for my mom. It has been a tradition for me to make breakfast for my mom on Mother's Day, so I'm glad I got to do it this year also, and make my host mom happy.

French Toast is a thing I discovered here in America. In Denmark we have something similar we call Arme Riddere or faithful knights. But I've really come to love it, and making it healthy is not hard at all either! Usually you would put powdered sugar and syrup on top, but instead I put homemade blueberry syrup on top, and that was really good!

Ingredients:

8 slices of whole wheat bread
3 eggs
1 cup almond milk
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Beat eggs and add almond milk, honey, and cinnamon.
2. Heat a pan in a little bit of butter or vegetable oil.
3. Dip the bread in the egg mixture on both sides for about 20-30 seconds.
4. Fry on both sides until golden brown and serve with syrup and fresh fruit.

The Danish Open Faced Sandwich

To make good Smørrebrød (as we call it in Denmark) is really an art, but one of the most delicious things in the world. The good thing about it is that you can be super creative and make it with almost anything you like. All it requires is good rye bread, lunch meat or fish, and whatever other toppings you would like.

This one is one of my favorites, and it's super simple. Just a couple of slices of avocado and topped with a tablespoon of cottage cheese and salt and pepper. 

This is one of the classics. Start out with putting some kind of green base on the base. I used spinach in this case, but lettuce or rucola or whatever you would like would be good. Then you take a hard boiled egg and slice into 1/8 inch slices. Top with slices of tomato and cucumber and some mayonnaise, and don't forget salt and pepper.

 A thing that is very popular in Denmark on rye bread is different kinds of fish. Usually some kind of canned fish. In this case, I used tuna, and made a simple tuna and egg salad and put it on a base of spinach and topped with a couple of sliced tomato and cucumber. 

Other things to put on rye bread:

Nutella (SO GOOD)

Lunch meat

Boiled potatoes with mayonnaise

Peanut Butter with banana slices

Cake Pops

Getting creative for easter? Well that's what me and some friends got this saturday, and ended up spending nearly 6 hours in the kitchen baking cake balls. It was a lot of work!! But hey, they are just the yummiest thing ever, right? And we had a lot of fun making them, even though the coating kept teasing us... 

We made two different kinds; banana bread and vanilla cake. Both were super good. Here is the recipe for the banana bread ones. We just used a vanilla cake box for the vanilla cake.


Banana Bread ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar 
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened 
2 eggs 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1/2 cup sour cream 
2 ripe bananas
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 
1 teaspoon baking soda 
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Mix sugar and butter in a mixer for a couple of minutes until combined. Add eggs and vanilla and mix. Mash the bananas and add those and the sour cream and peanut butter to the bowl. 
In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. 
Slowly add this to the wet ingredients and continue mixing on low-medium speed. 
Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake in a preheated oven for about 35-40 minutes. 

Here are the steps to making the cake pops:

1. Put the cake in a food processor and process until all crumbled up. Take a little at a time, and put the rest in a bowl.
2. Add about 1/2 cup creme cheese frosting. Stir it all around until it gets kind of firm and forms into little crumbles. You need to be able to make little balls that does not come apart.
3. Shape the cake balls and put on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and freeze for about an hour. This step will make the coating process a lot easier.
4. Heat up, in a microwave, either chocolate chips or candy coating until melted all the way. Do it 30 seconds at a time and stir in between to make sure it doesn't burn. 
5. Stick a popsicle stick (or any other kind of stick) into a ball and cover with the coating. This can be kind of hard, but just be patient and take your time. This is also the fun part.
6. If you want to add sprinkled go ahead and add them now, before the coating hardens.
7. Let them dry upside down, if you want to make real cake pops. If you don't have anything to stick them into, as in out case, just let them dry on a baking sheet. 
8. Store in refrigerator, and enjoy! 

Another thing we made was Oreo Balls. They were super easy to make. Just purify the oreos in a food processor and fold in creme cheese. Let them sit for an hour in the fridge and shape to little balls or eggs and coat in chocolate. The best thing ever!

Ingredients:

1 package golden oreos
1 8oz package creme cheese
Chocolate chips for coating

Cinnamon Rolls w. Creme Cheese Frosting

So this weekend is "Conference Weekend" for all LDS members, and since my host family is LDS, we're watching conference this weekend. As we do this, we kind of wanted to have some conference treat, so I asked if I should make cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon rolls can be kind of tricky to make I think, because the kind I've had in Denmark has always been really hard and just kind of dry, and just not really good. But I found out that the problem is that they need to be baked in a pan close together and not separately. This makes them so soft and fluffy and just delicious.

Ingredients:

Rolls
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour (345g)
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup water (120 ml)
1/4 cup milk (60 ml)
2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter (40g)
1 large egg

Filling
3 tbsp butter (45g)
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon 
1/4 cup sugar (50g)

Creme Cheese Frosting
1 pkg (8oz) creme cheese


Directions:

1. Make the dough: Set aside 1/2 cup of flour. In a large bowl, toss the 2 and 1/4 cups flour, the sugar, salt, and yeast together until evenly dispersed. Set aside.
2. Heat the water, milk, and butter together in the microwave until the butter is melted and the mixture is hot to touch. Stir the butter mixture into the flour mixture. Add the egg and only enough of the reserved flour to make a soft dough. 
3. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for about 3-4 minutes. Place in a lightly greased bowl and let rest for about 10 minutes.

1. Make the filling: After 10 minutes, roll the dough out in a 14x8 inch rectangle. Spread the softened butter on top. Mix together the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle it all over the dough. Add more cinnamon/sugar if desired. Roll up the dough tightly. Cut into 11 even pieces and place in a lightly greased 9-inch round pan. I used a pie dish, lightly sprayed with nonstick spray.
2. Loosely cover the rolls with aluminum foil and allow to rise in a warm, draft-free place for 60-90 minutes. Here is what I do: heat the oven to 200F degrees. Turn oven off. Place rolls inside oven and allow to rise.
3. After the rolls have doubled in size, preheat the oven to 375F. Bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly browned. I covered the rolls with aluminum foil after 15 minutes to avoid heavy browning.

Enjoy!

Skinny Banana Bread

I loooove and adore banana bread. I really do. So this sunday morning I decided to bake a couple of loafs of yummy banana bread. But I made them in a way that you could still eat them as a breakfast and they were not too unhealthy. Actually they didn't have any sugar in them, and they're baked with mostly oat flour to give the maximum amount of fibre and good nutrients. Just the way I like it.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 mashed bananas
1 cup oat flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Directions:
In a big bowl melt coconut oil and mix with honey. Add eggs, vanilla, and mashed banana and whisk till combined. In a separate bowl mix all the dry ingredients. Add flour a little at a time into the wet ingredients alternately adding almond milk. 
Chop walnuts and carefully add into the batter. Add chocolate chips as well. 
Grease a loaf pan or two, depending on how tall you want the breads. I did two, but they turned out kinda small.
Preheat oven to 350 degreed F and bake the loaves for 35 minutes.

Oat Waffles

This morning as I woke up, I was really craving waffles, but not the white fluffy ones that you usually connect with waffles. I mean, sure they're good, but they just don't fill you up very well when there's a long time till you'll have food again. Therefore I tried to make them with oat flour instead, and I gotta say that they turned out amazing. Really the good thing about waffles isn't the waffles, but the things you put on top of them, if you ask me.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp agave syrup
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
cooking spray

Directions:
Ground oats in a food processor until it has become sort of a oat flour. Mix oat flour, coconut flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. In a separate bowl beat eggs and add almond milk, agave syrup, yogurt, and coconut oil. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and mix well to make sure there is no  lumps of flour. 
Heat waffle iron, and spray with cooking spray. Bake the waffles and serve with fresh fruit and syrup.

Enjoy!

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

This is seriously the most delicious thing ever. Less than 70 calories each! These muffins are perfect as a quick breakfast, or if you just want a delicious snack in the middle of the day. I promise you, you're gonna love them!

Ingredients:

1 cup of whole wheat flour

1 cup of rolled oats

1/3 cup of stevia

2 teaspoons of cinnamon, divided

1 teaspoon of baking powder

½ teaspoon of baking soda

½ teaspoon of salt

1/3 cup of cream cheese

3/4 cup of Greek yogurt

1 large egg

¼ cup of applesauce

2 teaspoons of vanilla

1 ½ cups of chopped apples (about 3 medium)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients together leaving out 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

In a separate mixing bowl combine all the wet ingredients leaving the apple chunks aside for now.

Mix the dry and wet ingredients together until the batter is moist. Stir in the apple chunks. 

Pour or spoon the batter into the muffin cups two-thirds full.

Once the muffin tin is filled mix together 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 2 tablespoons if brown sugar.

Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the top of the batter in the muffin tin.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until lightly browned where the muffin will spring back when gently touched.

Set the muffin pan on a cooling rack to 10 minutes before removing the muffins.

Place the muffins on the cooling rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Skinny Pumpkin Bread

So I was looking around on pinterest the other day when I found this recipe for "Skinny Pumpkin Bread", and it just looked to delicious that I had to try it! I changed some of the ingredients, because I didn't wanted to use regular flour. The final result was a big success! The whole family loved it, even little Bella on 4, who temps to be a really fussy eater!


Batter:
1-1/2 c. pureed pumpkin
½ c. unsweetened applesauce
1 whole egg
3 egg whites
1 c. whole wheat flour (can be substituted with some kind of gluten-free flour if desired) 
⅔ c. almond flour
½ c. Stevia
1 t. baking soda
½ t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. ground nutmeg
Cream filling:
8 oz. reduced fat cream cheese
¼ c. granulated sugar
2 egg whites
1 t. vanilla extract

For the Batter: With an electric mixer, beat the pumpkin, applesauce, egg, and egg whites on medium speed until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine the flours, Stevia, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Slowly mix the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture.


For the cream cheese filling: Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, egg whites until creamy and smooth.
Grease a loaf pan. Pour half of the batter in the pan. Pour half of the filling in the pan and smooth with the back of a spoon. Top with the remaining batter.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Don’t overbake or your bread will be dry on the edges. Cool and remove from pans. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Enjoy!