Danish traditions that make no sense (and vegan, glutenfree "frikadeller")

I wrote this yesterday, but since my phone wouldn't connect with my computer, I couldn't post it till today. So there are a few inconsistencies with the dates.
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Z, I'm sorry for not writing on here. I've been too busy to collect my thoughts. But I'm busy in a good
way, I'm doing really good. I got your email yesterday, and I'll write a more personal reply today or tomorrow.

The thing about Denmark is that we see every holiday as a possibility to drink, drink, drink and eat. You know about all the crazy stuff with Christmas, so I thought I would show you how we celebrate Easter in Denmark. I bet it's different from Poland!

First of all, no one goes to church. We have all these Christian holidays, and people get baptized and stuff, but only a few people are religious. None the less, most people are off school and work this week!

And just like Christmas parties, we have Easter parties too! It doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. I guess it's more a way to celebrate spring. Some people put up Easter decorations, usually consisting of the odd chicken and eggs. Maybe an Easter bunny or two. An Easter party is a party during/around Easter, where you go eat food and drink beer and snaps. That is what I'm doing tonight. We might go to a show as well, a really nice band is playing Loppen. I'm going to so many shows these days, it's crazy! Too many good shows, too little time.

It's a potluck, so I'm bringing vegan "vegedeler", which are basically vegan patties, a spicy cucumber salad and of course rye bread. I went all out and paid 30 kr. for the bakery kind. Yeah, I just got paid ;)

Since you're not here eat the food, I'm gonna post some pictures and a rough recipe!


Glutenfree Vegedeller
My number one tip for any kind of patties is: Never use wheat flour!! Use rice flour, chickpea flour, hell even potato starch does the trick. The wheat flour is not starchy enough, so you'll have to use a lot and this can really ruin the flavour. Plus the patties get too heavy. So these patties are not only vegan but also glutenfree

You can use lentils for this, but I got this trick from a guy from Ungdomshuset and I must say I love it!

Soak soy minced "meat" in hot water. Add some spices to the water.
Drain the minced soy and put it in a bowl.
Shred some carrots or any other veggie you prefer.

Chop onions and garlic and fry them on a pan with some spices

Mix everything with spices and rice flour
When you can form a patty and you can throw it back and forth a bit while it still keeps the shape, the "dough" is done! If it's too dry, add soymilk. If the patty falls apart, add more flour.

Form patties and fry them on a pan.
Serve hot or cold. You can pretty much serve this with anything, depending on which spices you pick.

Spicy Danish Cucumber Salad
Cut a cucumber into thin slices
Mix vinegar, salt and sugar in a plastic box or a jar
Add the cucumbers, finely chopped chili (fresh or dried) and pepper corns.
Shake well!
Let it rest for a couple of hours in the fridge and serve

lviv manual for begginers

In order to have hot water I have to light a very specific diy installation and pray I'm not going to blow the whole apartment up. I managed to fall in love with few on new tastes (later, later my dear) and make the first dinner in a tiny kitchen, placed in the corridor and equipped with a bath tub. Yes;-) But what makes food tasty is not the luxury surrounding but my beloved friends!

I won't call this dish "falafels". My companions called them "cookies".

Ingrediens:
1. "cookies"
-2 glasses of chickpeas
-water
-anonymous Lebanese spices (if you ask google, it will propably suggest you to use kumin, parsley and coriander)

Leave chickpeas for night in the bowl full of water and then blend them without boiling. Add at least one glass of flour (best would be either soya or chickpeas), spices and chopped parsley leaves). You need a really good blender but you help your own old pal with some water and oil.
Fry little balls in deep oil!











2.rise with dried spinach
We found it in the kitchen and decided to use it! First we poured boiling water on dried spinach leaves. Then added to fried onion and garlic and stir everything on an old school Ukrainian pan without a hand;-)



It went well with rise, firstly fried on oil and then slowly boiled in a very flat pot.

3. tomatoes, cubrica and cucumber salat.
Well the only thing worth mentioning is this lovely spice you can find somewhere around the Mediterranean see;-)

Right now I am trying to find my place around few streets I remember from summer. So there's our small room I am trying to free from piles of goods. Then there's a cafe where my friends works and does a perfect latte with a heart on top. Then we have an ultimate varenyky (dumplings) venue. My office in the Art of Palace next to it and small rehearsal space marks the end of my world. In between I bump here and there trying to taste different beers and speak proper Ukrainian. Well, that's a challenge;-)

New and old friends

It's always weird with those people where your only basis of interaction is some kind of a forced constellation. You graduate school to never talk to each other again. 3 years pass by and you hardly say "hi" anymore. Those people who you used to be friends with but that you really didn't have much in common with.

I'm being faced with requests for reunions from both primary and high school class mates. It's one of these settings were I really want to see some people again, but on the other hand there are a lot of people I hope I will never encounter again in my entire life.

This weekend was filled with various activities. A party at the Institute of History, an anti-ACTA demonstration and a big party at a certain collective. Friday I managed to meet a classmate from way back and someone I went to high school with who apparently didn't remember me at all (Which is ok because I only remember her because I think she's really annoying). The demo on Saturday was filled with people, so I saw a lot of people around I didn't even bother to go up and say hi to. Too much effort, too many people.

The party was packed and it was great! I got to talk to people I haven't seen for a while. That was nice! But I also "met" some people that didn't bother to come up and say hi, but clearly noticed I was there because they spend some time staring at me. I didn't say hi either, so I guess it's my own fault. But I didn't exactly feel like going up to people who apparently won't do the same to me.

I don't know if it's another case of "The Danish Syndrome" but I find it really weird. You spend years being friends, seeing each other every day, and then you graduate/move away/become less connected with the scene and all of a sudden people stop calling. I guess we all move on, but it's so weird being close to someone and then a single event just ends it all. I've seen a lot of people move away from the scene and suddenly they are not interested in going out anymore, or all our friends activities stop because the only basis of relation maybe was that scene.

Bonus: Spot me!

Sushi!
We made sushi when we got back from the demo on Saturday.
Sushi doesn't need to be expensive nor time consuming. I'll use porridge rice instead of the expensive sushi rice. It does the job! I won't buy rice vinegar, but use regular vinegar with salt and sugar. Tofu is always nice, but just using veggies and making a nice peanut butter sauce is really tasty as well.

The only precaution is: You will get dirty, those rice are sticky and messy as well!

warsaw and polish-danish love

Warsaw is like a black hole at times. On one hand I am overwhelmed with unexpected health problems and my constant struggle with university bureaucracy. I am stuck with a huge hole after a tooth removal and waiting for a piece of my vain to be cut out. On the other hand I let myself get lost between familiar spots and faces. Finally there's enough time to visit all nice vegan and vegetarian temples and gossip till you drop. I went on a walk round old Jewish ghetto and witnessed the horror of gentrification which I was only reading about till now. Old square, which was the last stop before the concentration camp was turned into a hip, concrete, modern desert. The last piece of rails was saved after some protest. And now one of the last old houses is being transformed into a fancy hotel. Above the square you can see the glass nightmare rising, and pope's monument cheering you nicely. You can never have enough of both down here.





If you continue and walk down John Paul II's street you will pass cheap sex shops. This is "Poland". Leave it behind and you will reach one of the paradises: Hala Mirowska. It's a huge market situated between two buildings, which resembles something between a magazine and a cathedral.



I found those pictures here and there so you know what I am talking about.

I think there's no better art gallery then vegetable stalls, where prices are always "circa" and people tend to chat, even if it complaining. You can also find people who paid the price for Polish transition and are severely punished for every attempt to get by, for example by selling underwear grandam's style on the sidewalk. And here it is, at the last corner: Asian shop, where you can buy a huge cube of fresh tofu for 4 PLN (8DKK, sic!), soya sauce, all kinds of noodles and ingredients that don't have a name in my modest language. So after a terrible diagnosis I tried to cheer myself up with a delicious food. I forgot how it feels to actually buy food, so this taste of oddness is my extra spice tonight. Oh! And of course long time no see friends!

ULTIMATE TOFU!

-2 cubes of tofu
-soya sauce
-fresh ginger
-oil

Pour soya sauce into a little bowl and grate a spoon of fresh ginger. Cut tofu into slices, 1-2 cm width and soak them before frying on the pan. That's it. If it was up to me I would stick to the cheapest oil but I know some people are fond of "olive oil". Let them have it;-)

NEW SAUCE

-one big leak
-green peace in a can
-can of coconut milk
-salt, pepper, curry

Wash the leak and cut its leaves along. Then cut into slices. Once I saw A using also the very green part and I felt in love with this idea! The more leak, the better. Fry it on olive oil (yes). Then add peas and coconut milk. Spice it and then wait till the liquid evaporates. We want it dense!





KOTLETY

I am a burger freak. You gotta learn this wors -> kotlety! This time I used Karola's old recipe, pimped with a little bit of red lentils.

-1 glass of red lentils
-1 glass of oatflakes
-2 glasses of corn flakes
-salt, black pepper, sweet red pepper and curry

Boil the lentils. Usually you need only a few minutes and small amount of water so make sure you won't burn them. Pour boiling water onto the other flakes in a bowl. After 5 minutes mix everything together and fry them all! Just recently I started paying attention to shapes, structure and texture. Tastes better. So I try to form nice, flat and round burgers instead of splashing a big spoon of dough into the oil.







POLISH-DANISH CASSEROLE

Basic dumbsterdiving dish because of the most common findings. Danish memmory, spiced with a little bit of Polish love herb.

-2 or 3 carrots
-2 big beat roots
-4 potatoes
-2 parsleys
- 2 cloves of garlic
-lovage!/ lubczyk!/ løvstikke! This is the reason why I'm constantly in love;-)

You can also use garlic, onion, peppers, parsnip and that other Danish root I don't know a name of...

Peel what needs to be peeled, cut vegetables in slices. Place on a plate with baking paper. Pour a little bit of oil, some salt and of course the lovage! Lots! Bake for around 30 minutes in 200C.



SALAT A.

-red pepper
-fresh cucumber
-lettuce
-sesame seeds
-olive oil
-half of a red grapefruit

Cut pepper, lettuce and cucumber into thin stripes. Add some roasted sesame seeds and a dressing made out of 3-4 spoons of olive oil and squeezed grapefruit juice.

SALAT B

Can you imagine a Polish dinner without salted cucumber pickles? Tastes best with chopped onion! Yey!






I miss you as well and you know it;-)!

Pizza Tuesday and kitchen make-over

Yesterday was Tuesday and Tuesdays are pizza day!
Plus we picked up a new wonder: The combi oven/spaceship - a moving in gift from my parents.

So while the dough was resting, I installed this crazy machine. The best thing about it is that it has a pizza program that cooks really good pizzas in just 14-17 minutes - fuck yeah!

Crusty pizza recipe
Wash your filthy little hands. Mix half a package (25 g.) of yeast with 3 dl of water. Add salt, a bit of sugar and a just a scoop of rapeseed or olive oil - whatever's in your kitchen.

 Then rummage through your cabinet for flour - I used leftover graham flour, whole grain wheat and plain white wheat. A good rule is that about half the flour should be plain white flour, otherwise the pizza dough will get too heavy. Only using white flour will make the pizza too light and it won't keep you full for long. I like to use rye for variations, but never more than 1/4-1/3 of the total amount of flour, because the pizza will get too hard and heavy.

Flour of choice

Mix in the flour. When mixing gets too tough, take the dough out of the bowl and mix the rest of the flour in on the kitchen table. Remember to cover the table top in flour as well! Get your hands dirty! When the dough is smooth but not sticky, you'll have added enough flour. Then knead the fuck out of that dough! The more you knead, the more airy the dough gets and the better the pizza.
Then put the dough back in the bowl, cover it in a tiny bit of oil and let it rest somewhere warm until it has doubled in size.

Mixing

The finished dough

Prepare the toppings while the dough rests. You can use whatever you have handy in your kitchen. My favorites are fresh tomato, potato, mushroom, tofu, beans and onion. Blend canned tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper to make a good pizza sauce. Mix oil, vinegar, a bit of soymilk and a whole lot of garlic, merian and oregano to make a good sauce for the toppings. Merian is the super-secret ingredient and a trick all professional pizza places use to keep you coming back for more.

Toppins!

When the dough is ready, roll it on the table top. Put it on a oven pan before you add the toppings. Add the red sauce, toppings and then the oil-vinegar sauce. The more toppings you add, the harder it will get to eat without using a fork. And eating pizza like that is blaspheme, right?

Ready for the oven!

As I mentioned before, my fancy oven has a pizza program. If you don't, set the oven to 200-220 degrees and let it warm up for 10 minutes before popping your pizza in. Your pizza will need 20-40 minutes depending on your oven and the dough. Too much red sauce = longer cooking time to apply a thin layer only! Check your pizza after 20 minutes, and then in 5-10 minute time intervals until it's done.

The spaceship w/ pizza

Enjoy!

We made a total of 5 pizzas, enough for both lunch and dinner today as well! Pizza Tuesday = pizza Wednesday.

P.s. Z I miss you like crazy!