Traditional Swedish Christmas Food

I already promised to write about the traditional Swedish Christmas food, as they like to eat the same every year. It is a sort of buffet. A must have is the "Julskinka", a cooked and grilled bacon, which you can slice. Of course you have some handmade cold mustard honey sauce.
You will find also the "Jansons Frestelse" (potatogratin with anchovy), "rödbetarsalad"(red beetroots salad), different sorts of inlaid hering, "Prinskorv" (a grilled curly sausage), meatballs and ricepudding.

Beside of all you need to have some Glögg (hot red wine with herbs), Christmas beers (Julbruggd), a lot of sweeties (named "Godis" like chocolates and sugargummies). You need to have a Christmas hat and sing a lot of Swedish Christmas songs, which will go better and better after some drinks (even you don't speak the Swedish language.

They think this tradition came already form the Vikings, they celebrated the longest night in wintertime, from that moment the days will be more longer and lighter. Later, after Christianity, people used to fasten in the Advent time (4 weeks before Christmas) till Christmas. Nowadays it is very popular to eat Julbord (a sort of Christmas buffet with all the same recipes) already in the weeks before Christmas with your work, your friends and family. A big contrast with former days and also maybe a little boring every year the same? 😜 When I ask the Swedish it seems they still like it!

In Sweden the most important Christmas celebration day (mostly with family and maybe some friends) is on the 24th of December. On the 25th and 26th they start enjoying holiday and doing things they like and never have time for. Like in the UK, the shops also start the Christmas sale on Boxing Day.

All the recipes all easy to google when you want to make it yourself, they are at least worth trying 😋

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas decoration  with the front door

Only some days to go and then it is Christmas again. But we already have been in Christmas atmosphere for weeks in Sweden. Not only because they start playing Christmas songs on the radio every day since november. Or you can visite Christmas markets around every corner in November These are also the darkest days of the year, maybe this year it is even worse then other years. Even when we are living in the woods in the south. Because it's very dark and rainy att daytime, you have the feeling it doesn't get light at all. Like somebody forgotten to put the lights on...It is really lowering your energy level, it actually drops down. What helps? Just go with the flow... Take some cocooning time inside with glowing woods in the fireplace and some candles beside of you. . Start reading the book what was waiting for you, start thinking about the year you leave behind or make plans for the new year. 

We started making Christmas decorations outside the house, when it was light and dry for a lite moment. It has been raining for the last weeks since November, whole days lang. Then we made decorations inside. Like they did in former days, because of the long and dark wintertime.

Wintergarden view from the kitchen

Candle lights 

Just a moment of sun

Glowing wood in the fireplace inside

The Christmas tree 

We are also preparing for visitors in the Christmas holiday. The guestrooms are ready, the house is nearly cleaned. The Christmas decorations both inside and outside are finished. Now we are also trying out new recipes for Christmas, like we do every year. Though we are living in Sweden, we still are Dutch. In Sweden they will always have traditional Christmas food every year. I will write about it later. But in The Netherlands we mostly try something new and different or from a special theme, or something you just like to eat. What about you?

What is "Sinterklaas"? A sort of Santa Claus?

The 5th of December it's Sinterklaasavond (or Pakjesavond) in The Netherlands. It is a sort of Santa Claus evening (or Presents evening). They celebrate the birthday of Saint Nicolaas. It is a traditional day about a very old man arriving each year from Spain with white beard and hair, a red cape always riding a white horse. He arrives mostly by boat. He has a lot of helping men, called Pieten. They have very colored dresses and faces. They arrive in most of the cities and villages in The Netherlands, often by boat. They deliver presents to the small children, when they did well last year. Otherwise you have the chance they will take them with them to Spain. The story tells also the presents come in the house because they are thrown in the chimney.

When children are getting older, then the are told that it's just a fairy tail story. But then they still celebrate and buy gifts to each other, within the familie, with friends or on school. Then you have a chance to make a surprise (a nice special packed present) or poem for some one you bought a gift for. While celebrating you eat a lot of special sweets, such as gingerbread, almond bar, chocolate letters and speculaas (spiced biscuits). There are special TV program (already weeks before), telling the events of this year around Sinterklaas and the Pieten. All the shops and houses are decorated with Sinterklaas stuff, they will change it on the 6th of December. It is not done to prepare for Christmas with Christmas Decorations (as you can see in a lot of surrounding countries) before Sinterklaas has left the country, on the 5th of December. So I will prepare for Christmas tomorrow.



When you are in The Netherlands the 5th of December (or the weeks before), have a look around, maybe you can meet them....

How to clean your fireplace door

This is really an easy job... it takes only some minutes. Just take some old ashes on a wet soft sponge and start cleaning. Take care it keeps wet while cleaning. Afterwards you take a kitchen paper and dry the window till it is clean. No use of aggressive cleaning stuff which will burn into the glass, no hard work but easy cleaning. I have been doing this a lot of times already this wintertime, it really works and nothing special is needed. Good luck!

Tips how to handle your winter dip

Remember the colors of summertime

Are you in a winter dip? Just pamper your senses...
When you are living in Sweden, the days are very short and dark, sometimes even very rainy and cloudy. It is not always easy, because you can feel it in your body. You are getting in the mood for sleeping whole winter time. I have some tips to handle it for you:

1. Surround your self with nice smelling candles, a winter fragrance parfum, some summer herbs, flowers or incenses, where ever you are...
2. Take some time off to have a spa experience, with a massage, scrub your skin, use a nice soap, you will feel the new energy, even though it has to be in your own bathroom. 
3. Try out and taste a lot of new recipes you may like, such as cakes, cookies or a new self made meal and save the best to make and share for Christmas.
4. Find some music your are in the mood for in this moment, go where the mood flows for a while, play it load or just very calm as long as you need.
5. Have a look in all the summer pictures you made, see the nice fresh colors and remember the memories, create a new album or wall paper to color your life with and make new plans for next year. 
6. Start a conversation from your heart with someone, while you have a big heartwarming herb tea, you feel the warmth of the candles, the burning fire and even your dearest friends and family around you.
7. Start creating Christmas decorations, before you realize, it's Christmas again😜

The best you can do, is to take out what fits you the best. And always realize, it is just the circle of life, it will be spring one day, in some weeks, just go with the flow...

Summer herbs in my kitchen

The Swedish Sewer Project

OMG my garden....😱 it is totally ruined. What a project. We need to make a new sewer, the government decided. It needs to be "trekammerbrunn" because we live close to the lake. I can understand your want to keep the water in the lake as clean as possible, not to pollute it. But we always were already very aware form the fact we live in nature, in the middle of the woods. So we didn't use chemical damaging products, only ECO friendly stuff. Beside of that it is a very expensive job, even more when you know the old one functioned without problems.  

After work....

This is the result just before winter is coming. We didn't know we had clay in our garden until now, I only met a very dry and sandy soil. The driveway, which I spent so much hours on to remove it from all the grass because it was overgrown, has totally disappeared. We need to repair as soon as possible the driveway, because it will be very soft and muddy in wintertime, when the snow is coming. 

my driveway after

We have been working on this property for 3 years already. It will take some time to restore it again by ourselves, without big machines and big money. But we need to see it as a project. Maybe it brings us something we never expected before, something positive.

Jobs to do in your October garden

Still flowering till the frost will come....

What a beautiful flowers, still in my garden. Typical autumn minded flowers like Sedum, Helenium, Gaura Lindheimerii, Hydrangea Annabelle, Autumn Crocus and Trycurtis. I'm enjoying it very much because I know, I have to say goodbye, every day it can be the last one, it can be frosty soon.

Some days ago it already started to get below zero. Only two nights, but all the flowers are gone. Hope to see you next year...


Jobs to do in October:

1. Cut the grass, but not too short. As long as temperatures are above 7 degrees everything is still growing. And mostly also fast because it rains more often in fall. When you cut the grass for the last time think about it. It shouldn't be too short so it can manage frosty times in wintertime. Very important, not only in Sweden.
2. Take inside the pots or plant out the youngsters. Some plants are not hardy enough to stay outside during Winter in Sweden. When they are in a pots, they are even more vulnerable for frost because they will gett more coldness around their feet. I took inside some of them (like the Gaura Lindheimerii). Other ones can stay outside when they are in the open ground. So I plated out some youngsters from the Black Currant, where I took some cuttings last months and they started growing in pots. 
3. Take out as much weeds as possible, as long as possible, when the temperature is still above 7 degrees Celcius and your hands and body can manage. Because the roots are growing fast, while you not see it. But in Spring, then you'll know. they are much faster then you are...
4. Plant a lot of bulbs, they are often extra highlights in your garden. I don't plant tulips, I like them but the deer and mouses as well... But that animals don't like Narcissus, Galanthus and Allium (they smell like onions because they are family). I mostly like the hardy bulbs who can stay in the ground for years. Like Scillas, they will increase anyway (when they like it at your place). All though the deer will eat the flowers, but I like them so much I took the risk and planted them anyway. Just take care in Spring when they come out. The weeds are growing often that fast you do not see the small and tiny bulb leafs coming out.... Mark them very well with names. I'm sure the bulbs will surprise you. 
5. And last but not least....Go inside yourself and prepare for the winter. It's time for fall, also for you. Go inside, make a tea with a heartwarming cake (Mormors Mjuk Pepparkake), light the candles, take a book and start making new plans for next season.

Kanelbullardag

Grattis! Did you know it's Kanelbullensdag today in Sweden?

Foto: Pixabay

Every year on the 4th of October a lot of people eat a sort of cinnamon roll. They sell around  7 million on that day. That means that 51% of the Swedish people are eating them, or get one on their job. They started with this day in 1999 to stimulate people to make homemade sweets and sell more butter, flour and yeast. The cinnamon roll is typical Swedish (1920) and is often eaten with the fika, having coffee and cakes. A very popular daily habit in Sweden. So when you are in Sweden one day, you have to try one, it tastes delicious!

You want to start baking? For 25 buns you need:
35 g (1¼ oz) yeast
100 g (3½ oz) sugar
300 ml (1½ cup) milk
1 egg
120 g (4 oz) butter
1 tsp salt
1 tbs ground cardemom
750 g (26 oz) flour

Filling:
100 g (4 oz) butter
50 g (2 oz) sugar
2 tbs cinammon

Glaze:
1 egg
2 tbs water
pearl sugar

Preparation
Crumble the yeast in a bowl and stir in a few tablespoons of milk. Melt the butter and pour the milk on it. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead the dough in a dough mixer for 10–15 minutes. Let the dough rise while covered at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough so it is about 3 mm (1/8 in) thick and 30 cm (12 in) wide. Spread the room-temperature butter on top. Make a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle it over the dough. Roll the dough the long way and cut the roll into about 25 slices. Place them with the cut edge upward in paper molds. Place on a baking sheet and let rise under a towel for about 60 minutes or until the buns have doubled in size.

Beat together the egg and water, brush the mixture carefully on the buns and sprinkle pearl sugar on top. Bake in the oven (220°C/425°F) for 5–6 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack.

September feelings in the garden

Love these flowers: Sanguisorba Blackthorn

It feels more wet again, it can be very cloudy and rainy all of a sudden. It can be very sunny, getting even little warm. A lot of mushrooms showed upp already. You can smell autumn i coming in. But the plants, the grass and the weeds, they are doing very well. Not too hot not too cold, enough water and temperature to grow a little more.

Atalanta on the Helenium

It keeps growing and growing...

lots of orange berries this year, they say it will be a cold winter...

Good times for having high tea inside, with grandmothers soft pepparkake cake, warm and tasty

September light, dark clouds and sunny in Sweden

Special tree that Juniper

Foto: Pixabay

Sometimes you see tree sculptures in the Smålands landscape. The coniferous trees or shrubs Juniper (or Juniperus Communis in latin or En in Swedish) is often seen in Småland Sweden. Mostly when they harvest the wood in Sweden, they leave the juniper behind. You really cannot mis them. I don't know yet if that has a reason....

I already found out that the oldest one ever found in Sweden (in Sarek National Park) was 840 years old. It can become 14 meters high and 1,5 meter wide. It is a very common tree in Sweden but it is protected in The Netherlands. I think because there are not that much left in the Dutch natural landscape anymore.

It is a small tree or shrub. It delivers special berry, which are not berries but a sort of pine appels. It takes tree years to grow and become blue. joke: when all the berries are ripe you can get all you wish.... (it will be never)

But did you know it has very special stories too?

From long times ago they believed the plant could protect against ghosts around the house, the stable and even around the accres to protect the harvest. It was also used to burn in the chimney or to clean rooms which were not warm in wintertime, to smell more nice and keep away the mold. The bark was often used to cover the floor and the branches for the smoking of meat and fish.

The trees is still very useful today. They use it as a part of medical supplement, to stimulate the kidney function, to clean the liver, to drift moisture of or to lose weight. But don't start eating this tree pure. Maybe you bought some bathing oil, big chance there was Juniper in it.

The berries (or actually pine appels) are used to make gin and aquavit. Or you can still use it when you make a special marinade for wild or sauerkraut. You can still buy it in the supermarket.
So I think it is a very special tree that old guy...so when you see one, think of this story 😇