Pumpkin Pie

So I made a lovely pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, and when my department at work organized a Christmas lunch, I said I’d bring a pumpkin pie. Pumpkin Pie isn’t common in Scotland, so I thought it would be fun to let me co-workers try an authentic one.

Unfortunately I left out the cup of brown sugar…

When I was making the pie, there was a bit of pie filling left, so I poured it into two ramekins to have after dinner. I thought it tasted weird and too eggy, but just hoped that maybe it would taste better once it was cold and had had a night to settle.

At about 2am last night, I realized that I hadn’t put in the sugar and that’s why it tasted weird!

I was so annoyed—everyone knew I was bringing a pumpkin pie—I couldn’t bring in something gross!

So this morning, I heated some brown sugar in the microwave to help it mix better and then scooped out my baked pie filling! I used a hand whisk to mix in the sugar and then put it back into my homemade gingersnap and graham cracker (well technically Digestives, because they don’t have graham crackers here) crust. It didn’t quite look the same—obviously—but I was just hoping it’d taste decent!

Yay—it worked! Everyone that had some enjoyed it and some people even took some home to let their families try it.

So—if you ever forget to put the sugar in, just scoop out the pie, mix in the sugar, and put it back –but hopefully you won’t forget the sugar! = )

Canned pumpkin isn’t common here, but you can find it in specialty shops and places that sell American goods for about $2.85 a can! How much does it costs in America? Luckily, my trusty baking assistant, and lovely Scottish cousin, Catherine, found some for me! Thanks C-Dragon!

 

So here’s my Pumpkin Pie Recipe:

Preheat Oven to 375 F

For the Crust:

• 1.5 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs (or Ginger Snaps or Digestives)
• 1/3 cup Brown Sugar
• 6 TBS Melted Butter
• 1 tsp Cinnamon

Mix together, press into a 9" pie dish, bake at 375 F for 7 minutes

For the Pie:

• 3 Eggs lightly beaten
• 1 can Pumpkin
• 1 cup Light Brown Sugar (don’t forget it!)
• 1 can Evaporated Milk (410 grams)
• 2 TBS Molasses (I used Treacle because Molasses is hard to find here)
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Allspice
• 2.5 tsp Cinnamon
• 1.5 tsp Ginger

Mix together ingredients, pour on top of premade piecrust

Bake at 425 F for 10 minutes then 350 F for 30-40 minutes

 

Here’s some pictures from Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haugesund in the Morning

Norway- Stavanger Fjord Tour

Ok, so finally back to Stavanger and the hot chocolate with amazing homemade marshmallows, the colorful wooden buildings, and the fjord tour. Norway is known for its fjords, so of course, we had to see some!

It was just a bit cold and a little windy on the boat! = )

The boat pulled up to a waterfall and they filled a bucket full of "fresh Norwegian waterfall water" that  was then dispensed into plastic cups. Because it was cold and the cups were slightly wet, I didn’t want to pick up the cup and get my gloves wet—but I overcame—I mean when else do you get to drink waterfall water? So, we happily drank!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the first part of our boat ride, we stopped for an "important member of the community" to board. Turns out he was a farmer and had left his goats on the hillside (the fjordside?) over the summer and wanted to bring them back. This was not his first attempt, and certainly would not be his last because after trying for about 30 minutes, they gave up and the goats won!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little white goat was the trouble maker! The bigger grey goat came on board, lured by a loaf of bread and then lassoed on with a rope. Most of the passengers pressed up against the windows with their cameras, watching as the farmer and two of the boat men tried to get the goats—scrambling up the hillside, attempting to jump on them, cooing at them—all to no avail! It was quite amusing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got back to Stavanger and wandered around for a bit until our ferry back to Haugesund. We came across this interesting hair place:

 

What I Like Wednesdays

Today’s post will be a bit different from sharing the normal list of books and potions that I am currently enjoying (though one friend pointed out that all my music lately has been country—I’ve always been a country fan, and always will be, but I definitely listen to other music—I’ll hop on that for next week!).

A reader passed along a blog award to me yesterday:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thrilled! I didn’t even know I had a normal set of readers! So thank you very much, Jessica, for passing this along!

I’d like to pass it along to the blogger that got me into blogs in the first place, you probably all know and love her, Kath from www.katheats.com . Thanks Kath!

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So, THANKSGIVING!! Growing up, Thanksgiving meant hopping in a car, driving for 7 hours to arrive at the best place in the world: Montreat/Black Mountain, NC. As a family, every year since before I was born, we have gone to the Bannerman Family Thanksgiving Dance Camp. It’s a family folk dance camp for the weekend. Sounds weird huh? I know, but it’s amazing, and since I’ve been going all my life, it’s people I’ve grown up with and really look forward to seeing. You arrive on Thursday and leave with tears on Sunday after a fabulous weekend of recreation, new friends, reunions with old friends, and family time. And yes, I love folk dancing! Of course, now that I live in Scotland, I’ve missed it and have been to only two in the past five years.

The UK doesn’t have a Thanksgiving, so I have started a family celebration! All my Scottish cousins enjoy the huge meal—though most of them will NEVER understand sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top!

One thing about Thanksgiving Folk Dance Camp is that we didn’t ever cook a Thanksgiving meal. We stayed at a YMCA retreat center, so all of our meals are eaten in the dining hall. The first time I had a home cooked Thanksgiving meal was in 2006, when I cooked for my new family!

Actually—I take that back—when I was studying in Edinburgh, my friend Jess was in Italy, and she flew over for Thanksgiving. We made our own Thanksgiving meal for my lovely flat mates from 102 Flat 7! We didn’t have a turkey, so we cooked a ham (without a clue what we were doing!). Tim came along for the meal as well—we had just met! It wasn’t a big ordeal though because it was just a few of us.

The first Thanksgiving meal I did for the family was cooking for about 12 people—the first big meal and the first Thanksgiving meal I had ever done—ever!

This Thanksgiving, my family is still going to Black Mountain, and my Scottish family is still getting a Thanksgiving feast! We are, however, making it a bit of a pot luck. So cousins are bringing some side dishes and to help with suggestions and recipes my husband helped me make this Google site: Scottish Thanksgiving. Check it out, complete with pictures from previous Thanksgivings! It’s not a fancy site or anything, but it has recipe suggestions.

Do you have any Thanksgiving traditions? What are they? AND what are your favorite Thanksgiving (or holiday) recipes? Send them in—I might just use them next week!

Breakfast in Bergen

Back to Norway:

In Bergen we stayed in a lovely "guest house" called Skuteviken Guest House. It was about a 10 minute walk from the center of town and very easy to find. The rooms are all apartments with a kitchen/sitting area that includes a big comfy couch and a tv that gets lots of English-speaking channels, a small bedroom, and a large bathroom with a shower. It was perfect for our three nights in Bergen and cheaper than a lot of the hotels we looked. AND—since we had a fridge and a stove—we could cook!

We had scrambled eggs, lovely Norwegian brown, seeded bread with cheese, some yogurt, grapes, and muesli for breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Like Wednesdays

Song of the Day: “Went Out Last Night” by Kenny Chesney

 

Tasty Green Powder: Fruitein Revitalizing Green Foods Shake by Nature’s Plus—This stuff actually tastes GOOD! As in, I actually licked the sides of my cup and the top I had put on it to shake it. It has a nice fruity taste, but not fake (since it actually has fruit in it!). I saw this at a local health food store and decided to try it to give me a boost (too many sick kids at school!), and I don’t want to get sick!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett—SO GOOD! 

 

Hot Chocolate in Stavanger

I know I haven’t posted in a while—I’ve been having trouble with Live Writer and inserting pictures, so I just didn’t bother for a few days…weeks.

So back to Norway:

After our Fjord cruise, which I haven’t written about yet, we wandered around Stavanger until it was time to take the high speed ferry back to Haugesund. Stavanger has a central shopping bit with cobbled streets and quirky shops. We turned up one street that was all bright colors (made me feel like I was at home since I grew up in a house that is turquoise, pink, purple, and white on the outside!). It was cold, and we needed some warming up—and it just so happened to come in the form of hot chocolate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

  

If you are ever in Stavanger, find this colorful street and this chocolate shop/cafe called Sjokoladepiken.

You will be glad you did! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We certainly didn’t expect this when we ordered hot chocolate: really thick, rich hot chocolate with a SLAB of homemade amazing marshmallow on top!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was so chocolate-y, that I actually just ate mostly melted marshmallow. Tim helpfully finished the rest of mine!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture makes me look kind of pregnant?

Well I am Not! I think my coat is open, but my coat is huge anyway. I love my long arms, but sleeves don’t like covering them all the way, which makes it necessary to buy XL coats, and thus look slightly pregnant and give my mother false hope of more grandchildren! = )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2: Stavanger Part 1

We got up early and had a two hour bus ride to Stavanger, complete with a ferry ride all before 10:30am. I slept most of the way on the bus. Tim woke me up after an hour—I didn’t realize we were on a ferry! Tim captured my amazement in this charming photograph below.

 

 

 

 

Obviously it was a bit cold and windy on the top deck of the ferry—we didn’t stay outside very long.

 

    

 

 

No one was around when we arrived into Stavanger, so we strolled along the harbour and found out where our ferry was leaving and where our boat tour was leaving. We got some lunch at Godt Brot—a tasty cafe/bakery that we highly recommend!

Here are some pictures from Stavanger:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve found lots of interesting graffiti around Norway. Here’s one from Stavanger:

 

 

This has been the nicest Godt Brod we’ve found, in terms of seating and choice of sandwich fillings. They actually had tables to sit at, while all the ones in Bergen mainly have counter tops with stools. It’s still tasty though, and they have good whole wheat baguette sandwiches for 80 NK. This one is in the shopping district next to the harbour.

 

 

Tim told me to “stand here” and when I looked down, noticed this cool cover. They have them in Bergen as well, so I’m guessing we’ll have an Oslo picture like this, too!

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s our boat that we took for our Lysefjord cruise to see Pulpit Rock. There are too many pictures and goats from that trip (yes goats!), so l’ll do a post on part 2 of Stavanger soon!

 

Norge: Day 1 Haugesund

For the October break, we found extremely cheap (4 pounds total roundtrip) flights to Norway! We left early on Saturday morning with RyanAir to arrive into Haugesund, on the west coast of Norway. It’s a really short flight from Edinburgh—about 75 minutes.

We got to our hotel, the Clarion Hotel Amanda, only to find out they didn’t have our reservation—neither our last name nor the booking reference number I had carefully written down the day before could be found. We pulled up our email reservation on the computer in the lobby while waiting for the manager. Tim decided that perhaps they needed some further assistant to the spelling of our last name (which they did) and then we were promptly checked in.

That all took about ten minutes, so it wasn’t really a big deal and we got to check into our room at about 9am! We thought we’d be able to drop our bags and then wander around the town, but actually getting into our room was great. The room was really nice, and we definitely recommend this hotel if you’re going to Haugesund. The free breakfast was still going on, and they told us to go for it. So we happily grabbed some lovely brown bread, cheese, meats, eggs, tea, and coffee.

The hotel is right on the main harbour, so we walked outside and strolled along the quay before walking up to the main street.

We wandered around the town, attempting to go to the tourist office that was unfortunately closed on the weekend in the low season. There were literally no people around the town until about 11ish. I’d imagine in the summer it’s much busier. It was kind of nice to be the only ones around and explore this little town in the bright sunshine, just the two of us.

 

 

 

 

 

It was such a beautiful day, and there’s not a lot to do in Haugesund, so we sat out by the harbour in front of our hotel and read for a while after we had taken a walk around town. We took full advantage of the free tea and coffee on offer in the dining area next to the lobby.

For lunch we walked into Cafe Paris, but immediately left due to the funky, stinky cheese smell wafting around. We decided to go try Cafe Moody, which was recommended in our Rough Guide book (that I got from the Edinburgh library—they’re actually really good with travel guide books), and right around the corner from our hotel. It’s a cute place with tables and a few couches. The menu is totally in Norwegian, so I randomly chose scampi, assuming I at least knew what that was, and Tim got a hamburger.

The food at Cafe Moody was delicious! I thought I was getting fried shrimp, I ended up with a fresh salad of rocket, lots of olives (blugh), red onion, fresh shrimp, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, pesto, and yummy brown toasted bread. Tim’s burger came with pineapple, pesto, and roasted potatoes. Their lattes are good too and they have a jug of water on the counter.

 

 

 

 

We were really tired from waking up at 4am to catch our flight, but before we took a nap, we walked around a bit more and found a grocery store to get a few munchies for tomorrow.

We woke up about 6ish and headed downstairs to try out the free make your own waffles bar! We had some yummy waffles with jam and yogurt, read a bit more, and then had the complimentary ‘light buffet’ for dinner. It was so nice to get all this free, tasty food from the hotel because Norway is so expensive! We had salads, bread, cheese, meats, and more coffees for dinner.

We’re going on a fjord tour from Stavanger in the morning—getting up early again—so off to bed.

P.S. I finished reading The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (thanks Mom), and it’s really good, light reading, but intelligent and interesting with literary and historical references throughout, like Madame Defarge and her knitting needles from A Tale of Two Cities.

What I Like Wednesdays

Song of the Day: Best Days of Your Life by Taylor Swift and Kellie Pickler

 

Dessert:

 

Gu Hot Chocolate Soufflés—AMAZING! We bought them by chance one night. We usually don’t eat dessert too much, but these are delicious (especially covered in strawberries) and support Breast Cancer research!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Books: My Life in France by Julia Child. I saw the movie Julie and Julia with my Mom, and having never seen Julia Child in action, asked my Mom during the movie if that’s what she was really like! I enjoyed the movie, but I’m really enjoying her book. I don’t have one of her cookbooks, but I’m interested in looking at them. I am not, however, interested in eating a lot of the stuff she talks about in her book like all the mushrooms, veal, or creamy creamy sauces. I would like to try to make some beouf bourguignon and her infamous mayonnaise, and I’m not even the biggest mayo fan—but I bet it’d be good in chicken salad! = )