Sunday, November 16, 2008

Less food, more faces

It was a busy weekend in our household. Here is one of the main reasons... this handsome little fella came for a visit to grandma & grandpa's!

Grandpa enjoyed the visit...

and great grandma enjoyed holding two great grandchildren - cousins who will be best friends to play together before we know it!

Yup, they are starting to bond already.



Great grandma with her grandson John & Sara and great grandson Tobias.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Lefse afternoon... lesson follows...

Start with potatoes. Boil.

Put boiled potatoes through a ricer. (or you could mash them...)

This is Grandma Anna Berge's ricer. It's very old and very sturdy!


Here are the riced potatoes.


Next add some ingredients; cream, butter, flour, sugar and salt.

Mix and shape into balls to be rolled into circles of lefse.. father and son enjoying themselves!

Dad demonstrates the method.... first he prepares the ball of dough

Then he begins to roll the dough to form a thin, flat circle.

Wally is using the grooved rolling pin made by Uncle Einar years ago. It is covered with a "stocking" cloth which has been floured to prevent the dough from sticking.

And now the tricky part - taking the circle of dough off the board to transfer to the griddle.
Wally is very good at this, of course.

Ah, looks like it is going to work.

Now it is unrolled onto the griddle, using the lefse stick.

This is a close up of the lefse on the griddle, after it was turned over. The brown spots indicate it was cooking. That is good.

Now, all it needs is butter and sugar....... and someone to eat it!

Daniel is trying his hand...

under the watchful eye of Brooklyn and his grandma Mildred.

John makes some too...

and so does Sara.

And finally Brooklyn even gets to make some. She was very good at it, too!

Another little boy at play...

Oh my, could Tobias be this big already?

Wow, there are so many things to try in this activity center!

Ah, who is this blue fella?


Sweet rolls for breakfast in the river room! Yum!



Good morning grandma!





Friday, November 14, 2008

Mange takk!!

Ah, many thanks to Martha for a sweet time of coffee and warm cranberry cake!
How nicely the table was set with my favorite Norwegian dishes, too.
Thank you, thank you from my mom and me.
Now, this is one trendy little lady. Almost 91? Can't be....

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Just in time....

Blueberry buttermilk scones served ...

with a proper pot of tea....

candles lit...


What? No clotted cream? (sorry... just butter today...)



Just made it in time! 4 o'clock tea.......

Monday, November 10, 2008

A little boy at play.





I don't think these pictures even need words. I just thought they were too cute.

Baking blog?

No, this hasn't turned into a baking blog... yet, anyway. But today I tried a recipe my mom brought from her Italian friends (of which she has many wonderful Italian cooks/bakers as friends...) called Italian Ricotta cookies.

They are moist; have a lb of ricotta cheese in them (so she claims they are healthy.. we won't mention how much sugar is in them...) and they are like little tea cakes. Very good.

Now they are iced and soon (after we try a few...) off to the freezer for Christmas!

Sunday, November 09, 2008

A little fuss for the birthday boy

What a good sport - the birthday boy posed with his mom and his grandma - and didn't make a silly face!

This is sweet of Meghan, Daniel and my mom.

Preston wanted to help Daddy blow out those candles - and the very second the Happy Birthday song ended, he did the job!

It looks like Sean Patrick wants to sing Happy Birthday to Daddy as well.
What a honey.

Saturday night at Grandma's ...

First we start with a snack....

Then we play toys! The same ones our daddy played with way back when...

Then we have mac 'n cheese at our own little table. yum.


And Grandma lets us watch a DVD. We love the Berenstain bears.

We had some coloring time and also got to have a krumkake as well. They were very good.
We think we'll come again. Love, Brooklyn & Preston