A Guide to Norwegian Chocolate

Norway is cold and wet. Therefore the grass is green. Green grass is sweeter, juicier, and more nutritional. Nutritional food means healthy cows. Healthy cows make for the best quality milk.

Better milk= Better chocolate.

Here is a run down on the best Norwegian chocolates. Along with the cheese, cream and icecream, chocolate is one of the foods Norway can really be proud of. If you ever come to Norway, or if you are already in Norway, or if you have a friend living in Norway, or if you have a friend on holiday in Norway or if you have a friend of a friend of a friend with a great uncle visiting Norway on a bussiness trip THEN maybe you will be lucky enough to try them for yourselves and tell me which is your favourite.

I was also lucky enough to find a  Norwegian model at the supermarket to model all these chocolates. Her name is Ingrid. Isn't she cute!

You thought Daim was Swedish? Well think again.

Bamse Mums

Kvik Lunch

The Norwegain version of a KitKat. Creamier chocolate, flakier wafer and I love the retro green and red packages. In fact I think it's my personal favourite. Ingrid thinks it is boring, probably because it is the number one treat Norwegian parents bribe their children with, when they are out cross country skiing. Many Norwegains are sick of it.

Melkskjololade

The basic everyday milk chocolate block. A step above cadbury dairy milk.  When in doubt bring the melkskjololade out.

Stratos

Troika

This is my Mum's favourite. She brings packets of them home every time she travels to Norway. It is made up of three layers. First is a soft raspberry jelly, then truffle then marzipan.

Bamsemums

Teddybear shaped marshmallows covered in milk chocolate.

Kvikk Lunsj

Daim

Hard toffee covered in milk chocolate. Perhaps you have seen it for sale at IKEA. You thought it came from Sweden, well actually it is Norwegian. My Mum makes the most delicious Daim ice cream cake.

Troika

Stratos

The Norwegian version of a areo. Except this chocolate has a dancing cow as it's mascot. How can you resist a dancing cow?

So there we have it. Maybe I will have to give a run down of the yoghurt and cheese too. Dairy in Norway is soo good!

Testing the Ice

Saying Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving. Last year for no reason at all, me and my friends decided to celebrate Thanksgiving. I threw a party and provided the turkey. Everyone else brought a plate, and boy we had enough food to turn the ten of us into zorbs. We had salads, yams with marshmallows, roast veggies, pumpkin pie and apple pie. Before we ate we went around the table and said thanks. It ended up being very special, so I have decided to make it a yearly tradition.

This year my class convinced the school kitchen to have a special Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Can't wait to show Norwegains how good yam with marshmellos is!

So what am I thankful for this year?

All my new Norsk friends, and all my not so new Aussie friends. I am so lucky to have you all.

My almost empty box of chai tea from T2. A cup of chai makes the perfect accompaniment to a book on a dark, cold Norwegian winters night.

My library card. It lets me read books, and I don't have to pay a cent.

The never ending blocks of Norwegian brown cheese. So long as there is knekkebrød left.

Heated bathroom tiles, probably the best invention ever.

Autumn in Søgne

Dude, I woke up and it was snowing.

This week, I woke up and looked out my window. TO SEE SNOW. RAHHH holy crap SNOW! In Perth there are many people who have never even seen snow, so to look out the window and be like "yo man it's snowing" was freaking awesome. To celebrate this monumentous occasion we had to build not one but two snow men. First we made Jack, the ganster snowman, carrot nose and all. Then we made Carrie the snow women, inspired by Carrie from Sex and the City. They lived a happy existence together on the school football field until they died yesterday when the snow melted. Condolences welcome, we are still in mourning. Jack was a gangster, a hipster, a trendsetter. Carrie had a double chin but still a hottie.

This was Carrie our female snow woman.

Husnes Again

These are some more photos from the beautiful town of Husnes, in the Hardanger region of Norway. My grandmother has lived here for over 40 years. My friend Alex was vistiting me while on her gran tour of Europe so we had to make a special stop in at Husnes while she was here. It was the first time I had visited my grandmother on my own. Pretty monumentous, and very strange, as I am 20 years old. She only speaks Norwegain and until very recently I spoke no more than 10 words in Norwegian. Usually I travel for more than 24 hours to visit her. This time it was only a 3 hour ferry trip. While we were visiting we ate homemade apple cake, with apples from the garden, plum jam made from homegrown plums, local salmon and mor mors famous krotekake. We met all my grandmothers friends at the shopping centre, learnt where all my ancestors came via a lot of hand gestures to the atlas and ate boiled salmon and potatoes for dinner. It was great.

Bloody Tasty Peach Pie

I made peach pie this summer while I was on holiday at my Aunts house. I had a big bag of peaches, no plans and the kitchen to myself. So was born the bloody tasty peach pie. It was surprisingly delicious for a recipe so improvised and spontaneous. The short crust pastry was buttery melted in the mouth, I used a recipe from the gourmet traveller website. As for the filling, I made it up as I went along, it was sweet, slightly tart and full of flavour.

Ingredients
Pastry
180 plain flour
60 gm icing sugar

50g almond meal
1 lemon, finely grated, rind only
100 gm butter, coarsely chopped
1 egg plus 1 yolk beaten

Filling

8 peaches
A big knob of butter
A handful of vanilla sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 cup cointreau (otherwise you could just use orange juice or another sweet liquor)

Method
Pastry
Combine flour, icing sugar, almond meal and lemon rind in a bowl.
Add butter and rub with fingertips until coarse crumbs form (1-2 minutes).
Add egg, mix until just combined (do not overwork), then shape into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Filling
Cut peaches in half. Take out the stone. Then slice peaches into 5mm disks.
Carefully place peach slices in a bowl.
Sprinkle with vanilla sugar and spices. Then pour over cointreau and let the peaches soak in the flavour. Preferably for a couple of hours.
After the peaches have been soaked, fry them batch by batch in butter, on a frying pan. 
(That sounds sinful doesn't it).

Assembly
Preheat oven to 170C.
Roll dough to 5mm thick, then use to line a 24cm-diameter tart tin, trimming edges to fit.
Fill tart with peach slices. Work from the outside inwards, overlapping the slices as you go.
Bake until golden brown (40-45 minutes).
Cool completely on a wire rack, then serve with cream or ice cream.