Granola Muesli w/ almonds and cranberries

I love quiet mornings.

Yeah, I kind of a morning person. I love the silence early in the morning when everybody is asleep. When not even the birds are awake. I love the bright light and the morning haze laying over the nature. I love the fresh cool air that runs through your hair when you walk or run. I simply love mornings.

Oh and one more thing I love about mornings:

Breakfast

Yep - breakfast is - with no doubt - my favorite meal of the day. Preferably with yoghurt, fruit, tea and a delicious, crunchy, flavorful muesli.

So what can be better than homemade granola muesli to start the day?

As you might know I'm totally obsessed with this specific homemade granola (link below). I love it's crispiness and lightness and the fact that there's a minimum of oils in it. And also the fact that you can decide yourself how sweet you want it. I hate it when granolas are too sweet.

A little week ago I made the granola with sunflower seed and apricots (made with maple syrup). That was SO good. I really liked the sunflower seeds. Today I've been creative once again and made it with honey, almonds, sunflower seeds and cranberries.

The basic recipe can be found here.

So this is the last day in the Whitsun Holiday. Yep - we're off from school and work on Monday in the holiday :)

Yesterday we went to Danfoss Univers, (yep - it's spelled that way - strange), which is a kind of amusement part, but the theme is science. Sounds quite nerdy, but it was actually very nice. For instance we were out driving on segways - so much fun!

Before that we went for a walk in the forrest. 

Pretty wild flowers in the forrest.

When we came home we had what we call whitsun-lunch, which basically is just a big lunch - a mix of dinner and lunch - yummy. Then my mother and I went for a run. And it was raining. Yay! I love to run in the rain. That's amazing.

And now for the recipe:

Granola w/ Almonds, Sunflower Seeds and Cranberries

One batch

Original recipe

• 1 cup oldfashioned oats
• 1 1/2 cup Rice Krispies
• 1 handful sunflower seeds
• 1 handful of almonds - roughly chopped

• 1/4 cup water
• 2 1/2 tbsp. liquid sweetener of choice - for this recipe I only used honey
• 1/2 tbsp. oil

• 100 g. cranberries

Preheat oven to 325°F / 160° C.

Mix all dry ingredients in a big bowl (except cranberries).

Mix honey, oil and water (& eventually additional sweetener) in a small pot. Carefully bring the mixture to the boil. Boil for 2-3 minutes stirring frequently.

Pour the syrup mixture over the cereal mix and mix well. Pour the muesli out on a baking sheet with nonstick paper. Bake for approx. 25 minutes. This granola doesn't make big lumps to stirring isn't necessary. 

The granola shouldn't be completely dry whilst in the oven. It'll harden up once cooled. 

Mix in the cranberries and enjoy.

Store in an airtight conatiner.

Happy Whitsun everybody!

A Delicious Berry Crumble in the Whitsun Holiday

Ahh, I simply love this weekend. As told in my previous post I'm right now in a summerhouse in Jutland with my family and some friends, celebrating the Whitsun Holiday. And as usual it's so nice and cozy :D (And luckily we have internet - yay! This means I'm able to blog while I'm here)

We live in the cutest (quite big) old house on the little island Als. I think it's an old farmhouse actually. As you can see in the picture above it has red timber framings and blue windows and doors - SO cute.

We always do so many nice things on these trips around Denmark. Yesterday we went on a little drive around Als, then we went to the town Dybbøl to see the mill. Here at the mill a big battle, which is very important in Danish history, between Denmark and Germany took place back in 1864. Then we went to see one of the castles where the Queen's son and family lives and in the end of the day we tried to ride go-cards :D That was so much fun!

The beautiful from the garden in the farmhouse.
My DELICIOUS lunch.

Oh I almost forgot; we had lunch a the best restaurant ever. I had something called "flammkuchen" (picture above). It looks like pizza but it isn't. The crust is incredibly thin. Even thinner than a tortilla. And very crispy. SO good. I definitely have to make it once :D

But well the day had not ended yet, 'cause then this happened:

Berry Crumble

Yummm... Warm tasty crumble.

Yep - I made the dessert and I must say it was a big hit.

There's something strange about this crumble:

As you can see it doesn't look like there's very much crumble on top of the cake. But actually there is - it just somehow disappeared. No not disappeared - it became invisible.

Yeah I'm serious. It tastes like there's crumble on top of it, you just can't see it. Strange.

But it was SO delicious anyway. And a hit - the whole thing was eaten.

Oh and as a perfect end of the day Denmark won the Eurovision Song Contest!

Yaaay! SO nice. Usually I don't really watch such shows but I think the Eurovision Song Contest is quite exciting :D

And now for the crumble:

Berry Crumble

Serves 8

For the filling:

• 900 g. berries (eventually mix with rhubarb)
• You can use frozen but thaw first
• 1/2 cup sugar

For the crust

• 1/2 cup oldfashioned oatmeal
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour 
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 125 g. cold butter

Preheat oven to 200°C/ 390° F.

Mix the berries and the sugar for the filling and spread out in a big pan.

Mix together the ingredients for the crust. Pinch together until it resembles shredded cheese and there are no big pieces of butter left.

Crumble the crust over the berries and bake for approx. 20 minutes (until the top is golden brown).

Serve warm with sour cream or (for a low fat version) greek yoghurt (or whipped cream or ice cream, but I don't like that).

Enjoy!

Happy Whitsun!

Homemade Wholemeal Buns

Finally it’s Whitsun again.I simply love this holiday. As I’ve told before my family and some of our friends always go for a little trip in the Whitsun holiday. Each year a new place in Denmark. Gosh, I just love this tradition! It’s always so nice.

We make a ton of fun stuff – and each year it just gets better and better.

Right now I’m sitting in the car on our way to the southern part of Jutland. – Ugh, that’s a long drive (at least in a Danish perspective)

But well, there’s one (very) bad thing bout this holiday; usually my lovely girl friend Juliane is joining us (it’s her family we are “travelling” with), but not this year since she’s in England L Oh God – it’s going to be so empty. We usually spend the holiday talking and laughing – non stop. And plying games with our smaller siblings and eating ice cream and taking pictures and going on adventures and and and. Gosh I hadn’t really thought about the holiday in this way before. I don’t wanna go! Not without my amazig friend. (Just kidding – I do want to go. It’s going to be great, but not as awesome as usual).

Damn I miss you girl!

But there can still be great things bout this holiday. For an example this:

Homemade Wholemeal Buns

Yep! Perfect and very easy buns. If you follow me on instagram you might have seen the picture of the preparing of these lovely buns. YUM!

And as promised – here’s the recipe.

I find that a lot of people aren’t very comfortable about baking with yeast. It can be very hard. And I totally agree. But the thing is that I think I’ve finally found a recipe that is very easy.

And the buns… turns out just perfect.

Crispy crust. Soft centre. Amazingly airy.

And best of all:

A minimum of work time.

And now for the recipe…

Wholemeal Buns

12 buns

• 100 g. grains (and eventually seeds)
•  (You can use whatever you want – I really like pearled spelt and sunflower seeds)
•      12 g. fresh yeast (¼ package)
•      2 cups cool (not cold) water
•      ½ tbsp. salt
•      1 cup low- or nonfat plain yoghurt
•      1 ½  cup whole wheat/ spelt flour
•     4 ½ cup wheat flour

Soak the grains in boiling water for approx. 10 minutes. Cool down by pouring cold water over the grains.

In a stand mixer mix the grains, yeast, water, yoghurt and salt. Add in the spelt flour and then the wheat flour a little at a time. The dough should end up quite wet – but not runny. Knead for 5 minutes in the stand mixer.

Let rise over night (or minimum 6 hours).

Preheat oven to 225°C/ 440° F. Line a baking sheet with non-stick paper. Make the buns using two spoons dipped in cold water.

Just before placing baking sheet on the oven rack pour a cup of cold water into the oven (this gives the buns some moisture which makes them incredibly soft). Only do this once – you still want the buns crispy on the outside ;) Bake for approx. 20 minutes.

Enjoy lovely, soft and aromatic whole wheat buns. 

Tiny Apple Pies

This has been an amazing day. I went to the Academy for Talented Young People today and I couldn't make it to school before. So i spend my morning doing a couple of nice things.
Among other things I did this:

Tiny Apple Pies

Tiny + apple + pie = perfect :-)

I have a thing for small things. I really don't know why. They are just cute. And when it comes to food "tiny" means that you can eat more of the same thing. WIN!

But the apple pies was just one of the things that made my morning wonderful...

I started the morning with a great run. And it was raining! Yay - perfect.
Yep, perfect. I love rain. It makes me so happy. I know it sounds crazy but well, we are all crazy in some ways aren't we? Rain really make me feel free. Alive. Running, walking, jumping on the trampoline in rain - best thing ever. In the weekend when we went to my summerhouse, my brother, 3 smaller cousins and I went jumping on the trampoline when it was pouring down. Haha, that's the best.

I also spend this morning searching for datas for a big assignment I'm doing in the school. During high school you have to make 3 big assignments - one in 1. grade (sophomore), one in 2. grade (junior) and one in 3. grade (senior). I'm what equals a sophomore. Finally I found out what subject I want to write about. Wonderful.

After having heard a very interesting presentation at the academy I went on a little shopping with some friends. So nice! I bought a new pair of running shorts and a sports bra - YAY! And a cute summer dress. I'm so happy. Aaaaaand we had ice cream. The event at the academy took place at the high school in Ørestaden, which is the eastern part of Copenhagen. All the buildings here are brand new and SO cool. Just take a look at the picture below :-)

So pretty much a wonderful day:

Running, biking, cooking, photography, an interesting presentation, shopping, ice cream, blogging and new clothes. What's not to love?

Eating ice cream (above) at the chocolate store (below). To the right: one of
the cool buildings in Ørestaden.

The only thing we need now is a recipe:

Tiny Apple Pies

16 pies

For the crust

• 70 g. butter
• 125 g. flour
• 50 g. sugar
• 1 egg

For the filling

• 100 g. applesauce
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 220° C / 430° F.

Start by making the crust:

Mix cold butter, flour and sugar in a bowl. The mixture should end up looking like shredded cheese. Add in the egg and mix very well. Eventually refrigerate for 10 minutes. 

For the filling mix everything together.

1) Roll out the dough and stick out small rounds using a small glass.

2) Add a teaspoon of pie filling

3) Close the pies using a fork

4) Make little hole using a fork to make sure the pies don't crack

Bake for 5-10 minutes (depending on your oven).

Cool down and enjoy!

Stor in an airtight container.

Dancing, Reading, Almonds & Carrots

Strange name for a blog post huh? Really I just wanted to talk about a little bit of this and a little bit of that. A little mix of nice things.


DANCING
Right now I'm sitting in my bed after a long and good day. Together with my ballet team we did a little performance at the outdoor stage in Tivoli (the amusement park in the middle of Copenhagen). It was very nice. It didn't exactly go very well but ok. Luckily we are going there next Thursday as well. Then I will have the chance for making amends of my terrible failing. But well, that's what you learn from dancing - sometimes performances go perfect, other times you fail big time. But when you fail you just have to fake it - pretend like nothing happened and then keep on dancing. Anyway - it's always nice to dance ballet :-)

READING
As you can see I've done a little changes on the blog - switched out the old picture on the side bar, updated the About Me page, and added two "gadges" on the side bar.

I looooooove reading. But unfortunately I often don't really have time for it. But now I've decided to make time for it because I really think reading can give you such great experiences. Especially if you find a good book. And right now I'm definitely reading a GREAT story; Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (#2 in the Delirium Series). Oh my... - it's great! I'll make a review once I've finished it :-)

But I really recommend reading it!

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

And now for something completely different...

ALMONDS & CARROTS

I've wanted to share this great treat with you for a long time. It's so simple but soooo delicious.

• 1 carrot, diced
• 10 almonds, roughly chopped

Mix together and enjoy a healthy and oh-so-good snack.

I know - sounds strange right? But trust me it's incredible.

The mix of almonds and carrots leaves a completely other taste than almonds and carrots alone. A great substitution for candy - I promise!

Crispy Granola w/ Sunflower Seeds & Dried Apricots

Happy Mother's Day everybody!

Well, I have a confession - I didn't really celebrate Mother's Day :-) Hihi, it's not that a big thing i Denmark. But another thing I did "celebrate" this weekend The Ascension of Christ. In Denmark everybody is off from school and work on Thursday of this holiday - and some lucky bastards are on Friday ass well. So the entire family on my mother's side went to the summerhouse. I - as the one and only - wasn't off from school Friday so I didn't join them until yesterday. I really love it when we are all in the summerhouse at the same time. It's always so nice. I have 5 smaller cousins and a little brother so the house is always humming when we are all there. We play a ton of different games, jump on the trampoline, go for long walks and make loads of food - we are 14 (15 including my dog) so we need to make a lot of food :-)

Playing a game with my cousins called "Country, Town, Girl, Boy". Brilliant game where you choose some categories and then have to come up with a word in each category starting with a specific letter.

Today is my smallest cousin's birthday. She turned 6 so she's still very excited about birthdays :-) So we had a big birthday brunch before going home.

Then once home again I made my favorite granola muesli.

I think it's funny how some recipes becomes you're favorite. I mean - I'm kind of addicted to this granola. I love how you can make it different every time you make it.

So today I made a new variation:

Maple syrup, sunflower seeds and dried apricots.

Yummy!

What I really like about this granola is that it isn't very sweet. And it's very low in oils as well.

I hope you'll like this variation - enjoy!

Oh - I had totally forgotten - I've actually simplified the recipe a little compared to the old one :-)

Light and Chrispy Granola w/ Sunflower Seeds and Dried Apricots

Original Recipe

• 1 cup oldfashioned oats
• 1 1/2 cup Rice Krispies
• 1 handful of Kelloggs All-Bran (or similar cereal)
• 1 sunflower seeds

• 1/4 cup water
• 2 1/2 tbsp. liquid sweetener of choice - for this recipe I only used maple syrup
• 1/2 tbsp. oil

• A big handful dried apricots, cubed

Preheat oven to 325°F / 160° C.

Crush the All-Bran roughly and mix all dry ingredients in a big bowl.

Mix syrup, oil and water (& eventually additional sweetener) in a small pot. Carefully bring the mixture to the boil. Boil for 2-3 minutes stirring frequently.

Pour the syrup mixture over the cereal mix and mix well. Pour the muesli out on a baking sheet with nonstick paper. Bake for approx. 25 minutes. This granola doesn't make big lumps to stirring isn't necessary. 

The granola shouldn't be completely dry whilst in the oven. It'll harden up once cooled. 

Mix in the apricots and enjoy!

Store in an airtight conatiner.

DIY Scalloped Skirt | Repupose an old tee

I reallt love new clothes - and what I love even more is clothes you can make out of old clothes. That's just great! As I told in one of my previous posts I have (like every other girl) an ton of clothes which I never use. So I've decided to sell a lot of it and repurpose the rest :D Yay! Lovely and "free" clothes which are even eco-freindly.

So, I founf this very old tee shirt which I never use. I love the pattern and colors - dots mint and brown - great combination. But it simply didn't suit me. Just check out this picture:

Ew!

I've totally obessed with the new trend; scallops. It's SO cute. I love how the scallops give the clothes a whole new personality but at the same time isn't domineering at all. Just plain and cute.

So I had to add scallops to my new skirt.

This easy tutorial can be used for any shirt/ tee etc. with an elastic band in the waist. Or you can just add an elastic band yourself :-)

DIY Scalloped Skirt

What you need

• An old tee/ shirt
• Scissor
• Sewing maschine
• Scallop template
• Or you can make your own. Tutorial further down.

Start by cutting the "skirt-part" off. I cut just above the elastic band:

Zig zag around the cut won't fray.

For the next step you need a scallop template. Otherwise the scalloped edge won't be very pretty. You can make your own by following these easy steps:

I'm currently working on making a printable template for you.

1) Put some sticky notes on the card board or draw a line to make sure the scallops will end up having the same length. Using a glass (or other round object) draw the scallops.
2) Voila!
3) Draw a line parallel to the edge of the card board where you want the scallops to "stop".
4) Cut out

1) When you have your template place it close to the lower seam of the skirt.
2) Sketch the scallops
3) Cut out
4) Zig zag the edge so the fabric won't fray.

Tadaaa!

Isn't it cute! I really love my new skirt. Bring on summer!

Have a nice weekend everybody!