Godt Nytt År!

["Happy New Year!"]

We were out of town last Saturday (remember?), so tonight was our family's first Scandinavian Saturday meal of the new year. I had no helpers this week; all the girls spent the day at the West River Community Center competing in their first swim meet of the season as members of the Dickinson Dolphins (and Susan spent the day there, too, timing in lane 4). How did they do, you may wonder?

• Suzanna competed in four events. In the 200-yard relay, her group took 6th place in the heat. In the 50-yard freestyle, she took 3rd place in the heat. In the 100-yard backstroke, she took 5th place and sliced 13 seconds off her previous time for that event! And in the 100-yard individual medley, she took 2nd place in the heat!
• Abigail competed in two events. In the 100-yard individual medley, she took 3rd place in the heat. And in the 50-yard freestyle, she took 1st place in the heat!
• Hillary competed in three events. In the 100-yard freestyle relay, her group took 2nd place in their heat. In the 25-yard breaststroke, she took 3rd place in the heat. And in the 25-yard backstroke, she took 2nd place in the heat and qualified for the state meet!! Yep, she swam two seconds faster than the state qualifying time for that event. The state meet will be in Bismarck in March.

So congratulations to our little dolphins! Because they were otherwise occupied with showing their underwater prowess, I planned the menu, shopped for groceries, prepped the ingredients, and made the dishes on my own today.

We started with Caesar salat med tomat basilikum røkelaks ["Caesar salad with tomato/basil smoked salmon"]. It's a traditional Caesar salad with the creamy dressing, crunchy croutons, and tangy Parmesan cheese. Adding the salmon was my Nordic touch, and the tomato/basil coating on the smoked fish was a terrific variation.

My sister Sandy made lefse and brought it to our home when she came to visit this past week (remember?), so I warmed it in the microwave, buttered and sugared it, and served lefse along with the salad to start the meal.

Sandy sells Tastefully Simple products, so we happen to have a large inventory ourselves! I used their Warm Up! mulling spice to turn some apple/cranberry juice into a cinnamony, citrusy hot beverage to go with the salad and lefse. Delicious!

For the main course, I consulted a new cookbook purchase that I made late last year: The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann. We had leftover mashed potatoes from our belated Christmas supper Thursday night, so I used them to make potetkake med limettsitron bete salat ["potato cakes with lime/beet salad"]. To some of the mashed potatoes, I added chopped scallions, eggs, oatmeal, sesame seeds, thyme, and nutmeg and fried the batter in olive oil to make light-and-fluffy pancakes. To top the cakes, I chopped beets and marinated them in the juice from a lime to which I added salt, pepper, and onion powder.

I also made stekt flyndre ["fried flounder"], fillets that I coated in dark rye flour and pan-fried in butter. I topped each fillet with a dollop of basilikum persille rømme ["basil/parsley sour cream"] and then a large spoonful of limettsitron dill reker med agurk og scallions ["lime/dill shrimp with cucumbers and scallions"]. It was a tasty combination of flavors!

For dessert, we ate some of the baking that Sandy had brought for us.

P.S. Last night we surprised the girls by driving them to the movie theater in Belfield to see the Disney movie The Princess and the Frog. We loved it! The movie has appealing characters, a fun storyline, and engaging music--typical Disney. Moreover, the movie theater itself is a fun place to see films. It's a refurbished building with period lighting fixtures and art deco designs on the walls and rows spaced far apart for ample leg room. Best of all, they put real butter on their popcorn! Oh, and admission is dirt-cheap. Well worth the 20-minute drive.