Recipes that Didn't Know They Were Norske!

It has been awhile since the last Scandinavian Saturday supper, hasn't it?  At the beginning of the month, Suzanna and I opted to make a Scandinavian Sunday breakfast instead.  The next week, we were out of town at my cousin's anniversary party having homemade-by-Scandinavians supper.  Last weekend we were out of town at our university friends' homes, so we had a late supper (fast food) on the road.  But tonight we were home, so Susan and I made some recipes that we had intended to make as part of our week of Food Network Magazine recipes a couple weeks ago (remember?).

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On the plate beside the milk, you see a rye muffin, a variation on Norwegian rugbrød ["rye bread"].  We made the muffins with dark rye flour, whole-wheat pastry flour, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, caraway seeds, milk, egg, and vegetable oil.  This recipe came from the back of the dark rye flour package.

The rest of the recipes are from the magazine.  Beside the muffin is a serving of poteter med ost ["potatoes with cheese"], basically smashed potatoes with salt, pepper, olive oil, and pecorino cheese in them.  At the bottom of the plate is laks med pesto ["salmon with pesto"], a broiled salmon fillet drizzled with a pesto made from fresh basil leaves (grown in a pot on our veranda), hazelnuts, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, pepper, olive oil, and plain yogurt.  In the bowl is Israelsk tomatsalat ["Israeli tomato salad"], a combination of diced cucumber, tomato, green pepper, and scallions mixed with dill, parlsey, fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.

The salmon, the potatoes, the dill with the fresh vegetables, the caraway, and the rye are all typical Scandinavian foods, even though these particular recipes didn't come from Nordic cookbooks.  And, oh, how delicious everything was!  And healthy, for that matter.  It was another fantastic ethnic meal.