Fat free French toast for weekend breakfast

Finally it is the weekend again and I want to make something different than a bowl of muesli with a banana and milk for breakfast. I have had egg white omelet the last two weekends so this weekend I wanted something sweet, but still full of proteins, carbs and sugar. For many women in their early thirties this might sound like a big no, no, but this is were I get my energy from when my body is unable to break down fat. This weekend the choice fell on "French Toast".

I make my french toast with white bread and egg whites.


2 egg whites
1 cup/ 2 dl skimmed milk
3 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tbsp sugar
3 tsp cinamon
4 slices of white bread, a day old

Heat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Beat the egg whites lightly and ad vanila sugar, cinamon and sugar and mix in a shallow dish. Dipp the bread slices inn egg mixture, flip the slices a couple of times to make sure it is thoroughly wet, but not so soggy that it will fall apart.
Lightly coat a large baking pan with fat free cooking spray and put the slices on the baking pan and bake for about 10 minutes, check for browning on the bottom and flip browned slices over. Bake for additonal 5-9 minutes until browned and centers are puffed.

Today I ate breakfast in bed, warm french toast served with sliced fresh pineapple and a hot cup of tea while reading book number 5 in the True Blood series by Charlaine Harris.

Enjoy!

 

Dimmu Borgir

Last night I went to a concert with Dimmu Borgir, a Norwegian black metal band. I must admit that black metal is not what I usually listen to, but when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to go I thought why not broaden my horizon. The last musical event I went to was The Nutcracker.

This concert was one of a kind as they had with them 53 members of KORK (the Norwegian Radio Orchestra) and 30 members of the Schola Cantorum Choir. This arrangement of musicians from totally different musical genres mades this an amazing experience and probably a home run for me. This arrangement soften the metal band experience a little.  I could not understand a word of what they sang, in my ears it sounded like deep gutural sounds from animals. I guess that is how it makes it so universal. Fans from all over ther world, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Australia, Canada, USA, Chile, Germany and Polen is just a few of the contries they have flewn in from. 

The Schola Cantorum Choir was dressed in long dark hooded cloaks and  their singing gave me chills. Kork was dressed in black and played wonderfully. Some of the music gave me associations to the Lord of the Ring movies.

Going to a hard metal band concert without any preferences made this an exiting adventure and I had to try to look behind the many layers of the music and I enjoyed it a lot.

My conclusion of this wild experiment of mine doing new things is that it was well worth the money to experience Dimmu Borgir alive, but  I will not listen to them in my car or at home.

You can listen to the Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse from the album Death cult armageddon here:

                                                                                                                                                                       

Fat reduced cocoa for baking and drinking

One of my greatest losses when I had to change my diet not to be able to eat my delicious and sinful brownies. I have tried to make a fat free or fat reduced brownies, but I have not manage to find a recepie that has satisfied my tastebuds, I guess they won't be perfect without butter. But I will not give it up yet.

In the mean time I am trying out different types of cocoa so I can try to make a satisfying chocolate cake.

Fie who is the writer of Flo's Diner  (in Danish) a great blogg with fat redused recepies and other fun topics and Mother of a beautiful girl who is diagnosed with VLCADD who is on a diet much like mine. She also makes a lot of fat redused cakes such as I. She wrote about this fat reduced cocoa that she buys in Denmark. I happens to be so lucky that one of my colleauge is Danish and she goes to Denmark all the time, so at Easter I gave her a shopping list to buy for me. She came back with two glasses of baking cocoa and two of cocoa for drinking, since I had not made a note specifing what kind of cocoa I wanted.
There is only 12% of cocoa fat and that is half of the amount of fat in the cocoa I can buy in Norway. This is a great discovery for me, so either I have to fly down to Denmark with a couple of good girlfriends and have a Girls weekend in Cophenhagen soon  and hoarding cocoa or get Jonna to buy me a big suply next time she goes south to Denmark so I can fill up my pantry.

I do live in the wrong contrie to be on a fat free diet, both my neigbouring contries Sweden and Denmark has more products that are fat redused/free than Norway. That sucks.

Canada Dry, ginger ale in "Norwegian"

Ginger Ale has been a childhood memorie from my Summers in New York. My favorite brand has always been Canada Dry. I don't know why,but Schweppes don't taste as good. I almost gave a shriek of joy when I the other day discovered that Canada Dry had come to Norway and I could not leave the supermarked without buying a couple of cans. I was really exited if this would taste as wonderful as when in New York, most food or drinks do not taste as good when it is removed from it natural habitat. However this ginger ale did'nt taste to far off it's original taste.

While taking a big longed after sip I noticed that this can can be recycled in Norway, it says "kun for Norge" (in Norway Only). I thought that was kind of funny. It turnes out that some of the rules and regulations of the Norwegian Goverment is that beverage cans and bottles that are imported into Norway has to be recycled in Norway.

Hare filet with macaroni stew and apple and red onion compot

My good friend Karianne, have a look at her interesting blogg (written in Norwegian) pleaded with me to blogg about my first attempt on cooking hare. Hare is not easy to get hold of in my neck of the woods, but lucky for me I have a friend who works with food distribution and he got  me a couple kilos of  good quality hare.
So yesterday I got the hare out of the freezer and made a good attempt on making the most out of this tender piece of meet.
I desided to make it as plain as posible, I belive that less is more when I am cooking good produce. I only seasoned the meat with salt and pepper before cooking it.

I served the hare with a macaroni stew and a compot of apple and red onion.

This makes one serving

Hare
one hare filet
salt and pepper

Cut the meat clean and season with salt and pepper before heating a frying pan. Brown the hare and put the lid on the pan for  a couple of minutes before packing it carefully in aluminum foil and let it rest for for 5 minuts before carve it in nice slices

Macaroni stew
1/2 cup/1 dl macaroni
boil as instructed on pakage

Bechamel sauce
1 tsp oil, I use walnutoil since it is in my diet
1 tbsp flour
1 cup/ 2 dl skimmed milk
1/2 shalott onion

Mix the oil, flour and most of the milk and heat it on low heat and let it simmer lightly for five minutes. Add more milk if the sauce gets to thick. Add the onion for the last two minutes of the simmering. Season with salt and pepper to your liking.
Mix the macaroni and bechamel sauce.

Compot
1 apple
1 red union

Peel the apple and union and slice them in thin slices before boiling it on low heat for five minutes or until tender, but not mushy.

Enjoy!

What kind of goose am I.........?

 Last year  the ladies I work closest with started a tradition, several times a year we arrange dinner parties that we rotate to host. We have so much fun at this parties and on Friday we started talking about what kind of animals we are, one of my colleagues is born with a huge imagination and she has a free spirit. She is also a great actress and improviser. She makes the most hysterical accents and play a lot of different characters. So we had many great laughs when she started to give us different animal characters. She managed to give my collegues several animal characters they could be, but she had some trouble giving me an aminal that fit me.

After some hard thinking she decided that I must be a goose.

 I am not sure which charcter marks I have that makes me a goose, but it must be the funny waddling walk I get when my muscles are tired and I use my hips to lift  my feet. This walk is a part of who I am so I don't think that is a negativ character mark, but I would much rater be compared to the fairy tale character "Mother Goose" whose origin have been under much discussion over the years, here are three of the stories I like to be associated with:

• A Bostonian Mother of 16 and a Grandmother who used to sing songs and ditties to her grandchildren all day , and other children swarmed to listen to.
• A Queen of France many years ago that according to French legeds made incredible tales that enraptured childen.

or this romantic image

• An elderly country woman in a tall hat and shawl, a costume identical to the peasant costume worn in Wales in the early 20th century, but is sometimes depicted as a goose wearing a bonnet.

Some of the animal charactes that was given away on Friday was a badger,  a bear, a gorilla, a cat and a dog. 

A perfect recepie on how to get out of the blues !!!!!

This music video by Kenney Chesney  get's me right out of the blues I am feeling about a boy. Who would not get in a happy mood watching white beaches, crystal clear water and good looking, half naked and sun tanned men. I am in such a better mood after watching this video. It also helps to have so many good friends that are sweet talking me out of the blues !!!!

She thinks my tractor's sexy, or not!

I was once told by a 60 year old colleauge that I would end up with a man that drives a tractor, so with this prophesy in my mind I have been looking for a perfect tractor man. I have had no luck with founding this man yet, but I have been day dreaming  about "him" while listening to "She thinks my tractor's sexy" by a Country singer named Kenny Chesney. I like the lyric`s  and his voice.

I am no big youtube fan, but today I had to listen to some music of a band I am going to a consert to see in a couple of weeks when I thought I should look up some of my favorite musicians. While doing so, I found the music video of "she thinks my tractor's sexy". I not quite sure if I like it or not, YES I like resting my eyes on an amazing set of great looking abs, but other than that I think this video is kind of cheesy. In this video Kenny Chesney is a Julio Iglesisas disguised as a cowboy, I dont think that I am to far fetched in this conclusion.

Have a look and make up you own mind.

PS, that is not a sexy tractor DS.