Julneset

It's Sunday, it's beautiful weather, we can't waste a sunny day as it somehow seems that we won't get many of them this summer....but we are both quite tired. With two weekends in a row celebrating the upcoming wedding of friends - first with a fabulous bachelorette party, next with a spectacular party for the groom to be - the batteries seem to have gone completely dead in both our bodies. We need to reload them as Monday is right around the corner and busy jobs are waiting. The best way to get the energy levels back up is sometimes to use a bit of energy, so that's what we did.

Today we have been to the first of many different Stikk UT! (Get OUT!) posts in our area. Stikk UT! is a concept created by the local Intermunicipal Outdoor Recreation Board to promote better physical and mental health by getting off the couch and getting out and about in the beautiful nature in Molde and the nine surrounding municipalities. Each municipality places 10 different posts out in nature - either on a gorgeous islet in the middle of the fjord you can paddle a kayak to, on the top of a high peak, or right on a culture trail passing different historic monuments - varying the posts to suit for families with strollers or for those who want a more challenging hike.

Each post is marked by the Stikk UT! mailbox, filled with the normal "achievement book" that you write your name into, but also with a special code connected to that specific post. For each of the posts you visit in the Stikk UT! period of the middle of May until the end of October, you register that code either online at the Stikk UT! website  or by sending a text message from your phone. After visiting seven different posts you have earned both bragging rights and the Stikk UT! mug with that year's specific design.

The post we visited today is the one at Julneset, a bit to the west of Molde's centre. After parking our car at the ferry quay at Mordalsvågen, we followed the cultural trail through the forest to the tip and top of Julneset - a stroll of 1 km that suits both families with children and two tired adults very well as the top is at only 30 metres above sealevel. The trail passes the remnants of many different bunkers that where being used by the Germans during the second world war to keep track of all the boat traffic out on the fjord.

Even though it was very windy right at the tip of Julneset, we decided to do a bit of fishing and see whether we would have some fresh fish for dinner that evening. It didn't take that many throws before we both felt the fish bite, but unfortunately we only seemed to be able to attrack pollacks too small to make a meal out of.


So it became more a game of catch and release....until some of the small pollacks where too damaged to throw back into the fjord....then we started to feed the damaged pollacks to the eager seagulls, fighting with each other for every little bite of fish.

A little bit of fishing led to a little bit of sunbathing at the less windy top of Julneset. We could have been there until the sun had set, but our stomachs started to long for dinner...so then it was just to pack our fishing gear together and follow the trail back down to the car park....this time with recharged batteries, ready for the week to come!

Happiness...

...is receiving delayed birthday gifts by mail on an ordinary Thursday! Thank you so much Mom!

Pizza di Parma

Matglede - Tine App

Today I made pizza with white pizza sauce....It was a succes and will definitely be repeated!

Pizza di Parma
(makes 1 baking tray)

Ingredients:
-for the dough:
25 gr fresh yeast
1,5 dl lukewarm water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
4 dl wholegrain spelt flour

-for the sauce & topping:
2 dl crème fraîche
2 - 4 cloves of garlic
250 gr Jarlsberg cheese, grated
250 gr cherry tomatoes
200 gr artichoke hearts (I used artichoke hearts marinated in olive oil together with mediterranean herbs)
100 gr parma ham (or other good cured ham)
pine nuts
rocket salad / arugula

Preparation:
1.) Sart by making the pizza dough by dissolving the yeast in the lukewarm water. Add the olive oil, salt and 3,5 dl of the spelt flour.
2.) Cover the bowl with plastic film or a cloth, and leave to rise for about 20 minutes.
3.) Use the rest of the spelt flour when rolling out the dough. Put the dough onto a buttered baking tray.

4.) Make the white pizza sauce by adding crushed garlic to the crème fraîche and spread it onto the dough.
5.) Spread the Jarlsberg cheese over the crème fraîche, and top with (marinated) artichoke hearts and halved cherry tomatoes (cut side up).
6.) Bake the pizza in a preheated oven at 250 degrees Celsius, in the middle of the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.
7.) Add the parma ham, pine nuts and arugula/rocket salad, and serve!

Enjoy!

Hubby rating: 4

The Rating Game

Anyone who would have a peak into my book cupboard, would definitely understand pretty quickly by the amount of cookbooks that I love to spend quite some time in the kitchen, cooking, baking or just testing out new recipes.

With a hubby that grew up on a farm in Norway, getting served husmannskost - traditional Norwegian dishes consisting predominantly of potatoes, vegetables and some sort of meat of fish - for dinner nearly every day; while I grew up in The Netherlands with it multicultural kitchen influenced by the dishes and spices brought over from the different colonies across the globe - it is easy to understand that our palates are used to very different tastes. I therefore try to cook both traditional Norwegian dishes to challenge my palate and expand my culinary repertoire, and more spicy dishes from across the globe to challenge my hubby's palate and expand his culinary experiences.

I can honestly say that not every dish I serve or new recipe that I test out, is met with a lot of praise. To make sure that I wouldn't serve too many non-favourites on a row, my hubby and I have started The Rating Game. Every new dish served in our home gets rated by my hubby and me. Since the common rating system here in Norway normally is a terningkast - or a dice roll - the dishes I serve get rated from one to six, with six being the best.

The Rating Game sharpens my culinary skills and efforts, always chasing another 6 from my hubby, but it has also only been once that a dish received a 6. That was home made cheese ham croissants, being served lukewarm straight out of the oven when my hubby came home from a long day of work. On the other hand, my culinary try outs haven't received below terningkast 3 yet, so I am quite pleased.

Summertime...

...is reading a good book while lying in the hammock in  25° Celsius.

Moldeheia

Pentecost....another long weekend, another great opportunity to go hiking and explore some new peaks. After getting up early to decorate the living room with balloons and serpentines, and serving my hubby a great birthday breakfast in bed, we get up and pull all the hiking guides for Molde and the Romsdalen valley out of the book cupboard to find out which peak to ascend. After all, isn't it great to spend your birthday doing the thing you love most...hiking?

Even though we have been living in Molde the last three years, we haven't explored the forests and peaks in the Moldemarka as much as we should, so we decide to hike up Moldeheia (530 metres above sealevel).

We walk to Øverlandsvatnet - the lake right north from our home - and onwards into the Moldedalen valley, before starting the ascend to the peak of Moldeheia. It is an easy hike up to the top, with great views all around.

After hiking for about an hour, we reach the peak and sign our names in the book - which is kept save in a metal mailbox at the top. The book informs us that Moldeheia also isknown as Tusenårsvarden (Millenium Beacon), as the stone beacon on top of Moldeheia was build on top of a capsule containing children's drawings, newspaper articles, descriptions of what life is like and other special items in June of the millenium year.

After enjoying the great view from Moldeheia, we start to descend to Skihytta - a cabin open to all cross country skiers and winter hikers on Sundays between September 1st and May 1st - and then return to Øverlandsvatnet and home for some well deserved chocolate birthday cake!

Happiness...

...is coming home and finding the latest edition of my favourite food and wine magazine in the mailbox.

Jentebølgen

Today I participated in the local "Jentebølgen" (Women's Wave) - a yearly summer event of women only 5K runs that is being held on consecutive dates at different cities all across Norway. Who would have imagined that? Well, I certainly had not, as my running career certainly ain't a long one!

I hated running. I still remember all the gym classes at junior high and high school while growing up in The Netherlands, especially the ones held outside in what my teachers would call "nice weather". To warm up we were forced to run around 5 soccer fields within a certain time limit. If we didn't arrive in time, we were forced to run around the fields another time - in my opinion certainly not the right way to promote the joy of running or even exercising in general.

It was first in January last year, after being stuck on the couch for six weeks with a cast around my broken ankle, that I discovered the joy of running and the feeling of having "eternity legs". Not being able to walk on two feet - or run for that matter, having to get around on crutches, somehow triggered the desire to be able to run for miles on end. So as soon as the cast came off, I started to push my boundaries on the treadmill at the gym. First goal was to be able to run for 10 minutes on end, the next to be able to run 30 minutes and after a couple of weeks of running on the treadmill the big goal was to be able to do 10K within an hour - a goal that I achieved and still try to maintain and improve - everytime trying to cut down a couple of seconds.

A minor setback in my progress came earlier this year though, as I was told that I wasn't allowed to run for five weeks after they operated on my ankle again - this time to removed the plate and six screws they had fixed my broken ankle with. It felt like I had to start all over again, and to keep focus I signed up for this women only 5K run. I had never participated in a run before, and certainly wasn't used to running outside, but the fee was paid so I'd better get my ass into gear.

So there I was at the start of the local 5K run, after only weeks of trying to get back into shape, hoping that I would be able to finish within 28 minutes - a goal I had set for myself and only told my hubby about. As soon as I heard the starting pistol, I started and turned on my pulse monitor and timer - or thought I turned it on. Somehow it didn't work this time, and I just had to use the clock and my gut feeling to track my progress along the hilly 5K track down in the city centre of Molde.

Half a mile from the finish I saw my husband standing alongside the road and told him that I thought I had been running for 29 minutes, already kind of giving him a heads up on my disappointment of not being able to achieve the goal I had set for myself.

Next thing I turn around the street corner and see the finish line and the timer right next to it - stating that I had been running for only 26 minutes and 51 seconds. A smile returned upon my face and I found the last bit of energy to sprint to the finish. I did it! I did it! I did it! I achieved my goal - I finished in 27 minutes and 12 seconds!

The running bug has definitely bit me once again, because now I'm actually considering signing up for another local  run - this time a 12.5K run along the famous Atlantic Road... Could this be the beginning of an semi-official running career?

Summertime...

...is strawberries for dessert!

Finnan

It's Sunday. Most people are still asleep, either sleeping off their hangover or just enjoying the last day with no alarm clock waking them up....Me though? Well, I was awake by 7:30h in the morning. I guess it's the bright sunlight peeping in from behind our curtains that poked me, telling me that I shouldn't spend such a lovely summer's day in bed. While my hubby is still asleep, I sneak out of the bedroom to check the weather conditions outside. Both my hubby and I have been checking the weather forecast quite often since Friday morning. Would this weekend give us the weather window that we have been waiting for quite a while now? Would it bring us a clear sky day, so that we can spend one more day out and about on our skis before we really have to put them away for this season?

The weather forecast told us that we could just forget about it, but with mountains all around us and the weather changing nearly by the hour, you never really can rely on the forecast. It's better to just wake up, check the sky and the thermometer... So that's what I did, surprised to see a clear sky for miles around and a temperature of 17 degrees Celsius. The day we had been waiting for, was finally here! With a big smile on my face, I storm back into the bedroom, waking up my hubby with the great news: "We are going ski mountaineering today!"

After a sturdy breakfast, trying to load up on energy, we empty our storage booth for skis and other necessary equipment, fill up the car and off we are! We know exactly where we want to go - the peak of Finnan (1786 metres above sealevel) at the top of the Trollstigen (Troll's Path) - a road with 11 hairpin bends ascending nearly 800 metres from the Isterdalen valley. This road is closed during winter, but is opened up for traffic in the end of May / the beginning of June again - the perfect opportunity to go ski mountaineering on the last bits of snow on the peaks up on the Trollstigen plateau.

Whereas the snow down in the valley has disappeared completely, the peaks at the top of the Trollstigen are still covered with enough white magic. We park the car in one of the small parking areas 2 km from the visitor's centre, put our ski boots on and start to ascend Finnan.

After ascending for nearly five hours with only one short lunchbreak, after running out of energy several times along the way, after seeing an avalanche not far from our route, we finally reach the summit of Finnan. All pain, frustration and anxiety from the ascend is forgotten as soon as I look around and see the beautiful view.

Tears are rolling down my cheeks from sheer happiness. We made it to the summit! I am so grateful for everything my hubby has learned my about the great outdoors and skiing throughout the 13 years we have been together.

The wind at the summit starts to increase in strength, a sign that we should turn around and enjoy some off piste skiing back down to the car park again. Even though the sun has turned the snow into slush, the adrenaline is rushing through our veins and life is smiling at us. We definitely made the right choice to get out of bed early on a Sunday!!