Swedish Pancakes
Your breakfast inspo for this week! These pancakes are delicious and so so easy.
To watch us make these pancakes along with Norwegian waffles, check out our video: Cooking with Christian and Karina!
I grew up eating these pancakes every time I went to my grandmother’s house on Long Island, or any time one of my brothers or I had a birthday! They are so delicious and surprisingly easy to make! My grandma has passed down her own childhood Swedish traditions to my mom and to me, and included in that is a whole lot of delicious food! These pancakes are kind of like mini crepes, and they are best served with traditional lingonberry preserves or I also love them with applesauce! Here’s what you’ll need:
Ingredients:
2 cups milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup flour
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 stick butter (melted)
Instructions:
Combine milk, sugar, flour, and eggs in a blender and blend until smooth
In a separate bowl, combine melted butter and vanilla
Slowly pour the blended mixture into the butter mixture stirring with a whisk the entire time. You don’t want any weird butter clumps in your batter!
Preheat a Swedish pancake pan over medium heat. Now, the likelihood of you actually owning a pan like this is exceedingly small unless you too have Scandinavian heritage! It is generally a round cast iron pan with 3” circular indentations for pancakes. In a pinch, you can make bigger crepe-style pancakes, or use a round biscuit cutter to achieve the smaller traditional shape. If you are committed (and you should be! They’re fantastic!) you buy one here or here!
Fill the bottom of each indentation with batter and flip with a butter knife once the top is no longer liquidy.
Serve ‘em up! Our preferred toppings include: lingonberries, applesauce, sugar, fresh fruit. Unacceptable toppings include: maple syrup (sorry Vermonters, I know), molasses, and Aunt Jemima. This is a classy Scandinavian affair you tasteless Americans!
Enjoy! And let us know what you think!
What it do Dutch Babyyyy
No rules anymore. Breakfast is any time of the day you want when you have nothing else to do!
I’ll tell you what it do— it do be delicious and SUPER easy! Katie Holmes, our resident celebrity doppelgänger and breakfast aficionado has supplied the recipe for today’s class at Quarantine University’s School of Culinary Arts. You can also catch some of the behind the scenes footage on QU Vlog 3 premiering soon! Here’s what you’ll need:
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup sifted all purpose flour
2 pinches of salt **(does anyone actually know what a standardized pinch is? I feel like this is an inappropriate baking term for something that is supposed to be an exact science so please leave a comment or email karina@quarantineu.com if you have any insights on this)
4 tablespoons butter
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting (again, not going to limit you here, dust to your heart’s content)
Instructions:
Place either 2 10” cast iron skillets or a glass baking pans in the oven and preheat to 475 F.
Beat your eggs in a bowl until they are light and fluffy and stir in the milk.
Gradually whisk in the flour and salt (although I don’t know how gradually one can add a singular pinch of salt… but hey, Katie’s rules not mine).
Take your pan or skillet out of the oven and reduce the temperature to 425 F. Throw your butter into the skillet on a heat-proof surface until it is melted. This part smells stupid good and the dutch baby isn’t even made yet.
Pour all of your batter into your pan/skillet (we used baking pans) and bake until puffed and light golden brown. This should take about 12 minutes. Remove and dust that baby with powdered sugar and garnish with fresh fruit of your choosing. **We opted for Strawberries cut up by culinary master Christian Østberg who used this time as his meditation for the day. Multitasking for the win!
This whole process should take you only about 20 minutes and its super easy! It theoretically serves 4 but depending on your quarantine appetite this is up to interpretation. Try it with some maple syrup if you’re up in the North Country like us and want to add a lil’ something sweet. Let us know what you think!
Stretch it out! Get your yoga on
If there’s a time to try to zen out, it’s now. If we can do it you can do it too!
Going a little stir crazy? Feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and a little bit scared with everything that’s going on? We are too. It’s normal to experience feelings of stress and anxiety in such a time of change, uncertainty, and general upheaval; however, there are some things you can do to help ease that!
Yesterday for our PE hour, students at Quarantine U took an hour long meditative yoga class via Zoom. Lots of fitness places are offering live virtual classes for free right now, so check in with your local studio to see what options are available! YouTube has an arsenal of pre-recorded videos as well for all variations and levels of yoga and meditation. We Zoomed into a class in Palo Alto and set up a cozy room with mats, blankets, pillows, and candles to get ourselves in zen mode.
Whether or not you’ve tried meditation or yoga before, it can be an incredibly helpful and restorative practice. All of the extreme changes that have taken place over in the last few weeks can leave us feeling a bit lost, uprooted, and without purpose, especially if you are stuck at home! Living alone or with other people both come with their own set of challenges, and it’s more important now than ever to take a deep breath and take care of ourselves so that we can continue to take care of and be there for the ones we love as well. At a safe distance of course ;)
Do you have any favorite yoga classes or channels? Let us know! And let us know any other contemplative practices you like to do— lord knows we’ve got plenty of time to try them all out.
Puzzlemania
Crossword tournament from your couch Saturday March 21 at 1pm EDT!
If you’re anything like me, the daily New York Times crossword puzzle is a morning staple. Whether you are a seasoned puzzle veteran or a complete novice, this sudden influx in downtime is the perfect opportunity to hone your skills on the grid! If you don’t have a NYT subscription there are plenty of free options on the internet to get you started.
Crossword Fiend
Check out crossword fiend for a litany of daily puzzles from the LA Times to the Universal Daily Crossword. Many don’t require paid subscriptions which is a bonus!
Crossword Tournament From Your Couch
Saturday, March 21, 2020, 1 p.m.–5 p.m. ET
It is really heartwarming to see how communities band together in times like these, and the crossword community is no different! This event was created by a group of puzzlers who normally gather every year at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament to provide a fun and safe alternative for people who wanted to get together and solve puzzles while still social distancing. The event will include 5 puzzles (which will be made available to solve after the event as well) and caps off with a virtual happy hour. Check it out here or on facebook.
Not into crosswords? Try Sodoku!
If riddles and wordplay aren’t really your thing but you still want to get those brain juices flowing, try out some other fun puzzle types like Sodoku. Once again there are plenty of online resources for all levels to get you started. This one’s for you number geeks out there ;)
What are you doing to stay sharp and busy? Let us know in the comments!
The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies You Ever Did Make
No seriously, they’re good.
No seriously, they’re good.
And easy too! Just a few tweaks to that original Nestle Tollhouse recipe combined with a sprinkle of love and you’ve got yourself some stellar cookies in under an hour. Promise. Here’s what you’ll need:
Ingredients
2 sticks of salted butter, softened (I like to do 18 seconds in the microwave for butter fresh out of the fridge)
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar** the key to this recipe is more brown sugar than regular sugar!
2 large eggs
1 overflowing tablespoon vanilla extract (really get up in there with it— let it spill over the sides before you dump that puppy in)
1 tablespoon baking soda, leveled
~3 cups of flour
Chocolate chips (I wouldn’t dream of limiting you here, you measure that with your heart. Whole bag? Whole bag.)
Instructions
WASH YOUR HANDS!!!!! Come on people this should be self explanatory today.
Preheat your oven to 375 F. If you have the option, use the convection bake setting.
Cream together butter and sugars until smooth. No lumpy butter chunks for us.
Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Remember, you overflow that tablespoon don’t be shy!
Dump in the baking soda and your first cup of flour and mix gently until flour is combined.
Add flour cup by cup until you get to the right consistency. It is about 3 cups but it could be more depending on the alignment of Mercury’s moons and Venus’ position in relation to the North Star. Basically you want the dough to not be sticky and it should start coming off the sides of the bowl as you mix.
Choccy chipppssssss!!!!!!! Add as much or as little as you want. Don’t like chocolate chips? Butterscotch, white chocolate, m&ms, nuts, or really anything that floats your boat will suffice. Go crazy!
Grease a cookie sheet and plop those puppies on there. Don’t roll your dough! Let the cookies take their natural shape and just kinda glop them on there in ~2” diameter balls. Plus side of this is less contact with your nasty hands (I know you just washed them for a 3rd time but better safe than sorry).
Bake for 8-10 minutes depending on your oven. For nice soft gooey cookies you want to take them out of the oven just a hot second before you think they’re golden brown and let them sit.
Enjoy warm with a glass of your favorite milk. I’m not going to pretend like you’ll have leftovers for the rest of the week.
Let us know what you think!
**Edit: Recipe creds go to Kim Barbera/Kristin Roye who taught me how to make this recipe so long ago that I forgot who’s it actually was. You guys are the best!
Hump Day Blues
Let’s get up and at ‘em!
So it’s Wednesday again. What does that even mean? For so many of us working and learning from home, the days of the week seem to blend together into an endless clump. Who’s to say when to get up, what to do, or more importantly, how to stay sane with the whole family under one roof! For our first blog post here at Quarantine U, were kicking it off with a few ideas on how to structure your weekdays to make them feel a little more productive, and a little less hump-day bluesy.
Set an alarm!
I know, I know, you’ve got nowhere to be! But trust us when we say that waking up at the same time every day (preferably before noon…) will make a big difference in your mood and productivity. While you’re at it, try to hit the hay around the same time every night as well. As creatures of habit, we have a hard time adjusting to schedule changes, and we all know there have been plenty of those to go around in the last few weeks. So don’t make things harder on your body than you need to! Stick to a schedule to regulate those circadian rhythms and make dragging yourself out of bed for another day of the same scenery a little more bearable.
Make the bed.
So you’ve set your alarm and you’ve gotten out of bed. Great first step! Now tuck those sheets in and fluff those pillows before you dare take another step. It’s the first task of the day and it sets a tone of productivity. You can even put it on your to-do list and get a little satisfaction out of checking it off. Not only have you completed a task, but you’ve prepped your room for the day ahead and a de-cluttered space = a de-cluttered mind. Added bonus is that it’s less tempting to jump right back under the covers as soon as you brush your teeth.
Make yourself breakfast.
This is not the time to let your health go people! Even though the mornings can be sluggish, it is still so important to fuel yourself with a healthy meal to start the day. Proper nutrition is crucial for both physical and mental wellbeing, so try to get in some fruits, healthy fats, carbs, or veggies in. Put your body and your health in the best position it can be in this time of uncertainty and disease.
Get dressed.
It will make you feel better. I promise. How easy is it to fall asleep on the couch when you're still in your pajamas? Getting dressed signals your psyche that the day is starting and it’s time to get stuff done. Even if it’s just athleisure as opposed to those flannels you’ve been wearing since 2007, a change of clothes is a fresh start to the day (and not to mention good hygiene).
Get outside!
If you can. For those of us fortunate enough to have a backyard and some fresh air, it can be extraordinarily helpful to just exit the house. Go for a walk, jog, or hike if it’s accessible, or even just do some jumping jacks on the porch! Fresh air and Vitamin D combined with moving your body are important components of every day life and trying to fit that into Quarantine U has been a fun activity for all of us here. If you live in a city or aren’t able to get outside, try opening the windows or using a “happy lamp.”
Set 3 attainable goals.
Doesn’t even matter how small they are! Setting goals and accomplishing them every day helps boost morale and encourages productivity and efficiency. They can be as small as setting the table for dinner or taking a shower. Give yourself some credit, it is hard work uprooting your life and turning your routine on its head. Try to keep as much normalcy as possible throughout the day and accomplish little tasks.
Spend an hour on a hobby you love.
Now is the time to delve into that scarf you’ve been knitting for the last year and a half! Spend some time on yourself and take advantage of the potential increase in free time you may have throughout the day. Photography, coding, knitting, model-making, or whatever else it is that makes you tick, get passionate! If you don’t have a hobby you love right now, try a new one. There are so many amazing websites and videos out there on the internet that can help you learn more and get inspired.
We hope everyone out there is staying sane and healthy! Remember to reach out to us if you want to chat or have any questions about life at Quarantine U!