Swedish Cooking

"Mom!   I like swedish cooking.   Can we make more sometime?"

Last night, as part of our Drawing Around Europe Study we made food from Sweden.   My son was VERY enthusiastic about our meal.  

We had a dinner guest, so he and my son made the apple pie and the cucumber salad.   They did a good job.   I did cut up the apples for them as we were using older apples that needed some picking through.     This apple pie was SO good.  :)

Swedish Apple Pie
Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup margarine, melted

• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan with margarine.
2. Fill 2/3 of the pan with sliced apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon and 1 teaspoon sugar.
3. In a medium bowl, mix 1 cup sugar with the melted margarine. Stir in pecans, flour, egg and salt. Mix well. Spread mixture over the apples.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 65 minutes, or until golden brown.   In MY oven, 55 minutes is all that is needed.

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Swedish Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

• 2 cucumbers, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 3 tablespoons white sugar

• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons minced parsley (optional)

Directions

1. Put sliced cucumbers into a bowl.
2. Stir vinegar, sugar, water, and salt together in a separate bowl to dissolve the sugar and salt; pour over the cucumbers. Sprinkle parsley over the cucumbers.
3. Refrigerate cucumbers 3 hours to overnight.

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We also made Swedish  meatballs.  NOT the type with the white sauce.
The recipe I used needed some tweaking but turned out well none-the-less and will be part of our meal for our potluck thanksgiving meal at my mom's.  :)

Swedish Meatballs
ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon minced onion - double this
• 1/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• 3/4 pound ground beef - I didn't use beef

• 1/4 pound ground pork - use 1.5 lbs of pork
• 2 teaspoons salt - Don't need this much
• 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1/3 teaspoon white sugar

Directions

1. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a frying pan over low heat; cook and stir onion in melted butter until lightly browned, 5 to 8 minutes.
2. Mix bread crumbs, water, and half-and-half in a large bowl; let stand for about 2 minutes. Stir cooked onion, ground beef, ground pork, salt, white pepper, and sugar into bread crumb mixture until thoroughly mixed. Shape mixture into about 48 very small meatballs.
3. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a skillet; add meatballs. Brown slowly, allowing about 25 minutes, until meatballs are fully cooked in the middle and no longer pink. Shake pan occasionally to cook evenly.