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Amanda’s Spin On Around the World in 12 Dishes: Sweden

We started our journey the same way Phileas Fogg did in London, UK, and are now moving northeast into Stockholm, Sweden.

This month, My 5 year old and I had a blast looking though cookbooks and recipe websites trying to decide what to make for our cooking stop in Sweden.  Coming from a Scandinavian background, we had trouble deciding if we wanted to make the Spritz cookie or the Rosenmunnar  – a Swedish thumbprint cookie.  The Swedish thumbprint cookie won as we had never made them before and any excuse to use our home-made blueberry and peach preserves is a winner!  If you are looking for an easy, hands on kids cookie – this is it! The kids can help measure, roll the balls, press the thumbprints, and fill the jam.  (Just make sure the kids are not near the cookie as it comes out of the oven – they are HOT)  After they cooled off, Hubbie gave them his stamp of approval, “these are addictive” he said as he ate a  two handfuls!

Then, because the oven was on, we also tried this Bread Machine Swedish Coffee Bread.  We use our bread machine a lot to knead and raise the bread.  I prefer the crust when it has been baked in a real oven though – so this seemed like a perfect recipe for us.  You can always substitute half of the flour for white whole wheat or whole wheat flour.  It will make it a little heavier and denser, but also healthier.  We went for the all white flour this time.  The recipe does not call for raisins, but my 5 year old asked if we could add them.  Why not?  We started the bread in the machine first, then made the cookies.  My bread machine takes a little over an hour to make the dough through the first raise.  After the cookies were done, we were able to begin braiding the bread.

Braiding bread is great therapy (in my opinion) and kids really need to grasp the pattern.  After we braided the bread, we let it raise one more time before baking it! 
I think it turned out great!  We are a family that bakes together often and I love that this challenge encourages us to try foods from around the world.  We’ll be sharing a few more ideas about Sweden this week.  We’d love to have you join us too!

Here’s is some background information, books, printables and crafts for you children to do about Sweden.
Around the World in 12 Dishes: Crafts and Resources

How to join the fun!

  • Cook a dish from Sweden: The goal is to explore this country through FOOD and activities if you wish. Make a typical dish (sweet or savoury) from the country with the kids, take photos and have fun!
  • Typical dishes: Köttbullar med potatismus (Meatballs with mashed potatoes), gravlax, pyttipanna (a kind of hash), chokladboll (chocolate balls) or Kanelbulle (cinnamon rolls) (Here is a link for more inspiration: Swedish cuisine).
  • Print your passport: Click here to download, comes with space for a photo of the child with the dish. Here is a little cover for it if you wish 🙂
  • Color a placemat: Click here to download it.
  • Make a craft: you can make a country related craft with the kids
  • Read a book: “D…Is For Dala Horse”. Please click here for a review of it and a giveaway (open to everywhere in the world!)!
  • Fun fact: Did you know that Swedes are known for their innovations? Swedish Inventions include: The perfected design of the zipper (Gideon Sundbäck), the marine propeller (John Ericsson), the refrigerator (Carl Munters and Baltzar von Platen), the computer mouse (Håkan Lans), the pace-maker (Rune Elmqvist).
  • Share with us: Our Sweden challenge starts on April 1st and will remain open for a year, so attach a link to your blog to enter the linky party or go to the comment section and post a photo together with what you did together with your child(ren).
  • Pinterest: We will add your photos to a “Around the World in 12 Dishes” Pinterest Boards (one for the dishes, one for the crafts) you will be a great source of inspiration for everyone 🙂
  • Are you a blogger? Let your fans know about the challenge and grab our cute lil’ button to share it on your blog.
 
Around the World in 12 Dishes
<a href=”http://www.glitteringmuffins.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”https://theeducatorsspinonit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/world-2.jpg” alt=”Around the world in 12 Dishes” width=”125″ height=”125″ /></a>
 

 

If you do this, we’d LOVE to see a photo of it. Email it to us or post it on our Facebook page.

Please link up your Sweden dish and/or craft in our linky below, we would love to see it!

 
We’ve shared this post with Adventurez with Kids in the Kitchen
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  3. We will need to give those cookies a whirl. I am attempting to make strawberry preserves, so the cookie recipe would be great for using up the strawberries.

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  4. Fantastic. I am following Around the World ideas with interest. In fact, I just started my own "Read Around the World" program at home – the first post is coming up tomorrow. If daughter chooses Sweden, I'll have to check the ideas on the list.

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Amanda’s Spin on Around the World in 12 Dishes: United Kingdom

Welcome to “Around The World in 12 Dishes”. We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg’s footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them.

The world is such a wonderfully diverse and colorful place. Our children see maps, flags and books. They see postcards and maybe they see films about the world, but let’s really bring it to life through food! Taste and smell don’t often get explored, we think this would be wonderfully fun and interesting for you and your children.
Not only is it an exciting and different way to learn about cultures, but cooking with children brings so many opportunities for learning- math, science, literacy, language development, and even geography! Plus cooking creates lasting family memories and something yummy to enjoy!
Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Make, Do & Friends, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas, Mummymummymum, Rainy Day Mum, Red Ted Art, The Educators’ Spin On It and The Outlaw Mom have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it – to help inspire you to have a go!
It’s time to take a trip with the help of a book, a mixing bowl, and a great imagination!
With our good friends visiting their homeland of UK this week, we baked and cooked some dishes from around the world.  Scones are a big hit in our household and we usually make one batch a week.  My 5 year old can make biscuits and scones almost entirely on her own.  The trick is to set out all the supplies ahead of time!
She scoups, pours, measures and mixes on her own.  The best advice someone once gave me for keeping scones light and fluffy is not to overmix, we take this to heart and our scones usually turn out fabulous!  I help with putting the batter on the pan and baking it.  To stick with the Brittish tradition of drinking tea, we had a cuppa tea with our scones for a girls tea party on the deck.
Healthy Mom Tip *** I usually exchange half of the white flour for white whole wheat to make this a bit healthier.  I know it is not in true Brittish fasion, but we eat scones enough that if I can use more whole grains, my family is eating just a bit healthier.  We have also been know to add nuts, oatmeal, and ground flax seed to some of our scones too for the added nutrition. Here is a recipie for crumpets and another one for scones if you would like to try something new too!
To connect our cooking to even more learning, we brought out our Atlas this week and found the places our friends would be visiting on their vacation.  One of my tots favorite knee bouncing rhymes is “Trot, trot to London,” so we also found London and Dover! I can’t believe that for the number of times we have sang and bounced him on our knees that it is the first time we are showing him where and what the poem is about!  In addition to our weekly scones, I am challenging myself to make at least one meal a week that is new, one of those meals each month will be a dish from another country.  This week, we made BANGERS AND MASH!  Here is my tot making the MASH!
Now I know that my kids like sausage (I know I changed a turkey sausage for the pork, so it is not a TRUE Brittish Pub dish, but if you haven’t figured it our yet, I like to put my OWN SPIN on things!) and that they like mashed potatoes, but wasn’t sure what they would think about onion rings and gravy – and all of it together???  I shouldn’t have been worried.  As we were eating, my 2 year old was stealing everyone’s onions off their plates and inhaling them, he even used a few as onion bracelets before slurping them up (I am not an onion fan at all and was extremely surprised by his newfound onion love). My hubbie said this was a nice treat to try something new, and my five year old was disappointed  there wasn’t thirds for all!
Keep the learning going and get crafty too!  Here’s an adorable idea to creating your own United Kingdom Coloring Book using your own photos or from the web with Little Hand that Cook with Books in the United Kingdom.   

Suitcase Craft

Here is a link to some ideas for more crafts.

How You Can Join Us
  • Cook a dish typically eaten in the Country of the Month. The goal is to explore each month’s country through food (and an activity or craft, if you wish). Help your child make a traditional or typical dish (sweet or savory) from the chosen country.
  • Print your passport. Click here to download a passport, which comes with space for a photo of your child with the dish she cooked.
  • Color a placemat. Click here to download the placement. You can laminate it or put it between clear contact paper in order to use it over and over.
  • Make a craft. Have your child make a craft related to the country of the month.
  • Read a book. Read a book about the country of the month with your children to help them explore the sights, people, food, and culture.
  • Share with us. Our challenge starts on March 4th and will remain open for a year, so enter the linky party at the end of every month’s post, leave a comment, or post a photo on our Facebook page.
  • Pin. If you share a photo with us, we will add your photo to one of our “Around the World in 12 Dishes” Pinterest Boards (one for the dishes, one for the crafts) so that you can share your experience and inspire us all!
  • Are you a blogger? Let your readers know about the challenge and grab our cute button to share our challenge on your blog. And, of course, anyone is welcome to participate!
Check back April 1st for our next destination!
Around the World in 12 Dishes
<a href=”http://theoutlawmom.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”https://theeducatorsspinonit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/world.jpg” alt=”Around the world in 12 Dishes” width=”125″ height=”125″ /></a>

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Comments

  2. Oh my goodness. I am now in love with this series. Started with the Japan page and then came here. I love trying new recipes (especially easy ones) and ones from other countries are just plain fun! I pinned the Bangers and Mash, crumpets, and scones! If I make any of them I will link it up! Love This!

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