Just in case you ever need to (literally) feed an army

Yesterday the Bogart household was filled with the sweet smells of baking. Only this time, it wasn't from a burning candle... it was the real deal folks! I tried out a new recipe called "The Bread That Feeds 5000" or "Amish Friendship Bread" compliments of my mother in law. I was pretty nervous because it is one of the few sweet baked goods that Ryan actually enjoys and I didn't want to mess it up. It was a pretty high pressure situation - let me tell you...

But have no fear - I thrived on the pressure and came through in the clutch. It turned out fantastic! It turned out so good, in fact, that I decided to post the recipe today so all of you can make it. It's kind of a "process" because it takes multiple days before you can actually make and enjoy the bread, but it's super easy and sooo worth it. Enjoy!

Bread That Feeds 5000

Starter Mix:
Mix together:  1/3 cup flour
                      1/3 cup sugar
                      1/3 cup milk
Put these three ingredients into a one-gallon size ziplock plastic bag.

DO NOT use a metal spoon or bowl for mixing.
DO NOT refrigerate.
If air gets in the bag, let it out. It is normal for the batter to raise, bubble, and ferment.

Day 1: Squeeze the bag.
Day 2: Squeeze the bag.

Day 3: Squeeze the bag.

Day 4: Squeeze the bag.

Day 5: Squeeze the bag.

Day 6: Mix 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk and add to the bag. Squeeze the bag.
Day 7: Squeeze the bag.

Day 8: Squeeze the bag.

Day 9: Squeeze the bag.
Day 10: Combine in a large glass (or plastic bowl): 
                Batter in bag
                1 cup flour
                1 cup sugar
                1 cup milk
Mix with a plastic or wooden spoon.
Pour three 1 cup starters into separate gallon-sized ziplock bags. Give bags to friends with these instructions.

To remaining batter in bowl, add:
3/4 cup oil                         1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla                       3 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt                        1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour                       1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp baking soda           1 large instant vanilla pudding packet
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Pour into two large loaf pans or muffin tins, well greased and dusted with cinnamon/sugar. Dust top of batter with cinnamon/sugar as well (optional). Add nuts, chocolate chips, raisins, banana, etc. if you like.

Bake at 325 for approximately one hour or 45 minutes for muffins. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans.

Yield: 2 delicous loaves

You will want to loosen the edges of the bread from the pan before trying to remove it, or else the bread will have a hard time coming out and you might have some of it stuck in the pan. Yes, that did happen to me. Notice how the loaf on the left is slightly misshapen in the front... yeah, that would be the missing part. Don't worry - It didn't make the bread any less delicious, but it did slightly irk the perfectionist part of me.

Happy Baking!
-The Bogarts  

Fall has it all

I love fall. It's by far my favorite season. I get to celebrate my birthday, witness leaves change colors, bundle up in comfy, warm sweaters, and eat as much delicious fall-like foods as I can stomach. Mmmmm caramel apples, pumpkin bread, homemade soups, apple cider, pumpkin bars, apple pie, pumpkin pie... I love me some apple and pumpkin in the fall!

On top of all that, as if fall couldn't get any better, it has one more thing that makes it the perfect season: Seasonal Coffee-mate flavors! There's just nothing better than enjoying fresh pumpkin baked goods with a hot cup of Pumpkin Spice flavored coffee. (The Peppermint Mocha and Warm Cinnamon Sugar Cookie are also to die for..)

Needless to say, when the grocery store was having a sale this week on Coffee-mate creamers for only $0.99, I stocked up. As much as I possibly could at least. Sadly, the coupon only allowed for a maximum of three... but that was just enough to get one of each my favorite flavors.

I'll be interested to see how much weight I've gained over the last two weeks at my next doctors appointment. Oh well, you know what they say - eat, drink, and be merry... for next year I won't have pregnancy to blame!

With love and lots of pumpkin flavored things,
The Bogarts

Malmo and Copenhagen, Take Three

Saturday morning in Copenhagen began as every good morning in Denmark should... with some Danish pastries. Mmmmm! Just look at that chocolatey, gooey goodness. It makes my mouth water all over again just looking at the picture...







After we were sufficiently stuffed with sugar it was off to the National Museum. Here we learned about the history of Denmark starting in the prehistoric age through the time period of the Vikings, saw some more beautiful art, and looked at all sorts of coins. Plus, they had a really sweet gift shop too.

One of the things that Denmark is very famous for is amber jewelry. They have innumerable jewelry stores throughout the entire city with all different styles. I convinced Ryan to buy me a necklace. It's a four leaf clover with a different color amber in every leaf. I love it.

This was my absolute FAVORITE thing I saw at the museum. It's kind of hard to see from the picture, but the picture that looks just like a swirled mess on the canvas looks completely normal on the metal bar in the middle. Can you see it? Isn't it awesome? I can't remember who did this piece, but they are an absolute genius. I wonder how they even figured out that it would work... oh the mysteries of the world.






After the museum, we walked through the city to find where the canal tours started. And as we were walking we stumbled upon a pretty fountain.... that had bubbles in it! So we stayed to play for a bit.

Ryan and I were too nice when we fed cake to each other at our wedding... so we made up for it by having a little bubble fight.

Then we made some bubblemen. Get it? Because they look kind of like snowmen? Only the bubbles were a lot harder to form into balls than snow is...

And Manuel gave Ryan some implants... which also were not very round. hahaha








Shannon and I finally managed to drag the boys away from the fountain and we made it to the canal cruise.

This is the yacht that belongs to the creator of Microsoft's Excel program. I'll forever think of this boat while I'm crunching numbers for a class... I can only dream that I'd make enough to one day own something this nice.

This is a famous church in Copenhagen that you can climb to the top of on the spiraling outdoor staircase.

One of the most famous things about Copenhagen, the statue of the Little Mermaid, was conveniently gone on some exchange thing. For those of you who didn't know, the Little Mermaid was first made famous by Hans Christian Andersen (not Disney) and he lived in Copenhagen.

After the canal cruise, we cleaned up and headed to the famous amusement park Tivoli Gardens.

The park originally opened in 1843. It has beautiful gardens, old time rides, delicious full menu restaurants, and carnival games. It is basically like a botanical garden wrapped in with an amusement park and it's amazing. If you ever visit Copenhagen, this is the #1 thing I recommend you do.

It's so beautiful that couples even come here on their wedding day to take pictures in the gardens!

They have a statue of the Little Mermaid's sister in Tivoli since the real one is on vacation. The sad part is, she is an exact replica of the original. Same size and everything. But she doesn't get to be the famous one... she's just the ugly step sister. Sucks to be her!

Ryan just had to get cotton candy while he had the opportunity. It's his favorite. We all decided that the girl who made it for him must've had a crush on him... based on the size of his cone compared to the bag in the background. Too bad for her, I guess she didn't notice the ring on his left finger. I was just happy that he had enough to share some with me.

This was the one and only ride we rode on while in Tivoli. The ride tickets were a bit outrageously priced... it cost each of us $15 just to do this one ride! But it was sooo worth it. We waited until it got dark and rode the swings up a few hundred feet in the air until we could see out over the entire city of Copenhagen. It was really quite terrifying once you were up there because it was pretty windy that night. But I think we had the best view in the whole city. It would've been a bit easier to concentrate on the spectacular view if we weren't spinning so fast and getting tossed about by the wind, though. Needless to say, my eyes were watering and my legs were shaking by the time we came down. Those are always the best rides...

We stayed in Tivoli until around midnight and then headed back to the hotel to crash once again. It had been another jam-packed day and miles upon miles of walking.









Day three donezo.

Our last day in Copenhagen wasn't nearly as exciting, but I'll still put up a post about it anyway. Don't feel that you are required to read it though. I don't know that I would waste my time. ;) Until then....

Peace, Love, and Swedish Meatballs!!
-The Bogarts

The last weekend of orientation: Comfort Food and Clothesline

Well, orientation has officially ended here at Lulea University of Technology and the semester has begun. Not a whole lot of new things to report on over here for us so I thought I'd just give a quick run-down of our weekend and post a few pictures. So here's our weekend in a nutshell...

Friday:

Slept in late, like usual. Ryan had his verbal exam for his Intro to Swedish course. (I had mine on Thursday, so I didn't have to do anything productive. Yay!)

We headed downtown after his class to run a few errands and to meet up with our Nebraska friends for dinner. We ate at a sports bar downtown and watched the Twins game. It was nice.

The restaurant was like a mix between Applebees and Champs. The food was mostly very American, but the prices were a little steep. I guess it's the price you pay to get a little Comfort Food from home overseas.

Shannon and I each tried a daiquiri and we shared a HUGE appetizer platter full of chips, cheese, guacamole, salsa, sourcream, quesadillas, wings, and ribs. It was a lot of food.

After dinner we took a stroll down to the Baltic Sea and attempted to watch the sunset, but it was a little cloudy. We did find this really awesome deck with some comfortable chairs to watch the cloudy sunset though.

The waterfront reminded Ryan and I both of  Duluth's Canal Park. It made us feel right at home.

This is Tyler. He's one of the grad students we met from Nebraska. He's pretty okay I guess. :)

And this is Shannon and Brett. They are the other two graduate students from Nebraska. They're both pretty okay too. :)

Even with the clouds, I think the sunset still turned out really nice.

 Although, after it went down, the temperature dropped a good fifteen degrees. Since none of us were prepared for that, we had to stop enjoying the beautiful scenery and head back to our warm apartments.





Saturday:

We didn't do much of anything Saturday during the day. Outdoor "Beer Games" were the scheduled orientation activity for Saturday at 5pm. We decided not to head out until around 6:30pm in order to have enough time to eat dinner and to cut down the amount of time we spent outside so we didn't freeze. Ryan and I and our Nebraska Friends were really excited to play some outdoor beer pong or witness some drunken three-legged-races, but there wasn't a whole lot of "Beer Games" going on by the time we showed up. And we missed the three-legged-races! All the fun appeared to have fizzled out, and all that was left was a bunch of college kids drinking in a field.

To pass the time, we checked out this cool old car that our Phosare, Niklas, owned and waited for the next round of games to begin.

But, unfortunately, the only thing that transpired during the two hours we sat outside in this field was a game of "Clothesline".

For those of you back home who have never heard of this game, it's really rather simple... You split up into groups and see whose group can make the longest line with the clothes they were previously wearing. Needless to say, this was yet another European drinking game that we didn't partake in. But I did get some pretty good pictures of the dedicated Frenchmen.

Now you may be asking yourself... "How can you tell from across the field who's French and who isn't?" And my reply to that is... "They're the only ones brave/drunk/stupid enough to get completely naked when it's only 40 degrees outside." And that's a proven fact. The only ones who took off every single piece of clothing they were wearing were French men.



Sunday:
Sunday we literally didn't leave our apartment. It was our day of rest after these last two weeks of orientation to prepare for the semester and our Swedish exam that we had today. After staying out at the nightclub until almost 3am, it was definitely needed.


Well, that about wraps it up. Hope you all enjoyed reading about and seeing the pictures from arguably the craziest school-sponsored orientation ever. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a new adventure for us in Sweden: school.