mandag 24. mai 2010

Another eurosong final approaces..

Tomorrow it all starts off. One year ago from about now, Norway was extatic, because we had finally won. It had happened only 2 times before. Actually, we're more used to getting the infamous NIL points than winning.

The consequences were of course, that this year the final is in Oslo. This has caused some controversy, because the money to pay the party has to come from somewhere. My boyfriend is especially annoyed, because NRK sold the rights to the FIFA world cup to afford Eurosong hehe. I'm not that bothered, it's not like we can't see fotball on any other channel if neccessary.

Just about every newspaper, online and the street editions, tv and got knows what has Eurosong material more than just a bit.

What makes me laugh, is the recaps of horrible songs through the years. Like this one..


One of the 5 songs voted MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENTS by an expert commentator on an online newspaper.

Some "experts" goes a bit overboard too.. Some aren't afraid to use themselves in the promotion for sure!!

So tomorrow it all kicks off, the first semi final, then the next one on thursday, and the big final on saturday. Will try to watch it all, although the quality of the songs are absolutely varying hehe. There's a chance I might do a follow up blog later this week, if I feel up for it, to recap the semi finals. Don't have much else planned so.. Enjoy! Here's Norway's entry. Not a big fan, but it's ok to not win again hehe.

tirsdag 18. mai 2010

Lisa does things you never thought she would

Everybody who knows me, knows that kitchen is not my area. Sure, I have my safe things I can produce, just because I have to eat. But I'm hardly ever doing anything from scratch.

But for quite some time now, I've been thinking of making this cake. I got the recipe of a friend of mine over a year ago, and not being a top chef, it's been sitting on my fridge for ages.


But finally I got around to testing it. Originally it was meant for a family gathering on friday, but that fell through, so instead I made it for yesterday, our national holiday, 17.mai.


Here's the picture story of how Lisa tried to make something out of something else hehe.





First I purchased a bunch of various ingredients, this is for sure no cheap cake. Think I paid about 300 NOK for the ingredients, or about $50 and then some.
There's creme cheese, 700 cc's of it actually. Organic sugar, eggs, vanilla sticks, cinnamon, vanilla sugar, butter and digestive crackers. That's what I remember.

The first thing I had to do, was to crush 15 crackers. I don't own a food processor, so went to my folks to borrow some of their utensils.
It was easier said than done.




Then I mixed in some melted butter, and spread the dough on the platter. In the oven it went, and after 15 minutes it looked like this



Time for the creme cheese. I poured it all in a big bowl, put in the vanilla sugar, the seeds of a vanilla stick and sugar. Found my old hand mixer, and started blending it all together. Then eggs went in, one by one.









Poured it on top of the baked cracker bottom, and into the oven it went again.







I'm not very tidy, so stuff filled up on my bench while I was doing my "magic" hehe.



When the cake was in the oven for the 2nd time, I realized that I only had bought half the amount needed for the topping. Thankfully the stores were still open, and the cake had to bake for at least 1 hour. So I went on a storm spree.
I came back, still had 15 minutes to wait, and then the cake looked like this.


By the looks of it, I'd went a bit overboard with the butter haha.

Then it was time for the sourcream/sugar/vanilla mix






5 more minutes of baking, and here's the result of the ready baked cake.




So now, just dig into it, you say? Oh no!!
Now it had to cool down, then spend 3 days in the fridge to set. And to wait for may 17th to arrive. I spent the days sneaking on it, trying to remove what's around it, with the result that I kind of wrecked the cake.

I bought some physalis decorative berries, and was finally ready for the big day.

Took the cake with my down to my brother, had a nice barbecue, and then it was time for THE cake.









I made strawberry coulis too, so we could have with the cake, to bring a bit of sourness into the sweet that's in the cake.

Looking nice, doesn't it?