A mix of photography, recipes, personal thoughts, faith, and lots of family stuff, but not necessarily in that order.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

They don't call us Norwegian for nothin'...

Lefse 
Thin, Unleavened bread of Norwegian origin, 
traditionally made of a potato-based dough and baked on a griddle.

Truth be told, making Lefse can be pure chaos .
The sticky, gooey dough is a mess to handle, until it's gotten to the "just right" consistency. 
Then comes the rolling-out of the lefse... that's considered a fine art.
and lets talk countertops....
 it's as if a slew of toddlers blew through the kitchen, playing in flour and starting a food fight.
These days, with the abundance of commercial lefse available, it's the 
rare family that makes their own lefse.
Probably for a good reason....
Being the 1/2 Norwegian girl that I am, it's in my blood to carry on the tradition of lefse making, I have all the equipment, and I really do enjoy the challenge of making a perfect piece of lefse. 
 This year I was invited to a Lefse making party with a group of friends from work, 
We crafted our lefse in a huge shed just outside of Blooming Prairie. 
  
My Friend, and co-worker Mary (front black t-shirt) was the host. 

There is equipment involved, 
Pastry clothes, grooved rolling pins, lefse turning sticks, griddles, pasty socks and the all important... 
Potato ricer
Here my friends Sarah & Mary are putting together the recipe
Potato's, oil, flour, salt and sugar.... and more flour. 
My friend Renee rolled her dough into cute little balls
She's a little "type A"
My group....logs, which we then cut into 10 smaller pieces
Now there's a thinly rolled out piece, ready for the griddle.
Lots of flour was worked into the round pasty cloth and the pastry sock on the roller
to prevent any sticking of the dough.
It only takes about 1 minute of cook time on each side 
Notice my "flipping technique"

Fun facts: There were 10 of us gathered to make lefse, We had 4 lefse grills fired up, we used 40 pounds of Potato's, and made 21 dozen slices of Lefse.
WOWZA!

Production line
Finished product
all bagged up

These are the 6 girls that I work with, we have so much fun together, 
Our skills are precise, from carefully guiding needles into peoples backs to collect spinal fluid, 
to rolling delicate dough into paper thin circles....ha
I feel quite blessed to have this close relationship with my co-workers.  
We are hoping to keep this a tradition, lot's of fun was had by all!

4 comments:

  1. I was just reading an article on MPR yesterday about a group of women from Bemidji who make lefse each year. And now your group. How many hours did you work? What fun you must have had.

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    1. It was a blast Audrey, we were at it for about 3 1/2 hours, but we took little breaks to eat munchies that everyone brought.

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  2. It makes me glad that you have fun with you co-workers :) Is anyone else there at least 1/2 Norwegian like you?

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    Replies
    1. Not sure the percentages of Norwegian, but everyone had a little Norske in them😀

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