Regnet står som spön i backen

I was looking for the equivalent of "It's raining cats and dogs" and this phrase is what the internet tells me has the same connotation. "Regnet står som spön i backen" translates directly as "The rain stands in rods on the hillside." I'll have to ask around to see if they really say it. Today it was raining cats and dogs for most of the day. It would pretend to taper off and then start pouring again. Ross had to bike to work in the worst of it. I wonder how he fared. I now know why people here own rainpants. I've spent most of the day holed up inside. I have a weird niggling pain in my right abdomen/groin/hip area. Then I did about 10 minutes of core yesterday along with sprints, and my entire core is sore :) I'm going for a stretch run this evening with a clubmate to loosen everything up. This weekend is the Swedish national long distance championships and I hope to go into it rested and ready to race hard.

In my time home today I decided to try a Swedish recipe. I picked up a few free cooking pamphlets at the local grocery store last week. We didn't bring any cookbooks from home, as most of the recipes we can find online. But it's hard to cook the same as home. One stumbling block is that the two grocery stores near us are small and have mostly the basics. And Swedish basics aren't the same as American basics. They both have fennel, but no green onions. The have vanilla sugar, but no vanilla extract. Only one of them had baking soda and baking powder, and neither had cream of tartar (for my snickerdoodle recipe). They also don't have any fresh herbs.

So, I leafed through the minimagazines today and decided on a truly Swedish meal - lasagne :) It looked simple enough, we already had some of the ingredients, and it'll be cozy after a cool and rainy autumn day. I did have to put most of it into Google translate to figure it out...

Yum! Click on the picture for a larger version.

I spent some time looking around on the internet for recipes. Surely, I thought, someone has started a blog for Americans cooking in Sweden. As near as I can tell, this sure to be popular blog has not been done. But I did find this inspirational series. Perfect. We have the same exact stove and cool wooden board that pulls out of the counter (I never knew what that was for!)

I'll let you know how dinner shapes up! Ross and Boris can be very picky eaters...