Category Archives: Travel/Food

Travel/Food

Pizza recipe and review

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By: Nils Hilleson

This recipe will make 4 full crusts.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tsp yeast
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 1 tb sugar
  • 1 tb salt
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 830 grams bread flour

Steps for dough:

Add 1 tsp yeast, 1 tsp sugar and 1/4 cup warm water into a bowl and let sit 5 mins for the yeast to bloom.

Then add 830 grams of bread flour, 1 tb sugar, 1 tb salt, 1/4 cup olive oil and 2 cups of warm water.

Knead in mixer until slightly sticky, add more flour if needed.

Dough is ready if it can be stretched to see light through.

Cut into 4 balls (they last for up to 7 days in the fridge).

When you are ready to use the dough, put them in olive oil coated bowls; let rise for at least an hour.

Steps for making pizza:

Preheat oven (for an hour) to its hottest temperature (550) with a pizza stone inside.

Take a dough and stretch it into a circle.

Put sparse amounts of flour on the surface you’re working on. This way the dough will slide onto the pizza stone.

You can add toppings like: tomato sauce, mozzarella, parmesan, goat cheese, other cheeses, pepperoni, garlic sauce, and really anything that goes on pizza.

Review:

I thought the pizza turned out pretty good. I made a regular pizza with fake pepperoni and goat cheese, and a garlic cheese bread pizza. Both turned out pretty good but I preferred the garlic one since I’m not a big fan of the pepperoni or the goat cheese.

Getting the dough ready was the hardest part for me because I couldn’t really understand how to properly shape it. I think the crust was a little thick on the garlic one so I should’ve stretched the dough more while prepping the pizza.

It doesn’t taste as good as pizza from most actual pizza places but it’s still pretty good. The crust was thicker and the toppings weren’t distributed as well as I would have wanted. If you like Pizza Luce you may want to give this recipe a try. The garlic bread pizza was similar to one I get from there.

Travel/Food

Cranberry cheesecake bars recipe review

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By: Norah Hoglund

Image generated with AI

The weather is getting colder, and that means it’s time for fall treats! The recipe I reviewed was for cranberry cheesecake bars from Somuchfoodblog.

You can find the recipe here.

Review

To start, the process of making these bars.

There was 3 different components in these bars: the cheesecake filling, the cranberry topping, and the crust. Managing all of these mixtures and ingredients can be a little bit tricky, and you have to clean up as you go to make room for the next mixture. It is time consuming to cook the cranberry topping over the stove.

Another inconvenience is that you need quite a few appliances to make this recipe, like a food processor, hand mixer, and stovetop. There is also a lot of uncommon ingredients that people would not usually have in their house, like ginger snap cookies and orange liqueur/Grand Marnier. These bars are not something you make randomly, it has to be planned and the ingredients and appliances have to be on hand. On the bright side, the ingredient list isn’t too extensive.

Although it is more complex than a lot of recipes, if you like baking, it’s quite enjoyable and it’s fun to assemble all of your components once they are done.

Next, the taste.

These cheesecake bars tasted very good. I really love the tartness of the cranberry and I also like how the recipe used ginger snap cookies for the crust instead of graham crackers, like most bars use. These bars are very meticulously made and they taste very gourmet. I think that the measurements in this recipe were just right, because nothing is overpowering and it all blends well together.

Overall, I give this recipe an 8/10. The ingredients and baking process were a bit of a challenge, but the taste made it worth all the work.

Getting To Know/History, Travel/Food

Root beer rankings and a brief history

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By: Nils Hileson

Bottles of root beer tried

Root beer was made in the 18th century by Charles Elmer Hires based of a tea that has similar ingredients. Root beer is commonly made with sassafras root, wintergreen, sarsaparilla and other natural ingredients. It also has a lot of sugar and caramel coloring in it commonly. Its name is derived from the root ingredients used to make it and beer was added to the name just to appeal to miners.

For a time root beer was sold as a syrup or powder to be added to sodas before it became a popular soda itself. I myself like root beer quite a bit so I decided to try six different root beers and rank them from worst to best.

Brownie caramel cream root beer: this one is the worst not because it is particularly terrible but because of how disappointing it was. I was expecting actual caramel flavor but it just tasted like watered down root beer. Very disappointing.

Henry Weinhard’s root beer: not very sweet nor did it have much spice. Didn’t have much flavor for a root beer, so it’s ranked low.

Old Red Eye root beer: had a nice amount of spice for a root beer but was lacking in everything else. Was very watery and kinda disappointing.

Root Naturals Apothecary craft soda: a little less sweet than a normal root beer but had good levels of spice. A fine choice for a root beer.

Drive-in style Dog n Suds root beer: had quite a bit of sweetness, and a little less spice than the others I’ve had. I prefer my root beer to be pretty sweet so this root beer was good.

Boylan Bottling Co: definitely the best root beer out of all of them. The spices they used were different from a normal root beer’s but it was a welcome change of taste. They also used cane sugar, which I’m not sure how much that changed the flavor, but I think it made it better. Didn’t taste watered down at all.

For more information, please visit:

Travel/Food

Best Trader Joe’s candies

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By: Siri David

Trader Joe’s is a grocery store that is located all over the USA. It is known to have fresh produce and healthier food options while being set at a lower price. Trader Joe’s is well known in the younger generation for the candy options. I personally have tried almost every type of fruity candy that Trader Joe’s offers.

I will be explaining and ranking all the types of candy I have tried.

Starting at the bottom, we have the Fruit Jelly’s. These are square shaped jelly candies that have 6 different flavors. There is orange, raspberry, lemon, blackberry, grape, and mandarin. I personally did not like this candy at all. I thought the flavors were just too artificial and I also found that the texture was too gelatinous.

The next on my list is the Strawberry Field Gummies. The main reason I don’t like these is because there is only one flavor and I find that kind of boring. I do like the color combo of them with the green and pink.

After that is the Sour Strawberry Candy Belts. I do like these a lot. They have a good amount of sour to them without overpowering the flavor, but again there just is only one flavor so they get kinda boring after a few.

Next is the Scandinavian Swimmers, they are a classic at Trader Joe’s and there are two different types. They have just an original gummy and then they have the sour version. I personally like the sour ones more than the original, but they both are delicious. These are in all year unlike a lot of Trader Joe’s candy that often only come out during certain times of the year. There are four different flavors, and they are all shaped as different sea animals.

The last, and my overall favorite, is the Sour Jelly Beans. These are my absolute favorites. They have many different flavors and are definitely sour and that’s what I love about them. They also come in a smaller bag so you don’t become stressed out over how many jelly beans you have.

At the end of the day I think Traders Joe’s sells the best candy and if you haven’t tried any of them you definitely should!

Travel/Food

Krumkake recipe and review

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By: Nils Hilleson

Ingredients:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 c sugar
  • 1 1/2 c flour
  • 2 tbsp cornstarch
  • 1 stick of butter melted
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon

Equipment:

  • Krumkake iron
  • Dowel

Steps:

  • Beat 4 eggs in a bowl
  • Add 1 cup sugar, mix
  • Add 1 1/2 c flour & 2 tbsp cornstarch, mix
  • Retrieve melted butter and add vanilla & cinnamon, mix
  • Add butter to bowl and whisk to combine.
  • Scoop out an acceptable amount of batter (about a teaspoon) and place on the iron
  • Wait for the iron light to turn off
  • Quickly retrieve the krumkake from the iron and roll it into a tube with the dowel
  • Let the krumkake cool until completely cool

This recipe makes around 30 krumkake

I really like krumkake, they taste sweet and vaguely cinnamon. My mom makes some every year around winter as a tradition. Krumkake is a Norwegian cookie.

Due to how many are made there plenty to give away to friends or family. They take awhile to make not because they’re hard to but just because of the fact you have to wait for them to cook for awhile, but it’s worth it since they’re so good.

Personally, I don’t normally do this, but since they’re tube shaped you can fill them with stuff like whipped cream. I find they can be a tad bit awkward to eat due to their shape.

Rolling the krumkake can be a little stressful since you have to do it quickly so they don’t harden before you can roll them properly.

This was based on my grandma’s recipe, but it really only had the ingredients, and directions on how to make the batter. I had to write out the rest of the steps.

Travel/Food

Crepe recipe and review

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By: Nils Hileson

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup of milk
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • 1 cup of flour
  • 3 tablespoons of melted butter

Steps:

  • Add all ingredients to a bowl and whisk vigorously for 10-20 seconds until smooth.
  • Put the batter in a bowl with a lid and place in the fridge for 1-2 hours
  • Put a pan on a burner at low-medium heat and add butter
  • Add 1/3 cup of batter in pan
  • Swirl pan until the surface is coated with a thin layer of batter
  • Let sit until the edges start to peel off the pan then flip the crepe
  • Wait until it’s only a little crispy and then put on a plate

You can add toppings like;

  • Butter & sugar
  • Jam & whipped cream
  • Nutella & banana
  • Butter, sugar & cinnamon
  • Scrambled egg

The crepes were really good, I made three; one with Nutella and banana, one with cinnamon and sugar and one with scrambled egg. Crepes are really good due to how many different things you can put on them. While most crepes are made sweet you could make one more savory.

They are also pretty easy to make but it’s easy to accidentally cut them due to how thin they are.

The crepes tasted really good the egg one might’ve been my favorite as the cheese I put in the egg and the crepe itself worked really well together. The other crepes also tasted really good though, both being sweet in different ways.

Due to how much batter I had we ended up with a lot of extra crepes since the crepe doesn’t take much batter to make due to being so thin. When making crepes the first one will almost always come out really bad as the pan isn’t quite ready yet so the first one will look bad.

Overall crepes are really good and pretty easy to make.

This recipe was a modified version of my dad’s.