Cooking in Denmark...

Because we are not just visiting for a week, but for two months, we try to eat at home when we can or it will be too costly, besides eating at a restaurant every night could get tiring. But because we are only here for two months, I hate to buy all the ingredients and spices that I will only get to use a little bit of each. So right now, I only have the minimal, the really key ingredients - salt, pepper, sugar, olive oil, soy sauce, and cooking sake. That's it. No vinegar, no flour, no thyme or cumin . Okay, I did bring a few dashi packs (to make dashi stock) and a little bit of miso from home because I knew I will be needing them once in a while, and again I did't want to spend a fortune to get them here (you can get them).  

So far, I can seem to get by with the above ingredients. Of course, you are definitely limited to a certain type of cooking, or you may not quite achieve the "depth" in your flavor, but so far I am quite happy with what I have, and am thinking perhaps my kitchen back home is over stocked with unnecessary "stuff". 

Pictured above was our dinner tonight. Bought a bag of mussels at the fish market at Toverhallerne I mentioned yesterday, and made this pasta. The mussels were very fresh and tasted very good. I only used a half of the bag since it was a huge bag, but I regretted not using the whole bag - we couldn't get enough of them! 

It was one the most beautiful day today since we got here, and because the kids had a long late afternoon nap, we decided to take a walk after dinner. We walked to the Nyhaven area to get some ice cream for dessert. Yuto must have said "aisu? aisu?" about thirty times before we finally got to the ice cream shop, just to make sure we are really getting ice cream. Nyhavn was packed with people enjoying one of the longest days of the year. I couldn't believe how blue the sky was and how high the sun was even at 9 pm!

He actually finished this whole thing...