Midsummer's Eve in Dalarna and recipes for cookies :-)

 View from the kitchen. Isn't it gorgeus!

We are back home again after a wonderful Midsummer weekend in the best place to be during this holiday - Svärdsjö, Dalarna. We had been invited by Gunilla and Per to spend the holiday in their wonderful house built in 1875, but completely modern, overlooking the lake Svärdsjön. We even had the luck to have sunshine and no rain that day. Why I write that? Well, it's more common it rains on Midsummer's Eve than the opposite :-) But we always hang in there. No matter what, we are outside eating, playing, drinking. All you need is good clothes we say :-) Another hard thing to battle is the mosquitos or "knott" which are more common up north.

Eating lunch

 Me and Staffan (Gittan's husband)

Anyway we all met up in time for lunch. I contributed with Västerbotten pie, shrimps and 3 different kind of cookies all which I did the night before. Gittan (Hasse's exwife) had made the most delicious bread and of course herring so had Cissi ( a new very nice friend). All in all we were 11 people gathered to celebrate.
The lunch started at 12 and continued for a couple of hours. Of course we had snaps, sang snapssongs and had a great time. The lunch was just over when we continued with coffee, cakes and cookies (!) After that we were so full and then the 5-kamp (5 different games which are played in teams) started.
We started out with a quiz - a walk with 13 questions hanging from trees and on houses. After the first game my team lead the game. My team was me, Gunilla, Thomas and Sandra (team 1). Team 2 was Per, Dennis, Klara, Gittan and Team 3 was Staffan, Hasse and Cissi.
Second game was hammer a nail in the plank with the fewest hits. Everyone in the team had to hit. It's harder than you think especially after a couple of snaps :-) We came second in this game.

 Nail in the plank. Thomas from my team in action

Then we had a rubberband around our face and we had to use our face muscles to get it down to the neck. This was so so hard and during this we certainly didn't show our best faces. It was hilarious to watch though. All in each team had to complete this. We won!

 Rubberband game

Then we had to build the highest tower which had to be standing for 30 seconds in order to be approved. We lost this one :-( because of the wind.
Finally we had to walk or run from the flag pole to a tree and back (the whole team one at the time) Then we had to walk/run the same once more and the thing was to come as close to the first time as possible. We won with 0,5 seconds!
It was so much fun all of it and I must admit that my fighting spirit was there! Final results - my team won!
And we even get prizes which I didn't expect at all. We each got a book. Great prize I think. Thank you Gunilla and Per for that and for fun games.

 Klara and Grandpa Hasse talking on the veranda

A short time with chatting, drinking followed after the games and soon it was time to start preparing dinner. We all chipped in and helped out with sallad, potatoes, BBQ (of course) and soon it was time to eat while, even now, we were singing not snapsvisor but Midsummer songs and psalms. Very nice :-)

Hasse, me and Per inside late at night eating strawberries and drinking coffee.

At around 8.30PM it was time for a delicious dinner and mark that we were still outside! But a few hours later the mosquitos atacked and it was started to chill down so we went inside to have the traditional strawberries with whipped cream :-)

Here's a link to my recipe for the cookies several of you wanted (sorry it's in Swedish but if you want it you can write me and I will translate it for you )

HELLO DOLLYS:

16 st

113 g smält smör

150 g krossade Digestive

90 g kokosflingor

170 g ljus choklad

100 g hackade pekannötter (jag tog pekan- och valnötter)

1 burk kondenserad mjölk

Värm ugnen till 175 grader och placera ugnsgallret mitt i ugnen.

Klä en liten långpanna (23x23 ca) med bakplåtspapper.

Smält smör och häll i långpannan. Krossa Digestivekexen och strö krosset i ett jämnt lager över smöret. Strö kokos över smulorna. Strö hackad choklad över kokoslagret. Strö nötter över chokladen. Häll till sist över den kondenserade mjölken över alla ingredienserna. Blanda INTE IHOP ingredienserna. De ska ligga i lager på lager.

(OBS! Förbered gärna alla ingredienser i små skålar så går det fortare och lättare vid lager-på-lager momentet)

Grädda kakan i 30-35 minuter tills stickan kommer upp torr när du provar i kakans mitt. Låt kakan svalna i formen och skär sedan i rutor.

Förvara i kylskåp eller frys in.

Lycka till och njut / Mia J