Getting ready...

to hit the road again. I can't believe I've been at the farm for a whole month, it only seems like a week or two at the most! It's been really quiet the last couple of days as the girls have been off camping with their grandparents. It's probably one of the main reasons for oversleeping this morning.

The other reason was spending a few hours with Inga making Kleina. They're a traditional Icelandic... well doughnut I think. Or at least it has the same kind of texture and a similar taste. They're highly addictive and go really, really well with milk. Yup that's me living the rock and roll lifestyle!

Anyway just to prove to you that they're really nice, I think you should make them. Here's the recipe.

Inga's Awesome Kleina


Ingredients
400g butter
400g Caster sugar
2 eggs
2kg Plain Flour (yup that's right 2kg)
6tsp Baking Powder
2tsp Bicarb (although if you can find Ammonium Bicarb I think that's closer)
1 litre of soured milk (or maybe buttermilk?)
30mls of Cardamon (they sell it in liquid form here - maybe a scrape out a few roasted pods instead?)

mix the butter and sugar together
Add Eggs and beat
Gradually add flour, bicarb and baking powder to the mixture, along with the milk and Cardamon.
Mix until it forms a dough then knead it until it's a nice smooth texture.

Then rollout (not too thin) and cut into diamond shapes

cut a small hole in the middle

fold one end of the diamond through the hole and pull through

Finally deep fry them until golden/dark brown

Now I'll be honest and say I don't know whether the type of oil you use will change the flavour, Inga uses a traditional Soya oil, but it's possible that a good veg oil should be fine? Let me know how it goes.

Oh and the above recipe makes an awful lot of Kleina, enough to fill two carrier bags easily! So maybe halving the recipe would be a good thing, they're far too easy to eat and you could find yourself groaning at the size of your stomach as you reach for that one last wafer thin mint...

Tomorrow I'm moving on to Grenivik which is just over the fjord, and hopefully on to Husavik which is North East of here. It's one of the main whale watching areas of Iceland and I'm tempted to go but I don't really want to spend lots more cash before I get to Norway. Then on Sunday I'm going to Asbyrgi which is the start of a 2 day hike to Dettifoss to see the biggest waterfall that Iceland has to offer. On Tuesday I'm hoping to hitch to Myvatn again to walk round one of the pseudocraters before meeting up with another couchsurfer on the Wednesday in Eglissta∂ir.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some internet access there too and will update you (or risk even bigger posts than previously).

After that I'll be heading south. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to stop on the way as yet. I guess it depends on what I see and how easy the hitching is at that point. I do have a flight booked to Oslo for the 27th July, it leaves at 7.30am and I should be there by 12pm local time. Then I'm going to take stock and see what I can do from there. I'm meeting up with my friend Rachel in Bergen on the 8th August for a few days and will also (hopefully) be meeting up with my friend Hui later in the month.

I'm so excited by it all I can't stop grinning (although I'm not sure I have since I left the UK)!

So I'll catch you all soon.

Bye Inga, Einar, Jóhanna and Valger∂a. You've been an awesome family to spend time with it's been great.

Don't forget to come and hang out when I (eventually) get back to the UK!
xxx