it is Swedish tradition that the oldest daughter in the family wakes up on St Lucia day (December 13), makes Lucia buns & coffee, & then serves them to the rest of her family. well, since our daughter is only 3 years old & too young to do that, we thought we would have a Swedish smorgasbord to celebrate instead. we also enjoy trying new foods, especially gluten-free ones, so this was a great opportunity to try more Scandinavian foods & recipes.
our St Lucia Swedish smorgasbord consisted of: Swedish meatballs with gravy, 2 different types of smoked salmon, 4 different kinds of Scandinavian cheese, bread, Lingonberry jam, fish balls with dill sauce, Swedish potato sausage, baby new potatoes with sea salt & dill, for dessert: ginger snap cookies, Swedish fish, chocolate Dala horses, almondy tarta, & to drink: glogg.
i discovered with Swedish cooking that when in doubt, add dill :)
St Lucia paper napkins. we used the Swedish Meatballs with Gravy recipe from The Swedish Table, but we made them gluten-free.
2 cheeses from Norway: a type of Swiss cheese & Gjetost (brown cheese ! have you ever eaten brown cheese before?) & 2 cheeses from Denmark: Tilsit & Havarti creamy
fish balls with dill sauce, how do you eat them cold or warm?
non-alcholic glogg recipe found here
ginger snaps can be found in different flavors at the grocery store
chocolate Dala horses can be bought here
Almondy Tarta (which is gluten-free) is from IKEA
i also made a St Lucia banner to make our smorgasbord more festive, to make it:
what you need:
:: red card stock, 2 sheets 8.5" X 11"
:: white pigment stamp pad
:: 7 chipboard letters: s, t, l, u, c, i, & a
:: paper cutter
:: double sided adhesive
:: 51" of white binding
:: white thread
:: sewing machine
what you do:
:: with red card stock & paper cutter, cut 10 3" X 3" pieces
:: with sewing machine, sew the 10 squares & binding together by leaving 6" at each end & spacing the squares 1" apart
:: press the chipboard letters into the white ink, might need 2 coats, let dry completely
:: attach the chipboard letters to the banner with double sided adhesive
this is the Legend of Santa Lucia inside a card i bought last year
& this is a St Lucy card from a local Christian store
Happy St Lucia day !