Bitten by that creative Spider

Fast DIY Upcycle of an old sock and a cone to a unique winter/ Christmas decoration

2017-12-15T10:36:00.000+00:00

We have been making sock monsters this week and then I suddenly had the idea to make these little fellows. All you need is a worn out kids sock and a cone. If you use a big pine cone you might need a grown up sock.

You need to cut the cap of a sock and then half it. Turn it inside out and sew the long side closed. Turn it back right side out and pull it over the cone. Cut another straight piece of the sock, thick enough that it fits as a scarf for the size of cone you use. In our case it was roughly a centimetre. Cut the loop open and tie it around the cone. If you want to you can use a permanent marker to make hime two eyes. Tada, you are done. See how fast this was?

If you have an old red sock you could easily turn this into a Santa with some added cotton wool for a beard.

Waste Free Homemade Popcorn for Movie Nights with a film review from "The inner Circle"

2017-10-25T20:14:00.001+01:00

I am very honoured that Michael asked me to pair up with him & the Cheetah for his 100th Film review on the Inner Circle. He is reviewing a real popcorn movie, a family friendly Hallmark mystery movie that I watched last night on his and Paladins recommendation and I can only agree with them! They reviewed the first mystery of the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries "A bone to pick". Michael & Paladins reviews are non sponsored so you can be sure to get their honest opinion! Michael is very resourceful in finding DVDs on sale ( I read somewhere he never spends more than 1,50$ for a movie). He then puts down 3 dvds on the carpet and lets his ginger cat Paladin, with the personality of a cheetah pick the movie. The movie Paladin sniffs at first is the pick for the next review. So go make yourself some popcorn and enjoy the movie recommended.

There is no better and more variable movie snack than popcorn, right? It is a well known fact that it is healthier than crisps and depending on what you add it has less calories, too. It is so simple to make, and if you pop it under a glass lid, the kids (and actually quite a few grownups of all ages, that includes my MIL with over 70) will love watching and get very excited when it starts popping and shortly after a mass explosion of popping popcorn starts under your lid.

There are endless variations you can make. Traditionally people are split into two camps when it comes to seasoning. Salt or sugar! I prefer them salty with a hint of butter taste. I think it is because that is what I grew up with. My husband likes them sweet, and if you add the sugar while they are still in the hot pan it will slightly caramelise.

I have seen popcorn made with marshmallows, chocolate and caramel which sounds divine. I have also tried them with salt, black pepper and herbs d´Provence. I could also imagine if you add some fresh ground parmesan cheese it will make them even tastier, but you might need to add a few napkins. Something I am going to try today for you is with roasted walnuts, dark chocolate and a hint of salt. But I want to make them in the microwave and show you that you don't need to buy the overpriced individual plastic wrapped paper bags, but all you need is a musli dish and saucer, both microwave proof and some corn for popcorn making. And you can get them made just as fast, with less waste and for 13 Cents per portion plus seasoning! That´s the non-GMO one. A bag of 500 grams of dried corn can be got for under a Euro, if you want organic non-GMO corn (which makes a lot of sense in my humble opinion) you can get it for under 2 € over here in Europe. So you won't just safe the environment a little, but also your wallet will have a better padding. You see making them yourself has many advantages.

If you say you like the microwavable version better, as you don't need to clean up a pan afterwards, well I had a light bulb above my head moment, when chatting with Michael on Facebook the other night. And I had to try it right away. All you need is a microwave safe cereal bowl and a saucer that sits on the cereal bowl. Fill in roughly 20-25 grams corn suitable for popcorn to get a full cereal bowl of popcorn. No fat needed. And yes that looks very little in the bowl, but trust me you will have a full bowl of popcorn in the end! Put your saucer on top of the bowl with the bottom side facing down, to give it a better hold. Set the microwave on high and the timer on 3 and a half minutes. And start listening for the popping sound. Even the best microwavable dish will be super hot after this. But the corn needs a high temperature to pop. And while I have never tried it, I can't imagine the bag not being very hot if you buy the popcorn for microwaving in the individual bags? I would let it cool down for a few minutes and then remove it from the microwave. Make sure you don't burn your fingers!

Now season with what ever you like.

The first lot I made for my husband with cinnamon sugar and for me with a hint of salt.

The second batch I made, as mentioned above with in butter roasted walnuts, some dark chocolate and a pinch of salt. The dark chocolate was one of those with orange zest. It just made them that extra bit divine.

Melt a teaspoon of butter for 15-30 secs in the microwave.

Take the bowl out, and add 20 grams of corn and stir well.

Put your saucer on the bowl, bottom side down! Put it in the microwave and set on high for 3,5 minutes. In the mean time, roast walnuts without any fat in a hot pan while stirring or shaking the pan quite often, be aware nut can burn pretty fast.

Also chop a 15-25 grams of dark chocolate (with orange zests if you like!) Once the microwave rings, open the door and let it cool down a little. Grab the bowl with oven mittens and take it out, and carefully remove the saucer (while still wearing your mittens!) and add the roasted walnuts and chopped chocolate and a good pinch of salt. Stir well and serve. The chocolate will melt, so you might want to serve them with napkins at hand, especially if little fingers are involved in the eating process!

I hope you can enjoy one of Michaels great movie recommendations with some homemade popcorn next movie night. I can only say that my list of must watch movies has gotten pretty long since I follow his blog!

So here is the 100th review from the inner circle! You can read it here, or head over to "The Inner Circle and drop Michael a comment!

It’s 9:17

So tonight the cheetah and I trying something new to us…we are hosting a Eco-friendly blogger that likes making food from scratch as it is environmentally friendlier (less waste) and very often healthier as no additives and in most cases it also happens to be cheaper.. named Pat,A Irish lass who is going to share a quick,fun and tasty treat to go with watching a movie. We spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out how to make this work and we decided a co-blog entry is the way to go.
After that we decided which movie we should review for our 100th.I t’s October and while one would think a good horror/scary movie would be the ideal thing,I decided we should stay family friendly and do a gentle mystery from our friends at the Hallmark Channel. I recently reviewed a Christmas movie from them and really liked it,so I think “A Bone To Pick” which feature Aurora Teagarden from mystery writer Charlaine Harris will be a great choice as well…

In the small city of Lawrencetown,Washington Sally Aurora “Roe” Teagarden is a young woman who works as a librarian. She manages her mother Aida’s townhouses on the side. Aida,who happens to be a very successful real estate agent,is always trying to get Roe in a relationship or to improve her style sense.

Roe,on the other hand,enjoys spending time with her Real Murder club where the different members try and come up with proper deductions on old cold cases. The local election for the President of the club is coming and Roe is the co-favorite along with John Queensland.
After Roe makes a good case for the wife to a killer of a old case,an elderly woman named Jane compliments Roe and says she sees a lot of herself in Roe. Roe knows that Jane is a elderly spinster who used to be the head librarian and she doesn’t know how to take the comparison.
Jane asks Roe to come over to Jane’s home the next day and Roe agrees. Jane leaves and then we meet Sally Allison who is Roe’s best friend and a local journalist and police detective and former boyfriend of Roe,Arthur Smith. Arthur quit coming to Club meetings when he became engaged to follow detective Lynn Liggett. Roe and Arthur are still friends but they broke up because there was no chemistry between them (but I think Arthur feels a little differently.
Roe visits Jane the next day and they have a friendly chat. Jane gifts Roe a book and pats a seat telling Roe she always did her best thinking there. Jane has also set up Roe with a date with her pastor,Father Scott Aubrey,the two women chat some more….

The next day Sally tells Roe that Jane is dead,she died from heart failure. At Jane’s funeral her lawyer,Bubba Rankhart,approaches Roe and tells her that Jane has left her entire estate to Roe. Roe is shocked as Jane and her were friends but not close. Rankhart says Jane thought highly of Roe. He gives Roe Jane’s house keys. When Sally comes over to see what is going,Roe says she has a new house and she is going to look at it.
But when Roe is surprised by an intruder who has broken into the house,the mystery starts as Roe tries to figure out what the thief was looking for.

The cops,led by Arthur,come by but can only tell Roe that other break-ins have been happening. Roe notices that only large cupboards and drawers have been opened,she deduces that something large is the target.
As she ponders this later that day alone,she remembers was Jane said about her favorite seat,when Roe opens it up,a skull with a piece is sitting at the bottom.
Roe confides in Sally what she seen and the two friends begin poking around,Roe figures that Jane must have dug up the skull nearby and that means a body has been buried and the killer wants to find the skull.

Roe and Sally discover quite a few people have gone missing from Roe’s street and the hunt is on to discover who is missing and when they do find the body that the skull belongs to,it opens up a whole new can of worms as Arthur and Lynn (who doesn’t like Roe) have bought the house across from Roe’s new home. With Sally urging her to go to the cops,another break-in and a budding romance all crowding her plate,can Roe survive long enough to solve this puzzling murder???

The Aurora Teagarden mystery series is written by a writer named Charlaine Harris. :A Bone to Pick” while actually the second in the book series is the debut film in the Hallmark Channel movies. Being that they are Hallmark,the violence is toned WAAAAY down and is it actually more designed and written as a “whodunit” more then a “shoot ’em up”.

Did we like “A Bone To Pick”? Oh yeah we did!!! This movie is so much fun and quite a hoot to watch. Hallmark Channel has a real flair when they cast their movies and this series is no different. Candace Cameron Bure,who rose to fame in “Full House” and “Fuller House” is perfect as Aurora Teagarden other then her height (she is 4’11 in the books). She pretty,spunky and has a sharp inquiring mind for puzzles. She has great chemistry with both Marilu Henner (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) ,who plays her mother Aida who is always looking to get Roe hooked up and the beautiful Lexa Doig (Arrow) who is spot on as Sally,her well meaning best friend who is always trying to get Roe to use her common sense.

Miranda Frigon as Lynn Liggett,Roe’s thorn in the side is tough but has a growing respect for Roe’s ability to detect and Peter Benson is charming as Roe’s ex-Arthur.
Hallmark has turned six of the novels into movies so far,I have found two of them and I like to get the other four.
Director Martin Wood does a fine job in making sure there is a quick pace and still gives his stars plenty of room to shine. He has worked extensively in TV and nows his away from a TV movie and this being a Hallmark movie,there very little actual violence.
Wood knows what the average Hallmark Channel viewer likes and he delivers a very neat and tidy movie.

The cheetah and I give “A Bone To Pick a thumbs/paws up.

“A Bone to Pick” is a made for TV movie and should be rated PG. It has a run time of 86 minutes and has no special features. It does have one charming product placement but you’ll have to spot that one yourself.

How to make Homemade Ricotta Cheese - simple and fast!

2017-10-24T17:31:00.000+01:00

Today I was frantically looking for a kid friendly recipe to use up my left over Rocket salad (or if you tuned in from the states - you call it arugula) as you know it is a bit spicy. So I came across a recipe for a pasta dish with rocket in it, but it required ricotta cheese, which I didn't have. But I remembered seeing on many pages various recipes for homemade ricotta cheese, stating how simple it is! Well, let me tell you: it is not just super simple but also very fast! If you are not to picky on the consistency you can have it done in under an hour! If you like it more solid it might take 1,5 hours. But as I only needed it for a sauce this was a fast make!

All you need is 1.4 litres of milk, 200ml of full cream, the juice of at least one lemon and half a teaspoon of salt!

Heat milk and cream in a saucepan to 38C/100F. If you have nothing to measure the temperature, try a drop on the back of your hand. If it feels like there is no temperature difference between milk and your skin, you have about the right temperature! Take pot off heat and add your 1/2 teaspoon of salt and stir well.

Now add the juice of one lemon and stir gently so it doesn't stick to the saucepan. Curds will build. If you have the feeling you need more lemon juice because the curds stopped building - squeeze another lemon! I needed about 1 1/2 lemons. Set aside for 10 mins. The curds will build on top while the whey (which stayed milky in this case and not see-through as in this recipe for homemade quark cheese or this one homemade for cream cheese)

Line a sieve with your cheese cloth ( or in my case I up-cycled a baby burp cloth) and place it over a jug, that can hold a good litre of whey!
Carefully pour your curdy mixture into your construction made of sieve, cloth and jug. Let drain for roughly 30 mins or longer if you like it more solid. You can help the draining by putting a weight on the top of the closed cheese cloth. The weight will push the whey out of you ricotta much faster. And your homemade ricotta cheese will be ready to use in no time!

I have to say I really like the taste of the homemade ricotta cheese. It has been a while since I had shop bought one, as I don't use ricotta very often, but I think after today we will be using it a lot more in our kitchen.

I hope I could help you out with this very fast way of getting ricotta and you get to enjoy the homemade ricotta cheese.

Homemade Potato Chips - an easy and fast guide

2017-10-04T20:00:00.000+01:00

Some days just call for not the healthiest comfort food. You agree?
We had more than a hole week of it. And I decided I would share this very simple guide of homemade potato chips with you guys. Shop bought potato chips are often made from mashed potatoes with additives or cost an arm and a leg, when all it needs is a few potatoes! I bake mine in the oven, as I don't have a deep fryer.

I wash the potatoes, if they are new ones, they get to keep their skin, if not, I peel them. Next I chop them lengthwise into chip size.

I make them fairly thin, as they bake faster, but finger thick will be fine, too! If that is what you prefer! They just need a bit longer in the oven.
Next step is spreading your cut spuds on the sheet in a single layer with enough space between each, that they can get crispy in the oven! Sprinkle a little olive oil over them also salt, black pepper and paprika or cayenne if you like.

Bake in a preheated oven at 220C/430F. After 10 mins, stir and make sure none of your spuds stick to the bottom of baking tray, and then spread them out again, that non are on top of each other. Bake for another ~5-15 mins. Depending on the size of your cut potatoes!

Now all you need is some homemade ketchup, something I am still looking for a good recipe! Have you got a tried and good one for me?

Apple Harvest, Apple Storage and a Recipe for a Traditional Irish Apple Blackberry Pie

2017-09-20T18:55:00.001+01:00

The boys and I were out picking apples this weekend. Unfortunately this years harvest isn't as plentiful as the years before. In early Spring frost hit the trees while they were in full blossom and at their fragilest. I am not sure, if I will have enough to make apple sauce to last for the whole year, but we´ll find a replacement when time comes. The boys still had a blast climbing the tree and picking the apples. What we usually do is we collect them all, including the ones that have fallen on the ground as they only attract wasps and slugs if you leave them there. And we have plenty of those around anyway and we don't need any more.

Once we are back home, we sort all apples into 3 different piles. The impeccable ones, the ones that already have holes from wasps and the ones that have brown spots or are a bit soft from falling off the tree.

Above you see the "impeccable" apples, that we store loosely in cardboard boxes for storing & eating through out the winter.

These boxes remain in a dark cool place, aka our garage. To keep, they need circulating air around them. That is why we never layer the apples and check the boxes every 7-10d. This is when we remove the ones that do not look tippy-toppy anymore and turn every apple slightly. By doing this, they last longer without getting brown and mushy spots. They usually last till January/Febuary this way. At this point they get softer and wrinkly and there is just not much crunchy joy taking a hearty bite outta them. But they are still eatable. This is when I usually turn them into apple sauce.

The pile with the wasp hole riddled apples, are for instant use. (in the above picture on the left) They won't keep long until they get mouldy. This time we turned most of them into an apple blackberry pie.

The pile with brown or soft spots (in the above picture on the right) on the apples will keep a little bit longer but are for pretty soon use, too.

After storing the very good apples for later eating, we went and peeled, cleaned and chopped up the wasp hole riddled apples. Our plan was to treat us to a traditional apple and blackberry pie. The recipe I use was handed down in our family and is very simple. The pie crust has no sugar in it. This is the way they made them traditionally in the old days. I sprinkle a little homemade vanilla sugar over the chopped fruit before I close the pie. My granny used to also brush the top pie crust with milk and sprinkle sugar over the piecrust after closing it, but I usually skip that step. Mind you as a kid I loved the extra sweetness! We eat the pie either with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

BTW I use the same pie crust for Quiches. As there is no sugar in the recipe, you can basically use it for anything!

Let´s get started.
For the pie crust:
80 grams butter. I use cold butter and mix the dough in the food processor. But if you use a normal mixer or a wooden spoon or your fingers you might be better off to use soft butter, and store the mixed dough for 15-30 mins in the fridge before rolling it, this is how we used to do it before all those high tech appliances made it into our lives.
180 grams of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
60 ml of cold water (If the dough is for a sweet pie, I sometimes use fresh whey or buttermilk, this isn't the traditional way but a very tasty variation well worth trying!)

The dough is a tiny bit sticky but will be easily rolled out with a rolling pen if you have a floured surface and some flour on your rolling pen. But be aware to never use too much flour on a pie crust, as it will get too dry. As I mentioned before, if you use soft butter, you might want to cool the dough before you roll it out, this will help with the stickiness.

I don't use a traditional pie dish, but a deep one, as I like a lot of filling in mine. Grease your baking pan and, roll out 2/3 of the dough and put 1/3 back into the fridge. The dough should be rolled out big enough to cover the bottom and sides of your pie dish plus a little over the edge. Enough that you can fold it back over the top later. Poke a few holes into the bottom with a fork and set aside.

For the filling:
Peel, core and chop enough apples to fill your pie dish. (depending on the size of the apples 3-5) and mix with the juice of half a lemon and pour into your prepared pie dish over the bottom crust. Add a a cup full of blackberries. Sprinkle with one-two tablespoons of homemade vanilla sugar. Roll out the last third of your dough and use it as a "lid" for your apple blackberry pie. Dip your finger in cold water and use the water as glue for your pie edges to stick together. Now press them together with a fork and also poke some holes into your pie top with the fork.

Traditionally, as mentioned above, you brush the top of your pie with milk and sprinkle it with a little sugar before you bake it. But I usually skip that part.

Preheat your oven to 230C/450F and bake for 5 mins. Then reduce the heat to 160C/320F and bake for 30-45 minutes until golden. I have to say I like my pie just slightly cooled down and still hot enough to melt the ice cream or cream on top of it. How do you like it best? Cold or still warm?

Enjoy this lovely autumn and treat yourself to some yummy pie!

Lemon and Sage Pumpkin-Pasta-Casserole

2017-09-14T15:26:00.001+01:00

We harvested our very first pumpkin of this season. YEAH! The boys tend to make a bit of an event out of every 'first harvest of the season' no matter what fruit or veg. And I can only agree with all the other parents that, if you grow your own vegetables and fruit you can get the kids to eat it much easier, esp if you include them in looking after the plants and let them help harvest. You don't even need a garden to grow your own, a lot of things can be grown in pots. This pumpkin came out of a pot! And if you also include your kids in the process of cooking or preparing your produce they usually dig in when dinner time comes.

We first had the idea to make the traditional pumpkin soup to celebrate this event of our first pumpkin of the season. But I had no coconut milk. So I had to come up with something different. Of course next came the cry for pasta from the boys. Is that the typical answer you get, too, when you ask your kids what it should be for dinner?

I suddenly had the idea to combine the pumpkin with lemon. This dinner got a bit experimental but we all liked the outcome so much, that I decided to write down the recipe just so I can actually remember if I want to make this pumpkin pasta dish again.

Here is the recipe for the Lemon and Sage Pumpkin-Pasta-Casserole:
Boil 350 grams of Fusilli shaped pasta according to the package
Peal and dice 1 small pumpkin (~300 grams) and fry together with one chopped onion in a little oil in a casserole or high pan, that you can later put safely into the oven. Add 1 chopped carrot and 1/2 a leek both chopped thinly. Keep stirring at medium heat and add some salt and pepper, cayenne pepper and fresh ground nutmeg, ground ginger.

Now add the zest of half an organic lemon, 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice and 2/3 cup of freshly chopped lemon balm and 4-6 big leaves of fresh sage chopped small.
Add 3 cups of the pasta water and 3/4 cup of cream 150 grams small chopped Emmental cheese and 150 grams of mozzarella cut in dices.

Mix well, and bake for
15 mins at 200C/390F in a preheated oven.

Enjoy this Lemon and Sage Pumpkin-Pasta-Casserole!

My most favourite Carrot Cake Recipe

2017-09-11T14:24:00.001+01:00

Carrot harvest has started here. The days got cooler. I have started to light fires in our fire place again. This time of the year simply calls, no what do I say it cries for carrot cake and some hot café au lait!

I have tried many carrot cake recipes over the years, and for the past 12 years I keep going back to this one, as I simple haven't found another one I like as much as this simply perfect carrot cake. It is very moist and full of taste with a lovely organgy taste in the icing. The original recipe is out of an old english baking book I once bought in this amazing second hand book shop that I never wanted to leave again in Bude/Cornwall, that has sadly closed down. I have tweaked the recipe a good bit over the years to get to this final recipe for the perfect carrot cake in my eyes.

There are many reasons why I like this recipe so much. The above mentioned moistness, the orange flavouring contrast to the icing, walnuts (or pecans are ok, too. I have tried it!) They all just add that bit of extra taste. And then the combination of cinnamon and fresh ground nutmeg just give it that last kick.
So these are the steps to this heavenly carrot cake:

Boil the kettle with roughly 1 cup of water and pour the hot water over
50grams of dried cranberries.
Mix one ground apple and
4 ground carrots (~ 225-250 grams), add
50 grams chopped walnuts (or pecan nuts)
add 200 grams of soft butter and
3 eggs, mix well! I actually do this in the food processor, which whizzes the carrots and walnuts further. This also helps the moistness. Now add
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and
1/3 teaspoon of fresh ground nutmeg,
200grams of plain flour,
1 teaspoon of baking powder,
1 teaspoon of baking soda and
120 grams of raw brown cane sugar and
20 grams of vanilla sugar. (find out here how to make your own vanilla sugar)
Mix all well and at last pour your cranberries through a strainer and discard the water, now fold the cranberries gently under your dough.

Add caption

Preheated oven to 150C/300F.
Grease or line a 15cm/6inch square cake tin.
Bake for 1h-1 1/4h.
Check with little wooden tooth pick if backed. My oven is one of those incredible fast baking ones (I guess it might be hotter than it should be) and it is usually baked at around 55mins to one hour.

Let cool on wire rack for 10-15 mins, then put wooden board on top of baking tin and flip it carefully but fast upside down. The cake should be on your wooden board now and hopefully didn't break or stick to tin. (If it did break you can cover up with icing later, no worries, but usually it doesn't)

For the cream cheese carrot cake icing you need:

175 grams of cream cheese or quark (if I have both at hand, I find cream cheese better, but both work, the quark just leaves little curds, that doesn't change the goodness in taste just in looks. For the one in the pictures I actually used quark cheese, as you might spot but it still tasted wonderful) how to make your own cream cheese or quark cheese you can find out by clicking the links behind the words)
the zest of one organic orange and
1 tablespoon of orange juice,
20 grams of vanilla sugar and
85 grams of icing sugar (my icing looks a little brown, because I make my own icing sugar out of raw brown cane sugar, I like the caramelised taste of it, but some find the brownish look disturbing. I don't mind. If you use icing sugar made out of white ordinary sugar the icing will be white!)
Mix all ingredients in a mixing bowl and spread over cooled carrot cake.

Serve and enjoy!

Are you looking for other recipes with carrots? How about a nice home baked carrot bread? Find the recipe here!

How to make your own black Elderberry Syrup

2017-09-04T11:21:00.001+01:00

Elderberry or sambucus bushes often grow as part of hedges. They grow fast and anywhere where they get enough nitrogen and sunshine. Sambucus bushes are great to attract birds to your garden . The elderflower in springtime will spread a lovely smell through out your garden and can be made into syrup which is used to sweeten desserts, cakes and drinks. The elderberry itself ripens in late summer and is poisonous when digested raw! Raw berries contain sambunigrin which can turn into hydrocyanic acid. Sambucus nigra is considered the least poisonous one! But elderberry has many health benefits if heated shortly. It has been used in traditional medicine for hundreds of years, to fight of cough and colds and it seems to have been used also for rheumatism and traumatic pain. But there has been no scientific proof in studies to show it actually works so far. There seem to be minor studies, that show if used during a cold, you will fight it faster, compared to those in the study that didn't use it. I prefer to juice them but it is said that you can eat cooked berries in full. And I have seen many recipes that use the berries in full in tarts and pancakes. But I haven't tried them myself. The juice though I have been using for years in jams and syrup and it is safe and delicious!

The bushes can easily grow 3-5m high, but branches are easily
bent down for harvest

unripe elderberries

There are bushes that could be mistaken for elderberries. So please make sure you are picking the real elderberries. The ones that look similar haven't got big bushels with lots of berries but just a few. The leaves are wider and haven't got the distinct teething that the narrower sambucus leave has. Unfortunately I haven't got any of those growing around here. So I couldn't take a picture. But I know about them because where we used to live there were quite a few of those in-between and I had to be careful that the boys wouldn't go to the wrong bushes and pick the berries. But I did make a few pictures of the real elderberry. To help you identify the elderberry bush! Look out for the shape of the leave, which has lots of little teeth and the big bushels with a lot of berries at the same time. If you are unsure, please always find someone who can identify them to make sure you don't poison yourself!

Now while I was trying to find this bush online, I came across a dwarf elderberry bush, that is very poisonous and easily mistaken also. I haven't come across it myself. But these leaves are actually narrower than the real elderberry and the fruit always posts upwards while the real elderberry always hang down. Also the flower seems to spread a not very nice smell. These berries are also poisonous for birds! Here is a Wiki link to help you identify the poisonous dwarf version!

these pictures are zoomed in on leaves and elderberries to help you identify them

To pick elderberries. I just strip the berries gently off straight from the bush into my bag, that way the not ripe ones stay on the bush, and the birds have a feast a few days later. Mind you, you shouldn't be squeamish - I have a lot of bugs and spiders end in the bag this way, that want to be rescued before I wash them when I am back home. This way also has the advantage that you save a lot of time as you don't have to sit down at home and comb them of the bushels with a fork as often suggested.

This is one of the cuter creatures, that came with the elderberries, there were actually a few of them the bag. I really zoomed in on the snail, it is only 2-3mm big.

The good thing about elderberries is, once you have them in a basin of water, the green ones, the dried up elderberries and the little stems are going to swim on top and can easily be spooned out.

Next you juice them.

I found this handy old time juicer on a flea market for only 4,50 €, which makes juicing any fruit super easy. But before I had such fancy equipment I just poured the raw fruit with about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of water (just to cover the bottom of your sauce pan so the fruit doesn't burn) bring to boil and stir. Take immediately of the hob once the fruit is softens as you don't want to destroy all of the

Vitamin C. Line a sieve with a sterilised towel. Pour elderberries into them, close towel over the fruit and squeeze all the juice out of them into a jug under the sieve. A potato masher comes in very handy here! This method is just as effective. Just two side notes: 1) do not use your favourite towel, as you will never get the stains out of it again! and 2) use a strong enough towel as it might tear otherwise under the pressure of squeezing! Also if using a wooden spoon to stir the berries or later the juice, use an oldish one, as it could come stained out of this!

To make the actual elderberry syrup you need per

500 grams elderberry juice

the juice of 2 lemons

500 grams raw brown sugar

Bring all to boil and boil for no more than 3 minutes (You do not want to destroy all the Vitamin C in your juice and it is enough to make it safe to consume). And fill hot into sterilised bottles or jars. (I have explained my preferred way of sterilising in this post) Screw on lid straight away. Once bottles have cooled down to room temperature store in refrigerator.

How to use the elderberry syrup: we use it on porridge in the mornings, pancakes, cakes, in lemonades or teas. Some of our favourite combinations are on pancakes with cream cheese, or add some to homemade quark cheese and fill a swiss roll with it to impress your guests.

And here a little fun fact: In medieval times sambucus was planted near houses and sheds to fend off evil spirits and witches!
Stay healthy and as always enjoy!

Courgette Soup - super simple and fast made

2017-08-31T09:42:00.000+01:00

Here comes yet another courgette recipe, that was handed down by my wonderful sister - it is for a super simple and fast made courgette soup!

This is a very simple and fast recipe!

You need 1 onion
and one clove of garlic, you chopped them very fine and gently fry them in
about 1 teaspoon of butter together in your saucepan.
Shred 500 grams of Courgette thinly and add them together with
500ml vegetable stock,
20 grams of potato starch,
1 teaspoon of salt and
half a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper to your onion/garlic mix. bring to boil and let simmer for 10 minutes.
Add 90 grams of cream and
fresh ground nutmeg to taste, whizz well and serve immediately .

And voilà yet another tasty use for courgettes!

BTW this tastes very yummy, if you serve it with some fresh baked bread, like this carrot bread!

Are you looking for other inspiration what to make with courgettes? Check this out

Psst - Did you know that Courgette Lasagnes are a great way of using up left overs?

2017-08-23T20:57:00.001+01:00

So, today I learned something new: It seems it is one LasagnA, but two or more LasagnEs... one is never too old to learn, right? I had heard and seen both spellings over the years, but before writing this post I thought I´d better check which one is the correct one. It also seems that both spellings are accepted these days. So don't feel bad if you have been calling them Lasagnas.
Lasagna is my go to dish if I need to use up left overs that can be combined with any kind of Italian seasoning. I just add them as an extra layer in the middle between the normal layers. One of my best lasagnes was one I added some left over pepper and eggplant antipasti. It wouldn't have been enough for all of us as a meal, but it made a very tasty addition within the lasagna.

They are also a great way of using up those huge hummers of courgettes that are growing in some gardens at the moment! It gets even better, if you are trying to live a low carb diet you can skip the pasta sheets and use thinly sliced Courgettes instead. If you slice them very thin you don't even need to fry them in the pan first. But frying them in the pan with extra seasoning and a little olive oil, of course gives your courgette lasagna just that extra kick of taste...it is like using antipasti courgette stripes as sheets for the lasagna!

So here are the basic layers you need to prepare aside from thinly sliced courgette:

For the bolognese sauce:

You start by chopping up one onion and then frying it in a little olive oil in a pan. If you are a regular reader, you may remember I am no meat eater, that is why I add a pack of refrigerated ready to go vegan mince next. Be aware that not all vegan minces are gluten free! I only mention it, because I wanted to label this recipe gluten free, as there is no pasta sheets in it. You can use minced beef at this point, if you prefer. Add Italian seasoning (I use thyme, rosemary, oregano and basil and 1-2 bay leaves from the garden, with fresh ground black pepper) deglaze with 60-100 ml sherry or red wine. Stir and then add 500 ml tomato puree and salt to taste. If the sauce still tastes a little bitter, as tomato sauce sometimes does, add a knob of butter. That usually helps to take the bitterness.

For the béchamel sauce:

Melt 70 grams of butter in a sauce pan then add 2 chopped onions and fry. Add 60 grams of potato starch and stir well to make sure the starch doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Add 500 ml of vegetable stock and 500 ml of milk. Stir vigorously best with a whisk to make sure there won't be any lumps. Let your béchamel sauce come to boil while stirring then take off heat and add 100 grams Swiss cheese. Add salt, black pepper and fresh ground nutmeg to taste.

Now you layer your lasagna by starting with a layer of bolognese sauce, then a layer of thinly sliced courgettes and next a layer of béchamel sauce! Now, would be a great time to add any left overs that would match, maybe you have some veggies left from the previous day, or some sauce, even fried potatoes... honestly there is a lot that can be put in with it, but you can just keep going with the above ingredients, too. Next would be another layer of bolognese, then courgettes and béchamel ... you get the pattern. You end with béchamel sauce and then a layer of grated Swiss cheese. You can also use ricotta cheese.

Preheat oven to 200C/390F. Bake 30 minutes and serve hot!

The idea to make this a blog post and the pictures came from my sister. I am very grateful for her input!

Are you looking for more ideas to deplete your courgette overload? Check here!

Happy cooking!

Boost Your Spirits and Immune System with a Blackberry Banana Smoothie

2017-08-19T13:28:00.000+01:00

My boys are currently suffering head colds, and while fruit normally disappears into their little mouths faster than you can cut it up, it can be hard enough to get some vitamins into them when they need them most. I usually turn them into smoothies together with a natural yoghurt fill it into a boy approved cup add a reusable straw and voila: even little boys will drink a purple vitamin booster when they aren't feeling so well!

I use a lot of blackberries at the moment as it is blackberry season here. They grow wild literally everywhere in our neighbourhood and even keep popping up in our garden. If you want to use them raw and you have foraged them outside of your garden, make sure to stay a good meter above the ground when picking blackberries, if you live in an area with Echinococcus multilocularis. I would also pick them higher of the ground if it is the local doggy walk highway. I won't go into further detail on that one...

Blackberries (like all edible berries around here) are high in Vitamin C and have a decent amount of other vitamins and minerals, too.

To make this purple blackberry banana smoothie, you need a jug, that has ml measurements.
Fill it to the 50ml mark with oat flakes (the porridge type)
to the 400ml mark with blackberries,
1 over ripe banana
1 cup natural yoghurt
fill up to 900ml with either milk, roasted hazelnut milk or orange juice
and a pinch of cinnamon

Now whizz until smooth. Your normal blender might not blend the little blackberry seeds, if you dislike them you might need a more powerful food processor and blend for one minute.

If you are looking for recipes to use up the floods of blackberries at the moment you might also like these
Blackberry Waffles
Blackberry Peppermint Jam
Blackberry Chocolate Jam

With this I bid you good bye for today and hope you manage to stay clear of the cold germs that seem to go around everywhere at the moment!

Raw Courgette Salad

2017-08-12T20:05:00.001+01:00

No matter what you call these green health bombs in your country - they come in many names: Courgette, Zucchini, green squash (and yellow) and there might be more names - their possible ways of uses are endless! As mentioned this week here I will be sharing a few of ours and my sisters favourite recipes during the following weeks!

This week I will share with you one of my sisters recipe!

It is a raw courgette salad.
You need:

200 grams Courgettes in pieces
1 Carrot in pieces
1 pear (not too mushy) in quarters
1/2 teaspoon of herbes de Provence
3 tablespoons of ACV (check here to find out how to make your own ACV)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon of honey or dandelion syrup (find out here how to make your own dandelion syrup)
Put all of the ingredients in your food processor bowl and whizz on medium speed for roughly 4 seconds. If you whizz for too long, it will be too mushy, so take it in baby steps to get it right!

Ready to serve!

Crazy Courgette Time! And a way to treat for Mildew without Chemicals!

2017-08-10T11:04:00.000+01:00

Courgette, Zucchini, summer squash, green squash.... it is a green (and sometimes yellow) delicious health bomb that comes with many names.

Courgettes are easily grown in pots or in beds. This makes them probably one of the most home grown veggies around the world.

They are rich in Vitamin C and also contain some Vitamin B6 and depending on the richness of your soil can contain around 4% of Magnesia and they are also high in potassium. It is very much liked in healthy diets for its low calories.

There are many myths on Pinterest and other social networks about growing them. I tried a few of them and wanted to share my experiences.

First of all there is this myth about pinching off all the first flowers it grows, in an effort to make bigger and healthier and therefor more productive plants...well let me tell you, I tried that with 3 of my courgette plants this year, and they are all 3 small and measly and have mildew. I left the flowers on two of my plants and they were much bigger and have produced most of our courgettes so far!

They also have a touch of mildew but not as bad as the ones with pinched off flowers to start with. Mildew is often caused my draught and/or heat, we definitely didn't have any heat hear this year, but I think my neighbour didn't water them very well while we were on holidays and they didn't get much rain. So I put the mildew down to this. I had some last year, too.

From my experience the following steps work best to treat mildew without chemicals!
First remove the worst looking leaves! Put them in the bin not in your compost!
The rest you spray with the following mix. 1 part of milk. The milk has to still have live cultures. Using any type of longer lasting milk will not work. Buttermilk or whey also works, but it has to be one with live cultures! And 9 parts of filtered cold water. This means for 1 litre of solution you need 100 ml of fresh untreated milk or buttermilk or whey and 900 ml of filtered cold water! Pour it into a spraying bottle and spray all infected leaves every day for one week, next two weeks 3 times a week and after that once a week should do. The lactobacillus in the milk will fight back the blight and keep it at bay! At the end of the season make sure you discard plant and soil into the bin and not into your compost! You want to make sure not to cultivate the mildew for the following year!

There are 2 types of mildew that courgettes can get infected with. I only have experience with the powdery mildew type (Erysipelas). You can recognise this one by a white powder type of fungal growth on the top of the leave.

Make sure your Courgette plants are regularly watered!

Another problem that can occur is that your plant only produces male flowers, but no female flowers that will actually grow into courgettes. Now, while the flowers are very tasty too and can be used in many different ways, you for sure want some courgettes to show off your grand gardening skills! This phenomena occurs if the plant itself is stressed somehow. This can be caused by too much water or over fertilising or too little water. Rethink your steps and take a close look at your plant to figure out what caused it in your plants case!
How do you distinguish between a male and a female zucchini flower? Well, it is very easy! Male courgette flowers grow on a long very thin stem. You can see 3 of them in the above picture. Female courgette flowers have a teensy wee courgette as a stem. (much thicker and shorter than male flowers!) See 2 very young ones in the picture below.

These really are the only two problems I ever had with my courgette plants. Did you have any? If yes, which ones and how did you treat them? I would love to hear!

PS: if you have a flood of Courgettes and can't think of anymore uses for them, stay tuned as I will be sharing some nice recipes next!

Peppermint Blackberry Jam - It is refreshingly different!

2017-07-17T17:08:00.000+01:00

This will be the last jam recipe that I will share from my crazy jamming session last Monday.
I have used peppermint in jams before and my boys (who are a wee bit peppermint crazy) love this one.

Add caption

Making peppermint blackberry jam is super easy:
25 biggish leaves of fresh peppermint (I used moroccan peppermint, it pops up every where in my garden, some might call it a weed the way it spreads, but can anything that is so delicious be a weed?)

1 kg of blackberries

500 grams of gelling sugar (in the US jelly sugar) for the ones new to making jam this one has added pectin that allows you to use only half the amount of sugar.

Bring all to boil, let boil for 5 minutes on a medium setting while stirring. Whizz until most of the blackberry seeds are gone.

Bring back to boil and after positive gelling test fill into sterilised glas jars. A detailed how-to for sterilising jars and any jam making or canning basics you can find here.

I hope you you are enjoying your summer and will leave you to jam making for now!

Blackberry Chocolate Jam - Indulge in this divine combination

2017-07-07T06:00:00.000+01:00

On Monday I was in a crazy jamming session. Not the music one but the juicy one! So here I am sharing yet another recipe. This one is for blackberry chocolate jam. I have never tried to mix chocolate with jam before. This was a first and I really like the outcome.

For this nerve balm of a jam, aka blackberry chocolate jam you need:
450 grams of Blackberries
Juice of half a lemon.
100 grams of dark chocolate
250 grams of gelling sugar (in the US jelly sugar). Using gelling sugar will allow you to use only half the amount of sugar.

Bring Blackberries and gelling sugar to a boil, whizz until most of the blackberry seeds are not visible anymore!
Take pot off the hot hob and add chocolate in little chunks. Now stir until dissolved!
Fill in sterilised jars while still hot and screw lids on tightly. Now turn the jam jars upside-down. Let cool to room temperature while upside-down. Label and voilà your Blackberry Chocolate Jam is ready for use!

Preparing your own jam really is no rocket science and well worth the work put into it. Some of the ingredients in bought jam give me goose bumps...like why does it need food colouring? Why would you add 60-70% of sugar? Do you really want to eat jam with corn starch syrup?

A detailed how-to for sterilising jars and any jam making or canning basics you can find here.

I hope you will enjoy your blackberry chocolate jam. If you combine this one with peanut butter on some sweet bread. You should feel heavenly instantly!

Strawberry Blueberry Jam - simple and divine!

2017-07-01T20:44:00.002+01:00

Making Strawberry Blueberry Jam is no rocket science. In fact it is so super simple that I was seriously considering it unworthy writing a blogpost. But I thought, what if you have never tried this? Simply didn't think of it? This is such a great combination for a jam jar and if you haven't tried it wait no longer. I made 4 different varieties on Monday and this one is my most favourite! I actually only wanted to write about blackberry peppermint jam and blackberry dark chocolate jam. (they will follow) But over the week I fell in love with the strawberry blueberry combination that I simply had to share. Seriously, try it with a dollop of cream cheese on a pancake and you will understand what I am talking about.

Are your taste buds ready for this?
You need:
500 grams of strawberries. If you have access to wild ones, trow them all in, they make the strawberry taste so much more intense!
500 grams of blueberries

500 grams of gelling sugar, in the US jelly sugar. (For those new to jam making that is the one with added pectin, where you get away with only using half of the usual amount of sugar. Pectin is a natural gelling agent. You can seemingly make your own pectin out of apples, but I haven't tried that yet. If you have made your own pectin I would love to hear about your experience!)
and the juice of half a lemon

Fill your 4 ingredients into a saucepan and bring to boil, keep stirring! Once the fruit softens whizz it until it looks smooth and homogenous. Boil and keep stirring for another 3-5 minutes until you get a positive gelling test ( a drop of jam on a saucer, should gell within a minute). Then fill immediately into sterilised glas jars. A detailed how-to for sterilising jam jars and any jam making or canning basics you can find here.

I hope you enjoy the strawberry blueberry divineness in a jam jar as much as I do!

Banana Hazelnut Smoothy - another tasty and fast way to use up those overripe bananas

2017-06-26T15:31:00.000+01:00

This is a smoothy my kids and I currently are somewhat addicted to. It is also a great way of using up those overripe bananas.

To make 4 people happy you need:

2 bananas (if you like your smoothy cold use frozen ones)

1 large apple or 1 orange

pulse for 30 seconds

500 grams of plain yoghurt (learn here how to make your own)

250 grams of roasted hazelnut milk (learn here how to make your own)

30 grams of oat flakes (porridge type. For gluten free option, make sure your oat flakes are gluten free)
If your summer holidays have started and you are in urgent need of chocolate to calm some nerves you can easily add dark chocolate chunks to this...just saying...and the amount is entirely up to you and the status of your nerves....but I would start with at least 50 grams. With the combination of happy making bananas and uplifting chocolate you should be surrounded by a jolly bunch and feel a lot better yourself! Did you know that both bananas and chocolate are high in tryptophan which helps your body release serotonin which basically makes you feel happy and jolly? Chocolate also contains theobromine which works like a weak stimulant similar to caffeine, but is also toxic to dogs and cats and the reason you should never feed chocolate to your pets! And furthermore chocolate contains phenylethylalanine which works as a mild anti-depressant and is also released by your body when falling in love and gives you all these fluttery feelings. So this is the reason both make you feel better when you eat (or drink) them.

I don't use anything to sweeten this banana hazelnut smoothy, because I find the use of ripe bananas makes it sweet enough, but if you feel like you need it sweeter you can add 1 teaspoon of honey or you can use maple sirup or dandelion sirup for a vegan option and in that case of course use vegan yoghurt.

Pulse for 1 minute at highest setting and Voilà...

Thanks to the oats and yoghurt you could probably use this as a liquid super fast breakfast on the go.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Dandelion and Herb Pancake with Feta and Daisies - And no, I haven't gone bonkers - it is delicious!

2017-06-14T10:01:00.001+01:00

I think my husband has given up been sceptical when he gets served things like dandelion and herb pancakes garnished with daisies served with a dollop of dandelion pesto....
But honestly it was so yummylicious that my forever-pasta-for-every-dinner-requesting-boys gave it a thumbs up as high as our universe, that´s the 5 and 6 year old ones, the older one, aka my husband was rather surprised how good it tasted. I was told I am aloud to serve it again! And have since made them 3 more times. Every time with the same success rate.

How did we end up with these, you ask? Well, I really had to mow the lawn and there where so many dandelions and daisies, I just didn't have the heart to have all this goodness end on the compost! (As a side note: I really need some chickens! And on a complete other side note: I already know what I will name them, for example one red one will be Amelia Pond...but this is still a dream, I need to build a shed and secure the yard first! )

This recipe is super simple and done very fast!
For roughly 4 mouths to feed you need
4 eggs and 375 ml milk which you whisk together until it is a little foamy and the eggs are well mixed. Now add 250 grams of plain flour and add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Add a pinch of salt (not too much as the Feta cheese is usually very salty) and some fresh ground black or red pepper and some fresh ground nut meg. Mix well and set aside.
Roast about 3 tablespoons spoons of pine kernels in a pan with no oil and add them to the dough.
Add roughly 200 grams of Feta cheese broken into little chunks.
Now you need about 20 young dandelion leaves

And a good handful of other fresh herbs (I usually use lemon balm, lemon thyme, oregano, basil, chives and their purple chive flowers, rosemary, cress and a little bit of savory and garlic grass.)

Wash and drain well. After that chop it all very small and add it to the dough, fold it all in. The dough is rather liquid, don´t be surprised! At this point you can get a little creative and add bacon chunks for the meat eaters or I as a vegetarian like to add small chopped semi-dried tomatoes. But even with just the above ingredients these pancakes are very delicious! Now all you have to do is fry them in the pan with a little butter as you would do with any other pancake.

Garnish with some fresh picked and washed little wild Daisies.

My youngest son is so in love with eating the daisies on his pancake, that he cuts little squares around them into his pancake and eats these first.

We eat these for dinner, served with potatoes and dandelion pesto (you can find the recipe here). But I don't see why you couldn't have them for breakfast or brunch, too! Or maybe a light lunch?

Enjoy!

How to make any old cheap withered wooden chair look like an expensive teak wood chair

2017-06-08T10:08:00.001+01:00

As you might remember I refurbished an old teak wood chair back in April (If you missed it, click here). I was surprised for how little money you could make it look like a new chair. I was also surprised when I read on the label of the teak oil can, that teak oil was actually made on a base of linseed oil and you could use it on any wood. There was still so much oil left in that can and no more teak wood furniture in this household so I thought of this very withered and old looking Ikea garden table and chairs set that I still had from my long passed student days.

I thought I´ll give it a try with one of the chairs for starters. The chair is still very sturdy. It just looked withered and old.

The poor fella never really saw any love and spent the last one and a half decades outside.

So todays blogpost is about me experimenting with an old cheap and withered wooden chair, that most people would dump plainly for it looks.

And I was surprised how fast this was done! All it takes is sand down the chair, brush off the dust with a hand brush.

this is what the chair looked like after sanding and dusting

And wipe the oil on with an old sponge. I gave it two layers of oil.
And Voilà: I present you a "teak wood" chair.

This chair took me about an hour. I do admit using a power tool for sanding, though. Sanding by hand might need a bit more beef and time!

The cheap wood doesn't soak up the teak oil as quick as the real teak wood does, it might have something to do with how the wood was prepared before it was sold that time?

I placed the real teak and the fake teak chair side by side and you don't notice much difference in the colours between the real teak wood chair and the cheap Ikea chair that got the teak oil spruce.

The can of teak oil cost me a little over 12€ and after refurbishing the two chairs I still have more than 3/4 of oil in my can. It goes a long way. I have one more chair and 2 little tables left of this Ikea set. Now I just need time to get around to it.

Dandelion Syrup - Because Dandelions are no Weed!

2017-05-30T11:18:00.000+01:00

As I have mentioned before Dandelion should not be considered a weed, it has many health benefits and the different parts of the Dandelion can be a tasty addition in your cooking or baking.

Today I share with you our Dandelion syrup recipe which I have been making for the past 4 years every spring. We eat it with pancakes instead of maple syrup and I also use the dandelion syrup in cooking and baking. I like to add a table spoon of it so my bread dough as a starter help for the yeast or sour dough. It also adds a little extra flavour to the bread. Dandelion syrup is also said to be a cough remedy if combined with ginger and used one teaspoon per day. But I have not tried this yet as we usually use thyme extract from our trusted pharmacy as a cough remedy which works wonders for my boys and they love taking it.

To make the dandelion syrup I send my boys out in the garden every spring with a bowl each and tell them collect me as many fully opened yellow Dandelion flower heads as you can. This is this years result!

Once those bowels are filled with flowers we all sit down and pluck off just the yellow bits of the flower.

Next I browse them off with cold water and then put them in a sauce pan for every 3 cups of yellow Dandelion tips ( loosely filled into cup not squashed) you add 4 cups of water.

Bring to boil and then let cool down and let stand at room temp (18-22C) for 12-18h.
Pour boiling water into the bottles and caps which you want to use for storing the dandelion syrup. This is to sterilise them. Next discard water in caps and pour either vodka, rum or any other drinkable high percent alcohol into the lids to sterilise them. That little amount of alcohol I pour into dandelion liquid, just to not waste it, it isn't really part of the recipe, it is more an ongoing joke between me and my husband, that I am not wasting his good stuff just because I want to sterilise my caps. Once you have all this prepared pour the dandelion-water-mix through a tight meshed sieve into another pot. Make sure all dandelion flower bits are caught by the sieve and are discarded onto your compost pile. Bring the remaining dandelion infused water to a boil and add for every 4 cups of it 500 grams of raw brown sugar and the juice and zest of one organic lemon.

Leave at mild boil with no lid for at least 10 mins stirring it most of the time.
Fill into your sterilised bottles screw lids on and store in fridge for up to a year!

The dandelion syrup is a versatile addition to your food. A bottle will go a long way, similar to maple syrup or golden syrup. It is a great substitute for sweetening with something other than the usual sugar, maple syrup or honey. Especially in the vegan kitchen where the cook is also thinking green and doesn't want to use maple syrup or rice syrup for various reasons (making and transport would be two major ones coming to my mind) this is a great addition to the pantry. Nearly anyone with a backyard has Dandelions, they are easy to spot and identify. There isn't really much where you can go wrong and if you are new to foraging, this one would make a great start.

What was your first foraging experience? Mine were Blueberries and wild garlic both in an old forrest.

I hope you enjoye this recipe.

Dandelion Pesto - Because Dandelions are more than just a weed!

2017-05-17T14:48:00.001+01:00

Most people would see Dandelions as weeds, but trust me if I tell you they are not just full of yumminess but also have many health advantages.

Dandelions are not just a rich source of the vitamins A, B complex, C & D. They also contain minerals like iron, potassium or zinc. In herbal medicine is often used for liver and kidney disease, skin problems or even as part of a cough medicine. As a kid I never knew their real name I only knew them under the not very nice name "piss a beds". Today, when I looked a little closer into the medicinal properties the connection struck me for the first time, because our ancestors gave them this not so polite name, because Dandelions are a very potent diuretic, which in lay man words means they make your kidneys produce a lot of urine, hence young kids with less bladder control might wet their bed during the night.

Apart from adding a few leaves into our salads I make dandelion syrup every spring and dandelion pesto every couple of weeks. I am working on a post for the syrup, but today I want to share the dandelion pesto recipe with you.

You start by grinding 80 grams parmesan cheese and put aside.
Roast 60 grams pine kernels in a pan with no oil.

put ground cheese, roasted pine kernels into your food processor bowl and add
80 grams young dandelion leaves (the older the more bitter),

1 tablespoon honey or dandelion syrup (more if leaves of dandelions are a bit older hence more bitter)
150 grams olive oil good quality!
1/2 tsp salt
some pepper (preferred red but black will do if not at hand)
zest of half a lemon

1-2 cloves of garlic.

Pulse in food processor until you have reached pesto consistency. Taste and maybe add more honey/dandelion syrup if it is too bitter for your taste. But give the bitterness a chance before you sweeten it away! You know why? Our tongue has taste buds for sweet, for salty, for sour and for bitter? While the first ones get used regularly the bitter ones don't get used much at all in our day and age. But we should get back into the habit of using them! If you are one of those that hasn't used their bitter tasting taste buds in a while, you might dislike the first try, taste again, it will grow on you and eventually you will get addicted to a certain extend! Serve with pasta, on a sandwich or on a burger or on fried potatoes with melted feta cheese or any other use you can think of!

The Dandelion Pesto will keep in the fridge just make sure it is always covered with a layer of olive oil. The longest I have kept it without going off was 3 weeks, but I only used clean cutlery and storage container! It might have lasted longer, I can't say. It simply was empty at this stage not gone off!
One little side note: When foraging for your dandelion leaves, please be aware of where you pick them. You don't want to pick them along the most popular doggy walk lane and if you pick them outside of your garden be aware of Echinococcus multilocularis if this is a problem in your area! As you don't heat pesto up enough to kill these larvaes.

But don´t be put off by this. Just watch were you forage and stay safe! And this is not just for Dandelions, I mean in general!

And with this I bid you good bye for today and hope you enjoy the dandelion pesto as much as I do!

refurbish that withered teak wood chair and give it a new look and safe a lot of money

2017-04-24T10:00:00.000+01:00

I take it, you all have figured out by now that I can be a bit of a save the environment nutter! So here is my appeal to you to not kick your old withered looking teak wood garden chair into the land fill and make it grow even bigger! Rather, spruce it up! And if I can´t make you see the impact on the environment let me show you the economical impact it will have on your wallet!

This teak wood chair was purchased in 2001 and never got any extra love. It was parked on a balcony all year around. I just checked online, a similar one would now cost new 149€. So if you instead buy a can of teak oil for 12.99€ (that will last for many chairs and a table) and invest 2 hours of your time I come up with the following calculations:
149€ minus 12.99€ = 136,01€
Divided by two hours of work it comes to 68,05€ per hour of work that you safe.

Now there are not many people that make that hourly rate at work AFTER tax has been deducted (and in some countries pension and state health insurance).

So here is the big question: How many hours do you have to spend at your day job to pay for one chair? Would you rather go work this many hours in your day job to be able to buy a new chair? Or invest roughly 2hours of your spare time and have an old chair look like new and safe the environment? If you still say you want to shop for new ones, than please don´t trow your old ones on your local landfill mountain, but either put them on craigslist or your countries equivalent. Or donate them to good will, cancer research shops or red cross shops. You´ll be doing a double good deed, not just make someone else happy but safe the nature!

Have I convinced you?
If yes, here are the instructions on how to spruce up your old teak wood chair:

First you brush it off with a steel brush. Get all the moss, dirt, bird poo and other grossnesses off.

this is what the old withered chair looked like before I got
started

Next step get a small bucket of water and a sponge. I reuse mine! I always throw them into the hot wash after a few days, and once they reach the end of life time, after what feels like a gazillion of washes, I use them for projects like this. Start scrubbing off the grey layer on the teak wood. It comes off fairly easy. The water gets filthy pretty fast, therefor you will need to change it several times. I don't add soap to the water as it will dry the wood even more and the grey layer came off just fine without. There is no need to stress the wood even more.

This is what those sponges look like after a gazillion of washer cycles! Don´t throw them out, reuse them! Safe money and the environment!

left side is before scrubbing with water, right side after

grey goo needs to be wiped off with a soft cloth before applying the teak oil.

Clean bits and pieces of the grey goo off with a soft cloth and
now let the chair dry thoroughly in the sun.

Fully cleaned and nearly dry chair.

Once it is dry get gloved up and another sponge and start applying the teak oil. Read your teak oils instructions, mine could get a second layer after only 10 minutes. So by the time I finished the chair I could start again at the top as the 10 minutes had passed already.

refinished teak wood chair

Most teak wood furnitures should be happy after 2 layers. But this chair hadn't seen any love in 16 years so I gave it a third layer. After 10 minutes I wiped off all excess oil that hadn't been soaked up. This is an important step as it will leave staines if you don't do it or leave it too late.

Now doesn't it look like new? Wasn't´t it well worth the time?

Now stow it away safely to let it dry for 48 hours and after that you can park your derrière on it again and enjoy a cuppa coffee.
BTW teak oil is not made from teak wood, it is just a product made to preserve the wood! It usually contains linseed oil and can be used to preserve other woods, too! Wich will be one of my next projects! You can find out more about teak wood and teak oil here.

Easy Carrot Bread Recipe

2017-04-18T11:14:00.000+01:00

I have baked a lot of bread over the last 6 years and this easy carrot bread loaf recipes became one of my boys current favourites. That´s why I thought I would share it with you.

Easy Carrot Bread Recipe. Makes one loaf of carrot bread.

This carrot bread recipe is really very simple.

Start with shredding 125 grams of carrots

fresh carrots make this bread extra moist

add
330 grams of fresh whey at room temperature (Click here and here to find out how to make your own. Or use buttermilk if you don't have any whey at hand)

15-20 grams of fresh yeast at room temperature (If you live in Ireland and have no access to fresh yeast, you can also use dried yeast. You will need roughly one bag. But I am afraid your Carrot bread will turn out less fluffy)
1 teaspoon of honey
Stir well. If you are making this in a food processor, that can heat, set it on 37C/98F for 2 mins. This will speed up the rising of your dough.

125 grams of whole wheat flour
125 grams of rye flour
250 grams of plain (not the self rising type!) flour. If you have only plain flour, you can also use just 500 grams of normal flour and leave out the rye and whole wheat, the outcome will be like a baguette/french bread with carrots. But I find it tastes a little bland compared to the above option.

add 1 heaped teaspoon of salt
and 2 tablespoons of orange juice (only if using rye and whole wheat flour, you won't taste the orange juice, but it takes the bitterness of whole wheat or rye flour. It will help get kids to eat it or some husbands as a matter of fact...)
Now the most important step, knead the dough for 10 minutes! It will improve the texture of your bread.
Line a loaf pan or butter it well.
Fill your dough into the loaf pan and place it in a warm spot. Good options are a sunny spot on the window sill, a window sill with the heater on underneath or my preference in our house is leaving it on top of our coffee maker. It has a heated plate to keep cups warm, which makes it the perfect spot. If the spot you picked is warm enough your dough will have doubled its size within an hour if you used fresh yeast. With dried it can take a few hours. Preheat the oven to 250C/480F and bake for 8-10 minutes. After that I lift the loaf out of the pan (I just catch the baking sheet and pull it out) and place the bread upside down on the baking tray. This way the bottom gets well baked too and the top doesn't burn. I find with the usual kitchen oven this is a good compromise as they can't reach the temperatures that the professional ovens in a bakery reach. After turning it I reduce the heat to 200C/390F and bake it for another 10 minutes. Usually the bread is baked after this, sometimes it needs an extra 5 minutes. If you knock your knuckles on the bottom of the bread and it sounds hollow it is baked!

Enjoy a slice of fresh baked still warm bread with some melting butter!

Banana Chocolate Waffles - a good & fast way to use up those giraffe coloured overripe bananas

2017-04-08T20:19:00.000+01:00

Are You guilty of collecting some of those ripe bananas and then let them end unused in the compost?

Well, join to the club! I decided I need to fight this wasting! So from now on I will come up with uses!
Here is my first experiment. As so often it involves the waffle iron!

Mash 1-2 ripe bananas (depending how intense you like the taste) with a fork

add
juice of half a lemon
50 gr chopped dark (70%) chocolate

2 Tbsp real rum
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups (non raising) plain flour
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or whey. I could imagine roasted hazelnut milk to make this extra special, too. Unfortunately I had non at hand.
1 egg
2 very heaped tsp homemade vanilla sugar
3 heaped tsp of raw brown sugar
80 grams of butter at room temperature chopped into smaller chunks
Mix all well and bake in your waffle Iron, waffle for waffle and enjoy the goodness!

How to make your own yummylicious peanut butter or any other nut butter

2017-03-23T10:20:00.000+00:00

Did you ever look at a label of peanut butter and wondered why it needs all those ingredients? Well, it doesn't! It only takes two! Peanuts and a little bit of salt. The salt is necessary otherwise your butter will taste stale. It has the same impact in peanut butter as it has in bread baking. If you get the amount just right, you will not taste the salt but your butter will taste yummylicious! Two little and you have stale tasting peanut butter. And too much, well that needs no further explanation....

While the process of making your own nut butter literally only takes 5-10 minutes the preparation with cracking and peeling the nuts seems to take for ever at times. As we all love the peanut butter I get everybody to help me with this time consuming job. It is amazing what four little hands can speed up a job like this. Admittedly not all peanuts end in the food processor with little helpers like these. But they do need a bit of an incentive to keep them going.

peanuts

peanuts ready to go into food processor

For a small jar of peanut butter you need around 250 grams of peeled peanuts. And roughly half a teaspoon of salt. Rather start with a little less, taste and add more during the process.
Pour your peanuts in your food processor. The following settings and procedure really depends on your food processor. I just mention the two different ones to demonstrate that you might have to play around a little to find the perfect setting for your set-up. So don´t get discouraged if you start and with a low setting and it doesn't work right away. Just keep going. My old one needed high speed and 10 minutes to get anywhere, my new one does a better job on medium speed (and only 5 minutes) as the bowl is to big and it just gets stuck at the side if I turn the setting too high. Your nuts will turn from little shreds to a sticky ball and finally the oils will get released and it will be a glossy shiny paste. During the process heat is released. This makes the butter a bit runny, but once it´s filled in jar and stored in the refrigerator, it is just perfect! I in general store ours in the fridge. I am not sure how well it would last at room temperature, but I might just be overcautious. I have simply never tried it. I have also never reached end of shelf life with this homemade peanut butter, simply for the fact that it will be eaten long before this.

homemade peanut butter

In organic stores you can buy peanut butter with no other additives, they usually have set in a way that all solids are at the bottom and you have all oils on top and need steering before use. I guess this is as they have been stored for a longer period of time before they are sold. I don´t get this with the homemade one. But I could imagine it happens if you store it unused for a while.

homemade peanut butter

Once you have tried homemade peanut butter you will not look back at the store bought one again!

With this method you can make any nut butter, we have also tried Macadamia butter, almond butter and hazelnut butter and one of my favourites is pumpkin seed butter. I got the idea once while looking for something for a friend that has serious sleep issues and there is a lot of tryptophan in pumpkin seeds which is used to help people with insomnia. So we made this pumpkin seed butter for plain nutritional reasons, but it turned out to be a very tasty experiment.

Now I´ll let you go and enjoy your PBJ Sandwich (or my personal favourite a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich!)