Did you know that yesterday, April 22, was Earth Day?
Earth Day Smoothie
Inspired by Zain who created an Earth Day Smoothie using ingredients from earth, ocean and sky:
1 banana
1 apple
a handful of red oak leaf lettuce (gives the nice earthy colour!)
a small piece of ginger
1 ts tahini
1 cup of coconut water
1 handful of icecubes
4 rose-red, fresh stalks of rhubarb, trimmed and sliced
3 tablespoons demerara sugar
1 tablespoon rose water
1/2 l water
Put the ingredients into a saucepan and let them simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool down and repose. Strain the juice into a recipient. I store it in the fridge for max. 3 days.
The flavours of rose water and vanilla harmonize perfectly with the rhubarb. Just make sure to not use too much of the “perfumes”. By any means rhubarb must remain the diva!
I’m looking forward to my super fruity breakfast tomorrow morning: pink grapefruit, pears, banana, apple, flaxseed oil, almonds, goji berries( still to be soaked) and chia seeds. All mixed in a blender and poured over a bowl of white rice. A cup of light green tea would match perfectly, what do you think?
I always remember my mother and my grandmother, who were living very close, making this braided bread at Easter when I was a child. My mother continues baking it until today for her Easter brunch. It’s one of the traditions that pass on through generations.
How Grandma makes a braided Easter bread
500g flour
1 sachet dry yeast
50g sugar
1 pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/8 l milk
50g butter
1 egg yolk to brush over the finished braid.
Before you start, make sure that all ingredients have room temperature, the milk can even be luke warm.
Mix flour, dry yeast, sugar and the pinch of salt in a bowl. Add eggs, butter and milk and stir well. Knead the dough until it becomes elastic. Add flour if the dough becomes too sticky. Once finished dust the dough with flour, cover the bowl with a dish cloth and set in a warm place for about one hour. The dough should have doubled in size.
Divide the dough into three equal strands and braid them gently. Braid from the middle out to an end, repeat with the other side. Tucks the ends under to seal. Place the braid on a baking sheet, cover with a dish cloth and let it rise for another 1/2 hour.
Beat one egg yolk and brush it over the braid. Bake in a 180° preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until light brown.
If you like you can sink soft-boiled, dyed eggs into the dough before baking. Grandma never did. She always served the eggs separately.
Happy Easter!
The best way to flush out toxins is simple: lots and lots of water. I start my day off drinking water from a bottle right in the bathroom and continue throughout the day finishing at least one big jug more.
1. Recommended amount: at least 2 litres daily.
2. Have a glass of water with your cup of coffee/ expresso or black tea because caffeine dehydrates the body.
3. Add natural flavours like lemon, mint, cucumber or lemon balm. Simply drop your chosen ingredients into a jug of water and chill for at least one hour.
4. Water is a carrier of information and has a memory. Information can be stored for a long period of time in the water showing certain clusters of the molecules. The results of Masaru Emoto’s scientific research on this topic are amazing.
5. Add an organic mineral salt to your bath. My personal favourites are Himalayan salt and the Jentschura Alka Bath. A high concentration of salt in your water will pull toxins out of your pores and leave you with a deeply cleansed and healthy skin. After a 30 minutes’ bath you will feel exhausted but really good. I would compare the feeling to a rewarding workout or a stay in the sauna.
6. Cleanse your eyes with a 3% salt solution. I do it nearly every day and love the refreshing and relaxing effect.
AUGURI to all those who celebrate their birthday today!! My kisses and wishes fly to Florence!
Sarabeth’s Expresso Cake makes for a true birthday cake: the batter tolerates the fanciest baking moulds, it’s moist and smooth. With its subtle coffee flavour the cake is perfect for the birthday breakfast.
butter for the pan
1 cup hot brewed coffee
3 tablespoons instant coffee, preferably expresso
3 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks)
2 cups superfine sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature, separated
for the coffee glaze:
2 tablespoons hot brewed coffee
1/2 teaspoon instant exoresso powder
1 tablespoon milk
2 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 180°C (350°F).
Combine the brewed coffee and expresso powder in a glass measuring cup; let cool.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl. In another bowl beat the butter until smooth.Gradually beat in the sugar, then add the vanilla, and beat until very light in colour and texture. One at a time beat in the yolks.
Reduce the mixer speed to low. Starting with the flour mixture, alternating with two equal additions of the cooled coffee, beat in the flour mixture, beating until smooth after each addition.
Whip the egg whites in a grease-free bowl until soft peaks form. Using a silicone spatula , stir about one fourth of the whites into the batter, then gently fold in the remaining whites.
Scrape the batter into the form and bake 30 minutes (small forms) or 55 minutes (one big form).
Cool on a wire rack.
To make the glaze, mix the brewed coffee and the expresso powder. Add the milk. Add the confectioner’s sugar and whisk until smooth. It should be thin and warm to the touch.
Slowly pour the warm glaze over the cake. Cool completely.
My dear readers, this is not a joke, I really mean one hundred cookies!
Antje passed by and brought me a nice little paper bag filled with some super healthy cookies. When I later asked her for the recipe, she sent me the below:
Mix the dry ingredients with the raisins. Melt the butter and dissolve the sugar in the liquid butter. Add the honey and stir well. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, stir and let cool down.
Stir again.
Presss dough into the plastic lid of a honey jar and discharge it on a baking sheet.
Bake the cookies for 15 minutes at 170-180°C.
A short extract of our email conversation:
B: Are you sure about the quantities? It seems to be a lot..
A: Yes, yields about 80-100 cookies, depending on the size, and this is only half the recipe
B: what the hell do you do with so many cookies?
A: they make you come over the winter and people love them, they are a kind of Lembas, you know, the elves’ bread in the Lord of the Rings…
I had a flu. Runny nose, sore throat, cough and fever.
So instead of throwing myself into the planned spring detox and sports in the (supposed) sunshine I’m spending my days lazily on the sofa, recovering, drinking hot English tea and trying to motivate myself to breathe the snowy air outside my warm cocoon not only for shovelling snow.
Snowboots and ski pants on, camera hidden under the parka I bravely headed into the forest. At least it was not cold (-2°C only).
On my way back from the lakes, just when in a sudden euphoria I considered buying a new pair of cross country skis as soon as possible, three enormous wild boars jogged by my side. I stopped walking, breathing, all terrified, trying to make myself invisible… Approximately 20 meters in front of me they crossed my path and disappeared in the forest again. I was not cool enough to take a photo. I’m sorry.
The question is, would it have been dangerous if I was closer? What would have happened if, for example, I went with an off-leash dog? Do boars find enough food after weeks of snow covered fields? Do they also run around when the sun is shining? I shall have to ask the Head of the game reserve…
I don’t cook a lot these days: simple things, vegetables with oil and vinegar, pasta, fish and rice.I just thought it would be nice to share my today’s beetroot salad with you. Firstly because it really was delicious, secondly because all this snow series needed a hint of colour.
Beetroot salad with apple and laurel
3 beetroots
1 apple
2 leaves of laurel
olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
Wash the beetroots, cover them with water and cook them about 20 minutes until soft. Peel and slice them. Peel and slice the apple and mix with the beetroot slices in a bowl. Dress with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Add the leaves of laurel. Let the salad rest at room temperature for at least one hour to allow the flavours to mingle.
Would be nice to accompany a boar roast as well, wouldn’ it?
But not for me, not now, I definitely don’t want to enrage the Big Boar Spirit….
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
