…soaking up the lush green, the misty mornings and the warm September sun.
September in England
garden games
liqueur de noix in four stages…
A short progress report and some photos of my liqueur de noix experiment:
Right now it looks like poison and smells like furniture polish. Do you have any wood furniture you would like to have treated with a sugar/alcohol/noix solution?
Green smoothie fever
I’ve recently been hooked on the green smoothie fever, all thanks to Victoria Boutenko and her two books “Green for life” and “Green Smoothie”. Here is my own little introduction to the power juice and detox wonder:
Green smoothies typically contain at least 1 cup of water, leafy green vegetables and fruit, and often small amounts of secret power foods. The green smoothie can be served as breakfast, lunch or dinner because it is so wholesome and filling. It supplies the body with everything it needs ( = energy, minerals, and water) in it’s purest form. Therefore it is the perfect detox food.
How to make a green smoothie:
First of all you need a blender, but not just any blender!! You need a blender with at least 1000watts, otherwise your smoothie won’t be smooth. I have a “Vitamix” but any brand should do the trick.
To get started you could find recipes in Vicoria Boutenko’s books or her website, randomly on the internet or you start experimenting straightaway using my list of ingredients.
greens:
- swiss chard
- collard greens
- parsley
- kale
- romaine lettuce
- carrot green
- beetroot green
- spinach
fruit:
- banana
- apple
- orange
- coconut
- pineapple
- mango
- melon
- strawberries
- raspberries
- blueberries
- dates or agave syrup for additional sweetness
power foods:
- chia seeds and psyllium seeds (rich in minerals and amino acids and for a pudding-like consistency)
- ground flaxseed (nutty flavour and creamy consistency)
- aloe vera juice
- wheatgrass juice
- coconut water
My current favourite recipe is:
1 bunch of swiss chards
1 apple
1 banana
1 cup of coconut water
1 cup of water
(On the left side of the photo with chia seeds, on the right side without).
I’d love to know which recipe is your favourite!
Making Scones
Another recipe from the famous Rose Bakery in Paris! For quite a while I have fancied Rose’s maple syrup scones. When my daughter and our friend Lenka felt like trying out some new recipes for a tea party I seized my opportunity and suggested the scones. Equipped with the BREAKFAST-LUNCH-TEA cookbook and all the necessary ingredients and tools, making scones for the first time went very smooth.
Rose Carrarini doesn’t exaggerate saying that these scones smell like heaven when they just come out of the oven! They are soft and light and warm and taste great with any topping (even tomato paste, as I discovered the next day).
Maple syrup scones
260g (1 3/4 cups) plain flour
80g (1/2 cup) wholewheat flour
13g (1/2 cup) rolled oats
1 very heaped tablespoon baking powder
1 very heaped tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
160g (3/4 cup) butter, cut into pieces, plus extra for greasing
4 tablespoons maple syrup
about 4 tablespoons milk
1 egg, beaten
Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and grease a baking tray with butter.
Sift the plain and wholewheat flours into a bowl and mix in the oats, baking powder, sugar and salt.
Add the butter and rub in wit your fingers until the mixture resembles fresh breadcrumbs.
In another bowl, mix together the syrup and 4 tablespoons milk.
Make a well in the middle of the flours and oats and pour in the syrup and milk mixture. Use a fork to work it into the dry ingredients. Finish by hand: just lightly bring everything together to form a firm but softish dough. It must not be sticky at all.
On a lightly floured surface, pat or roll the dough into a solid shape about 3 cm thick. Using a 5cm cutter (or a shot glass) cut the dough into rounds and place them on a greased baking tray.
Glaze the tops with the beaten egg, and bake for 20-25 minutes until lightly golden.
Enjoy!
Contemporary Art – Homegrown
Every year for 2 months the Ostrale invites national and international artists to take part in a remarkable event at a historical site. The Hans-Erlwein-slaughterhouse offers 15.000 m² exhibition space and an outdoor area more than three times larger. You hardly encounter other visitors and especially a grey sky adds to the post-apocalyptic atmosphere, that creeps upon me in the old halls.
With the issue “homegrown” the OSTRALE/ 012 is dedicated to the self-cultivated or self-grown and is principally asking for localizing creative impetuses in a spatial, temporal and cultural context.
Focus of attention is the relationship between tradition and innovation.
There were works that really stood out to me. I will just post a very small selection.
Heinz Bert Dreckmann, City
Fabian von Spreckelsen, Trophy Marlin, Elephant and Deer
Sybille Walenciak, work in progress
Nikola Dicke, Tapisserie
Maria Trialoni, Retrospective Re-statements
Michael Wahrenberg, Die Türe zum Erfolg
See you at OSTRALE/ 013!
for a good day at the beach
1 hour’s drive to Senftenberg.
1 cup of reggae.
1 big splash of sunshine.
1 pineapple smoothie each.
8 teaspoons of fun and laughter.
2 or more great friends.
Mix all the above, bury your toes in the sand and enjoy!
a spontaneous experiment: liqueur de noix
Today I cut some branches of my walnut tree. I felt bad for the bucketful of green walnuts that should go to waste, so I began a small search for a simple way to make use of the semi-ripe nuts. David Lebovitz in his blog “Sweet life in Paris” made the convincing suggestion: Liqueur de noix!
In 2 months I will know whether this spontaneous experiment was a success.
Julie’s clafouti
A clafouti is a great summer cake. It has no crumbly, greasy “floor”, but is juicy and moist and fruity and still doesn’t fall apart. Julie, originally from France, to be precise la Bretagne, makes the best clafouti I have ever tried. Of course I had to get the recipe and her permission to pass it on to my dear readers!
Julie’s clafouti
150g flour
4 eggs
80-100g sugar
80g melted butter
1/2l lukewarm milk
300g fruit (cherries, plums, blueberries….)
Butter your baking dish.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Blend eggs and sugar.
Add melted butter, flour, milk in that order.
Spread out fruit on the baking dish.
Pour the batter over the fruit.
Bake for approx. 35mins.
Dust with powdered sugar.
Serve cold or warm.
quick gazpacho
| … quick photo, before the last bit of delicious gazpacho disappeared in my mouth. |
Not only the southern part of the Península cools itself down with chilled gazpacho during the summer months, I loved to savour it under the hot sun of the Alta Meseta, in Salamanca, where I spent my student days. It’s easy to prepare if you’ve got a mortar, a blender and plenty of field grown, sun riped vegetables: tomato + cucumber + bell pepper + onion +garlic + white bread + chilled water, salt, olive oil and vinegar = traditional Spanish gazpacho.
There is a big variety of gazpachos, the green one, the white one, the Ajo Blanco, the Salmorejo – even the traditional red gazpacho is prepared differently depending on the region and personal taste. (Hmmm, I’ll never forget the mouth-watering Ajo Blanco my friend’s grandmother used to bring along in a small plastic milk can.)
For a basic recipe I recommend you always take tomatoes, cucumber and bell pepper, salt, vinegar and olive oil. For the rest you may play around with garlic, onions, white bread or celery sticks…. Anyway, gazpacho is always hearty and satisfying and, in addition, it provides you with salt and vitamins when it’s sweating hot!
My quick gazpacho comes out of the blender and is prepared in a minute ( well, 5minutes..)
2 ripe, uncooked tomatoes
1/2 cucumber, unpeeled
1 spring onion
2 celery sticks
1 red bell pepper
1 glass of chilled water
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
Chop the vegetables and blend in a blender. Chill.
If you want to add bread and garlic, mash salt, garlic and bread in a mortar before blending with the vegetables. It’s worth the effort. Enjoy!