Diamonds and Rust

I am a bit sour because I didn’t think of it myself.
For years now if a recipe called for a few drops, or spoonfull
of lemon juice I would cut a lemon in half and squeeze.
I did know if I rolled it back and forth on a hard surface first juice would flow more freely, and I have always done this.
Of course after cutting, the lemon wouldn’t last too long.

Today I read that if you stuck a needle into it (Presumably a fine knitting needle) the exact amount needed could be sqeezed out and the lemon would remain closed and fresh much longer.

Now why didn’t I think of that.

Everyone seems to love Dandelions.
I saw this Recipe in the Le Menu. Try it if they aren’t all picked.

Dandelion Soup

1 Bunch of Spring Onions, chopped
1 Handfull of Dandelion Leaves,chopped
2 Soup spoons of Semolina
600ml of Vegetable Bouillion
100ml of double cream
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Fry Onions lightly in Butter,add Semolina and Bouillion.
Cook slowly in pan half covered by lid for 15 minutes.
Mash together if possible with a mixer.
Add cream and heat,add finely chopped dandelion leaves.
Add salt and pepper as liked.
Serve in warmed bowls,decorated with a swirl of cream and what else-
a small dandelion and leaf

The sun is shining.Birds are singing.Our garden is already full of flowers. It is a good day.Especially as I am about to be spoilt. Why?
Because it is Mothers Day in Switzerland,and I am one.
I have grown out of the role of course,my daughters have long turned into my friends,which is I suppose as big a compliment as any mother could wish. But I am getting more today. An organised Brunch in the garden and a big bouquet of wild flowers like the ones they used to pick when they were small.

If you are celebrating in your country today.
Happy Mothers Day.

You might think the Euro and Potatoes have nothing in common but you would be wrong.

“Swisspatat” the Swiss Potato Industry Organisation says it does.
It is the Worlds best loved vegetable, and Football is the best loved sport. These bind.

Therefore Swisspatat want to widen the horizons of Football Fans with Potato Recipes
from the participating Euro countries, menu ideas and theme evenings are being arranged to waken the interest of fans for other cultures.
Whether “Swedish Potato Pot”, Tschech”Potato Packets”,or “Drunken Potatoes” from Portugal.
Tubors tie.
Infos can be found under www.kartoffel.ch

Yesterday we were invited to a friends’ Restaurant.He is a very good cook,in fact he graduated from the famous Ecole Hôtelière in Lausanne.That doesn’t stop him cooking plain,and inexpensive food well.
So he made something for us which he knows my husband loves. A dish that just the title will start every Swiss abroad drooling.

G’HACKETS und HOERNLI mit AEPFELMUES (minced beef and macaroni with apple sauce)

Very quickly made, thrifty, filling, and delicious.

Now no Chef tells you his exact recipe,but I will let you Know the basics and you can experiment with the gravy.

400,gr. of minced beef, if possible minced twice.
2 large onions chopped finely
1 clove of garlic,crushed
1 laurel leaf.
2 tablespoons of flour
1 liter of beef or vegetable boullion
salt and pepper
oil to fry.

Fry meat quickly at high temperature,add onions and garlic, salt and pepper. Fry lightly together.
Sprinkle and mix with flour.
Add warm bouillon and cook gently for five to ten minutes.

400gr, Macaroni, if possible fresh, cooked in lots of hot salted water
2 large onions fried in plenty of butter or oil.
Pour over cooked macaroni before serving.(Optional,as unhealthy but good)

Enough peeled and sliced apples to make quantity of sauce desired.
Cook in very little water with sugar if liked.
Sieve or mash.
Add some ground cinnamon to taste.
Serve seperately.

En Guete

Last year approximately 100,000 tons of grain was used to make biological fueI.
I love the colour green, but I love a fresh loaf of bread more.

1 Swiss Frank per day, per person.

Worldwide at least a billion people must live on this amount. That hardly pays for basic food.

The price for grain is exploding because it is being used for bio fuel.

The price of rice rose by 75% in the last two monthes. The price of corn rose over the last twelve monthes by 120%. One of the causes being merchant speculation.

It takes 200 kilo of corn to manufacture enough Ethanol to fill a 95 Liter tank. With this amount of corn a person could feed themselves for a year.

2102 Million tones of grain was harvested in the world in 2007. Half of it was used for animal food and biological fuel.

Work the rest of it out for yourselves.

Can we let this go on?

From my earlier Dandelion post you will have read that Dandelions are good for you.
A salad made with the young leaves, picked before the plant starts to flower and mixed with an Aceto Balsamico salad dressing tastes really delicate and willl do wonders for your liver.

Salad might not be for you, but try Dandelion Pizza.

Roll out a round of Pizza pastry,
Spread with Tomato Sugo,
Cover with cut pieces of Mozzarella Cheese (about 100gr.)
Sprinkle with crumbled bits of Pecorino Cheese (about 50gr.)
Lastly cover with 3-4 slices of Parma Ham,and freshly milled pepper.

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 2oo° C

Make a salad dressing with 1 Tablespoon of Aceto Balsamico,preferably rosso,and 2Tablespoons of Olive Oil. Salt and Pepper.

Mix with 50gr. of clean dry Dandelion leaves.
Spread over cooked hot Pizza,and serve immediately.

En Guete
Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I saw a Dandelion in bloom for the first time this year.

What a promise it made of warm weather and blue skies.

It reminded me of my childhood when we played in the fields and got the milk of the plant all over our hands and clothes.

Our Mothers were angry because the stains wouldn’t come out, and we feared that we would really wet the bed-for that’s what they said about picking Dandelions.

We didn’t have Coke in those days,but my Grandmother used to buy something that looked like it from the Lemonade Man who came around twice a week. It was called Dandelion and Burdock and I thought it was horrid.

I knew then that Dandelions were not poisonous,but I certainly didn’t want to swallow them in any form.

Now I know that there is hardly a plant growing in our fields that is more versatile, and like many spring flowers detoxifying.
From the first leaves you can make a delicate salad.Cooked the leaves are a bit like Spinach.

If you have a lot of patience you can even make a type of sparkling wine.

Roast the roots in Autumn and you can use them to replace Coffee grains. You can also make a kind of savoury paste if after grating them you mix them with Olive Oil.

The flowers are also known as “Poor man’s Saffron” and gives a Risotto a new note.

Dandelions are probably the first flower that children learn to love. Not only for their colour in a bunch but as a plaything when they are in seed.

Did you know that the seeds of a “Parachute” if blown into the air can travel up to 10 Kilometers.

Just the things for gardeners.

Sunday Morning Breakfast in Switzerland wouldn’t be the same without Zopf.

Fresh Plait, or Zopf as we say , thickly spread with Emmentaler butter and home made jam is a feast for the Gods.

It’s easy to make and a hundred times better than any mass produced supermarket product.

Beginners might find the plaiting a bit complicated.There are different ways of doing it,but if you do get stuck use the same method as you would for hair.

This is the easiest way.

This is a little more complicated.

Here is the Recipe: Swiss Zopf

30g fresh yeast (dry if unavailable)

1teaspoon of sugar

125g butter

3.75 deciliter of milk

1 teaspoon of salt

750g white flour

2 egg yolks mixed with 1 Tablespoon of oil

Mix yeast with sugar and leave to dissolve. ( If using dry yeast mix as instructed on packet)

Dissolve salt in the hand warm milk,add melted butter then add egg mixture.

Sieve flour into bowl,make a hollow and add dissolved yeast,then slowly add milk and egg mixture. Mix together.
Need for about 10 minutes .

Cover with a wet cloth or cling film.Place in bowl and leave in a warm place for about an hour, until dough has doubled in volume.

Or leave, covered by film in fridge over night.

Need again for 5-10 minutes.

Divide into strips and plait.

Leave on greased oven tray to rest for 15 minutes.

Brush with egg yolk and bake in pre-heated oven at 200°C for about 40 minutes. Lower shelf.
Bread is done if it sounds hollow when tapped on base with knuckles.

If you have enjoyed this bread while visiting Switzerland I am sure you will want to make it yourself.

As an alternative it can be formed into a small or large wreath at Eastertime,the centre later filled with coloured eggs resting on green cress. Or form into chicken or other birds. Children love helping with this.
If you prefer a sweeter dough try adding a little sugar and dried sultanas.

Enjoy being creative.

Since the scales in my local medical man’s practice pointed out lately that I had actually put on 8 kilos in weight since I stopped going to work in March I have realised I must start being cruel to myself. It probably doesn’t seem too alarming, I now weigh 66 kg at a height of 5′ 8″. But I know………….

° 1 overweight kilo is equal to the weight of 8 kilos on the knee joints.( x8!)
° I have a wardrobe full of expensive trousers that I can’t get into.

° My favourite food, cakes,pastries,chocolate are just not healthy.

° And that there are tens of other reasons why we shouldn’t eat to kill either ourselves or animals.
° That I must do something about it.

Luckily a friend phoned soon after to ask me whether I would like to go to a talk by a nutritionist and natural health practitioner,who had cured something that she was suffering with by rearranging her eating habits. And that when our colleagues in white coats were already sharpening their knives.

I went along open minded but sceptical.

The practitioner herself was underweight and you could see it. Her husband, also there, didn’t have a pound to much and neither did most of the sixty people in the audience, a lot of them her patients.

She told us she had been diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis at the age of twenty one with the prognosis of being in a wheel chair at thirty five,she was now fifty two, and since she changed her way of eating completely, about ten years ago,she had never had a relapse. She didn’t say what if any medication she was taking.

Her audience were each given an unpeeled almond nut and told to chew it 40 times before swallowing, as not chewing properly was the first sin we all commit. Not breathing deeply enough the second, and not drinking enough the third.

And so it went on ,but I must say it sounded very feasible.

We must listen more to our bodies, and if we have a craving for a certain food then we should eat it because the damage is worse if we don’t, stress caused by declining a bodily wish is the greater of the two evils. But keep the portion small,and if the temptation comes too frequently chew it but spit it out before you swallow it.!

I don’t like meat much so I would have no trouble in giving that up, apart from feeling it not necessary to breed and keep animals in so we can eat them. Non red meat would be allowed in small quantities,but then you must eat nothing else for the rest of the day that isn’t cooked because meat stays in the stomach for twelve hours and would prove too strenuous for the digestion. Cow milk isn’t good for the digestive system and arteries. If we were meant to drink milk after baby age women’s bodies would have been made differently.Cow milk protein(Kasein) when mixed with calcium proves almost indissoluble in our stomachs and clogs all arteries and veins. We can get all the proteins we need from other sources we were told. –And I just love jogurt and Welsh Rarebit made with a good slashing of butter on the toast. Bread if it is not gluten free is also a no go, thing to say nothing of cakes etc. made out of wheat flour. Gluten glues the intestines together.! Chocolate is still O K when it is made of 100% Cocoa.

Our sweeteners should be honey,dates and raw cane sugar,dried fruit and bananas. Other sugar products,Cola,Sweetened Ice Tea,Lemonade etc. damages the flora of the intestines,apart from poisoning the nerves and ruining teeth.

Depending on weight drink 2 to 3 liters of fluid,water,tea,fresh fruit and vegetable juice daily. Drink before meals and not during or after.

If possible don’t eat carbohydrates and proteins together in the same meal.

Coffee and spirits? forget them,but a glass of wine is tolerated.

OK so I didn’t really come out a freshly baked Vegan,but it all made a lot of sense.

I have tried to keep to some of the rules and haven’t had any real cravings.( I did eat a small Brownie that someone brought to Art Classes yesterday)

I’m telling myself I must be a bit healthier, and my trousers aren’t quite as tight as they were two weeks ago.

Why don’t you try it for Lent

Illustration,thanks to istockphoto.com