…….waterkefir

Posted on 29 October, 2014 by saskia

Read all the books about pro-biotic I wanted to make my own kefir, and lucky me Maaike had a extra badge of water kefir grains. And also she had a fig and 2 apricot, yes the dried ones. And know the mixture is bubbling and really alive in the kitchen! I can say this water kefir is really well managed, maybe next time I want to make it with tea, or I even saw you can do it with fruit juice……First get some extra grains. Because they will grow very fast! You can give it away or save them in the fridge for weeks in their own water, some sugar like 20 grams on 1 litre, no dried fruit and so on. refresh the water each week!
Why kefir is so good, because it got some good bacteria, bacteria what is really good for the intestinal flora. And when you have a good intestinal flora you have a better immune system! So it makes you healthier! But it is also important to eat pre-biotica, maybe more important then pro-biotica!

Ingredients for the water kefir (to make 1 litre)
90 gram of water kefir grains
water like 900 decilitre
1 dried fig without sulphite (because you will kill the grains otherwise, so use organic dried fruit)
2 organic dried apricots without sulphite
35 grams of organic palm sugar (every time I try to put less sugar)
1/2 organic lemon with peel

Kitchentools
a sieve without any metallic parts, because it will kill the grains (or some cheese cloth)
a bottle of glass for 1 litre of waterkefir
a bowl not of metallic

Ohh lalala……
Lets get ready, get all the ingredients, put them all together (I did water at last) in the bottle and stir softly without crashing the grains. The sugar has to be a little solved.
Now don’t do anything just put on the lid not to tight, because it will go gassy after a couple of hours. When you see the bubbles its a good sign. The bacteria are eating the sugar and the grains will move sometimes and will double themselves.
After 48 hours the mixture will be ready, take of the lemon and squeeze the juice out into the bowl. Take out also the dried fruit, you will see this has no taste anymore, so throw away!
Now get the sieve and put it on top of the bowl (no metal sieve, you will get the ‘water’ in the bowl and the grains in the sieve. The grains you can use again and if you have to much give it away. By putting them in a jar with some water and some organic sugar, refresh this once a week.

Enjoy the taste and maybe enjoy a better health!

sleep…and rice milk

Posted on 2 February, 2014 by saskia

The last days I am so busy with good stuff. Reading so much about Ayurveda, really every day I understand more about this lifestyle. Also I am experimenting a lot with recipes, went to the library for cooking books (this time Japanese) I have also a book from school were I am making pickles, whole food breakfasts and so on. Good for giving advise to anyone about food. Also I have to look some informative documentaries and my evening Dutch soap (bleh yes I am that kind of person :)). Where is the time to sleep, I have the feeling the days are too short. Of course my kids want attention too and I give it to them as a housemam 🙂
But with all the experiments I have a nice rice milk recipe, I don’t want to buy the one in tetra packages because there is still plastic in it and they poor the ‘milk’ hot into the packages, so Imagine what will happen with the ‘milk’ and plastic. Fresh is the word I like.

The recipe for a lot of rice milk
1 cup whole wheat rice
6 cups water
4 dried dates
some himalaya salt
(for variation maybe some spices, like cardamom,vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, pepper name it and experiment with the taste)

kitchentools
a cooking pan
a blender

Lets make it…….
Wash the rice first till the water isn’t cloudy any more. Get the cooking pan and poor in the water and rice. Put them on the gas and cook for 2 hours on low fire. After the two hours you blend the mixture together with the dates/salt and make a smooth liquid from it.
You have a thick rice milk now, put just some water too make the mixture the thickness you like.!
And voila poor them in bottles of glass and they are like 3 days preservable in the fridge.

Nice for a porridge, enjoy the taste. Last I mixed in some red dates also, really nice too. And if you like more sweet, put in some syrup or maybe you like spices into the milk more, just experiment

Enjoy

……….mushroom stock

Posted on 26 January, 2014 by saskia

This I have also from the book food as medicine by Ted Caldecott. I rather make my own stock, so there is not so much salt in it or other strange ingredients. Vegetable stock takes a long time, while this mushroom stock just take maximum 2 hours. And without much time to cook, this can be prepared easily in you r daily program. You don’t have to stir or stay all the time in the kitchen.
ok this is nice for a basic to make soup or for risotto. Enjoy making it

Ingredients
2-3 ounce/56-84 gram dried Chinese mushrooms
1-2 quarts/ 1/2-1 litre of water

Kitchentools
a strainer
a cooking pan

How to make…..
wash the mushrooms, soak them for 20 minutes. In the meanwhile relax!
When they soaked for 20 minutes. They are ready for cooking with the water, cook them for at least one hour to get a tasteful stock.
Get the strainer and filter the mushrooms out. You get a brown tanned water!
The mushrooms you don’t need anymore, you can put them on compost.
Enjoy!

first clients…….almond milk

Posted on 24 January, 2014 by saskia

3 days ago I had my first clients, ok to practice. I had to find out what they are for constitution and what dosha brings them out of balance. yes I am talking about the Ayurveda, I think I did it quite ok, have to learn much more but for the first time I am happy with the ‘diet’ I gave to the girls. One is already changing I had her on the phone, she really felt already some difference. (wow so quick)
Now I have a new mission, to look at many tongues and make a picture, so I can learn all differences and really learn about the shape of Vata/Kapha or pitta tongue and how to recognize imbalances.I am happy to choose this direction, i am happy also i found out what I really like….yes …finally…….after 32 years!
This is my last recipe I made, from the book Food as medicine by Todd Caldecot

Nice almondmilk
1 cup whole almonds soaked 24 hours in water
2-3 dates
1/2 vanilla stick
2-3 cardamom pods
3 cups water

kitchentools
a food processor/ blender
a meshstrainer
a bowl
a cooking pan

How to make
Soak the almonds for 24 hours, so they can get soft. After the 24 hours get rid of the water and poor the almonds in a blender together with the dates, the vanilla, cardamom pods and water, blend till it’s ‘smooth’ (3-5 minutes). Mix well till it gets like milk!
Get a mesh strainer and poor the milk through it into a bowl, I got some pulp in the strainer(I used this in the morning porridge). get the cooking pan and boil the milk for 5 minutes.
So that was the last step now you have almond milk a good replacement for normal milk, not to replace the vitamins, but as a liquid in dishes and so on!
This you can also do with other nuts, seeds, or maybe some other spices. Get creative and find out.
Store in the fridge for 3 days at highest, every time you use it again, reheat it! When you reheat it you will make it more easy to digest.
Thanks Todd for the great recipe, more recipes from him will come.Thanks school for let me read this book!

enjoy

making a bee hotel…

Posted on 11 January, 2014 by saskia

Last year it was the year of the bee, the bees are suffering at the moment, Many bees are dying in the hives. They really don’t have an explanation for it (not officially), but we think here it’s the chemicals they use for growing flowers.
In the Netherlands the dying of this very important insect is very high, maybe because we have a huge business with flowers selling, producing and growing!??
So I try to stimulate more the organic growing plants and bulbs.
And Albert Einstein said when there are no bees we can’t live and he’s right, this little creatures let it happen that fruit will pollinate. I heard in China they let childeren pollinate the flowers from pear trees and so on (this has an other reason, because not every flower gets pollinated). Is this the future?
Please help the bees a little make a bee hotel and let grow some organic flowers for the bees. Give them a warm place in your garden.
Here I will show you how to make a bee hotel, you can use so many stuff for this and can hang it in your fruit-tree on on your wall. You can choose 😉

Step one
Choose your shape I choose for 3 squares upon each-other, you can make a bigger one, make with nine little squares a big square, or make rectangles. Whatever you like!
Step two
choose the materials you want too fill the squares with, I choose bamboo sticks, hey and pine cones. But you can also take a piece of wood and dig holes in the wood or stone.
Step 3
I put in the materials and I made sure the materials won’t fall out of the rectangles, by wire tensioning, hold together by nails. (see also picture by step 1)step 4
You can close the back with some wood, I didn’t do because I will hang it against a wall ,I am too lazy) Too hang the hotel you make a hook on top.

step 5
Now the bee hotel is ready you can put it on the right place, like I wrote before, place it on a warm place. Not too low and really nice close to some flowers.

Hope the bees will like this 🙂

……clean your toilet without bleach

Posted on 27 December, 2013 by saskia

Funny to watch some television yesterday and see some interesting things, like how to clean the toillet without bleech. I definitely hate bleach but sometimes I thought you have to use it once in a while, because the toillet is getting brown inside (really terrifying).
But now I saw the solution and I am very happy with it, it works :). It is cheap and not soo bad for the environment and that is what we like,( I think), at least I do!
So lets clean the toilet with a eco smile! Recipe from sustainable susan, anyway a lovely site!

ingredients*
baking soda
vinegar

toilettools
a toilet brush

Whoopie……no poopie.(sorry for this ;))
Put in the toilet some baking soda, upon the baking soda you poor the vinegar. This will go bubbling so don’t get scared nothing is going to happen, wait till it’s not fizzing anymore. Get the toiletbrush (or whatever you like) and go into the toilet and clean and voila white as ever! (is it a disaster in your toilet do it once again and wait for 30 minutes, time to relax (I did it this way ;))

*sustainable susan

…..unpeel a tomato

Posted on 26 December, 2013 by saskia

Sometimes you must unpeel a tomato in the recipe, how to do this? It is very easy, you can buy canned ones, but i give the advise to buy fresh ones. The canned one is not so nutricious as the fresh one.

step 1 wash the tomatoes and get a cooking pan with some water

step 2 Put the cooking pan on the fire and bring it to a boil

step 3 Make a cross in the tomatoes, just in the peel (so not to deep)
step 4 put the tomatoes in the boiling water and wait till the peel is going to curl.
step 5 get them out (of course not by hand) and put them for a short time in water (so you won’t burn your hands when you get the peel off)

step 6 you can easy get the peel off!

how to make sourdough (starter) bread easy but long way……..

Posted on 24 October, 2013 by saskia

After I read many recipes about how to make sour dough I found a perfect recipe. It’s easy and you won’t throw anything away! Because I saw on a Dutch TV program how to make sour dough starter, but every day they threw away 100 gram of the mixture, so that will be 700 gram a week, nonsense I thought. (the program also showed us how many sour dough bread aren’t real sour dough bread, but bread with yeast and the taste of sour dough bread at least in the Netherlands). I made also one from the bread bible, you can see on a earlier post. But now I wanted to make every day sour dough bread!
Why sour dough bread?, because the phytic acid will be demolished by a long fermentation process, yeast bread is still full of phytic acid what isn’t really good for us.
I have the recipe for the sour dough starter from this site and if you are Dutch it is a great site about living self-sufficient.

The recipe of the starter
100 gram of meal (I used spelt but they say rye is really perfect as a starter)
100 grams of water

Kitchentools
a spoon to stir
a glass jar who is big enough for the dough to double in mass

Lets make………
Just put 100 gram of spelt meal and 100 gram of water together. Mix it very well till it’s a little sticky dough. Put on top a towel and some elastic to cover, set aside on a shelf. It must stand for one week, I stirred every 2 days the mixture. After one week you see bubbles in the mixture and the mixture is smelling sour! Every week feed this starter with a 1/2-1 cup of meal and 1/2 -1 cup of water and stir. He says this starter could get 20 years old, by only feeding him!!! Leave them outside the fridge and you can make the next day a new bread with the starter) otherwise put them in the fridge to keep it healthy. Before use you must see some bubbles in the starter, you see it’s active otherwise store it on a warm place for a while!
Anyway the starter is ready!

How make sour dough bread with the starter!
Ingredients
100 gram of the starter
100 gram of corn meal (you can also use 300 gram of spelt/wheat meal instead of 100 corn and 200 gram of spelt)
200 gram of spelt meal
100 gram of wheat flour
2 cups of water
(some seeds if you like)
(a pinch of salt if you like)

Kitchentools
a big bowl for let the bread raise
a moisten towel to cover bowl
a kneading machine or dough hook to mix the bread well
cake pan with some oil on the sides and bottom

It take a long time………..
So lets start to make the dough put in the meal and mix it with the starter and seeds of course in the big bowl. After poor in the water very slowly and stir well. Now you will have a nice not too sticky dough and not too dry of course just a elastic dough
I make dough at night so it can stand in the sill window cover for over night. (8 hours to raise is great for the bread)
In the morning I take the dough and again I knead it with my hands on the counter what is covered with a little flour so the dough won’t stick on the counter.
Give it a great massage and put the dough in a cake pan, the cake pan must be a little oily. Set aside for 1-2 hours again. Covered with a moisten towel.
Time to bake the bread after 2 hours, I bake it on +/-200 degrees Celsius for 20-30 minutes. The bread taste a little sour but I really like it!

how to make sauerkraut……

Posted on 12 October, 2013 by saskia

So nice to make, I learned at the urbaniahoeve. And I want to share with you. Sauerkraut is a fermentation process, it is made of cabbage. Here is the recipe

ingredients for 2-4 persons sauerkraut
1 white cabbage
1/2 – 1 tablespoon of sea-salt (depends on what you like)

kitchentools
a knife to cut the cabbage
a food processor with a knife who make strings of the cabbage
2 big clean jars (I used one what was origin a jar for peanutbutter)
a big bowl

How to begin
First get the knife and cut off the ass of the cabbage (the hard ‘stem’ on the end), so you can take 2-3 big leaves from the cabbage. Put the leaves aside you need them later.
Now you can cut the cabbage in half, and the half pieces you cut in 3 equal pieces.
I used the food processor for the next step, because you need to cut the cabbage in thin strings, some use a special slicer, I didn’t had. You can also use a normal knife.
When all the cabbage is in thin strings, get the big bowl and poor the salt into the bowl over the cabbage. With your hands you knead the cabbage, so the salt will be into the cabbage. Do this like 5 minutes and wait 10 minutes, you can also taste in this time if you taste the salt a little (just a background taste, the salt is food for the bacteria). If you don’t taste the salt you put in a little more.

Time for round two, again knead the cabbage, crush, rub the cabbage against each other till you get some juice. The juice is a good sign, just knead like 5-10 minutes, you see it is very relaxing and good for the muscles in your hand 😉
Get the jars, and get two hands of sauerkraut and put in the jar. With your hand go into the jar and push the cabbage all the way down so the water is above the cabbage, again take like 2 hands and push again.
Do this again and again till you are like1-2 centimeters under the top of the jar.
Get the cabbage leaves you set aside.
Take one and put this on top of the cabbage, so you make a lid (you can push the sides with your fingers down, look the way the leave is bending). Push the cabbage leave down and the water must be upon the cabbage leave!!
Get a cork and put upon the leave, in the water. Now close the jar!
Set aside after 4 days or something like (when the process is going on) store in some cool place and wait like 3-4 weeks maybe more, and smell if the cabbage is sauerkraut!
Sometimes there will be on top some mold (in the water), get a spoon and take this out, don’t worry the process can still go on.
So your sauerkraut is ready to be eaten.

Enjoy!

…prepare a potato

Posted on 11 May, 2013 by saskia

Potato… in the Netherlands we know what to do with a potato, mash it, cook, bake, fry it. Very famous is the painting of Vincent van Gogh the potato-eaters
So I will show you some ways to prepare a potato, you still think a potato is boring? Read this…ooh just a warning when you fry or bake potatoes be aware you do not bake them until they are brown, they must be golden yellow otherwise it can contain acrylamide what isn’t very healthy…..

Cook a potato…(floury, a little floury potato)
It depends on which potato how long the must cook, but the average potato must boil in water for 10 minutes. You can see if they are ready, to look if you can pink the potato with the fork and it is soft.
Ready for eating with some salt it is a very easy to put on your plate with some vegetables and a vegan burger

Making fries…(waxy potatoes)
Great to do is making fries, you just cut the potato in little sticks, like fries. Get a saucepan and fill this with oil for frying. When the oil is like 180 degrees Celsius (I always do the water-drip trick, when you put a drip in the oil and it starts to sizzle, it’s at the right temperature, put be careful water and oil are dangerous)
Put in the fries for minutes, get them out and put them on a paper-towel so the oil will get into the paper-towel.
Now time for the second round, this frying makes the potato, looks and taste like a real potato. Fry them for minutes

Mash a potato…. (floury, a little floury potato)
This I like very much, cook the potato like you will do normally (10 minutes) look if the are soft by pink the potato with a fork. When they are soft, drain out the water ( the water rest over from the potato is not recommended to use again) Put in a little of fake-milk or water not too much.
Get a masher and mash till the potatoes look like a puree, is it too dry? poor in some milk, but do it little by little…..also nice when you put in some herbs.

Making duchesses…(floury, a little floury potato)
Boil the potatoes till they are soft ( I think circa 15 minutes of boiling). When they are ready put away the cooking water, mash the potatoes. You just make puree of the potatoes, make it not to wet and not to dry, you must put the mixture in the piping bag and you will make nice shaped potato heap on the baking sheet. And let them bake in the oven for 20 minutes on circa 200 degrees Celsius. Also great with some carrots or herbs inside

puffed potato….(floury, a little floury potato, waxy potato)
Perfect for a barbecue, get some aluminium foil, make it a little greasy with some oil and roll in the potato (if you have an organic one you don’t have to peel them only wash), piece by piece. They must look like a present. You can lay them on the coals of the bbq when there is no fire any more. Wait for a time and check sometimes if they are soft by doing the pink thing 😉
When you want to puff them in the oven that’s also a opportunity!
you do the same as above, get some aluminium foil, make it a little greasy, roll in the potato (maybe easier when the potatoes have the same size, they will be ready at the same time) And put them in the oven on 200-220 degrees Celsius and bake for approximately one hour. This is also nice mixed with some herbs

baked potato….(a little floury potato, waxy potato)
Again cook them first (if you want slices, slice the potato first, not to thin but something like 0,5 centimetres thick), till they are ‘little’ soft, but not too soft (so cook them for 7 minutes) They must no be raw any more but must not be breakable. When the potatoes are too soft they will fall apart, and if you like to have a scrambles potato, this is ok.
But if you want nice slices, you don’t want them to break.
So get the cooked potatoes very careful out of the water. Get a frying pan and add some oil, heat the oil and add the potatoes till the bottom of the frying pan is covered, first bake one side and then toss them around in the frying pan

Making crisp…(waxy potatoes)
It never works by me, but maybe you can work it out. The recipe I have from the internet.
Get some potatoes, wash them and dry them by using a kitchen paper. Get a cheese slicer or a peeler and slice the potato in very thin slices.
Get a griddle and put on the slices, but they aren’t allowed to overlap each other.
Use a brush and oil them a little and on top you sprinkle them with some salt or paprika powder.
Now they are ready too put in the oven for 15-20 minutes on 200 degrees Celsius in the middle of the oven. Maybe you can look when the time is halfway and turn them on the other side.

Use potato as a soup thickner….
The potato on his own has not a special taste, so when you want to make soup more thick you can use a potato or two (it depends how much litre of soup you made).Cook them together with the soup and puree the potato! For a more creamy, thick soup

It’s easy, maybe you know already but I hope you learn something from this post and let the potato being a star of the plate

Funky Bytes

Written with love and appetite

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