Pink pepper growing on a tree in the backyard!

Known as Peruvian pepper, American pepper, Peruvian peppertree, escobilla, false pepper, molle del Peru, pepper tree, peppercorn tree, Californian pepper tree, pirul and Peruvian mastic) is an evergreen tree growing up to 15 meters /50 feet.

Exactly that tree (Schinus molle) is growing here all over Algarve. Local people use it sometimes as pepper, but also mix it with black pepper.

It is native to the Peruvian Andes, pink fruits are sold as ‘pink peppercorns’ although the tree unrelated to true pepper (Piper nigrum).

#pinkpepper #algarve #portugal

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17 Excellent Uses of Lavender

We are in love with lavender scent and taste. Sweet, floral, with slight citrus undertone. I have decided first to make and then to share with you today the list of lavender uses – try them. Some might be really surprising, like the absolutely delicious apricot lavender confiture. Usually I make more of them and have unique gifts for friends. Gift especially appreciated in winter time.  

Don’t stop yourself from adding your favourite use to the list. 

1) Rosemary is the herb used for cooking pretty often, but not many people know that in some cases you can replace rosemary with lavender.

2) Lavender flowers surprise when added to the salad.

3) Lavender sugar. Can be added to sweet dishes and drinks. Use blender. Proportions: 1 cup of sugar/ 2 tablespoons of dried lavender buds. Blend them until buds disappear and the sugar gets a purple tint. You can add it to lemonade, tea or baking sweets.

4) Eye pillows. Work great when you need something to rest your eyes or you have a headache or any kind of spleen or anxiety. Make the eye pillows using dried lavender buds and flaxseeds.

5) Lavender bath. Make a little bag and fill it with lavender, place it right under the hot running water as you wait for the bath. You may prefer to let the flowers float with you. Okay it is somewhat messy and sticks to different parts of the body and the tub. But you make like to try to let them float freely on the water.

6) Lavender oil is the one to use for a burn. Apply it straight onto the burn. It heals faster and less prone to scaring.

7) Insect repellent. Lavender oil is great on that. Works well mixed with other essential oils.

8) Add a few drops of essential oil (and I do mean a few) to your child's evening bath. They will sleep really well.

9) Lavender oil is known to be both stimulant and relaxant – if you use it more, the more stimulating it becomes.

10) A sachet of lavender buds will keep your drawers fresh.

11) And even better – put a lavender sachet inside your pillow, so you have a restful night  sleep.

12) Rub a little drop of lavender essential oil on your temples to slowly ease a headache.

13) Carry it in your pocket a pinched lavender flower stem. In any stressful situation, pull it out for a relaxing, refreshing scent.

14) Use the oil as a mild antibacterial, moisturizer, dry hair treatment or bath oil.

15) Refresh your house decorative with lavender fragrance by applying a drop or two of oil. It will work great on potpourri, decorative herb wreaths, lavender wands or other lavender crafts.

16) Make lavender blueberry or apricot confiture. Find recipe here.

17) Make strong lavender tea, cool it down and use as a scalp rinse to help preventing dandruff.

Make sure you harvest your lavender at best possible time by clicking here the best time to harves your lavender.

Special Notes:

Don't use lavender that has been treated with pesticides.

Lavender can cause allergic reactions in some people. If you experience a rash, sore throat, or nausea, discontinue use. If you are having trouble breathing after using a lavender infused product or homemade concoction, seek medical help immediately.

Do not use Lavender Essential Oil internally. There is some evidence that long term regular use of concentrated lavender can cause hormone imbalance in males. Due to its relaxing properties, I would not use in conjunction with any medication that also causes relaxation or sleepiness.

Don’t use the dried or fresh herb internally when pregnant.

Lavender 100% Pure Therapeutic Grade Essential Oil- 10 ml

Apricot Lavender Jam - review, licking fingers...

“Winter will ask where have you been in the summer” – said Ola after she saw me stirring hot cooking jam. “Do you have such proverb, Ewa, in your language?” she asked. “No, we don’t. But I love yours”.

Exactly. Winter will ask, even if I hate thinking that it will come again this year. Where will I be? What I will be doing? Every year I dream to spend my winter in much more pleasant temperatures somewhere more South, I end up in cold of winter. Do you also have such dreams?

Let’s be honest with myself, winter will come inevitably. It’s always great moment when I open the home made jam – the scent of fruits reminds the summer and that’s the moment when I am happy. Happy that I know where I’ve been in the summer. Two days at least. At the stove, stirring the jam and filling the jars. There is a proof. Right in front of me.   

This year I decided to make lavender jam and I searched for new recipe. After I found it I made some lavender harvesting on Saturday morning. I do it with scissors. If you want to know what is the best time to harvest lavender read my post here – it gets lots of attention. 

It turned out that apricot goes well with lavender and I found something very inspiring in the taste promise.  

And… Tadadam! I made it. Double tested by myself and  Joanna – got great scores! Joanna is a cooking fan/specialist/writer, she writes a blog that is about retro style cooking and retro lifestyle.   

Apricot lavender jam gets my full recommendation.

What’s very important, get as ripe apricots as you can get, otherwise your apricot lavender jam might get kinda too sour.  Here is the simple recipe.

 

Apricot Lavender Jam

Ingredients:

2 lbs. ripe fresh apricots

1 lbs. sugar (regular, not jelly sugar, because I don’t trust what producers really add to such mixtures)

 ¼ cup of organic lavender flowers fresh or dried

Pit the apricots and roughly slice the fruit into a pot. Make layers of fruit, lavender flowers and sugar. Cover and allow to macerate overnight or up to 24 hours. There will be some liquid that will appear – that’s fine, it’s the apricot’s juice.
Bring to a boil and skim off the foam that rises. Boil your jam on small flame for 30 minutes, stirring once in a while. I let it too cool down to check how thick it is. If it’s not thick enough, I boil it once again for 20 minutes. Then it’s ready to fill the jars.    

What can you do to prevent a mineral buildup on the jars? Add a splash of vinegar to the water when it’s still cold. Boil filled jars at least ten minutes, get them out and let to cool down. Bon Appetit!

 

Drying Tomatoes Today

I appreciate what brings autumn, drying tomatoes today at last moment.

If you have not yet dried tomatoes at home, it might convince you what my kid recently said while eating home dried tomatoes "Have you soaked them in something for a better taste? Is this special variety of tomatoes? "

Not soaked. And tomatoes are not special.

Dried tomatoes are an essential ingredient in my kitchen. Few years ago, I discovered that home dried are a whole lot tastier. Since then I dry tomatoes  every year, but usually they dont last long. So tasty.

Until now, I was drying tomatoes in the oven and I was happy even though it was hard to guess if the temperature was right. It cannot be too high, because then the tomatoes lose some nutritional value, nor too low, because then drying takes forever.
Drying in the sun appeals to me very much for ideological reasons - the use of renewable free energy. But we had so few sunny days on the weekends, and as  I'm a working class, in the week I do not have time for this.

This year I have finally decided to buy a food dryer. It is called dryer for mushrooms and fruit - ha ha ha.

I am pretty happy with it and I keep wondering how you're drying vegs and fruits?

Best leek and potato soup with martini and ginger

This beautiful soup was prepared by Aska, friend of mine when I visited on Wednesday… I wanted to share with you the recipe, because this leek and potato soup is very easy to make, tastes delicious and you can serve it to elegant occasions as well.  
Beside I loved the way it was served. See this wonderful folk patterned, flax doily? 

Chop1 leek and fry it until the moment before it gets golden colour. Add 3 cups of martini bianco – then, oh God! – cook over low heat until martini is almost gone.

Chop 3 cups of  potatoes and add to leek with martini. Fry it little.

Add 2 cups of boullion.

Then herbs – here we come! Nutmeg, carum (caraway), ginger, cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt to taste.

After potatoes fall apart cooking is done, only mixing/blending is left.

Tastes best when served with parsley and 3-4 spoons of cream/yoghurt. 

Bon Appetit!

How to make fermented cucumbers

My grandma Sophia was making beautiful fermented cucumbers, my mother Mira used to do it as well. So, since I moved to a house with nice cellar, I also started making fermented cucumbers for winter. They are not only perfect for eating straight, as part of salad or a delicious sour soup, they are also very valuable for digestion system.

Few years ago I met prof. Marek Naruszewicz who is well known nutrition specialist cooperating with Univerisities in Sweden and United States, President of the Polish Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis, know person in the world of science, medicine, pharmacy and healthy eating, published his works in "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" and other prestigious magazines. We talked about fermented cucumbers, although it wasn’t the main subject of our conversation… ha ha… Professor said that fermented cucumbers are very valuable, because they contain bacteria that are important for improving digestion and we can’t find it anywhere else, they are specific for fermented cucumbers…

So beautiful people! Ferment your cucumbers!

I will share with you today the method present in my family since decades. It works great. 100% guarantee. The only 2 reasons why fermenting cucumbers might be a flop. This happens if cucumbers were grown using chemical fertilizers – for some reasons such cucumbers do not ferment in a proper way, but rather become soft and smelly… brrrr… The second reason is too hot temperature during fermentation. For that reason better avoid temperatures over 80F/26C.

Containers: You need 1-gallon container for 5 pounds of cucumbers. They say that food-grade plastic is OK, but I’d rather choose glass containers, which are excellent.
Keep cucumbers 1/2 inches under brine during fermenting. It is possible to use plate or glass pie plate inside the fermentation container if you choose bigger container. If you use glass jars just place cucumbers tight enough so they don’t float freely. Don’t fill the jar fully. The level of brine should be at least 1 inch below the edge of the jar.
Wash and rinse the fermentation container, plate, and jars with hot water.

Dill and Cucumber Fermented Pickles

Take for one liter jar:
1 lbs. of 4-inch pickling cucumbers
2 tbsp. dill seed or 2 to 3 heads fresh or dry dill weed (seeds not the plant itself is important)
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp. of mustard seeds
2-3 slices of fresh horseradish root
Proportions of the salt and water brine: ½ cup salt and 8 cups water. Do not use salt with added iodine.
How to make fermented cucumbers
Boil water with salt for 5 minutes. Wait until cools down. Wash cucumbers. Place all spices on bottom of a container. Add cucumbers. Pour cold water over cucumbers – remember leaving 1/2 inch space from the edge. Close the lid. Store where temperature is between 70°F/21C for about 1 week while fermenting.
After 5 days we like to eat such partially processed cucumbers, but they are half done. You may try if you like it. If don’t then wait at least 2 weeks.


Attention! If the pickles become soft, slimy, or develop a disagreeable odor, discard them.

Fully fermented pickles may be stored in their original containers for about at least 6 months, provided you don’t open the container.

Below you can see how my pickles were changing in 5 consecutive days.

Grab your copy of ultimate frmenting guide here The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from around the World ;

Bon Appetit!

More information about fermenting veggies you will find in The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from around the World

Recipe for macerated strawberries

Macerated strawberries recipe is coming! This coffee shop in Lublin’s old town looked really tempting. With ordered tea there came tiny plate where 2 preserved strawberries were sitting. I tried… mmmm… they were sweet and delicious. And although it was 7 years ago, I still remember very well the place and the taste...

While drinking tea I was wondering 'where is it possible to buy such tasty treat' - which I asked the  waitress. She didn't know and went to the kitchen to ask. It didn’t take longer than one minute. Lady appeared and asked ‘have you asked about strawberries?’ – ‘Yess...’ – ‘We don’t buy them – we make them in June, during strawberries season. It's old recipe we use in Russia….’ - 'How do they stay whole and fall apart?'

It was so nice of her to tell me their strawberries recipe – I learned later from the waitress, that she is the owner of the restaurant and comes from Russia. Here in Poland we don’t make this kind of strawberries jam, but it’s always nice to learn something from neighbors.

Based on the recipe for whole strawberries I make the strawberries jelly adding gelatin at the final stage. I haven’t tried pectin yet – maybe if you do, please let me know the results.

It’s wonderful recipe, giving you tasty jam with whole strawberries inside and not mashed strawberry jam. Put strawberries in a bowl or a pot in which you will boil it next day. Add sugar on the top – try to spread it evenly to cover all strawberries. Proportions strawberries to sugar 3:1 or 1:1 – according to your preference.. I am always trying to use less sugar. Leave your strawberries covered with sugar in peace for 24 hours. Next day you will see that strawberries got smaller and produced juice – this is the way it should be.

Boil it for 15 to 20 minutes – this is long enough. This way of treating the strawberries let’s them keep their natural shape and some firmness. When it stops boiling, I am adding gelatine to change the syrup to light jelly in the final product. Make sure to not add too much gelatine – you don’t want the jelly to become too dense.

At this moment you can decide what your final product will be. You can also separate the strawberries with such amount of syrup that it’s enough to cover it , close the jars and boil it for few minutes to make sure you get rid of all the possible molds in the jar. The remaining syrup is wonderful as syrup in the winter – can be used as topping for your winter desserts or added to your tea.

What are your favorite recipes for strawberries?