New Boozey bits

It has been a while since I made some more liqueurs. I don't think I made anything last year.... maybe some Wiśnówka (cherry liqueur). This year we have been drinking some great Fernet Citrus a fabulous Czech beverage which one of my fabulous students brought me because you can't buy it in Poland. Hence, we wanted to make some sort of digestive. It is very difficult to find a good/easy recipe for a herbal based liqueur, so we had to think about it ourselves and design something that might be similar. It is of course hard as you won't know for a month or more how it does taste. Time in this case is your enemy, where as with liqueurs normally it is your best friend.

We gathered together some things we thought might make a good brew.

Some spices

Spice and ginger

Some lime rind, with lemon thyme and a vanilla bean

some mint and lemon balm

A couple of oregano leaves and the heavy stuff gets added.

Now mix.

The whole recipe:

10g Lemon Balm
13g Spearmint
1g Thyme

5 Cloves
10 Peppercorns
15 Aniseeds
10 Corriander seeds
5 Cumin seeds
1 Vanilla pod

16g Ginger (peeled)
Lime (Juice and zest)

300mL White Rum
~600mL Vodka

105g Sugar
100mL Water

Combine all the dry ingredients into the jar including the lime zest and juice. Heat the sugar and water in a pan until it has dissolved. Add this to the dry ingredients, then the white rum and top up with Vodka. Shake and store in a dark cool place. Shake whenever you remember it.

Or maybe some plums

Totally stoned

Pack the kids in

Add a vanilla pod brandy and vodka and store somewhere dark

Pick some bountiful wild foods. The horseradish leaves for bread and the mirabelle plums to eat and maybe try a liqueur, the French of Lorraine can't be wrong.

Now add some sugar and gin and vodka.

a bit cloudy but from all reports that is normal.

Now let's wait and see how they taste..... 2 weeks after bottling the first two and they are very very good. The Mirabelles need much more time.

The family visits the family.

Autumn, it is a time of many natural things in Poland. Changing leaves, berries, apples, pears and mushrooms to mention a few. Also, of course, it is time of rain. Which, in turn, helps the mushrooms.

Rainy nights

Rain is never too far away

But with rain comes mushrooms. So, when the family were here we decided rather than just eat mushrooms we would like to take them to pick some mushrooms in the area around Sokolka. The area is rich in beautiful forests, but everyone there loves their wild produce. So, you need to either get up early in the morning to beat them or you need to drive a little further away from town to find a good patch. As it was late in the season and also a season that had been quite dry, we didn't expect to find too many. But, you should always be ready to hunt mushrooms, foraging is a way of life in the East and it is a great way of life, of course, if you know what you are doing.

Of course not every fungus growth is edible this is probably a birch polypore.

Some are just down right dangerous like this fly agaric

Or this wooly milk cap

Sometimes it can be cold in the forest some homemade malinowka (raspberry liquour) is great to warm up. You drink it down

down

down

Suede Bolete, Boring Brown Bolete or Yellow-cracked Bolete an edible mushroom

Another fly agaraic, they do look pretty though, and I wonder where the smurfs are.

I think this is called a lilac bonnet

spidey world

These sulfur caps will have you pooping and convulsing at the same time should you be silly enough to eat them

but they are really cute.

So we came home with a decent hall for rank amatuers and one hardened professional. You can see some different boletus mushrooms like porcini, and bovine among others. Also, the large white one is a parasol mushroom which is great eating,

This is the parasol mushroom cut into large slices and covered in egg, salt and pepper.

It is fried on one side and flipped and fried on the other, in the end it tastes very similar to a schnitzel. very tasty.

preparing the boletus family for drying

a mottled boletus mushroom

peel off the outer skin before cutting it.

and slice away.

then lunch is ready.

afterwards it is time for dessert outside in the sun.

and a little silliness with maple seeds

everyone loves a laugh, even big uncle Tomek our mushroom guru

someone else just wants to be loved.

how to disguise yourself when picking mushrooms.

on your bike

it is all happy families after some mushrooms, food and exercise.