Brewing up a storm.

So, a quick World Of The Alcohol, or WOTA for short, update. It is always a busy time at this time of year, as there is so much produce popping up. Most of it of course needs to be formulated into some form of alcoholic beverage. Some of the latest things I have been up to.

plus

                                                                          when using this

 like this

You get this

 

and if you add it all together you get this.

 So ingredients are as follows:
1.4L of Vodka
1.5L Brandy
600mL Warm water which is mixed with 500g Dark Muscovado sugar
2.8kg of sour cherries most pitted but leave about 20 or so with stones.
easy as.

I have also made a black currant nalewka in a similar format, however, as yet I have not added any sugar as I want to see how sweet it turns out. It is already getting that great colour of cassis.

 What else has been on the boil? Oh, so apt. I have been making nettle beer again. This time the nettles are a little older than last time and maybe we didn't collect as much because of this.

So nettles plus water

Gives boiling water with nettles.

Strain them

Then you get a beautiful nettle tea which is great too. I decided to follow a different recipe this year to last which had good results and even better ones with time. So this year I used this one I think I like it because it was posted by the author on my first Polish birthday. So that is bubbling away still even after moving the liquid off the lees. So we will wait a little long till I bottle it. Hopefully avoiding any accidents

Like this one. The exploding world of elderflower champagne. Thanks Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. So if you want to ever make elderflower champagne, use the recipe that I linked, and made, on here but not Hugh's. This explosion happened at 4 in the morning and as you can see destroyed the plastic container that I thought would hold any leakage, the biggest piece of the Grolsch bottl was the upper neck all 5cm of it! Certainly some power. That said the other recipe makes a delightful brew, of which I thoroughly recommend. Those who have tried it really enjoy it, like Spumante but more floral and less sweet.

Happy brewing!

Cheese and honey

Well, searching through the old laptop to try and clean up and make some space I found some photos from earlier this year that I hadn't put up! Hopeless, I know. Sorry.

So these are from earlier in the year, when my 'adopted' cousin Darren and his lovely Margie popped into Wawa after they had spent some time in the South of the country around Krakow and Auschwitz. After being in such pretty cities as Krakow and Berlin, coming to Warsaw is certainly somewhat of a shock. As they say, if you can survive your first viewing of Warsaw, you can survive a lifetime. Especially when you come from the Central Train Station. To me, the station itself really isn't that unattractive, however if you ask a Varsavian, you will most likely find they loathe it in no uncertain terms. People say the design is horrible, but it isn't so much that, it is just poorly organised inside. The hallways are filled with take away stalls and the heavy smell of fried food and melted cheese is hard to escape.

The colour scheme, although a mix of grey, black and darker grey, really could be polished up and buffed into something that resembles sleek and modern design. I think if you gave me 50 strong men with crowbars, some big bins, a number of high pressure hoses and some decent lighting, I could make the station into a really nice, welcoming and warming place, where the homeless wouldn't want to stay drinking cheap vodka, maybe they would change to Italian red wine instead, and the new coffee shops wouldn't look out of place. Oh well, that is another subject for another day.

So we had some guests come and visit. They unfortunately got the worst of the weather, it was raining most of the days they were here, and as soon as they left we had 4 weeks of rain free, stifling heat. So alas the weather wasn't a big display for them.


We thought it would also be nice to give them a taste of something else very traditional. Here in Poland, alcohol is a big part of history and tradition. Although men will brag how they drink loads and loads, like in every country in the world, but here they do have a rich history of warming beverages. Hot spiced beer and wine, cherry liqueurs, and then this family. The honey based family. This drink is Krupnik, it is basically a honey vodka. I do like it especially on a cold and wet day.

It appears that Darren and Margie are a little hesistant, probably because Marty and I were smiling so much. They must have thought it was a joke or something.










You will be happy to know that they survived and actually thought it to be rather pleasant. I keep thinking about making some Krupnik or maybe even some mead, but it can take at least a year to make good mead, and well, I am not that patient when it comes to alcohol. We will see.






Back to our city guests, well we started by giving them a tour from the train station to their apartment on the best eating street in Warsaw. Yes, you guessed it. Chmielna St, home of my favourite hot donuts! yum! So on the way through, they were forced into having two each. We tried to show them a little of Warsaw's highlights, Old town, the university library, CK Oberza, Nowy Swiat and most of the "downtown" areas. We took them to eat traditional food, and Pierogi dumplings. It seems they might have liked it as they ended up staying longer than they had expected. Which is a good sign.
























We got them to try some of one of the growing number of Polish Cheese on the EU Food Heritage List. Oscypek a regional smoked cheese from the Southern Highlands is great with Cranberry Sauce, here Marty gave up a cheesy grin to match the cheese.

House move over, time for a post

Ok, well, we have recently finished our big move to another house, a really pretty apartment with what looks like a delightful kitchen. I say looks like, as I haven't had the chance to give it a good trial run yet. I expect that to be this weekend when I have some more free time to trial things. So now I am just going to throw up some diverse things that I have photographed! Let's start all arty in Black and White and finish with some colour explosion.

A Christmas present from Santa Klaus was nice especially in the 200 year celebration of Freddy Chopper Chopin himself. I dunked this outside, if you remember my earlier pics. it was when I made a very poor snowman!
I don't know why I swallowed the rye, I guess I'll die.
I drink to you, Fredward.
This is what happens when you forget to tell an Australian that in January it is Winter in the northern hemisphere!
This is the story of Marty's life now, she is to be always surrounded by food and associated components to food. This is the horrible "Stalking Fork"!
This is where the menace rests and recharges in the sun, as he is certainly cold blooded.
Really it is simply an open and shut case.
Ok, as things are moving to the beautiful brightness of Spring.... ahhh sunshine (stay away snow!) I think we should see what colour can do to the soul.

After living in Guatemala, where I had eggs every night for dinner for a year, I didn't eat eggs for just over 12 months on my return to Australia. Now, I am onto eggs in a big way. I adore them. Eating these free range eggs from Sokolka reminds me of living in Tasmania with two of the world's great people Russ and Mel Timsar. We had the coolest chickens that gave us plenty of oval shaped food.
If you can get your chickens to lay happy eggs that are filled with bright sunshine pulsing yolks, you are certainly a winner in my book.
To me a good runny egg is about as simple as great bread. Even better if you can combine the two!
So for all of you with a backyard, why not throw out a little chicken run, feed them your scraps, cut down your environmental waste and get some free eggs! Also for more info on some great self sufficiency check out http://www.blagger.co.uk/ they have great ideas and, boy oh boy, I can't wait till one day I have a little bit of space of my own!

Yes Warsaw, I neglected you.

Sorry Warsaw. I know. I have totally been distracted by the world of Portugal. So what can I say.....???? Sorry again.

Ok so life in Warsaw is now changing drastically. It is September, the time when Warsaw kicks back into life. Everyone has returned from their holidays in the lakes or abroad. Public transport is less dominated by Grannies and more by stinky noisey school kids. The weather has turned it on, and it is radiant. Even clothes dry on the line in an afternoon.

Recently Marty and I have been lucky enough to have Luke and Zuzypants over from the States and Spain, respectively. So we have been eating great food, playing parlour games and painting, as we like to try to make all our guests.

The Summer has also inspired me to get creative with food and become a more self sufficient cottage industry person, in a way.

Take some good Polish apples, preferably a little tart in flavour.
Cut them up into small cubes, after removing the cores. Keep the skins on for flavour.
Add sugar, brandy and of course something traditional, Polish Vodka.
Then shake it all about. Try to dissolve all the sugar. An easier, but less fun alternative, is to dissolve the sugar in warm water earlier.
There you have it. The making of a schnapps/liquor. All we need now is time to really let the flavour of the apples get into the alcohol.

Something else I really desperately wanted to try and had the chance, due to Obi being near the house and because they have Demi-johns. Was Gingerbeer. This is how it works......

Combine yeast and warm water, with sugar and warm water.

Peel the ginger and then chop it up really finely, with this add lemon juice, and more water, this time cold.And there you have it, already to go. It is sitting next to me now, bubbling away at differing intervals, as the little yeast ferments away.

Ok and finally to stay on the topic of beverages, with Winter poking his ugly mug around the corner, it means we will leave the house a little less. Also we were (I was) sick of cleaning up the exploding stove top espresso coffee maker. So we splurged....

Yes we now have a lovely Spanish girl in our kitchen. It must be a girl as anyone who knows Spanish boys knows that most of them are useless in a kitchen. :) This one makes delicious coffees!

So now every morning we don't hide around the corner in case of explosion, instead we stand with awe as this amazing 18 bar wonder pumps out some tasty brown deposits. If you are living in Poland and looking for a coffee machine, this is great value on sale at Saturn now! :) Enjoy, and if you want to drop round for coffee drop me a line! :)