Month: January 2019

While the gardens sleep, i harvested these summer vegetables from a supermarket bin:

Nothing exotic, just a few tropical fruits and meso-american vegetables in the dead of winter, hardly enough for a weekend for 3 ppl.

But never did i quarrel with the generosity and wisdom of the All Knowing Supermarket Bin That Provides For All The Knowing, so i was rewarded immediately (when my bananas where finished):

16kg of potatoes, appr 5kg of bananas, more than 2kg of carrots, and some winter greens thrown in (leek, celery, Karfiol, etc.) The pears (1kg top right) are juuust right.

We split all this between two households, and still have lots of tatties – but a plan… (tbc.)

that will require a reasonable amount of Hot Ketchup… How wise of Supermarket Bins to provide us will all these tomatoes:

Chili harvest was pretty good last season, so we have plenty of Chili:

Recipe for Sambal Ayvar Hot Ketchup:

chili

tomato

paprika

oil

salt

sugar (tbc.)

Istria is the northern-most place within the €uro-zone that yields lots of Olives (Olea europaea), because of it’s climate located at the Adria (a small side-arm of the Mediterranean bathtub).

Olive trees are growns mostly for olive oil extraction. But the pickled fruits are also very popular (once you got used to them). Where olives grow, the fruits have about the same exchange value than sea snail shells, a few km further north they are more expensive than – olive oil even!

We sorted the oilves in two categories: ripe and overmature (left bucket), washed and watered them, and now they are in salt-treatment for a couple of days. tbc.

In the meantime we had a look at the other souveniers:

We removed the Stone Pine seeds from the cones, the squirrels had left a couple. Among them we found a germinating one we put in flower pot.

 

 

 

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) usually comes from far, far away, and it is a completely unimportant import crop that is grown in places where something else should be cultivated. So: Ginger from the shop is someone else’s hunger.

But as with all capitalist products, you can find it in abundance in the west – in the rubbish bin. Usually it gets thrown away because it starts to sprout, or “shoot”. Take a medium sized piece (ca 5cm) and put it in a pot, keep as sunny as possible and hydrated, and wait for a while. It’s also a nice bamboo-like, “exotic” room plant. You can use the leaves for herbs tea straight away btw. (In the €uro-zone it will probably not flower but dry out in mid winter)

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is not so different, it’s even in the Zingiberaceae (Ginger) family: look for some fresh Turmeric root in an organic shops – it’s just cents. (Maybe you can get a sprouting one for free even)

Note: the Turmeric grew slightly better than the Ginger. It’s bright orange inside the peel (bottom left).

 

I do loooorve rhizom plants – just put some promising bits back into the soil, and repeat.

Fomitopsis betulina (previously Piptoporus betulinus) grows only on birches, and pretty much everything about birches is great.

Birch Polypore only important for survival – if you want to survival Cancer, (chronical) stomach illness, it’s even said to cure Depressions (probably those related to stomach issues).

A friend told me of an elderly mountaineer who drinks a cup of polypore tea every day. Later i read of POWs to (sowjet) russia who learned about Birch Polypore during their harsh encampment, and use it since (all these decades!)

Even Ötzi the Ice Mummy used Birch Polypore, probably for deflamatory reasons (he was recovering from a recent bone fracture).

 

Not Disgustingly Bitter Birch Polypore Tea Recipe:

tsp. honey (or apple sirup, algave or whatever floats your boat)

scrapes of apple

some scrapes of birch polypore

variations contain ginger, or other leaves & herbs

add boiling water and sit for appr 9mins.

stone hard old bread (also known as dwarven kampfbrot) has many advantages:

or also traditional semmelknödl’n (bread dumlings):

(pic tbc.)

 

recently i was asked wether i ever eat fish (since my ethics are of the vegan cult of minimal misery), and the answer made me marvel myself:

… seems i eat salmon, herring and makrele. it was a friday, and i stopped by a random countryside supermarket bin.

 

 

 

 

the endless bin of fruits & vegetables provided it’s humble disciples with these tokens of fellowship:

…followed by…

… and it is also our eternal (holy) cow of all sorts of dairy:

we feasted for five days upon this sermon, and fed twice five more. praised be the waste!

 

Take 2 bananas (left), a tiny packet of blueberries, and a cup of milk from the picture above. Add water, blend, enjoy: