Banana Bread

The last batches of bananas I bought went from being green to being brown, without even stopping in the yellow zone. I'm not all that fond of bananas anyway, I like them in smoothies or fried. And when they're overripe, I don't like them at all. Then I remembered banana bread. Which is a very good use for them indeed.

150 g whole spelt flour
45 g agave nectar
45 g bio margarine (alsan)
dash of salt
1/2 ts of baking soda
1 TS of soyflour + 2 TS of water = substitute for 1 egg
2 somewhat mashed bananas (I like them fairly chunky)
20 g fresh walnuts
20 g raisins

Mix ingredients together, use some soymilk for liquidiness as needed, put mixture into a loafpan and bake at 175 degree Celsius (350 F) for about 45 minutes, until a fork inserted into the dough comes out clean. Amazingly delicious, best when still warm.

Kombucha!

After 8 days of waiting, my first batch of Kombucha is ready for consumption!

I'm really thrilled with the result. It's really good. It's pearly, tasty, strong, it basically tastes just like the GT stuff you get at the healthfood store in the States.

Here's how I did it:
I ordered a Kombucha culture online, as well as a large earthenware container. I chose a 10 liter one, I won't need that much volume right away, but I might later on.
First, you have to wash all containers and tools with boiling hot water, cleanliness is very important, since the culture is a living thing.
I boiled water in the largest cooking pot I have, which holds about 2,5 liters. I added 5 teabags of green tea (I used Sencha), and let them steep for about 5 minutes. You can use loose tea of course, but this was what I had in the house. Then I let the tea cool off to room temperature, you never want to add the Kombucha to hot or warm water. This takes several hours, at some point I poured the water into the earthenware container. When the water was at room temp, I stirred raw sugar into it, you can use between 100 - 125 grams per liter. The sugar is very important as the culture lives off it, it doesn't make the tea sweet - unless you add lots more. Then you add the Kombucha culture, with the lighter side up, along with the starter liquid. Fasten a kitchen towel or other clean cloth on top, make sure it's well fastened so no flies or such can get into the container. I used a piece of yarn, a large rubber band would be good too.
Then you let it sit for 8 to 14 days, supposedly the longer it sits, the sweeter it gets. In the summer, it can be ready in as much as 6 days. So temperature is a factor. The container should not be moved during this time.

Of course I had to check at the earliest date possible. I washed several glass jars and bottles (I always have a bunch of those on hand, since I'm a big believer in reusing things, and those often do come in handy) in water that I had boiled in the kettle, along with the cooking pot, funnel, soup ladle.
When I removed the cloth from the container, the contents looked very strange. Turns out, my culture had a baby, which was floating on top, spread thinly over the whole thing. I ladled some of the liquid into a bottle. Now was the moment of truth. The taste-test. And what can I say, it was perfect. Just the way I like it. I proceeded to fill the liquid into jars, then I put the culture onto a deep plate, with the baby culture on top, to put aside while starting on the next batch. I will discard the baby culture later, it looks like it had been doing most of the work and looks worn out.

This is the box in which the earthenware pot was delivered, a box in a box. Looks like they ran a LOT of recycling paper and cardboard through a shredder to make their own cushioning material.

Edit: Here's the (German) site I ordered the culture from, it has a lot of info on everything Kombucha: http://kombucha.de. And this is where I ordered the earthenware container: http://www.steinzeug-schmitt.de. The one I got is the 'Einmachtopf.'

The subway - always worth the trip

Sunday I took the subway to go to the Schanze,  and as I was sitting there, waiting for the train to leave Altona station, a woman came on with her dog. She was nicely dressed, red-lipsticked, the dog some kind of smaller breed. She sat down in the bench behind me, and apparently a friend of hers came on as well, as she started telling this friend all about her new cellphone. This cost her only 250 Euro, whereas regularly it costs 500, and she was discussing her mobile plan, and since I'm a cranky person, at this point I plugged in my earphones and rather listened to the Weakerthans. At Holstenstrasse three fare inspectors boarded, one of them had to touch my arm to get my attention. I then waved my ticket tiredly in his direction. As I got up to exit, some commotion broke through my music-induced reverie, and as I looked, all three inspectors were surrounding the nicely-clad woman, one was issuing her a ticket, explaining to her how to pay the penalty fee, while the dog was yapping wildly, trying to protect her charge from these beefy young men.

Possibly the best Lunch ever

Turn the oven to 200 Celsius, break out the oven fries, add a few stalks of broccoli onto the pan. Fries need about 15 minutes. In the meantime, dice a clove of garlic and a slice of fresh ginger, and saute them with olive oil in a pan. Cut a Chorizo-Spacebar (or any other flavorful veggie-sausage) into slices and add. Add satesauce (from a jar) and some water, a dash of salt and chili pepper. When the fries look good and done (and the broccoli probably a bit charred), put on a plate and sprinkle with salt. Pour the sauce on top, and enjoy!

Thoughts on Food Part 1

Here's the English version of yesterday's post:
It's kind of strange, how the Western world is dependend upon the breastmilk of another species, namely cattle. If you'd take a step back and look at supermarket shelves, say, from the perspective of an extraterrestrial anthropologist, you'd have to wonder. There are hundreds of milk products, yoghurts, cheeses, pizza, baked goods, chocolate. To our anthropologist this would seem absurd, in fact, she would think it disgusting. If those products were at least made from human milk, it might make some sort of weird sense to her.


And right in line with this line of thought, my friend Katja sent me this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/25/human-milk-ice-cream-sale
I'm seriously hoping this is a satirical article.

Menschenmilcheis

Und hier ein Bericht, den meine Freundin Katja mir geschickt hat, ganz passend zum Thema, ueber Eiscreme aus Menschenmilch:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/25/human-milk-ice-cream-sale
Ich hoffe jetzt einfach mal, das es ein Satireartikel ist.

Gedanken zu Ernaehrung Teil 1

Schon merkwuerdig, wie sehr die westliche Welt von der Muttermilch einer artfremden Spezies, sprich dem Rind, abhaengig ist. Wenn man sich die Regale eines Supermarktes einmal mit Abstand, etwa aus der Perspektive einer ausserirdischen Anthropologin, betrachtet, muss man sich doch schon sehr wundern. Hunderte von Kuhmilchprodukten stehen da, Becher um Becher von Joghurts, Kaesesorten en masse, Pizza, Gebaeck, Vollmilchschokolade. Aus der Sicht unserer Anthropologin ist dies voellig unverstaendlich, ja ekelerregend. Wuerde es sich um Produkte aus menschlicher Muttermilch handeln, wuerde es fuer sie wenigstens ansatzweise einen Sinn ergeben.