Breakfast smoothie

This is my breakfast for today. A banana chokolate smoothie.

2 dl homemade youghurt

1tsp cacao powder

3 dried apricots (eco)

1 peeled banana

 Mix everything in the blender and drink. As I didn't put the apricot in water first there were some chunks left after mixing, but that gives just the smoothie another dimension.

The youghurt is homemade from milk with added bacteria from fit line. This batch were made just by taking 50 ml from the first batch added to the next. If you buy youghurt with living bacteria in the store you can do the same with that.

Juicing

We didn't get a single apple last summer, it was so rainy and cold. This summer, on the other hand has been so sunny and warm and my appletrees are almost breaking of the weight of apples. A good thing is that the apples of my 3 trees doen't get ripen at the same time. I have three different sorts and they have different purposes.

I can highly recommend to juice the apples and store it in the freezer to get good summer vitamins during the whole winter.

It is important to rinse the apples first to get rid of bug and eventual dirt. Another note; I pick my apples from the trees, not the ground.

The apples doesn't need peeling, cut them in chunks and remove kernels and the little twig.

When juicing, you get a foam on top and sediment at the bottom of the can. Skim the juice and try to avoid the sediment when pouring up in bottles for the freezer. 

For serving, you can add a third of water. I have to add a little sugar as well to get the children to drink.

My juicing machine looks like this, the brand is OBH Nordica. Waste comes out to the left and the juice in the can to the right. It is a bit limited when using. For example you need to stop adding apples and rinse the clogged strainer/separator every other minute.

If you don't own a juicer or can afford one, at least here in Sweden, there are farms that have juice presses where you can leave your apples to get juice in return for a fair price.
I'ts a huge problem here (well for me) were people don't bother to take care of all the fruit but they buy their juice and jam in the store instead, weird or what?

Todays Green smoothie

Todays green smoothie comes entirely from the garden. The apples are ripen and the rest, sallad, kale and sugarsnaps has been harvested for a while.

The ingredients on the tray gives two small bottles of green smoothie

Here's a little snapshot of the next years crop. Broad beans, blue peas, sugar snaps and grey peas. It is very easy to harvest and save peas and beans to sow.

Grow your own "bamboo" sticks

Ok, it's not exactly bamboo sticks. It's rather the function of them I describe. The candy smelling, white blooming bush; schersmin. I have one in my garden and every spring, a few stems are dead (while new ones sprouting). These dead ones are perfekt as growing support, straight, sturdy and long lasting. 

This is how my borlotto lingua beans looks with the stems as support. During the winter they are stored outdoors leaning against a wall and holds the next growingseasons without breaking.

 Picture of the lunch, squash, salad, leaves from celeriak, radish, onion tops and pesto of dill.

Different containers for growing seeds

It's time for growing vegetables. As many vegetables are sensible for the frost nights of the north they need to start the season indoors or in a green house. If you have a large vegetable garden you need lots of pots for the seeds. But with a bit of fantasy these pots can be almost for free. 

With a pot maker you can make pots out of news paper. These are perfect for plants that you don't need new pots along the indoor growing. Here are some pots with sweet corn. The paper pots stands on a plastic tray for minced meat.

A tray for lego bits, actually Legos Christmas calendar with 24 boxes is another clever solution. I grow suedes in this tray . 

All my kaleplants have problems with earth bugs. They are completely invisible so it took time until I realised why all my seedlings died. To protect the kale plants, you need a moist air. Plastic containers for baby tomatoes are perfect little green houses. They will keep the air moist.

This is how it looks under the lid.

To be continued ;)

Blood orange

I highly recommend you to buy fruits and vegetables depending of the season. Right now it's the season for buying the Italian blood oranges. They are sold cheap in nets right now.

These oranges are actually ordinary oranges. What makes them red in the meat and peel is the temperature differences between cold frosty late winter nights and warm days. The red colour is antocyanin an antioxidant  good for your immune system. So beat the winter flu with a glass of fresh pressed blood orange.

Weird looking porridge

Chia seeds looks so weird, they reminds of small insects eggs with a grey brown crackled surface, and they taste nothing.

If we think a little positive about this; the benefit of something that tastes nothing is that you can combine with ingredients that taste lovely as they are.

If you put them in water, the chia seeds swells and form a clear gel around the seeds. That makes them look even spookier. The benefits of this seed is that it contains lots of omega 3 oils and is high in proteins and lots of other nutrients.

To get a tasty porridge I top it (hide the weird seeds) with sliced bananas, coconut flakes and pumkinseeds, yum.

Easy peasy porridge

2 Tbsp of chia seeds

100 ml water

mix it in your porridge bowl and keep it in the fridge over night. In the morning the porridge is ready to eat. Just add a little salt to it if you like and serve with different toppings