Saturday, March 17, 2012

Making birch syrop - part 2

After you collected the syrup, it's time to boiled. Put the birch sap in a large pan and bring it to boiling point. This is 10 liters.


After a few hours the sap will be reduced to 6 liters.


Put the gas lower because if you boil it to hard then the sugars will burn and you will have a bitter burned taste. After 5 hours the juice is reduced to just 1 liter.


Go on until you have only 400 ml over. Filter the sap two times and place the sap, almost syrop, in al smaller pan and simmer it to just 100 ml. As you see it's not a lucrative business but it's a very tasteful.




Friday, March 16, 2012

Making birch syrop - part 1

Between march and april (before the tree got leaves), the birch trees got the most of sap and sugar. Making birch syrop is very easy and it's not causing problems to the trees. In Canada and Amerika they extract birch sap from a long time.
First of all you need birch trees. Second you need a bottle or jerrycan, a tube and maybe some rope. Beside you need a knife but with a drill is faster and better for the tree.


Make a hole, just 1,5 cm deep. You need to be in the Cambium of the tree. Make a round and nice hole. Place the tube into it and assure yourself that the sap only run through the tube.



Place the bottle. I prefer to put the bottle on the ground. It's easier and quicker. As you see I have made a hole in the cap. If you do so assure yourself to make a small hole as well so that the air can go out.


If you place the bottle in the evening then it will be full in the morning. When you are ready, cut a nice piece of wood slightly bigger then the hole. Make a blunt point and hit it into the hole. Don't use wood from the ground because there is to many bacteries on it and it's dangerous for the tree.


Monday, February 13, 2012

WEBSITE IS ONLINE!!!

The website is renewed and online!
It took a while and I've not finished placing all the articles but it's a start and I hope you'll enjoy!
For now only the Dutch version is online, but you can use the Google translator. Later I will translate the text in English, but it will not be this year.

For all the dutch people, if you find something incorrect, if you suggestions, please let me know!

Enjoy!

www.siegurd.nl


Tuesday, January 31, 2012

NEW WEBSITE: 11 february online!!!

I'm pleased to tell that our new site will be online the 11th of february.
I hope that it will inspire you to go outdoor!
Please give me any comments about the look and the information on it and stay in touch!

This is an impression of the homepage, I hope you like it!


Saturday, December 10, 2011

STILL WORKING AT THE NEW WEBSITE

We are almost done with the new website! It is very nice and is packed with information with a good working shop.


Follow us on Facebook!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Making tortelloni with ricotta, penny bun and walnuts

After drying the penny buns I decided to make something very succulent with it. I've lived for 18 years in Italy and making pasta is one of the things everybody can. So this recipe is one of my favourite and normally I don't add the mushrooms but I thought it will be nice and an extra great flavour to the dish.

The pasta for the tortelloni (big tortellini) is very easy to made but requires some strength and work. It's made form 200 gr of flour, 1 whole egg and 3 egg yolks. Knead together well for about 15 - 20 minutes. Wrap in foil and let rest for about 20 minutes in the fridge.

Make the filling. Add ricotta, fine crushed walnuts, fresh Parmesan cheese, salt, peper and the fine chopped and soaked penny buns together and stir. Taste and if it's good add 1 egg.

Make the tortellini as shown in the pictures and cook for about 2 minutes. Serve with a walnuts and sage butter sauce.

 Use a pastamachine


Remove rounds from the pasta



Put some filling on it


Fold them and be sure to remove all the air from the inside


This is the way to make tortellini: hold it like that


Squeeze a little bit


turn  the pasta around your finger


push the ends together


Ready to be cooked!!



Friday, November 4, 2011

Drying Penny Bun

This week I found two beautiful big Penny Buns (Boletus Edulis) and now they are drying outside.
The best way for drying mushrooms is to cut them in thin slices and then lace them up on a string and put them in the dry air outside. You can also put the mushrooms in a 100 degrees oven for about 2 hours.


After that you have to put the dried mushrooms in a clean jar and closed well and this is the result and it smells heavenly!!!




Thursday, October 27, 2011

NEW WEBSITE!

Working hard on my new website! This is a Photoshop screenshot. After it's ready in Photoshop we will make a brand new CMS site with a good working webshop. Also updating my recipes and programs will be much more easy now! Stay in touch!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Delicious appelcake with Dutch Oven


(This recipe is written in Dutch and translated with Google translator, that is much more faster for me. I'm sorry for errors but I hope you'll understand. I think that the result will taste no less!)

This pie is so incredibly simple to make but fun to do because you do not need a oven. So you can just make it on the camp-site or in the wild but you need a Dutch Oven (Heksenketel / pan) and campfire.This recipe is fairly basic and can be supplemented with what is available. Think of plums, cinnamon, various berries, nuts, etc. 

Ingredients: 
 - 200 grams flour 
- 150 grams butter 
- 125 grams granulated sugar 
- 0.5 vanilla baking powder  
- 3 eggs 
- 4 (sour) apples 
- 100 grams raisins 
- 2 spoons lemon juice 

Preparation: 
Start by making a fire. It works best with briquettes, but Charcoal also works well if you keep a little eye and supplements where needed. I usually do this after a BBQ. Briquettes remain a long afterglow and there are ideal for a Dutch Oven to set up. You don't need to preheat the Dutch Oven like a conventional oven. 

Put the raisins for 15 minutes in hot water. Cut the apples in large pieces and place them in the Dutch Oven. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon over the apples and add the raisins. Sprinkle some sugar over the apple / raisin mixture and add a few cubes of butter (25 grams). 

Place the Dutch Oven on a few briquettes and close the lid. Place the apples in the Dutch Oven. 

Place 6-7 briquettes on the lid. The Dutch Oven is building in this way a uniform heat to the inside and apples will be heated.We will make now the batter. 

Place butter and sugar in a bowl and knead with your fingers into the butter sugar by squeezing. 

If it is a homogeneous paste place the eggs one by one and whisk the batter until it all is well mixed. Do that with a strong beat movement. 

Add the baking powder to the flour and sieve the whole in the batter. Mix together well. 

It should be soft and smooth batter. 

Open the lid of the Dutch Oven and spread the batter over the apples until everything is covered. You should hear the already delicious apples sizzling! 

Place the lid on the pan and cover it almost entirely with bricks (approx. 20 pieces). Bake in 40 to 45 minutes.Turn the lid a quarter turn every 10 minutes to avoid hot spots occur in some places and the cake will burn. 

Check the pie after 30 minutes. Prick occasionally with a clean skewer to see if the cake is cooked. 

Delicious with vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!


For step by step pictures, see here