I loved this food. All items on the plate were easy to eat because everything was softly cooked. The piece of Kassler meat was as soft as butter, the yellow split pea puree was soft as was the sauerkraut and the sweet potato pieces. Even the other potato pieces were soft enough! (Peter often tells me I cannot cook potatoes because I never cook them soft enough.) So with a glass of beer this was a perfect, dare I say, German lunch for a cold winter day.
Yesterday, Sunday, we went shopping at Stockland, Shellharbour. Here is what we ended up buying:
We are very happy that tomorrow, Tuesday, 5th of August 2014, there is going to be another Andre Rieu program to be shown on SBS TV at 1 pm!
http://www.sbs.com.au/guide/day/2014-08-05/location/NSW#/program/5592977
It is about the Magic of the Musicals!
Hi, it is Monday, the 4th of August 2014, a bit after 7 am.
I just looked up the temperatures for Sydney. It says it is there 7 C at present but it feels like only 5 C which I believe equals 40 F. Here where I am the temperatures are similar to Sydney. In Canberra, which is more inland, the temperatures during night time did go down to below freezing point for the last few days.
It has not rained much the last few weeks. I looks like our fire season starts early this year. This is what out Rural Fire Service states:
“Across NSW there are more than 700 #NSWRFS firefighters working on 84 bush and grass fires. …”
Apparently it burns only in some northern parts of New South Wales at the moment. (NSW is a huge area, about the size of the whole of Germany!) Still, we have to be prepared with warmer weather coming up and not much rain, there is definitely going to be increased risk of bush fires in the coming months or even weeks.
It feels strange to have to think of bush fires when we have such a tremendous cold spell right now!
The pictures are from Wikipedia
Kale or borecole is a vegetable with green or purple leaves, in which the central leaves do not form a head. It is considered to be closer to wild cabbage than most domesticated forms. Wikipedia
I copied underneath some pages about kale for your perusal. First I want to relate now some of my recent experiences with kale:
After having had a look at the above you are probably convinced that kale is very good for you. Apparently kale is getting more and more popular in Australia. We did buy a bunch of it the other day at a greengrocer’s in Thirroul. It was only three Dollars, which we thought was a very good buy. Today we bought another bunch here in Dapto, costing us five Dollars.
Today’s bunch was a Hydro Produce. Does it mean it is free of pesticides? I hope so. When Caroline gave us a bunch of kale the other day, this was probably organically grown kale. Caroline usually buys organically grown vegies. Out of Caroline’s kale I made a meal for breakfast. I had a few boiled potatoes which I cut into small pieces. Then I hacked the kale leaves into tiny pieces. I also cut some fresh red capsicums into pieces. I used two frying pans: One for the potatoes with the kale pieces, the other one for the capsicum. I sauteed everything in organic butter. I transferred the cooked capsicum to the big frying pan. Then I used this smaller frying pan to do some scrambled eggs in. Once everything was served onto plates these looked rather colourful: Sauted potato pieces, tiny green kale pieces and pieces of red capsicum on one side and beautiful yellow scrambled eggs on the other side. I like to eat food that looks colourful like this! 🙂 When I cooked this breakfast we still had Caroline and Matthew with us. They praised my cooking which made me very happy.
Today we had another sunny but very cold and windy day. Exactly the sort of winter day where some hot comfort food is very much appreciated. We still had some slices of kassler (smoked pork). Normally I do not like to cook any meat together with my vegies. However Peter wanted the kale cooked together with the kassler. And he wanted it cooked a long time (the German way) so it would be quite soft. So the kale with slices of kassler in it was cooked for a long time. In the meantime I also boiled some potatoes to go with the meal. I added some butter and pepper to the kale. My slice of meat I did not eat for lunch. I left it on the side for eating it another time. Peter did eat two slices of kassler with kale and potatoes. I could see that he loved it a lot. We each had a can of beer to go with this very enjoyable meal. For desert we had some preserved sour cherries topped with a bit of organic yogurt and some custard. After lunch Peter served some espresso coffee with a piece of chocolate. Delicious! 🙂
Isn’t it amazing that we, being ‘poor’ pensioners, can afford great meals like these? As far as income is concerned we really do belong to the people with the least money. Still, we think our lifestyle is not poor at all, in fact we always are grateful how well we can live with our bit of money. Plus we have on top of the Australian pension a tiny German pension. This extra tiny pension helps us to do occasionally a bit of extra travelling. Our government thinks, it is about time we all learned to get by with less money. But I think most pensioners would find it very hard to make ends meet if the pension was to be adjusted to a lower level.
Here now is a link to the following page: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38
I copied only some sections of it!
” What’s New and Beneficial About Kale
Cholesterol-lowering benefits
Risk-lowering benefits for cancer
Providing comprehensive support for the body’s detoxification system
Researchers can now identify over 45 different flavonoids in kale.
WHFoods Recommendations: . . . . At a minimum, include cruciferous vegetables as part of your diet 2-3 times per week, and make the serving size at least 1-1/2 cups. Even better from a health standpoint, enjoy kale and other vegetables from the cruciferous vegetable group 4-5 times per week, and increase your serving size to 2 cups.
Kale is one of the healthiest vegetables around and one way to be sure to enjoy the maximum nutrition and flavor from kale is to cook it properly. We recommend Healthy Steaming kale for 5 minutes. To ensure quick and even cooking cut the leaves into 1/2″ slices and the stems into 1/4″ lengths. Let them sit for at least 5 minutes to enhance their health-promoting qualities before steaming.
……..
Kale and Pesticide Residues:
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in their 2014 report, Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, conventionally grown kale are contaminated with concentrations of organophosphate insecticides, which are considered to be highly toxic to the nervous system. While they were not among the 12 varieties of produce most concentrated in overall pesticide residues (and therefore not part of the EWG’s traditional “Dirty Dozen”), the EWG felt that this organophosphate concentration was relevant enough to bring attention to kale. They actually renamed their produce category of concern from “Dirty Dozen” to “Dirty Dozen Plus” with kale, collard greens, and hot peppers being the “Plus” conventionally grown produce. Therefore, individuals wanting to avoid pesticide-associated health risks may want to avoid consumption of kale unless it is grown organically.
………
Apparently all this is in kale in good, very good or excellent amounts:
vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C , manganese, copper, vitamin B6,
fiber, calcium, potassium, vitamin E, vitamin B2, iron magnesium, vitamin B1. omega-3 fats, phosphorus, protein, folate, vitamin B3″
Please go to the link if you want to find out more about the exact amounts.
Originally I copied nearly everything but then I shortened it quite a bit so the post won’t be so very long any more.
Isn’t kale a marvellous food? What do you think?
This is where we stopped again last Sunday, the 27th of July, when we returned from Burrawang. The pies we had at this famous pie shop tasted as good as ever. Caroline and Matthew liked them too. When we finished eating our meat pies Peter bought some fruit pies to take home for afternoon coffee. But first Caroline, our driver, went on a tour with us through beautiful Kangaroo Valley.
Here is what Wikipedia says about the pass:
Macquarie Pass
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Macquarie Pass is an eight-kilometre-long section of the Illawarra Highway passing through Macquarie Pass National Park. It was opened in 1898.
Macquarie Pass links the Southern Highland town of Robertson to the coastal town of Albion Park, descending the Illawarra Escarpment via a very narrow bitumen roadway, which has several single-lane sections and is mostly two lanes with double “no overtaking” lines. It is in the Shellharbour local government area.
This section of roadway is very steep, and contains a large number of hairpin bends, resulting in buses and trucks needing to reverse on some of the bends. The pass is quite notorious for accidents due to its nature, and drivers and riders are required to be cautious.
After heavy rain, the Macquarie Pass can be closed due to flooding on the top half of the pass. Cars and motorcycle riders may opt to use Jamberoo Mountain Road between Robertson and Jamberoo, while trucks are advised to use Mount Ousley Road (Southern Freeway) and Picton Road as an alternative.
The road is very popular with motorcyclists on weekends and public holidays. The Shellharbour and Wingecarribee Councils and the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority have therefore published a safety brochure entitled ‘Motorcycling Macquarie Pass.’
It is indeed very steep and has a large number of hairpin bends!
I found in my diary two occasions when we went up this pass. In July 2013 we had an outing to a Nature Reserve at Robertson and in March 2014 we went to Fitzroy Fall.
Here are just a few things worth remembering from these two trips.
The following I wrote on the 6th of July 2013:
It was windy and cold today, however plenty of sunshine and beautiful clear air. We thought it would be wonderful to go up to the highlands on a day like this. Driving up Macquarie Pass was no problem.
We reached Robertson and decided we would first of all have an early lunch with one of the famous Robertson pies and a cup of tea. The pies were delicious as ever. We have frequented this PIE SHOP in Robertson for over fifty years. The pies there are really special. Peter had a pepper steak pie and I had a beef curry pie. A hot cup of tea with it was lovely.
In the Wikipedia it says that the road is very popular with motorcyclists on weekends and public holidays. And so it is. At the pie shop for instance scores of motorcyclists had just arrived for a well deserved break. The eating section of the shop got pretty crowded after a while for lots of other holiday makers with children on winter school holidays had also arrived. The shop did a roaring business with their pies.
Near the railway line and near what used to be Robertson station is the little bit of rainforest which we had not been visiting for decades. Today was the day. We got ourselves reacquainted with it. There is a round-track of only about 600 m. We walked along it and felt like being in another world.
Earlier in the morning on the way to Macquarie Pass we stopped at the Marshall Mount Dance Hall. Our daughter Monika liked to go to their dances nearly forty years ago. Looking at the hall today Peter recalled how he drove to this hall on a Saturday night to pick up Monika and her friends after the dance had finished. We noticed today also a building next to this hall which used to be the Marshall Mount Public School.
We did a little detour through the country side where we noticed some ducks crossing the road. All in all we had a lovely day on this beautiful sunny winter day with gusts of wind that felt very cold.
In March 2014 we went to Fitzroy Falls.
On the way back from the Fitzroy Falls we stopped at this reservoir to have a look
I had fun reminiscing about our trips to the highlands.
AuntyUta 