If you are planning for a year – sow rice, if you are planning for a decade – sow trees, if you are planning for a lifetime – educate people!

It has been a while since I was here, so dropped by to say HI to you all!

GINGER BEER

25g fresh ginger root

1 lemon scrubbed

450g sugar

25g cream of Tatar

4.5 litres boiling water

25g wine yeast or bakers yeast

Bruise the ginger by folding it in a clean cloth and pounding it with a hammer to release the flavour

Using a potato peeler, peel the rind very thinly from the lemon. Squeeze the juice from the lemon.

Put the ginger, sugar, cream of tatare and lemon rind into a large plastic bucket, pour on the boiling water in two lots, if necessary.

Add the lemon juice and stir well. Leave until the liquid has cooled to 21deg C.

Cream the yeast with a little water in a small bowl and stir it into the liquid. Cover the bucket with a clean cloth draped over a wire cake rack or use two to three pieces of clean wood to prevent the cloth from sagging. Secure the cloth with elastic and leave in a warm place for 24 hours.

Skim off the froth and without disturbing the sediment too much, use a jug to bale the beer into strong bottles.

Alternatively, strain the beer and pour it through a funnel into the bottles.

Close the bottles with corks and tie the corks down with string or fine florists wire, leaving a little play on the tie.

Store the bottles in a cool place and examine them frequently.

If fermentation is vigorous, loosen the strings or wires slightly to relieve the pressure in the bottles, until fermentation quietens down

The ginger beer is ready to drink in 2-3 days.

Recipe from the Readers Digest Cookbook

I think that every home should have a copy of this book it is full of everything.

Ginger – ginger beer plant

All over the British Isles people used to relish a frothy, fizzy, gingery, alcoholic beer which was made at home. All you needed was a bit of sugar, ginger, water and a ginger beer ‘plant’. But it wasn’t a typical green, leafy kind of plant. It was a sloppy, white mass that lived in a jam jar.

Popular drink

It would be regularly ‘fed’ with sugar and every so often the liquid would be tapped off, diluted and bottled. The liquid would ferment in the bottle, producing the fizz. After about a week or so it was ready to drink. The plant was treated like a chain letter. As it grew it was halved and passed to family and friends.

Mystery ‘plant’ revealed

No one has ever worked out where the first ginger beer plants came from, but the mystery of its identity was solved by a pioneering scientist in the late nineteenth century. Harry Marshall Ward studied how plants and microorganisms live together in symbiotic relationships. He became curious when a friend at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, gave him a ginger beer plant. As the years passed he built up a whole collection of ginger beer plant specimens and painstakingly identified, separated and attempted to grow the different organisms within the mixtures.

His analyses revealed that it was a type of organism new to science. He described it as a ‘composite body’, consisting of many microorganisms living together. Not all of these microbes helped in making the beer, but two organisms were present in every sample, and seemed vital to the production of ginger beer. One was a fungus he named Saccharomyces pyriformis. The other was a bacterium, which he named Bacterium vermiforme, and is now called Brevibacterium vermiforme. Together, they produce the essential ingredients of traditional ginger beer: carbon dioxide and alcohol.

Ginger Beer is a carbonated drink. As its name suggests, it is ginger-flavoured1, though it is non-alcoholic. (If you want to make ginger beer with a bit of an extra kick to it then check out the Edited Guide entry on Alcoholic Ginger Beer.)
Ginger is a pungent spice made from the root of the ginger plant, though the stem of ginger is also used as a confectionery. The root is used to flavour ginger beer, at least in home brewed ginger beer, though in industrial ginger beer chemical flavourings may be used instead.
Ginger beer has a certain nostalgic quality and is often associated with picnics and the good old days. Anyone who has read Enid Blyton’s children’s book series The Famous Five will note that the four children and their dog are always having picnics of ‘home-made ginger beer and macaroons’.
Do not; however, be put off by this image, for it really is a delicious drink, despite the connotations.
The Recipe

Making your own ginger beer is very easy. It is produced in a biological process in much the same way as yoghurt. You will first need to create what is called a ginger beer plant2. It will be ten days before the first batch will be ready.
Ingredients
25g Dry yeast (50g of fresh)
2tbsp ground ginger
2tbsp caster sugar
½pt (300ml) water
Method
If you are using dry yeast, stir the yeast in with ¼ pint (150ml) of lukewarm water and a bit of sugar. Leave this mixture for 10-15 mins. If you are using fresh yeast, which you can procure from certain bakers, you can skip this process.
Mix the wettened yeast with the sugar until they cream to form a liquid. Then add the ground ginger and water. If you used dry yeast then use only ¼pt (150ml) of water. Stir this mixture well and pour it into a jar with a loose-fitting lid, so as to let the mixture breathe. Now leave this mixture in a cool place.
The next day, and each day thereafter, add 1 level tsp (5ml) of ground ginger and the same amount of caster sugar to your jar and stir the mixture thoroughly.
After 10 days dissolve 18oz (500g) of caster sugar and 1½pt (900ml) of water, bring this mix to the boil and let it cool slightly. Add the strained juice of two lemons to the water.
Strain your ginger plant through fine muslin and add the strained liquid to the sugar and lemon juice mixture, along with 6pt (3.4 l) water.
Stir the mixture well and bottle it straight away in strong screw-topped bottles, like those in which you would store cider or beer. Make sure you store the bottles in a cool place for about two weeks before you drink it. This is essential!

To Make More Ginger Beer
Halve the sediment left on the muslin and divide it into two separate jars. Add ½pt (300ml) water, 2tsps (10ml) and 2tsps (10ml) caster sugar to each jar. Stir it well and continue the same process as before for ten days.
This means that the produce is doubled every ten days.
Ginger Beer is best enjoyed chilled and despite the cliché is also highly enjoyable on picnics.

Ginger Beer – The French Alternative scary as Jackie’s ginger monster, but they do have to be fed with ginger and sugar every day or they will die. If you don’t want all that hassle, Jackie has a delicious alternative. Its call 24 hours.
Equipment
4-5 large plastic bottles, sterilised (do not use glass bottles – they might explode)
1 large stainless steel or enamel pot, with a lid or very clean tea towel to
cover
funnel
wooden spoon
perforated metal spoon
Ingredients

2 tablespoons fresh ginger root, chopped
2 lemons, washed and thickly sliced
500g sugar
41/2 litres water
1 teaspoon tartaric acid
7g sachet dried yeast
Method
And remember:
Never keep homemade ginger beer for more than three days after making, and throw it out if it looks or smells odd.
Always store homemade ginger beer in plastic bottles, never glass, in case the bottles explode.
Everything that comes into contact with the brew – your hands, the bottles, the funnel etc., must be scrupulously clean.
All homemade ginger beer is slightly alcoholic, so don’t allow the children to drink too much.

We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

“Claret, dear, not Coca-Cola, When you’re having Gorgonzola….”
William Cole, ‘What a Friend We Have in Cheeses!’

When you feel “dog tired” at night, it may be because you growled all day.
       – Anonymous

“The soul that can speak with its eyes can also kiss with a gaze.” – Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects.”
– Arnold Glasow

Murpheys Law!!!

The gooier the food, the more likely it is to end up on the carpet.

Sharon Lurie married into a fourth-generation family of butchers and, after experimenting and creating for 25 years, can now prove that meat from the forequarter need not be tough, dry and boring! Here are some fabulous recipes to use for a  Picnic, be it on the coach, or couch, in the bath, in the park, lovely tasty Kosher Kos to woo your loved one this valentines day.

I have chosen some recipes with ingredients that a great for the Libido, ginger to warm things up, sticky ribs that will have you licking your fingers all night, succulent moist smoked salmon full of omegas to give you strength, enjoy this special day. 

‘Some like it hot’ salmon salad:

Ingredients:

500g smoked salmon bits

2 red onions, peeled and sliced

250g fresh asparagus, chopped

Handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

2 Tbsp schug (hot chilli mix – made by most kosher deli’s) or 1 heaped tsp homemade chilli sauce

2 Tbsp capers

2 cups Italian salad dressing (I use knorr, as the catering size is kosher)

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a salad bowl and serve. As it is quite hot and spicy, make sure you have some extra challa around!

© Sharon Lurie; Celebrating with the butcher’s wife; Random house / Struik

Sticky ginger-and-honey-basted ribs:

There are so many different ways to prepare ribs, but this recipe has stood the test of time and comes out tops on every occasion. Remember it’s Rosh Hashanah – we need all the sweetness we can get!

Ingredients:

3 racks of lamb ribs (about 7 ribs per rack), ask your butcher to cut them up individually (they can be smoked or plain – I prefer them smoked!)

1 litre ginger ale

3 bay leaves

5 whole cloves garlic

1 tsp salt

Basting sauce:

2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger

6 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tbsp treacle sugar

½ cup honey

½ cup soy sauce

2 tbsp tomato sauce

Juice of 1 lime

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper

Method:

1. Place the individually cut ribs in a pot.

2. Combine the ginger ale, bay leaves, garlic and salt and pour over the ribs.

3. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, with the lid on, until the liquid boils away.

4. Remove the ribs from the pot and place in a roasting pan.

5. Combine all the basting ingredients in a bowl and pour over the ribs, ensuring that they are completely covered.

6. The ribs can now be even roasted or braaied.

7. If you are going to braai them, braai until golden brown on both sides. They can be placed in a preheated oven at 140°C to keep warm. If you are going to roast them, roast for at least 1 hour at 180°C until brown, turning them after 30 minutes. You can then reduce the heat to 140°C to keep warm.

Serves 6-8

© Sharon Lurie; Celebrating with the butcher’s wife; Random house / Struik

Grilled nectarines and ginger cream:

Because of their water content, nectarines cook quickly, which helps when you’re in a hurry!

Ingredients:

6 nectarines

12 Tbsp Demerara sugar mixed with ½ tsp ground cinnamon

juice of 1 orange

Method:

Put on the oven grill and ensure that the oven rack is on the middle shelf. Cut the nectarines in half from the top down, twist and carefully remove the pips with a teaspoon or knife.

Place the nectarines in an ovenproof dish cut side up.

Place 1 tbsp of the cinnamon sugar in each nectarine half. Sprinkle the orange juice over the fruit. Grill until golden brown. Serve warm, at room temperature or cold with a spoonful of ginger cream (see below) or ice cream.

Ginger cream:

Ingredients:

1 cup non-dairy creamer

4 pieces preserved ginger in syrup, chopped small

Method:

Beat the non-dairy creamer and gently fold in the ginger. If ginger is not your thing, you can substitute it with the pulp of 1-2 granadillas.

Serves 6-8

© Sharon Lurie; Celebrating with the butcher’s wife; Random house / Struik