Saturday's Paper

In Saturday's local paper, I discovered a few things. Apparently asparagus cannot be grown in the same spot for more than 25 years and then the land has to lie fallow for 20 years. Tim Barrie, of Barrie's Asparagus farm, is proposing to lease one of his fields for solar energy panels for the next 20 years. Pretty clever.

The second thing I learned was that rhubarb originally came from China and Tibet, I didn't know that, nor did I know that the Chinese actually used it as a laxative. No wonder!!!!! Was it they who discovered the leaves are poisonous and the stalks edible? I did know rhubarb is actually a vegetable, not a fruit.

The third thing, apparently cigarettes have now to be hidden in stores which is a bit hard on small businesses who are having to install cupboards without "see through" fronts. I don't believe that will actually make a difference to whether people/kids smoke or not. If their peers do, they probably will, despite laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors. In fact the more laws against it, the more attractive it becomes. America found this out during prohibition. I am very relieved I quit some 16 or so years ago. Matt quit way before I did but he wasn't really as heavy a smoker.

Isn't the internet wonderful. I was just thinking about it this morning. I make new friends all the time, with my cooking group I have a number of good friends, I met quite a few of them face to face when I went to England a few years ago, and now I am making friends through blogs. I wish I were rich enough to go visit everyone, especially in Australia and South Africa, but unless we win the lottery, that will never happen I'm afraid. We keep buying lotter tickets in hopes. What's the saying, "hope springs eternal in the human breast".

Did you watch Startrek? Well the Klingons eat rhubarb too - here is a bread recipe containing rhubarb. By the amount of copies of the recipe which can be found on the internet, it must be pretty popular, or we have a lot of Klingons here.

Aaktay (Klingon Steamed Bread)
Serves: 2

Source: RecitopiaUK

1 c White cornmeal
1 c Whole wheat flour
1/2 c All-bran cereal
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Ginger
3/4 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/2 c Walnuts, chopped
1/2 c Dates, chopped
2/3 c Powdered skim milk
1 1/2 c Buttermilk
1/2 c Honey
1/2 Orange; unpeeled
1 c Rhubarb; chopped
Margarine or butter; to grease cans
2 x 37 oz empty cans

Instructions: Mix together in a bowl all the dry ingredients including dates and walnuts (leave out only the buttermilk, honey, orange half and rhubarb). Put the buttermilk and the honey in the blender. Wash an orange, cut off any price or brand marks and cut it in half. Cut the orange half into chunks and add it to the blender, being sure that you have removed all the seeds. Run the blender until the orange chunks are chopped into little bits. Now add the buttermilk mixture, along with the rhubarb chunks, to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Pour immediately into greased cans, filling each can no more than two-thirds full. Cover the filled cans with aluminium foil, and secure the foil with a rubber bands. Place them in a large pot, on some kind of a rack so they are not touching the bottom of the pot. Pour in hot water until the bottom 2 inches of the cans are covered. Bring to a boil and keep the water boiling gently for about 1 1/2 hours.

The pot should be covered and there should be a little steam escaping at all times. Check the pot occasionally to make sure that there is enough water left.

At the end of 1 1/2 hours, check with a skewer, right through the foil. If it does not come out clean, cook for another half hour and recheck. When the loaves are done, take the "hot" cans out of the pot. When you are ready to serve, uncover a mould, shake the loaf out onto a breadboard and slice it. Serve warm with butter or cream cheese.

Have a great day.