To Pee or Not to Pee, Ancient Prosthetics

I had a lovely time yesterday morning, I went for an ultrasound on my bladder, but nobody told me I needed to have a full one before they could complete the task. So I had to drink water and then hang around the place for about an hour before they could do what they needed to do. Honestly. You would think the office would have told me when I was booking the appointment. It actually got quite funny, waiting for the water to do the trick. Today I hope my doc has the results, they promised.

They now believe that the ancient Egyptians invented the first prosthetics having found artificial big toes attached to the feet of mummies. They have tested the artificial toes on people who have lost theirs and found them to help quite a bit. Makes you think, maybe we are not as clever as we thought we were. These artificial toes go back to between 600 and 900 years BC. The items were made of different materials and the wooden one didn’t work as well as the one made of cartonnage a sort of papier maché mixture made using linen, glue and plaster which was made later than the wooden one.

Don’t these look delicious. We will certainly be trying them.

Mini Mushroom-Tomato Galettes with Roquefort and Walnuts

by Mardi Michels of eat.live.travel.write.

Ingredients

2 sheets/rolls butter puff pastry *

3 oz Roquefort or other sharp blue cheese, crumbled

4 tbs chopped walnuts

10 medium white mushrooms, thinly sliced

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 egg, beaten

2 tbs butter

*You could, of course make your own pastry

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400˚F / 200˚C.
2. Roll out pastry dough and using a bowl approximately 14-15cm in diameter, cut out four rounds. Do not force or stretch the dough. Transfer the dough to a baking tray either lined with parchment paper or a Silpat.
3. Place the cheese in the middle of each pastry round, leaving about 2cm around the edge of each round.
4. Sprinkle each pastry round with a tablespoon of the chopped walnuts.
5. Place about 8 mushrooms' worth of slices on top of the walnuts, pressing into the cheese/walnut mixture.
6. Place 3 cherry tomato halves on each pastry round.
7. Fold over the edges of the dough (making 4-5 folds, one fold at a time) and pressing lightly on the corners to gently seal the galettes.
8. Brush the beaten egg on the dough border. Bake for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown and the cheese melted.
9. Meanwhile, sauté the remaining mushroom slices in the butter. Drain on a paper towel and set aside until the galettes are cooked.
10. When the galettes are cooked, remove from baking tray to a cooling rack and cool for about 5 minutes. Place the sautéd mushroom slices on each galette and serve warm with a green salad.

Makes 4 servings

Have a great day