Making Linden Cocoa with Black Walnut cordial

Yesterday,  on a ride from a really shitty appointment, I came across some linden trees full of seeds.  

Took them to the kitchen,  cleaned,  and put them into the oven at 180° C for 40 minutes.

After that,  they were chocolate brown.  

Ground them to a fine grain.  

Stirred a tablespoon of black walnut cordial into some condensed milk. 
Some boiling water later...

I did get a lovely coffee substitute (not like cocoa really,  but really tasty). 

Enjoy!
 

Green Walnuts for Cordial, Sweets and Schnapps

Several weeks ago I found some green walnuts and wanted to try out to make cordial,  schnapps and sweets (black walnuts) from them.  The thing is,  you can make it zero-waste if you know how to.  

I started by poaching them with a teaspoon of salt to leach out some tannines,  which create the bitterness in the green walnuts.  

I pricked the outer shell,  which is rather soft still and put them into salt water for three days.  After that,  I put them into plain water for a week,  removing the water every day and changing to fresh water. 

The water can be used to wash your face to clean your skin.  Take care and watch out for any irritations! 

Then I covered the already blackening nuts deliberately with sugar.  You could also use honey,  molasses or brown sugar.  

After another week there was a nice brown cordial already developing.  

I strained the nuts and put some more sugar on top and a bit of water.  

I boiled the first cordial and reduced it to a honey-like consistency.  

Constantly stirring,  I added a bit of vanilla and cinnamon and quenched (don't forget to keep stirring) with a cup of good rum (whisky would work,  too). 

Then,  I added a little of white brandy.  This will need to ripen for three weeks.  In the meantime,  there will be another batch of cordial developing that I will use for cordial.  Also,  the nuts will be leached out enough to make a formideable treat.  

To be continued😉. 

Enjoy!  

How to clean and sharpen your knife - with dirt

I had used my beloved friction folder pretty hard.  For those of you that are new to the blog, I made it several years ago,  from a titanium handle and an O1 blade, and I do love it to bits.  But it got rained on and sweated on,  so I could,  for the life of me,  no longer call it a patina,  but rust,  and I just didn't realize,  and I just noticed in the woods.  Bummer,  because of course I didn't bring neither a strop or a whetstone. 

But you can be a doofus as much as you like,  just as long as you know how to get out of the fix.  😉There was some dust lying around not doing anything,  and a dry bramble.  I whittled a flat surface onto the sprout,  spit into my palm and made just a bit of mud.  Cleaned off the rust and gave the edge a little once-over,  restoring a pretty good edge sharpness.  This works because the bramble has some silicate in it. You want some fine,  but sandy sandstone  dirt (it is best when you can see a bit of twinkling reflexion) with just a bit of loam in it in order to create a little binding. Rub the surface of the blade or use just like you would use a steel strop.  

And just like that you remove the rust,  without ruining your patina too much.  

The making of the knife you can see here 

http://fimbulmyrk.blogspot.com/2020/11/chaos-and-imminent-death-and-still-alive.html

Take good care out there,  and see you soon!