Acorn coffee with Chaga and hazelnut

On a recent outing, I collected some acorns and hazelnuts to try out a new recipe for a coffee alternative. 

I cracked the nuts and peeled the acorns.  You need to thoroughly leach out the acorns.  I was sort of in a hurry, so I chopped them and boiled them three times for 20 minutes, changing the water every time. You could keep the batches for staining cloth or tanning leather. When the bitterness is gone, you can take the nuts and acorns and roast them to a dark brown or even black colour.  

Grind them like coffee and boil them with a walnut-sized piece of Chaga for about 20 minutes, until a golden-brown froth rises from the Chaga. If you want to make the drink more substantial, you can add some sweet chestnut and some cashews or unroasted hazelnuts. 

Sweeten with honey. 
Enjoy! 😉
 

Supper in the woods and a new sheath

 The noise outside was driving me mad, and I was in desperate need for some green, so I packed my gear and my supper and made for a place in the woods behind my "home" sheltered from the noise of the highway, the plane traffic, the road and the railway station, the yelping, shrieking, yelling and crying of Ritalin-drugged kids and drunks waiting for the bus. Funny, how calm this wood actually is, even if the highway runs through it. I took a deep breath, poured myself a cuppa and took my snack board and one of my favourite knives. Had some leftover steak from BBQing and some real bread, and just relished in great food and tea and silence.

 In case you ask, the blade is 90 mm x 3mm of my own San- Mai damascus (60 layers of 1.2842 toolsteel and rebar with a cutting core of 1.2842, brass fittings, tang peened over amd a chunky, comfy stag antler handle. It´s one of my favourite snack and kitchen and carving knives. I had a sheath for it, which I had bought, but it did not fit too well, so I finally got to business the other day and made a sheath for it, nothing fancy, really, but tanned and tempered with dragon´s blood (daemonoropos draco) concoction, wet-formed and then hot-dragonblooded and beeswaxed;-).

 On my way home I got myself some spruce sprouts for schnapps,tea and syrup. I like to use it as a concoction against the flu and the like, the schnapps is also good for the digestion;-). To make the syrup you need:

3 handful of spruce sprouts
1 cup wood honey
1 natural lemon
sugar if you are so inclined, or more honey

Put one layer of spruce sprouts in a jar. Thoroughly wash the lemon. Make thin lemon slices and put them atop the spruce sprouts. Cover with honey. Add another layer of spruce, and lemon slices, cover with honey, and so forth. Add a thick layer of sugar to keep off the air. Put on the lid. Let it rest for a week in the sun. Pass through a sieve. Carefully heat the syrup to at least 75° Celcius and pour it in a vaccum lid, put the lid on and set it upside down for aan hour. Heat in a bain-marie again. Done;-).

Schnapps:

1 handful of spruce sprouts
1 cup wood honey
1 l Vodka

Cover the sprouts with honey, let it rest for a week. Cover with Vodka, let it rest for 6 weeks. Pass through a sieve. Nasdarowje!;-)


For tea, take 5-10 spruce sprouts, pour with 0,3 l of boiling water. Sweeten with honey if you feel so inclined. It´s also delicious with a twig of sage and hederacea glechoma.