Apples, strudel and other important things

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This blog I dedicate to Steve, the chutney master and to all friends, whom I cannot but would like to invite for a strudel with ice cream and coffee.

So – you know, I have several apple trees in my garden and ths year I have enormous crop.

In spite of all my efforts, there must be lot of them left for birds and insect. But it is a good fertiliser for the trees for the next year, as well.

Apples are very healthy, as they are very low in saturated fat (yes, they do contain it!), but rich in fibers and vitamin C, with lower content of iron, vitamin A and calcium. So, whoever from you has a high blood cholesterol, wants to loose weight or make bowles move – take three apples a day. One of my patients, many years ago, she was a professional theater dancer with a very nice figure at her sixties. She told me her secret – for years she ate one apple each morning before the breakfast. Do not know if it was the secret of her beauty, but she was a fox in her sixties.
You can make compot, salads (apples with horseradish is very delicious and healthy with fatty meat), chutney (), apple cakes, appelgebak or strudel from it. All formulations of apple cakes are delicious when served with icecream or whipped cream with a cup of coffee.

So, let start with strudel. What we need…
Apples….decorticated and washed in lemon water…

Then you will need – pastry (this is from the shop, who has time, can make a home-made one), sugar, prezlo, one egg, vanilla sugar, raisins, cinnamon sugar, ground cinnamon – and of course apples!.

I put a lot of cinnamon (as ground cinnamon or cinnamon sugar), as the second healthy foodstuff in strudel is cinnamon. It also lowers cholesterol, regulates blood sugar, it has anti-clotting effect in the blood, boosts cognitive function and memory and is high in mangan and iron. It was all proven in experimental/clinical studies. It also reduce proliferation of lymphoma cells and yeasts, so cinnamon is really a food for people with blood cancers. For instance the perfect variation is cinnamon tea (made by cooking cinnamon) or compot made from apples and cooked with cinnamon, piece of lemon and cloves…I make it from this large cinnamon which I bought in Emirates and it has divine taste – much better then the one from Ceylon, imported to Europe.

But that´s another story and next recipe, maybe…
Prezlo should be baked shortly, you have to stir constantly until the colour of prezlo turns pink. That´s it.

You need also butter – melted. Did you hear about healing properties of Indian ghee?

A puff pastry spot with few drops of olive oil and then sprinkle it in the middle with apples cut into slices, cinnamon sugar, crystal sugar, vanilla sugar, prezlo, raisins (I give as mucha as possible, better more raisins and less sugar, it makes the cake juicy) and carefully wrap it all in the pastry. Before that, pour liquified butter on it.

Looks good, doesn´t it?

Wrapping is the high art here, as the content must be wrapped tightly before baking. Egg will help to glue it (it is hand of my mom who assisted, as it is hard to work and make photos of your hands at work, lol).
So, mummy is ready for stove.

Put it into preheated stove (180 C). Once it is in, increase the temperature to 200 C and bake it for 25 minutes (monitoring is required). I made two mummies….just to be secure for the weekend coming.

And here is the final result. Picture of the cake served with ice cream and whipped cream will come later, as I forgot to buy vanille ice cream.

Something was left also for guinea pigs – they are the animals, by the way, who are not able to synthesize their own vitamin C, that is why they need apple a day :)

I always wish to pay for a special cooking/baking course in Italy. I have heard, they are fantastic. It must be fun as well, as I know Italians very well. One day, maybe…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=pNloxNcahmA

So, today was a busy day. I am absolutely blogged out :)
Bon apetite!

• 15 Sep, 2012
• 9 likes

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