Theeuroblog.com – Health, Food and Travel

We overlooked these potatoes for some weeks. It was stored in a big pot in our kitchen. As I saw them, they are starting to grow already. Look at the roots that are growing bigger. Poor potatoes! We threw it last week to our compost pit near our garden. We had today a great potato salad.

I don’t exactly know how to call this recipe. I am just sharing this picture for you to have an idea how an Opo Gourd is being prepared. Below are the ingredients I used last time.

1 lb. pork belly, cut into strips
1 large onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 small ginger around 5 grams cut into small pieces
1 Opo Gourd medium size cut into pieces like you see in the picture
1 tablespoon vinegar
3 tablespoons oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 cups water
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large pot and sautee garlic, onions, and ginger until wilted. Add the pork, let cook until the color changes and the edges are slightly browned. Add vinegar and soy sauce and let it boil for some minutes, until it is reduced. Add Opo Gourd. Add the water and simmer until pork and vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Add water if needed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

here is you simple menu of Opo Gourd with Pork Belly. below is also a little information about Opo Gourd.
Opo squash is often used in stews and there are several dishes in which this cooking method produces extremely tasty results. While this is not the healthiest method of preparing Opo squash you can still preserve most of its nutrients by keeping stewing time short. A few minutes of cooking will be enough in most cases, depending on the size of the Opo squash and you will get a good balance between a tastier taste and a reasonable level of intact nutrients. Stewed Opo squash is at a middle point, between fried and steamed Opo squash, as far as nutritional values are concerned. The trade off between a full cooked taste and high positive compound levels is quite reasonable, and stewed Opo squash will often be the number one choice for many traditional and modern meals.

I still have to write my own version of this recipe. I love to eat this food. It really taste good. I was trying to find the recipe in the net for you to try. Here is the picture of our own Shrimps with Sugar Snap Peas fresh from our kitchen. The last time I cooked this was in September last year. I wish to try it again to share my own recipe. You can also try the recipe below.
Ingredients:

* 1 pound uncooked large shrimp, peeled, deveined
* 2 tablespoons canola oil
* 3 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
* 2 large garlic cloves, minced
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
* 1 pound sugar snap peas, strings removed
* 1 cup fresh corn kernels (cut from about 2 ears)
* 1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
* 3 green onions, thinly sliced on diagonal
* 2 teaspoons black or white sesame seeds (optional)

Preparation:

Mix shrimp, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger, half of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and crushed red pepper in medium bowl. Let stand 1 hour.

Heat wok or large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add shrimp mixture; sauté until shrimp are just opaque in center, about 2 minutes. Transfer shrimp to bowl. Add 1 tablespoon oil to wok, then add sugar snap peas, corn, bell pepper, green onions, 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger, and remaining garlic. Stir-fry until vegetables are crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Return shrimp and any accumulated juices from bowl to wok; stir-fry 1 minute longer. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.
recipe by: epicurious

One of our favourite food, Leberkäse or Leberkaese. This is one of the specialty food in the south of Germany . The Swabian, Franconian and Bavarian people love this food. This is usually made of pork,bacon, corned beef and onions. All these ingredients are finely grind together and bake like a loaf of a bread until it is brown.

When it is sliced, we usually fried it in a pan with little oil and put a fried egg on top as you see in the picture here. Some people eat it with bread, soft pretzels or potato salad..Have a yummy dya again!

you can also half-cooked the egg here. it depends on what you like…don’t forget to sprinkle salt and pepper to taste…before I forget Eier means Egg in English.

There are varieties of German sausages. When you try to search on the net, for sure you will find it. What we love to eat especially for grilling is the bratwurst. German bratwurst has also different kinds. The one that we have in the photo is a Rostbratwurst. It taste good once in while. have a yummy day..sorry the photo is not well taken.

We love to cook and eat chayote. This is kind of vegetable that look like a pear. We love to cook this but sad to say we can’t buy it all the time in German grocery stores. We have to buy this especially in Asian shops which is quite far from us. This is good for some food like chicken soup and pancit, a Filipino recipe with some kind of noodles, meat and vegetables. We hope to share a recipe for vegetable next time. As you can see, the ones in the picture don’t look fresh anymore.
The chayote (Sechium edule), also known as sayote, tayota, choko, chocho, chow-chow, christophene, mirliton, and vegetable pear, is an edible plant that belongs to the gourd family Cucurbitaceae along with melons, cucumbers and squash.

The plant has large leaves that form a canopy over the fruit. The vine is grown on the ground or more commonly on trellises.

In the most common variety, the fruit is roughly pear or apple shaped, somewhat flattened and with coarse wrinkles, ranging from 10 to 20 cm in length. It has a thin green skin fused with the white flesh, and a single large flattened pip. The flesh has a fairly bland taste, and a texture described as a cross between a potato and a cucumber. Although generally discarded, the seed has a nutty flavour and may be eaten as part of the fruit.

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Violales
Family: Cucurbitaceae
Genus: Sechium
Species: S. edule
Binomial name
Sechium edule

source: wikipedia

This is one of our favorite food..The Schweinebraten or Roasted Pork eaten with Potato salad. We also prepare this sometimes. The one that I have in the photo was taken in a restaurant where we ate last time.

Scurvy is an avitaminosis resulting from lack of vitamin C, since without this vitamin, the synthesised collagen is too unstable to perform its function. Scurvy leads to the formation of liver spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from all mucous membranes. The spots are most abundant on the thighs and legs, and a person with the ailment looks pale, feels depressed, and is partially immobilized. In advanced scurvy there are open, suppurating wounds and loss of teeth and, eventually, death. The human body can store only a certain amount of vitamin C, and so the body soon depletes itself if fresh supplies are not consumed.

It has been shown that smokers who have diets poor in vitamin C are at a higher risk of lung-borne diseases than those smokers who have higher concentrations of vitamin C in the blood.

Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling and Dr. G. C. Willis have asserted that chronic long term low blood levels of vitamin C or Chronic Scurvy is a cause of atherosclerosis.

Western societies generally consume sufficient Vitamin C to prevent scurvy. In 2004 a Canadian Community health survey reported that Canadians of 19 years and above have intakes of vitamin C from food of, 133 mg/d for males and 120 mg/d for females , which is higher than the RDA recommendation. source: wikipedia

Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid is an essential nutrient for humans, a large number of higher primate species, a small number of other mammalian species (notably guinea pigs and bats), a few species of birds, and some fish.

Ascorbate (an ion of ascorbic acid) is required for a range of essential metabolic reactions in all animals and plants. It is made internally by almost all organisms, humans being a notable exception. Deficiency in this vitamin causes scurvy in humans. It is also widely used as a food additive.

The pharmacophore of vitamin C is the ascorbate ion. In living organisms, ascorbate is an anti-oxidant, since it protects the body against oxidative stress, and is a cofactor in several vital enzymatic reactions.

Scurvy has been known since ancient times. People in many parts of the world assumed it was caused by a lack of fresh plant foods. The British Navy started giving sailors lime juice to prevent scurvy in 1795. Ascorbic acid was finally isolated by 1933 and synthesized in 1934. The uses and recommended daily intake of vitamin C are matters of on-going debate. A recent meta-analysis of 68 reliable antioxidant supplementation experiments involving a total of 232,606 individuals concluded that consuming additional ascorbate from supplements may not be as beneficial as thought. source: wikipedia

Green tea contains polyphenols which are thought to improve health, particularly catechins, the most abundant of which is epigallocatechin gallate. In vitro and animal studies as well as preliminary observational and clinical studies of humans suggest that green tea can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer as well as beneficially impact bone density, cognitive function, dental caries, and kidney stones. However, the human studies are sometimes mixed and inconsistent. Green tea also contains carotenoids, tocopherols, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), minerals such as Cr, Mn, Se or Zn, and certain phytochemical compounds. It is a more potent antioxidant than black tea, although black tea has substances which green tea does not such as theaflavin.

Green tea consumption is epidemiologically associated with reduced heart disease, and animal studies have found that it can reduce cholesterol. However, several small, brief human trials found that tea consumption did not reduce in cholesterol in humans. In 2003 a randomized clinical trial found that a green tea extract with added theaflavin from black tea reduced cholesterol.

In a study performed at Birmingham (UK) University, it was shown that average fat oxidation rates were 17% higher after ingestion of green tea Extract than after ingestion of a placebo. Similarly the contribution of fat oxidation to total energy expenditure was also significantly higher by a similar percentage following ingestion of green tea extract. This implies that ingestion of green tea extract can not only increase fat oxidation during moderately intensive exercise but also improve insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance in healthy young men.

In a study performed at the Technion, it was shown that the main antioxidant polyphenol of green tea extract, EGCG, when fed to mice induced with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, helped to protect brain cells from dying, as well as ‘rescuing’ already damaged neurons in the brain, a phenomenon called neurorescue or neurorestoration. The findings of the study, led by Dr. Silvia Mandell, were presented at the Fourth International Scientific Symposium on Tea and Human Health in Washington D.C., in 2007. Resulting tests underway in China, under the auspices of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, are being held on early Parkinson’s patients.

In a recent case-control study of the eating habits of 2,018 women, consumption of mushrooms and green tea was linked to a 90% lower occurrence of breast cancer.
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