A little fairy tale video from the countryside

My parents place in the country is a wonderful place to get inspiration for My Fairy Tale Recipes.

I often take my children to visit their grandparents here, even though they are still too small to go horseback riding.

You can buy My Fairy Tale Recipes from Amazon, here:

My Fairy Tale Recipes on Amazon

Cowboy Chilli con Carne Recipe

So apparently the original Chilli Con Carne comes from Texas, which makes me think of cowboys. 

And made me think about the fact that there are obviously no cowboy fairy tales, but does make you think about the possibilities about writing cowboy stories that feature a Texan cowboy who perhaps travels to Mexico where he adds beans to his dish.

Here is my Chilli Con Carne, which I have baked with my children. Looks a little messy, but the children love it.

You start off by cutting one onion, which you fry in a frying pan for about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, you cut 5  - 8 small carrots. 

You add the carrots to the frying oion and add black pepper, basil and chilli powder.

You then add 500 grams of minced meat (or Quorn) to the dish. 

After you have made sure that the meat (or Quorn) has been fried properly, you can transfer the dish into a baking pot, adding a 5 chopped tomatoes, 1 cup of chopped mushrooms and 2 cups of red kidney beans. 

And you can let it bake for about an hour at 100 degrees, to get that nice full flavour. I finally serve it with some Bulgar wheat, to make it extra healthy. 

Bauer's Troll Mushroom Bread

As a family, we sat and talked about forrest trolls while researching healthy recipes for children, which have elements from the forrest.

We began to talk about the great illustrator John Bauer. He has made some amazing illustrations of forrest trolls and Scandinavian sagas. 

Your can see one here:

This could be a forrest troll, met by one of my children, making his way through the forrest.

I want to make a recipe that is integrated into a Scandinavian saga about a troll and a little boy, so I must start researching, which one would be suitable. 

I thought about a nice mushroom bread recipe.

I have recently been on a forrest walk with my children, where I was teaching them which mushrooms you can eat and which ones you cannot.

So lets get started on Bauer's Troll Mushroom Bread, by finding our elements.

Ingredients:

300g wholemeal flour

150g strong white flour

150g forrest mushrooms

1 sachet (7g) fast action bread yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil/ rapeseed oil

½ pint warm water

1 tablespoon pine nuts

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 tablespoon seaweed

Place the flours in a large bowl together with the yeast, olive oil, nuts, seaweed, mushrooms and warm water.  Mix to a dough adding a little bit more water or flour if necessary.  

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes, until smooth and elastic.  Leave in a warm place until it has doubled in size for about 30 minutes.

Turn out the dough and knead again for a few minutes. Lightly oil a 450g loaf tin or baking tray and shape the dough to fit the tin or make an oblong shape and place on the tray. Leave it for about 10 minutes.

Heat the oven to 220C and bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped underneath. Cool on a wire tray.

And now comes the fun part for my boys, eating the bread. Yum. 

But lets think of a good troll fairy tale that goes well with this recipe....

Bulgarian Fairy Tale Recipes

Once upon a time, in a small, small village, people one day woke up to find their houses buried under heavy snow up to the roofs. It was very hard for them to open their front doors and dig their way out through the loose, but heavy snow. 

Then they had to dig tunnels from door to door, connecting neighbours with one another. When all houses were connected, people decided to make new tunnels from every house to the village center, where the church was. When this was done too, all gathered in the church hall to discuss the situation and decide what could be done if the snow didn't stop falling, or didn't melt soon."Someone must go to the highest peak of the mountain." An old man suggested. "Where Grandfather Frost, the sovereign of all winter elementals lives in his palace of ice. 

Only he can command the snow and the blizzards.""Easy to say," the others reflected. "But who is so willing to go? Even a very strong man wouldn't be able to dig such a long tunnel in the snow to reach the highest peak.""Don't worry, grandfather, I will go!" a little girl said. She was the old man's granddaughter, an orphan, who had lived with him ever since her parents died."You are too young and tender for such a long walk through the frosty mountains." Her grandfather said, stroking her head gently."Go, my child." the old man said. "I know your good heart and I trust it. If you're doing something for the good of others, it will never let you down."She walked the whole night through, passing several high mountain hills one after the other. 

You can read the rest of the fairy tale here:

http://fairyproject.tripod.com/Fairytale/whirl.htm

What recipe would go well with a Bulgarian fairy tale....A nice 
Shopska Cheese for two persons.

Ingredients:

1 onion
1 pack of feta cheese
2 cups of cherry tomatoes
2 eggs

First, chop the onion.

And place the onion and feta cheese into the small, clay pots.

(I am lucky here, as my brother in law from Bulgaria has given me som authentic Bulgarian pots)

Then chop the cherry tomatos.

Place the cherry tomatos into the clay pots.

 Place the lid on the clay puts and cook them in the oven for about 35 minuts.

Finally, you put an egg in the clay pot and let it cook in the oven for 5 - 10 minutes.

The Snake Prince Fairy Tale Recipe

The Snake Prince fairy tale is about a poor woman, who had nothing to eat, who went to bathe. When she came out of the river, she found a poisonous snake in her pot. She took it home, so it would bite her and end her misery. 

However, when she opened the pot, she found an expensive necklace. She sold the necklace to the king. The king put it in his chest, but when he opened it to show to his queen, he instead found a baby boy. He and the queen raised it as their son, and the old woman became his nurse. She spoke little of how that boy came about.

The king had concluded with a neighboring king that his son should marry that king's daughter.

The king's daughter however, refused to speak to the prince, until the prince had told her where he came from. He told her the story, that he was prince from far off who had been turned into a snake and then turned into a baby later.

But as soon as he had told her, be turned into a snake again. 

The princess cried, since she had lost her prince, but one night the snake came to her and told her that if she put bowls of milk and sugar in the four corners of the room, snakes would come, led by the Queen of the Snakes. If she stood in the queen's way, she could ask for her husband, but if she were frightened and did not, she could not have him back.

Luckily, the princess did as he said, and she won back her husband, and the princess and the prince happily ever after.

Now I want to turn this into a fairy tale recipe, but the questions is what recipe I want to use.

I want to use black beans, as these are used in some Asian dishes, but I also want to use broccoli, as it is healthy ingredient  for my boys.

So lets begin by thinking about some nice, healthy black beans and broccoli dishes.


I might as well begin by soaking the black beans and chopping some broccoli. 


I think I will also add some barley, as it is suppose to be healthy.

So lets first try to complete the recipe and then afterwards we will turn this recipe into the Snake Prince Fairy Tale Recipe.

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups barley. 
• 2 cups fresh broccoli, cut up small.
• 1 large tomato, diced.
• 1/4 cup onion, chopped.
• 1/2 cup green pepper, diced.
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped.
• 1 fresh lemon.
• 1 tablespoon olive oil. 
• Directions:

In a large bowl, combine black beans, corn, broccoli, tomato, onion, pepper and parsley. Then juice the lemon and put juice in a samll bowl and ddd olive oil, and wisk together.

Add to vegetables and stir and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Stir again and serve.


Now how do we turn this recipe into the Snake Prince Fairy Tale Recipe?

Maybe I will ask my boys for help, since they have done such a good job at cooking this recipe with me.

Did Vikings Eat Beans?

Today, I would like to make a bean dish. I am researching old viking folklore in order to find out whether there are any of the stories that mention any particular food, such as for example beans.

I have found a good website, a BBC HIstory Site, which mentions viking food:

"With no fridges or freezers our Viking family has to take special measures to stop their food going bad. Meat and fish can be smoked or rubbed with salt. Fruit can be dried; grains are made into bread or ale. Dairy produce such as milk is made into cheese. Cooking the meat will make it last a little longer, making sausages will make it last longer still.

At sunset the family gather together in the long house. The usual evening meal will be enlarged tonight because it is one of the three Viking feast nights. In their homelands a horse would have been sacrificed to the old Gods. Horsemeat was spitted and roasted rather like a kebab. Sven and his family nominally follow the Christian faith, however, so although they celebrate the traditional feast, tonight they will dine on roast lamb. There will also be salted fish and pork, goat and plenty of fresh bread. For dessert the Vikings will eat fresh fruit and a little honey on buttered bread." 

Read more here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/food_01.shtml

Nevertheless, this site does not mention anything about vikings eating beans. 

This next site:

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/food.shtml

informs us that vikings did eat fava beans, but silly me, black beans come from southern Asia, so not a staple viking dish. Perhaps my black bean dish is better suited for an Asian fairy tale recipe.

I must however, first of all remember to soak these black beans overnight. 

Some small thoughts

What a joy to be a parent. I love cooking with my children and telling them fairy tales, so I thought to myself, why not combine the two?