Summer camp

fact #1

All signs on the earth and sky show it's a summertime! School is over! ;)

fact #2

To be honest it's unbelievable hot!

fact#3

We braved the heat and started to make preparations for summer camp HELLO 2011 which begins already on Saturday. Hopefully, we'll have a lot of fun in coming days! There will be English and computer lessons in the morning and a lot of outdoor free time activities in the afternoon – and this part is up to us, volunteers. We are currently looking for some games, energizers and other ideas to make an afternoon offer attractive. ;)

fact#4

Of course we will report back on what we've been doing in Pec. 

All good things...

Time is running, Adam and Christine are already gone... Me and Nicola are still here but we realize, also our EVS adventure will be over in few weeks. Well, all good things must come to the end!

These days we are preparing goodbye exhibition and bulletin that will be a little bit a journey backwards through time.

So, the last exhibition is going to do a brief overview about things volunteers do in OKO. We want to share with you our experiences as volunteers, tell again what EVS is, who can take part in, how can you profit from EVS etc.

I hope you will find some time to take a look at our pictures and stuff (as usual, we meet in Společenské Centrum).

Quiche Lorraine

Ingredients

Dough

250g Flour

125g Butter

A pinch of salt

1 egg yolk

50g cold water

To make the pastry, sift the flour together with a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Rub in the butter until you have a soft texture. Add enough cold water to make the mixture come together to form a firm dough, and then rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Roll dough on floured surface into a well greased pie dish.

Preheat the oven to 190°C

Trim

3 eggs

200g bacon

100 g grated cheese

10 cl sour cream

25cl Milk

Salt and Pepper

Put eggs, milk and cream in a bowl and mix with a whisk.
Add a little salt and pepper.

Fry the bacon in a pan for extra flavor. Drain well for removing grease.

Place the bacon on the dough by spreading them uniformly well in the mold.

Add the bacon over the filling and sprinkle with cheese.

Place the quiche in the oven for 30 minutes at 250 °C

Mousse au Chocolat

Ingredients

180g strong dark chocolate

30cl Milk

30g butter

3 eggs

15g sugar

Break chocolate in small parts and put in a boiler. Add milk, butter and cook on low heat. Toss regularly until it is getting melting.

Put it in a bowl. Add the egg yolks and toss slowly.

In another bowl whisk the white eggs

Incorporate white eggs and whisk in chocolate mixture.

Put the “Mousse” in the fridge for minimum 4 hours.

Bon appétit!

Mousse au chocolat, Brezels & żubrówka - Intercultural evening in OKO

Intercultural evening is now a thing of the past but we promised you recipes for some of our national goodies. There is the first one, for Polish PIEROGI.

For me pierogi is one of meal 'to die for'. Normally a recipe for dough is a little bit different (there are only 3 ingredients: flavor, water and egg) but in my family we prefer doing dough in the way as you see. It's more smooth and tastes better. Pierogi can be filled with meat, potatoes, cottage cheese, mushrooms, strawberries - be creative!
And: Smacznego!

Ingredience:

kostka margarínu
2 hrnky vody
kilo mouky
1 vejce
sůl

Postup:

Do hrnce dejte vodu a margarín a uved'te do varu. Pak přidejte 2 hrnky mouky a společně promíchejte. Po vychladnutí přidejte zbytek mouky, vejce, sůl a vypracujte hladké těsto - hotové těsto poznate tak, že se nelepi.
Z vyváleného těsta vykrajte kolečka, dejte dovnitř směs se žampiony a kysaným zelí a zabalte. Pierogi uvařte v osolené vodě (asi 5-10 minut - až budou plavat navrch). Na konec usmažte cibule a pierogi dozlatova na pánvi potřené olivovým olejem.

***
And here are the receipes for the cherry cake (in English) and the Brezels (in German):

„Kirschmichel“ – Cherry cake

Ingredients:

8 Rohlík (1-2 days old)

500 ml Milk

50 g Butter

4 Egg (yellow part)

4 Egg (white part)

1 Kg Cherries

75 g Sugar

Cinnamon

- cut the Rohlík in slices and put them in a bowl

- then heat the milk, spill it over the Rohlík and wait ca. 10 minutes

- now mix the butter, the yellow part of the egg and the sugar

- then fold in this mixture with the Rohlík

- now whisk the white part of the egg and fold it in the Rohlík mixture

- and at last fold in the cherries

- now put some butter in a casserole and give the mixture inside

- then sprinkle some cinnamon on it and put it in the oven

- bake it for 45 minutes, 200 degrees

Brezeln

500 g	Mehl (Type 550)
300 ml	Milch
1 TL	Salz
1 Würfel	Hefe
1 TL	Zucker
40 g	Margarine oder Butter bzw. Schmalz
etwas	Salz, grobes, nach Bedarf
1 Liter	Wasser
3 EL	Natron (von Kaiser)
etwas	Mehl für die Arbeitsfläche
	Fett für das Blech

Zubereitung

Die Hefe mit ein paar Tropfen von den 300 ml Milch und dem Zucker verrühren. Ca. 1/4 Std. bei Zimmertemperatur gehen lassen.

Dann diese Hefemasse mit Salz, Mehl, der restlichen Milch und den 40 g Margarine oder Butter bzw. Schmalz zu einem elastischen Teig verarbeiten und nochmals etwa 1/2 Std. im Warmen gehen lassen. Der Teig sollte sich dabei verdoppeln.

Auf einer bemehlten Arbeitsfläche gründlich von Hand durchkneten und eine Rolle daraus formen. Diese Teigrolle in etwa 16 - 18 gleiche Teile teilen. Aus jedem Teil eine ca. 30 cm lange Wurst rollen, die in der Mitte eine Verdickung hat. Daraus dann Brezen formen und nochmals 15 Minuten gehen lassen.

Dann in den Kühlschrank geben und unabgedeckt 1 Std. stehen lassen. Vor dem Ende der "Kühlschrankstunde" nun 1 Liter Wasser aufkochen und darin 3 EL Natron lösen. ACHTUNG! Langsam einrieseln lassen, das Natron wallt ziemlich auf.

Die Brezen einzeln für 30 Sekunden in das kochende Natronwasser geben (die Brezen schwimmen), mit einem Schaumlöffel herausholen, abtropfen lassen und mit dem groben Salz nach Geschmack bestreuen. Danach auf ein gut eingefettetes Backblech legen (kein Backpapier verwenden, die Lauge zerstört es!). Wenn das Blech voll ist, in den kalten (!) Backofen schieben.

Einen Wecker auf ca. 18 Minuten stellen und auf 220°C (Gas: Stufe 4) heizen. Wenn die Brezen nach ca. 18 - 20 Minuten goldbraun sind, sind sie fertig.

fotky ZDE

To be or not to be... vegetarian

The easiest distinction between vegetarians and not-vegetarians is that the first group doesn't eat meat and the second one does. That's true, but for God's sake! not only meat! We eat (we need! we expect!) vegetables, mushrooms, salads, pancakes, lentil and fried cheese with tatarská omačka...

In Sebuzin, where we had mid-term training, ladies serving up the lunch asked us every time do we eat normal. They simply wanted to know aren't we vegetarians, what in my opinion all the time confuses a little bit kitchen's daily life. I can imagine how the cooking staff spend few hours brainstorming ideas and recipes how to put menu together when they hear there will be some vegetarians on board. ;) Anyway, the findings are always amazing.


Most of us were normal. But after some time we all dreamed about being vegetarian! Why? Vegetarian portions were more varied and somehow even fancy, while not-vegetarian meant to have meat meal everyday. I liked it of course, food was unusual tasty, but on the other hand at the end I was sick of meat. OK, I eat meat, I like meat but normally I don't eat it everyday and actually I can live without meat for some time – what still doesn't make me vegetarian...

Curiously enough, described food incident it's not only Sebuzin's case. ;) I took part in more trainings, workshops, youth exchanges – both in Poland and abroad, where we were (speaking about meals) group of normal-eating-people and vegetarians, and it seems to me that veggies are really in special care.

So, a tip for the next time: pretend you are vegetarian! Your stomach will be grateful! ;)

Mid-Term Training

Like Joanna already mentioned in her last post, the two of us were on our mid-term training. Time is really running!

For explanation: Part of the EVS-programme is to participate on 4 trainings. 2 in your homecountry (before you go to the project & after you come back home) and 2 in the country where you're doing your EVS. Maybe you remember that Joanna and I went last October to our "on-arrival training" where we met a lot of other volunteers from different countries and got some advice for our stay in the Czech Republich (for those who don't remember it check this out).
So last week we were packing our things for 5 days in SEBUZIN, a very small village close to Usti nad Labem. After our experience in Rakovice (on-arrival training) without heating but with mice, we all hoped to come to a nicer place - and our wish was fulfilled. We stayed in a very, very nice place with heating, tasty food and very friendly people (http://centrum.originalatok.cz/).

We've met most of the volunteers from our last training again and had a lot of time to share our experience.

-How are you? homesick or not?
-How is your project?
-Have you travelled a lot (and where)
-....

So we had a lot of stuff to talk about and got some new ideas for the rest of our stay in the Czech Republic. Besides we had some workshops concerning our work (e.g ideas for conversation clubs) and our freetime (e.g.nice places to visit). We've made as well a trip to Litomerice & Usti nad Labem.

So all in all a nice training with nice people :)

Our group