My recipe: Switch on low heat and forget

It has been snowing most of the morning, now it looks much like this (photo was taken earlier). This is where we live. We've been thinking of moving closer to J's company, but we are not likely to find such a snug place at the same price, green environment AND the short distance to the metro which is important for me since I don't drive (right, I'm a person without a driver's licence which is probably hard to believe, but I just never learnt to drive a car. I'm not a great cook either, I like to put all the stuff into one big pot, as you can see it here: Chicken joints, carots, broccoli, an interesting potatoe with a reddish peel, but yellow inside (eager to try it! Did not peel it, I am the laziest of cooks), onions, a sour apple, a little fresh ginger and white wine/hot water to extinguish. I added half a cube of vegetable extract with sea salt. This will be simmering for more than one hour. Dinner for at least two days. I believe in long-cooked food in winter. Vitamines? We need heat. My Tibetan doctor told me so.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, young mothers right after giving birth were served a chicken soup that had been simmering for 48 hours. Reminds of the "goldene joich" from jewish cooking, doesn't it?

Long before there was Scrapbooking...

In 1966, my mother inherited a self-written recipe collection. She carried it on as an album which is more than a fund of cooking recipes and instructions. My mother used it for snippets from the magazines she read, from newspapapers, she added photos and a laurel leaf, jokes and remarks, proverbs and criticism. I photographed a few pages and added translations of her remarks in white letters on darker background. The turquoise lines show the inscriptions by my grandaunt who started this document, and pink is a note from my niece. So, this is a book that has been passed down through 4 generations. My mother's remarks often lack any respect, and the connection of the contents on one page sometimes is a mystery, even to me. Ripped out of a note book, there is a recipe written by my Grandma, another participant of this collection. My mother added a German Borschtsch-recipe and made remarks like "Tabasco -- never ever!" Her badly-hidden contempt for the German "Reich", as she called Germany even after the war, is shining through. -- Why she collected a pic of the former German environment minister, is hard to understand. I guess she just thought he's attractive. My niece hasn't asked the book back until now; I think she will have it when I'm gone to cook in the heavenly kitchen. I'm too bad a cook for hell's kitchen, I need angels to help me. Maybe my Mom will.

P.S. My answer to Rayna's comment: No, I'm not a good cook and not inventive on this field either. And if I look at the baking recipes, I get diabetes from reading. My mother had it, and I decided never to get it, so I don't use the 3 white poisons anyway (white sugar, white salt, white flour).
My mother gave this book to my niece, knowing well it is more use for her; but I cherish it as a document of her intelligence and originality:
"A raven gives as much meat stock as 2 pounds of beef, but it has to be skinned like a rabbit" (Alexandre Dumas)
I may even be able to read recipes in German chancery script on stained paper (certainly from the founder of the collection) explaining the preparation of sugar nuts; but he presence of Al Capone near the buckwheat pie is another mystery of this book.