Year of the Fermented Food

First things first. Pretty much everyone who knows me personally knows this by now so the world wide web may as well know too:
I'm pregnant!
Approximately half way through, too.
Here's a cute belly photo:

21 weeks, 2 days

You can use this as an excuse for my absence if you like (but in reality I'm just lazy about blogging.)  Now lets get on to the good stuff!

I hereby dub the year of our Lord two-thousand-and-twelve The Year of the Fermented Food. Let it be known through out the land that everyone should get on this fermented food bacteria probiotic bandwagon with me!

 I've always been pretty interested in getting good bacteria in my life but only recently has it occurred to me that I could make it... Sometime in January I made my first attempt at a naturally fermented batch of sauerkraut. Would you like to see a photo?

It wasn't successful, I'm sad to say. It was actually really gross. Like seriously nasty. It tasted like really salty old people...I told you it was gross.

 But I'm not one to give up easily; It was the beginning of many a fermented food experiment! And most of them have been successful!

Since that fateful day that I have revisited my sauerkraut desires, following this recipe/guide and this time I was quite pleased with the turn out.

That being a marvelous triumph I turned my hand to other naturally fermented things. When I say "naturally fermented" I mostly mean by use of wild yeast. Though I have turned to my bakers yeast when things seemed a little slow or inactive.

A little note on why: Fermented foods are crazy healthy and good for you. They fill your body with good bacteria that fight off the bad stuff. They improve digestion and keep your intestines flowing smoothly (sorry if that gives anyone a bad visual.)  Obviously, I want some of this goodness in my diet! It's easy to get a probiotic boost from things like storebought keifer or yogurt or even straight up "probiotic health supplement". But those kinds of things tend to be pricy, especially when you want to eat them up as much as I do. And while I could afford such things if I wanted to, it's times like these that cause me to wonder: "Could I make it at home for less than it costs to buy?" And the answer is generally Yes.

Which begs the question "Why buy when you can make!"

 Actually, that was an exclamation.

So, friends, that is what I did. A head of cabbage with the outer leaves intact, a tablespoon or so of salt and a little effort and waiting time and voila! Really healthy, teeming with good bacteria, very inexpensive and not to mention yummy sauerkraut! Tastes good and is good for you! And is cheap! It's a win, win, win.

So I mentioned that I've tried a few other things too. Let me tell you about them.

Have you heard of komboucha? Man is it good stuff. Basically, it's fermented sweet tea, but it's not very sweet once it's done fermenting. Because the yeast eats the sugar, and that's how it gets big and strong. It eats sugar so I don't have to! Wait...I like sugar. Nevermind....

The thing with komboucha is that you need a "mother" or a "scoby" to start your own process. Once you've got one, you can reuse it and reuse it, plus it procreates so you can give ones to friends. But where do you get one to start? Tee, hee. Oh the cleverness of me.

Actually, the cleverness of google searches. Or the cleverness of me to use google searching... Anyway....

First, I tried "where to get a komboucha scoby" and found places selling them: "I'll ship you a great komboucha scoby for the small price of $15.99 plus shipping!"  Uh huh, no thanks. I'm trying to save money here. Then I tried, "How to make a komboucha scoby" Ahhhh, much better. It did involve a monetary investment, but a much smaller one. And no shipping needed. Did you know that you can buy raw komboucha at healthfood stores? It's not quite a mother komboucha, but it has the potential to become one!

I went to natural foods store and found in their refrigerated section a 12 oz bottle of GT's raw komboucha, citrus flavoured for $3.50 (this is why I don't buy this stuff on a regular basis). Back at home, I brewed a couple cups of green tea, sweetened it about 1 tablespoon of sugar per cup and then let it cool to room temperature. I put it into a quart sized mason jar and proceeded to dump the entire contents of my bottle of komboucha into the jar. I covered it with a muslin cloth and rubberbanded it. Then I shoved it into a darkish corner of my kitchen (all corners of my kitchen are dark, actually.) and left it for about 10 days. Depending on the coolness of your house, the time can vary.  When I checked back, there it was: a slimy skin about half a centimeter thick floating on the top of my jar. Yum. My own scoby.

I'm currently working on my first real batch of komboucha, I kind of don't know what I'm doing. Just following various tutorials on the internet. You too, can do this.... If you want. But I would recommend finding someone who knows what they're doing and has done it multiple times to learn from.  Here's a pic of my experimentation:

Note the scoby slime on top, which I accidentally disrupted while trying to get a photo

I'll let you know how it turns out in a couple weeks. Komboucha brewing is similar to beer brewing. It has a primary fermentation in the carboy (or in this case, the half gallon pitcher) and then a second fermentation in the bottle, where you add a bit of sugar in some form to prime it. Course, there's lots of differences too. Komboucha likes and needs lots of oxygen to stay alive, and for priming "sugar" most people use fruit juice, while beer needs to be kept in a completely airtight environment while it ferments and then needs some real, simple sugar (such as corn sugar) to get that secondary fermentation carbonation kick.

Please note John's beer in airlocked carboy. I'm really excited about this one:

It's a maple pale ale.  He used maple sap instead of water for brewing it and he's going to use maple syrup instead of corn sugar to prime it. Nomsy. Can't wait for this baby to be born so I can get back to alcohol!

Just kidding. Sort of.

I kind of do miss beer, though.

And now that it's warm and springy dandelions will be popping their merry little blooms up and John and I are intending to go big on the dandelion wine making this year. A five gallon batch!

Isn't fermentation fun?

There's other stuff I'll be telling you about, I've got two sourdough starters going now. One is on the older side, it has the most pleasing aroma but I've noticed it's rising power is weak. While I want to fix that, I also thought I'd try a second one, for the heck of it.

left is my older, very yummy one, right is the newbie who is already bubbly and promising

I'm making my own apple cider vinegar:

Put those apple cores to use, baby!

  And I made soda which is carbonated naturally by fermentation, and I plan to make yogurt sometime in the next couple weeks too. Maybe this blog will get a little love and you'll hear about it.

Wordless Wenesday: Bottling Beer

Empty

Full

June

I've known since I was a kid that June's flower and birthstone are Rose and pearl. Last June, the rose part became exceptionally clear to me. Roses were blooming everywhere. And now 'tis June again and roses are out in full bloom once more. As this month has flown by I'm realizing more and more that I really enjoy June;  the weather, the flowers, the long days, the summery attitude. And while Summer has yet to actually and officially begin there is certainly a summery smell in the air. The leaves are out in full and it's almost hard to believe that once only a couple months before they were barren of leaves and some trees still had yet to bud. The sun, when it's not blocked by storm clouds, gets blazing hot and the nights are absolutely delicious. I love June!

Well, I heard once that you can learn a lot of things from the flowers, yes, especially in the month of June....

So! A couple days ago, I went out with my handy little camera and proceeded to snap photos of all the flowers I found as I strolled through various and sundry neighbourhoods in our area. Several of them just happen to be roses :) Perhaps we can learn something together from looking at these lovely Fleurs de Juin. 

White Ragosa Rose  (with a small bee)

 Bugs like flowers too!

Daisy and butterfly

Dragonfly on trumpet flower of sorts

Can't you just imagine these roses singing?

Red Clover

Pink Lovelies (?)

 If you can readily identify the flowers that have question marks in their captions,  Please impart your knowledge to me. :)

Purple stalk flowers (?)

Roses

Purple Plume (?) or maybe a purple pom-pom

Pink with yellow center (?)

Yellow Roses

More Pinks (?)

The last of the Lilacs

Pink Ragosa

Also of interest, here is a small list of things John and I plan to do this summer:
-Learn French
-Go to the beach and practice surfing frequently (Well, John will surf. It's a skill he's just learning. I think I'll stay on the beach or just swim)
-Make and eat lots of peppermint icecream
-Make and drink lots of sun tea
-Old Songs Festival
-Design and sew Adventure Trousers (Preferably before going to Old Songs)
-Finish reading The Count of Monte Cristo
-Go blueberry picking
-Make wine from said blueberries
-Make beer from said blueberries
-Pick lots of other various and sundry found berries
-Make wine from those berries too, possibly (as well as all sorts of other yummy things, like muffins and icecream)

Hurrah! I love summer!

Brownie Experiments

Brownies and a cup of tea.

I needed a brownie fix today, as I'm sure everyone does now and then. My problem is that I don't have any one go-to brownie recipe. I normally just make one up as I go using current ingredients on hand- usually the staples of cocoa powder and vegetable oil among other things (sugar, flour etc.)

What's terrible about this strategy is that it's very hit or miss. I've made fantastic ooey-gooey amazing chocolatey and perfect brownies, but I've also made an awful lot of not so perfect brownies too. Cakey and dry, or tough. So today I thought "If I write down what I do, I'll know how to tweak it for next time."

It's all about being more systematic. I can do this, be systematic, that is. I know because I do it for long term things like wine-making. It's so important for that because by the time you actually taste your experiment you've probably forgotten what you did. John is very faithful about recording what he does with his beers. So today, I wrote down a very basic brownie recipe.

I like brownies on the cheap, brownies on the fast and brownies on the what-I-have-on-hand. Which is almost never baking chocolate or even chocolate chips, for that matter. And butter is waaaaay too pricey for just throwing one or two sticks into a batch of brownies. Not to mention kind of unhealthy. Plus, I rarely have that much butter randomly softened already. I don't want to have to plan ahead for brownie cravings.

This is what I came up with:
Brownies on the Cheap
2/3 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water or tea*

Whisk dry ingredients together in a bowl add wet ingredients, mix well. Pour into a 9x9 pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350.

Result? Very cakey. Good tasting, but on the dry side. I'm not sure if it was because I over baked them or if it was a lack of something. Maybe another egg? (I hate using more eggs than is necessary. I've seen some brownie recipes use up to 4!) Perhaps a bit more sugar? Maybe less flour? More oil?

I'm going to try this same recipe with one more egg next time. And sometime in the future I'm going to try flax eggs**; make them vegan. I love just seeing how many things I can leave out or change about a recipe to make it vegan or gluten-free. I blame it on being a baker in a health food store for 2 years. I had to come up with stuff like that all the time.

Feel free to use the recipe, tweak it, change it, experiment with it. Tell me what you did and your results. I'd love that! It would be like having my own league of researchers! Despite too-cakeyness of these brownies, I'm definitely going to enjoy them.

*I used caramel black tea. I bet you could get all sorts of creative with the types of tea you use: chai, lavender, fruit teas....you could also use milk here.

**to make a flax egg mix one table spoon of ground flax seed with 1/4 cup of boiling or very hot water and allow to sit for a few minutes. The water and seeds will become gelatinous and very eggwhite-ish. Works wonders as a vegan egg replacer in baked goods.

More signs of spring and the beginnings of winemaking for the year

In my last post I mentioned some sounds of spring. I missed a couple, such as the sound of a brook or creek breaking loose (what a happy sound and sight!) and the sound of ice breaking up in a lake. Another sound that will soon be filling our ears is the sigh of wind through leaves. Leaves. I am so excited for leaves.

Yesterday, John and I drove to the Lake House to visit brother-in-law and wife. It's still pretty wintery feeling up there, what with them being in more mountainous regions, but still very pretty. And on the drive there, I had a chance to see hundreds of trees along the side of the highways all shaded with a very light pink-buds!
Edit: I've seen some chipmunks scampering about too! If they've come out of hibernating, I think everything else is soon to follow.

Tonight John and I are making our first wine of the year. A new type of wine we've never tried before-beet wine. I'm really excited and curious to see what it tastes like. The beets were on sale at our local Market Basket and we thought we'd give it a go to kick start our goal of making the most of every chance we get to make all sorts of interesting wines and beers this year. Last year we were positively too lax on taking up on all the chances we had, so hopefully this is a harbinger of a bountiful year where we take advantage of all that we can. We started by buying a book called Making Wild Wines and Meads by Patti Vargas and Rich Gulling. It has all kinds of amazing recipes and encourages using what you find to make wine. John and I don't normally buy books new, but the thought here was if we have an easily accessible recipe (as opposed to browsing through myriads of recipes on the web) we might be more motivated to do something. (Though we'll still probably be looking on the internet for recipes the book doesn't have).

But so far so good! We're currently waiting for the beets to simmer until tender over low heat. I'm taking photos all along so I'll have a little photo-documentary on the making of beet wine in a couple months. Well, sometime next year, I suppose. Wine making takes such a l-o-o-o-n-g time. Brewing beer is positively speedy in comparison. And speaking of which, I'll post some photos of husband's Lemon Hefeweizen when he does the bottling. I totally spaced on photographing the actual brewing of though :( My excuse is that John's parents were over and I was too preoccupied with having tea and pleasant conversation with John's mom while John showed his dad the ropes of brewing. (He was super interested, too.)

Makes me excited for having kids to raise and homeschool and teach all kinds of interesting things, such as brewing, wine making, foraging and putting up food in all kinds of clever ways. Hopefully that's not a far off dream either.