Food shopping during Covid is stressful. These ideas will help you avoid the store for a bit longer between shopping trips.
food preservation
Convenience vs Community
I am doomed. I started making homemade pasta regularly and I no longer want to eat store-bought and have created more work for myself. Store-bought simply can’t complete with the hearty, toothy, delicious and filling homemade version. But in addition to pasta, I also make bread, crackers, granola, kombucha (five bucks a bottle in the […]
August Is the Reddest Month
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and have planted a garden, you may have begun to experience what-am-I-going-to-do-with-this-glut-of-tomatoes syndrome. Mild symptoms often begin in early August and quickly intensify to the critical stage. The following ideas will help alleviate and, in some instances, depending on the harvest and the number of plants you have, cure […]
Preserved Lemons
Updated 01/23/18 If you prefer your food bland, skip this blog post. Until now, when I made preserved lemons in the past, honestly, I struggled to use up an entire jar. Classically, you use preserved lemons in chicken tagine but we don’t eat much chicken. They go well with fish but we eat little fish. […]
Garlic-Dill Pickles
For pickles, fermentation was the primary means of preservation until the 1940s, when direct acidification and pasteurization of cucumber pickles was introduced. — The Art of Fermentation Store bought pickles may taste good but to render them shelf-stable, food manufacturers pasteurize the cucumbers in vinegar. On the plus side, they last forever. On the down […]
Good, Better, Best Zero-Waste Shopping
Updated 01/05/18 Every time I post pictures on Instagram or Facebook of my bulk shopping or farmer’s market hauls, I get lots of questions: Do you bring your food home in bags and transfer it to jars? (No, I bring the jars shopping and fill them directly.) Doesn’t your food cost more because the jars […]
Garlic-Dill Sauerkraut
I have converted several self-professed haters of sauerkraut with this garlic-dill blend. It tastes just like dill pickles. And almost everyone likes dill pickles, including kids. People who tell me they hate sauerkraut often also say they want to like it because of the many health benefits that lacto-fermented foods such as sauerkraut offer. Fermented sauerkraut: Is […]
Two Upcoming Free Webinars!
I’m so excited to teach some more webinars. People had always asked me if they could watch them later and I had to say no. But I can now record them! And if you don’t want to participate in the webinar but simply watch it live (or later), I’ll stream these on YouTube. Tonight, I hosted […]
An Oven That Saves Lives
I love low-tech solutions. An oven made out of cardboard boxes will likely garner less attention than will a refrigerator that alerts its owner via Apple Watch of eggs on the verge of spoiling. At least, it would attract more attention here in Silicon Valley—and probably gobs of venture capital to boot. (Wouldn’t it be […]
How Does Fermentation Prevent Food Waste?
Today I taught a fermentation workshop at CVSan in Castro Valley as part of the organization’s Commitment to Serve Week. The theme of the week is zero-waste. It was so much fun! (Thank you Jordan, Naomi and all the staff at CVSan.) But what does fermentation have to do with food waste? Well, I’ve decided […]
How to Freeze Food Without Using Plastic
When I post pictures of my jar-filled freezer on social media, I get lots of questions about it, usually along the following lines: Is it safe to freeze food in glass? (Yes) Do you use special glass for the freezer? (No) Don’t your glass containers break? (Only that one time…) I have had little trouble […]
Fermenting Versus Canning
Updated 06/11/17 fermentation noun fer·men·ta·tion \ˌfər-mən-ˈtā-shən, –ˌmen-\ “[The] process by which microbes consume sugars and produce acid, alcohol and gases.” — from The Good Gut “The transformative action of microorganisms.” — from The Art of Fermentation Often when I discuss fermentation, people say to me “Cool! I’ve always wanted to try canning.” Before I started fermenting […]
Simple Fermented Salsa with Live Cultures
Click here to jump to the recipe My younger daughter refuses to drink kombucha (referring to the SCOBY, “How can you put anything into your body that touched that!”). She won’t try sauerkraut (“What’s that smell?!”). She will eat sourdough, although somewhat reluctantly (“Why can’t we have a normal kitchen?”). But she scarfs down this. If […]
How to Make a Ginger Bug Starter for Natural Soda
Click here to jump to the recipe I have posted pics of my ginger bug on Instagram a couple of times but without directions. When people then ask how to actually make the ginger bug, they probably want more guidance than “mix some ginger, sugar and water together and add more daily for about five days.” […]
8 Tactics to Reduce Food Waste at Home
Updated 10/29/18 Food waste is a huge—but edible—problem. These eight tips will help you reduce food waste at home and save money. 1. Buy less food more frequently If you shop a couple of times a week and buy only what you need, you will enjoy fresher food and waste less of it. Yes, I realize some people […]