Reduce your waste during the cold and flu season with the following tips.
healthy gut
Overcome Your Fear of Commitment—to Sourdough and Other Starters
I can’t look after more than four starters. My ginger bug Mary Ann, my kombucha SCOBY Etheldreda, my sourdough starter Eleanor and my buttermilk Betty all need regular feedings or they’ll die. I take care of this little family in addition to fermenting all sorts of other foods that don’t require starters—kimchi, dill pickles, chutney, […]
Fermentation Tools, Equipment and Ingredients
You can spend lots of money on tools and gadgets designed specifically for making fermented foods—airlocks to let gas escape from jars, lids with small “windows” you open in order to release gas, glorified glass jars rebranded as “small fermentation crocks,” expensive weights, mandolines to cut vegetables quickly and uniformly… These tools all sound nice […]
How to Ferment Vegetables in Brine
Click here to go straight to the recipe When I prep sauerkraut, I add salt to a bowl of chopped cabbage and other vegetables, crush the vegetables, let them sit while they release water and then pack everything into clean jars. When I prep kimchi, I add a lot of salt to a bowl of […]
Zero-Waste Menu No 6
One more menu to go after this and I’ll have a full week’s worth. As I’ve written in some of my other menu posts, I don’t actually cook a different dish every day. In fact, please don’t follow a entirely different menu every day. If you follow this menu today, cook another menu tomorrow and […]
Why and How to Make Sauerkraut and Krautchi
Click here to jump to the recipe Why ferment? People have fermented foods for thousands of years. At first, ferments must have happened by sheer accident—a handful of vegetables forgotten in salty water or a misplaced bowl of porridge, discovered days later and showing signs of life and gentle bubbling. When those first curious cooks tasted these supposed mistakes, they would […]
The Secondary Fermentation: Hippie Jargon for “Put Kombucha in a Bottle”
Updated 09/19/17 During my fermentation workshops, I give students samples of my various kombucha flavors before I put them to work. They always ask for the recipes so I thought I better get to it and post a bunch. Before you can flavor kombucha, you must first brew a batch and wait for it to ferment. You can […]