Recipe: Fermented Potatoes

I am a huge fan of potatoes in all forms, and I think most people would agree with me. A few years ago I noticed that potatoes, again in all forms, began to upset my stomach and caused bloating. I was forced to limit my intake on that deliciousness.

However, I have found something that helps!

It's fermenting, of course.

(And no, we're not making vodka today.)

When you soak potatoes in salt water, you lower the starch in them considerably. You also lower the amount of acrylamide, which is a "heat reduced reaction between sugar (glucose, sucrose, and fuctose) and asparagine." This reaction causes the potatoes to brown, and also, just so you know, is a carcinogen. Fermenting can reduce the carginogen by up to 90% - you can read more about that here. (And on a more positive note, they're unlikely to burn in the oven!)

And apparently, the brine leftover is great for starching clothing, as reported over on the Pickl-It blog.

Of course, as you're typically going to be either baking or frying the potatoes, you'll lose a lot of the probiotic benefits due to the heat, but it will be easier to digest and you'll be less likely to have negative health risks so it's worth it.

Ingredients
potatoes
salt
water

Preparation
Gently wash your fresh potatoes and cut them into the desired shape. As I was making french fries, I made sliced them, but you could leave them whole if you'd like.

Add your potatoes to your container.

Prepare a salt brine. I used a 2% brine. (If you're using unsure how much salt to use for your size container, the Probiotic Jar has an excellent chart at the bottom of this page.)

Add your salt brine to the container with the potatoes. Cover and let it sit for 1-3 days.

Once you're ready to use them, drain the potatoes from the brine and pat dry. Either fry or bake your potatoes, as you would normally.

I baked mine at 350 degress for 30 minutes. I then added a bit of Parmesan cheese and thyme for half. The other half just get my homemade ketchup. Enjoy!

Recipe: Honey and Blueberry Ferment

I belong to quite a few fermenting groups online. It's where I get a lot of my ideas, inspiration, and support. Last year I started seeing blueberries fermented in honey, and I have to be honest: I was not totally on board.

In fact, this year, when it seemed everyone was trying it out, I still was not impressed.

But then an excess of blueberries changed my mind.

Blueberries fermenting in honey is probably one of the best ferments I've done this year. At least, it's the best ferment so far in the "new" category.

I took a pretty terrible video one morning BUT you can see the amazing bubblies doing their work.

The blueberries remain crispy, but get a bit sweeter than normal. The honey mixes with the blueberries and you get this amazing syrup that I drizzled onto my biscuits - but you can also use it in salad dressing or beverages.

Ingredients

blueberries

raw honey

Preparation

Gently rinse your blueberries before putting them in your fermenting container. I don't know if you can tell, but I recycled a salsa container and used that. (After cleaning and sterilizing it, of course.)

After a layer or two of blueberries, grab a spoon and drizzle in the raw honey. It's much easier to get the mixture evenly spread if you layer the honey.

Continue layering with the blueberries and raw honey.

Do not fill all the way to the top! I mean, you can, of course, but it gets messy. Did you notice my jar in the video above was sitting inside another container? That's because the honey oozed out as it mixed with the blueberries. It was delicious, and a tasty treat every time I checked on my ferment, but I'd probably avoid losing so much next time.

Let the mixture sit out for about 3-5 days.

Taste as you go - the longer you leave the ferment out, the more alcoholic it becomes. Feel free to taste as you go. When you think they're perfect, stick them in the fridge for storage. 

Just a warning: the blueberries will rise to the top. It's okay that they're not covered all the time - don't even both trying to submerge them with weights. I would push the ones on top down every morning, and that's it.

Enjoy!

How Do You Know When Your Ferment Has Gone Bad? (AKA Fermenting is Really Easy, I Swear!)

One of my favorite things about fermenting food isn't the health benefits or the idea of using it as food storage, though those things are great, but I really love how it easy it is.

If you look at vegetable fermentation, at it's core you just essentially put some vegetables in some salty water. Sure, sometimes you can get more complicated that - maybe you want to chop everything, maybe you're fermenting salsa, maybe you're making something alcoholic - but at it's core, fermenting is fairly simple and straightforward.

My biggest concern when I started fermenting foods was that it would go bad. I'm the type of person who throws out the whole container when it gets moldy rather than carefully clean it and disinfect it for future use so trust me when I tell you I hate mold and bad bacteria.

As an American, I was raised to think all bacteria is bad. Obviously, we've been learning in the last few years why that attitude is not only incorrect but can be very dangerous. Some bacteria is good. We need bacteria to live, to thrive. If you're having a little freak out right now because you don't know if you can eat living bacteria, I'd just like to point out that if you eat yogurt, saurkraut, cheese, olives or drink beer, wine or kombucha, then you already consume fermented foods. Congrats!

Now let's move on to what happens if you follow a fermentation recipe. If you look at my fermented jalapeno pepper recipe, you'll find that it's very simple. Peppers. Salt. Water. You get the basic steps. But what's happening in there? What if something goes wrong? What if you accidentally eat the bad bacteria and get really sick?!

Don't worry. I don't want you to die from using my recipe either. 

Here's what's going to happen. On the peppers you bought (and on everything, really) are thousands, maybe millions of bacteria and yeast waiting for their chance to thrive. After you clean the peppers with hot water and toss them in the brine, the salt in the water suppresses the "bad" bacteria and allows the "good" bacteria to do it's thing.

If all goes according to plan, after a few days you'll start to see bubbles at the top of the brine. That's good. It's working. Sometimes you get a lot of bubbles. Sometimes you only get a few. It doesn't really matter.

Then your bubbly ferment will start to turn cloudy. The colors on the fruit will dim. Don't panic. The cloudiness you're seeing is dead yeast. Did I mention that there's also a lot of yeast along with the bacteria? Anyway, it's all going according to plan.

Let it sit a bit longer. Check your recipe. Sometimes ferments are ready to go after a few days, sometimes after a few months, and the annoying thing is (especially when you start out and you're really concerned about bacteria) that the length of time depends on you and your kitchen.

Basically what happens is this: when you start your ferment, it takes a day or two as the bacteria start to wake up. Then it turns into a party. Then the party starts to wind down and everyone goes home (aka dies).

Ideally you want to stick your ferment in a fridge (or somewhere below 60F) right as the party winds down. When your bubbles start to dwindle, that's a very good indication that you should tighten the lid and move your container to a cooler place.

Warmer environments speed things up. So if you live somewhere without air conditioning and it's 95F, then you need to check on your ferment quite a bit because you could have something ready in a few days. If you live in a much cooler place and it's only 75F, then it'll take a bit longer.

If you're ever unsure, which could happen because maybe you didn't get that many bubbles or the temperature fluctuated, I recommend taking a deep breath to brace yourself, then smell it, and taste it. The deep breath is to help calm your nerves - even though I usually know what I'm making and eating, it's still scary to taste-test something! But really, smell it. Does it smell like food? Or does it smell off? Taste it. You'll know immediately if it's bad. (It's probably not bad.)

Here's how you know when a ferment has gone bad (and pay attention, this is important):

1. It has mold. Mold is fuzzy. Mold is usually green. Mold is on the surface. If you have something slimy on the bottom of your ferment? Something white on the sides? Not mold, probably yeast and normal, so go ahead and eat it.

See the fuzzy cloudiness? Normal.

Some cultures feel that mold is normal and okay and they happily scrape the mold off and let it continue. Some others will scrape the mold off the top once and hope it doesn't come back. I'm not really there yet. I don't want to chance it at all so it gets tossed.

2. You have kahm yeast. Kahm yeast grows on the surface. It's white and has little bubbles. Technically it's harmless and you can eat it. However, sometimes it doesn't have a good taste to it and you have to toss the whole thing*. The downside is that you have to taste your ferment to know if yours is fine or not.

That's it. That's really all that can go wrong.

But what about botulism?
Botulism is a common fear for people who can their food, and for good reason. It has serious side effects, including paralysis. In case you're not aware, it's caused by the bacteria clostridium botulinum, and sometimes a few other strains. Obviously, this is a bacteria you want to avoid.

C. botulinum is, like other bacteria, everywhere and is just waiting for the right conditions to grow and thrive. The right conditions: an anaerobic environment that's not too acidic, not too salty, and not too crowded with other bacteria. All of these conditions are the exact opposite of what you're trying to achieve when you're fermenting, and assuming you follow the recipe, to add vegetables in brine, you're going to be fine.

The only time botulism has been linked to fermentation is when you're fermenting fish and meat, and for some reason, they're all reported from Alaska.

So yeah, fermenting can be really easy and you'll know right away if it's safe to eat.

Now get to it!

*I have recently discovered a "cure" for kahm yeast. I'm currently testing it out to see if it works so stay tuned!

Fermentation: Not Just Good for Your Gut, Good for Your Budget!

The coolest thing about fermenting is the idea of using fermentation as food storage. Obviously fermenting produce has numerous health benefits and that's why most people are interested in it (aka part 1 in this series), but I find the idea of long term storage to be even better!

I try to cook all of my meals from fresh ingredients, but sometimes I don't always have time to cook it (or I get ambitious and realize not only do I not have the time to make it, but I don't have a small army hanging around) and quite a bit goes bad. It's definitely not good when my food goes bad before I even get around to making something with it.

When you ferment food, you stick produce, generally vegetables, in brine and the salt makes sure that the "good" bacteria can do its thing while suppressing the "bad" bacteria. It can take anywhere from a few days to a few months to be fully fermented. Once it's fermented to your liking, you don't have to consume it right away, you just pop it in the fridge.

So guess who's not affected by the lime shortage? ;-)

To slow fermentation, the jars go in the refrigerator (or a cool room like a basement or cellar - generally just below 60F). This is important because the cooler environment does not kill off the bacteria. The bacteria is still alive, it's still doing its thing, and it's still able to keep your food from spoiling.

So for example, I've always wanted to make my own condiments, but how can you justify creating a large batch of ketchup that's just going to go bad in a week? Unless you're prepping for a giant family picnic, you're going to have to toss it or hope that your fridge is cold enough to prevent mold from growing. But when you ferment ketchup, suddenly you have more than a week before it goes bad. Suddenly you have months to enjoy it.

This goes beyond just condiments.

Last year I would buy bags and bags of produce from the farmer's market for  much less than you can buy in the supermarket. I bought bags full of jalapeno peppers and garlic and onions for only a few dollars. There's no way I can eat that in a week or two before it spoiled, and I certainly couldn't pass up such a great deal.

But when you get home, rinse the vegetables a bit in hot water, slice them up, and put them in brine, suddenly they're good for months. Yes, it is March and I am still munching on onions that I picked up from the farmer's market last summer. Yes, they taste delicious. Yes, they're even still crunchy.

It's not witchcraft, it's fermentation!

So you're interested in this food storage idea I hope. But what do you DO with a jar full of onions?

I'll tell you.

1. You snack on them. This makes a little more sense if you have fermented salsa in the fridge, but you can definitely snack on your fermented vegetables. I know this sounds weird because who would snack on onions? Well, when you start fermenting foods, you will start be the weird one snacking on them.

Obviously, you'll need to take a bite of it before you put it in the fridge to make sure everything's okay. You'll think to yourself, "Wow, that's actually pretty good." So you have another one. Then you realize that your stomach really likes it. Not in the way that it likes pizza, but more like in the way that you can tell it's happy you just gave it a fermented onion. Then you stick it in the fridge and kind of forget about it until one day you're hungry and you open up the fridge and you go, "Oh, there are some onions in here." (Don't worry, fermented onions taste MUCH better than raw onions.)

2. You use them medicinally. Now I'm not trying to imply that fermented foods are better than medicine, especially because I'm not a doctor and have no medical training. However, I have seen plenty of articles that mention that your gut bacteria needs more bacteria to feel good. I also know that when I have an upset stomach, I eat a few pieces of fermented vegetables and I feel much better. I've also seen this work on other people. Are you one of those people? Only one way to find out! (I know it sounds really wrong to give a nauseous person a fermented jalapeno, but I've seen it work wonders!)

Cranberries still perfect 6 months later

3. You use them as a condiment. Let's say you ferment a container of carrots. You throw in a few spices. It's delicious. You're not really into snacking. Unless you threw in a bay leaf or something similar to keep the vegetables crisp, they're limp and somewhat unappetizing...

A perfect remedy for this situation is using your fermented veggies as a side dish or a condiment. Sauerkraut and/or mustard on a sandwich are perfect. I love putting my fermented cranberries on a sandwich with cheese. You'll slowly start to find uses for your new foods that you never would have thought of before! And if not, you can always...

4. You use it in cooking. This is certainly an unpopular answer among some in the fermenting crowd because you just spent days (or months) of your life waiting for the bacteria to reproduce and do their thing so you can eat them and be healthy and do your thing so why, WHY would you cook with fermented food and kill all the probiotics? Simple. I'm lazy. If I don't want to run out to the market when I just came back from the market (and who would?), I grab a few slices of jalapenos and toss them in the pan. After all, I get plenty of probiotics in other meals so I don't think killing them once will cause any problems.

Additionally, if you have a ferment that you can't really stomach, like your milk kefir is too sour, it's perfect to bake with. Or make pancakes. Any milk substitute, really. My favorite my soured milk kefir has to be making cream cheese and adding herbs. There all sorts of uses!

I will mention that bacteria tend to die over 105F so a great option can be to toss in the fermented veggies after everything has finished cooking and you're about to serve it. After all, you don't need to saute or cook anything as the vegetables are generally going to be soft and palatable. I have pretty much stopped cooking with garlic because I stir in a spoonful of garlic paste at the end of every meal. The end result being my food is flavored with garlic, I don't have to worry about burning the garlic when I add it to the hot oil, and I get the good bacteria in my gut.

What do you think? Are you excited about food storage? Any hesitations before you being fermenting? Next week I'm talking about making sure the good bacteria you're consuming is actually, you know, good.

You can also check out part 3 in this series: How to Know When Your Ferment has Gone Bad.

An Introduction to Fermented Foods: Getting to Know Your Bacteria

Fermented Jalapenos

A lot of people flinch when I tell them I eat bacteria. However those same people know that eating yogurt is good for them, especially if they're sick and have just taken a round of antibiotics. Whether you want to call it bacteria, probiotics, or pretend they don't exist while you're munching on some kimchi, there's an invisible world of creatures out there waiting to help or harm us.

For the longest time, we thought bacteria was bad and needed to be eliminated. For example, there was an attempt to eliminate helicobacter pylori since the 1980s because it can cause peptic ulcers and stomach cancers, and combined with science and an abundance of doctors, it has mostly been wiped out in this country.

 However, it also calms the immune system (so less allergies and asthma) and it regulates acid in the body so a person without h. pylori often suffers from acid reflux which can eventually lead to esophageal cancer. Perhaps most alarming of all, h. pylori also regulates an appetite hormone that tells you when you're full and when you should eat. It is speculated that we have so many problems eating today because of the lack of this bacteria.

I'm not suggesting we need to re-introduce h. pylori back into everyone's diets, as it can cause many devastating problems; however it's time to recognize that our gut bacteria has a huge affect on us, positive and negative, and being exposed to more bacteria at a younger age is the better option. Because we eat so many processed foods, we're essentially starving our gut. Many of our ailments, from autism and schizophrenia to cardiovascular disease and cancer are now being linked to inadequate a problem in our gut. Scientists are still studying it so most doctors aren't treating you with probiotics (though some are), but I can't see the downside.

Playing devil's advocate - let's say the link and early studies showing how bacteria work with us and against turn out to be wrong. How does eating and preserving foods harm us in anyway? I still love my yogurt, pickles, cheese, fish sauce - I love all my bacteria-laden foods, regardless of science.

While studying bacteria and our microbiome is a relatively new science, there is more than enough evidence out there to know that we need to begin making some radical changes in our diet and lifestyle. For some people that means letting their kids play in the dirt outside, and for others, those of us who are grown, with no children, and many prescriptions of antibiotics over our lifetime, that means turning our kitchens into a lab experiment.

Fermented Mustard

I started eating fermented foods for the bacteria. Bacteria live in and on us and outnumber us 10 to 1. We are not really human when you think about it or study it. If we ever develop the technology (or have advanced aliens drop in on us), we might be able to see completely new versions of ourselves, versions that might not necessarily even take us into account.

I decided I needed to start feeding the bacteria that I support, especially to help lower stress, anxiety, depression, and my general aches aches and pains - all things that are normal when you're approaching 30 and living in NYC.

When I read about what our bodies are capable of (with and without bacteria) and how dependent we are on bacteria (seeing as how we aren't even "human") and then in thinking how my body was struggling in the aforementioned ways, I felt that I needed more and better bacteria right away.

I briefly considered taking a probiotic in pill form, but that's generally a waste of money, as homemade is almost always better*. Anyway, I like being more hands on in my life so I started experimenting.

I have to say, while I don't always feel perfect, I think that has more to do with my environment and stress level than my diet. (Although when I feel absolutely terrible, I tend to reach towards take-out food, which only perpetuates the cycle.) A few weeks after I started adding fermented foods into my diet, I stopped craving take-out food and I only wanted to make my own version of everything. I found that snacking on fermented onions and peppers improved a stomach ache. Drinking a glass of kombucha made my stomach feel fuller. I started drinking milk kefir every day and instantly my mood got noticeably better. Milk kefir also works wonders as a moisturizer... but that's another post.

Fermented Hot Sauce

I don't want to turn this into ways fermented foods might have saved my life as there are plenty of those stories out there. Instead I want to present some facts on why bacteria is important and should be in your life. Because I'm not a doctor and have zero medical training, you should check out linked articles if you're interested. You should read Wild Fermentation and the The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz, which also has a lot of great articles. Michael Pollan's Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation has an excellent section on fermented foods - the whole book is about food and is a treasure.

Find out more. Our body is fascinating, especially because it isn't even ours.

This is just a very brief intro to bacteria and our bodies and will hopefully get everyone interested! Next week, I'm going to write about how easy it is to cultivate and grow bacteria - and how to know when it's unsafe to eat. Stay tuned!

*A recent study looked at 14 probiotic products on the market and found that only 1 of them contained what was stated on the label.

Read more:
Fermentation: Not Just Good for Your Gut, Good for Your Budget!
How To Know When Your Ferment Has Gone Bad (AKA Fermenting is Really Easy!)

Recipe: Fermented Jalapeno and Cayenne Peppers

I think I've made my position known here before: I am not a huge fan of spicy foods.

However, I make a lot of spicy food anyway because the boyfriend loves it. I'm slowly learning to love it, as apparently spicy food is an acquired taste, but often that means I have a lot of spicy peppers left over and I certainly don't like to eat them. While I did make hot sauce so he could season his food appropriately, I found another great fermenting idea to satisfy us both.

I started doing this last year when I noticed a lot of jalapenos on sale at the farmer's market for $1. Obviously I'm not going to use the entire bag in a week, so I decided to ferment them in brine.

In addition to the health benefits for fermenting (which, coincidentally, is the reason I pass these out to nauseous people), the peppers become a little softer and are a great snack. They also become a little more mellow and not as spicy so I can use a bit more in my food.

Even though the spice factor has been taken down a notch or two, if you're not used to spicy foods, I do NOT recommend drinking the brine. You could probably mix it with alcohol for a fun drink though.

For this I used jalapeno peppers and cayenne peppers.

Ingredients
A decent amount of peppers - enough to fit in your jar
Salt
Water
Optional: Garlic, Onions, Pepper, any other spices

Preparation
The amount of salt to water depends on the size of your container. I usually make a 2% brine, which is 1 tablespoon per quart of filtered water.

I fill the quart jar about halfway and add a tablespoon of salt. Dissolve the salt.

Gently rinse your peppers. Slice however you like and place them in the jar.

Pack the peppers (and other optional spices and flavorings) in until the jar is full - leave about an inch of room at the top. If necessary, add more filtered water until all the peppers are covered.

Because vegetables have a tendency to float, add a weight of some kind. Some people use rocks, glass balls, a small glass, a plastic bag filled with water - anything to keep the vegetables from popping up. I wedged a long piece of pepper under the mouth of the jar to keep everything down on the jar on the left.

Wait about a week, depending on the temperature of your home. Taste the peppers and if you love them, stick them in the fridge to slow down the fermentation. Enjoy!

Recipe: Preserved Lemons and Limes

Even though I enjoy experimenting with different ferments, I felt a little strange about this one. For those that don't know, preserved lemons and limes are preserved in salt. Like most fermented foods, the color dulls and the liquid becomes cloudy.

But the peel also becomes softened. You can eat the peel.

As someone who finds the taste of lemons and limes to be a bit overwhelming, I thought about skipping this one.

But articles kept popping up about it. I saw a lovely article on NPR about preserved lemons and how they should be preserved. Phickle exclaimed that preserved lemons were gold and could be used in almost any dish, from Middle Eastern to Italian. But I think what really convinced me was when Food in Jars pureed the preserved lemons for a versatile lemon sauce.

Because while I don't make a lot of Middle Eastern cuisine or drink salty Thai lemonade, I could really use some lemon sauce on hand for recipes that call for lemon juice or lemon zest. Because I rarely have any on hand, and when I do buy lemons, I always end up wasting part of them.

So I headed down to the organic store to pick up some lemons. I decided to do limes while I was at it, which was a bad idea. It was snowing and freezing outside and while I was preparing the limes, I just really wanted to make guacamole and margaritas. (It should warm up soon, right?!)

Anyway, I highly recommend these! I finally tried the peel last night and it was surprisingly delicious. I don't know if I would munch on lemon peels as a snack, but I can definitely see myself slicing them and sticking them in pasta. I think at some point I'll blend everything into a paste, but for now I love the juice and the peels. I especially love that I have lemons and limes on hand now!

Of course you can use your preserved lemons anywhere you use regular lemons and lemon juice: in salad dressings, stews, dips, pastas, etc.

I wrote the recipe below for lemons, but it's the same for limes.

Ingredients
5 lemons, or however many will fit in your jar
1-3 more lemons, for the extra juice
Lots of sea salt

Preparation
Place about a tablespoon of sea salt in the bottom of your jar.

Clean your lemons.

Slice the tops and bottoms off of the lemons.

Take a knife and cut an X shape into them about 3/4 of the way down - however be careful not to cut through the lemon entirely. Everything should still be connected.

Liberally salt the exposed flesh of the lemon. Place the salted lemon into the jar.

(In theory you should remove the seeds, but I gave up after removing a few. I can easily pick around them.)

Take a wooden spoon and gently mash the lemon in the jar. You're trying to juice the salted lemon and also make room for other lemons.

Repeat the above process, cramming as many lemons into the jar as you can.

Once your jar is full, squeeze the juice of the remaining lemons into it. You want the lemon peels underneath the juice.

Place a lid on your jar. Shake it once a day - and  remember to push the peels back under the lemon juice.

Leave it out for about a month (shaking it daily). The juice will thicken and begin to look cloudy. The peels will begin to soften and lose their bright color.

You can leave it out at room temperature or place it in the fridge if you'd prefer. If you leave it out, just remember to make sure that the lemon peels are covered.

And enjoy! You have lots of lemons on hand for quite awhile!

Guess who has a sourdough starter!!

I recently acquired a sourdough starter from a friend, and by the highlight of my week.


I tried creating my own sourdough starter several times last summer, but consistently ended up killing the starter somehow around day 3. I convinced myself that I was not ready to begin caring for ferments daily and so I waited.

In the meantime I acquired milk kefir grains and they were so much work. They really do need constant (or at least daily) attention, but the result is wonderful tasting kefir so it's worth it. Perhaps sourdough starter would also be worth it?

And it really is!

For those who don't know, or those who are considering cutting out grains, sourdough can be a wonderful addition in your life. Here's a really quick summary:

Basically, sourdough starters contain natural yeasts (and not just one type of yeast like the packets in the supermarket), which is really important because the yeasts create enzymes to pre-digest the grain. Because it's also fermented, you get the bacteria in there eating the sugars and starches. The bacteria also activates that break down phytic acid, which is what makes eating grains so tough on your stomach. It also produces acetic acid, which creates the "sour" part of sourdough bread - which helps the bread store longer, preventing mold.*

So if your stomach hurts when you eat a sandwich or you're wondering if you should cut out gluten**, start making your own bread and the negative effects should go away. I'm not going into too many details just because there are SO many wonderful lists of benefits already out there (and linked below), but I will say it's really changed my life in such a great way.

So far, I've used my starter to make bread, pizza crust, pie crust, donuts, and I'm looking forward to continuing to experiment. While it does sometimes require a bit of planning ahead (for example, if you want to bake a loaf of bread you need to start the day before), it doesn't really require THAT much more planning than using store bought yeast and it tastes much better. Best of all, I don't have weird stomach cramps after eating that I normally get after munching on store bought bread.

(You can see my sourdough starter in the container in the top right - so easy to store!)

I use the basic no-knead sourdough loaf recipe from Breadtopia. It's really simple. Just mix and let it set. You're supposed to move it a bit - change the plastic wrap covering to a damp cloth and use fancy equipment like a bread proofer and a dutch oven.

I do not have the expensive equipment and it comes out great. I've also forgotten about it and not done any of the steps - just popped it in the oven after 24 hours, and it came out perfectly. A key step for me is pre-heating the oven to 500 degrees WITH some cast iron dish in there and then placing the bread in for its time. I can't remember if that's in the instructional video, but it works really well for me.

The pizza dough and donuts were all prepped and ready to go with only 10 minutes of resting. You can't argue with that! Plus, you know, they both tasted amazing. A lot of times you can't really even tell a difference, which is not always the case when you start using different flours (i.e. rice and wheat flours).

The best part is that if I only want to do one loaf a week, I just pop my starter in the fridge and let it rest. (If you leave it on the counter, you should feed it daily and, you know, use it daily.)

Do you have sourdough starter? Have you thought about getting one?

*Read more about the science behind sourdough starters at Simple Bites, Cookus Interruptus, and Real Food Forager.
**While some people with gluten sensitivities can eat and enjoy sourdough bread, you should do so under the care of a medical professional. Not because I said it might be okay.

Recipe: Spicy Brown Mustard from Scotch Ale

Mustard is a new friend of mine. Growing up I hated it - or at least I hated yellow mustard, which was really all that was offered to me since I was a child.

Recently I started to experiment with different types and I came to really love the spicy condiment. Then I started buying whole mustard seeds to flavor some of my ferments.

So of course the next step became to make and ferment my own mustard. I found a fun recipe for Spicy Stout Mustard over at Inspired Mama Musings. I modified based on ingredients I had on hand and I have to say that this is probably the best mustard I've ever had.

It's spicy. It's tangy. It's perfect on sandwiches. My only complaint is that it's so flavorful that if I put it on something plain and boring (like a turkey sandwich), it completely overtakes the flavor. But I think that just means I need to step up my sandwich game, right?

Ingredients
1.5 cups whole mustard seeds
6 ounces beer - I used Founders Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale
4 ounces balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp tumeric, nutmeg, cinnamon
2 whole cloves
1 tsp honey (raw if you have it)

Preparation
Combine your ingredients in a glass jar and stir.

Cover and place the jar in a dark place and sit until the mustard seeds have absorbed all the liquid, about 1-2 days.

In case you're not sure, my mustard seeds were actually spilling out of the top because there was no more room for them once they absorbed the liquid!

Place contents in a blender and process until smooth. Not all of your mustard seeds will blend perfectly, and that's okay. Because the seeds absorbed the liquid, they're soft.

After blending, store in the fridge for 6-8 months. Enjoy!

Recipe: Fermented Garlic Paste

I love garlic.

Before I started fermenting, I would cook garlic in everything. When I discovered that garlic is antibacterial and antiviral, I started eating it raw to get rid of my colds (which works for about 12 hours, by the way, but still it's generally better than most OTC medicine).

But then I fermented garlic, and yes, I feel I have stepped my garlic game up in a serious way.

I just sort of made this one up as I couldn't really find any garlic paste recipes out there that I liked. It's really simple. Some people leave it to sit out for 6-12 weeks, but I got impatient and sampled it after a week. It's strong and absolutely incredible.

Maybe don't attempt this if you don't like garlic.

But then again, I've heard people say that fermenting garlic makes it much more mild. Maybe those are the people that let it ferment for 6-12 weeks.

Ingredients
Lots of garlic
Sea salt
Filtered water

Preparation
Peel all the garlic. I know a lot of people who claim this youtube video is helpful, but it did not help me. I peeled it all by hand, and I started to question whether it was all worth it. Trust me, I'd peel more if I had to.

Dissolve your sea salt in the filtered water to make your brine. I used a 2% brine or about 1 tablespoon of sea salt.

Add the garlic to the brine and let it sit for about a week. Blend it up when you're ready to eat it.

Have someone ready and waiting when you swoon the first time you smell it. Be prepared to put it on everything!

Recipe: Fermented Cranberry Sauce

I never really liked cranberries growing up. They're pretty sour, and let's be honest, my mother wasn't buying the fresh fruit anyway. If I saw cranberries, it was at Thanksgiving and it was this weird cranberry jelly from a can.

Since I've been doing my own Thanksgiving, I decided to try again with the cranberries. (Also, the boyfriend insisted that he wanted a cranberry dish.)

I'm so happy I made this! And yes, for those wondering, I made this back in November of 2013 and it's still fresh - one of the joys of fermenting foods.

I found the recipe originally on Oh Lardy and it's probably perfect exactly the way she wrote it, but I modified it to reflect ingredients I had on hand. The cranberries in this are not sour, but they're very sweet and the cinnamon really helps balance the whole thing.

Ingredients

4 cups of cranberries

1/2 cup walnuts

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup whey

1/2 cup kombucha vinegar

1 tsp cinnamon

3-4 cloves (ground, if possible)

Juice from 1 orange 

Juice from half lemon

Preparation

Mix all ingredients together in a food processor or blender and pulse until desired consistency. I left mine mostly chunky - you can see some of the whole cranberries that I left.

Add mixture to a mason jar.

Leave at room temperature for 2-3 days to ferment.

Enjoy! Refrigerate to preserve.

Total Time: 2-3 days total, about 10 minutes active work
Serves: Many!

Seriously, in addition to Thanksgiving and eating with meat, I love putting this on my sandwiches. Here it is with some brie right before I grilled it - and you could easily add some spinach as well!

Recipe: Fermented Hot Sauce and Hot Pepper Flakes

While I prefer most of my foods to be plain, or seasoned with, say, basil or thyme, there are a whole lot of people out there who need a bit more spice. Hot sauce is really popular where I'm from, and I've even known a few people to carry small bottles around with them. 

I'm starting to come around to loving spicy flavors, but until I do, I've made hot sauce and hot pepper flakes for the boyfriend so he can season his food as he sees fit.

Best of all, it's fermented! So it takes awhile to make, but it lasts forever! Unless you pour it on everything of course...

First up is the actual hot sauce. I found the recipe at Killer Pickles (who, yes actually, has the BEST pickle recipe). I found all of my hot peppers at the farmer's market. It was the end of the season so my particular farmer was selling bags of peppers for $1.

I threw in all of the assorted peppers I was lucky enough to score (plus a few more from the regular market), mustard seeds, and garlic in brine for 4-5 weeks. Then I soaked some sun-dried tomatoes in the brine before blending everything up and pressing through a sieve. 

(Original recipe here.)

And it's great! Assuming you like hot sauce, of course.

Of course, I can't just throw away all the bits that don't make up the sauce. I saved the seeds and little bits of pepper and, thanks to Phickle, decided to use them as I would hot pepper flakes. 

I don't have a dehydrator to make a proper dried spice, but that's okay. I left it as a paste and I stir it into soups and stir-fries where hot sauce would be a little strange. 

(Is hot sauce ever strange in foods?)

Anyway, let me know if you try making your own!

I Made Sour Cream!

So for some reason, I'm on a condiment kick. I've made ketchup and hot sauce, I'm currently making Worcestershire sauce, and I'm looking into mayonnaise... But this post is about sour cream!

I love sour cream, but I rarely ever have it in the house. I tend to substitute yogurt in most of my Mexican dishes, but when I realized from Phickle that all you needed to make sour cream was a little cream and a couple of milk kefir grains, I got on it immediately!

I only have access to ultra-pasteurized cream so I wasn't sure it would work perfectly. I bought the smallest container of heavy whipping cream and hoped for the best.

I took a few of my small but growing grains and I tossed them in the container. My normal fermenting time is 24 hours so I shook the container throughout the day, per normal, and the next morning I woke up and it just felt different.

I tried shaking it and nothing moved. I was terrified, but when I opened it, I had thick, wonderful sour cream!

I figured there would be no way to separate my grains from the thick mass so I decided to sacrifice them. (After all, eating grains is really healthy!) However, it turned out to be incredibly easy to spot my 3 grains because they look so different than the rest. Two were on top and the third stuck to my spoon so the grains have been saved for now.

And as for the taste - it's creamy and wonderful! The boyfriend was nervous and told me I was "living dangerously" as "dairy should always be refrigerated," but then he tasted it and changed his tune completely, calling me a genius and "ahead of the crowd." So there. 24 hour sour cream. Boyfriend approved.