Fermenting Foods and Beverages

I have recently caught a new bug, the old style fermented foods and beverages bug.  It all started back in June or July while I was sitting with my Mother in her sun-room watching birds and bees in her back yard (it is wooded and drops down to a deep ravine so it is a wonderful place to be).  Mom was reminiscing about her grandmother who was an excellent cook and owned several restaurants.  Mom learned to cook as a child from her grandmother.  In those days, the 1930s through the 1940s, most people had a garden or knew farmers from which to purchase produce and protein foods, i.e. dairy, meats.  People put up or put bye (canned) much of the food they grew for the winter.  As a child, I remember my mother's parents basement pantry area lined with jars of stuff to eat like pickles.
Mom told me how much she loved to sneak down to the basement as a young child and sample the foods in the large crocks, her favorite being sauerkraut and mangoes (stuffed bell peppers). Her grandmother fermented the pickles in huge crocks and there was nothing wrong with sampling the foods except that it spoiled her appetite somewhat for meals.
Sadly, I never got to meet my grandmother as she passed away before I was born.  But her legacy of wonderful cooking passed down to my mother and hopefully to me.  When I was a tween, my mother made pickles and relish on year, what an interesting undertaking that was.  We ate the pickles and relish for 2 or 3 years, and really enjoyed it.  Mom made jelly once in a while also,  but never put food up like her grandmother did or my mother-in-law did because the day of the commissary and grocery store had overtaken our culture.  Additionally, she and dad were not gardeners so would have to purchase the fresh produce to preserve, and what was the point of that when you could easily and inexpensively purchase what you desired without the hassle of making it yourself.
When I was a teen, I spent all my time riding my horse with other teen girls doing the same.  We knew where a huge old fig tree was that we gorged ourselves on every summer.  I wish I'd taken some home to make into fig preserves but I never thought of it.  One of my horseback girlfriends dad was a deputy sheriff and her mom always had 2 glass gallon jugs on the kitchen counter in there home connect by clear tubing stuck in a stopper in each bottle and some muscadine wine fermenting in one and condensing in the other.  I tasted it once and it was a really sweet grape flavor, really too sweet for my tastes so I never asked Mrs. Audry what she was doing or how or why.  I didn't realize that sweetness could be adjusted. Now that information is lost to me 40 years later.   All the lost opportunities to learn and do.  Sadly, this is the way it is for most urban dwellers in the USA today.  However, there is a movement by some people to learn the old skills called by some, urban homesteading.
I live on a steep hill that drops down to a ravine with a tiny stream in the bottom, close to the center of our little town.  The back yard faces NNE and gets only middle of the day sunlight, so it is not conducive to gardening unfortunately.  The front yard faces SSW and is small, has kids run through it, dogs too (and they leave droppings for me to clean up) so it receives full sun, but is not a hospital spot to garden either.  I would dearly love for our town to create a community garden area someday, so then I could grow some produce.  I would love to keep a handful of chickens for eggs and their funny antics but there are raccoons who come up on the deck to raid my bird feeders every night, and I fear the chickens would be raccoon dinner all to soon.  I have thought of rabbits for meat and fur, and that is something I may eventually do--after much researching.
I hope all of you wistful farmers have better conditions in your own piece of gardening paradise, but hopefully, we can all manage to grow at least a little of our produce.
I found this interesting beverage recipe while researching how to ferment foods, the name caught my eye.  This is a drink made from fermenting sweet potatoes and is ready in 3-5 days.  This is supposed to be similar to old fashioned root beer, ginger ale, cream sodas, etc.  The recipe is not difficult to make.
2 scrubbed and shredded sweet potatoes, rinse the starch in strainer till water runs clear then place in 1 gallon jar.  Add 2 cups sugar (or you can add some honey as part of the 2 cups), 1/2 a lemon, a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg,ginger, allspice, 1 egg shell, then cover with water.  Cover with cloth to keep out fruit flies.  Later when bubbly, strain, chill juice, save the pulp to bake muffins.
I made my first batch today, but I forgot to rinse the shredded potatoes, so I'll soon see what happens, I may need to repeat this recipe at the end of the week, correctly, to see what the difference is.  More news later on this beverage.
My Gut Reaction?  This was fun and could possibly be delicious.  I enjoyed the process and the connection to my great-grandmother and my mother's memories of the cooking methods she remembers.

http://www.permies.com/permaculture-forums/3156_0/cooking-and-food-preservation/fermented-but-nonalcoholic-drinks

Bubble Tea?

Yep, I'm definitely getting over whatever bug the little darlings at work shared with me.  This one was a doozy.  I hate the croupy bronchitisy head cold thing with a passion, yet as I'm getting older I seem more susceptible to them also.  Working with toddlers and preschoolers, I tend now to catch everything they bring to our facility.  Today is Wednesday, Hump Day for the typical work week and for my cold, love the pun.  I am expecting to be well enough to return to work by Friday, which is when the ice/snow storm we are expecting  here in NW Arkansas will be in full fury, just in time to enjoy getting snow bound with sick kids at work.  Oh well, life's little events.

Now on to other things.  How many of you have ever heard of or tried "Bubble Tea?"  I was researching various uses for large pearl tapioca, when I came across many references to Bubble Tea.  Apparently, all the hot Asian restaurants are serving it.  As you may know, tapioca and tea (along with dry toast or crackers) are very good to eat when you are sick. I was intrigued enough to open the sites and begin reading.  Essentially, bubble tea is tapioca mixed into the tea, served hot or cold, sweetened, possibly colored.  Looks like fish eggs.  Can be served mixed with fruit.  I like to play.  Seems  like a perfect idea to me.  So I just prepared a cup of chai and mixed in the tapioca to see how I like it.  I'll let you know.

Yesterday I used up all the lovely gluten free bread I made a few days ago ( when I forgot to write the recipe down as I created it).  I had enjoyed several crusts of dry toast during the low point of this miserable cold thing.  Between the toast, tapioca, and pineapple-ruby grapefruit slushes, cough suppressants and Vitamin C tablets, I have not eaten in almost a week.  Therefore, I was pretty hungry all of a sudden today around lunch time ( I actually stayed awake long enough to eat).  So I pulled out from the freezer one of my son's frozen Red Baron pizza's, threw it into the oven, then proceeded to eat several slices.
My Gut Reaction?  How could I be so stupid!

Now I am going to have to pay for my not being prepared--for having no quick fix foods in the kitchen.  Thus, I am now going to have to go to a Boy Scout meeting tonight while enduring the payback from the wheat.  Now I am going to have to have ready in the future, foods that I can quickly prepare to eat, or grab and go foods to take to work, especially when I am in a time crunch or just not, for whatever reason, able to fix foods.

How many of you sometimes find yourselves in similar situations?  Sometimes I feel like I am really scatter-brained and unorganized to the max.  Please, oh please, share some of your mistakes and solutions.   Perhaps we can help each other out here.

I now have a spiral notebook and pen in the kitchen so that I can write down ingredients,  measurements and steps I take when I'm creating something on the fly and then share it with  you.  I have also borrowed a digital camera with which to attempt to take photographs of the process to share with you.  In that respect, please be patient and merciful in your critiques of my ability, remember, I'm a middle ager, not a youngster, so I'm a bit--how shall I put it--new at this, yea that's right.  I'm not remedial, just ignorant.  heh heh

I also am planning to practice making and freezing mini-pizzas and other traditional fast food meals.  I like fast food meals for their convenience and easy eating.  Tacos, burritos, burgers, subs, and pizzas are all nice when I'm in a hurry.  I do like the smoothies and I know they are healthy, but I get pretty tired of sweet tastes.  I do like V-8 (spicy) but there is a lot of sodium in that juice.  Savory, crunchy, and still healthy and quick are what I'll be looking for.  The internet will be one tool for searching out recipes and ideas.  Hopefully, you all can contribute to this project as well.

I am somewhat worried about the price we will be seeing in the grocery stores this year.  You cannot find canned pumpkin to bake with already from last fall's abysmal harvest.  With the recent dreadful freeze in Florida, the citrus, tomato, strawberry, pepper, and some vegetables from Florida are devastated.  Since I am in process of purging from my diet habits convenience foods and eating more fruits and vegetables, I know this is gonna hurt.  I've already begun stocking up on frozen juice concentrate and veggies.  What about you?

Well, I'm still not feeling my best, in fact, other people think I sound pretty lousy, however, I must look and sound worse than I feel, cause I'm up, reading, writing, and sipping a grapefruit slush (Take 1 Vita-Mix machine, add 1 ruby grapefruit - my last one, sigh--add about a cup of ice cubes, and about 3/4 a cup of soy milk, give it a whirl, and there you go, wonderful!) which makes the throat feel much better and eating toasted (dry) bread.

The quick bread I made yesterday was sursprisingly soft and squeesable, sorta makes me think of the Charmin toilet paper commercials, heh.  But really, it is soft.  Lots of GF breads are dry or crumbly.  They have not got the arieness that we are accustomed to with wheat breads (from the gluten's elasticity).  The are aften dense heavy loaves.  Additionally, they go stale rapidly.

Yesterday's loaf  was light, fluffy.  It packed and went to work, was still good many hours later.  This morning same and it toasted and tasted nicely.  Do you know how gluten free breads sometimes have a funny feel or taste on the tongue, not slimy but my tongue reactes to them the same way.  Well, this loaf did not have that feel.  It felt, well, normal.  I am definitely going to replicate it this afternoon--before the ball game--and report back tonight to you.

I woke this morning sick as a dog.  Yesterday, I woke with a scratchy throat and some coughing and I thought, okay, here it goes again.  I was right. heh.  So  I pulled out the Vita-Mix, dropped in ruby red grapefruit, pineapple, grapes, ice and water for a delicious fruit slush which made my sore laryngitisy throat, with deep coughing, somewhat better, at least now I am able to croak intelligibly and get myself to work this afternoon.  While sipping my slush, I threw together--literally--a quick bread, gluten free of course, and sat down to watch some Saturday morning PBS and HGTV as I love the gardening shows like PAllanSmith,Victory Garden, and Curb Appeal ( I had overslept so missed the knitting and quilting shows).  I love European style artisan breads.

My early exposure to such delights came from my father's posting to a European military base while I was an infant.  Until we returned to the USA when I was in first grade, all I  ever had to eat were the most wonderful, amazing fresh breads to be found on the face of the Earth!  In fact, when we returned to the USA, I could not eat the squishy tasteless white spongy stuff the locals called bread--unless it was darkly toasted, and even then I disliked it.  Of course, since it was the early 1960s, Dad was transferred to the deep south where I discovered corn bread and biscuits.  Yum.

After 30 minutes, the bread was done and it was wonderful!  Like old fashioned flaky biscuits.  My life long habit of cooking on the fly learned from my Mother and Mom-in-law kicked in and I just pulled out all my GF stuff and threw it together.  I don't usually use measuring cups and spoons, but I am attempting to begin a more concise, logical cooking habit. Unfortunately, I did not write the recipe down as I worked, mind was too miserable to be thinking ahead (silly pun I know).  However, it went something like this:

Some brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, amaranth flour, almond flour, hazelnut flour, sorghum flour, tapioca flour, xanthum gum, kosher salt, baking powder,  whey powder, 2 eggs, blob of yogurt, and water.  I will attempt to replicate this tomorrow and measure as I go, promise.

As for now, time for more liquid Vitamin C, then work. 

My Gut Reaction?  Bread is good, tummy troubles are not.  Organization is good--it helps you. 

Slow Cookers

Yesterday, I watched Sandra Lee on her show: Sandra's Money Saving Meals Episode: Slow Cooker Savings, 
Now, I've always had slow cookers in my kitchen, got my first one as a marriage gift, many years ago and I've since worn out at least four cookers.  I've made countless pot roasts, stews, soups, chowders,  and vegetables in them.  I have four slow cooker cookbooks, and some of them mention that you can bake bread in the slow cooker, but I have never personally done so, until now.  Sandra's banana bread looked interesting enough to me, that I decided to go try my own hand at baking.  However, I choose not to replicate Sandra's banana bread in my endeavor, instead, due to my wheat allergy, I needed to make a gluten free bread.  Additionally, my Mother makes the best banana bread in the world, and if I were going to make banana bread, I would make her recipe.  Sorry Sandra, but that's the way it is.


I'm getting over two rounds of antibiotics which began just a day before Christmas and ending this past Sunday.  Because I've been a bit under the weather, healthwise, and my stomach has been a war zone of chemicals of mass destruction, I'm eating very bland while trying to recover my gut's flora and fauna.  I needed plain toast yesterday and had no gluten free bread, therefore, I made a loaf and decided to see how the slow cooker would handle it.


I threw into my stainless steel bowl 1/3 of a cup of sorghum flour, 1/3 cup brown rice flour, 1/3 cup millet flour that I ground in my Vita-Mix, 1/3 cup tapioca flour, 1/4 cup coconut flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 eggs, 1-1/4 cup yogurt, 1 cup strong brewed lemon tea, 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt, 1 tablespoon ground flax meal, 1/4 cup sugar.
This made a batter a bit thinner than brownie batter.  Poured this into my glass baking loaf pan which I'd sprayed with olive oil spray.


I set a trivet into the cooker, poured water in to the top of the trivet, placed the loaf pan on the trivet, covered with a paper towel as Sandra recommended, set the cooker on low and left it for four hours.


When I removed the loaf from the cooker, I noticed an appearance similar to what you get from the microwave.  Not browned, but done.  The dough rose nicely to top of pan without overflowing.  It was dense yet not really heavy.


I cut and ate a slice while it was hot.  There were lots of bubble holes in it, but I only hand mixed it with a fork, quickly like biscuit dough.  Taste was good enough for me-similar texture to English muffins.


This morning, I toasted some in my oven for breakfast, it toasted nicely.

MY GUT REACTION?  I will  definitely continue to experiment with baking breads in my slow cooker.  This could be very useful for those times when the oven is tied up with other foods or when I am busy and do not want to risk using the oven and over cooking a bread.

Waste Not, Want Not!

There is still hard crunchy snow outside, everywhere.  It was supposed to be 45 degrees today, but it is only 25 and overcast again.  Therefore, I must bake as using the oven warms me and my house up.  Besides, I have no bread to eat sandwiches on.

I  really would like to figure out how to make gluten free breads that my family will enjoy and help eat.  Generally, they won't touch the stuff and I cannot eat it all before it starts to go bad.  I've made croutons, and bread crumbs from some, but since I rarely fry anything, the crumbs aren't often necessary.  I'd like to hear from you, friends, how do you solve this problem?  I just hate to be wasteful, and I've found that birds on my deck don't like the gluten free bread as much as wheat.
My Gut Reaction?  I need to plan better and utilize my dehydrator and freezer more efficiently!

My Lazy Day Lazy Way Stuffed Cabbage
On another note, stuffed cabbage on the stove  smells very good!  Hot baked bread will go very nicely with it tonight and I believe I will try some slaw with it, and perhaps a flan or fruit smoothie for dessert. This recipe evolved from a love for rice stuffed meatballs, stuffed cabbage, healthier eathing, inexpensive (read frugality as in waste not want not) and convenient foods.  

I browned a pound of lean ground bison in my cast iron dutch oven with one onion chopped in the vita-mix and one cup of jasmine rice; I layered one half a cabbage sliced into narrow wedges over the meat and rice layer.  Then I poured a pint of leftover tomato soup on top ( made from 1 large can crushed tomatoes, 1 small can tomato paste, soy milk and seasonings ).  I turned the cast iron dutch oven down from medium low to low to simulate a slow cooker's low slow simmer, covered it and left. (this can also go into a real slow cooker) Oh  my gosh it smells good!  I do all my grocery shopping at my local Wal-Mart as it is close, quick, convenient, and good for the budget.  However, I do go three or four times a year to my natural foods co-operative in Fayetteville-ozarknaturalfoods.com, a short drive down I-540 when I am visiting my son at the University of Arkansas, my alma mater.  There I buy gluten free foods that I cannot purchase at Wal-Mart's limited gluten free section.

I managed to gain only 2.5 pounds during the holidays, so now that it is back to normal business, I am happy to eat healthier with far fewer empty carbs from holiday sweets.  Walking begins this afternoon!  YEA!
My Gut Reaction?  Yahoooo!  Look out scales, mirror, and wardrobe, things are changing!