Kombucha

I am back to drinking kombucha. I got the mother of SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) from a nice man who was giving it away back in September after I read about kombucha in the book Wild Fermentation. But I hadn't been getting around to making it for months. And here are some possibly gross pictures of what it looks like left unattended for months, the mothers just got thicker and thicker. I just thought it was so cool I had to take pictures. And now I am back to drinking it, it tastes better than I remember it, a bit vinegar-y but there's also something tasty about it. And it's supposed to be very good for you. I make mine with green tea but I think I will try black tea next time I make it. And here is one definitely not gross picture: Henry doing some car-spotting.

Soup and Sourdough

I made Sourdough bread according to the instructions in Wild Fermentation. The sour starter had this terrible cheesy smell and the bread kind of had the same smell/taste. So it didn't turn out well. It did rise by itself from the wild yeasts and taste sour so that was exciting. I guess the yeasts around here just aren't tasty?


We had it with a new soup recipe that I got off Soulemama's blog. Cream of Broccoli. It was really tasty except it had the problem that I have with all pureed soups, I just don't find them filling and I'm not willing to make something to go along with them.
http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2009/09/bits.html

Soy Yogurt!!

I got a lovely surprise this morning. The soy yogurt I made last night actually worked. And it tastes delicious! I was sure it wouldn't work. I tried making cocount milk yogurt a couple months ago and it didn't work. Also, when I looked online I found lots of instructions and all of them fit into 2 categories: either they were very complicated with extra ingredients and steps all to make the soy yogurt thick like regular yogurt or they were very simple (like dairy yogurt) and didn't even mention thickness.

Luckily my Wild Fermentation book had instructions to use soy milk just like regular milk in a recipe so I did that. Except I added a bit of sugar because one of the sets of instructions said you needed to and now I'm not sure if I want to try to omit it next time. So I followed instructions for dairy yogurt using Edensoy soy milk (only ingredients are water and soy beans, don't know if that is important) and used a cooler with a 4L bottle of hot water and stuffed with towels as my incubator and left it over night. Oh and I used a tablespoon of dairy yogurt as my starter because after the coconut milk yogurt failure (in which I used soy yogurt starter) I read somewhere that commercial soy yogurt doesn't work as a starter (even if it says live cultures).

It really does taste delicious, way better than that expensive processed stuff I bought myself as a treat all the time while I was pregnant. And it has a lovely thick consistency and tasted delicious with my granola and maple syrup. I am so excited. That is often the one thing missing in our kitchen - easy snacks. Kevin eats so much chips and salsa that I think he will turn into chips and salsa. And Kevin thinks the yogurt is good too. So I think this goes along with the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe as a life-changing discovery.

Projects

I've been having a very productive week. Besides giving the whole house a good vacuum after finally buying a proper vacuum last week ($10 at Goodwill, spending time cleaning is bad enough don't also want to spend too much money) and restocking us with granola and zucchini bread, I got to work on these projects.

Tomatoes picked and mint dried (for tea)












Tomatoes drying












Cider to be made into hard cider, is currently bubbling away in the basement











Sauerkraut getting more sour












Soap hardening












And Henry has been very happy to sit and play on the kitchen floor. He is especially happy with his new toy the coathanger.

Kimchi

I tried my first recipe from the book Wild Fermentation (http://www.amazon.ca/Wild-Fermentation-Flavor-Nutrition-Lve-Culture/dp/1931498237/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279897882&sr=8-1). It's kimchi, a Korean pickled brine-fermented vegetable dish flavoured with ginger, garlic, and hot pepper. I used bok choy, daikon radish, and carrot.

I started it last week, tasted it every day and decided it was fermented the right amount yesterday. It's pretty good. Except both Kevin and I preferred the taste last week before it was fermented.

We ate it with a hot and sour soup (don't have a recipe to reccommend because we didn't really like it) and steamed buns. I just used my usual bread dough and steamed it for 15 minutes which turned out alright but didn't have the right taste. It was pretty cool so I think I will try steamed buns again but will use a recipe for the right dough.