Water Kefir: The best drink in the world ever

I started making water kefir this summer. I don't know where I heard about it but it was awhile ago and it just took me that long to finally get around to ordering the "grains". I finally ordered some on ebay for just $8 and now we all have a new favourite drink. It's delicious, refreshing, fizzy and really good for you - full of probiotics.

Here's the recipe I've been using the most. There are lots of variations out there that I still have to try. But they all involve adding the "grains" (these spongy granules of bacteria and yeast that eat sugar, cause the drink to ferment, and multiply) to some water with sugar and fruit (the fruit gives the "grains" extra minerals). First I ferment it for 2 days in the jars above (with loose lids), then I transfer is to flip top grolsch-style bottles and let it ferment for another day and a half to get fizzy.

It really is delicious, it was especially nice having a healthy fizzy drink in the summer but we are still drinking it now we're getting fall weather. It's not like kombucha which is definitely an acquired taste. The kefir recipe I use has lemons and everyone who has tasted it loves it right away. I even give it to Henry before it turns fizzy and he loves it. I call it juice and he's never disappointed when he takes a sip and it doesn't quite taste like juice. I can only describe the taste as tart, or tangy maybe.

And my grains are really multiplying - I can now make almost 2 L every 2 days which has caused a bit of an overflow in the fridge. I am slowing it down now though. I'd love to give anyone interested my extra grains - just let me know!

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.

In the brewery: Clove Wine and Pineapple Wine

We did some bottling tonight. Bottled our clove wine and our pineapple orange juice wine that we started a few months ago. This meant we also got to taste them! The clove wine tasted like cloves but tasted better and not as weird as we had guessed. And the pineapple orange juice wine had a lot of pineapple taste but no orange taste. And it was weird because it wasn't sweet at all. Mostly though it really tasted like a white wine and it was pretty good. We just had a gallon of each and we did half of each sparkling and half flat. We will be drinking them soon.

Both of these are recipes from First Steps in Winemaking.

And Henry was keeping us company while we bottled and was being a bit moany. Until we put him in the bucket that is. He loved it in there and played happily for around 15 minutes.

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.