It is no secret that Tamara and I love to ferment foods. If you take a look through our recipes, it shouldn’t take long to stumble across a fermented food or two! In fact, Oh Lardy has presented a series on fermented foods. We love the stuff! You may notice that we mention the use of whey, or some other … Read More
Making Cultured Butter…it’s so easy!!!
Last week, I made several different versions of cultured sour cream. This is essentially sour cream that has been naturally soured…by using good bacteria to eat the sugars in the cream to create a wonderfully probiotic-rich, enzyme-filled, nourishing sour cream. This week, I decided to take some of that sour cream and turn it into cultured butter! Why cultured butter? … Read More
Homemade Sour Cream Recipe
I have been interested in fermenting foods for several years now. However, culturing my own dairy always made me nervous. I have no idea why, but I can have numerous jars going of kraut, dilly carrots, pickles, berries, chutney but I was timid to start to experiment with dairy. Does the topic of fermenting baffle you? We created a Fermenting … Read More
Fermented Pickles
Well, my second batch of sauerkraut has been harvested from my fermenting crock and my crock was looking so sad and lonely all empty like that. We have enough ‘kraut to last us a while now. But I just couldn’t leave my crock with nothing to do! It needed a job. And that job was pickles. I gathered my ingredients … Read More
Homemade Orange Jello – With a Probiotic Surprise
Last week, I posted my recipe for fermented orange juice, a great way to get probiotics, enzymes and vitamins into your diet. Plus it is super delicious, even for kids! Over the weekend, I came across a post on probiotic-infused lemonade jello by Mommypotamus. She had been inspired by Food Renegade’s lacto-fermented lemonade (which is delicious, by the way, especially in … Read More
Fermented Orange Juice – an Orangina-type beverage
Growing up I moved around quite a bit (well, actually, a lot…13 schools in 12 years!), mostly between California and New Jersey…two completely different places with very different food cultures. One of my biggest food memories of living in New Jersey (besides the amazing NY style pizza!) was going to our local bagel shop and getting a toasted plain bagel … Read More
Fermented Garlic
I have been on a roll with fermenting lately, so I thought I would share this tutorial/recipe with you as well! Tamara gave me the idea to ferment a bunch of cloves of garlic. How nice would that be to have a fermented garlic, in the fridge, ready to put in fresh pico de gallo, guacamole, or whatever? I thought … Read More
Fermenting Fail – ’cause I like to keep it Real
Last week at the Farmer’s Market, I found these beautiful beets and decided that they simply must be fermented. I brought them home and set about my fermenting business. I decided that I wanted them shredded up, like cabbage. So, I ran them through my food processor. This is where I went wrong, friends. However, at the time, I didn’t … Read More
Fermented Carolina Coleslaw
Are you new to fermenting? Do you want to learn more? Are you looking for an easy to read, beautifully illustrated fermenting cookbook? Real Food Fermentation by Alex Lewin is just that book. Alex, a graduate of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, blogs over at Feed Me Like You Mean It. He is … Read More
How to use a Fermenting Crock – An Update!
Two weeks ago, I wrote a post on how to use a fermenting crock. In case you have been wondering how things are going, its your lucky day!! I was a good girl and followed the instructions to not even peek for two weeks. I waited very patiently and on Saturday I finally got to look AND taste! When I … Read More
Fermented Jalapeño Rings
This is going to be a spicy post, my friend! Personally, I don’t like things REALLY spicy. I like a little bit of heat, but nothing that sends me looking for a tall glass of milk. My husband, on the other hand, LOVES spicy! If he doesn’t start sweating, it isn’t spicy enough. In an effort to get my family … Read More
How to Use a Fermenting Crock
I received this Fermenting Crock from my husband for Christmas and I am so excited!! Up until this weekend, I have only ever used mason jars for my ferments. On Saturday morning, the kids and I headed to the Farmer’s Market and I brought home 5 pounds of cabbage (among other things) to make a sauerkraut! But, before I get … Read More
Fermented Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry sauce…a ubiquitous condiment on most holiday tables. It seems to pair so well with the usual holiday fixings…turkey, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes. Everyone helps themselves to a small amount of cranberry sauce, but no one ever really seems to love it. Wait until they try this recipe for fermented cranberry sauce! I was honestly a little surprised by … Read More
Lacto-fermented Pineapple Papaya Chutney – a delicious digestive aid
Adding fermented foods to your diet has many health benefits, including making food more digestible, increasing vitamin and enzyme content of the food and increasing good bacteria in your digestive tract. They are very easy to prepare at home. An easy and delicious way to get fermented foods is by making this pineapple chutney recipe, which is an adaptation of … Read More
How to Make Fermented Foods
Culturing or fermenting foods is a way of easily preserving foods and at the same time encouraging the growth of good bacteria (probiotics) which have numerous health benefits. Some of the benefits of consuming fermented foods are restoring proper balance of bacteria in your gut (should be 80-20 ratio good-bad; most of the time is not due to our SAD … Read More
Ditch the store bought Mayo!
If you happen to be a newbie in the Real Foods arena, one of the simplest things you can do is to make your own condiments. Personally, I started with Mayonnaise. By mastering the basics (homemade broth, dressings, sauces, marinades, condiments, etc) you set a great foundation from which to build your healthy kitchen. When I cleaned out our kitchen … Read More