I Made Pickles!

Yay for me! I happen to love pickles; in fact, I used to eat my grandma's pickles pratically by the jarful and then drink the juice when I was done. My grandma used to be so worried that I was going to get a stomach ache, but it never happened (thankfully).

When I planted my garden this year (my first garden!) I made sure to include some small cucumbers so that I could try pickling myself (not try pickling *myself* - that would just be gross, but try pickling *for* myself, haha).

Instead of going the traditional pickling route, I decided to try latco-fermentation, which is a lot less complicated than it sounds, trust me! Remember my post about making whey? I promised I would tell you what you could do with whey :-).

Pickled Cucumbers - from Nourishing
Traditions

For each quart of pickles, combine:

• 4-5 pickling cucumbers or 15-20 gherkins


• 1 Tablespoon mustard seeds


• 2 Tablespoons fresh dill, snipped


• 1 Tablespoon salt


• 4 Tablespoons whey


• 1 cup filtered water
  
  Wash cucumbers and place in a quart-sized,
  wide-mouth mason jar. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over cucumbers, adding more water if necessary to cover the cucumbers.
  
  The top of the liquid should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage.

So I only had 3 ripe cucumbers and was too impatient to wait, so instead of 4 - 5, I only had the three and just scaled the other incredients down a bit. It was interesting... what I ended up with was more cucumber than pickle.

The texture was perfect - just like a claussen, but the flavor was basically a crisp cucumber with a hint of dill. It's a possibility that I'll need to leave it in the fridge for a while before I get the right flavor (and if you've done this before, PLEASE leave any tips or tricks you may know).

I left the other two pickles in the jar and am going to wait a week before I try one again... I'll let you know if the flavor changes at all :-).

This post is a proud participant in Fight Back Friday.

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Super Yummy Brown Rice

For years, I've known that brown rice was better for you than white. However, my husband hated it - and I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it as much as white (we've been as spoiled as the rest of society). Recently, I've been doing some reading about eating a "whole foods" diet, and came across information by the Weston A Price foundation, as well as Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions."

According to this information, grains like wheat and rice are protected by phytic acid, which is difficult for us to digest. But by soaking these grains before we use them, the acid is neutralized and the food becomes much easier to digest and the nutrients become more available.

So I decided to make brown rice using this method, and the results were incredible. I put these ingredients into a bowl (this recipe is from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook - I just scaled down the recipe a bit):

1 C Brown Rice
2C Water
1 Tbs Apple Cider Vinegar (although you can use whey if you have some available)

I then left them to soak overnight - and you can soak them for as much as 24 hours. At that point, I rinsed the rice simply because I wanted the vinegar taste to be minimized.

Then I just cooked the rice according to the package directions for about 20-30 minutes and ended up with soft, fluffy rice that tasted very much like white rice! My husband loved it too, and if you knew him, you would know what a big deal that is!

I know there are a million things you can do to rice, but my favorite way to eat it is simply with some Tamari and a little pepper. :-)

This post is a part of Fight Back Friday.

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Making Whey

"Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey..."

Ever wonder what the heck "whey" is? I have wondered that for years. You would have thought that at one time or another I would have thought to Google it - but I never did.

When I started learning about lacto-fermentation, I finally learned not only what whey was, but also how to make it - and it's suprisingly easy.

From the Nourishing Traditions cookbook, here is how I made my whey:


I took colander and lined it with a thin dishtowel (you can also use several layers of cheesecloth).

Then I placed the colander on a bowl and poured in about a quart of yogurt.

I covered the bowl and let it drip for a couple of hours.

After that, I took the dishtowel and drew up the four corners and tied it to a wooden spoon (this simply put more pressure on the yogurt and made more whey drip out) and then propped the spoon above the bowl.

After another couple of hours, I had a dishcloth full of cream cheese (with which I made a yummy cream cheese pastry) and a bowl full of whey which I then poured into a glass jar and put into the fridge.

What on earth do you do with whey? Stick around and find out :-).

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