Fermentation

I cleaned the shelf where I hide my ferments. They looked so splendid on the table I’d thought I’d take a photo. And I remembered you haven’t seen me for a while 😉
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From left to right:
banana skin vinegar – fermented garlic – bread kvass 1st ferment – ginger carrots – sauerkraut – water kefir 1st ferment – another water kefir 1st ferment – water kefir 2nd ferment with lemon and ginger – bread kvass 2nd ferment with mint (almost gone!) – water kefir 2nd ferment with strawberry (almost gone too!).
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And off camera there’s a sourdough starter, some blended fermenting millet and some blended fermenting farro.
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There are a lot of bubbles in my small kitchen.

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Fermenting garlic is easy. You need a lot of garlic, a glass jar, salt and some way of keeping the cloves under the brine you add – I use a bit of cabbage leaf cut to the shape of the jar and ‘pickle pebbles’.
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Peel the cloves and chop large ones in two. Pop them in the sterilized jar. Make a brine using 5g of salt to every cup of non-chlorinated water. Pour this over the garlic so they are well-covered. Weigh them down so they stay under the liquid. Lid the jar and leave it covered somewhere warm. Wait. Wait. Wait.
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It’s best after 6 weeks – the rawness mellows. Still, they pack an incredible punch and are well-documented as being one of the most potent anti-pretty-much-everything you can get naturally.
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I have a chequered history with ferments. I can’t just eat them as I wish. I tried that and couldn’t sleep. It took me a while to realise what was happening. And then it took me a while to get the discipline of weighing out sauerkraut. I started, over 2 years ago with 1g a day! Slowly, slowly I’ve increased it and am now on 24g a day. I’ve done the same with water kefir and currently drink 2 egg-cups of it a day.
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My biome needs extra care, I think, after abusing it so royally as a child with the over-eating which saw me twice the size I am now. Changing body ecology is not something I’ve been able to click my fingers and make happen. It’s made in every slow, conscious choice.

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Baked fermented goat’s milk heaven. That’s what I’d call this cup of gorgeousness I made from @darra.goldstein’s book ‘Beyond the North Wind’ full of the most amazing raw, sour, fermented recipes. I have not bought myself a cook book since I got Nourishing Traditions over 10 years ago. I’m not good with following recipes (I can prove it – I messed this up the first time and curdled the milk) but just sometimes, I get so excited I have to cook by the book.
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This is milk that’s baked thick and creamy and then fermented. I like mine sour, so left it overnight next to the warm slow-cooker. When it’s baking you take the skin off and save it and then add it back to the finished dish, Oh my, it was so good.
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Thank you for such a beautiful, poetic book Darra. I’m hoping to bake some the barley and rye bread in cabbage leaves next.

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Have you ever cooked with wholegrain (i.e. brown) millet? I didn’t even know you could buy it with the hulls on until I saw it at a healthfood store here in Italy. I got very excited and promptly bought two packets! .
Researching told me it’s most often used in Asian cuisine to make dumplings, but it does have a history here in Italy, where millet, often brown, as flour was added to bread mixes.
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I love fermenting grains and got exploring. This is what I came up with. Here you see the two grains about to be soaked. I do this for at least a day as the brown millet is hard. Then I drain and rinse and leave to sprout. The tiny tails on the little grains as so cute! Then I food process for a long time with a little starter and leave for another day or two to ferment. It takes on a cheesey funk that is gorgeous. Then I either make porridge with it or bake it into cakes.
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I’ll snap some pics the next day or two to show you the outcome.
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Can you buy it in your part of the world? Have you used it? What do you do? I’d love to meet another brown millet fermenting geek 🙂

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Breakfast is the one meal we don’t usually eat together as a family. Both my hubby and I practise intermittent fasting: I go from 6pm until 10am not eating and he does 6pm till 11.30am. There’s no way my little boy can do that, so he usually eats earlier. Habits are good to break and Sundays we usually have a ‘special’ breakfast together.
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Today it was fermented spelt porridge. I soaked the spelt berries for 24 hours with some whey, then let them sprout. When they had tails, I blended them with a little more whey. I then left them overnight to ferment. We cooked them up with this morning. My hubby added goat kefir, apple and soaked/dehydrated walnuts. My son had banana, miso (yes, I know, with banana – he’s bonkers :-)) and cashews. I had ground flax seed, walnuts, miso and a spoon of peanut butter. We all added copious coconut oil.
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Eating together, consciously, makes the start of a special day even specialer. Easter love to everyone who got (and didn’t get!) this far into my ramblings!

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Yes, they’re banana skins! Cool, weird, amazing, hey? I’m making #bananaskinvinegar. It’s tucked away nicely now in my fermenting nook; going to be there a couple of months, I think. Thank you @mark_diacono for the idea. I used honey, not maple syrup. And @soilassociation I’m carrying on saving my skins to make the banana skin curry soon.

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