Culturing Community

Update on the Sandwich Baggie Method

2011-11-27T23:14:00.004-06:00

Pickleers, we set up a batch of garlic potpourri to bring the holiday cheer to Sigrid and Brak's house this week. Three folks went to work at the counter with $20 worth of garlic Sunday afternoon. The three stations were: rough peeling and separation; cutting the ends off; and fine peeling, using a silicone rolling sleeve that looks a lot like a piece of oversized rigatoni. We had everything

Ginger, my Ginger

2011-05-10T23:58:00.003-05:00

Oh, heavenly spell, let me crack that lid open again to sniff that perfume, and again... this is a special but silly moment, even broaching the subject of trying to convey to you digitally what's happening for me olfactorily right now.-sniff-This is the last indulgent few slices of ginger we pickled in vinegar (a change for us at the time) in Spring '09. We've had ginger keep mellowing and last

Temperature Controlled Ferment Cabinet

2011-05-10T23:42:00.003-05:00

Anyone got a kitchen cabinet they don't need?I'm working on plans for an insulated curing cabinet with active heating/cooling, so we can pickle all year long and still maintain control over temperature. Keeping it local and frugal, I'm looking for a free-cycled kitchen cabinet, the under-the-counter kind but free standing, with one or two doors. I'm going to insulate it and make spaces above

It's been a while!

2011-05-10T22:33:00.003-05:00

Happy Spring! We've had a busy and delicious fermenting season!We've settled on using the plastic bag as an anaerobic barrier in place of the oil. A full water bottle on top acts as the weight, holding down floaters and keeping the bag in place. Inside the jar, the water line goes all the way to the top. As soon as the batch starts fermenting, the burping water creates positive pressure,

Persimmons

2010-11-15T16:19:00.002-06:00

Oh my goodness! Have you ever made kimchi? It's the Korean version of cultured vegetables, very distintive, very spicy. I have to admit it wasn't in my 'to-try next' list at all. Korean food is still so foreign to me. Does anyone know if Houston has a class like this ? The blog e*starLA chronicles a class in LA AND manages to make KimChi accessible to me via ChiliMango comparisions. Click

Fermenting to make cake!

2010-11-02T11:36:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness! I am absolutely making this cake in honor of some slow-it-on-down holiday time I have planned later this month. I think I will use dried apricots & black raisins. I had no idea that for most of western civilization people used soured milk to ferment their grain into rising. It makes sense, but is still a bit of a revelation to me. Thanks Nournished Kitchen for once again

Ketchup, Cultures, and County Fairs

2010-09-10T08:45:00.000-05:00

This long hot summer is almost over! We've had our first pickle in months at a friend's house on Monday. We made ketchup from Nourishing Traditions but we spiced it up. We doubled the garlic and tripled the cayenne; Cajuns and Texas boys prefer strongly flavored condiments. The ketchup will be featured in the Ft. Bend County Fair at the end of the month, BUT the judging is apparently all

Important Details We've Learned Lately

2010-06-29T17:07:00.005-05:00

We learn as we go, on good days, here's the latest batch of pickling points:- Salt; Many pickling guides and recipes state that pickling salt (pure NaCl) is what you're supposed to use. It offers a greater degree of control over the processes at work in the jars we're pickling. Iodized salt is not good to use in pickling, the extra stuff works against our aims, so it's easy to avoid. We've

The 3 Gallon Crock of Escabiche and a New Crew

2010-06-29T17:01:00.007-05:00

The latest pickle was another success! Thanks and welcome to our newest host, Seth, and the new pickleers who stayed all night, Rebecca, Sorcha, and Carol! I've been invited to sell some pickles in a few different venues lately, so we've been working on ramping up production. This latest pickle party aimed to prototype a commercial Escabiche recipe in our smaller crock while teaching a new

2010-06-20T21:58:00.002-05:00

Prepping for a big session tomorrow. Looking for the answer to the age old question: to pre-brine, not to pre-brine our veggies? Tonight the answer was 'yes'. We'll see in 8 days, won't we?Anyway, during the search for that, found this gem:Lacto-fermentation is an artisanal craft that does not lend itself to industrialization. Results are not always predictable. For this reason, when the

Cultured Ginger = 'plop plop fizz fizz'

2010-06-18T10:30:00.001-05:00

As is "oh what a relief it is". As reported by our good friend sailor and sometimes pirate, TJ. What she specifically said was that nothing had ever helped her celiac-like 'wheat bellyache' as quickly AND effectively as the cultured ginger she had at our house last week. This particular batch has aged over a year, so the flavor was such that we were just snacking on the slices on their own.

Carrots w/ ginger

2010-05-05T18:44:00.000-05:00

Oh man! We had nearly run out of everything pickled, so have been back in culturing party mode for the last few weeks. 2 words: gingered carrots. Just delightful. We did carrot spears and carrot slaw in 1/2 gallon jars with about 2 Tablespoons of ginger finely diced in each. I can't wait for our peppers to complete their ferment, so we can get back to mixing hot sauces. Hopefully Brooke

Batch Updates

2009-10-06T21:56:00.003-05:00

Our second full attempt at a Peanutbutter Mix came off adequately. In early October, the batch we made at Brooke's house is now down to just two quart jars. Two or three were tossed along the way but most of the batch has pickled, and preserved, well. We didn't get the flavor profile we so serendipitously wound up with in the first Peanutbutter Mix, hence the ho-hum report. I suspect my palate

The Big Fall Pickle, a new technique, & hard cider

2009-10-06T17:56:00.005-05:00

The big Fall pickle was a delicious success! We tried a couple new tricks, solidified some hunches and showed off some hard cider, as well. We now have pickled raw materials on hand for a mess of custom mixes, plenty of backbone and bonifidus for all manner of yummy comestibles. The pickle: We processed garlic, onions (yellow and red), carrots, and a mix of sweet red, yellow, and orange

Sept Pickle

2009-09-17T09:00:00.003-05:00

We are doing a basic spice pickle this Sunday afternoon at EconGrrl's house. Come one, come all, and bring your garlic peeling expertise. We'll try to take good pictures.This chart of Asian spices comes via Flickr. Thanks avlxyz!

Cat-sup! a teaser

2009-07-23T10:02:00.002-05:00

This weekend All We Need +2 are making living ketchup, from the recipe in Sally Fallon's book. I am really looking forward to this. With Stacey's delicious tomatoes as the base, how can we go wrong? You'll find out! When we upload the photos and highlights next week. mmm sweet potato fries are going to taste even better with old fashioned, living ketchup!I can't wait.

Nance Klehm has solved the floater problem

2009-06-30T14:43:00.003-05:00

Nance Klehm posts under "Weed Eater" at Arthurmag.com (click on this post's title to get there). She's a forager and she'll take you on a walk and point out all edibles along the way. The post I'm linking to is an excellent little essay on hunger and dirt and how anything alive experiences the former on their way to becoming the latter. As an experiment to help illustrate her point, she

Frontier

2009-06-20T17:50:00.002-05:00

It's been a quiet month here for cultures, after the frenzy of last month.Sometimes right after a big pickling session, I don't even want to look at our abundance for a while. This week my body has been telling me that it misses the live microbial supplements I had been feeding it via the pickles, so I am back to experimenting with our cultures. I feel really lucky, because I do the same thing

Pepper Fool appears to know what's up! Sorta...

2009-05-28T22:05:00.004-05:00

From a Mid-Americanish guide to pickling and canning, this site has a great basic canning and pickling primer. They appear oblivious to living vinegar or the distinction, perhaps a Heinz generation. There are still a good number of pickling waypoints there for us to consider. And their recipes will be fun to work through, more to come on that!

pickling in Popular Science

2009-05-27T13:11:00.002-05:00

Popular Science has a website for DIY projects and they've published an article on home pickling. They did a good job of covering the important details, in the sense that this article is a good introduction to pickling. They also offered a recipe for pickled ramps (wild leeks), though it's not a pickle like we make. The neat idea included here is using vacuum bags (the heat-sealed kind) to

The Gardener & Pickler's Fridge

2009-05-25T21:15:00.003-05:00

Sorry about the lighting, this is from my cellphone camera. My sweetie counts thirty-some-odd jars of pickles right now, back behind the local, organically grown produce in there. Barely room for some salame! We're trying to plan a household around numbers that include a separate cooler for pickled stock, seeing as the American Third Coast is a lousy place to site a root cellar. And whatever

Birthday Love Sweet Pepper, completed

2009-05-25T21:09:00.003-05:00

This is the Sweet Pepper Birthday Love Batch, right next to my favorite Mister PotatoHead Parts Poacher. The colors show up well here, online, so you can get a good idea of the mix/ratios. The carrot always wears its orange, day in, month out. After that, the serranos and jalapenos show their dark(er) green, alongside red, yellow, and orange bell peppers and my baby's red lips.

Photos, Sweet Pepper Love Batch

2009-05-25T20:55:00.005-05:00

We're trying to figure out how to measure the makeup of each batch or jar as we go. It's tricky- there's so much going on during a pickle that it's hard to keep up with little things like how much of what goes where. This is where a camera phone comes in handy: Here's the bulk of the Birthday Love Sweet Pepper Batch, done fermenting 1 June '09..

Birthday Love Pepper Batch

2009-05-25T20:49:00.002-05:00

John's birthday was celebrated with both organic and local love this year! Stacey Roussel's polychromatic carrots were added to Brad n Jessica's garden-fresh jalapenos, serranos, and fresno peppers. A couple pounds of sweet red, yellow, and orange lil' bell peppers added bulk and the liquid remains of the last batch of orange relish added garlic, onion, and some inoculants. I'm expecting this

What We're Learning So Far...[updated]

2009-05-21T18:33:00.005-05:00

We don't get to pickle as often as we'd like but we're working out some more enduring guidepoints. In no particular order,- Checklists are handy when you're packing for a pickling off-site. Conversely, each kitchen DOES need its own canning funnel and cheesecloth. Did I say cheesecloth? I mean a nylon napkin from a middling-level restaurant. Cheesecloth is a dodo as long as we've got