Fermenting veggies

[Lymeade Lady]

I tried the Nourishing Tradition Recipe for gingered carrots. Since I didn't have whey, I went with the salt opt. Those are not ginger carrots--they are SALTED carrots, or maybe carrots with salt. We are slowly eating them anyway in small quantities with lots of other food.

Anyway, I want to know if it's possible to make a second batch without so much salt. Could I use some of what I have to help the culture get started? Or can I make whey from the Kefir I have?

I tried making whey from plain milk, but it went bad--maybe b/c I use goat milk, which doesn't normally separate. The Kefir I have is some I made from goat milk, too. I didn't make it real thick--it's my first batch, so I'm still learning what I like (taste and thickness wise).

Also, how do you eat your fermented veggies? I know they suggest as condiments, but on what????

I'm got the grain soaking down and have being doing Kombucha for close to a year. If I can get the fermented thing down and a bit more raw veggies (or raw and fermented veggies), I'll feel really good about my family's diet.

[Lymeade Lady]

So, no one pickles/ferments/whatever-s their veggies here?

[Magelet]

weird this didn't show up until now (not this morning) for me.

re the ginger carrots, goodness yes, use far far far less salt. that recipe is wack. basically, you want enough salt so that your veggies taste quite a bit saltier than you would want to eat them, but totally edible and fine. (that's the amount of salt they start with. they end up tasting a lot less salty after they've fermented enough, which is usually much much longer than sally fallon says. 3 days? more like 3 weeks for sourkraut here. or longer, if I want) try letting your carrots ferment longer, and then rinsing them, it might make them more edible for this batch.

I don't know about whey, I don't really use it. I do veggie ferments with just salt, and soak my grains with buttermilk, yogurt, or apple cider vinegar.

So usually we'll just serve the sourkraut on the table when we have a meaty dish. Then we'll each put some on our plates, and spear a peice of sourkraut with a peice of meat. DP eats it plain as a snack. I might do that with ginger carrots but not sourkraut. We also make frybreads, top them with homemade guacamole, then a layer of sourkraut, and then our "stewed mexican chicken" which is pulled cooked chicken meat, which is simmered in enough chicken stock to cover with salt, cumin, garlic and peppercorns, until all of the liquid is gone. in summer we sometimes add tomatoes, corn, etc).

Once, we found some all beef salami, and took a container of kraut, some sliced salami and bread with us to the park, and tore off hunks of bread, ate it with a peice of salami and some kraut. It was so good, perfect simple summer afternoon food, but we haven't found good salami I can eat since then

also, there is a lot of great info here:
http://mothering.com/discussions/sho...d.php?t=426207
gl mama

[tanyalynn]

There's a great fermented veggie thread, let me find it...

http://mothering.com/discussions/sho...d.php?t=426207

Oops, just realized the PP linked this thread too.

It talks about whey and salt and covering vs not covering, I found it so helpful when I was getting started!

We love the NT kimchee recipe, yum. I think it's good enough to eat with anything.

The batch you've got probably isn't actually fermented yet. Extra salt slows down the process, I totally disagree with the NT approach on salt and the amount of time it takes to ferment is much more variable IME than NT suggests. In winter, with extra salt, it's a much slower process. I like salt, it's tasty, but no need to double it without whey, and whey seems to cause sliminess issues (we're dairy-free so I can't testify to that).

Sandor Katz's sour dill pickle recipe is also amazingly tasty, it's online.

http://www.wildfermentation.com/reso...p?page=pickles

[organitarian]

gingered carrots

hi i just thought i would throw my 2 cents in. If you let the carrots ferment longer it might fix the saltiness. I made saurkraut and it was salty at first but as it fermented it turned out perfect. good luck

[Lymeade Lady]

Thanks! I'm looking up the thread and I guess I'll try fermenting longer.

[NoraB]

I used the Wild Fermentation recipe for dill pickles as a starting point for fermeting some zucchinis. At first they were really salty and sour. I didn't really like the taste. I stuck them in the fridge because I was loathe to just throw them away. After a week or two, I tasted them again, expecting them to taste awful still...but they were soooooo good! They tasted very much like regular, store-bought dills (which is good for my family memebers who generally reject any "weird" food) but the flavor was better and the nutrition is no doubt tons better. I also made kimchi, but w/ a whole lot less garlic than seems to be typical (I just don't love sour garlic flavor LOL). The kimchi is delicious to me and is even pleasing to my other "kimchi snob" family members LOL. I have a bunch of carrots that I need to use up and I think I'll try to make ginger carrots using the same process as the dill zucchinis. I think I used 3tbsp of salt to 4 cups of water. I might use a bit less salt though. I also fermented some cauliflower this way w/ curry powder for flavor...so yummy! I'm finding I really love these fermented veggies. I'm not eating much yogurt right now because I'm keeping my carbs lower (and I can't seem to enjoy plain yogurt...I really like it w/ at least a little honey) but the fermented veggies are a good source of enzymes and probiotics. It's probably a good idea to eat a whole lot of different fermented foods to cover all the bases.