New Traditional Foods (NT) Thread - Page 7

[Queen Gwen]

Originally Posted by suseyblue

i'm finding i like nt for the research & info & sandor katz's book for the huge pile of experience making actual recipes; i've had too many inedibles from nt to make the recipes without a grain of salt (instead of two tablespoons, lol.)

Thanks for the info on Wild Fermentation. It's on my wishlist for book purchases. I've had some duds from NT also, so it sounds like it would be a good thing to get.

I read somewhere that for the 1st year babies act like they want to eat simply because they see everyone else sticking food in their mouths and want to give it a try. So if they don't swallow it's no big deal -- they're just experimenting.

[brandywine]

Hello all. Please be patient with me as I still haven't gotten my hands on a copy of NT or any other related books (the library copy is reserved till Christmas or so). I was looking at directions and a recipe on the WAP site for homebrewed soda. I've bottled root beer before, using commercial champagne yeast, so I though I'd give it a try. The recipe for the starter consists of ginger, water and sugar. I got mine started a week ago and it seems ok, but just mildly bubbly, and I'm not sure if it's right or not because the instructions don't give a thourough description. Anyhow, I thought I'd do some ginger soda, which dh loves. What I'm wondering is, is the ginger starter used for other sodas too, like sassparilla? It's the only recipe I can find on the site and it seems like using that starter will impart a strong ginger flavor into whatever you use it in. Are there other starters? Should my starter be really bubbly before I make the soda?

[Cynthia Mosher]

Hello mamas.

As I explained here we are trying to redirect many of the tribe threads that have been placed here for purposes of discussion that belong on the existing forums for that topic. So I am moving this thread to Good Eating and asking that no new threads be started that are for the purpose of discussing topics that are normally hosted on existing forums.

Please bear with us as we try to work through this.

[TigerTail]

<g> do the dready mamas have to go hang out in 'natural home & body care?

btw, we have a recipe thread in here somewhere; is it possible to tack them together? (if it's too much hassle one of us can dredge it up & quote it as a post, or is that the best way to combine them? my brain is mucky from baby-waking all night.)

ideas?

suse

[Gale Force]

OK folks, I'm on board. We just finished a move that took an eternity. Our diets went to hell in a handbasket. We're still living around boxes, but our diet has made it up to the top of the list. We've followed some general principles through the move, but ate out a lot and, thereby, probably cancelled out a good bit of what we did. Now we're living in a pretty isolated place with very few eating-out possibilities. There is a cowboy restaurant down the road that sells a burger on one of those wonder bread buns. That's just not appealing.

So here's what we've got going on:
--The garden is in and should be producing well in a month. We're in California, so we'll make a few trips to the valley to farmers markets until then.
--I think we've got a source of raw goats milk -- we're meeting with the farmer later this month, so we've got a couple of weeks to get through until we're hooked up. Until then, we use organic pastuerized milk for kefir.
-- I got my mom interested in baking some sourdough bread with spelt. I am looking forward to that.
-- I've got a local rancher interested in converting grazing his cattle year-round. I found another rancher who probably does graze year-round. I think I should become a meat broker. LOL
--In the next week or so I'll do some of the simple things like crispy nuts. I've been soaking breakfast cereal -- that's no big deal.
Actually, the biggest change we'll be making is simply cooking our own food. The rest will follow at some point.

I'm glad you're all here. We may have some serious questions once we face cooking again. LOL.

Amanda

[Brisen]

Anyone know anything about fish prep? We aim to eat less meat in the summer : but I think I should be eating more fish. We do canned tuna once or twice a week, and whitefish once a week, but it's the highliner filets. I want to learn how to make fish broth this summer, and cut back on the canned tuna. I bought some frozen whole fish -- I don't even remember what kind it was, something smallish and kind of blue/grey, lol -- but I wouldn't know what to do with it once I thaw it. I don't have a filleting knife. I've seen my grandpa gut fish a few times, but not enough to actually learn anything about it.

[TigerTail]

we just cooked some 'flounder' from china, frozen, yesterday & BLEAH. it turned to mush! (and rather nasty-tasting mush at that.) don't get the chinese flounder!

did you get whiting, brisen? it sounds like it could be, pretty common.

suse

[Brisen]

I was looking up pictures of fish, trying to find something that looked like what I have... I went to the freezer to get them out and compare, and realized the package did have a label after all... It's rainbow trout. I think one is headless, but two still have their heads.

[Gale Force]

Shannon,

Do they need to be gutted? Typically trout is sold whole but gutted. I just sautee mine -- I start with a lot of garlic and chopped almonds in olive oil, take out the garlic and almonds to go on the fish after. The trick is deboning the fish when it's on the plate in front of you. I've seen people just cut into fish like it's a steak or something, but that doesn't work too well. This is an easy technique but very hard to describe -- if the fish is on it's side, you can usually lift the top half (side) of the fish carefully away from the top bones. This is tedious, but once you have half of the bones free, you can just pull the whole skeleton out of the fish. HTH

Amanda

[Gale Force]

Sprouting grains for bread

I would like to try bread and had intended on soaking the flour. I had an appt yesterday with my doc and he said that the only way we should have bread is if you sprout the grains, mill them, and then bake. The idea of milling sprouts is very odd to me. How would you possibily end up with anything that looks like flour? TIA

[toraji]

I started a new thread called "Traditional Foods (NT) Mamas-June Thread" with my response on sprout bread.

[xenomama]

Here's the new thread:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=158606