How about a fermented veggies thread? - Page 11

[stilllearning85]

MMM! Those all sound good! Will have to make some right away!!!

[Holiztic]

I am so glad this thread got bumped up! I am about to start my first ever lacto-fermented veggeis after eating them store-bought for a few years. I am going to save so much money!! I am making cortido to have with our weekly mexican dinners (this week it is shredded pork and pinto bean burritos).

I hope it turns out!!

[Jojo F.]

Yes, Thanks for bumping I've kind of gotten out of the swing of fermenting. Some good recipes and ideas in here!! I can't wait to use garden fresh toms in the salsa!!

A tip I have learned.... when making sauerkraut save the outer leaves. Once it is all tamped down, roll the leaves up and then place them on top of your ferment. The rolled leaves will help keep the veggies submerged

I think I got the tip from another MDC mama- thanks!!

[flowmom]

Originally Posted by PreggieUBA2C

Green string beans recipe from my four yr old son:

Tightly packed beans, unrefined sea salt, handful of whole black pepper corns. They do not turn out spicy; they have the flavour of black pepper without the bite and our boys eat them continuously from the jar if we don't stop them [...] Quartered brussel sprouts with garlic chunks turned out very spicy; I've left it in the fridge to mellow.

This sounds yummy : Do string beans and brussel sprouts come tasting raw or sort of "cooked" by the l-f process? I wouldn't normally eat those veggies raw .

[abharrington]

wow...awesome thread. i've made the NT kraut once and we liked it ok. i think the whole L - F veggies are an acquired taste for us...but i sooo want to love them. i think i am going to try the kraut again and the ginger carrots. thanks for the awesome thread!!

[queenofhercastle]

This is a great thread! I just started reading through and I'm going to use some of the ideas here.

[tanyalynn]

I just made some jars of kimchee and the carrot recipe from Hibou (I think on page 2--it adds 2 or 3 cloves of garlic per quart). Yum. The kimchee wasn't too spicy, but it's still interesting, and the addition of the garlic to the carrots really improved the flavor--my first batch of ginger carrots was _very_ gingery (maybe more ginger than the recipe, hard to remember), but I was careful with the amounts this time and my first jar of the new recipe is almost gone. I just bought 10# of carrots to make up several jars over the weekend so maybe this time they'll last a bit longer. Fermented veggies taste WAY better than I anticipated.

[TigerPaw2154]

I just finished my first batch of cucumber pickles. They got good reviews, but not great ones. They were a bit salty. What I think happened was that as I scummed yeast from the jar I discovered it was easy to pour salt-brine into the crock (a pyrex flour canister) and overflow the brine to a pie-pan below. This technique causes me to lose a lot of lactic acid and add salt, so I figure the pickles got too much salt and not enough sour.

In the mean time I aquired a 2 gallon red-wing crock which belonged to a great-uncle and was being used as a wooden spoon holder by my sister. I have filled it with a layer of cabbage leaves, a large layer of califllower, and a top layer of cabbage leaves, topped by a plate that just fits into the crock. The red-wing has a lip that holds the plate about 3- inches below the absolute top. As soon as the fermenting began the yeast accumulated in a layer across the top again. I didn't want to lose too much of the acidic brine this time, so I placed a coffee filter into a funnel and put that over a mason jar. I dipped water and yeast out of the crock into the filter until I filled the jar. This lowered the brine level an inch or two and I wiped out the exposed surface of the crock with a paper towel. Then I poured the filtered brine back into the crock. It looks good, but I think I have a couple of weeks of daily scumming to know for sure.

[tanyalynn]

bump cause i love this thread :

[spughy]

I made kimchee and it is superfantabulous!!! Since it's been ready I've been doing stir-fry veggies all over the place because a glop of kimchee stirred into a stir-fry makes it taste EXACTLY like real Korean food. So yummy. I used the recipe in Wild Fermentation. My husband complained about the smell while it was fermenting but he is impressed with the result!

[tanyalynn]

bump

[gilamama]

bumping

[velcromom]

Those green beans sound great, I really want to try them. Will have to add beans to the list of things I will grow in the garden.

I tried the Berry Syrup recipe from NT (a variation of the Berry Preserves) and I didn't like how it came out. I don't know if it came out wrong or if that was the way it was supposed to taste, lol, but ick. I accidentally let it sit for four days instead of two, so it may have been a lot stronger flavored than the recipe intended. I may try it again with a much shorter ferment time.

My cucumber pickles are coming out consistently great, I love being able to make my own pickles! I shared some at a Thanksgiving potluck yesterday and they got great reviews. And my 16 mo dd thinks they are the greatest food on earth, she requests them all day long.

I've been doing Ginger Carrots and my ds likes them but I'm not really fond of ginger outside of chinese cookery. I'm thinking about trying some other seasoning for them but I can't come up with something that sounds like it would go with carrots... maybe I'll just have to get a few little jars and try several things.

[tanyalynn]

for ellasmom

Velcromom--I like the version of ginger carrots with garlic added (in addition to ginger) that's early in this thread (1st page or two?). Maybe you could omit the ginger altogether. The first time I made it, I wasn't as precise as I should've been (read: put in way too much ginger) and it was strong, maybe a little hint would work? Or maybe curry? I dumped curry powder (McCormick's, it's not hot) in with some cauliflower once and the kids really liked it (I was so-so with it) but with carrots, and their sweetness, I bet it would work really well. In fact, I think I've just convinced myself to try it.

[Magelet]

So I made ginger carrots two days ago, following the NT dairy free recipe (so that I can eat it with meat). I made them in a mason jar, and put the lid on (per NT). I can't wait to try them, but I'm a bit nervous, since I haven't had many l-f veggies or fruits, and those I have I haven't liked, but I really want to like them. Sounds like they'll probably be too salty, we'll see how they come out.

I really really want to make some pickles, but its not at all cucumber season so I'll have to wait until next year I suppose. *sighs* I am definitely planning on making a ton of pickles, since I could eat them all day long.

I tried the Ginger Beer recipe in NT this summer, and it turned out strange. I made the ginger bug, and it in itself tasted pretty good, and then I did the thing with lots more water, sugar, and lemon juice, and then putting it in hermetically sealing glass bottles, since that's what I had. It ended up tasting like slightly sparkling, sweet lemonade. Any advice from anyone who made this successfully?

I really want to try the NT ketchup, but my sis is a vegetarian, and hates it when we make the house smell like meat or fish. Makes it hard to make broths, but sometimes I just insist she deal with it, and open the kitchen windows. Did the fish sauce smell your kitchen up for a while?

I'm quite excited about venturing into fermented veggies, as pretty much the only fermented foods I've done is sourdough starter. I had one I really liked, and made some decent bread with it, however I killed it during my miserable stint in a college dorm (yes its hard to do, but it wouldn't recover after a month or so of not feeding it), so I'm on my second starter. I really can't wait to try pickles out next summer lol. (Can you tell I'm craving them a bit )

[tanyalynn]

Magelet, for the ketchup, you could skip the fish sauce altogether. I used half as much as the recipe called for in order to avoid a too-fishy flavor (the smell is strong, but I think it dissipated quickly). But I found the overall flavor bland--there are spices in storebought ketchup (labelled helpfully as 'spices') that really add more interest. I don't have a good version of ketchup yet--I'm hoping to use the spicing of a regular homemade ketchup recipe with the fermented approach of NT, but I haven't done it yet.

I'm considering trying carrots instead of cucumbers to make pickles--I think dill _should_ work well with carrots, but I'm not really sure on how thin to cut the carrots, or whether this is really going to work. Not sure if that would help with pickle cravings--sorta pickle-y but decidedly different.

No idea on the ginger beer. I _think_ quietserena had another thread on a fermented ginger beverage, I keep meaning to go back to it cause it looked really, really tasty.

http://mothering.com/discussions/sho...ghlight=ginger

[velcromom]

On the size of the carrots, I cut my carrots into sticks when I do ginger carrots, it's easier for my ds to snack on & to pack in his lunch. They take up the flavor just fine.

[tanyalynn]

Velcromom, that is a cool idea. I've been feeling like a wimp cause a piece of my food processor broke and I haven't gotten a replacement yet and so all the fermented veggies I usually grate just haven't gotten made, and this is a very nice solution. And easier for the kids to eat than grated ginger carrots! :

[Magelet]

Hmmm well maybe I'll try the ketchup on a day she's out for a while. bland eh? maybe I'll try adding some more spices from the first then. Thanks.

Then again, I forgot until I looked at it again just now that the recipe has whey in it. I may have to check WF when I can to see if maybe there is a dairy-free recipe. Or try using the brine from some previously fermented veggies. Has anyone tried that with any success? Since ketchup mostly goes on meat in our house, and dairy on meat isn't kosher.

Ooohh doing the carrots in slices sounds brilliant. I don't think it would help too much with the pickle cravings, but might inspire another craving lol. That sounds really good. Definitely going to have to try that instead of grating the carrots next time, far less labor intensive too. (particularly since, silly me, I grated them by hand forgetting completely that I could use the food processor.)

thanks for the ginger beer thread. looks perfect. Though of course, I really _shouldn't_ make ginger beer, since it is so sugary and I'm trying to cut back/almost cut out sugars. but it tastes so good. lol. maybe I'll try it with maple syrup or something.... hmmm.... Thank you

[tanyalynn]

You can make any of the non-fruit ferments in NT dairy-free (my understanding is the fermented fruits _need_ whey but I've never tried them). We're dairy-free, so this is the only way I've done this, and now that I've been doing it a while, I feel a lot freer in how much salt I use, it's much more flexible than I originally thought (WF was _great_ for that). WF doesn't have a ketchup recipe.