fermented: Autumn Harvest Fruit Scrap Vinegar ~ with grapes, apples, blackberries, and pears!

oh! The kitchen is alive and vibrating with bounty at harvest time! I feel so fortunate to have arrived in Oregon at this time of year. As soon as we plopped the moving boxes in the middle of the room and assembled the bed, the pots and crocks and kettles have been a-bubbling and brewing ever since. Abundance. Vitality found at the end of a wooden spatula shared with friends.

I started a post weeks ago which attempted to quickly run through all the fermented preservation I've been up to, but guess what? I'm too busy preserving! :-) Many are clearly experiments. A few are clearly delicious. That brings me to quite possibly my favorite ferment, besides just good ol' plain ol' cabbage sauerkraut: fruit scrap vinegar. With Mother Nature, truly there is no "waste." That's what I love about making vinegar from fruit scraps: the parts that would usually get tossed to the compost pile have one more step of utility to us first. I have realized this is my passion ~ making useful beautiful things out of stuff that most people in our culture nowadays consider "waste." I make clothing and other useful items from second hand fabric (if only I could unearth the machine from the boxes!), make broth from onion peels, carrot stubs, etc., and bones (which I by no means consider scrap, but instead highly valuable, however most Americans do consider these rubbish). And vinegar from fruit scraps! Ding ding ding! I win!

Ha ha. Well, it's obvious I'm passionate. ;-)

I'm thrilled to be transplanted from the city to the country. And thrilled that we have overflowing fruits for the taking right here on the rental property. This vinegar exemplifies that sweet harvest with apple, pear, blackberry and concord grape! If I had thought to add wild rose hip (oo! that's an idea!), it would almost be showing off. Though I have made luscious fruit scrap vinegars in the past ~ Rainier cherry, and ripest Kashiwase Farm nectarine from Bay Area farmers' markets come to mind, this is the most beautiful fruit scrap vinegar I may ever assemble. I mean. Just look at it.

sweet and ripe apple, pear, blackberry, and concord grape fruit scrap vinegar peeks out from its bonnet.

This is a gallon jar, by the way.

I got the idea originally from everyone's favorite Fermentation Guru-Nextdoor, Sandor Katz (featured prominently to the right), in his must-have Wild Fermentation, with the ratio for added sugar to water being 1/4 cup sugar to 1 quart water. In the past I have tried honey, and Sucanat, and probably organic white sugar. Right now I'm using some organic palm sugar that I hoarded away years ago and have since never touched. One of the things I appreciate about Sandor and his truth of fermentation is ~ use what you have, and what motivates you. The "recipes" are mostly just guidelines; you can use your imagination and what's around you to fill in the rest.

Fruit Scrap Vinegar

~Pile the fruit scraps in a clean glass vessel (I give it a good scrubbing and then fill it with boiling water beforehand, which I pour out after a few minutes).

~Fill up the empty space with the sugar water.

~Cover with a clean towel or napkin secured with a rubberband to keep the flies away.

~Let sit until the water is sufficiently cloudy ~ a week or more.

~Then strain out the solids for the compost, and pour the liquid back into the well-ventilated vessel and re-cover.

~Let it sit till the smell turns from sweet to vinegar-y.

A cloudy or fuzzy membrane might form over the top. That's ok; just use a spoon to pull it off.

This vinegar can be used in any way that you use other tasty vinegars ~ in cooking, on salads, and even just to drink, like a tasty kombucha. Yum!

Toddler Favorites: Lacto-fermented Apple Butter

End of the season for cellar apples. That means it's time to make more apple butter! I wasn't sure if it was going to happen, shopping at the co-op as opposed to farmers' markets, but it did: discounted apples. I bought two produce bags full of ripe pink lady apples. When I told Anjali what they were for, she wanted to make apple butter immediately! We quartered and cored them, then baked them till soft and dried out a little. I used that handy handheld mixer to blend them. We baked enough to fill a large mixing bowl (even after somebody kept sneaking several apples' worth of pieces throughout the day!). I'll use these guidelines again this year, and hopefully will be able to give you better measurements this time around. Sadly we're on our way back to Kentucky today for the funeral of my "papaw." :-( When we return, the pureed applesauce will be waiting in the fridge for us to ferment into apple butter!
Anjali loves this stuff. To get those good fats into her, and to balance out the sugar, I gently melt a few pats of butter to mix in with hers. She could eat a whole jar in one sitting.

A secret: recently, Anjali has stopped liking the taste of cod liver oil. She used to gulp it down (believe it or not), and I'd have to "cut her off!" I noticed her immune system seemed to be missing the daily dose of this sacred food; she came down with several bugs this cold season, whereas before she had had *maybe* one cold. So I have been giving her CLO in a teaspoon of apple butter ( we use the traditionally-crafted fermented CLO from these guys: http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Home/index.cfm ). I'm not *sneaking* it - she knows it's in there, she just doesn't mind because of the apple butter. If that's all it takes: bring on the apple butter!

Later edition: Well, after a tiny apple fairy nibbled on the apples over the course of a few days while I got around to draining yogurt for whey, I only ended up with enough apple sauce to make a quart and a half of apple butter! So I can't give you any new information on the recipe. But I did use the recipe sited above. I added cinnamon and a couple cloves to each jar. :-)

Fermented: April Veggie Kraut

My assistant is always up for kraut-making. Pounding, stirring, adding the salt, chopping (with very attentive Mommy-supervision!), and of course taste-testing for quality-control. She generally thinks my recipes are too sweet, so she helps me by thinning out the sweet bits before jarring; she's thoughtful that way. ;)

I'm enjoying the weekly culinary challenge that is presented with a CSA. Riverdog Farm sends us a generous bounty of produce every week. My personal goal: to have an empty vegetable drawer when we go pick up our box on Fridays. This means that we eat a lot of fresh veggies, and that we make a lot of ferments! On delivery day, I assess the produce as I sort it into the proper receptacles ~ the fruit bowl, the root drawer, and the crisper drawer in the fridge; I make rough guesses of what I can use for breakfast, what would go great in a soup, what could be eaten raw for salads and snacks, what deserves to be showcased on its own, and what would be yummy in kraut. On Thursday night or Friday morning, what's leftover in the crisper drawer goes to the kraut. For a long time, I only liked cabbage fermented, and disliked it any other way. Lately I've been enjoying it cooked (till soft). So less cabbage is getting dedicated to kraut. But I've also been loving fermented grated carrots, so I've hoarded away at least one every week. Farm-fresh carrots are SO delicious! Instead of winding up forgotten in the back of the drawer until they're limp ~ like grocery store carrots sold in bags tended to in my kitchen, farm-fresh carrots are as sweet as candy simply eaten out-of-hand. They make any meal they touch a flavor treat.

Here's last week's kraut ~ a Springtime rainbow.

One grated carrot

1/4 of a small purple cabbage, shredded

a few red chard stems, sliced

1/2 a pink lady apple left for a day on the cutting board (not from CSA, but still local!), sliced then chopped

1/2 a fennel bulb, chopped

fennel leaves, minced

sea salt

I used some of the pink brine leftover from a Winter kraut of carrots, celeriac, and watermelon radishes, to cover these veggies. In a few days, everything will be pink. I like pink kraut. :)

Fermented: First Veggie Kraut in Baja

Chopped and jarred in our outdoor camp kitchen in La Ribera, Baja California Sur, Mexico. From veggies procured at the Mercado Organico in Cabo San Lucas. Lovely, eh?

Fermented: "Salad Kraut"

A note I sent to Austin at 12:30 am before I flew out the next day (I never stay up that late!):

"Just finished a manic clear-out-the-veggie-drawer-before-leaving-on-a-jetplane batch of kraut. I call it salad kraut because I added a bunch of arugula, and then dill and two kinds of mustard seed. Feels fresh and Spring-heralding. : ) Cabbage, carrot, cauliflower and romanesco plus their leaves, and celeriac. Wish it luck!"

The April assessment of this kraut: "One of my favorites," says Sealion! He likes the addition of the traditional pickling spices. The arugula, which I left whole on the stalk, is particularly "pickly" tasting. A success!

And the marmalade

Recipe from Nourishing Traditions, using Satsuma mandarins and navels from Gold Oak Ranch supplied by the bag in our CSA from Riverdog Farm. :)

Stoking the home fires

I was gone essentially for three weeks - family in Florida, friends (and more family) in Kentucky, then life adventure in Baja Sur, Mexico. When I got back to Sacramento, I had some work to do to get our kitchen back in production.

What have I been doing?
-Made a batch of chicken bone broth immediately. Jarred and froze for later use.
-Made another batch of broth with mixed bones that had collected in a bag in the freezer, and then in the last hours added a potful of aromatic veggie stems - carrot stubs, onion tips, leek leaves, etc. - that I had also been collecting in the freezer. I jarred this flavorful mix in tiny 1/2 pint jelly jars to use in sauces.
-I bottled the 1/2 gallon of beet kvass that had been brewing patiently in my absence, and added preserved lemon to each bottle! I think I'll like this!
-Anjali and I made a quart of sauerkraut from CSA veggies that I had set aside for this purpose weeks ago. Napa cabbage, cauliflower, red-centered "watermelon" daikon radish, and carrot. I then poured the garlicky brine I saved from a previous batch overtop of it. We ate the first forkfuls last night with dinner.
:)
-Brought the sourdough starter out of hibernation in the fridge, ground some fresh spelt flour, mixed it in with water, and set it up to bubble on the back of the stove. It'll be ready for a loaf tonight! :)
-Made, jarred, and froze quart jars of soup (from CSA veggies and bone broth) for Troy's lunches.

I love all these little projects. I love the bubbling crocks, and the pot constantly simmering on low on the back burner. I love that I have oranges set out next to a cookbook on the cutting board in preparation for marmalade, and bananas ripening for Anjali's favorite of late: "Fozen Mananas" (bananas pureed with melted butter and coconut oil, and then frozen and cut into chunks). I feel so lucky to have these as my day-to-day.
If I could finally get through the dirty dishes and see my way to the countertop, I'd be one totally content kitchen goddess! ;)

This blog post is part of Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays!

fermented: carrots, and fruit-scrap vinegars

I hadn't fermented any veggies in a while. Inspired by my roommie, Austin, who was fermenting something nearly every time he went to the farmers' market there for a while (!), I did a veggie ferment in brine. This kind of ferment is so easy, because you don't even have to do any chopping. Simply fill the jar with whole veggies, then top off with seasalted water. For the half-gallon jar I filled, I used between 2-3 tablespoons of seasalt. More for hot weather, less for cold. My mix was mainly tiny carrots, with whole cloves of garlic, grated as well as sliced ginger, and then a large handful of sea veggies (they were called "sea crunchies", but were no longer crunchy, so I added them in; I don't know their official name. I love seaweeds and they are soooo nutrient-dense. A bonus. I covered the jar with a cloth and secured it with a tie to keep out bugs. It sat in a cool room (which would be any room in our house this "summer"!) for over a month. A thick, smelly, furry layer of mold developed on top that would have deterred a novice. I, being a seasoned veggie fermenter at this point ;-), pulled this layer off with a spoon very easily. Underneath, the garlicky brine smelled appetizing. A layer of carrots at the top was off-color and mushy. Below that, the carrots were crisp and pleasantly flavorful. The overarching flavor of this ferment is garlic, with not even a hint of ginger! Oh, well.

"Garlicky Sea Carrots" in pint and quart jars, ready to eat

A ferment I have been looking forward to all year is fruit-scrap vinegar ~ the recipe for which I read in Wild Fermentation (one of my favorite books of all time). I discovered it last year when we were gifted FIVE WHOLE GALLONS of tasty cherries, and I didn't want to waste a single one! It's so easy, and it utilizes bruised fruits, and pits. So it's a delicious way to savor every morsel of the ripe, luscious summer fruit bounty! This year the only thing I did with our backyard plums is make vinegar with them. The last two years I tried to make jam, ended up using way too much sugar to balance their bitter tang, and ended up not eating it because we just don't eat sweet stuff. So = a waste. This season I gathered a large mixing bowl of fruit off the ground, after the squirrels and birds had had their fill, and made vinegar. We all win! : )

I also bought a huge bag of nectarine "seconds" at our favorite nectarine vendor ~ Kashiwase Farms (We are so spoiled by nectarines around here!!! They are sweeter than candy, before they even get soft. Incredible!). I sliced up all the fruits to eat out of hand, while piling a mixing bowl high with the bruised pieces and pits. Then I made vinegar. Have I mentioned I love how easy fermenting can be? Well, all you need to do to make phenomenally flavorful, gift-worthy "gourmet" vinegar is to dissolve 1/4 cup sugar (I use organic Sucanat/Rapadura, which is dehydrated cane juice) per quart of filtered water and cover the fruit ~ any organic fruit scraps will do. Cover it with a secured napkin to keep away the fruit flies that will be tempted and pesterful. Give it a nudge to stir it up occasionally. Let it sit for a week or more, until the liquid gets thick with color. Then strain out the solids and let it turn for a few weeks. First it will smell sweet, then like alcohol, then like vinegar. This is an aerobic process, so a wide-mouth vessel is best ~ for big batches I like to use pyrex mixing bowls, or wide-mouth canning jars for smaller ones. It's also important to use glass because of the acidity of the vinegar (as opposed to metal). Once it smells and tastes sufficiently vinegar-y, pour it into the attractive vessels of your choice and enjoy any way you would a tasty sweet vinegar.

Lacto-Fermented Apple Butter

Continuing the theme of preserving as many different kinds of produce as I can this year, I made lacto-fermented apple butter. Lacto-fermenting is so easy and delicious! Most every time, I am struck by the simplicity of preparation and yumminess of results! Now, this is different than lacto-fermenting sauerkraut; whereas sauerkraut ferments and mellows for up to six weeks, this apple butter only sat out at room temperature for a few days. I wasn't sure what kind of a fermented *tang* it would have. As of yet - not much. Just a flavorful apple spread that has the benefits of lacto-fermentation for preservation as well as nutrition. I imagine if it lasts long enough in the fridge (which I doubt! - we are devouring it!), it will acquire more of a kick as time passes. I used the recipe in Nourishing Traditions. It calls for dried apples that have been re-hydrated, I think for intensity of flavor compared to water content. However, I baked fresh apples, uncovering them in the end to dry them out so that they are marvelously flavorful. The recipe also calls for more honey, but these apples are so sweet and good as-is, I wanted to add as little as I could get away with. The whole household is pleased with the results.

We got a huge bag of "cosmetically challenged" apples at the farmers' market from the end of the cellar-apple season - there ended up being a lot of Fujis. So I froze some after baking, and made a quart-plus of apple butter with the rest. We wish I'd made more!

Lacto-fermented Apple Butter
- a quart-plus (wish I could tell you how many apples, but you'll
have to figure it out for yourself...)

Bake, covered, at 400:
Apples- quartered and cored - not peeled
Once they are soft, take off the lid and bake another 15 mins, then
turn off the oven and let them sit until their edges are browned and
crisp (this is usually just me forgetting about them...).

Blend cooled apples in a food processor with:
1/4 cup of whey - drained from plain, live-active organic yogurt
1 tbsp seasalt
1.5 tbsp raw honey

Pour into a clean jar and cover with a sterile lid.
Let sit at room temperature for 3 days, then refrigerate.
Will last 2-3 months.
You might as well go ahead and plan to make more than one batch...!

Preserving Lemons

We ~ Anjali and I (!) ~ lacto-fermented the season's lemons following the recipe in Nourishing Traditions. It uses cinnamon sticks, sea salt, and whey, plus some added lemon juice. They should be ready to enjoy in a few weeks. I have a goal ~ with the inspiration and motivation of my fine housemate, Austin ~ of preserving as many different fruits and veggies as I can this year. It's fun, easy, and delicious. Why not give it a shot. I have been re-perusing Wild Fermentation to further fan my fermentation fire!

Wassail Kraut

Made by Ciara, Austin, and me, the mind behind the spice mix in this recipe is all Ciara ~ a ferment master who earned her title from many a Friday fermenting at Three Stone Hearth kitchen! We put it in the crock yesterday, and it should be close to ready right around Christmas. Probably perfect by New Year!

7 decent-sized heads of cabbage ~ 5 green, 2 purple

2 apples ~ preferably crisp and tart, like pink lady

1/4 cup, plus 2 T coarse sea salt

2 T whole coriander seeds

1 t whole cloves

1 t cardamom seeds, taken from the pods, but not ground

6 cinnamon sticks

Quarter the cabbages and core them. Shred. Massage with salt (to taste. It should taste salty.) until the leaves start to lose their stiffness and liquid collects in the bottom of the bowl. Core the apples and slice thin. Toast the coriander, cloves, and cardamom. Mix the apple and spices in with the cabbage, attempting not to break or mush the apples. Pack into a clean crock or jar, with a weight, so that the liquid rises an inch above the vegetable matter.

Open for the holidays and share with loved ones!