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!

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.

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!