We have yet to get our raised garden beds in, and the summer’s waning…but we’re lucky to have a nice neighbor on our road who is also a Master Gardener. She grows all kinds of wonderful vegetables and fruit, and generously shares her harvest with others.
We recently picked lots of blackberries, which we made into many bottles of delicious and beautiful blackberry water kefir, as well as blackberry milk kefir and blackberry-infused kombucha tea.
Continue reading “Farm To Table: From A Few Doors Down Is Really Local”
It’s that time again – this year is coming to its end. We like to look back at the year because you can forget how much you learned and during that period. We also like to recognize our accomplishments, as well as identify needed improvements. We characterize 2016 as our year of learning on the farm.
If you’ve read earlier posts, you know that I make (lots of) kombucha tea. With each batch, a new cellulose pellicle is formed, starting as a thin, cloudy-looking film and growing bigger and thicker with each successive batch. The Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) isn’t strictly necessary to properly culture a batch, if sufficiently strong tea from a previous batch is added to “inoculate” the brew…but it looks really cool in a jar (scare your friends!).
The brambles on our property are wicked. They reach out when you walk past, grab an arm or leg, and take a bite. The thorns are sharp and strong, and they’re difficult to disentangle from your clothing. Nonetheless, it’s worth risking scratches (and ants running up your arms and legs) to harvest blackberries growing wild along the fencelines.
What in the world is carrageenan doing in heavy whipping cream?? When we buy “heavy whipping cream”, we expect that it contain only that – heavy whipping cream! Apparently, that’s just a fantasy in today’s food culture.