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I’ve been saving the bones from the grass fed and grass finished beef soup bones and oxtail that we purchased from a local farm. These were the core of a variety of soups, including Korean-Style Oxtail Soup, and we’d already enjoyed the meat and marrow attached to the bones. Would there be anything left in these pressure-cooked bones to make bone broth? Definitely!
Continue reading “Under Pressure: Second-Time-Around Beef Bone Broth”
If you’ve cut up cauliflower, you know it makes quite a spectacular mess – tiny bits fly out as it’s cut, small as grains of sand. And yet, despite the veggie’s unruliness, I keep eating it. Sometimes, I don’t get to it fast enough, though, and it begins to brown unappealingly. Freezing it would buy time, but how about other ways of extending its “expiration date”? Fermenting is a great way to do just that!
Continue reading “Farm Ferments: Curry And Caraway Cauliflower”
It’s ‘booch harvest day, and three gorgeous bottles of the good stuff are sitting quietly on a shelf on the fermentation station, working their second ferment magic. Sometimes I have to take a step back and marvel at the various ferments in different stages – I am, after all, a microbe farmer (mad scientist?), too.
I’ve been brewing the amazing elixir known as Kombucha Tea for years now. With this ferment, an unusual-looking culture transforms sweetened tea into probiotic goodness, thanks to the hard work of the Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY): the disc-shaped pellicle formed by the microbes responsible for performing the magic.
As I shared in an earlier post, I constantly have vinegar-in-progress working away in jars and crocks. Periodically, I harvest the kombucha vinegar and do a SCOBY “clean out” to make room for new pellicle growth…and never fail to be amazed at the size these SCOBYs attain!
It’s been a week, and the lacto-fermented bell peppers are coming right along. I burp them a couple of times a day to release some pressure, and am always happy to see the bubbles rise from the bottom of the jar to join the fizzy head at the top!
This particular recipe uses kombucha vinegar – something I keep a lot of on hand all the time – and it consistently creates a very active ferment. This time, I didn’t fill the jars quite as full…so neither overflowed and made a mess. Restraint pays off! Continue reading “Ferment Update: Bell Peppers”