In My Kitchen

Things have been 'percolating' in my kitchen for a while now.  It's pretty much a miracle that my kefir grains are still alive.  I don't think I've ever had a batch last more than a year!  On top of that I have 6 kombucha scobys still going strong!

As we crawl out from under this oppressive work load due to the bugs, I am making it a priority to get on top of the things that I believe will help to turn our health around.  This reminds me of the time I was a vegetarian.  Yes, I was a vegetarian once upon a time!  However, I was an unhealthy one.  At the time I was eating the standard American diet (SAD), and just took meat out of the equation.  That still left the boxed cereals, the boxed/microwavable food, and all of the processed white flour 'stuff' on my plate!  We are much further down the path of eating healthy these days, but there are those food items that really *need* to be in the diet to make a big difference.  For us that means fermented foods.

It is an on again-off again deal at the moment.  Some days we are over our heads in work to do, others not as much.  As such there are days in a row we eat all the ferments we need to and then days in a row that we don't.  But even at this inconsistent rate we are seeing some results.  For example Flannery has had this rash on her face for *months* now.  We have treated it with all sorts of natural stuff (tea tree oil and thieves oil for example), only for it to keep on growing.  It was getting quite large and very red.  After just one week of fermented foods, it has decreased in size by a bit, and is now only a light pink!  I know if we stay at this that it will just be a matter of a couple of weeks before she is rid of it for good.

Also, since starting the ferments all of the kids, except for a small area on Saoirse, have been itch free.  We still have a long ways to go to actually BE healthy, but the fermented foods are a very, very big step.  I decided to take a picture of some of the things 'brewing' in my kitchen at the moment.  Please note, that things change within days around here.  For example you will see a picture of my kombucha doing a second ferment, but it has been days and I *still* have not gotten around to making up new tea for my scobys to make another batch of kombucha.  Today is the day for that.  So don't think that I have my act all together!  There are days I am able to switch my kefir around, with new milk....like it's supposed to, and then there are days like the past couple that it remains sitting on my counter (probably hungry).  But I just try to keep doing the next thing!

 Some carrots fermenting, and a new to me recipe for some brussel sprout kimchi.  Flannery put the fresh brussel sprouts in the freezer, where I didn't want them.  I decided to give this recipe a try with the defrosted sprouts.  So far they look good.  I suppose they will be softer due to the defrosting action on the sprouts.  We shall see.

 Two of three 'pots' of chicken broth.  I have been cooking up our meat the day after shopping day.  It takes forever for meat to thaw, and so I try to cook it in the first day or two so that we have the meat available for meals throughout the week.  As a matter of fact I have another bunch of chickens that I need to start cooking today!

 Not the best of pictures.  This is a half gallon jar of yogurt.  It is sitting in a ice bath to cool it quickly so that my hungry critters can gobble it up.  With this batch I made one and a half gallons of yogurt.  A couple of days prior I had made 2 gallons of yogurt.  All the yogurt was eaten up within five days.  Five days!  Three and a half **gallons** of yogurt people!  This is why we have goats!  Ha, ha.

I love the pretty colors of flavored kombucha.  The middle jar has a few strawberries in there for flavoring.  After pouring the kombucha into these quart jars we put either juice (mango and grape are our favorites), or pieces of fruit into them and let them sit out for another one to three days.  After that we scoop out any pieces of fruit and put all of the quart jars into the fridge.

I forgot to take pictures of my kefir.  It looks like a glass of milk :-)  That's all I have at the moment.