Everything is Broken, But There's Kombucha

Today, everything gets a big pouty face from me. I feel pretty awful, achy, sore, grumpy. Apparently my hubby has been nauseous and feeling pukey all day. My worst fear when that happens is that something I cooked has given him food poisoning, even though I'm always careful with cooking and cleanliness. To top things off, yesterday I was so busy I didn't have time and energy to post by the time I remembered and NOW my main power outlets that power up my hot plate and oven are overloaded and thus dead (I don't have a full kitchen, technically it's a sink and a counter... with some fancy counter top appliances). I had the fans, lights, oven and hot plate on, which was too much for the outlets to bear. So now I can't cook. Which gets an extra super pouty face. :-(

It's also about 85 degrees in my kitchen because it's hot and humid today and we don't have air conditioning. I'm mostly melting. In fact, I'm sitting on the couch with a fan hooked up right next to me so I'm not a sweaty, gross mess. TMI? Too late...

So, instead of cooking, I thought I'd show you a little bit about another one of my fermented favorites: kombucha. Are you addicted to soda, regular or diet? Do you crave something fizzy and slightly sweet to cure your sweet tooth? Do you wonder how you can fit these things into your paleo diet? Well worry no longer, because kombucha is here to the rescue.

What is kombucha? It's fermented tea, is the short answer. Basically, with the help of a starter culture, sweetened black tea sits out in the air and ferments for 7 to 21 days (depending on what the climate is like where you live). It turns from sweet tea to a tart, fizzy, and slightly vinegary drink, full of health benefits and detoxifying qualities. It's also a raw beverage, so it has all the benefits of adding good bacteria to your gut biome, aiding in digestion and general gut health.

Like most things, I love kombucha because after thirty minutes of work and a week of Mother Nature, you get an extremely versatile and tasty beverage. Bottling it and keeping it fizzy is another hour or so of work, but that's because my batch produces 24 bottles of kombucha to keep me and my hubby (and a few lucky friends) knee deep in 'booch until the next batch is ready.

The recipe is simple, but one essential ingredient is hard to come by. In 2010, it was "discovered" that kombucha sold commercially sometimes contains alcohol (it is a fermented substance after all) and therefore must be regulated like all alcoholic beverages. This put major kombucha companies like G.T's Kombucha into hot water since its traditional recipe fell into this category. But rather than go under, G.T.'s changed its formula by adding a special kind of bacteria to the brew towards the end of fermentation that would keep the vinegary taste but prevent any sugar from turning into alcohol. Even their "original recipe" kombucha which is sold in brown bottles (as opposed to clear ones which are the new formula) contains some of this bacteria. Why is any of this important? The addition of this bacteria prevents growing the main kombucha ingredient: a SCOBY, or a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. The SCOBY, sometimes called a kombucha mother or a Manchurian Mushroom (despite the fact that it's not a mushroom at all), is a filmy squishy thing ("zoogleal mat" is the technical term) that sits atop the kombucha as it ferments. Since you can't just grow your own anymore from any bottled kombucha, you have to order one from a brewing company like Cultures for Health or GetKombucha.Com. If you are lucky enough to have a small cafe in the area that makes its own 'booch, you can snag a glass of theirs and use it to grow your own SCOBY. But you really can't use the kind in the bottle.  Believe me. I've tried multiple times.

What you need to make kombucha:
1 Gallon filtered water
1c. sugar*
4 black tea bags (or 2 black 2 green, depending on what you like. just use some black tea)
1c Kombucha
SCOBY
enough glass containers to hold all the liquid

Boil the water, add the tea and sugar, and then cool it down in the fridge or freezer until it's room temperature. Then put the kombucha and the sweetened tea into the container, placing the scoby on top at the end so it sorta floats. If it sinks, it's no big deal. Sometimes they sink, sometimes they float. I'm sure science would tell me why, but I'm not concerned enough to find out. Whoo!! Science!!

Now, cover the glass container with something to let the air in but keep dust and funk out. Leave it in a warm place for a week at minimum, maybe longer. Test your kombucha until it reaches your desired level of sour/tart. Then put a tight cap on the container. Wait a few more days, say two or three, and when you open the container again, you'll have a slightly fizzy sweet drink! Yay Kombucha!!!!

*You can try Sucanat or "natural" sugar, but don't use honey which has antibacterial properties, and molasses and maple sugar don't work as well, I've tried those too, though it may be possible to use them. I know, I know. The evil added and processed sugar. But this is pretty much completely eaten by the yeast and turned into all the good stuff. You won't actually be consuming the added sugar itself. You can use unbleached sugar in the raw if it makes you feel better. But my pocketbook can't support that habit right now.

You can halve, double, triple the recipe depending on your needs and abilities to contain that much kombucha. The general rule of thumb is to use a 10%/25% kombucha to 90%/75% sweetened tea ratio when brewing. Your sweetened tea also can't be hot, or even slightly warm, or else you risk killing all your happy yeasts and bacteria. Let's not kill the little guys right away, ok? And, unlike fermented vegetables, the inherent acidic quality of the kombucha keeps it from molding unless contaminants get in, but if you get green or fuzzy mold on your SCOBY, you should throw it out and start over. No sense in risking your health when you can start over and be certain. If you want a more in depth how to, check out Food Renegade's FAQ on kombucha. They have a ton of good resources on eating real food and fermented foods for health. Definitely worth your time to check it out if you're interested.

23 bottles! Jackpot!

Lime and mint, my fave mmmmmmm

This is the brief and easy version of events. You can make it as complicated or as easy as you like. I like to add juice and other flavorings for the second ferment (the part where you seal it up tight so it naturally carbonates). Some of my favorites are ginger slices or ginger syrup, lime juice and fresh mint leaves, and lemon juice with a sprig of fresh thyme. I've tried blueberry juice, cranberry juice and fresh strawberries, all of which were yummy but not my favorite. Or you can leave well enough alone and drink the lovely elixir plain.

I have a whole system of bottles, one has a spigot so I can easily bottle large amounts of the stuff with little effort. I use both stock pots when making more, because I can make so much of the stuff.  And if you live in Hawaii and you have any spare glass receptacles you'd like to donate to my cause, I'd be glad to take them off your hands. You can't ever have enough of this stuff.

So that's it for today. I'm going to be drinking kombucha and grilling something for dinner so I don't turn into a puddle. Stay frosty my friends.

A Day Late, But Not Short on Pickles.

Time got away from me yesterday, so today we'll be looking at dill pickles. Not quite so different from the relish recipe I went over yesterday, homemade lactofermented dill pickles are pretty amazing. Especially if you can throw in a few cloves of garlic. My grandmother, the Swedish one (who doesn't threaten to cut off extremities over butter), uses vinegar to can her pickles, but they are probably the best things on the planet.  She once made a case of quart jars full of hot and garlic pickles for Dave for Christmas. We would still have a jar or two if we hadn't moved across the freaking continent and ocean. They keep for a loooooooooooong time. Unlike their canned counterparts, these pickles have a shorter shelf life, but once you get them to pickled perfection you can refrigerate them and keep them for a few months, even adding a bit of vinegar for longevity. Let's make some pickles folks.

You will need two pint jars, wide mouthed or regular. One regular sized cucumber, scrubbed to get all the wax and gross stuff off, and local or organic is much better since pesticides are icky and carcinogenic. A mandoline slicer, or a steady hand and a sharp knife. I got this particular mandoline on sale at TJ Maxx in Syracuse about 6 months ago. They usually have some kind of slicer on sale there. It was $16 and worth EVERY PENNY. I use it for everything. Fresh dill, dried in a container just won't cut it. I like to use the flowers and stems from the dill plant too. A little known fact is that in many herbs, the most flavor is found in the stems, not the leaves or flowers (especially in the case of mint). So throw dill pieces in, stems and all, since you can fish them out later if you like. You can add a few whole cloves of garlic if you want. Sadly my husband smashed to pieces the glass container of chopped garlic I had in the fridge this very morning, so these will be garlic-less pickles. He likes to break things made of glass frequently. He once broke three quart sized mason jars. I haven't forgiven him yet. This was three months ago. You also need some salt and filtered water and *whey.

So, to make these babies, slice the cucumber into uniform pieces. You could get smaller cucumbers that are actual pickle sized. You could cut this cucumber into spears too if you like. Hell, you could crack out a cookie cutter and make butterfly shaped slices if you felt like it. They're your pickles, you do what you want.

Once you have cut the cucumber, arrange the slices in a jar until it's about half full, tucking some of the pieces of dill around the cucumber. Stems, flowers, dill pieces, all go in the jar. Now is when you would add some garlic too if you felt so inclined and it wasn't smashed into your kitchen floor. Not bitter I swear.

*Now is the aforementioned weird part. I am a fermenting freak. I love leaving food to sit out and cure in its own juice, as mother nature intended. The smell of sauerkraut makes me think of home, not so much because my grandmother and mother made it, but because I grew up in a place where cabbage was a common crop and the smell of it rotting brought up endless fart jokes on the bus ride home. No lie. So, I have home fermented sauerkraut at home in my fridge, which probably would keep for years if I let it. I poured some of its juice into each jar. As in the previous post, you can use whey from soured milk or yogurt if you don't have sauerkraut. I'm not sure if store bought juice would work since it's heat treated, killing all the active bacteria you need to start a ferment. You can purchase vegetable cultures too online, but I'm way to cheap and lazy for that. Those are your options. Add about two tablespoons or so of whey/juice to the jars to kickstart the fermentation process. Don't worry, your pickles won't taste like milk. I promise.

Now, top of the jars with filtered water or distilled water, making sure you cram the cucumbers and dill down far enough in the jar so they're completely submerged. Remember, water makes a barrier to keep food from molding. There will likely be a film that is white that gathers on the top after a few days. This isn't mold, this is a natural part of the fermentation process. If it's green or furry, then yeah, that's mold and you should chuck the project into the garbage so you don't get food poisoning. But the slimy white stuff, gross as it sounds, means your pickles are... pickling.

 Now we've got pickles ready to go. Put something porous on top, like a paper towel or coffee filter paper, and screw the lid on top. This lets air in but keeps bugs and stuff out. Air is a necessary part of the fermentation process, so don't think that just covering it with a normal jar top is a good idea. If you don't have the top, you can put a rubber band on this as well. Anything to keep the top on while it ferments. I use the rubber bands from asparagus bunches. I save everything almost like I was a child of the Depression.

Finished product!!! Gorgeous right!? I can't wait to test these babies out! They should be ready next Tuesday or Wednesday. To test, take one out, see if it's crunchy and as tart/vinegary as you like. If not, cover it back up, making sure everything is submerged, and leave it for another day or two. Ferment time will depend greatly on the temperature in your area. Things ferment very quickly here, because I live in freaking paradise and every day is 80 some degrees (cue evil snarky laugh at all my NY friends). When I used to make kombucha in Syracuse, NY in the winter, it took 3 weeks to ferment. It takes 10 days here. Keep your pickles near a TV or appliance that's on a lot of the time to give it a warm place to do its thing. 

Technically you could ferment any kind of vegetables like this (especially if you add a ferment culture like yogurt whey or sauerkraut juice): asparagus, whole peppers, carrots, celery, whole garlic heads, cauliflower, broccoli, beets, anything relatively solid that you would eat uncooked or raw. I doubt tomatoes would work (they're too gushy and fleshy) and eggplant would probably be gross. But apart from that, knock yourself out.

Do you ferment things? Are you gonna give this a try? Do you have other suggestions for fermentation newbs!? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Thanks for reading!!!