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Your kitchen has lots of helpful little bacterial and yeasty guys floating around just itching to improve and preserve lots of different foodstuffs.
You can lacto-ferment veggies to make old-fashioned pickles (these are fizzy when you first open the jar, it's pretty cool), or fermented potatoes for really good french fries or home fries, or saurkraut, or basically whatever else you can think of.Â
Just put any vegetable or fruit in saltwater in an airtight container and leave it for a while. There are exact recipes on the internet, but I just go with water that tastes "pretty salty" and leave it for a week and change. Just make sure to "burp" it, so there's not too much carbon dioxide build up.
The saltwater environment allows the useful fermenting microbes to outcompete the harmful rot-causing microbes, and start to create an acidic environment. If this doesn't happen for some reason, it will be obvious, because it'll smell gross or there will be white-green mold.
You can use wild yeasts to turn any sugary liquid into a fizzy and lightly boozy drink. I like to do this with sweet cider, and I've also tried making ginger beer. Literally all you have to do is leave it alone. The cider or ginger or whatever you're using came with yeast, and all they want to do it make you alcohol. Just be careful opening it because it might explode. I've ended up with cider on the cieling before.
One day I'll figure out yogurt, then all bets are off.
That's all, I just like fermenting food. I like eating fermented foods, I like to eat farmer's market veg as long into winter as I can, I like that it's something that our great-grandparents probably did all the time, and I just think it's neat watching biology do biology things.Â
Mar 15, 2024
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Microbes make the world go round and make your food taste good! Made some butternut squash and cabbage kraut last weekend, used that to make vegan fava bean cheese this weekend, and it was so fun and delicious, bye!
Feb 5, 2024
I start most days with some puer (fermented tea) and my diet comprises a hell of a lot of krauts, pickles and vegan kimchi--- a little pile of kimchi or kraut is the final touch on almost every meal I make and pickles and olives are a perfect snack for any hour of the day. The most beautiful flavor of all time is Achaar, the Indian pickle dish composed of mango, bottle gourd, lemon, lime, gooseberry and carrot among other things; this as close as the culinary gets to the complex mystery of music.
Shopping Rec's:
Kimchi: Choi's all the way--- RIP Matthew Choi, the mastermind behind the deepest vegan kimchi.
Pickles: Forever Chicago's finest Claussen <3 <3 <3 (though not technically fermented)--- as for the real-deal fermented stuff, I'm not sure I've ever had a salt-brine pickle I didn't appreciate; direct acidic deliciousness.
Kraut: Ashland, Oregon's Pickled Planet Veda Kraut and Beet Kraut are just totally simplistically profound. Blue Bus's masterpiece take on the Salvadoran Curtido... bless it.
Kombucha: constant oscillation of GT's Guava Goddess and Health-Ade Cayenne Cleanse
Olives: Trader Joe's garlic stuffed
Achaar: check out your favorite local Indian spot's pickle dish and thank me or hate me later.
Oct 24, 2024
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I’m talking kimchi I’m talking sauerkraut I’m talking pickles I’m talking any god damn thing you want to be fermented you can ferment it. It’s so easy and DELISH
May 8, 2024
Top Recs from @teacherjaaames
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It's good for roasting veggies and won't instantly incinerate baked goods, it's also relatively reachable for my oven which is really doing it's best.
Alternatively, 70F is my favorite because it is objectively the safest, cheapest, and most common temp for my oven to be at.
Mar 14, 2024
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Jeans should be too big. Not like baggy, but just a little too big so they fit over boots, so you can wear a cool belt, so they stop ripping at the crotch, and so you can easily store things in the pockets.
May 19, 2024
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https://acoup.blog/
This is a history blog I like. I especially like the series Bread, How Did They Make It? He puts a lot of focus on systems and how those affect the lives and incentives of common people which is cool.
https://open.spotify.com/show/0QwqosVQjvXWKovUxdSGpQ?si=qL_XrgMbR1WASPnIj8AxrQ
And this guy makes audio versions for free which is really nice.
Apr 26, 2024