My journey of cooking, gardening, preserving and more
Let’s talk about homemade tomato sauce. Somehow, in this world of amplified food awareness, it’s become this complicated, convoluted dish and it really doesn’t have to be. I like to make this sauce in the fall when I have an abundance of tomatoes from my garden. Actually, …
Apple overload? If you live just about anywhere in the U.S. right now, you’re well aware that it’s apple season. We’ve been very blessed because, for the 2nd year in a row, a friend has gifted us with a huge bag of great, big, beautiful …
The last of my cucumber plants got pulled up last week and, though I’m sad to see summer end, I have to admit that this year’s cucumber harvest was a bit overwhelming. I added diced cucumber to salsa (delicious) and threw together quick cucumber salad (sliced cukes and onions mixed with seasoned rice vinegar and marinated for a couple of days, stirring twice a day). I made our favorite salad – tomato wedges, sliced red onion and fennel, and cucumber chunks drizzled with unseasoned rice vinegar and sprinkled with salt and pepper – super refreshing in the summer and everything’s picked right from our garden except the red onion. I made my Salmon, Cucumber and Dill Bites more times than I can count (not that I’m complaining because they’re seriously delicious).
While all of these were great ways to use and enjoy my cucumber bounty, they weren’t nearly enough to use them all up. I’ve tried canning pickles but the only ones I truly like canned are bread and butter pickles; dill pickles just shouldn’t be cooked in my opinion. In summers past, I made at least a couple of batches of my fermented half-sour dill pickles but this year I decided to try and perfect an easy recipe for refrigerator dill pickles. I also decided the perfect recipe would be a refrigerator-pickle-by-the-jar recipe, so I could easily make them without waiting to have a certain amount of cucumbers on hand. Also, I may have mentioned how we have dill that shows up every year, so this is also a great way to use some of that while I’m at it. I finally nailed down a quick and easy recipe…give these babies a try. The cucumbers retain a nice crunch and the flavor is fantastic.
Place salt, garlic, peppercorns, dill, and jalapeno (if adding) in the jar. Add about 1/4 cup hot water, seal jar tightly with lid and shake vigorously from side to side for a minute or so. This not only helps the salt dissolve but also wilts and bruises the garlic, dill, and pepper, releasing some of their flavors into the brine. Remove the lid, add 1/4 cup of vinegar and then pile in your sliced cucumbers, packing them in as tightly as possible. I find it easiest to hold the jar sideways and stack them in that way. Once you think you’ve packed as many in as you can, set the jar on the counter and push in a few more.
Now just top off the remaining airspace with 50% vinegar and 50% water, filling the jar as closely to the rim as possible. Wipe rim clean and seal tightly with lid. Give the jar a few shakes and then refrigerate for at least 1 week.
Yum!
Another beautiful aspect of this recipe is that you don’t have to cook a brine like a lot of refrigerator pickle recipes call for – the hot tap water is just enough to dissolve the salt and warm the herbs and spices.
If you like your pickles a little sweet, just add a little sugar when you add the salt. Also, play with the heat by adding more or different kinds of hot peppers, or add none at all. Remember, don’t be afraid to play with your food!
Green bean overload happens every year in my garden, so it’s a good thing they freeze well. Another great way to preserve them is to pickle them in a spicy brine. Bloody Mary. Red Beer. Hot Tomato. Michelada. Bloody Caesar…if you like your vodka or beer with a bit …
Regular and pomegranate kombucha ready for their second fizz-making ferment. What’s better than having living food in your house? Nothing. Cheers!
Kimchi (or Kimchee) has become one of those uber-trendy “foodie” foods in the past few years, even though it’s been around for centuries.
Kimchi bases its roots in Korea, where this fermented food has hundreds, if not thousands, of variations of it. There are sweet variations and savory variations, spicy variations, and mild variations…they really seem endless if you do your research.
The basis of all Kimchi is that it’s fermented, which is foreign to many while continuing to be a staple in Korean dishes. If you look at the Asian diet as a whole, you’ll see there are many foods, fermented and raw, that have been shown to contribute to their longevity. Our Western diet, full of saturated fats, sugars, and processed foods, is a glaring juxtaposition to the foods of our Eastern counterparts, who consume a diet mostly based on raw or slightly-cooked vegetables, fermented foods, fish and lean meats.
I’ve made a ton of sauerkraut at this point and will continue to do so. There’s just nothing easier to make, as far as fermented foods go. The beauty of kimchi – at least the kind I make – is that the wait time is shorter than sauerkraut; I let mine ferment for just about a week. Again, there are a ton of variations on kimchi, so feel free to adjust this to your taste. Also, the daikon radish is the type of radish typically used in kimchi, but those aren’t so easy to come by in my area (and so far have not had much luck growing them) so I use regular old radishes, which I peel. No, you don’t have to peel them – this is more of an aesthetics thing for me but it’s not necessary. Just be aware that the color from the red radish skins will most likely add a pinkish tinge to your finished kimchi.
To make my kimchi, I use a fermenting crock and weights that I bought on Amazon, but you can do this in glass canning jars with a shoulder instead – the shoulder helps keep your veggies submerged in the brine. For more on fermenting, see my post on how to make basic sauerkraut.
Fill a large bowl with water, add salt and stir to dissolve. Add cabbage and gently stir with a spoon or your hands, until the cabbage is wet and submerged. You may have a few leaves that sit at the surface, but that’s okay. Let sit for 30 minutes. Drain cabbage in a colander. Rinse well and squeeze excess moisture out with your hands. Leave in the colander for the time being.
In your bowl, place ginger, garlic, peppers, sugar and fish sauce. Using a fork, mash everything together well, to create a paste. (If you have a mortar and pestle, use that instead) Add cabbage, radish, and scallions and mix everything together with a large spoon or your hands, making sure the cabbage is well coated.
Transfer the kimchi into a small crock or canning jars with shoulders, packing down as you go, so that everything is submerged in the brine. I use a small 1 pound crock with weights, but either method is fine.
Cover crock or jars with cheesecloth or towel and secure it with twine. Let set on your kitchen counter.
Check your kimchi daily, to assure that all of your veggies are still covered with brine. I like to stir mine up every other day and then pack it back down.
Let kimchi ferment for 7 days and refrigerate in canning jars with lids or a similar glass container.
We enjoy kimchi as a side accompaniment to a number of dishes, especially grilled chicken and meats. I also use it as a condiment when I make pork burgers and this is the way we love it most.
Here a few of the photos of my process.
Happy fermenting everyone!
I admit that I’ve put off posting this fermentation recipe for quite some time. Not because it’s difficult or time-consuming because it’s neither, but because I’m absolutely terrible at photographing the process from beginning to end. (though I didn’t do too badly in showing you …