Hot Wings with a Fermented Hot Sauce

I'm not posting a recipe tonight because these still need a bit of work. That doesn't mean they weren't delicious! But the sauce did not "cling" the way I had hoped so I want to try some different ideas out. I cooked the chicken wings using Alton Brown's method, and then after they were cooked, I tossed them in the lacto-fermented hot sauce/butter mixture. I served them with homemade ranch dressing and store bought chips that had three ingredients: potato, avocado oil and sea salt. I let the kids taste the hot wings but since they don't like spicy foods yet, I just served theirs plain with the ranch dip. They ate all of their wings and wanted more!
-Amanda

Homemade Ginger Ale

I saw these recipes the other day and knew they were right up Amanda’s alley!  My dad is undergoing some really hardcore chemo, and has been suffering from nausea.  He told me that Ginger Ale helped, but I didn’t think that Canada D*y would have a ton of actual ginger in it (which is actually scientifically proven to combat nausea.)  So I decided to whip up a batch myself.  On the Crumpets and Cakes  blog I found two great recipes.  One instant and without yeast, and one with yeast.  I decided to avoid the fermented recipe for my dad, instead  I made the second, faster Ginger Ale recipe.  I will report--it seemed to help with the nausea, which is good for everyone now and again.  However I will also point out that I loved it too!!  It was a little spicy, just a little sweet and really refreshing.  The best thing is that you can adjust how much of the ginger syrup to put in the soda water—so it can be as spicy or mild as you would like!

-Jules

Recipes from Crumpets and Cakes

Ginger Ale: Instant  version:
1 cup fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
club soda
juice of one or two limes, juice from half lemon
mint for garnish

Directions:
Combine ginger, sugar and water in a saucepan. Simmer slowly for 10 minutes, until sugar is dissolved and ginger is softened.

Strain warm syrup and allow to cool. Fill a tall glass with ice, add 1 part(used 2oz shot glass) of ginger syrup and 3 parts of club soda.
Squeeze lime and lemon wedge into glass. Use more syrup if desired. Garnish with mint. Stir and enjoy.

Ginger Beer:
1c sugar
freshly grated ginger root (1 1/2-2 tablespoons), use the fresh ginger root you can find, it really makes a difference
juice of one lemon
1/4tsp baker's yeast
cold fresh spring or filtered water

special equipment:

clean 2L plastic bottle, funnel, patience
Directions:
Through a funnel add sugar and yeast to a plastic bottle. Mix grated ginger root and lemon juice and then transfer it to a bottle, add water to fill it half way and shake well to mix all ingredients. Add more water, leaving about an inch head space, screw the cap on and shake again. You can also mix all the ingredients in a jar and then transfer to a plastic bottle. Leave in a warm place for about two days and then transfer to refrigerator, to stop fermentation process. Refrigerate overnight. Pour it through a strainer and enjoy!

Roasted Tomato Salsa

First off, I know this isn't the best photo. But I was so busy eating it, I didn't want to slow down to photograph it! I really want to write down this recipe so I can repeat it in the future but I didn't really count everything so it's just sort of a guess. I plan on adding whey to what we didn't eat tonight and fermenting the rest to make it last longer (ha!) and to add probiotics to it. That is if it can sit on my counter for 3 days without being gobbled up... we'll see.
-Amanda

Roasted Tomato Salsa

8-10 tomatoes
1 red bell pepper
3 pablano peppers (you can throw in a spicy pepper or two also, but I just wanted the flavor, not the heat this time.)
1 large onion
5-6 cloves of garlic (paper still on)
Olive oil
sea salt

Line a cookie sheet (that has edges!) with foil. Lay the peppers out. You can keep them whole or go ahead and cut them in half and seed them. I seeded my bell pepper but kept the pablanos whole. Toss the garlic cloves still in their husks on the tray. Quarter the onion, removing the outer skin and place it on the tray. Cut each tomato in half and with a melon scooper, scoop out all the seeds and juice. Place cut side down on the tray. Liberally drizzle olive oil on everything and sprinkle with salt. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes or until everything starts to brown a bit.

Add vegetables to your blender, removing the skins from the tomatoes and peppers as much as possible. They should peel right off. Pulse a few times to keep things chunky but blended. Add salt as needed. Enjoy!

To ferment add 3-4 tbsp of whey, put in mason jars and let sit out on counter for 3-4 days until bubbles form. Refrigerate when done fermenting.

Fish with Fermented Strawberry Mango Salsa

Do you remember the Fermented Strawberry Mango Salsa that I made almost two weeks ago? I finally got around to serving it. The strawberries really made the entire salsa a bright red color. It's nice to see the vibrant colors. I think it's a sign of spring. I think this past winter, a lot of my foods were brownish with nice deep roasted colors but it was fitting for the season. A lot of times we get out of touch with what foods are grown in what season. You expect to find strawberries in the grocery store year round, but at least here in Texas they should just be making fruit right about this time. The strawberry plants in my front flowerbed are starting to put out little baby strawberries. Eating foods that are season is a goal I strive for, I'm not there all the way yet though. For instance, the broccoli on my plate isn't in season I don't think. I'm pretty sure broccoli is harvested in the fall. But like I said, it's all part of the journey to eating real, local foods!

Dinner tonight was flounder that was gently poached in a butter/olive oil combo. I served it with the salsa on top and steamed broccoli with butter. My husband I really liked the fish and the fruit salsa, but it was a bit too spice for the girls. They ate fresh strawberries with plain fish and the broccoli which they helped me cook.
-Amanda

Lacto-Fermented Strawberry Mango Salsa

I'm not an expert at fermentation yet, but so far, I really love almost everything that I've fermented. It's also amazing to be able to preserve fresh food so easily and know that you are adding in probiotics while doing it. My plans for this salsa are to put on top of a pan seared tilapia or other such fish. I just mixed it together tonight so I need to let it sit for 3-4 days to ferment. By the way, I got the idea for this salsa at a blog called How Sweet it Is.
-Amanda

Lacto-Fermented Strawberry Mango Salsa

• 2 ripe mangos
• 1 pint of strawberries
• 6-8 basil leaves
• 1/4 cup of finely diced red onion
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 cup of whey*
• 1-2 tbsp of chopped fermented jalapeno or 1 jalapeno finely chopped

Dice up the mangos and strawberries and place them in a medium size bowl. Finely chop the red onion and add it in. Add the jalapenos, salt and pepper. With your hands, gently mash the fruit to bring out some of the juices (this helps with the fermentation.) Add 1/4 cup of whey and the basil leaves. Stir until everything is well mixed. Place inside a quart mason jar. If there doesn't seem to be enough liquid to cover the salsa, add just enough filtered water to cover. Cover the jar and let sit until you start to see small bubbles form (3-4 days usually.)

*One easy way to get whey is by draining plain whole milk yogurt. I put a coffee filter in a fine mesh strainer and put the yogurt in the strainer. I then let it sit over a bowl until the whey collects in the bottom of the bowl. Return yogurt to the container and you have extra thick yogurt to use in another dish. If you collect more than 1/4 cup of whey, save the extra whey in your refridgerator. It'll keep for months.

Lacto-Fermented Hot Sauce

Ever since learning about Lacto-Fermented foods and the nutritional benefits that fermented foods provide, I've been so excited to learn new recipes. Creating lacto-fermented foods is so incredibly easy, the hardest part is to get over the fact that most of us were raised to fear bacteria. For some reason we all know that yogurt is good for us because it has "live-active cultures." Well, I'm learning how to put those "live-active cultures" in ketchup, hot sauce, mayonnaise, pickles, pickled vegetables and more. Those live-active cultures are also known as probiotics and they help keep the flora in our guts in balance. They aide in digestion and they help fight off common colds.

I got this recipe from The Nourished Kitchen, where she made her sauce with scotch bonnets. Her hot sauce is just that HOT! I used jalepenos so mine should be called more of a "mild" sauce. I also passed my sauce through a very fine sieve so it is more liquidy than hers. All of this is to your preferences and it is fun to experiment. You are left over with chili paste, that would be great to use in marinades, stir-frys and such. Remember heating anything that you lacto-ferment over 110 degrees kills the good bacterias and enzymes, but sometimes lacto-fermenting is just used as a way of preservation. The chili paste, once fermented will last months in your fridge.
-Amanda

Lacto-Fermented Hot Sauce

3 lbs of chilis (I think I only used two, but these types of recipes are very forgiving!)
3-6 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp of sugar
2 tsp of sea salt
1/4 cup of whey

Cut off the stems of your chilis and place them in a food processor. Throw in your garlic cloves and pulse until you get a pasty texture. Add the salt, sugar and whey and process a few more times to mix. Transfer to a glass jar and let sit on the counter for 4-5 days until you see some bubble action. Strain using a mesh strainer and you have hot sauce and chili paste!

Kombucha

I wrote a few months ago that I was going to start making Kombucha and I was nervous about how it would turn out. These days besides a bit of water, Kombucha and Water Kefir are all I drink. I'm finally rid of soda in my life and I don't miss it a bit! Now when I drink kombucha I know I'm doing something good for my body instead of feeling guilty everytime I used to drink a soda. Kombucha is naturally carbonated and it is full of probiotics. My favorite way to flavor it is strawberry, but tonight I decided to try blueberry and raspberry for the first time. You can flavor it with whole fruit or juice, but I found that the whole fruit is better. I use frozen fruit for convenience. One thing I've learned is that this is pretty hard to mess up! The SCOBY, converts all the sugar into something that isn't bad for you. You add sugar for a "second" fermentation (or the fruit) to help with the carbonation.

-Amanda

Kombucha

about 1 gallon of filtered water
6-8 black tea bags, preferably organic, for the healthy of the SCOBY
1 cup of organic white sugar, turbanido or rapadura. Succant isn't preferred.
1-2 cups of plain kombucha from previous batch (your SCOBY will come with some.)
1 SCOBY, acquired on line from a place like Cultures for Health or from a friend.

Make a batch of sweet tea, using the filtered water. A Brita filter system works fine. You want something that will remove the choline, or it will kill the SCOBY. When tea is room temperature, add SCOBY and Kombucha from previous batch. Cover with a tightly woven cloth (I used a t-shirt doubled over) and a rubberband. Fruit flies and gnats are attracted to kombucha I hear and you don't want them laying eggs in your SCOBY! I haven't had any problems, but it isn't exactly the season for them either.

Leave your covered Kombucha in a darkish place where it will be undisturbed for 7 - 10 days. Then bottle it. You can add fruit when you bottle it or add 1 tsp sugar per cup for plain Kombucha. If you use fruit, I'd say 1-2 whole strawberries per 16 oz. So it isn't much. If you use fruit juice you are only going to use about 1 oz to flavor 15 oz of Kombucha, it isn't much. Let sit at room temperature for 1-3 days (you can go longer, it will just get stronger.) Refrigerate and enjoy!

 Top view, SCOBY floating on top of tea (now Kombucha.) By the way if your SCOBY sinks, that is okay!

 The SCOBY will regenerate after 7 days. You can kind of see the old SCOBY hanging down, and the new one is on top. The old SCOBY you can give to a friend or put in your compost pile. (I throw mine in my garden)

My "new" SCOBY, the old one is floating in the Kombucha still. Holes are okay.

My bottled Kombucha, now sitting for it's second fermentation. I did blueberry, 2 strawberries and a raspberry. Sometimes I bottle it in individual bottles using old store bought Kombucha bottles, old beer bottles or swing top bottles. (I bought a beer capper at Amazon for $15.) This time I just poured it in old yogurt containers, old juice bottles and a pickle bottle! Don't store Kombucha in plastic, it will kill the SCOBY.

UPDATE 3/17/11: My SCOBY (also known as a Mother) gave birth... I gave my first SCOBY away to my friend Wendy so that she can now make Kombucha at her house. Read more about her Kombucha project at her blog: Just One Momma.

Kombucha and Water Kefir

Kombucha

Water Kefir

I am so super excited to have some Kombucha and Water Kefir fermenting in my kitchen right now. My friend Nicole of A Life Well Nourished, gave me a Scoby starter for Kombucha and asked me to babysit her Water Kefir grains for a week. She said they would store just fine in the refridgerator, but this gives me a good chance to try making both for a bit. Both drinks are a bit sour, a bit sweet, naturally carbonated and full of vitamins and probiotics. Eating and drinking fermented foods is part of being healthy and eating nourishing foods. I also have my first fermented food, a pear chutney, fermenting on my counter. I can't wait to share all of my fun and tasty experiments with everyone. Fermenting is an artisan experience. Each batch is slightly different and things take time, life slows down. I won't get to taste my first batch of kombucha for over a week. My pear chutney will take about a month, maybe longer before it mellows and is tasty. The kefir is "quick" only taking about 48 hours from start to finish.

Really, all of this is super easy to do, it just takes a bit of confidence and a leap into the unknown. Fermenting foods used to be a tradition that was passed on from generation to generation. It is how early people had food during sparse times and cold winters. Every culture is known for a fermented food of some sort: sauerkraut, traditional pickles, miso, fermented cheeses and even ketchup! Ketchup originally was a fermented food! Modern science found ways to mimic flavors and skip the long process of fermentation but at what cost? The modern way to make these foods quick and easy kills all the natural good-for-you bacteria that is essential to good health. Eating live foods such as yogurt, kombucha and other fermented foods eases digestion. I've only tried a handful of these types of foods, but from what I've tasted there is an entire world waiting for my taste buds to be tantalized with. I can't wait to try more!

For an updated article read this post: http://thefrickinchicken.blogspot.com/2011/02/kombucha.html
-Amanda