Saturday, February 2, 2013

Preserving the Harvest

It has been so long since I wrote a blog post, it just feels awkward.  I guess there is no way to get past that than to just dive in.  

Preserving the Harvest:

 This week brought a large selection of roots and greens, much more than could be reasonably used fresh.  It only makes sense to preserve them.  The best way I know is to lacto-ferment these.

Spending a little time getting these beautiful things cultured has a dual purpose.  First, preservation.  Second, using a lacto fermented food as a condiment with your meal brings a host of benefits.  This has been covered in many, many blogs.  You might check a few of them out to find out the health benefits.

It is really easy to get this going, although somewhat time consuming because almost everything had to be hand chopped.  The steps basically are wash, dry, chop, mix, season, get the mixture under liquid and leave it alone for a few weeks.  The ingredients for today's mixture ended up being:

Sauerkraut from my last batch as a starter 
Fermented Carrot/ginger/lime
Fermented Ginger ale
Cabbage - red and green
Mustard greens
Kale - black and green
Rainbow Swiss Chard
Broccoli
Spinach
Beet Greens
Hot Peppers
Carrots
Parsnips
Onions
Ginger
Fermented Soy Sauce
Sesame seeds
Black Pepper
Salt
Hot curry 
Cumin

After prepping everything, it ended up looking like this:


A few weeks in anaerobic conditions and it should be a wonderful, healthy, perfectly preserved bunch of goodness.  Make some today!