I think I told you that I stumbled upon fermentation when I was reading an article about the benefits of vitamin K2. Natto, or fermented soybeans, are cited as a good source of K2... but I'll be honest - I'm not too excited about that one. But... I realized that sauerkraut is a fermented food. Yogurt is a fermented food. Cheese is a fermented food. You can even make fermented pickles - and I love pickles. All those things appeal to me and have the same benefits.
I probably also told you that given humidity concerns, and the fact that using the stove costs us in propane, canning in a water bath isn't all that enticing a prospect. It's also limiting because you can only can high acid foods; for anything else you need a pressure canner or you risk botulism. So fermentation resolves that problem because you don't need to boil anything, except if you use chlorinated tap water, and then you need to boil the water for 15 mins to boil the chlorine out.
That said, I purchased a pressure canner today. It's actually a pressure canner / cooker. It has two benefits... I can put leftovers, vegetables, broth, etc. into a mason jar and pressure can it to eat another day, and I no longer have to refrigerate it. I can also cook things quickly and they should taste as if they were in a slow cooker all day long. It saves energy... mine and that of the fifth wheel. It also means I don't have to bring along a slow cooker which saves space and weight.
Speaking of broth... Martha Stewart is on my shit list. Because of her I thought broth was a labor intensive recipe involving 50 or so ingredients. Not so. Broth is ridiculously simple - buy a rotisserie chicken or roast your own. Use the meat for sandwiches, chicken tabbouleh salad - whatever. Save the carcass. Make meals using vegetables. Save the scraps... the root end of the onion that you usually throw out... the ends of the celery stalks, etc. Stick all that in the refrigerator until you've accumulated what you need. Then throw it in a pot, cover it with water and cook it down until the flavor starts to develop. Not only do you control the ingredients to suit your taste, to maintain control of your salt intake, to potentially avoid preservatives, but you get the health benefits from the bone marrow and minerals that leach out from the bones of the chicken. Here is a better article on the subject.
The next awesome thing... I have been wanting an AeroGarden... but since I've had a backyard for the past few years it really didn't make much sense to get one. The other thing that held me back was having to choose from their selection of vegetables and herbs... I don't always like what they offer - but now they have kits that allow you to choose what you grow. I love to grow things, and obviously there will be no yard in our fifth wheel. It will also be difficult to maintain a garden at our homestead since we don't know what our schedule will be. An AeroGarden is the perfect solution. I can grow seven vegetables and/or herbs at a time and we can have fresh food at hand which saves us money and is healthier because there are no pesticides to worry about.
Recently I read this blog about growing a never ending supply of green onions and decided that was also perfect, and it reminded me that you can do the same thing with celery. If we do that, we can grow nine vegetables, and as an added bonus plants will purify the air in our home.
Another thing I would like to do, since refrigerator space will be limited, is figure out how to do something like this.
You can also visit her website, it has a couple more ideas. It's ingenius. If you think about it, at farmer's markets and roadside stands sell fresh fruits and veggies, and they aren't refrigerated. We started sticking things in the fridge to lengthen their shelf life, but I really think it has had the opposite effect. Seems like every time I go to retrieve something it's wilted or no longer crisp, or I forgot it was in there and it started to rot. I wish I could buy the system ready made but so far I haven't been successful in locating anything like it so we're going to try to improvise. Improvisation is something that Mike excels at... I'm not bad at it, but he's usually quicker on the draw.
Another thing you don't have to refrigerate: Eggs. Who knew? When eggs are shipped to the grocery stores en masse, their natural protective coating is washed off. Egg shells are porous, so they spoil because they absorb oxygen and bacteria is able to grow. By coating them in mineral oil, you stop the oxygen from getting in and prolong the shelf life of the egg - no refrigeration necessary. You can tell if an egg is still fresh by immersing it in water and seeing if it floats or sinks - if it floats, toss it, if it sinks - it's good. I've heard that they will last around six months if you use this method.
So this weekend I am undertaking a slew of food-related projects:
- Fermented Pickles
- Fermented Rosemary-Lemon-Sage Pickles (cucumbers and zucchini)
- Cultured Squash
- Sauerkraut
- Pickled Okra
- Beef Jerky
- Kale Chips
- Zucchini Chips
- Canning Pineapple
- Pineapple Juice
- Kimchi
- Garlic Confit
- Ginger-Mint-Lime Soda
- Use my juicer to make a Lemony Apple drink
- Cola - Was going to make this but couldn't find cola nut so I have to order it. I found a cola syrup at a local healthfood store, but the ingredients weren't listed and I'm trying to avoid refined sugar and use either honey, stevia or rapadura - and it claimed to make 16 servings at 450 calories per serving! I'm hoping that a serving is 2 liters but I don't remember seeing it specified.
I figure the best way for me to concentrate on healthy foods is not to dip my toe in, but to jump - and the easiest way to make that happen is by only bringing healthy foods into our new home and making unhealthy foods unavailable, or at least harder to access. Perhaps it sounds a bit extreme, but I am tired of being fat, having no energy and feeling like crap most of the time. I don't know if it's gluten, processed foods, refined sugar or all of the above, but something's gotta give. I know Mike and I are both having digestive issues; mine have existed since college, Mike's are due to his recent gallbladder removal. Hopefully these fermented foods and giving up gluten will help with that, and more natural sugars will reduce our cravings and provide more nutritional benefits than regular sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Last week I started some fermented pickles and green beans. I just sampled the pickles and they're good! Not quite the same as what you buy in the store, but I think they're better. Slightly milder, but flavorful. And so easy. That bodes well for the rest of my projects. :)
