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Accentuate the Positive

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halcionne

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I haven't posted because I've had a hell of a time eliminating everything I need to in order to give this experiment a fair shot, primarily chocolate. And Diet Coke. :my_dodgy: 

The good news (I guess) is that I can tell now that those foods make me sick, so I have even more reason to cut them out. The GAPS Diet prescribes lots of fermented foods, so I was hoping to come up with a homemade, fizzy, fermented drink to replace the soda, like fermented lemonade or beet kvass, but I haven't had much luck with that. Here is the Jinger (heehee) bug that I starved to death. 

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And an attempt at an apple cranberry kvass that went moldy on day three, so I refuse to continue with it. Some sources say to remove the mold and keep going, but that's just too squicky for me.

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So I've been eating a lot of homemade chicken soup with sour cream or yogurt stirred in, and I like it. It makes me feel healthy and like I'm taking good care of myself. I got an Instant Pot for Christmas so I plan on trying to make my own yogurt soon.

Has anyone had good results with small batch fermenting at home?

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Bethella

Posted

We typically do a large batch (20 gallon crock) of sauerkraut every other year, but you can adjust the amounts to what you need. Our recipe has been adapted from the family recipe and an old Ball canning cookbook.

Use good, sound heads of mature cabbage, 1/3 cup (rounded) salt per 10 lbs of cabbage. One pound fills 1 pint glass jar. Be sure to thoroughly wash your hands and utensils before you start.

Remove outside green and dirty leaves. Quarter the head and finely shred the cabbage. Put 5 lbs cabbage and 2 ounces of salt (about 3 1/2 tablespoons) into a crock and pack it in (we have a wooden mallet/bat we use for this but you could probably use a potato masher). You want the juices to flow and you should notice the cabbage starting to wilt. Repeat until all the cabbage has been processed. The cabbage should be fully submerged in the juices. You should make sure that there is at least 4 inches (10 cm) of space between the cabbage and the rim of the container.

We typically use a garbage bag full of water to seal our crock, you can search online for other methods if you want. My great-grandmother would just use the large outer cabbage leaves to cover her crock. Place in a cool place, out of direct sunlight. As it ferments the gas produced escapes as "burps" when it is done burping the fermentation is done. For us our area and the amount we do it usually takes 6 weeks, but it can go faster in warmer climates or with smaller batches. It can be eaten as is or canned.

We typically rinse our kraut. After squeezing it dry it is packed in glass quart jars with an additional 3/4 tsp salt (pack 1/3 kraut, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/3 kraut, 1/4 tsp salt, final 1/3 kraut, final 1/4 tsp salt). Leave a 1/2 inch head space. Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

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halcionne

Posted

@Bethella that's really impressive! Do you do a lot of canning, too? I've only tried it once. All of this homemade, do it yourself type stuff is completely foreign to me. :my_confused:

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Bethella

Posted

5 hours ago, halcionne said:

@Bethella that's really impressive! Do you do a lot of canning, too? I've only tried it once. All of this homemade, do it yourself type stuff is completely foreign to me. :my_confused:

We do some but not a ton simply because we don't eat much of it. I tend to make 2 batches of jam a year and alternate which years I do the different types. So one year I'll do blueberry and strawberry,  the next year I'll do peach and something else. I've also done a couple kinds of pickles, my favorite was peach pickles but I've also done watermelon rind and regular cucumber pickles. Three(?) years ago I made a batch of canned pie filling (strawberry rhubarb), we still have 4 jars of it in the basement. 

The big thing we do every year is maple syrup. We tap about 40 trees in our yard, collect the sap and boil it down. We typically get about 6-8 gallons of syrup each year- it's our standard hostess gift.

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  • Posts

    • Red Hair, Black Dress

      Posted (edited)

      I think she unenthusiastically said yes to the first man Scotty Brown (not/never father of the year) convinced/ coerced to take her and the 6 step kids.

      Hope she is happy, but intuition tells me no, and that she believes the unhappiness is normal married life.

      Really really really hope she wasn't "convicted" to have more children.

      Edited by Red Hair, Black Dress
    • JermajestyDuggar

      Posted

      20 hours ago, zimona said:

      Childless semi-old catlady here. I don't hate kids. I hate parents who don't bother to teach their kids (age apropriate, of course) about boundaries. I'm quite happy to let kids be kids. But if they start to actively pester me and intrude on me (like trying to drink from MY lemonade in a Café, or wiping their chocolate covered fingers on my backpack during train rides...) then I will speak up and tell them to stop, and I'm fully aware that to the innocent bystander I might come across as 'hating' kids, especially since I might be a bit worked up at that point. I'm not blaming the kids, they don't know better. I'm blaming those parents who shy away from putting a brake on their kids' (sometimes) too exuberant behaviour. 

      What’s funny is I often say this about dogs! 🤣🤣🤣 Every time I find myself hating a dog, I realize I just hate how horrible the owner is. It’s always someone who lets their dog get away with the most horrific behavior at the expense of other people. 

      • Upvote 4
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    • 4boysmum

      Posted

      I have a bunch of kids and as much as I love them they also drive me nuts.  They can be loud and messy.  The younger ones are still figuring out where their personal space ends and other people's (mostly mine!) begins.  But I can't ever imagine them doing something like drinking someone else's lemonade.  And if they ever took leave of their senses long enough to try, I would deal with it ASAP and also buy you another lemonade.

      My kids are my responsibility and if they act up in public it's my job to correct them or take them somewhere else so they aren't disturbing others.  

      But I have also occasionally come across people who do seem to resent children being present in public at all.  Don't think they should be brought to restaurants, etc.  I couldn't say what percentage of the childfree population feels that way, but people like that do exist.  And I think it's a shame because (a) how do you teach kids to behave in places like restaurants if you don't take them to practice, and (b) if I've put in the work to teach my kids how to behave in various places and they are not being disruptive, they really do have just as much right to be there as any other segment of the population.

      • Upvote 1
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    • CarrotCake

      Posted

      It makes me wonder: would these modesty-fundies be okay with swimwear on girls-only trips?

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      • Upvote 1
    • EmiSue

      Posted

      3 hours ago, CarrotCake said:

      There is also a toy rabbit with a pink ribbon in the picture.

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      • Upvote 1


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