My feature in Nov/Dec 2011 Natural Life Magazine – fermented foods and how to make your own small-batch sauerkraut.  

We got to eat the first of @girlmeetsfarm ‘s beautiful chickens tonight. It was delicious, as you might expect from a chicken raised in a such lovely setting by Susan and her husband, Chris on Bakin’ Dance Farm.  

Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is not what you would called a beloved plant – most people acquainted with it consider it an aggressive, invasive weed. In a lot of places, it is. However, I’m also finding that, like milkweed, it’s a good plant to start off with in my foraging adventures. It’s easy enough to identify, not easily confused with anything super poisonous and, even if I kill a whole bunch of it by mangling it in my inexperience, no tears will be shed. The [...]

Now that you have at least 1/2 cup of garlic mustard seeds, let’s see if we can make something edible out of them. There are any number of mustard recipes out there, most of which involve some amount of mustard flour. I decided to keep my first attempt pure of any bought mustard, so it ended up pretty grainy. Hot Garlic Mustard Makes approx. 1/4 cup 4 tbsps whole garlic mustard seed 2 tbsps sherry vinegar (what I used – any vinegar would be fine) [...]

I’ve never tried to make cheese before, but I’ve seen a few recipes over the years to make unripened cheese like ricotta or paneer. So when Isabelle asked for cottage cheese last week, I decided to give it a try. It’s almost definitely not cost effective – but sure is delicious and a neat little project for an afternoon. On the plus side, I made mine all organic. Homemade Ricotta Cheese 4 cups of homo milk  (the fat content isn’t that important) 3 tablespoons fresh [...]

After my Urban Edibles course last week, my head was swimming with ideas for blog posts and new projects. Some of them, I need to sit with for a while. But one thing that can’t wait because the season is quickly waning – and these are worth a try. Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is exactly the plant you are thinking of – it’s the one with the fluffy pods that leaks a milky white substance when cut. While most people are familiar with it, I was [...]

I’ve been making jams and preserves for a long time now (really since I was a kid with my mom). This past winter, I entered the world of fermentation for preserving as opposed to accidental fermentation (ie: losing stuff in the back of the fridge) – that’s been fun hasn’t it? It has and I have a few more adventures planned. That said, there’s only so much jam a family can eat – and local strawberries are in full season with the rest of the [...]

Admittedly, this particular experiment in fermentation was born partly of true curiosity and partly of necessity. The curiosity part came from some research I’ve been doing into making my own kombucha (a fermented tea still really just tastes like something that’s gone bad, though I keep trying different commercial brands). The necessity arose when I realized that I had a very big piece of ginger root in the fridge that I was just not going to use for its intended purpose (a ginger cake). So [...]

A couple of years ago, I saw mochi in an article in the now-defunct Mothering Magazine and was intrigued. But not intrigued enough to actually search it out. However, when I happened upon some in the gluten free aisle at Planet Organic a while ago, I decided to give it a try. Mochi is glutinous rice cooked and mashed down into a smooth paste which is then left to harden – the one I buy looks like a large rectangular caramel.  Sounds yummy, huh? Well, [...]

How to make your very own sourdough starter – including how to name him. Stay tuned with what to do with him in an upcoming post.