Noelle likes Good Food

Today I want to talk about lacto-fermentation. You may or may not know what it is, so let's start there.  The gist is that you take any kind of vegetable and chop it up, add salt and sometimes a little bit of water and let it ferment for anywhere between 3 days-4 weeks. The salt in the recipe kills off the bad bacteria, but there are good gut-friendly lactic acid bacteria that can survive the salt solution. The lactic acid bacteria (LAB's) feed off the sugars in the veggies and produce lactic acid and a whole bunch of probiotics that help to repopulate our gut with beneficial bacteria and sway our gut culture in the right direction :). Also, the process of lacto-fermentation preserves the veggies without having to use any heat (I've had batches of kimchi and sauerkraut last for months in the fridge and it just gets better with age). Also, fermentation makes the nutrients already present in the vegetables more bioavailable. Meaning when we eat fermented veggies our bodi...

Yesterday was a great day. I spent the morning volunteering at an Organic Medicinal Herb Garden that is run through my university and harvested some herbs for making tinctures. Then I came home and harvested some garden vegetables and herbs and spent the rest of the day experimenting in the kitchen. Those are my favorite kind of days :).   This is somewhat of a tangent but something I have been thinking about lately. I have realized that I struggle with living in the present because all I can think about is the future. I think about what I want to accomplish and learn and can easily get overwhelmed by all the things I wish I was/could be doing RIGHT NOW. Since there is never going to be an infinite amount of time or an infinite amount of energy I realize I must work more at being present.  Something that I know helps to ground me is by working out in the garden. It has a way of bringing the here and now into focus. I can only think about what can be harvested and used...

For those of you reading this, thanks for not giving up on me. I am sorry for the lack of posts. I haven't been in the kitchen much this summer. We don't have central AC, so we only turn on our window unit in the bedroom at night for when we sleep, and it is just too dang hot during the day to feel like cooking anything. But I miss writing, and I have so many things to tell you. I will post tomorrow about my garden. I harvested my first brandywine tomato today and it is a beauty!  I have been on a fermenting kick lately. My journey started by reading about all the benefits of fermented food. The process of lacto-fermentation is where veggies and a simple brine of salt, water, and naturally occurring vegetable juices are left to sit out at room temperature. As the food ferments. lactic acid is created which preserves the food in place of using large amounts of vinegar. The finished product will keep for months in the fridge (if it is not eaten up right away), and will develop f...