Fermenting on the road

It has been 10 weeks tomorrow that we have been on the road.  There are lots of things we have changed about the way we are living however there are a few that have remained the same …. my ferments are some of these.  I was determined to keep up my kombucha and milk kefir on the road and so far so good.  It felt so good having this practice continue that I have even tried to do another batch of sauerkraut.

The large kombucha jar simply gets a screw top lid put on it and placed in a cupboard with ‘non-slip’ matting on the bottom whenever we travel.  When we arrive at our destination  out it comes, the lid is taken off and on the bench top it is left.  Easy as!  I did notice though that after a week or so the kombucha didn’t taste as sweet as my usual batches however soon I realised that where it was sitting never got sunlight on it, as it did in our house.  My solution?   I simply try to get it into the sun for a bit each day (when I remember) and it seems to be back to its usual sweet, fizzy self.  I usually only leave it for a week before creating another batch and apart from judging cooling time for the tea before adding to the SCOBY. The SCOBY is incredibly healthy and continues to grow happily, thankfully.  I have given loads away and still had to pop this big bit (see photo) in the compost today.

Another Sunday and a fresh batch of Kombucha on the go

The kefir grains, which I use in Rice Milk, are much easier.  They are transferred into fresh milk daily as I consume the fizzy goodness for breakfast.  The other equipment needed is a clean jar (I have 2 in total to swap), a plastic spoon and the milk.  Once again they are simply popped into a drawer with the cups when we travel and then brought out onto the bench while we are parked.  I think they would be my favourite ferment for ease of making (without thought involved) and also that I get to enjoy it everyday without running out.

Finally my sauerkraut.  We came onto the bus with a jar just freshly opened, so that lasted us for most of the 10 weeks however when that came to an end I had to either justify storing an empty jar or fill it.  I decided on the latter.  As we had found some fresh, homegrown radishes in a road side stall I decided to create a radish, cabbage and carrot version.  It is the first time I have used radishes and I’m hoping for a kimchi taste (fingers crossed!).  The process of preparing the vegetables, while very messy and harder to clean up when you are trying to converse the water you have, was straight forward enough and I was feeling very pleased with my self as I packed it tightly into the jar.

Into the cupboard it went … out of sight and out of mind.  Well that was until we next stopped and I realized that my sauerkraut had been jiggled around so much that it had seeped out in all directions as it fermented away.  I have had this happen before at home when I didn’t have a tight seal on the jar or there isn’t enough room for ferment to do its thing.  So after a lot of cleaning up and double bagging the jar we are all set.  Time will tell on the taste and I will have to remember to be less enthusiastic with the amounts of vegetables I am preparing next time to avoid a repeat performance!

Bagged up and ready for fermenting

Well that is it for now … just a wee insight into domestic life on the bus. 🙂 Until next time.  I hope this finds you enjoying your own little rituals

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

My kefir journey so far….

In my bid to improve health and live simply I have recently enlisted the help of Kefir grains.  I figure that getting the real stuff through ferments is way better than popping  a pill and way cheaper!!

I was lucky enough to have a lovely friend offer me some of her grains, so the journey began.  I had been wanting them for a while after tasting some delicious kefir ‘yoghurt’ while we were down south.  I had the raw milk ready to go and I was off!! After checking out a few Internet sites I thought I pretty much knew what I was doing although I wasn’t sure how I would get that ‘sour cream’ as all the sites I looked at talked about a fizzy drink rather than a creamy delight.

My growing kefir grains

Anyway I continued and found that sure enough the first few days did give me a kefir drink. I ploughed on though and decided to leave the grains in the milk just a bit longer, undisturbed, to happily munch their way through the lactose. Low and behold I had my thick creamy kefir yoghurt! 🙂 Now I really have no idea how I did this however I continued in the same vein, just transferred the grains with a plastic spoon to a new jar of milk without the straining they suggested on the Internet, and kept getting my pro-biotic rich morning treat.

It was delicious I have to say, to me anyway as the rest of the family would say otherwise, yet the sad fact was that even though the lactose was being eaten up the dairy still wasn’t agreeing with me.  Signs were beginning to show on my body that things weren’t all rosy.  One benefit I did notice though was that when I inadvertently had something with sugar in it I didn’t get the instant headache I used to get before having kefir?! Interesting I know and interesting enough to keep me experimenting.

Rice Milk kefir doing its thing

So I decided to investigate using the grains in Rice Milk, after vaguely remembering it from somewhere. The results? Sweet, fizzy and oh so delicious!!  I think that it is actually yummier than the yoghurt I had going and faster.  It visibly grows clearer over the 24 hours (I guess as the grains eat up the ‘sugars’) and I change the grains into fresh rice milk each morning, enjoying the fizzy drink straight from the jar.  Even herself enjoys it and has just asked if she can make some of her own! Yay to experimentation and old fashioned eating 🙂

Hoping this finds you testing your taste buds with a few food experimentations too.

Arohanui

Y