sauerkraut in a big crock

Some friends wanted to make sauerkraut, and she said that she's a great cabbage-juice-eliciter.  She was not exaggerating! Plus, it was more fun to make it together.

I have a three-gallon crock.  Shortly after I got it I made about 2.5 gallons, and it felt like forever of giving away sauerkraut.  But then I shared with people who were very excited about it (the kind of people who sit down with a jar and just eat the whole damn thing in a sitting), so I got close to running out.  And my dog would be unhappy about that. 

So, the friends came over and we used about six heads of cabbage, about 13# (after outer leaves removed; about 16# bought at store).  I didn't have a scale yet so I"m not certain.  I shredded about six carrots to add in, and I used locally sourced sea salt. 

It's now been just over two weeks and ... the cabbage is still crunchy and salty.  There's definitely some fermentation going on, as I see bubbles, but it didn't give off the intense smell as last time (when I think I undersalted it). 

Thirteen pounds was too little; the crock is only about halfway full.  I think adding another six pounds would fit nicely.  So for next purchase: buy about 22# of cabbage, I think.  Or less if I use much daikon or other vegetables.  The daikon were pretty limp and unexciting, so I skipped that this time. 

I was hoping that this batch would be slower than the last batch, and so far it is.  I'll keep tasting it every week, and I'm guessing around 5-6 weeks will be a good time to jar it up.

While it's always nice to finish these projects and get my counterspace back (my kitchen is small), it's also fun to see all these fermentations bubbling away.  It's like magic!  And homemade sauerkraut is so tasty.

canning beans

So, a month or two ago, I bought a small electric pressure canner (a Carey or Chard). It was on sale and I can't pressure can on my stovetop (it's flat-top and temperature doesn't stay constant, plus I already cracked it so can't stress it more).  I bought it for a few reasons, including that I can can many leftovers.  Make a big pot of red beans and rice?  Eat a bit and can the rest.  Meatloaf.  That sort of thing.  It's pretty great. 

But also, because I want to can beans.  Because I prefer glass to metal, and the quality of the beans that I can buy, and no salt.  I want to control my food, and it's considerably less expensive than buying canned. 

I cooked some white beans and canned them, and they turned to mush.  Black beans were somewhat better. 

But then I discovered: I can can uncooked beans!  I just rinse and sort them, then put about 1/2 cup in a pint jar and fill up with water (leaving appropriate headspace), and can for 75 minutes pints, 90 quarts.  (I do pints.  Though maybe if I were really into making hummus I'd do garbanzos in quarts.) 

So, for the garbanzos that my friend sent me when I'd requested soybeans - they are right now in the canner. 

I'm thrilled!  My top three beans are garbanzos, black beans, and white beans.  I'll keep a stash on hand for easy tossing into food. 

I use Tattler lids which are a bit more fussy than the "regular" Ball or Kerr lids, but they are reusable many times.  In the event a lid doesn't seal, I put the jar into the fridge to use up quickly, or the freezer for longer storage.  I rotate through canned goods pretty quickly, but I just didn't have the freezer space to keep storing broth and beans and so many other things like that.  So, I'm stoked!

black bean tempeh

I made my first batch of tempeh and it turned out pretty good.

I got my starter from Cultures for Health.  If I like it enough to keep making it, I'll probably order from a place with larger volume for less cost.

I asked my friend to send me some dry soybeans in a package she was already sending, as they aren't available in stores here and to order them is pretty expensive and a larger quantity than I wanted.  So she did ... except that she's not much of a bean person, and she though that garbanzo beans and soybeans are the same thing.  (I'm now canning a pound of garbanzos ...)

Sigh.

Garbanzo beans have pretty tough hulls that require an extra labor-intensive step, which I was not feeling up to, and so I reached for the black beans.  I use a lot of black beans in a lot of things.  Their hulls are soft and don't require the dehulling step.

I followed the seller's directions, along with some info on-line.  The big issue is incubation.  Tempeh wants to be kept at 87 degrees Fahrenheit for an extended period of time. My kitchen is generally 59 degrees Fahrenheit.  That's a big difference.

I followed one person's advice to use an Instant Pot.  I had been testing this method for awhile and found that it will hold temps at about that with some water in the bottom.   So, after soaking the beans for about 20 hours and then cooking them for about an hour and 15 minutes, I mixed in the vinegar and starter.  Stir it well.  Disperse it.

The instant pot is small and it was frustrating to figure out how to put all those beans in there.  I used two plastic ziploc sandwich bags with some holes poked in with a knife.  I had to rig up two shelves, and the bottom bag was considerably warmer, so I'd switch them every so often.

After 12 hours, the tempeh is to be making much of its own heat.  I didn't see that happen then, but at  18 hours the bottom bag was up to 98 degrees so I turned off the heat.  Three and a half hours later they were below the temp range so I turned it back on.  Then I got frustrated and rigged up a friend's clamp lamp in my oven, but that wasn't great either.  Just the oven light on with the door closed was too cool.  The lamp on made it too hot and one bag kept getting hotter than the other.  (It's a 60 watt incandescent bulb; a 40 might have worked better.)  

It was a lot of babysitting and adjusting temperatures and propping doors and all that, but then I finally saw some mycellium action which was a little exciting.  OK, super exciting.

At 46 hours, the tempeh was formed into blocks, the mycellium pretty solid.  I was keeping a close eye for sporulation, wanting that to start to let me know for sure it was done.  But, I needed to use my oven for something else, so I called time.  I let it cool to room temperature and into the fridge.

The next day I took it out to take to work to share with co-workers, and I noticed there was some light gray around the holes, telling me that I had actually pulled it at the right time and that the incubation had worked pretty well despite the temperatures ranging pretty far outside the optimal range.

I fried it in some butter and my co-workers called it fabulous.  

And then I looked up a better incubation method, and I ordered a proofer.  I don't really need it for baking bread (sourdough seems to rise fine in my cold kitchen), but I can also make yogurt in it which will be considerably nicer than the cooler method I'm using now (which always ends up in me splashing water all over).  And it folds up, so not much kitchen space taken, which is nice.


It started at 7 pm on Friday and I ended it at about 5 pm on Sunday.  A weekend of babysitting fungus.  At least it was pretty tasty.  Fresh tempeh is SO much better than store-bought, there's no comparison.  

king cake

Borrowed from a friend, put here so I can find it ...

My King Cake Recipe

This is based on a "Traditional King Cake" recipe that was written up in an article written by one Claude Barilleaux. Recipe will create one tasty kingcake. If you're bringing it to a party, you might double it so you'll have two cakes. Your call.

Note that the quality of your ingredients has a direct correlation to the tastiness of this cake, but you can make it with regular old grocery store ingredients and it'll still be tasty. It's just better with local creamery products and high quality flour. Use raw or turbinado or other minimally processed sugar if you can get it.

cake:
1/2 c mashed potato (or sweet potato). Don't add much, if anything to the potatoes. Just plain.
1 1/2 c milk
3/4 c butter
1/4 c lukewarm water
1 pkg dry yeast
1/2 c sugar (preferably raw or Louisiana cane or other minimally processed option)
3 large eggs
1 t freshly grated nutmeg
1 t lemon or orange rind (aka zest)
5 c (+/-) bread/cake/regular flour (your call)
1 t high quality salt
cinnamon

Icing:
1 lb. confectioner's sugar
1 t. almond OR vanilla extract
7 T. heavy cream (or you can use milk)

1. Mix lukewarm water, yeast, 1/4 cup of sugar in smallish bowl with a fork. Set aside in a warm spot to proof the yeast (on top of your stove if you have a gas stove with pilot light is a good option). I use warm tap water.

2. Heat 1/2 cup butter and 1 1/2 c milk over low heat just until butter melts (and milk scalds). Do not boil. Add the mashed (sweet or regular) potato to this, stir and let cool to lukewarm. IMPORTANT TO LET IT COOL ELSE YOU WILL KILL YOUR YEAST!

3. Transfer butter/milk/potato to a stand up mixer bowl (I suppose you could use a hand held mixer for this, but I've never tried). Slowly mix in yeast mixture (which should be nice and proofed by now). Add eggs one at a time, add nutmeg, lemon or orange zest (or maybe both!), Salt, and flour, one cup at a time. As dough starts to get thicker, switch the mixer attachment to a dough hook if you have one and let the dough hook knead it for awhile, adding flour gradually. Let mix until dough comes away from the bowl, forming a nice, soft ball.

4. Flour a cutting board and pour mixture out onto flour for kneading process. Get going! I generally add another cup (at least) of flour while kneading, sprinkling onto the dough whenever it starts sticking to my hands. Your dough will start fairly moist and will end firm and soft but not sticky anymore. I knead through at least three Morphine or good Brass Band songs and that generally does the trick.

5. Once you're satisfied that your dough has been well kneaded, make a nice ball and place in a large GREASED bowl. Cover with a DAMP cloth and put in a warm spot. Let rise 1 1/2 hours until doubled (or more) in size. Punch down and let rise again, until doubled--@an hour.

6. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease large baking sheet (I actually grease the BOTTOM side of my cookie sheet and cook my king cake on that side cause it is so big it would come up against the sides of my cookie sheet and cook funky otherwise).

7. Melt 1/4 cup of butter and have handy. Have 1/4 cup (or more) sugar handy. Have a whole lotta cinnamon handy.

8. Punch down the dough and divide into three even-sized pieces (if you have a kitchen scale handy, you can weigh these balls out to make sure they're even-sized. It makes for a better braid).

9. Take one ball of dough, roll it out as thin as you can, forming a narrow but long rectangle. The longer, the better. Brush melted butter onto the rectangle, cover with sugar. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. When you're satisfied that you have enough sugary-cinnamony deliciousness down (I like to rub it around to mix it up and make sure I get all the spots), start rolling into a snake. Roll, pinch, stretch, roll, pinch stretch. The goal is to get an unbroken long tube filled with sugary goodness. Set this tube aside and make two more.

10. Braid your three tubes of sugary goodness together. It's a bit tricky but you can do it. Over, under, over, under. Once you've got the center part braided you can pretty up the ends. You're going to form a ring and then weave the loose ends together. You'll have six loose ends that need to work into the ring, so it's okay if, when you start braiding you leave a bit loose at the start. It's also okay if one of your tubes ends up being longer than the others. You'll just tuck/weave those pieces into the ring more. Shape your ring to suit your baking tray and/or your serving tray. Round? Oval? Once I made one in the shape of a fleur de lis. That was cute!

11. You can brush the whole thing with melted butter if you want to, but you can skip that step if you prefer.

12. Bake at 350F for at least 30 minutes. Pay attention that the innermost dough is cooked all the way through. You may need to put foil on the edges to keep them from browning too much. I find that it takes more like 50 minutes for this cake to be done.

13. Cool cake. Grab your baby or whatever you're going to use to mark the baby (plastic alligator? red bean? etc). Reach in under the cake and tuck your baby up in there between some folds of the braid. Be careful not to break the cake while you're tucking thingy into it. Transfer to your serving platter.

14.Make colored sugar: 1/3 cup sugar plus green food coloring. 1/3 cup sugar plus yellow food coloring. 1/3 cup sugar plus blue and red food coloring (read the back of the food coloring box for the purple formula). If you're using turbinado or raw sugar, your colors will be a bit odd but still come out lovely. Use a fork to mix the food coloring into the sugar. It takes awhile to get it fully integrated. If it's not bright enough, just add more until it's the hue you like, of course. (Note that you can, of course, choose other colors. But purple-green-gold is traditional and if you've come this far, really now...)

15. Make the icing. In mixer, combine confectioner's sugar, extract (almond really is fabulous but it's intense so some people don't like it. Vanilla is a better-received icing flavor by my kid), cream, beating until smooth and fairly think.

15. Pour icing generously over cake, tucking into the braid folds with aplomb. Yum.

16. Sprinkle colored sugars over icing. I like to alternate in stripes but Armor likes to sprinkle all of them all over. It really doesn't matter.

17. Eat it up!!! Goes nicely with Champagne.