Operation: Lacto-fermented Cukes

What to do with a 1.5-foot-long cucumber from a greenhouse vendor at the Greenmarket? You can always enjoy it fresh of course...or slave away making a pointlessly small quantity of pickles...or create a Kramer-style pizza...

OR you can transform it into lacto-fermented sliced cucumbers! I had never had anything like this in my life until I opened my first jar tonight...

It all started Friday evening when I was feeling pretty ambitious in the kitchen. I realized I had all the ingredients necessary to try my hand at lacto-fermenting for the first time, but since I didn't have a meat hammer I would have to go with cukes since they don't require any pounding or pressing to release the juices. I washed and sliced the cucumber, then placed it in a one-quart jar with:

• 1 tbsp. mustard seeds,
  
• 2 tbsp. dried dill (since I didn't have fresh),
  
• 1 tbsp. Celtic sea salt,
  
• 4 tbsp. whey,
  
• and 1 cup filtered water.

I made sure the cucumber slices were covered with liquid, and that the top of the liquid was at least 1" below the top of the jar. Then I closed the jar tightly and let it sit on the counter until this evening when I put it in the fridge (whole cukes will need 3 days on the counter at normal room temperature before transferring to cold storage, but the sliced ones only need 2 days). Lacto-fermented products are supposedly better the more they age (to a certain extent), but I'm not that patient so tonight I decided to try my LF cucumbers. They were very soft, not crisp like pickles, but with this amazing salty-fizzy-dill flavor. They are actually really delicious and leave a refreshingly-effervescent feeling in the mouth, with a pleasant after-taste. They're hard to describe -- you really should try this for yourself. We eat lacto-fermented sauerkraut in our house, and kim chee, but the cucumbers are totally different.

This was so incredibly easy -- seriously anyone can do it. If you hate lifting a hand in the kitchen this is for you since there is nothing more rewarding that spending about 5-10 minutes preparing something and then sitting back and letting lactobacilli do the work for you and produce a completely different product than you started with! Lactobacilli are found on and in every raw veggie and fruit (if I understand correctly), and this process of fermenting creates an environment in which these bacteria can reproduce and preserve the veggie/fruit in question. Whey is needed for preserving fruits in this way, while whey and/or sea salt is needed for preserving veggies. These bacteria are extremely helpful to humans, providing help with digestion (read: less burping, less gas, improved "transit" time, and easy digestion that you don't have to notice or think about), creating a stronger immune system (since our gut is the most important part of our immunity), and actually increasing the nutritional value of the food and your body's ability to absorb the nutrients. Plus they taste great!

If you're still hesitating, consider this:

• in classic French cuisine, lacto-fermented cucumbers were always served with sausages and other preserved meats -- not only a delicious practice, but a wise one as well since "this vegetable is able to dissolve precipitates of uric acid and thus prevents the formation of stones, often caused by meats and sausages, foods rich in uric acid." -Claude Aubert, Les Aliments Fermentes Traditionnels
• a 1999 Lancet study found that Swedish children who ate lacto-fermented veggies had lower rates of asthma, autoimmune disorders, and skin problems; drinking raw milk and avoiding vaccinations provided additional protection
  

Of course, obtaining natural old-fashioned whey might be a problem (unless you belong to the TNG like we do), so I will post about how to make your own whey from a container of yogurt. Soon, I promise.

Oliver update

Feeding the Popper solids got off to a very slow start, but he is at last showing marked interest in our food. (On a side note, I have noticed a big increase in my own milk production over the past couple of months since he has been getting 90% of his nourishment from me and is growing so big, and since I have been eating so well!). We tried the pureeing thing, and freezing mashed food in little ice cube trays and then thawing them out, etc. The food really doesn't taste good like this, a little sawdusty no matter how good it tasted fresh, and I can't blame Ollie for not being too into it.

The newest thing, though, (which seems to work really well) is to chew a bite of food for Oliver and then put it in a special little bowl for him and feed it to him with a baby spoon while I eat my own meal. This is not the most elegant dinner-table practice, but it does allow for easy preparation of an appropriately-small quantity of food and also provides a digestive boost in the form of enzymes from the parental saliva. Oliver shows a marked preference for animal protein at this point, and has recently enjoyed pork breakfast sausage links, smoked venison sausage, breaded water buffalo cutlets, and artisanal raw milk cheeses (all from our local Greenmarkets or Abner Lapp's farm). He also likes soft egg yolks which I share with him when I make poached or fried eggs, and various fermented & cultured foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, olives, and kim chee. He enjoys cooked apple with cream on occasion, and sometimes mashed potato with butter or gravy or some other orange veggie with butter (carrots, yams, etc.). He will also eagerly eat sour cream from a spoon all by itself! Hugo and I attended Nina Planck's talk this week on 'Real Food for Mother & Baby' where we learned about an interesting experiment done several decades ago where older babies were allowed to feed themselves anything they wanted, as much as they wanted. The babies seemed to know intuitively what they needed: one drank cod liver oil until he was cured of rickets; another ate large quantities of sea salt and then stopped when he no longer needed it. It was quite interesting to learn this. Of course babies also have natural appetites for unhealthy sweet foods which we can't really indulge in this way since they don't realize these foods are bad for them (they were not available in the experiment), but since Oliver shows a preference for certain healthy foods I am allowing him to eat them. He enjoyed asparagus-ramp-spinach quiche this week, and some asparagus-white bean soup; he always likes having a little raw milk ice cream occasionally, and of course he still has the daily high-vitamin cod liver oil in raw milk.

At our 9-month-old checkup on Friday we found out that Mr. Popper now weighs 19 lbs. 6 oz. and is 28.2" long! He has also never been sick (one episode of teething fevers aside) and is a strong, happy, and hearty little boy. We are very proud. :) And also very glad that our efforts to keep him healthy and well are paying off so far...

Philly Cheesesteak gets an Update

I'm posting about this kind of late...but the memory of this delicious sandwich is still fresh in my mind and I wanted to share the recipe with all of you!

All you need to serve two people is:
-about 2/3 lb. steak (we used two thin sandwich-style rib-eye steaks, each weighing 1/3 of a pound from Grazin' Angus Acres - you could use any type of steak sliced thin, though, including a less expensive cut like London Broil -- try for grass-fed, though, if you can get it!)
-cheese, if desired (we used Valley Thunder cheddar-style sheep's milk artisanal cheese from Valley Shepherd Creamery)
-one green pepper, sliced
-1 onion, sliced
-sourdough bread or sandwich roll of some kind (we used whole wheat sourdough, also from Union Square Greenmarket)
-Worcestershire sauce
-butter & olive oil
-salt & pepper

Saute the veggies in olive oil and a little seasoning til tender; remove from heat and saute the meat with a little extra olive oil, some Worcestershire sauce, sea salt & pepper. If using very thin steaks they will cook in just a few minutes. When meat is cooked as desired remove from heat and slice into thin pieces (remember to save any fat/gristle/bone, etc. to make broth with later).

Reheat veggies quickly in frying pan. Toast bread or rolls and butter them; top with meat, veggies, and slices of cheese. You can also use pan drippings as a little extra sauce (or be sure to save for broth or gravy later). Serve with pickles or kim chee and your favorite organic potato chips (in honor of Hugo). Enjoy!

Brooklyn Food Conference!

Here's the face of Earth/Body Kitchen! what a lovely table at the brooklyn food expo.
but will they come?






of course they will! there are hordes of people here and they all stop by to see 'what's this talk of a local meal planning service?'
is there anyone prouder of his wife than this husband?
I doubt it :>

-- Post From the blessed iphone

In praise of spring butter

Hugo picked up our raw dairy from Abner Lapp tonight. The milk is SO rich and creamy this time - even more so than usual. And the butter is so yellow! [This picture doesn't do it justice -- it is really a vivid yellow-orange color.] It must be that renowned spring grass everyone is always talking about, which makes the butter extra-rich in vitamin A. Traditional Swiss villagers in the valley of Loetschental considered spring butter to be a sacred food, with special traditions and ceremonies built around it. They made sure to give this special butter to the women of childbearing age, and to the babies and children because they recognized that this was a fantastic source of healthy nutrients for fertility and for developing bodies.

Spring butter is extra-rich in A & D, but also high in CLA (conjugated linoleic acid, in case you're wondering), which protects against cancer, helps build lean muscle rather than fat, and encourages plentiful milk production (great for us breastfeeding Mamas!). And of course this butter (like all raw butter) contains the special Wulzen Factor, known for reducing joint stiffness. Spring butter does amazing things, and it does them so deliciously, I might add. Sacrificing taste for "health" is so passe. If you've been following this blog at all, by now you know that many of the foods that taste the best to us and are the most satisfying are actually also the most nutritious.