Kitchen Experiments and Dogs

Destashing my pantry led me to some more kitchen experiments. Experiment #1 is my kimchi. I didn't travel to the Korean grocery store in Oakland to get my Korean ground chilis. Instead, I decided to use some chile de arbol in the pantry, some dried shrimps, fish sauce, ginger, green onions (stem part only) and garlic. And of course, napa cabbage. (Organic napa cabbage will cost you your first child - I just reviewed the receipt I shoved into my purse. Scary, but at least everything else was hanging around my house.)

So far, the kimchi smells authentic, meaning that it's kind of stinky. The characteristic tang from the lactobacillus microbes hasn't set in, but according to the recipe, it I should taste the tang in a week or so.

I adapted the kimchi recipe from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. The book's a little hippy crunchy (Katz's friends tend to have one word names like "Nettle"), but what I like about it is that he isn't fussy and he cheers you on in your fermentation exploits. I had read and watched numerous videos on making kimchi, and it wasn't until I read his description that I just went for it.

Katz also had a cool trick: He uses a smaller pint jar full of water as a weight stone for the bigger quart sized jar. I didn't want to funkify my crock and I didn't want 7.5 liters of kimchi, so this was perfect! The quart jar easily fits one pound of wilted cabbage.


Another experiment was miso ice cream. I was sure I'd love it, but I had to make it to prove to other people that it would be as good as I imagined. Googling miso ice cream recipes came up with things like "10 most disgusting ice cream flavors," so that was no help. If you'd like to make miso ice cream yourself, I suggest you buy shiromiso, the mildest of the misos. For 3 cups of liquid, I only added 2 tablespoons of miso. I could've probably gotten away with 1 tablespoon, but I wanted an ice cream that was decidedly on the salty side. I also made the custard style of ice cream and I added the miso after I tempered the egg yolks and added them back to the mix.


I'm fading, so before I retire, here's a couple of dog pictures from a recent trip.

Another Condiment Demistified

It doesn't look like much now, but wait until a week from now! You'll all be jealous of my red wine mustard. The boy and I were talking about what things we like to have in the fridge and pantry and how we can make them without so many additives, high-fructose corn syrup being the main additive we want to cut out. Our list includes ketchup, mustard, jam, and pickles. We also love having sauerkraut on hand - it makes the perfect fast food when paired with bread and bockwurst. Learning how to can was worth it just so we can have sauerkraut handy when our crock is empty.

Amazingly, mustard is easy! You just let your mustard seeds soak in the acid of your choice, then you grind it all up. You can add spices, or not. Because the mustard gods were smiling down on me, I happened to have all the ingredients in the pantry. Yeah!

I've been warned my several websites that it will taste positively nasty the first time it is all ground up and that resting period of at least a week is needed to mellow out the flavors. We'll see if I can resist.

Today, we took a bike ride down to the local farmers' market to pick up some more ketchup ingredients. Biking in our neighborhood isn't trivial, however, since it means committing to a hill climb or two. To fortify myself for the climb back up to our house, I stopped by Stash and loaded up on sock yarn. It's light yarn, so it wasn't a bother at all. ;)

The yarn in the back is Trekking Pro Natural (it has bamboo!) and the one in the front is Schaefer Anne. Both are going to be magically transformed by elves, or me, into Christmas gifts.

Ack! I better start knitting!