The new year brought with it new goals and new inspiration for me — particularly in the kitchen. During the past year, I devoted my spare energies to learning more about nutrition, food, and agriculture in our country. Without getting on my soapbox too much, the result is I have been inspired to take my family’s nutrition more seriously and expand my horizons in providing nutritionally dense, whole foods that not only feed our bodies, but even help to heal them.
We recently got hooked up with raw (REAL) milk here in NC through a contact our neighbor has. It is fresh from the cow, straight into our jars. No homogenization, no pasteurization, nothing taken out of it, and no additives. It contains all the beneficial vitamins and enzymes without any preservatives or hormones, and oh so fresh! The super fun part about the raw milk is the amount of homemade nutritious foods I can make out of it. So far, I have gotten to try my hand at making raw butter, real buttermilk pancakes (made with the buttermilk from making the butter!), raw yogurt, and I even used the whey from the raw yogurt to add probiotics to homemade sauerkraut. And my neighbor made some delicious raw cream cheese that I am really excited to attempt once the milk sours.
First step in raw yogurt making — slowly heat it to just under 100 degrees (about the same temp it was when it came out of the cow). Then, add about a cup of a “starter” probiotic. I used store bought, plain, organic yogurt.
Then, I unplugged the crockpot, wrapped it up in a large towel, and placed it in the oven (completely off) overnight so that it would cool and begin to ferment very slowly.
Learning how to ferment foods has been really exciting! It is kind of like a science experiment. There are specific environments where good bacteria (probiotics) grow and multiply. And it takes TIME. The yogurt took about 12 hours to get to a good consistency. And it is very delicious too!
That is a gallon of yogurt my friends… for just $5! This might sound slightly crazy, but I think I caught the fermenting bug. Fermented foods are so good for establishing and maintaining a healthy “gut flora” (Don’t believe me? Look it up!)
So then I moved on to sauerkraut, which was also really fun because it required a lot of hands-on work.
After shredding the cabbage, I added sea salt and squished it all up with my hands until it was limp and had a good bit of “juice” going at the bottom. Then, I added a quarter cup of whey from my raw yogurt and smashed it all into that glass vase (for lack of another jar) until there were no air bubbles left in it and the juice covered the top.
Right now, my sauerkraut experiment is making a nice centerpiece on my table while it ferments for the recommended 3-4 weeks. I can hardly wait to try it with some polish sausage!
So basically, I am beginning to make my way from being a hippie (as my brothers like to tease me) to Amish. Though I am fairly sure I would not be able to give up my iPhone or Mac… so I think we are all safe from me donning homemade petticoats and aprons. At least for now.
