Well, it is that time of year again...the time when I need to decide if I want to keep paying for a website I completely ignore or if I am ready to just let it go. I chose to pay for another two years!

I've decided to renew my website and my passion for fermenting. I need it!

This year has brought about a lot of stress and I haven't been using the best coping mechanisms to deal with all of that. Some changes this past year have been our family relocating an hour away from the place we called home for the past nine years. Now we are the proud owners of TWO homes. Yikes! Fortunately, after an accepted offer on our old home fell through, we were able to find a family to rent it over the winter.

Financially it was time for me to ask for full time hours at work. With that came two promotions! I went from working barely 15 hours per week to becoming the Food Service Leader at our store (that means they put me in charge of the kitchen). I love my job but it really stresses me out sometimes. I have nightmares regularly about messing everything up at work.

Anyway, what is the point of all of this?

I recently read Cait Flanders book, The Year of Less, and of all the books I have been reading about leading a simpler life this one really struck a chord with me. I can really relate to her story about compulsive shopping and other unhealthy habits. When I am stressed and feeling depressed I do two things, I drink too much wine and compulsively buy things. So, what does this have to do with this site? I started thinking about my habits and short cuts I have been taking because I think I don't have the time. These are just sad excuses! I have time, I just don't use it wisely. Now that I am working first shift I am usually home shortly after noon. What do I do with this quiet time before the kids come home? I am on FaceBook or Amazon while sitting on the sofa watching yet another rerun on Bravo. It's pathetic...

So, I have decided that my new habit will be to ferment again!

Let's Ferment! Instead of shopping on Amazon.

Let's Ferment! Instead of that glass of wine, stay on top of your fermented beverages and enjoy those instead. Yes, I know wine is a fermented beverage but you get my point.

Let's Ferment! Instead of being lazy and grabbing a jar of Bubbies pickles at the store I need to get back to making my own. Seriously!

Let's Ferment! Get those creative juices flowing again! When I am feeling creative and proud of what I made, I just feel better about myself.

Let's Ferment! I need to get back in touch with the passion I had for fermenting.

So there it is. I am putting this out there to hold myself accountable. Perhaps my days of teaching classes and wanting to pursue selling my products are behind me, but this feels like a very productive path for where my life is now.

I look forward to sharing more with you.

Currently Fermenting: Milk Kefir (because lately I have been eating my weight in kefir dips), Jun, and a basic Sauerkraut

It has been eight months since my last blog post. Wow. Although, looking back at those eight months I am not surprised. What have we been doing? So much!!! Some of those experiences include:
 
We got three lambs that we raised for 4H. My kids showed them at the fair and my daughter got a first place ribbon for one of her lambs. I had a very difficult time as the time neared for two of them to head off to the butcher. I became much too attached to those guys.

I also helped to coordinate our areas first Food Camp. That was an amazing experience, a little stressful at times, but still so much fun.

We celebrated my mother-in-law's 90th birthday.

We took quite a few day trips to explore WI.

I increased my hours at Kwik Trip so I am now working 25-30 hours each week.

Our homeschooling now truly includes all four kids this year.

Plus, my husband and I have continued to renovate our home.

With all of this (and this is just some of the major stuff) it is no wonder that those months have just flown by. Also, I have been participating in quite regular fermenting classes for libraries and other venues, such as The Free Market. Plus, somehow I even found time to keep fermenting.

One of my favorite fall ferments will always be cultured apple chutney. The original recipe that I used to make was from GNOWFGLINS website, her 5-Spice Apple Chutney is amazing!!! While I do stick to the basic ingredients of a apples, starter (usually kombucha vs whey), sugar, and salt, I like to experiment with many different things to accompany the apples. This week we made this and since I only had 1 Tbs of the Chinese 5-Spice left in my cabinet I decided to also include 1 Tbs of cinnamon and 1 Tbs of turmeric. My apples might be a little freakishly yellow but it is one of the best versions I have made.

Do you have a favorite fall ferment? I would love to hear about it!!

This summer I kept seeing lovely photos of blueberries being preserved in honey on the Facebook fermenting pages I follow. Sadly somehow I missed blueberry season...well, the one place that I wanted to go and pick had some crop issues so for the few days that they opened up for pick your own, they did not allow kids so I couldn't go. I did pick up a small container at the farmers market but it was too small to really think about preserving so we just enjoyed them.

The other week, even with the awful weather, I was determined to stop at the small farmer's market down the street. Since we were not able to have a garden at home I have been relying on this market every week for our produce.

I don't want to get too off topic here, but I just have to comment that going to our small market with only one true gardener for most of the summer has been such a lovely experience! Week after week we went straight for their stand to see what we could find. Each week we would chat a little more, my kids became very comfortable with them, I shared some of my ferments...I am going to miss this!

Anyway, back to the blueberries. It truly was awful out this day, I think there were only four vendors that bothered to come out. It was cold, rainy, and windy...my kids wouldn't even get out of the car. I went to our regular vendor and then I decided to swing by a new stand. As I was feeling like winter was coming on too quickly I spotted a few containers of blueberries. I had to get them, I had to hold onto the last few moments of summer.

I also felt I really wanted to make these berries last! I am not going to lie, I totally hid them from my kids. I knew if they saw them they would be gone by the time I got home from work that evening. They sat in the fridge for a few days while I figured out how to make them really last and then I remembered those delicious photos! The process is so simple and the results are amazing!

This method can be used with almost any berry with the exception of strawberries as they do not hold up. I have read that frozen can be used as well but the texture may not be quite as nice. Pour the berries into a jar and pour raw honey over them to cover them by about 1/4-1/2". Cover with a lid and let them sit on the counter for 2-6 days. This is going to vary depending on the temperature of your home. It was quite cool those few days so I let them sit for 5 days. The berries are going to float above the honey so each day I tipped the jar around to cover the berries with honey. When you are ready, move the berry and honey mixture to the fridge where it will keep indefinitely. That's it! We are loving it and we can enjoy these in much smaller quantities so that we can really stretch it out. This is delicious drizzled over yogurt, pancakes, and oatmeal.

Have you ever tried this? I can't wait to try this with more berries next year, but for now I am so happy to have these little bites of summer to get me through another Wisconsin winter.



Does anyone else feel like they are dragging their husbands along on the natural living path? It is funny that I even feel this way because when we met he was the natural one. It was my husband who introduced me to aloe, natural deodorants, going to the chiropractor, and so much more. Yet over the years the roles have reversed. He fully supports most of it but it is the food where we bump heads. This really shouldn't shock me because when we met he NEVER cooked. Him and his son had a routine of Burger King for breakfast, fast food or school food for lunch, and usually an Italian or Chinese restaurant for supper. My stomach hurts just thinking about all of that!

A few years back when I discovered the Weston A. Price Foundation and the cookbook Nourishing Traditions I thought our meals would be easier since after a decade of being a vegetarian I decided to go back to meat. Interestingly our food fights have gotten worse. The more I push, the harder he resists. One example would be bread. As I was building my sourdough bread skills I stopped buying bread, I wanted everyone off of store bought bread. What does he do? Starts bringing home his own bread from Kwik Trip!

The other night I made a fritatta for dinner and he happened to be out of his gas station bread so I toasted up some spelt sourdough for everyone to enjoy. Well, they all did except for my husband. It was then that I realized that maybe I need to move a little slower for him. It is probably asking a bit too much for a 56 year old man to switch from his soft chemical bread to a more dense, very sour loaf. I would be making huge progress if I can make a loaf of bread that he prefers over store bought. So, I made the decision to bend a bit and buy yeast. GASP!!! Well, my bending has been met with him bending. He really likes the bread and this is huge! This microwave meal man is hard to please, I can probably count on one hand the things that I make that he likes. I feel like I have made a huge breakthrough in the fact that now his morning egg sandwich that is made with a pastured egg and raw cheese will now be on a much healthier bread. Yes, you read that correctly...I make him an egg sandwich every morning. We now live right next to the feed mill that he manages and when the kids and I get up I make him an egg sandwich and one of the kids walks it over to him. I would call him spoiled but I'll keep my mouth shut since this has kept him from stopping at McDonald's for breakfast. Now, I just need to work on what he eats for lunch...

I went back to this King Arthur recipe that I used to use as I was just venturing into sourdough bread.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup "fed" sourdough starter
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar(I use turbinado)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat
• 2 1/2 cups spelt

Mix all of the ingredients together and knead until it is smooth. Place dough in a well greased bowl that allows for the dough to double in size and cover with a damp cloth. Allow the dough to rise until it has doubled in size, about 2 hours. Once it has doubled, punch it down and divide into two loaves. Shape loaves and put each loaf into a well greased bread pan. Cover with damp cloth and allow the loaves to double again, about an hour.

Heat oven to 425°F. Once heated rub the top of each loaf with water and cut two slits into each loaf about 1/4 inch deep. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes. I checked mine with a digital thermometer at 25 minutes and the internal temperature was only 68°C, by 30 minutes the internal temp was 94°C. 

You may need to allow them to cool quite a bit before they will pop out of the pan. Once I was able to pull them out I let them cool completely before cutting.

If there is one thing that this past winter has taught me, it is to enjoy the warmth. After six years of WI winters I still find it difficult to deal with and this one was the worst! I swore that after all of our below zero days that I would not complain about the heat. I have pretty much stuck to that except for maybe one complaint that my stuff was fermenting too quickly in our non air conditioned kitchen.

It saddens me that July is half way over but so far this has been a fabulous, lazy summer. We have been busy working on our new home but have managed to fit in a few trips, foraging for food, a new hobby of geocaching, lots of trips to the farmer's market, and many days at the park.

When we first moved to WI almost 6 years ago, I reached out to a local group to meet other moms. I heard that many of them were under the impression that my family NEVER eats fast food. I had to come clean as this just was not the case.

Yes, I am against GMO foods.

Yes, I am a Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader.

Yes, I strive for as much organic, local food as our budget allows.

Yes, I try to make as much as possible from scratch. 

Yes, I make our body products, cleaning products, herbal medicines, use essential oils, a chiropractor, homeopathy...for crying out loud the Facebook quiz I took said I was "The Queen of Crunchy!"

What I'm not is the mom that drives her kids through the drive-thru just to toss the happy meal in the trash. 

What I am is a mom that knows I can't control everything. 

My kids have been away from me, visiting grandparents on the east coast and eating fast food. They have come to me and told me how eating that much made them feel awful. We talk about that and they remember this.


We have been on toll roads with a car full of screaming kids with only the rest stops to feed them. We have traveled on planes and all we had to feed our starving crew was fast food at the airport.


My kids will grow up and have to make their own choices about the food they put in their bodies. Where I am coming from is a place where I have seen how being very strict had a tragic outcome. I worry that by making certain foods completely off limits might lead my kids to go crazy when they get out there on their own. Yes, we talk about how this is not good for us. They understand how the grass fed beef, pastured chickens and eggs, raw milk, and all of our fermented foods nourish us. Yes, I have been that parent whose child is eating cake at a friend's birthday party and looks up and asks, "Is this organic?" My kids help me ferment, soak nuts, make sourdough bread, and pull the bones out of the broth. If on the rare occasion my husband feels overwhelmed while I am at work and wants to take the kids out for dinner, so be it. If we are traveling and there is nothing else to eat, so be it. I am hoping that by raising kids who love to be in the kitchen and know how to feed themselves, they will understand that junk food is something saved for the rare occasion or last resort.

So, there you have it. I am not perfect. I do my best and that is all that I can do.

I have not been very active on here but I have a very good reason. We recently purchased a home that we have been working on practically day and night. It has great bones but needed and still needs quite a lot of work. We had to be out of our rental on June 1st so most of May was spent driving the 3 miles between both homes moving, moving, and moving. This is our second move in 18 months, I hope we stay put for quite some time.

As we finish up our first floor I am getting antsy about getting back to hosting classes! I have been working on so much that I look forward to sharing, some of these include my recent dive into traditional Japanese ferments such as shio koji, nukasuke, natto, and miso.

I have also been tossing around the idea of having a page for local businesses that focus on sustainability to advertise and I would like to feature articles written by local business owner. Local to the Fox Cities of Wisconsin that is...If you would like to write for the blog or know someone that might,  please send me a message.