Why did the cucumbers get slimy and there’s time to make Christmas booze
Today is a recap on some projects I mentioned and reminders about on-going ones you can do too. It’s the home version of your favorite games, kind of.
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A few weeks ago I told you I had a jar of cucumbers lacto-fermenting. Well, they did but not too well.
Turns out one risk is something called Khan yeast. If that name sounds familiar to you then you understand my I had a Kirk moment. Of course, it took a bit of digital sleuthing to learn that’s what I had.
As yeasts go, it smells like yeast. It puts a while film on the food and can develop into little yeast islands on the surface of the brine. I had both of those. It’s not poison. Nor is it delicious. Made the cukes taste like bread which was a big jump.
The whole point of lacto fermentation is to keep the good bacteria that are growing. Cooking the brine to stop the yeast would defeat the the whole thing. I don’t know if more salt at that point would have made a difference. I opted for the most soul crushing option which was throw the lot away. It was only one jar. It was also a good portion of my cuke harvest.
The key take away is more salt in the brine next time. For some reason lacto carrots sounds interesting.
In keeping with the idea of flavoring liquids, and that’s a bit of a leap, I’m thinking of infusing a gin with orange zest, cardamom pods, cloves and maybe vanilla. I didn’t do any booze last year. I’ve been making or infusing something adult beverage for the past few years. The first year I made Kahlua the good way as distinguished from the fast way or the sweet way. I put up a blog post at the time with the recipe. There’s enough time to start it and have it ready for Christmas parties or gifts.
My parents used to make Kahlua so that was the reason I had the idea. To test the batch I bought a puny bottle of the most popular brand and tasted them side by side. The commercial Kahlula was as sweet as doughnut glaze. I couldn’t drink it.
I’m working on a project that includes writing recipes for campers or preppers using no fresh or frozen foods. The only source of heat is a camp stove or a fire. It’s quite a challenge. To add to the challenge, it has to be one pan and one, maybe two, prep bowls. Which means everything is canned or jarred, packets are fine, freeze dried or dehydrated. The food has to look good, which is mostly up to the cook, and taste good, accepting the limitations of the ingredients. All spices, dried, are available.
A different project was writing articles about various fats, particularly lard, tallow, schmaltz and duck fat. Those were fun to read up on and fun to write. There’s much more to the fat debate than most of us know and even through all that it still remains that seed oils are not good for you. I’ve seen that palm oil isn’t good since it is also processed, but being processed doesn’t convey information. Butter is processed. Palm oil might take some digging into.
Three episodes ago I talked about magnesium. I’ve been taking magnesium supplements since then and I feel better. I think. There are some differences in alertness and generally feeling better. It seems my mood is better but I’m not certain that is due only to the magnesium. I’m working deliberately at managing my responses to my environment that would normally get my blood up. I want to stop doing that. I’m succeeding and maybe the magnesium is helping. I can’t say for certain and the test is remove the magnesium. I like this new trait so I’m not interested in learning why; I just want to keep it. And, since I know that the cells reallly want it, I think my body is more efficient at digestion as well.
And, since it is getting to be holiday season which means holiday drinks, I’ll add the link to the episode I did with our friend Bartener Phil Krachun about the Hot Toddies. Phil is a wealth of bartending knowledge and should inspire you to build a great bar for this holiday season.