Spicy Pickled (Fermented) Carrots

Denise just recently made some "Pickled Spicy Carrots." These yummy, crunchy, tangy, and hot (from jalapeno peppers) treats are not made with vinegar. They are fermented (similar in process to making sauerkraut or kosher pickles), therefore they have the same probiotics (beneficial bacteria) as sauerkraut and yogurt, and maybe some extras.

We grew the onions and peppers in these jars, but we purchased the carrots. Time involved: the time it takes to cut up the veggies; put them in jars; add water, salt, optional herbs and spices, and if you have it, whey.  Two or three days days on the counter, two weeks in the fridge and these will be ready to enjoy.

The Recipe

 The veggies in this recipe should be organic. The goal is to grow the lacto-bacteria to ferment (pickle) the carrots, etc. These friendly bacteria are ever-present in and on the veggies. Pecticides and chemical fertilizers kill them, as does chlorinated water--so use filtered, unchlorinated water.

• 3 cups of peeled and sliced carrots (slice on the diagonal to increase surface area)
• half of a medium onion peeled, quartered and sliced
• 1 fresh jalapeno pepper (whole, pierced with a fork; halved length-wise; or sliced--if you slice, only include the seeds of you want it really hot. Wear gloves)
• fresh cilantro (to taste)
• garlic cloves (to taste) whole, crushed, or sliced
• 1 tablespoon of sea salt
• 4 tablespoons of whey (see below how to make whey; if not available use an additional tablespoon of salt)
• 1/2 cup of filtered water

Mix the vegetables and pack them into a wide-mouthed quart mason jar. Mix water with salt and whey and pour over the vegetables adding more water if necessary to cover the carrot mixture. The top of the vegetables should be at least one inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to the fridge.

 

Making Whey

Use homemade yogurt or quality commercial yogurt--be sure the label says "live" or "active" cultures, or "cultured in the cup." Line a large strainer with a dish towel and set it over a bowl. Pour in a quart or more of yogurt and let stand at room temperature for several hours. The whey will run out of the yogurt into the bowl. What you have left in the strainer is thicker yogurt (Greek Style). If you tie up the towel (careful, don't squeeze the yogurt!) and suspend it over a container and let it continue to drip, soon you'll have something close to sour cream (we use it just like sour cream), if you let the bag drip until it stops dripping, you'll have cream cheese. In the fridge, the cheese will keep for a month and the whey will keep for six months. We always eat it up long before that.

April in the Garden

• Give flowers and vegetables a foliar feeding of liquid seaweed or compost tea; spray the liquid nutrients on foliage early in the day before it gets too hot.
• Plant black-eyed, purple hull and crowder peas, okra, peanuts, sweet potatoes, squash, melons, cucumbers, and corn—all can withstand the heat that will arrive in less than 2 months.
• Keep planting basil—it loves the warm weather.
• Keep adding kitchen scraps and grass clippings to your compost pile.
• Replenish your mulch!
• If slugs and snails are decimating your plants, collect them in the evening, when you're most likely to spot them.
• Plant pumpkins, summer squash, melons, and other vegetables that thrive in heat.
• Every 2 weeks from now until late summer, plant small blocks of bush beans and sweet corn to extend the harvest until frost.
• Thin fruits on fruit trees to increase their size and keep branches from breaking.
• Sow seeds of nasturtiums, marigolds, portulaca, amaranthus, salvias, vinca (Catharanthus roseus), sunflowers, and zinnias.
• Attract beneficial insects to your garden: provide them with their chosen  foods and habitats. Umbelliferae family members such as anise, carrot, caraway, coriander, dill, fennel and parsley, with many tiny flowers arranged in tight umbels, and those in the Asteraceae (Compositae) family, such as black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, and strawflower, with a central disc flowers surrounded by many ray petals, attract many beneficials. Mustard flowers attract lacewings that control aphids and parasitic wasps that keep down cabbage caterpillars and coddling moths.

Coloring Eggs

It's Spring, and time to hunt some eggs.
As is our annual custom, this Saturday we'll be hunting these brightly colored eggs.

If you haven't already, do not buy those pricey egg dying kits in the supermarkets. You can dye eggs with natural colors from beets, spinach, onion skins, and other veggies. Or as we did last year and this, you can use food coloring (McCormick, for example).

For each dye bath combine 1/2 cup boiling water with 1 tsp vinegar and 10 drops of food coloring in a cup or bowl. You can mix your own colors by using 5 drops red and 5 drops yellow for orange, for example. Leave the hard-cooked eggs in the dye bath for 3-5 minutes, or longer for a deeper color. Use tongs or a slotted spoon to remove eggs and place on wax or parchment paper to dry, blot any excess dye with a paper towel. If you plan to eat your colored eggs, don't leave them unrefrigerated for more than a couple of hours at a time.

Marans eggs dyed up to look like this in the house, but...

McCormick's has a chart on the back of their Assorted and Neon! dye sets showing ratios for making various colors, suggesting around 20 drops of dye in each cup, but we found that around ten drops total in each cup will give a nice pastel color. We have brown eggs, so our colors have a deeper shade for most colors, and some colors didn't turn out so well.

...looked like this in the sunlight outside!

Our Marans eggs are a chocolate color to begin with, but after they were dyed, they looked very dark brown or black in ambient indoor light. But out in the sunlight they showed a deep, almost metallic shade of whatever color. Very nice!

We've already had an egg hunt of sorts. We have two Campbell ducks and two Muskovies sitting on nests (which are fairly well hidden--we know because we had to hunt a bit). Our goose, Buttercup, was on a nest (also pretty well hidden) until a couple of days ago. She decided not to stay on her nest. Now each day she lays an egg in the yard for us to hunt up! So much for the Bunny....

We typically don't eat things that have been dyed. Of course, we're not going to eat these dyed egg shells, but will eat at least some of the eggs inside. As mentioned above, you could also use beets, spinach, onion skins, and other veggies to color your eggs. Time permitting, we'll be trying some of these this week.

Steam, don't boil those hard cooked eggs.

Sometime last year we experimented with steaming our eggs to hard cook them. We like the way they turn out. Just steam the eggs in a vegetable steamer set over boiling water for 10 minutes. Cool them right away under cold water so they don't develop that gray-green ring around the yolk. If you like soft cooked eggs (the yolk is still runny), take the eggs out of the steamer after 5 minutes.

Egg Steamers on Amazon.

Raising Chickens

Our chickens give us more than enough eggs each day for our family. They also provide manure for the compost piles and garden.

Reasons to Raise Chickens

When we started to raise chickens, we had only one main reason: Cacklefruit! We wanted the eggs, and not just any eggs, we could more easily get those at the grocery store. We wanted the healthiest eggs--we wanted complete control over the quality of the eggs we eat. Since we began our small flock, we have discovered other reasons for having our feathered friends.
  Read More >>

Our Compost System

We've used just about every method of composting: sheet composting, the 14-day method, vermicomposting (earthworms), and the make-a-pile-and-leave-it-alone-for-a-year-or-two method, and combinations in between. We still have some piles and bins with compost in them from a year or more ago. We still use and like vermicomposting.

But we've decided that all that pile-building and turning and watering and hauling is too much work. Instead, we ... Read More >>

Winter Fruits and Veggies

"They all wait for You
    To give them their food in due season.
You give to them, they gather it up;
    You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good."  --Psalm 104:27-28

Summer harvest is the time most gardeners look forward to the most, because of the variety of fruits and vegetables that are coming to the table from the garden.

Fewer foods are in season during the winter than in summer, and the farmers markets and produce sections in the supermarkets reflect this. However, winter boasts some surprising healthful foods in season, which usually means saving a little money when we buy them. Here are some of the standouts:

Dark leafy greens, such as kale, chard and collards, thrive in the chill of winter. In fact, kale and collards taste better after a frost. These greens are rich in vitamins A, C and K. Collards, mustard greens and escarole also provide folate.

Citrus fruits--lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit--are at their best in the winter. Citrus fruits are loaded with vitamin C--one medium orange provides your daily recommended dose. Citrus fruits are also rich in flavonoids, predominantly hesperidin, which is claimed to boost HDL cholesterol and lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

Potatoes sometimes get thrown into the same category as white rice or white bread, however, potatoes are a whole food containing several beneficial nutrients. They haven't been stripped of healthful nutrients like white rice, white bread, and other processed starches. They're an excellent source of vitamins C and B6, purported immunity boosters. They also provide folate and fiber. The purple potatoes are rich in anthocyanins, antioxidants linked to lower cancer and heart disease rates.

Finally, there are the winter squashes--butternut, acorn, delicata and spaghetti--all excellent choices in the winter, low in calories but high in vitamins A, C, B6 and K. Oh, and potassium and folate.

March in the Garden

Plant veggies indoors (seed cucumbers and melons) and out.

Plant summer veggies.

Fertilize lawns.

Begin to fertilize citrus and avocado.

Plant cool-season vegetables, such as cabbage, broccoli, spinach, radishes, Asian greens, lettuce, and parsley.

Harden-off tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants by moving them outside, beneath a plastic cover or inside a cold frame. Plant them in the garden after the last possible frost.

Prune away frost-damaged areas on citrus.