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Day 95: Fermented Veggies

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Day 95: Fermented Veggies

I fermented a bunch of vegetables that I had excess of and wasn’t going to use anytime soon. I made some sauerkraut variations, beets, carrots and cauliflower.

By fermenting the foods, I kept them from the landfill. I also could’ve added the food to my compost or brought it to the community compost.

According to the NYC Compost Project, “The average New York City household discards two pounds of organic waste each day—adding up to more than one million tons of organic material a year. When we discard this “waste,” we lose a potential resource that can help beautify our parks, gardens, and blocks…even our windowboxes and houseplants.”

What was your simple green act for the day?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 9:18 am and is filed under How to Go Green at Home, How to Go Green in Your Kitchen, How to Green Your Meals, How to Reduce Food Waste. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Ben

Great idea! I looked at your recipe for kraut... can you do this without a juicer?
Mike Lieberman

Thanks Ben. You could, but it's def more difficult. You could pulse the cabbage down in a food processor, then massage it down until it gets moist. Might need to add some salt to help along. The key to the sauerkraut is that the cabbage ferments in its own juices.
tammyn

Love this. I try to do a lot of fermented beverages like rejuvelac from wheat berries or sprouted quinoa. You can also easily do a cabbage juice by adding 3 cups of cabbage to 3 cups of water, blend, cover and let it ferment for 3 days. Then, every morning strain and drink a glass and add another 1 cup of cabbage and water to the leftover fermented mixture. Do this every morning for a week and it will totally clear up and stomach and/or digestion issues.
Mike Lieberman

Wow. Tammy that sounds pretty hardcore. How is it going down?
Becky

Do you have recipes? I'd love to give this a try! Sometimes, our CSA is a littttle more bountiful than our two person household can handle!
Mike Lieberman

Here's a recipe for basic sauerkraut http://www.simplyrawrecipes.co.../ You can vary it up by layering in some veggies. I put jalapenos in one and apples, onions and raisins in another.

This is the first time that I fermented, so still experimenting. Here's what I did though - Put the veggies in a mason jar, filled with water and some sea salt. Cover it w cheesecloth, tie it up and put in a dark spot.

Everyday or so scrape the top nasty layer off b/c there will be a slight odor to it. Should be good to go after about a week or so. If you're doing beets be careful b/c they'll spill over so put the mason jar in a tray or container of some sort to catch it.
EarthMother - In The Raw

You're too freakin' cute!

So, how'd the kraut turn out? Yumolicious?

Have ya tried the Kimchi recipe yet?
Mike Lieberman

Aww thanks. The kraut turned out great. I've made it before. I made an apple, onion raisin one and a jalapeno pepper one. It's the first time that I fermented the others and I've yet to brave tasting them yet...

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