Simple Living With Nature
Cooking and preserving traditional food from scratch is one of my passions, and it’s even better if it includes homegrown, foraged, or fermented ingredients. I prefer to use whole foods and many of my recipes use herbs, flowers, and other fresh from the garden ingredients. Sourdough is another passion, and I also have a thing for cooking in cast iron pans!
Hello there! I have a lot going on for you guys today – a recipe, a review and a giveaway (giveaway is over). The recipe that I have for you is fermented green tomatoes from Oh Lardy’s Guide to Fermenting Fruits and Vegetable eBook, which is an awesome resource for all types of vegetable ferments….
Several weeks ago I came into the mother lode of elderberries, and my mind turned to one thing. Mead, of course! For those of you who don’t know, mead is type of wine made with honey instead of sugar. Actually, when it’s made with fruit is technically called a melomel, but to keep things simple…
Pear season is in full swing and I’m loving it! Southern Oregon is pear country and right now is the time to buy, harvest, or glean them. If you’re lucky you’ll end up with more than you can deal with! I remember one year the pear tree we had in our backyard of the house…
I love all kinds of pickles, always have. I was one of those kids who would eat dill pickles and briny olives straight out of the jar. Dilly beans, however, are somewhat new to me. My Mom has been growing green beans for the past few years in her garden and making dilly beans out…
We’re at the end of summer, when the bounty of the season is in full swing. Time to start preserving the harvest in any and every way. Canning and freezing are the most common ways to do this, but don’t forget about dehydrating! This is a simple and effective way to preserve food for storage,…
I’m really excited to share this post with you because of how wonderful, and surprisingly easy this is to make! You may or may not have heard of water kefir, but let me tell you, it has changed my world. It is similar to kombucha, but easier to make, in my opinion, as well as…
Hey my friends! Here’s the next post in my “What to do with your CSA Box Veggies” series, if you’d like to see the first two posts in the series check out How to Cook Beets and Their Greens and What to do With Cabbage. This one is all about corn, how to make grilled…
You’ve seen me brew several things here, mainly mead and cider, but as of yet I haven’t forayed into beer on this blog. To be honest, it’s because brewing beer is a more difficult process than making simple country wines, ciders and meads. But, there is a way to brew beer that is a bit…
I don’t know about you, but cooking big hunks of meat used to really freak me out. I was a vegetarian for a lot of years, so once I started eating meat again all of the cooking was pretty much done by Joel. Although I was a pretty well accomplished vegetarian and vegan cook, I…
My friends, once you start fermenting things, you will never want to stop! Whenever you come into a bumper crop of something you will think, “Hmm, can I ferment it?” And the answer is usually yes. I work at a super awesome natural food store that sells only the best local and organic produce, so…
