Nourish and Thrive
Homebrewing is one of my favorite things to do, but I especially love it when I can incorporate foraged ingredients. I came across some nice big spruce tips recently, and when I saw them I immediately knew what I was going to make with them: spruce beer! Homemade spruce beer has been something that I’ve…
Dandelion wine is an old school recipe that has been around for centuries. The yellow petals have a honey-like flavor and they make a delicious wine! I prefer to make dandelion mead, as I feel like it is even more flavorful that way. Mead is simply wine that is made with honey instead of sugar….
{This post is sponsored by Mountain Rose Herbs} I wasn’t allowed to drink much soda pop growing up (thanks Mom!), but I did have the occasional root beer when we went out to eat. It was always my favorite with its distinctive flavor that was so different than the regular boring colas. Little did I…
Fall is the season for apples, and apples and ginger go together spectacularly. Ever since I first made a ginger bug, I knew that I wanted to make ginger beer with it, as that’s its traditional use. But then I got the great idea to make fermented apple ginger beer, and I knew that was…
Elderberry season is always an exciting time. I love watching the local elderberry trees come into flower in the summer, then slowly start producing berries as fall approaches. Fall is by far my favorite season, so this is the beginning of wonderful things to come in my mind! Elderberries are amazing for the immune system,…
Hot summer days mean one thing to me: blackberries are ripening! It’s usually sometime in August that we start foraging for blackberries, and I always make sure to reserve some for making a gallon (or two or three) of blackberry mead. Of course blackberry cobbler and crisp will also be made, and they are delicious,…
Fermenting foods is one of my favorite pastimes, and I’ve been especially fond of naturally fermented sodas recently. This fermented turmeric soda I made recently really got me hooked! They are so easy to make and can be flavored any way you like, plus they are actually good for you. I had heard of sweet…
Asparagus is one of my very favorite spring vegetables. I love when I start seeing them at the farmers market, as that’s a sure sign that warm weather is near! Plus it’s just a tasty vegetable that can make any meal feel fancy. Making fermented asparagus with garlic is one of the best ways to…
Traditional mead is made with honey as the sweetener, but I’ve always wondered about using maple syrup instead. As it turns out, this is actually a thing that people do, and the technical term for “maple mead” is acerglyn (just as a mead made with fruit is called a melomel). For it to be mead,…
You might remember a couple of weeks ago I made a turmeric bug, which is basically a “starter” for making fermented sodas. The turmeric bug started bubbling away very quickly, within only a few days, which was really exciting. That means it’s time to make a naturally fermented turmeric soda! This is similar to how…
One of my favorite things to ferment is to make a ginger bug. It’s always worked well for me, and I love the ginger sodas I can make from it, like my strawberry rhubarb soda. I have heard and read that the same thing can be done with turmeric root, and it is something that…
When I started my fermented honey garlic a few weeks ago, it got me thinking about what else I could ferment in honey. I have seen recipes for berries in honey, and being that we’re coming up on the holiday season, fermenting cranberries in honey seemed like the natural thing to do. I’m so glad…
I’m really excited to share this post with you! Fermented honey garlic is something I’ve been wanting to try for a very long time, ever since I first read about it on the Killer Pickles blog. I usually reserve my honey for mead making, but using it for other ferments intrigued me. Don’t ask me…
Homebrewing your own hard cider is fun, legal, and safe (that is, if you don’t imbibe too much). However, it is often the case that one will come across recipes for other kinds of homemade alcoholic drinks during the researching period. When I was looking into all the different ways to make hard cider, I…
For some reason this year, most of our pepper plants didn’t do very well. We only got one or two bell peppers total, and a few hot peppers here and there. Then we have this one pepperoncini plant which has produced so many peppers that I don’t even know what to do with all of…
We have so many cherry tomatoes in the garden this year, it’s ridiculous. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as they are super sweet and delicious, but it’s becoming hard for us to consume them all! What makes it even more difficult is that cherry tomatoes aren’t usually preserved in the same manner as larger…
We recently had a whole lot of fresh pressed apple cider on our hands after building a simple DIY apple press and pressing a bunch of apples from our tree. While the juice is incredibly tasty as is, we couldn’t drink it fast enough, and some of it even started to ferment in the fridge! …
You may remember several weeks ago that I made a starter from wild yeast. Once it was bubbling along nicely, I wanted to use it in something (of course). Since I got the wild yeast recipe from Pascal Baudar’s book The New Wildcrafted Cuisine, I decided to try one of his foraged brew recipes using…
How have I been blogging this long and not written a post on one of the easiest and most popular vegetable ferments? I absolutely love fermented cucumber pickles, they were probably what originally got me into fermenting to begin with. I’ve been a pickle lover ever since I was a kid, and love all varieties,…
Ahh, early summer is upon us. This means wildflowers are in full force in most of the country. One of my very favorite flowers to work with is elderflowers, which will soon turn into beloved elderberries. Later in the season, I love turning elderberries into elderberry mead and into a medicinal elderberry syrup. The flowers…
Hello there! This is a post I recently wrote for the Herbal Academy, and thought you all would like it, too! This dandelion and fennel kombucha turned out so tasty, I definitely recommend giving it a try. The link at the bottom of this post will take you to the recipe. Also, be sure to…
With all the mead and hard cider brewing that I’ve done, up until now I’ve never tried cultivating my own yeast. With the effort that’s involved and the cost of high quality honey, I never wanted to risk tainting my brew with who knows what kind of random yeast that might be floating by. It…
Well, I’ve finally done what I used to think was impossible. I made homemade cheese! I’ve been making milk kefir cheese for a while now, and I think it’s great, but I’ve always wanted to make a harder, more sliceable cheese. I tried several years ago, but it went all wrong, and I’ve been too…
Ketchup is the classic condiment, but in modern times it has strayed wildly from what it once was. Did you know that it started out as a fermented fish sauce, often made with guts and entrails? Doesn’t sound too appetizing to me. It then somehow transformed into a mushroom sauce, with other variations made with…
Winter is coming. So they say, anyways! It’s technically not officially here for several more days, but it sure feels like it is for a lot of us. It’s cold and rainy (or snowy, depending on where you live), and oftentimes the only greenery left in the garden is perennial herbs. This may be why…
I recently gave you some gift ideas for foragers and wildcrafters, so this week I’m doing a gift guide for fermenters and homebrewers! Fermenting is a huge passion of mine, and I love showing people how easy it is. This is going to be a long one because I have many recommendations, and although it’s…
The holiday season is here and it makes me so happy! I really do love this time of year, and Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (probably because it revolves around food, ha!). I was always the kid who was picky about food, but liked weird things like pickles, olives, and cranberry sauce. But, the cranberry…
Hello my fermenting friends! While most of you have heard of kombucha, I bet only some of you have heard of Jun. Jun is similar to kombucha, but instead of using black tea and sugar it is brewed with green tea and honey. Sounds better, right? I have been brewing kombucha for years, but have…
I have an exciting post for you guys today! Have you ever wanted to make cheese but were too intimidated by the complicated process? I have totally been there, and while I fully intend on conquering it someday (you know I will!), in the meantime this has become my saving grace in the homemade cheese…
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. Acutally, when it’s made with fruit is technically called a melomel, but to keep things simple…
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…
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…
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…
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…
So, you’ve made a ginger bug. Now what the heck do you do with it? The main end goal of making a ginger bug is to make homemade sodas, ginger ale or otherwise. You can really use any flavoring that you want. I recently came into a big bunch of rhubarb, and strawberries are in…
The coolest thing to me about fermenting is that it is one of the oldest methods of food preservation, along with salting and drying. In a world that has increasingly become germ and bacteria phobic, I love the thought of humans discovering the fermentation process many hundreds of years ago, and love the revival it…
What would a blog that includes fermenting be without the requisite kombucha post? I must admit that I became a kombucha junkie many years ago, even before it was a “thing”. People thought I was crazy, but it made me feel good and soon everyone caught on. The price tag, however, made me wonder if…
Well hello there! I’ve been busy this weekend with my ferments, one of which has to do with cattail shoots. After we collected a good bunch of cattail shoots a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t quite decide what to do with them. When eaten raw they tasted similar to fresh cucumber, which made me…
Hello and welcome to early summer! What a beautiful time of year it is. Wildflowers are blooming everywhere and it seems like a good time to start putting them to good use, in fermented form of course! I’ve used wildflowers in my homemade salve, but I wanted to make sure I got a gallon batch…
Hello all of you lovely fermenters! Have you made mead yet? If you haven’t, you should start with my How to Make a Gallon of Mead post. Once you do that you will probably want more… a lot more if you’re like most people! So your next step is my How to Make 5 Gallons…
I’m sure most of you have seen my How to Make a Gallon of Mead post as it’s still one of my top posts on the blog! It really makes me happy to think of all of you that I have inspired to go out and make your own delicious mead. It’s so easy and…
This hot sauce. Is so unbelievably good. It’s hard for me to write any more than that because those words are pretty much all my brain can muster when I think about this fermented hot sauce, also known as “The Best Hot Sauce in the World.” Who needs sriracha when you have this homemade deliciousness?…
This, my friends, will change you. I know this because it has changed me! I am now a different person after tasting this wonderful kimchi that magically happened (yay, fermentation!). I have made sauerkraut many times and have always loved it, but if you can believe it, this was my first attempt at kimchi. It…
Maybe you’ve heard of mead before or maybe you haven’t, but one image that always seems to come to mind when mead is mentioned is Vikings drinking their grog. I don’t know a whole lot about Vikings, but I do know a bit about mead! Mead is a fermented honey and water mixture, some call…
Did you know that all you need to make yogurt is yogurt? And milk, of course. That’s why fermenting is so cool! You’re basically transporting a bit of the beneficial bacteria to a new medium so that it will continue to multiply and turn into something even more awesome. It’s actually almost like pre-digestion in…
This is Part 2 in my How to Make Hard Cider series, how to bottle hard cider. Check out How to Brew Hard Cider if you still need to brew up a batch. We’ve waited patiently for 2-4 weeks while our cider has been bubbling away, and now it’s time to bottle it. Look at…
This post is an important beginning for your health. While I realize that there are some people who genuinely need to avoid gluten completely (celiacs, mainly), for the rest of us it makes sense to ferment the wheat (or other grains) before eating. It’s true that grain in its natural form really isn’t great food…
This is Part 1 in my How to Make Hard Cider Series, check out Part 2: How to Bottle Hard Cider if you’re in bottling mode. This, right here, will change your world. No, not in the “this is the best hard cider I’ve ever had, I should sell this stuff and make a bunch…
Disclaimer: No cabbages were harmed in the making of this post. Just transformed into something tastier! Today I’m going to show you how to make sauerkraut! I don’t know about you, but I hated sauerkraut when I was a kid. The stuff that came off the grocery store shelf smelled funny and was mushy and…