Tea Brick - what is it and how to use it

It looks like a back tile or tablet, beautifully carved with exotic designs.  But really it's just tea.

Alright, true, there is no such thing as 'just tea.'  Tea is a vital part of many people's lives be it the English Cuppa or a plant deeply steeped in Asian history.  This tea brick is no exception.

Created for easy transportation of an essential resource, and a trade currency, these tea bricks have a very important history.  One store I know calls this the 'tea of the nomads'.  These bricks are as beautiful as they are romantic.


I've been in love with the idea of these since I first saw them many years ago.  But whenever I came across one for sale I was too cowardly to take the plunge.  Lately I've had more food related courage, so when I this opportunity arrised, and there was this beautiful block of tea for sale a very reasonable price, I snatched it up.

For the first experiment with the tea block I got out one of my more exhotic tea pots (I'm a bit of a teapot hoarder, I should really do something about that, maybe later).  This one is shaped like a flower which I've never seen in real life, but I imagine it is the lotus so often described in poetry.  A special tea deserves a special tea pot.

I took a sharp knife and shaved some tea dust off one end of the tea block, put it in the tea pot and poured just off the boil water over the tea dust.  Just off the boil is basically bringing the water to a full boil, then taking it off the heat and leaving it several seconds until the water stops bubbling, before pouring it into the teapot.  I didn't want to risk scorching the tea incase it was green tea which loses some of it's deliciousness when the water is too hot.

The tea in this block is very much like what we call black tea in the west.  Only it has a lighter taste and texture to it.  Like a more delicate version of a cuppa.

The tea dust expanded in the water and sunk to the bottom, making it easy to keep most of the tea leaves in the pot, with just a bit leftover at the bottom of the cup for telling your fortune if so desired.  I saw an indistinct blob, not sure what that means for my future, perhaps new glasses?


So that's one way to use the tea block.  Here's a list of things I've thought up, some I've tried, some have yet to be experimented with.

• Make some tea, mmmm, tea.
• Use it as decoration or photography prop.
• Make roasted tea - save off some dust with a sharp knife, toast it lightly in a dry fry pan, then make tea - haven't tried this yet, but hope to this morning.
• Make butter tea or other yummy food with it.
• Keep it in your emergency kit for when the zombies come.  This tea is a preppers dream.  So long as it stays dry enough, it will keep forever.  It's lightweight for the amount of tea, and great for replenishing people's electrolytes.  

I debated whether or not to write the last point, for fear that the demand for tea bricks would skyrocket.  Then I remembered only 4 people read this blog, so I think we're safe for now.

•  Another way to make this tea is to shave it off, roast it, then grind it into an extremely fine powder to make a drink like match, only darker.  You take the powder and a little bamboo whisk.  You whisk the tea into the hot water until it's almost emulsified.  Difficult skill to master, to be sure.  But a delicious one nonetheless.  

Wild Cranberry Mead Recipe

This blood red mead is perfect for the holidays... be it a spooky Halloween trick or treat, or a festive December red, this is by far one of my most favourite wild brews.  

I used wild yeast already in the honey and fresh fruit to get the fermentation going.  Unpasteurized (aka, the stuff the bees make before commercially processed) honey is just teaming with wild yeast, but it doesn't ferment because the moisture content in honey is too low, but once you add water... things get a little more lively.  There is also wild yeast living on the skins of the cranberries, that way if the honey yeast doesn't get going for some reason, the cranberry yeast can take over.  

Wild yeast is unpredictable compared to laboratory prepared strains that you can buy at your local brew shop.  But that's one of the things I like about it.  I celebrate the fact that every batch is different.  So long as the cranberry juice only contains cranberry juice and the honey isn't pasteurized, it's almost impossible to avoid fermentation.  Just be certain to stir it often otherwise it might get mouldy, especially at the start.

Wild Cranberry Mead

2 cups raw honey

1 cup pure cranberry juice (pasteurized is fine, but additives may inhibit fermentation.)

1/2 lb fresh or 1/4 lb dry cranberries

8 cups water (boiled and cooled to room temp)

• Get a wide mouth bucket or crock (that will hold liquid), at least 2 gallons volume.  Clean it well.  Also get a large wooden (or plastic) spoon and clean that too.  Wash your measuring containers.  And...wash your hands, and... anything else you can think of.
• Combine the honey with 2 cups lukewarm water, mix until honey is dissolved.  Add the honey water with all the other ingredients into the bucket, stir vigorously.
• Cover the crock or bucket with a cotton or linen towel to keep the bugs away, but let the air in.
• Stir vigorously at least twice a day.  More often is fine.  
• It should start to change after about 4 days.  The smell will be a bit yeasty or tangy, it might start getting a slight fizzing sound when you stir it.  Eventually, there should be some froth on the top, a little or a lot depending on the kind of yeast you captured.  In about a week to 10 days, the fermentation will start to slow down.  
• Strain out the berries (save the berries to eat on yoghurt later) and give the mead a taste. 
• Now it's time to choose
• You can bottle it now if you have some high pressure bottles (like beer bottles, or beer bottles with the flip top) for a less alcoholic, sweeter and fizzy drink.  It's a cross between a mead and a homemade alcoholic soda.  Very nice, but the alcohol does sneak up on you so make certain you have a designated driver appointed before you start on the mead.
• Pour the liquid into the bottles.  Make certain they are bottles that can handle the pressure otherwise...a big boom and a bigger mess.
• Place the cap on the bottles and leave in a room temperature (or slightly cooler) place for a few days.  Check after day 2 to see if they are getting fizzy yet.  It may take as long as a week, or you may get a huge soda fountain by day three.  When they are fizzy enough, move the bottles to the fridge until you are ready to drink.  Personally I like them best at room temp, but putting them in the fridge slows the fermentation.
• If you would like a dry mead then rack the mead.  Pour the liquid into a half gallon jug with a small opening and an air lock.  Leave it for a few weeks or a few months before bottling.  The longer you leave it the (in my opinion) better it will taste.  Once it's finished fermenting (no more gas is escaping) then you can rack it again into a different jug to restart the fermentation, or bottle it.  If you feel the need to taste some at any step, just replace the same volume with honey water of a ratio of 1 part honey to 4 parts water.

If I remember right, this made a bit more than half a gallon, but some of it evaporated during the first stage of fermentation and the rest got drunk at some point.

In time, I hope to scale up the recipe for a 5 gallon batch, but since there is so little time left 'till the end of October, I thought I would share the smaller recipe now.  Brew it this week, and it will be ready for drinking by Halloween (or Guy Fawkes) night.  Or better yet, brew it now and rack it for bottling in late december just in time for Holiday giving.

Affordable cooking: $2 for the cranberry juice, another $1 for the cranberries, and about $2 for the honey. That's $5 for the equivalent of 3+ wine bottles worth of mead.  If I were to buy that much mead here (when I can find it) it would cost at least $75 plus tax... so yes, I think it's affordable.

Vegan Friendly?  No way!  Honey is from bees, bees have faces...Get a good old fashioned glass of wine for your vegan friend and save the mead for another time.

Possible allergies: Some people have sensitivity to yeast and honey. But not many other allergies here, non of the regular chemicals used in commercial alcohol.  

Troubleshooting Kombucha brewing and some unusual ideas for all those extra SCOBYs about to enter my life

I am completely in love with Kombucha, possibly to the point of mild obsession.  It's just so darn tasty!

I've made a few batches from the Kombucha mother I got from Wells of Health (who have been totally awesome about replacing the viili culture.  I'll definitely be buying more from them in the future), and the first thing I learned is that it doesn't always go right.  But that's okay, because every time you finish brewing one batch of Kombucha, you have what you need to make two more.  I can most definitely see the advantage of having more than one batch on the go at any time, even if it's just a small back up tucked away in some obscure spot of the house, that you change up every couple of months.

Here's an example of why a back up tea is a good idea:

These two 6 cup kombucha brews were started at the same time.

This first one used the original SCOBY, which is a bit over a quarter inch thick.  Only 11 days old, and it is growing a nice layer on top of the tea.  It smells great, but a bit sweet still, so I'll wait a while before harvesting it.

Started the same day, but using a smaller kombucha mother (another term for kombucha SCOBY), it doesn't seem to be doing anything.  The smell is still like sweet tea.  About three days ago, I added a tiny bit of SCOBY (that spontaneously formed in a bottle of Kombucha I was drinking at the time) and some more starter tea... only now it seems to be growing something, but what it is growing...I'm not too sure.

I declare this second batch a kitchen failure, thank goodness the first batch is so healthy.

Both of these made a total of 6 cups, I used 3 tsp of loose black tea, brewed till cold, just under 1/2 cup sugar, and 3/4 cup of starter.

Both made the same, yet they are so different!  So I did some reading.  This is my favourite site for troubleshooting kombucha, I suspect what happened is that I didn't let the second batch cool enough before adding the kombucha mother and starter tea.  Or maybe, the mother I used wasn't thick enough, or maybe, the brew I added as a starter wasn't acidic enough.  Could have been any number of things, but thankfully I have a back up on the go.



I'm having a great time brewing (and drinking) Kombucha, and it won't be long before I have more SCOBY than I know what to do with.  That's why I wanted to share with you this video:

It's about using kombucha mothers to create clothing and sculpture and other exciting possibilities.  When dried, it has a texture a bit like leather.  Only problem is, it's not rain proof...in fact it starts to decompose with body moisture.  But I like the idea of using this, and I have an idea brewing in the back of my mind that I want to try.


Like I said before, brewing your own kombucha is an affordable way to get some probiotics and other healthy things in your gut.  It's also vegan friendly.  Clothing made from it would also be vegan friendly, but I wonder if you would start smelling like tea or vinegar if you wore it too long... or if instead, kombucha clothing has beneficial side effects for your skin.

Happy Mead Maker

Where I make mead; pear and rosemary mead; and quince and spice mead.



Mead is a magical elixir made from honey.  Among other things, it's know as the drink of the gods.  It's said to have the power to grant you insight into the unseen realm - which is surely true if you consume enough of any alcoholic drink.

Then again, the bees are said to travel between this world and the next, as messengers to the gods and the dead.  That's one of the reasons why the mythology of bees says we must tell the hive the household news each day.  Imbibing a drink made from the nectar of such supernatural messengers must grant some special powers, if only temporary.

I have read about mead from time to time, in poetry and literature, but always believed it was far too complex for me to try making.  Until recently, none of the local shops carried it, or if they did, it was beyond my price range.  But recently, I've grown more enamoured with the idea of mead.  I have found numerous mentions of mead through my research into medieval and iron age cooking.  Giving my new found courage (and decent level of success) with fermenting and increasing desire to keep bees, I have decided it is time to try mead.

I first tried some mead at a medieval event, it was berry mead and to my taste, it was very sweet.  But good, and surprisingly strong alcohol content.  But still a bit yeasty (I get flushed from yeast) so I imagine it would have been even better with another racking and 6 months more ageing.  Then I discovered some mead in a liquor store.  Two brands from Vancouver Island, actually - although it was all fruit and berry mead, with only one bottle of spiced mead, which was as close as I could get to unflavoured.  So I brought a bottle of spiced mead home and have an oz of it every now and again.  It helps settle my stomach if it's still upset at bedtime - an added benefit.

Deciding that yes, I like mead, it is now time to make some of my own.


Following the instructions from Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, I combined 1 part raw honey with 4 parts room temperature water, mixed very well and left in a wide mouth container, stirring at least three times a day, for about a week until it looks like there is yeast active (small bubbles, froth, taste and smell).  Then it goes in a jug with an air lock to bubble away.  Once it's finished bubbling, I'll taste it and rack it (move it into a different jug with an airlock to aerate the mead and re-activate the yeast).  I don't know how long I'm going to age the mead before bottling, there are some meads that age for years before bottling, others are drunk in a matter of weeks.  I think it will depend on what else is going on in my life and how it tastes to determine when I'm ready to bottle it.  For these first few stages, I have it upstairs at room temperature, but once I rack it, I think it will go downstairs where it is cooler.

The first batch looked good, so why not try some more?

I had a hand full of pears that missed being made into Parry this year, so I thought why not pear and rosemary?  It's a good pairing - ha ha - as I've used this combination as a sauce for pork.

The quince tree only had two quinces.  Quite frankly, I can't seem to like quince very much, it's kind of coy tasting and very strong smelling.  But I don't want to waste them, so I decided to try for a Quince Poudre Douce tasting mead.  Quince, pepper, ginger, cinnamon stick, and some anise (because they look so pretty).

pear and rosemary

 To make flavoured mead, at least according to Sandor Katz, is to slice up your fruit very fine and add them to the mead during the open vessel stage.  Proceed as per normal mead, and strain when you put it in the jug.

quince and spice

The fruit has natural yeast on it, so it will usually start to ferment faster than honey on it's own.  However, certain processing and herbicides in commercial fruit may have adverse effects if you are capturing wild yeast like I did, so please use organic or home grown fruit.


For the fruit mead, I used less honey as the fruit already has plenty of sugar.  I did 1 part honey for 5 parts water.

These are just small batches one gallon, or in the case of the first mead, half a gallon.  These tastes combinations may be completely horrid!  But from what I've read, if the mead tastes terrible, leave it for six months to four years, and it could improve... or else, you may have killed the offending taste buds in the interim.

During the open pot method while I was stirring three times a day, I was amazed with how the smell of the fruit mead changed.  At first the pear and rosemary smelt horridly medical, the rosemary was overpoweringly antiseptic. But after a couple of days, the smell of the herbs subsided and it started smelling strongly of pears left too long in the sun.  By the end of the week, it was quite pleasant smelling, a nice balance of herb and fruit, although it tasted overpoweringly of sweet and yeast at that time.  The quince and spice started out smelling of nothing at all, then after a day it started smelling of sickly sweet quince.  The quince smell grew sweeter and more pungent until it was rank, almost rotten, on the fifth day.   I almost tossed the batch, but instead on the 6th day it suddenly didn't smell revolting any more and started to smell like pepper with a hint of quince.  I didn't taste it when I put it in the jug, but I think it will be okay...

...eventually.

This process is simple, albeit fruit fly generating.  I can't believe I ever imagined it would be difficult.  It is a nice way to use up small amounts of fruit, berries, and other goodies laying around.  I'm looking forward to finding out how these little experiments taste in a few months time.


I think that making mead at home is an affordable way to make a nice sipping alcoholic drink.  Considering it costs about $25 for a 750ml bottle at the local liquor store, as opposed to the $12 starting price for a drinkable plonk (wine),  you don't need much honey to make a bottle of mead.  About 1/2 to 2/3rds of a cup aught to do it, which is about $1.30 per homebrew bottle of mead.  Would be less if you make mead from gleaned fruit and use less honey per water ratio.  Although making mead doesn't take much active time, it does require a lot of waiting, I'm told, to make a good mead.  So perhaps it is worth the extra twenty three dollars not having to take up space and carboy waiting for the mead to age.

Honey has many health benefits and mead also has a long tradition of healing qualities.  I only know some of the cultural mythologies that surround this elixir, but I suspect there are some scientific studies out there for those who care to look.  Of course, like all alcoholic drinks, moderation is key.  A little everyday is said to help your health, however, too much... well, you've all seen the government warnings I'm sure.

Allergies:  Homebrewing something like mead is nice because you can avoid a lot of allergies like sulphites (or was that sulphates?), extra ingredients, and can brew it long enough so that all the yeast is exhausted.  Keep in mind, some people have negative reactions to honey and alcohol.

Kombucha and Viili cultures, 22 hours in

22 hours after I started my Kombucha and Viili cultures, it's time to check in and see how things are growing.

The Viili yoghurt is starting to thicken as you can see when I slightly tip the bowl.  However, it's still too runny, so it will go back to sitting on my dresser - I have it in my bedroom because the kitchen is busy today and I don't want to get jostled and spilt. It's also easier to avoid temperature fluctuations in a smaller room.

The instructions said it will take between 24 to 48 hours (possibly longer) to set, so I'm going to check it every 2 hours or so from now on.  But I suspect it has a long way left to go.

The Kombucha is not doing much yet.  Hopefully you can make out the mother in the photo.  It's the lighter coloured blob in the jar, at an almost vertical angle.  There are a few whips of light coloured tentacle like objects expanding upward off the Kombucha mother.  If I read correctly, this is a good thing as it means the mother is making a daughter.

The colour of the tea has darkened, and the fruit flies are frustrated that they cannot get past the cloth protecting the tea.

Just a faint tea like smell, barely registers.

Ginger Burdock Beer Explosion

Who would have thought Ginger Burdock Beer could be so dangerous?  Like any home brew carbonated drinks, it can be explode with deadly force.

Homebrew sodas like this are made with yeast.  The yeast eats up the sugar and turns it into gas (and alcohol, but not much alcohol in this case, usually less than 1%).   When the soda is brewing in it's large container, it only has a cloth over it, which allows the gas to escape.  That's also why we use airlocks when brewing wine and Cider, so that the gas produced by the yeast can escape.  If we just put a lid on it, then the gas would build up and build up and over time the pressure will be too much for the bottle to contain... KaBoom!

We want some of this gas when we make ginger beer, or sparkling apple cider, or any brewed bubbly drinks, so we place the drink in a high pressure container before the yeast has finished eating up all the sugar.   That way we get a satisfying fizz sound when we open the bottle and a light tickle of bubbles as it travels down the gob.   

But sometimes there is too much sugar (as in the case of the very sweet burdock root) or it's kept in too warm a place, and even though we use strong bottles, it can explode...usually in the middle of the night.  That's why many people like to use plastic bottles, so that they can feel how much pressure is in the bottle.

Even though I used half as much sugar for this ginger-burdock beer than I use for ginger beer, it carbonated much faster than usual.  I suspect that there are two main kinds of sugar that the yeast eats: fast sugar and slow sugar.  I think that the white sugar is a fast sugar, as the yeast uses it up in a few hours/days.  But the burdock seems to have slow sugar, that the yeast eats slowly... but not slow enough.

All but one bottle exploded last night, lucky for us no one was near by, but it was so strong that it exploded through the box and packing that we used to keep it safe.  So we thought we would have some fun and see what would happen when we opened it.  Far too dangerous to leave laying around the house, lucky for me, I have an experienced opener of highly carbonated bottles visiting.

This is my first attempted at taking and uploading a video, so please forgive the ...whatever I did wrong.

Ginger Burdock Beer recipe - Brew your Gobob Ginger beer at home.

Warning:  This Ginger Burdock Beer does get very fizzy!  I just spent the night cleaning up exploding bottles (which were exploding while I was cleaning up the mess from the earlier explosions).  On top of following normal safety procedure, if you are not going to drink these up quickly, add less sugar and keep them in a closed box to limit the amount of shrapnel.


Here's a delicious experiment I did the other day, Ginger-Burdock beer.  It's a fizzy drink, brewed with wild yeast captured from the air.  It's a lot like ginger beer, but with a deep earthy undertone to it.  At first it tastes strange, sweet, but not sweet like sugar is, but also tangy.  It grows on you, and after the first sip, I found myself wanting more and more.

Burdock, also known as Gobo, is a vigorous weed in these parts.  It has these nasty seeds, that hitchhike by attaching themselves to clothing or hair or wool of any animal (people included) who happen to come just a little too close to it.  Though most people here consider it a nuisance, it has a long history of use in Europe and Asia.

Just like making a ginger beer, you need a bug to capture the yeast from the air.  You can use a simple ginger bug, or what I find works better is a burdock bug.

Burdock Bug

Burdock root
water
sugar

• Fill a jar half full with water (if you are on city water, use water that has been boiled and cooled to room temperature).
• Add 4 Tbs grated or finely chopped burdock root (washed but keep the skin on)
• And 2 tsp of sugar.
• Stir vigorously and cover with a cheesecloth.
• Twice a day, add 2 tsp of sugar and give it a vigorous stir.  It's ready when it starts to have bubbles, or sometimes froth on top.  
• If it's not active in 4 days, add another 2 tbs of burdock root.

Ginger Burdock Beer

Per 2 gallon of water you need...

1 burdock root

hand sized piece of ginger

2 cups sugar

water

Bug liquid

• Chop the burdock and ginger and put in a large pot with the water.  If you are making a huge batch, then only use half the water for this and add the rest after you've made the tea.
• Boil the ginger and burdock for 30 min.  Cool to room temperature.
• Strain out the ginger, and add the sugar to the water.  Add the liquid from the bug.  Stir vigorously.
• Cover with a towel and leave at room temperature for 1 to 3 days.  It should start to make small bubbles and then subside, but I don't always notice this happening, so I usually bottle when I get around to it instead of relying on the fermentation.  The longer you leave it at this stage, the more alcoholic it will be.  A normal ginger-burdock beer should be less than 1% alcohol.  Think more soda than beer.
• Bottle in bottles that can handle pressure.  Burdock has a lot more sugar in it than you may think, and I find it carbonates quickly and with great enthusiasm.  Mine was ready for drinking 3 hours after I bottled it (opposed to the 3 or 4 days the ginger beer takes).
• Be careful when you open it.  Best drunk outside.

When I strained the ginger burdock tea, I was impressed with the fluorescent green colour of the liquid.

Although it quickly oxidized into a more natural looking brown - green.

The finished drink clarified quite a bit.  I think that next time I make this, I may try cutting the sugar in half and see how that tastes.

Affordable cooking: yes, I think so.  I harvest the burdock from the garden, and ginger is affordable these days.

Vegan friendly: Yes.

Healthy: I think so.  Both burdock and ginger have healing properties in most traditional medicines.  Compared to commercially carbonated drinks, there is very little sugar in this.  Also, it's excellent for replenishing electrolytes on a hot day.

14th century cooking: Caudle of Almonds Recipe

Caudle of Almonds is a kind of medieval almond milk made with wine or ale.  According to Peter Brears book, Cooking and Dining in Medieval England, it was considered especially good for people with a dodgy tummy.

Cooking with and drinking almond milk was a frequent occurrence during the 14th Century.  Not only was it considered a healthy milk substitute, in the middle ages there were many days in the Christian calendar that forbid the consumption of dairy products.  Isn't it nice that almonds don't come from a cow?

I suspect almond milk may have become more popular as the populations in cities increased during the 13th and 14th century.  Suddenly you have all these people living in close quarters, with most of the dairy products being shipped in from the countryside or from cattle being raised in close quarters in town.  Cows living in small yards, with no access to fresh grass, can lead to some milk borne illnesses...unhealthy cow creates inferior milk.  So, if you can afford almonds, you make almond milk.

Now, quite frankly I strongly dislike almond milk.  It doesn't taste like almonds and it doesn't taste like milk... it tastes like powered over sweetened chalk in water.  But that's the almond milk out of a box from the supermarket... Since I'm doing a lot more medieval cooking these days, I decided it was time to try making my own almond milk.  Since I'm a coward at heart, I decided to try the more flashy version of almond milk:

Caudle of Almonds

Inspired heavily by Cooking and dining in Medieval England, by Peter Brears, with a few changes of my own.

A pint of white wine or wine and water mixed
a large handful of almonds  (I used raw)
Honey to taste (or for vegan version, a different liquid sweetener)
Poudre Forte or you could just use cinnamon and/or nutmeg mixed.

• Bring the wine to a boil, take off the heat and add almonds, about half a teaspoon of honey, and a generous pinch of spice.  Leave to steep for an hour or so to cool.  
• Take the almonds out (keep the liquid) and smash them good.  Mortar and pestle is fine, or use the blitzer.  The aim is a fine mush.  Add the liquid back to the almonds and pound or mash again - this is the tricky part for me.  apparently my blitzer does not fit a full pint of liquid and makes a huge mess all over the kitchen when I ask it to try just this once.  Also the blades aren't sharp enough to mash the almonds fine enough.  So I did about half way in the blitzer then transferred small batches to work in the mortar.  
• Strain the milk through a fine sieve or cheesecloth. Flavour with more honey and spices if needed, and sprinkle a few spices on top.

I loved how this tasted!   I cannot tell you how different this Caudle of Almonds was to boxed almond milk without falling into a huge pit of cliches - It's not even the same planet, worlds apart!  And I don't think it's just that this was made with wine, wine is lovely and all, but it was the pure almond-ness quality, the almond milk qua almond, that made is delightful.  

The Caudle of almonds also helped settle my stomach.  I had a very stressful day and my stomach was acidic and full on reflux.  I drank it warm with some extra honey, but I don't think I boiled off the alcohol from the wine, as I was quite sloshed after drinking a pint of Caudle.  Very delicious and I can see making this again soon. Just need to find a better method for creaming the almonds.  Got an idea brewing for that though...

Vegan friendly? - you need to substitute the honey with your favourite sweetener for this to be vegan friendly.  It's easy enough to do, so I am going to give it a qualified yes.

Affordable? - um... depends.  If you are like me and do not trust the bulk food bin and have to special order almonds from a place that doesn't mix nuts, no it is not even a little bit affordable.  But as far as normal people go, it's probably okay on price.

Allergy issues - depending on your allergy it can be a friendly or feendish drink. 

See my affordable section above about mixed nut contamination which a lot of people who don't have nut allergies in the family aren't use to taking into account, and not suitable for people with allergies to almonds.  Some people may have reactions to the sulphates (assuming you are using a commercial wine) in the wine.

However, it makes a great substitute for milk and is excellent substitute for warm-milk-before-bed drinks like horlicks.  

Vintage orange juicer

Actually, what more can I say?  It's a circa 1950s orange juicing device.  

It's also the most efficient orange juice I've ever used - and I've used a few in my day.  Very easy to squeeze and more importantly, it's super fast to clean.

first we slice the orange into quarters

place each quarter in the juicer and sqeeze

the juice is collected in a reservoir, as you can see when I remove the strainer

and there we go, one orange worth of juice.
Not much, I know, but it was really the wrong kind of orange for this.

Three Nutrious Recipes for a Clear Liquid diet

I spent the last week on what the doctor calls a clear liquid diet.  It's not much fun.  There are all sorts of reasons why a doctor might recommend this, but in my case it comes from a reoccurring problem with my gut.  When I eat a food that I'm sensitive to then my digestion shuts down and there is much pain.  It's my primary motivation for cooking everything from scratch and why I started this blog.  Surely I'm not the only one out there with these interests.

By making my meals from ingredients instead of ready-made food-like items, then I know everything that goes into what I eat.  But every now and again, I grow slack, eat something where I don't know who made it, and this is what happens.

For the clear liquid diet, the doctor recommended for me to have mostly fruit juice and broth.  No tomato, no dairy, low to no fat, and for me no soy.

The biggest problem I had with this diet was that there is nothing to grab hold of the 'food' in the stomach and slow release it.  Bread, pasta, and other carbs hold on to the food and slow the digestion, which makes one less likely to spike your bloodsugars.  Protein also helps regulate how the body absorbs energy from the food.  On top of all this, the fruit juice is very high in sugars, so my first day on this diet was a real roller-coaster.  Even without diabetes  I could feel my bloodsugars soar and plummet in the space of a few minutes.  It was exhausting and, well if you know a person with diabetes  you know how dangerous it can be.

Day two, I focused on broths and strained soups, with a bit of watered down fruit juice.  This went much better.  I didn't want to just use packet and cube broth because there tend to be a lot of salt (and finding a soy-free broth is not easy).

As I didn't know how long this diet would go on (a couple of days or a couple of months) I wanted pack as much nutrition as I could into liquid form without, and since puréeing food is not an option (I checked with my doctor)  I read a bit then set to work making broths.

Here are a few recipes that I enjoyed the most.

Soy Free Miso Soup

This can be made vegan friendly by making the dashi stock from just kombu (seaweed) and leaving out the bacon.

Speaking of bacon, check with your doctor specifically about bacon, even as a flavouring for your soup broth.  In some cases this is a huge no-no.  Given that I'm using my own home made bacon and I know exactly what went into curing it, I felt okay to put a small amount in my soup.

For the Dashi Stock  

See Just Hungry's post for a more in depth look at making Dashi.

About 4 inches of Kombu
Generous handful of dried fish like tiny anchovies, or shrimp
Small handful bonitio flakes
Water

South River makes a soy free miso
that is rather chunky

Note how we are using so much more in this than usual, that's because we are just eating the broth and trying to get as much flavour into it as possible.

• Put the Kombu in the water and soak for at least 10 min.  
• Add the fish and bring to a slight boil.  Add the fish flakes.
• Simmer for about 10 min.  You don't need to strain because we will be straining it as we pour it into the mug.

For the miso soup

Soy free Miso paste (or you can use any good regular miso paste if you can handle soy).  I'm using South River Chick Pea Miso paste, which is chunky  which is fine most of the time, but for this, it needs to be mashed into a paste before using

About 1" of 1 rasher of bacon chopped

one green onion.

• Add the miso paste and bacon to the Dashi and simmer for about 10 min.
• Just before serving, turn off the heat and add the green onions.
• Strain into a mug.

Roasted Chicken Broth in a slow cooker

If you are a fan of roasting whole chicken, then you probably have a few carcases in your freezer.  But if not, then you can either leave the house while the rest of the family enjoys a roast chicken or you can buy some chicken bones from your local butcher.  It won't have the same flavour with raw chicken bones as with roasted, but it will still be very yummy.  

Just know that either way, if you choose fresh or roasted, the better quality the bird, the better the broth.  

1 chicken carcase from a roast chicken, or the equivalent amount of bones (fresh or frozen is fine)

One onion

2 carrots

Two gloshes (larger than a glug) of a natural vinegar like apple cider

Bay leaf

3 pepper corns

1 large Tbs salt

(if you like some other veg like celery, fennel, whatever.)

• Wash and roughly chop the veg.  No need to peal anything, although personally I peal the onion.
• Put the carcase and everything else in the slow cooker.  Cover with water.  Put on high for at least 2 hours, then turn to low.  About 8 hours later (I do this overnight) it should be done.  
• Strain and put broth in fridge, and when it's completely cool skim off the fat from the top.
• Heat up to serve.  If it's too mild tasting, you can lightly fry some garlic in the bottom of the pan before adding broth, bring to boil, add salt to taste.  Strain into a mug.

Why Vinegar?  It helps extract nourishment from the bones and reduces any gamy taste that the meat may impart into your broth.

Why skim the fat?  Well, normally I'm a huge advocate of having more brain healthy fats in the diet, but in this instance, one wants to avoid anything that makes the digestive system work hard, which includes fat.

Bone Broth

Herbs and spices

This recipe is more a guideline than an actual recipe.  There are many ways of making bone broth.  I like a stronger vegetable flavour to the broth and use the bones more as added nutrition than flavour.  

Lamb bones are best if you are having trouble with inflammation   It's one of the only  meats they recommend for a low-inflammation diet.  But they aren't always easy to get, so my second choice would be ox tail for flavour.  Any marrow bone would do however.

Get out your cast iron pot if you have one.  Not only does it have great heat distribution  it adds trace amounts of iron to your food.

Some veg ready to go in

Some bones, lamb, goat, beef, or even oxtail if you can get it

1 large, sweet onion
2 carrots
2 stick cellery
1/2 inch ginger
some fennel fronds
several cloves of garlic
a handful of fresh thyme (or herb of your choice)
2 bay leaves, 4 pepper corns, a pinch of chily flakes, 1 Tbs sea salt
Generous glug of natural vinegar like apple cider or wine

• place a generous glug of olive oil in the bottom of the pan, preheat on medium while you chop the onions.  Fry the onions slowly at medium to medium low heat while you chop up the rest of the veg.
• Wash the rest of the veg and herbs (no need to peal the carrots so long as it's well washed) and divide into two sections.  Hard veg like carrots, celery sticks, and the stocks of the fennel fronds go roughly chopped in one pile, and soft veg like thyme, fennel leaves, and spices go in another.  
• When you've got the rest of the veg ready, crank up the heat on the onions and stir constantly until it just barely starts to brown.  

Fry the onions

• Toss in the hard veg (carrots, celery, &c) and fry while stirring for about 3 to 6 min until they start to sweat (this helps release more flavour to the broth).
• Turn down the heat and add the bones, vinegar, and some cool (not too cold or you may damage the pan - but you want cool water as it helps bring more flavour from bones and veg.) water so that it comes almost to the top (leave room for bubbling and for adding more stuff.)
• Bring to a boil, then add the rest of the ingredients  and simmer for several hours.  At least 4 hours. Skim off any froth you see forming on top.



broth simmering away

• Taste and add more salt as needed.
• Turn off the heat and let cool for a short time, then strain and place the broth in the fridge.  
• When completely cold, the fat will be hard and floating on the surface, skim this off.
• Reheat to serve.

 Don't skimp on the herbs, they are full of amazing super-food-goodness-stuff.  Add a whole 'nother layer of nourishment to your meal.



Here's a tip to add more nutrition and keep your bowels happy during this difficult time; HOWEVER, it's very important to ask your doctor specifically about this before you try this as it can be counterindicated in some situations.

If you make your own kimchi or sauerkraut (not the stuff that's been heat treated or from a can) then you can add one tsp of kimchi or sauerkraut juice to each mug of broth (but not to the boiling liquid as it will kill off the good bacteria).  This adds flavour and probiotic bacteria that will help repopulate your gut with healthy (I'm pretty sure the word I'm looking for here is flora, or is fauna?).




Over all, the key with this clear liquid diet is have a little bit constantly and not try to have set meals.  There aren't that many calories in broth, so unless you go completely overboard (which is doubtful when you feel this miserable) you are not going to have a problem.

One nice thing about this clear liquid diet is that it's affordable, healthy (when guided by your health care professional) and not too challenging to make yummy sustenance.  Chop, Fry, Boil, Strain (easier than pasta).




On a personal note, one of the best things that has come out of all this mess is that I had my blood tested for all sorts of vitamin insufficiencies.  Not only did all the results come back fine, they came back IDEAL!  According to the doc, I have perfect amounts of nutrition in my blood, they can tell how well my body is using things like iron, and the ratios between Cal., Mag. and Zinc.  It's better than most healthy people.  And for a person with a dodgy digestion and who shuns supplements (except in extreme cases) I'm doing so well, they want to retest me to make certain it wasn't a lab error.  (but I know it wasn't).  Well, actually, I'm surprised the iron and B vits are so well balanced given that I eat very little meat (maybe an oz or two a day, not including poultry and fish - even if I'm always blogging about it), and only eat beef every few months.  I must be doing something right.

By stocking my kitchen full of ingredients (instead of ready-made foods) and pairing my foods together in a way to maximize nutritional absorption (fermented cabbage like Kimchi or Sauerkraut with pork, Olive oil with Tomatoes) and by eating a lot of live culture foods, I've managed to create a balanced diet.

Now, if only I could learn not to eat stuff made by strangers.



Once I get some of my energy back, I'll write a post for you about transitioning from a clear liquid diet back onto solid foods.

My adventures with Bouza, or brewing homemade wheat beer

In the book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods, there is a recipe for Bouza, or Ancient Egyptian Beer.  It looked like good fun so I decided to have a try brewing it.

The 'beer' itself ended up terrible.  I finished with a dozen bottles of strange vinegar; however, the bread I made with the mash is AMAZING!  I'll post about the bread next chance I get.  It's well worth making the 'beer' just to have mash for bread later.

Please note, apparently it's not legal to make your own beer in some parts of world, including a good chunk of North America.  It's your responsibility to be aware of local restrictions before you try this at home, or at least before you start bragging about it.  Most of Canada is fine though.  We may not have the god-given right to bear arms, but we do have the god-given right to make our own home-brew.  

Out of the entire book, this is the one recipe that I've had the most trouble with.  Anyone around know more about the process of brewing this beverage, please get in touch.



According to Sandor Katz, people in Egypt have been brewing this form of beer for at least 5 thousand years.  Given that beer was one of the main sources of nutrition for the masses over the years, that basically means the pyramids were built on this stuff.  Wow.


I'm going to describe to you what I did, and some of the problem solving I attempted.  I'm not going to give you the actual recipe because that would not be fair to the books' author.  However, the book is available at most libraries and its well worth buying your own copy.

The recipe has three main steps: Malting, Forming Loaves, and Brewing Bouza.

Malting is way easier than I ever suspected.  It involves sprouting then toasting the grain.

wheat in jars waiting to sprout

sprouted wheat ready for toasting

The recipe says to toast on the ovens lowest setting for 20 to 30 min until the grain is dry.  This is no where near long enough,  2 to 3 hours will do the trick.

When the grain is dry, it can be stored in an airtight container for later use.  The smell of the sprouted and roasted (aka, malted) grain when it is ground, is heavenly.  I've taken to sprouting half a cup of wheat whenever I have a chance, and maybe I can coarsely grind it and add it to rice or bread later on.


The next step is to make a loaf with coarsely ground wheat.  Combine some sourdough starter (I used sponge as it's generally moister) and coarsely ground grain. You then leave this loaf to ferment for a few days before half-baking it so that the outside is cooked and the inside is still gooey.

ground wheat and soudough sponge

the loaf ready to be put somewhere to ferment before baking

This is the step I had the most trouble with.  To start with, I wasn't able to get the loaf to stick together, so I ended up kneaded in about two tablespoons of all purpose flour.  I put it on a piece of parchemt paper and covered with a cotton towel to ferment.

 After two days, I went to put the loaf in the oven, I noticed there was the start of mould on the bottom.

I probably should have done something about this, but I hoped that either the heat from baking or the alcohol from brewing would take care of this.  This might be why I ended up with vinegar.

When it comes to baking the loaf the recipe tells us that the finished result is to have the outside baked and the inside gooy and alive.  That way it will keep until you are able to brew the Bouza.  Problem is, the temperature given is far too low to heat up the outside of the bread.  At 350, to bake the outside of the bread enough, you will have to bake the inside of the bread too.  Instead, I think it's better to bake at 400 to 425F for about 10 to 15 min.  The outside is cooked, but the inside is all gooey and still quite cool.



Brewing day finally arrived and I ground up the malted wheat, broke up the loaf and added them both into the water.

Malted wheat as it came out of the mill

In the vat you go malt

yeast loaf with gooey interior broken up ready for brewing

Into the Bouza with you too

I sealed up the top of the bucket and waited a couple of days.  After the recommended time, it had only just started to ferment (I keep my house cool so it's understandable), so I left it a couple of more days (and made the mistake of stirring it again, which added air to the mix and might be another cause of my vinegar).  When the bubbles started to slow down, I strained it into a pot (kept the mash for bread) and left it to settle.  I strained it again through a cloth and kept the second straining.  This second straining is traditionally considered a major source of yeast and use to be a necessity in bread baking.

An early sample, after two days brewing

Tastes like yeast and water at this stage

The drink itself turned out pretty dismal.  Most of the recipes I've tried from Wild Fermentation I had no problem with; however, this Bouza was nothing but trouble.  But I'm going to try it again later and I have a few ideas that might make it more to my liking.  And even if it doesn't work, I'll have more mash for baking bread.

Bread, yummy!

Beer mash, water, flour and salt - that's it. Apparently it's the best bread ever, but I haven't had any yet because it got eaten so quickly.

Cider making time

Last year we were inspired by an article on how to make apple cider (the hard kind) in Mother Earth News. We harvested all the apples off the large, heritage trees that live on our farm and juiced them...by hand, using a kitchen counter juicer.  It took forever because you have to chop the apples by hand into tiny pieces in order for them to fit in the juicer.  Hardly seems worth it, that is, until you drink the finished cider... yummy!

This year, we are doing things a little bit differently.

Brand new, home made, apple press.  The Capitan spent a few weeks putting this together in his spare time. Considering that it's made from 100% reclaimed wood, it's amazing how well it works.

I think we got more juice per apple last year, but for the amount of work we put in (friends love to come over and help you press apples when you have a nifty toy they can play with), this is far, far, far less work per pint of juice.

We have two demijohns full so far and enough apples still on the trees to fill one or two more.  Notice the large amount of head space in the demijohn... last year, we learned to leave extra because it froths up like crazy.

How We Make  (hard) Apple Cider

There must be hundreds of different ways of making cider (note, just assume that I mean cider as alcohol made from apples in this context).  Ours is pretty simple.  We don't have a lot of gadgets to test for sugar or gravity or whatever.  We also don't mind if we get a huge jar of vinegar.  I use it for everything from rinsing my hair to cleaning the house.  Natural vinegar is barely affordable these days, so making our own would be just fine.  un/fortunately, we haven't managed to make vinegar yet.  Just really yummy, really strong cider.

Note: we don't juice anything that has touched the ground.  We have chickens, and sheep, and goats, and ducks that live under the fruit trees and they tend to poop a lot.  Although it probably isn't a big issue, we like to be extra safe as we are not pasteurizing the juice before we ferment it.  So if it's been on the ground, it does not go in the juicer.

What you need:

• Big, food safe, sterilized vessel that can be sealed with an airlock (like a demijohn or carboy - aka, big glass jar, or a designated plastic pale with an airtight lid and airlock)
• An airlock - something to let the extra gas out so that it don't explode and make mess, but not let the air in.
• Lots of fresh, un-treated, un-pasteurized, apple juice.

If you are getting your apple juice from somewhere else, then it may be treated with chemicals, heat or UV light.  This won't ferment naturally.  Sometimes you can add yeast or other You-Brew goodies, but sometimes even this won't work.  See the Mother Earth News article for more info.

We simply juice our own apples, which are grown without chemical spray, and put the juice directly in the demijohn.  Then we put the airlock on top, carry it to the basement, and leave it to ferment at about 65 to 68 degrees F.  for a few months.

When we feel like it we rack it - transfer it to another similar container.  We are careful to leave any sediment behind and this helps to clarify it a little bit.

Then, about 4 to 8 months from when we first started, we bottle the cider using the honey method described in the article I linked to.  We melt some honey in hot water (how much depends on how much juice we have) and then add the cider to the honey.  Then we bottle it in high-pressure bottles, and leave it downstairs for a month or two.

That's it.  Tastes really good, but one does need to be careful when feeding this to guests that might be driving home later.  Last year's cider is what I call, three hour cider - aka, how many hours our guests have to wait until they can safely drive home after drinking one bottle on an empty stomach.


Note: if you want to make cider yourself, please do a bit of research on health and safety procedures.  I didn't go into them much here, but the article I cited earlier does have a nice overview.  Also, there are places in the world, including some rather large chunks of North America, where it is not legal to brew your own homebrew.  It's your responsibility to know the local laws before you start, or at least before you start bragging about it.

Chickened Out on Ginger Beer

I am looking for a drink that is refreshing after a long day working on the farm.  Something that doesn't taste like water and can help replenish electrolytes without being sweet.  Something more affordable than mineral water.

Home brew ginger beer might just fit the bill.

Instead of using commercial made yeasts, I decided to capture my own yeast using a ginger bug.  You put sugar and ginger in a jar, adding more each day and stirring it vigorously.  After a few days to a week, it gets lovely and bubbly.  It's like a sourdough starter in that it captures wild yeast, but it's for making ginger beer, it's called a bug.

Down to Earth Blog has a couple of recipes for Ginger Beer, this one looks the best.  Of course, being the crazy Pastafarian that I am, I decided to adjust the recipe a little... a little too much as it turns out.

I used honey instead of sugar, and being told by many people about how easy it is to have this drink explode, I opened them up several times a day to see if they were fizzy yet.

The flavour did start to transform from sweet to tangy, but developed these weird storm clouds.

It looked really gross, so I chickened out and tossed the whole batch.

Next time (yep, I already started a new bug with the leas from the old one) I will use sugar instead of honey. I figure that I should learn how it is suppose to act before I start changing up the recipe too much.

Anyone else out there made ginger beer?  Got any tips for me?