snugglekitty

So, apparently what I have been doing to stabilize and/or increase my weight has been working. I have gained back both some of my appetite and some of the poundage I had lost. Thank Goddess for that.

Here are the things I did:

- Chivvied myself into a normal eating schedule (for me that means 4x per day) but was very permissive about what and how much I ate.
- Asked my friends to help encourage me in eating. Tsuj and gentlescholar were especially helpful with this.
- Tried to eat, where possible, with distractions. Eat while watching something on the computer, or reading, or having a conversation.
- Tried to eat what I was craving, if I was craving anything.
- Did the opposite of all the weight-loss advice I could think of. Put more on my plate than I thought I could eat, put sauce on everything, drink soda or juice instead of water, eat cookies MANY COOKIES.

(This is a test of DW crossposting.)

Go behind the cut for a picture of my harvest pickles, taken by tsuj. In my life, "harvest pickles" means "the pickles I made with the stuff left over from the farmshare."

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A vision grew in my mind, based on the leftover grilled items from the barbecue (steak and mushroom, especially). Yesterday findingthegirl made a great wrap at my direction for my lunch. But something was missing. After a trip to the farmer's market, I am happy to tell you that spinach was the secret ingredient.

( Wrap of Awesome, with veggie and GFCF alterations included )

Not filtered, funny story, behind the cut in case you're not interested.

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..that's good enough for me
P is for Pickle, that's good enough for me
P is for Pickle, that's good enough for me,
OH! Pickle, pickle, pickle, starts with P.

( Did you think I'd stopped? )

A few days ago I also took a new batch of pickles out of the press - mixed end-of-summer dill pickles with boy choy, broccoli, peppers, carrots, and green beans. Nom nom.

People mostly seemed to think that apple pickles were an odd concept, when I mentioned it to them. Those who have tried them were not enthused.

But now they taste just like hard cider. Only they're apples.

YUM.

This recipe is even better than the last carrot salad recipe I posted. "How?" you want to know. "How could it possibly be better?" Cherries and curry, my friends. Cherries and curry.

I had carrots left over from making the tasty ginger carrot pickles, so I decided to try my hand with another carrot salad. I had cherries left over from a big bag I got at the store last week, and I thought, "Why not?"

3 quarts peeled chopped carrots (I used rounds but sticks would work too.)
1 2/3 c fresh cherries
1/3 c vanilla yogurt (add more or less as desired)
1/3 c walnuts
2 T Dijon mustard
1 T mild curry powder
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 t salt
1 t cornstarch

Rinse the chopped carrots in a Pyrex dish. Put in microwave on high for two minutes. This will keep them from stiffening up when they get wet. (If you don't like microwaves or don't have one, just steam or parbroil them for a similar amount of time.) Stem, pit, and quarter cherries. In a small bowl, mix yogurt thoroughly with cornstarch to maintain texture. Let sit for a few minutes. Then add vinegar, mustard, and seasonings. In a large dish, combine all ingredients. Refrigerate until chilled.

To make this dish vegan, substitute soy yogurt or cashew butter for the yogurt. I think it would be yummy with the cashew butter, although I might substitute something else for the walnuts in that case. Crisp Granny Smith apple, perhaps? Tart dried apricots? What do you think?

The watermelon rind pickles are now on their third day. I did freeform them after all, with some live apple cider vinegar, rather than the hote white vinegar the recipe called for. They have given off a TON of liquid. On the suggestion of mrpet, I drained off some of the syrupy brine and replaced it with a smaller amount of a live brine from a previous batch of bread-and-butter pickles. Hopefully that will move things along a bit more steadily. I can always cook down the extra syrup and add it back at the end, maybe as a sauce to have on the pickles after they have been drained. We'll see. Ideally I'll get results in a few more days.

Yesterday I started my second batch of kombucha, using a baby and directions from dakotakym. I used four decaf teabags and two caffeinated ones. I let it come down to room temperature with the teabags still in it. It is now sitting on the floor of my dining room, which is a warm and quiet place. I hope this one will do better than the previous batch, which isn't growing mold or anything but still hasn't come to tasty fruition. Poor thing. It's hard to say whether the lack of caffeine or the lack of potency in the store brew is at fault. We will see what happens given more time. Maybe it will come out right in the end. It does seem to be growing a baby, just... very slowly.

I have discovered the existence of a book called Kombucha Teaology which talks in more depths about using herbs and different kinds of tea to make kombucha. I want that one.

In my next batch, I will use a shorter brewing time for the caffeinated tea to cut down on the caffeine levels. I will also be using some organic tea from veek.

So, my exciting fermentation news is that my kombucha brew is finally starting to grow a baby. YAY! I am going to leave it in peace for a while and hopefully I will be delivered of a new SCOBY. (Hey, it's exciting to me, okay?)

Also, I have found an online kombucha newsletter and a kombucha community on LJ. Also also, dakotakym has shown me some better directions than the ones I was using before - right here at the Happy Herbalist. Last on the kombucha front, I have discovered that the Minuteman library system has a kombucha book available. Whee!

( Enough of that, on to the funny story! )

Are YOU trained for pickle consumption? Enquiring minds want to know!

ETA: Oh, yeah, and I have a pickle icon now. Yay!

(I'm starnting to need a pickle icon, huh? I'll get there. For now, here's some cheese! Cheese is fermented!)

So. My kombucha batch is... not done. I can see the stuff growing, and it looks right, which is good. And it's starting to smell like kombucha, which is also very good. But it still tastes sweet. I think it just needs more time. Also, my store-bought kombucha does not come with terribly secure lids. I have discovered this to my woe, twice now. Hopefully the lesson will stick this time.

Last night I took out the batch of beets and onions with curry and juniper. It came out very well, although admittedly they needed to be rinsed and strained. I don't love the level of sourness so I'm probably not going to try to use that brine for another project. Apparently curry makes things ferment more slowly, which makes sense when you think about it, but didn't occur to me when I started the project. The pickles in question are very tasty.

I'm down to the bottom of the jar of pickles that mrpet made first - mixed veggies - so I started another one, with stuff we got from the farmshare and using about half of the remaining brine from that first delicious batch. Chard and kale! Should be interesting. I cooked them a bit first, as the Intarweb suggested. I also threw in other veggies that happened to be lying around - red pepper, scallions, broccoli. We'll see how it turns out. I'm not that into cooking greens in the summer, so it's nice to have another use for them. I bet they'll be great in salad.