Microbial musings

An amazing yoga workshop day introduced me to Yoga Qi Gong, which was a revelation; and acupuncture, which was less alarming than I expected.  It also introduced me to kombucha in the fabulous refreshments created by Nena Foster Food, and which we learnt to make in the afternoon workshop on fermentation. 

We made red and white cabbage sauerkraut with apple, fennel and juniper.  It needs a bit more fermenting before it is ready, but tastes pretty good.  It also needed regular 'burping' to prevent the gas building up and bubbling over!

My kombucha took a while to get going and grow a proper SCOBY, but I threw away the first batch and the second is progressing much better.  My SCOBY even has a baby!  More on that when it has had a second brew and is ready to taste.

And lastly, something I had never even tasted before: kefir. I had thought to eventually try dairy milk kefir, however Nena gave us water kefir grains to use with coconut milk.  This is the easiest of these three ferments.

• 1 can of organic coconut milk.  This isn't to be superior about ingredients: the coconut milk should only have coconut and water in the ingredients, not additional thickeners which most ordinary cans include.
• 2 tsp water kefir grains

Shake the can of coconut milk first to re-amalgamate it if it has separated; pour into a glass container and add the kefir grains. Cover with a muslin, tied round with a string. This lets gasses out and prevents bugs from getting in.  It should be ready in 8-24 hours: the milk will have thickened and the taste is elegantly sour.
Use a plastic sieve (or anything non-metal) to drain the kefir into another container.  Store the kefir in the fridge for up to 6 or 7 days.

Reserve the kefir grains to either use again straight away in another batch, or you can put them in a small glass jar with a little more coconut milk and store in the fridge.


There is a lot of conflicting information about the two different types of grain (water and milk), how best to keep them and even how often you need to 'refresh' them in their favoured substance.  Nena's advice was simple - as above, pretty much - and I will just keep these kefir grains for water kefir rather than converting them for use in milk.  I am hoping the grains are kept happy and start to grow so I can give some away to friends and share the pleasure.

I would have turned down these lovely bacterial buddies as I didn't think I could manage them without a kitchen, however I do have a small fridge so have been able to keep the kefir grains and kefir there.  I store the fermenting jars in a bedroom, awkwardly wedged under a chair, next to books and laundry bags: upstairs is a bit warmer to help them activate and downstairs remains a kingdom of cement and paint. My ferments seem to take longer than I think is usual, as I keep a fairly cool house.

Looking after these three is strangely like having a family: I check in on them, feed them, burp them and start the cycle over again.  It is a lovely way to potter and nurture and re-learn how to inhabit my home, while creating food at the same time.

I would stay and chat, but I need to make a SCOBY hotel to store my growing family in!

Kitchen catch up

I had great plans for finding the silver lining in the grim culinary situation of not having a kitchen, by cheerily posting all my endeavours to eat well for the duration of my building work.  I soon realised that a summary would suffice, so here it is:

• Lidl does the best, cheap ready meals. The red Thai curry stood up the best and, just as I was getting thoroughly fed up with chicken in every meal, they started making a vegetarian bean chilli.
• Pots of fruit in juice, and small tins of sweetcorn became store cupboard essentials for preventing scurvy.
• Coffee in bags does. Not. Cut. It.
• Only a very good friend would think to post a big box of kabuto noodles, in every flavour.  Praise be for HG.

The building work was delayed from starting for some months and, thinking I would need something to cheer me if it was further delayed over the Spring, I booked onto a course called 'Self care with food and herbs'.  One evening each wintry month I headed to West London to meet the most wonderful group of people and our inspiring teacher.  We drank infusions, made a decoction, smelt, tasted, squeezed, looked and ate. We made tinctures, balms, sprays, talked about sleep disorders, digestive soothers and walked around the garden, munching ground elder.

Though I was in a kind of shut-down mode with my kitchen packed away, these sessions made me come out of hibernation.  My lunchtime meals changed to include the best I could manage in a work-kitchen: my favourite was beluga lentils, with smoked mackerel, lovely bitter, red chicory, beetroot and handfuls of any other salad veg that was easy to store, wash and chop.  Though it just sounds delicious, and filling, the ingredients are carefully chosen to have stimulating bitters, pulses for gut health, lots of oils and dark colours.  I don't want to get all Helmsley on yo' ass but it was a very good time to be reminded to look after myself.  And I got through winter without so much as a cold!

This has been my trusty 'kitchen' for about 20 weeks:




The building work is mostly complete - and even the ill-fated, Velfacking windows are finally here - so today I am taking delivery of an oven and fridge.  Week 20 and very soon I might be able to make a meal again!

Week 3

As always I am vexingly late to my own party.  For two long weeks I have been trying to post some thoughts but effing Blogger doesn't now support its own effing app, so when I tried to write, the text repeatedly vanished.  And then when I logged in on ye olde computer to try again, freaking Google has so much security that I nearly didn't get in.  Like withdrawing cash over the bank counter, Blogger is now too secure for the only person who actually needs access.

What the EFF.

Where was I?  Oh yes, into week 3 and only scanty notes about weeks 1 and 2 - the golden times, the halcyon days of my build!  But if I get all completist and go back to week 1 I will never get started, so here I am, mid-thought.

It is already week 3 of the kitchen build!  I say that as if the past two weeks have sped by, but in reality living in a building site, riddled with anxiety and decision making, is the utmost best best best way to slow time in the unslowable middle years of life. 

Week 3 so far has a very fun site meeting.  I genuinely love this, and teeter about on planks of wood, or stand in wellingtons with my hands on my hips saying helpful things like 'Is there a reason the downpipe can't just go on the extension roof? How long before you can build over that concrete square?  How much does steel cost?' and more.  I'm practically indispensable.

Whilst building updates make me misty-eyed with pre-emptive sentimental feeling, what I was really noting down here was what to eat when 'between kitchens', as HG says.  To help future me on, say, week 7, when I am showing symptoms of scurvy.

I can't WAIT to go back to weeks 1 and 2 (what days!) however in week 3 I have been very bad indeed about not being prepared.  My budget, you will recall from week 1* is £10 per day.  The kitchen set up you will recall with equal freshness of mind* is a work kitchen, at work; and at home, a microwave, kettle and fridge - but with the added challenge of being in the work place of the building site.  The dear builder even pulled in a sink so there is running cold water, though no drain, so only a bucket beneath.

Weeks 1 and 2 I did so well so it must be inevitable that Monday of week 3, the last Monday in January, I broke the budget. I gorged on a Costa-coffee-cake breakfast; an overpriced sandwich at lunch, eaten in 0.8 seconds; then stayed too late at work, hungry, so ate out.  I decided if I was going to break the budget it would at least not be in the centre of town, I would instead take my money south of the river and eat locally.  The trains were the coin-toss, and the first train I could catch took me to The Station, where I had a Vietnamese vegetable curry, a glass of wine and crumble with cream.  Well, once you start eating it makes you sad when you have to stop again. As I waddled home I decided that for £22 I was both warm and full, so it wasn't a terrible move.  Plus it feels so civilised to eat off of china rather than out of plastic.

My resolution was no better this morning: home made beans on toast at Archibalds, with coffee; a hasty salad from Pret (I wasn't even trying by this point); and a redeeming microwave meal of cauliflower cheese with rice.  Random and at £2.50 bang on budget, had I been sticking to it.

Now I need to don my wellingtons and put on the kettle for a mint tea and hot water bottle. I'm back in my own bed now, after a spell on the sofa, so am making the most of the comfort - while it lasts.



*when I write the posts

Roll on Spring

It is a perfect Spring day - too warm for April, but blue-skied and burgeoning with promise.

I have the luxury of a whole garden day and, not wishing to interrupt the flow of clipping and weeding, ran down the hill for a sausage roll for lunch. 

It is 3 years almost to the day since I first clapped eyes on my home, though it took much longer before I could move in. When a local business opened a Kickstarter campaign to open a community-focused local deli I gladly chipped in, hoping for some variety to the fried chicken shops.  I love fried chicken but a deli would definitely add something useful!

And so it is that on days like today I can pick up a hot-from-the-oven sausage roll just 5 mins from home.  I still don't have an oven of my own, so baked goods are such a treat right now. What a sausage roll it is: soft, plump, delicately flavoured.  And the pastry! It is bigger than the picture but it didn't make it to the plate without being assaulted.

Its companions are fridge-foraged: a little brown rice and flash-fried courgette with garlic, chilli and a squeeze of lime. The drink is the taste of summer 2016: elderflower cordial, made last year with my parents.

Only another month or two before the elders flower, and it all begins again.

Beet poet

And the reason I had leftovers to use up: a TV night in with my friend Mel.

We had Campari soda, naturally, before this salmon and salad. I never usually relish a supermarket cooked beet, but these baby beets with black pepper were luscious! 

I have nothing to say about poetry, I just enjoy a terrible pun.

Radishes are my vegetable of 2016 and at any one time I have a pack on the go. My only complaint is that they are a little mild, but I intend to grow them next year and will try a few peppery varieties. Recommendations gratefully received!

Slugged!

So my lovingly hand-reared courgette plants, and several tomato plants, made a fine delicacy for the slugs and snails. Oy! The remaining two weedy squash plants are now sulking inside next to a window. They would rather be outside in some soil but I have turned protective parent.

A regiment of underdeveloped toms are perched on a radiator (don't ask) in my Steptoe and Son back garden (really don't ask). I am going to plant these out; I can't think egg shells and coffee grounds will deter these Amazonian slimies but the toms have one last chance. Grow prickly and hairy, wee Monemakers!

In a funk of vegetable failure, I gave in to reality and signed up for a veg box delivery. Iam now looking forward to it - hungry anticipation mixed with admiration for large scale growing. Imagine the slug patrols on a farm! The first box arrives this week so to make room I cleaned my fridge and defrosted the tiny ice box. I am also eating everything up.

Tonight I'll eat the final courgettes with pasta. Lunch dealt with the rest:

(A lousy photo but it'll jog my memory for next time!)

June salad with bacon and Dijon potato salad

Scant teaspoon of Dijon mustard, mixed with mayonnaise. Add in cold, cubed, cooked potato (made twice this amount)

Pile up in a dish:

4 radishes (halved), third of a cucumber (sliced), half a yellow pepper sliced, a good handful of mange tout (blanched then run under cold water), a spring onion sliced.

My sister & her family were at a hog roast today so, feeling a little pork-envy, I fried some pancetta cubes and added them - along with bacon fat from the pan - on top. 

A squeeze of lime.

May days

April is the most astonishing month.

From misty to hail to sun, the weather is petulant.  And the garden follows suit! Hidden behind the ungiving frosty mornings the ground must secretly be warming, because suddenly the green flourishes. I had been anxiously seeking my peoney plants, worried they had been carelessly squashed or murdered by boisterous fence & shed replacements. I found them on a bleak Sunday in the gloaming evening, their red alien fists punching up through the soil; three weeks later and they were lush, green and a foot tall! Everything is burgeoning. Even the weeds...

I really enjoyed weeding in winter.  My battle with brambles and that sneaky, tenacious ivy actually seemed to be progressing - in my favour. But bring on the April showers and shy first sun and I have a dispiriting handicap, as if I am now fighting with one hand behind my back.  I see I can no longer be a weekender; it begins to seem as if longer days are provided for the sole purpose of keeping on top of the growing vegetation.

For the first time, I have been nurturing* seeds to life. I thought I had over-watered and rotted them, but it turns out that even they are keen to thrive. After 3 weeks of being ignored they sprang to life and now I am thrilled to be growing tomatoes (moneymaker), courgette, patty pan squash and butternut squash. I have some herbs on the go and Rose & Al gifted me two sturdy strawberry plants they have been bringing on.  

I put the seedlings outside yesterday to harden off, only to find it was warmer outside than inside the house. May has over stretched itself into July temperatures: such hot weather! Like being dropped into summer for a day. So today I shelter inside (ironically less hardy than the spindly, baby tomato plants) and make lunch.

 

Surprise-Summer lunch

1) Discover last year's elderflower cordial hasn't gone off & have with fizzy water & lemon.

2) Rootle in the fridge for salad items.  Layer up in a flat bowl:

Watercress; cucumber, cubed; radishes, halved, a spring onion, thinly sliced; avocado; red chilli which later turns out to be disappointingly mild, very finely diced.

Lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper & salt... you know the drill.

3) Make like the Larkin poem and enjoy it with all windows down, all sense of hurry gone.

* neglecting