Collage...Saturday?

I have wanted to join Collage Friday for the past couple weeks, but Friday is an extra busy day for us and I find that I rarely have time to blog on that day. I guess I should set it to autopost? Today: Better late than never.

Recently I started lactofermenting vegetables for their amazing probiotic power. Fermenting has always intimidated me. It sounded like such a big deal. I have friends who make kefir, yogurt, kombucha, and sourdough, and I guess in my mind that is what fermenting was all about. Complicated with a lot of trial and error.

Also, there is conditioning. We are taught from infancy how important it is to refrigerate food, and then some fermenting afficiando says, "Leave your food out on the counter for a few days and it will turn into a delicious and healthy substance!" It feels "wrong" because we have been conditioned otherwise. (And obviously there are lots of foods that should stay refrigerated!) My mind was put to rest when I read a mainstream article (can't remember where now) that said lactofermentation is actually extremely safe.

I worked up the nerve to try my first batch of sauerkraut (the white stuff in #1--I used the recipe from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook with coaching from my sister) and I could not believe how easy it was to make this amazing probiotic food! Next I tried dilly carrot sticks. Once again I could not believe how simple this was. And my kids loved them! They have a great crunch with the flavor of a dill pickle.

I decided to turn this new obsession into a science project.

We made 4 jars of carrots. One we made the same way as I originally had, according to this recipe. No garlic. The second, we added garlic just to see how it impacted the flavor. The third, we used red pepper flakes instead of dill. And the fourth, we halved the salt and opened a probiotic capsule into the jar to see what would happen. I heard once that you couldn't use a capsule instead of a ferment starter, and I wanted to see if it would work.

Pic #2--I boiled water to sterilize the jars and lids.

In pic #3, we loaded those babies up!

In #4, my cute little first grader made pretty labels for our lids.

The results: Everyone liked the original variety but the garlic flavor was a bit much for some of the kids. The red pepper flake jar was good but VERY spicy! It is still in the fridge. I don't know if anyone will have the nerve to finish those. As for our big question mark, the jar with the probiotic capsule, the carrots fermented beautifully, probably better than the regular jars that contained only salt.

The kids really enjoyed this project. We looked up lactofermentation and learned about the process. They were excited to open the jars after 4 days. They bubbled and fizzed when I took the lids off and that added to the excitement! All in all it was a great experiment!

{Forgive the poor picture quality! I decided not to let perfectionism get in the way or participating!}