Kimchi And Fermented Vegetables How To And Why

I took the jar of squash off the shelf today. I had a taste and it's delicious! Thanks for suggesting it, expanse. I guess I'd better eat it quickly before it gets mushy. I left the jar with the combo of squash and cabbage, I'll ferment it a little longer and compare the two.

I finally got to a second batch of traditional kimchi. I bought a little food processor, so the paste was a lot easier to make this time. I just threw in a few chunks of peeled ginger and garlic cloves and puréed them. Easier than grating or mashing them. And I used my mandoline slicer to julienne the daikon radish and carrots, so much faster than chopping them and the result is a lot thinner than I can manage with a knife. Thinner cuts ferment better, I've found.

I didn't fill the jar as high this time. I find this mixture pushes a lot of gas out and it ends up in the airlock which it's not supposed to do. I also put a few Napa cabbage leaves over the kimchi and a baby food jar with brine at the very top. We'll see if that helps.




I made another jar of hot peppers too. Sort of. I couldn't find the hot red banana peppers that I prefer, so these are cubanelle peppers. Only mildly hot but it's all I could find. I also used sweet red peppers for colour. I added cayenne chili flakes as well. I'm hoping the peppers pick up enough heat from the chili flakes. We'll see what happens.

 

Mmm, the first jar looks like it has plenty of chili there Lucy! The peppers look nice cut like that too.

I made some turnip with ripe red Ancho chiles I found at the market. They seemed mild at first, just tasting them fresh. But I began to notice a slight burn on my lips that intensified with time so I decided I'd held off on the cayenne.
I actually rubbed my nose a little, (big mistake, lol) I can still feel it burning the nostrils!

I also tossed in a few green onions, just a bit of salt, a splash of fish sauce and pressed garlic.

I cut the turnip bigger, last time I cut them smaller and they quickly got too soft. I gotta keep a closer watch on the ferment too.

I didn't quite have enough for two full quarts but too much for one. The babyfood jar took up the space anyway, lol

 

I love the turnips. I cut mine in cubes about 3/4 inch and they did fine. They, and the cabbage, are my favorites.

 

^^^I agree, and Kohlrabi is right up there too. I want to do some more of that.

 

I have so many I like now, I can't pick a favourite. I like the variety. It's going to be nice to have different veggies during the winter without them going rotten in the crisper. Some days I eat more veggies than others and I'd always either run out and not be able to get to the store for more or buy too many and have them go bad. I don't like canned vegetables and not big on most frozen. The fermented veggies solve that problem for me. And I get the probiotics as a bonus!

Oh, I have to mention my fermented cauliflower (another favourite!) experiences. I've discovered that the white cauliflower is the best for fermenting. The orange softens the quickest, with the green (broccoflower) second quickest. The white seems to stay crunchier even after a long time. Since I like fermenting my veggies longer for more bacteria range, I'll stick with the white. I may use the orange or green if I'm fermenting a mix of softer veggies for less time. Though I'll have to wait for the sales now. A head is a dollar in summer and close to $5 out of season!

 

Made some kraut and fermented peppers yesterday. I didn't have enough white cabbage to fill the 2 quart jar, so I had to put a small drinking glass on top. It was a little too tall, so I put turnip slices on top of the kraut, allowing me to really press down hard with the glass and get it all submerged. It added crushed hot pepper and a teaspoon of ginger along with the salt.

I used red cabbage for the other jar. I cut it in bigger slices. Salt and crushed garlic clove in this one.

I'm finally fermenting some peppers. I only had enough peppers (capsicum) for one quart jar. I sliced up two habaneros and 5 bell peppers. Just salt, ginger, and crushed garlic clove added. I added a little water after I looked at the pic.

 

Those look good, Ex.

 

Thanks Aeri! When I get home I'm going to post pics of my home made ginger ale.

 

Ooo, playin' with fire! ha ha I've never tried messing with Habeneros.

The Anchos I used in mine tuned out hot enough. it's the kind of heat that'll make you sweat, but not burn your tongue.

 

I hope just 2 habaneros aren't too hot for the whole quart. If they do make everything really hot, I'll just use them for cooking.

I like hot stuff, but I don't like to make myself sweat too much any more.

 

Here is my attempt at ginger ale, and maybe ginger beer too.

The first pic is one of my jars of culture (ginger bugs). I feed the culture by adding a little water, chopped or minced ginger, and sugar once every other day - actually one of the jars is kept in the refrigerator now to slow fermentation, and only fed once a week(the one in the first pic).

I strain liquid from one of the big jars into a pint jar, add a teaspoon of sugar(for carbonation) and a little water, put a plastic mason jar lid on (just barely hand tight), let it sit for a day, then drink or put in the refrigerator. (Second pic)

Most online sites say to strain into glass bottles, or empty pop(soda,coke) bottles, then add sugar and water. I'm just experimenting with it right now, making small pint sized batches.

The last picture is a closeup of the fermentation.

 

​Looking good, expanse! That's a great idea with the peppers. It's hard to fill a full jar with hot peppers, and they seem to have only the very small hot peppers here, so buying regular sweet peppers and adding a few really hot peppers should render the sweet peppers hot too. Maybe I'll try the Scotch Bonnet again (!!). This time I'll merely slit them and throw them in. I'm handling those suckers as little as possible!

 

I took the mixed veggies off the shelf the other day. These were the ones with the garlic scapes with cauliflower, carrots, zucchini, golden beets, Chioggia beets and kohlrabi. Yum, it was a great combo.

The squash still isn't mushy. Must be because I ferment the jars in cooler temperatures. I wanted to mention that the buttercup squash was very crunchy, too hard actually. It's a good thing I sliced it thinly with the mandoline slicer. The acorn squash is perfect. Crunchy but soft enough to eat easily. I was surprised, I thought it would be the other way around. I'll definitely go with acorn squash again. But I still want to try butternut. It's the softest of all three I think. I want to see if it will go mushy or stay firm as well.

 

Looks like my next squashchi attempt will be done with acorn squash. I'm hoping to try this week sometime.

 

Try buttercup too. You tend to do a faster ferment, so the buttercup might be even better, it seems to stay firmer. Or try both! The buttercup is bigger than acorn squash.

Here's a good comparison chart.

 

Thanks information and visual! I definitely will try buttercup too. Looks like a lot more seeds for roasting too!

 

Ha, you like your seeds. Maybe you should try the delicata. It looks like more seeds than squash! I wonder how it tastes. I haven't seen one here. I think you should hunt for one and let us know. :-D

 

I made more sauerkraut today, a couple of big 2L jars, and tried making hot peppers using regular sweet peppers and a few hot peppers for the heat. out. I used 5 red bell peppers and 2 yellow bell peppers and put in 5 habanero peppers. I just slit the habaneros once I put them in to the jars. I didn't want to touch them. I know, weenie. lol I'll be interested to see how they turn out made this way.





It's nice to have the shelf full again. Along with the 2 krauts and hot peppers I still have one more jar of the mixed veggies, a jar of turnips (rutabagas, not white turnips), a small jar of squash with cabbage, another jar of sauerkraut and the small jar of hot cubanelle peppers. That should do for a while. At least a couple of weeks til I get the itch to make more!

 

I've never seen delicata around here (this is the first I've heard of it). I'll keep an eye out for it.

 

Wow! That's a lot of fermenting!