Fermented February

So apparently, February is a good time to ferment stuff.  It makes sense.  If you garden, that's when the last of your fall harvest has to be preserved before it spoils.  In my area, it's when the first of the spring greens are happening.

I didn't go too crazy.  I already had a cabbage, so I made sauerkraut with the rest of it.  And while I only bought one Napa cabbage for kimchi, it managed to make over half a gallon.  But it's KLP and not too spicy.  I'll probably end up canning a lot of it.  Not bad for $6.  I only picked a couple of lemons for preserving this time, not a dozen.  And I got back into yogurt making, for reasons I'll go into in another post.

Found a use for the 2 gallon bucket 

Fermenting and pickling are not the same thing, in case you didn't know.  To pickle, you cook up a brine and pour it over something before sticking it in the fridge or process canning.  For fermenting, you treat the raw vegetable with salt and spices and let it stew in its own juices until it makes its own vinegar.  Yep, gross as it sounds, and sometimes ends in moldy sadness.  It's a probiotic thing, and if I do can the kimchi it will destroy those good bacteria.  That's why kimchi is usually in the refrigerated section.  Any fermented product that's shelf-stable no longer has active cultures.

So the next time you have leftovers in the crisper threatening to go to waste, consider turning them into a ferment (or pickle) instead.