Things are fermenting in my kitchen

My kitchen is an interesting place of late as there are quite a few living things in it.

Other than myself of course.

I received a sourdough culture from a friend in exchange for some of my excess kefir grains, and I now keep two starters going; one is rye, the other spelt.

Read about the benefits of sourdough here.

A batch of kefir is always fermenting on top of the fridge.

Kefir is something I've mentioned briefly before and now I make and consume it every day. If you're after some kefir grains for yourself, check out this international list of people willing to share their excess grains. Mine were sent over by a lovely lady in Geelong.

A batch of homemade granola with soaked oats, or muesli as we know it, is drying in my dehydrator after being soaked/fermented overnight. Soaking the oats and flour with some whey (I get mine from kefir) has the same effect as the sourdough process, it breaks down the phytic acid and makes some of the nutrients more accessible.

The dough for lavash crackers (I'll link the recipe when I remember where it came from) that I make with kefir instead of milk or water sat on the bench for 24 hours to do it's work. The kefir produces the same results as using whey. It's now in the fridge awaiting rolling out.......which is a bit of a job so it will sit there for at least another day or two.

And I picked these up at the market today, some cress and radish seeds for growing sprouts

Except that I'm running out of surfaces in the kitchen to keep all these 'pets'.

All this is in the pursuit of good health and a whole foods diet. It keeps me on my toes sorting all this out but I realise people......women mostly no doubt......would have kept many of these balls in the air in times gone by. And that's without the benefit of washing machines and dishwashers and labour saving kitchen gadgets.

All of which I value highly and DO NOT want to give up. There's only so much going back in time I'm willing to do :)

Have read through the Weston A. Price Foundation website and see if you can add in a few new health giving foods to your diet this week.

Yes world, I am here!

I've been taking a short, unintentional hiatus from this blog, as I try to enact my New Years resolution of organisation. Organisation is going to mean NOT wiling away so many hours on the net, so I have been staying away from my computer in an effort to get some small unfinished projects finished.

Well, Christmas was crazy and fun, the crazy part was thinking we should drive from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast in 2 days, with 2 small children. And then drive back again.

Not my brilliant idea and preferably NEVER to be repeated.

The fun part was swimming and hanging out with my family and swimming and watching all the kids have fun together and swimming and cooking and swimming and eating and swimming and...you're getting the picture, right?

Now we're back in the real world and this year we're gearing up for 4 year old kinder (even though Master H will be 5 in April), swimming lessons for Master H, gymnastics for both boys and one day of daycare for both thrown in for good measure and for my sanity.

We've started house hunting again, though it appears prices have crept up ever so slightly more, darn it. I'd been hoping that a couple of interest rate rises coupled with the government winding back the grants would see prices begin to level off a bit. Apparently not so.

And, I've been playing with my new gadget...

I was given a food dehydrator by my delightful Mother-in-law, which is something I'd been wanting for while. I wanted it for drying out soaked almonds and peanuts but have since gathered a huge bag of plums off a friends tree and have run those through it also.
The plums come out very tiny and wrinkled, but extremely flavoursome.

I've also been making kefir, sauerkraut and sourdough, all of which means I've been spending way too much time in the kitchen on 40+ degree days! Madness!