Well, we’ve hit an eighty year record for snowfall here in our state!  It’s still coming down and there’s more called for in the beginning of the week. Dh doesn’t have work today, and it’s so nice to have him home in the middle of the week with us.  I keep feeling like it’s Friday today.  We’re all staying warm and snug inside – we’ve had so much snow that everyone stayed inside until after lunch.  Now they’re going out to build an igloo.   When everyone is inside all day, it’s a different feeling than the daily busyness; it’s more relaxed and peaceful.

Usually Sundays are my prep days and when I post my weekly menu, I also post my food prep plans for the day/week.  I’ve been busy in the kitchen today doing a little of this and a little of that. I can’t say I’m doing more today than usual, but maybe because of the snowed in feeling, I feel like I am! 🙂

I made a recipe for lunch that’s getting mixed reviews from the kids – peanut soup.  I sauteed a 3 large onions and a head garlic in lots of coconut oil, stirred in arrowroot powder, than added a can coconut milk, lots of chicken stock, 2 jars of organic chunky peanut butter (not sweetened), and spices.  I very loosely based it on a Joy of Cooking recipe, and used the peanut butter in the proportions they recommended, though it seemed like a lot to me.  It’s very tasty, but a little too peanut buttery – I’ll cut the peanut butter by half next time and I think it will be perfect.

The bulk ferments I started last week are ready now and are really good.  That was the first time I prepared ferments in such large quantities – usually I make my ferments a gallon at a time (I realize for many people a gallon would be preparing in bulk :)) but this time I used two five gallon buckets (food grade).  Something I like about lacto fermenting is how extremely easy it is; my ferments are whatever I feel like throwing together that day.  I made one bucket of cortido (Latin American sauerkraut): I used 4 or 5 very large heads of napa, 4 large daikon (each about 18 inches long), 22 regular sized carrots, 3 huge Spanish onions, and 1/2 gallon of lacto fermented purple sauerkraut (just red cabbage) to add some color and hasten the fermenting process along.  I planned to add garlic and fresh ginger but dd washed the food processor before I had a chance to chop them up, and I didn’t feel like taking it back out to add it.  🙂 I’ve never used napa before – usually I use cabbage – but cabbage takes so long to be ready and I thought this would work faster.  It did.  And even before it’s soft, it still tastes great – it has a nice crunch instead of the rubbery and squeaky feeling of not quite ready cabbage.

The other bucket is a large batch of pickled green beans. I needed to clear some freezer space so I used up 2 or 3 five pound bags of organic green beans that were taking up room.  Last time I made these I was very happy with the flavor but not the consistency; I wanted them to be crisp but they weren’t.  I thought I might have left them to ferment too long and this time I planned to refrigerate them sooner.  No luck.  It wasn’t until 2 days after I started the green beans that I remembered that I needed a source of tannic acid.  The only thing I could remember being good for this was grape leaves (don’t have any), oak leaves (don’t have any), and strawberry leaves (my plants are dormant right now).   When the summer comes around I’ll be sure to add it to keep them crispy.

I have four or five heads of cabbage that I’m planning to do something with today – I think I’ll start a batch of curried sauerkraut – it’s just cabbage, carrots, onions, and curry.  I’ll use a five gallon bucket for that, too!   If I make it now it will be ready when the napa cortido is finished.  Sauerkraut always takes longer than anything else so I like to make it with plenty of lead time.

Dh is using the juice from the ferments as as called for in the introductory GAPS diet and will soon be including larger amounts of the fermented vegetables themselves, which is one reason I’m making larger than usual quantities.  I didn’t want to run out.  🙂  And with this cold weather, it’s not like they need to be refrigerated, so I’m keeping them in an unheated room in the basement once they’re finished.

Yesterday I did a massive defrosting of our full size freezer.  It is so old and really needs to be replaced; the frost builds up super fast.  I filled a five gallon bucket with frost and ice that I cleared, and then there were another couple of gallons after that.  That takes up a lot of space!  It’s nice to have it done so I can see what we actually have in there – the frost is so bad that it ices things in and covers it up so it’s impossible to see what’s there.  Now that it’s done I see that my supposedly packed freezer is really not very full at all.

Today for the first time we’re making fish stock.  I’ve thought of doing this before and even gotten fish heads for it, but it just didn’t appeal to me so I never did.  Dh wants to have some, though, because he’s getting a little tired of chicken broth (staple in the introductory phase of GAPS) and wants some variety. I use chicken broth for everything and assuming the fish broth is tasty, will have to think how to integrate this.  He’ll eat it as it is, though, so it certainly won’t go to waste.

The four pounds of walnuts that I soaked and dried were ready to be put away yesterday but I left them in the dehydrator until today; it’s nice to get them done.  Along with the 12 cups of sliced almonds I did on Sunday night, we have enough soaked nuts prepared for the next couple of weeks.

Lastly, the beans for tonight’s dinner (baked beans and hot dogs) and tomorrow’s breakfast (breakfast tacos) are bubbling away on the stove.

And it’s only 2pm! 🙂

(This post is part of Tuesday Twister.)

Avivah