Lacto-Fermented Cranberry Chutney: a holiday classic that's good for your gut

Barbara Lehr shares her wisdom about all things fermented every Friday from noon til' two with her Fermentation Friday demonstrations in the Hub Kitchen. Just in time for the holidays, this week she sampled a lacto-fermented cranberry relish with flavor dimensions that are out of this world! While it's culinary value is unsurpassed, you'll also appreciate the health benefits (lacto-fermented foods can aid digestion, for instance, making this a perfect accompaniment for a holiday feast). This recipe is quick to whip up (with or without a food processor) and only needs two days to ferment. Click here for the recipe.

Domestic Diva Delights Hubsters

Bone Broth. Sauerkraut. Yogurt. These may not sound like the most exciting topics for a cooking demonstration…unless the instructor is long-time Hub volunteer, Barbara Lehr!  Barbara can make cardboard seem interesting. A natural-born-educator, healer and doula, Barbara is passionate about taking control of her own health and nutrition, and she loves to share her knowledge with others.

We all know we are supposed to eat healthy foods, and most of us have a pretty good idea what those foods are, but for Barbara, nutrition starts in the gut. “If the nutrients aren’t being absorbed and made available to our bodies, then it doesn’t matter how well we eat,” Barbara points out in a fermentation demo.  Increasing and diversifying the probiotics in the gut helps us digest food, and increases the availability of nutrients. So adding fermented foods like yogurt, sauerkraut and kim chi to your diet is an easy way to boost nutrition. It is the foundation for improving health. If you learn how easy these foods are to make at home, you can save money on groceries, and maybe even doctors’ bills!

She first discovered the wonders of bone broth when she suffered a broken arm two years ago. She started making her own broth to help heal her injury, but says she continued to use it in her diet “…because of the increased vitality! I noticed I felt better, and had more energy, so now it’s a regular part of our family routine.”  Bone broth is a great food to share with patrons at the food pantry, since it’s a nutrient dense food made from something you might ordinarily throw out.

Perhaps Barbara’s greatest skill is her ability to pull patrons from the pantry, into the kitchen for her mini demos. She sets up a few stools in the kitchen and then approaches folks in the pantry, inviting them to join her for a quick demonstration on making homemade yogurt, or how to roast a whole chicken and turn the bones into a body healing soup.  She can convince the most skeptical shopper to take a seat and hear her out. Once she has a small group gathered, she launches into her quick and passionate spiel. By the end of it, she’s fielding questions, passing out recipes (or maybe even yogurt starters) and everyone leaves excited to go home and give it a try. When asked how she lures so many patrons into the kitchen week after week, she answers “I love good food, I love people, and I know they want to be in my kitchen and learn about these things, they just don’t know it yet. So I invite them in. It’s old fashioned hospitality.”

Barbara (aka "Domestic Diva" demonstrates the basics of roasting a chicken in the Hub Kitchen

During her two-hour shift on Fridays, Barbara usually conducts 3 or 4 rounds of her mini sessions, reaching 12-15 households with her compact, informative demonstrations. Recently a woman came in to tell Barbara that she had taken a yogurt starter home and made the best yogurt she ever tasted. Now she wants to invite all her friends and neighbors over to teach them how to make yogurt! Barbara’s tutorials are exactly what we envisioned when we first dreamed of having a kitchen next to the food pantry. Community members share their knowledge, skills and passions with others.  Folks who may not attend a full workshop get the benefits of our nutrition education program with minimal time investment and maximum impact on health!

Here is a recipe for making one of those healing bone broths, Chicken Stock

note: An abbreviated version of this story appears in our Spring 2014 Harvest Report newsletter.

Fermented Cranberry Chutney

This is delicious at the holidays in lieu of traditional cranberry sauce. It is also tasty over yogurt.

 adapted from a recipe at oh lardy 

Ingredients

3 cups fresh cranberries (1 bag)

1/2 cup pecans (optional)

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup of whey 

1/2 cup apple juice (original recipe called for apple cider)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground clove (optional)

Juice from 1 orange and 1 lemon

1/2 cup raisins

Instructions

Mix all ingredients (except raisins) together.

Put into a food processor or vitamix and lightly pulse until the desired consistency. I make mine medium chunky.

Stir in raisins.

Add mixture to a 1 quart mason jar.

Add filtered water if need to leave about 1 inch headroom.

Tighten lid and leave at room temperature for 48 hours to ferment.

Refrigerate and use within 2 months.

Kimchi (Korean Sauerkraut)

Adapted from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Ingredients:

• 1 large head napa cabbage (the type of cabbage is important to get the traditional look of kimchi, but you can use green cabbage, if you prefer the sturdiness of the leaves)
• 1 bunch of spring/green onions
• 1/2 cup grated carrots (optional)
• 1/2 cup daikon radish grated
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 Tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• 4 Tablespoons whey (this is optional)
• 1 Tablespoon sea salt (add only 2 teaspoons if you use the fish sauce)
• 1 Tablespoon non-MSG added fermented fish sauce (optional, creates a deeper flavor, and does not taste “fishy” after fermenting.)
• 1/4 cup of Kochukaru (Korean chili pepper powder – look for this in your Asian market)  —- OR —- 1/2 teaspoon dried chile flakes (red pepper flakes)

Preparation:

1. Cut each napa cabbage leaf in half lengthwise and cut into 1 inch pieces (bite-sized). Cut the green/spring onions into thin disks and also use most of the green parts too.
2. Combine all of the vegetables, the salt and the whey in a large non-reactive bowl. Squeeze the veggies with your hands until juices are released. I usually do this about 10 minutes and it really helps your stress levels.
3. Add the garlic, ginger, fish sauce and chili pepper and combine them well into the vegetable mixture.
4. Pack the kimchi into quart jars, making sure that there is some liquid above the kimchi (“sealing” it with an extra cabbage leaf on top can help with this).Let sit out on the counter (with or without the lid)* unrefrigerated for 3 days.
5. After 3 days, refrigerate the kimchi to slow the fermentation process. You can start using it immediately but it gets even better with age.

Another option is to toss the veggies with salt, then mix garlic, ginger, a bit of sesame oil, a bit of rice vinegar, and Korean pepper in a bowl, to make a paste, then spread that over the veggies, and mix well. You could also add fish sauce to this, if you are using it.
*For the results of an at-home experiment  on the  pro-biotic benefit of ferments in 18 different kinds of jars , check out this blog
Best place to get Fido jars for fermenting: Christmas Tree Shoppe in Greenwood