msmurdock

Mental health wise, I don't do great around the holidays. Finally had the motivation to check on my bubbly friends today...who, admittedly, I have not been taking care of like I usually do.

Funnily enough, the random tamarind fruit one? Which I completely made up just because Wegmans delivered that instead of the tumeric, smells awesome.

But my beloved ginger bug, which I'd kept going for nearly a year, and the sweet potato bug were overcome by far too much kahm to save. And the mango hot sauce was covered in mold.

So...I'll start again. Winter bugs are great. But. Could use a pick me up from y'all!

I just had to bury one of my dear friends. He had been suffering for a long time. He was ready to go, and I was honored to get to spend his last week of life at hospice with him.

At his brother's direction, he was laid to rest in one of the few green burial sites in my state. He was simply wrapped in a linen shroud, and his loved ones lowered him by hand into the earth.

We are welcome now to plant anything atop his body.

If I spread spores... would they grow? .

Lol, so, we are going on our annual fall camping trip this upcoming weekend in one of the PA state parks in South East PA.

While she is very sweet about my use of PictureThis, my preferred app for identifying plants on my solo walks and our occasional hikes...I know my foraging hobby sometimes drives her a little crazy.

So, if there were one or two plants you would look out for in this part of the woods this time of year that I could look up in advance...what would they be?

A dear friend of mine died two months ago. He was burried in one of the only natural burial sites in my state. Laid to rest in a simple linen shroud in the ground, to become part of the forest around him.

He loved foraging with me when he was still able to be out and about several years ago. Late November, loved ones of folks who are buried in this natural area are invited to come plant. Same for early spring.

I want to plant something native to PA that I can come back to harvest and use somehow to honor him. Not necessarily food... although I'm okay with that... something to plant and later forage .

It's the start of fall, and I'm bringing in some of the last harvests from my garden and have half a dozen ferments going and a dozen others planned for the next week or two. Using all my various airlocks, and I've got quite a collection.

What are your favorites? Do you use different locks/weights for different ferments or stages of ferments?

(And yes, my fiance just made it clear I need to buy a mini fridge since our basement is currently under construction and apparently using an entire half of the fridge for second stage ferments isn't cool.)

I'll share recipes later, but currently: Honey garlic Green tomatillo salsa Verde red tomatillo spicy spicy salsa Tomato jalapeno salsa by the g

So, a couple days ago, I made a "leftover" fermented salsa, and then left it out for 48 hours to get something going, and once it was producing some good gas, stuck it in the fridge for some further slow fermentation.

The three ingredients were fermented wildly differently.

(1) tomatoes that I fermented with whey (2) jalapenos I lacto fermented in a 2 percent salt brine (3) pineapple left from a tepache brew (4) raw onions and cilantro

It tastes absolutely amazing. It's a little fizzy, a little sour, a little something else? Are all the different cultures in there battling? Who will win ultimately if I let it slow ferment in the fridge for another month?

So, my fiance and I are going to spend the weekend with my beloved aunt and her husband. She and her sister (who died a few years ago) taught me how to cook - and when I say how to cook, I mean their mum and my mum were classic British boil literally everything, but they took classes and then taught me, and I? Thanks to them, am pretty awesome now.

This coming weekend, my fiance and I are going down to visit my aunt and her husband.

My fiance and the husband are very neat and potatoes, make it simple kind of people.

I'm super excited to show off my new whipped ricotta with fermented garlic hot honey to my aunt - but I need something to make for them.

Ideas please???