Blueberry Pickin'

We LOVE our blueberries!

Every year we take multiple trips to the blueberry path to stock up for winter.

This year was no different, however picking berries with a little one is a LOT different! We ended up taking 3 separate trips in order to pick enough berries to keep us stocked for the winter.

I think Caleb had the best time eating the berries as we picked.

I love that this is a tradition that we'll all look forward to over the coming years!

experimenting with kombucha

frozen blueberries added as icecubes

Last night we tried our first batch of our homemade kombucha.  Not sure what kombucha is?  Read more here and here.

Dan has been eager to try his hand at making his very own kombucha for months.  For Christmas his sister and brother-in-law shared their "mother" and got him all the essentials to get started.  He also received two books on the topic : The Art of Fermentation and Kombucha!

The process is really super simple. Brew tea, add sugar, add "mother/scobe", and let sit .  Google "how to make kombucha" and you'll find loads of resources on the topic.

Our book, Kombucha!, suggested that we leave it set for 7-9 days, however we realized a few days in that it wasn't staying warm enough in our kitchen and transferred it onto our seed warming mat.  Because of the temperature, we allowed ours to sit for 10 days total before bottling it.

We were able to bottle 3 1/2 bottles from our first batch.  We even added blueberries to one of the bottles to try our hand at Kombucha Soda.  Once the bottles sit for another 2-3 days we should have a lovely carbonated beverage!

Interested in trying it for yourself?  Here's a list of 50 Kombucha recipes.  

Have you ever made Kombucha?  We'd love to hear your favorite recipe.

you can pickle anything.

Okay, well maybe not.  But seriously, most vegetables can be pickled in one way or another.

We've been making pickled cucumbers by the pound over here and when I remembered that we had this book on the shelf, I got inspired to try a few more vegetables.

So far, in addition to cucumbers we've pickled onions, beets, green beans, carrots, and jalapenos.  Note: we were not fans of our pickled carrots.  Maybe we haven't found the right recipe.  Any suggestions?

I'm hoping to get ahold of some fresh cauliflower to pickle soon and if we have any extra bell peppers I"ll do up some of those as well.  Most we've canned and stored for winter, but a few we've done in the refrigerator to enjoy right away.

We've been sticking to simple recipes involving vinegar, sugar, and a variety of spices.  When you change up the amounts of each, or use a variety of kinds {ie. apple cider vinegar vs. white vinegar vs. wine vinegar} you get drastically different results.

Our current favorite is based on this recipe, with a some dill from the garden thrown in.  We've been eating these with every meal and replenishing with fresh cucumbers about every other day.  So good!