Probiotic Salsa and other fermented foods

I've been making sauerkraut for a while.  It reminds me of my childhood.  My gran used to make it, among other things.  In our kitchen, there was a barrel of kraut, and another with pickles, a smaller one with half pickles.  I don't know what those are called in English, but basically it's something between a cucumber and a pickle, no longer a cucumber, but not quite a pickle yet; they're delicious.

I make flavoured sauerkraut, with various herbs, spices, and veg.  I've also been making kimchi (Korean), curtido (South American), and salsa.  Salsa is a great alternative to the other options for those who don't like cabbage, but like probiotic foods.  I've got an idea for hot sauce, and I'm in the process of growing a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast to start making my own kombucha.

I have a Facebook page dedicated to my sauerkraut and other fermented foods, it's under the same name as this blog.

www.facebook.com/MetalPorkchop

Salsa

Salsa in the making

Napa Kimchi

Caraway Bay Kraut, Napa Kimchi, Apple Fennel Kraut, Curtido

Loads of beneficial bacteria, vitamins, minerals, and taste!  Great for your digestive tract, and once that's balanced and healthy, everything else works better too.  Some of my customers swear that they've been able to cut down or cut out their GI meds.

Lunches, Snacks, and Bites

Some days I like "grazing", where I eat bits of food throughout the day, other days I have meals.  In the end they're all meals varying in size.  I thought I'd share what I eat for lunch when I'm home, some ingredients will repeat, and there is a "formula", usually some grain, mainly rye bread in various forms, meat, veg, and cheese, sometimes with soup, sometimes with tea, or a smoothie, a milk shake, or freshly squeezed lemonade.  At times, it's not only dinner ideas that people get in a rut with, it's boring to eat the same stuff for lunch all the time too.  Here are some examples of what I like to eat, very easy, nutritious and filling lunches or snacks:

Fresh carrots, savoy sauerkraut (home made), pickled beets (home made), and Smoked Sirloin Tip (Ogonowka in Polish) on a piece of pumpernickel.

Very crusty walnut cranberry bread with a slice of salted butter.  

Brussel sprouts, with butter and maple smoked unrefined sea salt.

Leek and horseradish sauerkraut (home made, one of my very favourite flavours), rye grilled cheese (Irish old cheddar), and carrots, made with butter.

Goose liver pate with cumin sauerkraut (made by me; I love sauerkraut).

Pumpernickel with lard, lardons, and raw maple smoked rock salt.

Rye with butter and a slice of pig skin sausage - amazing!  I get this sausage at Sausage Partners in Toronto; they make it on site.

Zucchini, smoked Polish sausage, parmigiano reggiano, lachsschinken, kale, sautéed in butter.

I'm not sure what this is called in English, but it's a type of blood sausage, with fat chunks, and tongue; it's delicious.  I find congealed blood tastes a bit like chocolate, the two go well together in recipes.

Here is the blood sausage from above, on rye, with fresh cucumbers, and tomato soup.

Avocado, my caraway bay sauerkraut, Calabrese salami, fresh greens and parsley, grown in my kitchen.

Pumpernickel, Calabrese salami, sauerkraut, creamy tomato soup.

Pumpernickel with lard, lardons, and my delicious home made sauerkraut.

Scrambled eggs with sausage, onion, and rye.

Pumpernickel with lard and lardons and dill pickles, which my dad made.  When I say dill pickles I mean real pickles in brine, not vinegar.

I hope some of my lunch and snack ideas will help you try new things, and keep lunch exciting.  When I work, I always make and bring my own lunch.  It always gets comments and people start making excuses why they don't make their own lunch.  In reality, tasty, healthy, and filling food doesn't have to take  a long time to plan or make.

Figs, tasty on their own, or with a variety of meats and cheeses, also great in tarts with caramelized onions and cheese.

Kalon Digor!  (Breton)

Prosciutto di Parma

I love this photo:

I don't have the link for it, but I found another site with a similar photo:

http://agferrarifoods.wordpress.com/tag/prosciutto-di-parma/

I buy Parma prosciutto at an Italian deli, I like it on a plate with other snack type foods, like rye or pumpernickel bread, pickles, sauerkraut, other meats, various vegetables, sometimes cheese.  It's like a sampler plate, but adds up to a meal.  Takes little time to put together, but is filling, healthy, and most importantly yummy!

Pig lard and lardons

I love pig fat.  If you know me, you know that.  I love pig skin, whether it's cooked or roasted or in jelly.  I buy pig lard with the bits at a Polish deli, but sometimes I make my own.  I made some recently.  My bf got me this grease pot, which is for dumping grease into, it has a sieve, so the solids stay on top, then when it solidifies, you can scrape it out and dispose of it, without clogging your plumbing with hot grease.  Naturally when he gave it to me, and I saw it said GREASE on it, I was super excited, thinking it was a pot for my fat.  Then he explained the above to me.  I said, who does that?  Why would you want to throw out lard?  When I was a kid, my grandma always had a jar of home made lard.  Sometimes she would fry rye bread in it, and it was so good.

So every once in a while, I fry rye in lard, and either eat it with my home made sauerkraut, or with sliced dill pickles.  It's insane how good it is.  Just to clarify, dill pickles by my def, have no vinegar, just natural brine.  If you're buying "dill" pickles at the supermarket, read the ingredients.  Also, if you're buying rye at the supermarket, read the ingredients, wheat flour is usually a huge component, and to give the bread a denser feel and "healthier" look, they add caramel colour.  Food regulations should be much stricter, especially labeling.  Somehow though, the gov't seems to think that infringing on our privacy (SOPA/ACTA) is more important than labels on our food.

Here is my story in pictures  :)

Those lardons, skwarki (Polish) or scruncheons, as they call them in Eastern Canada, especially Newfoundland, are so yummy, they are like little crispy squishy sponges filled with pig fat.

Another option is just lard on rye with sea salt, I used maple smoked rock salt from BC:

Give it a try, let me know what you think.
Bon appetit!

Light Bites

I love eating meals in appetizer format.  If you pair the right foods, you can eat healthy, get a wide array of foods on your plate, and be full at the end.  This is great when you can't decide what to eat.  I assemble various plates, including cheeses, meats, veg, fruit, condiments, dips, etc.  The 2 variations I had this week, are:

A tasty assortment of delicious and healthy foods, packed with flavours.  Home grown and pickled beets, home made locally grown caraway sauerkraut, Schinkenspeck prosciutto, German pumpernickel, and Polish cherry wood double smoked sausage.   I love this sausage, well I love everything on that plate, but I'll focus on the sausage.  It has an amazing texture, and a very smokey flavour with a hint of sweetness. 

I never buy sausages at a supermarket, because that's like buying a "sausage" at a hotdog stand and thinking you're eating a German, Italian, or Polish sausage, when in fact you're not much better off than had you just ordered a hotdog.  Go to your local deli, Farmer's Market, or butcher's and taste the difference, never mind the healthier ingredients.

The other plate I made was more sauerkraut - I can't get enough of this stuff, jalapeno ciabatta with an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dip, and more Schinkenspeck, because it's so good.

I used this 6% Italian balsamic wine vinegar: medium bodied, fruity, sweet and sour flavour went well with the spicy bread.

Appetizer plates have endless possibilities, and I love that about them.