Bits and Pieces of June

June was a good month. it was an especially good month for making stuff & feeling empowered because of it. Most of the empowerment came from realizing that I can mend my own jeans and now I'm safe from having to buy new ones for a while! This feeling of self-sufficiency led to my first experiments in fermenting vegetables...


I've always been deeply apprehensive about fermenting, but something switched in my brain this month (possibly from being in daily contact with sourdough starter?) and I felt like I totally could do it! I love kimchi but it's pretty expensive to buy and easy cheap to make. The more I read the more I realized there's not much chance of poisoning myself either. Also, it's not an all day process at all and pretty forgiving as far as ingredients. I used a mixture of this recipe and this one and it took an afternoon of mostly waiting while cabbage salted.


This is my second jar, the first is eaten! I'm going to let this one ferment a few weeks in the fridge though.
Now I'm ready to ferment everything: sauerkraut, gingerbeer, and mead are high on my list. I'm also thinking about pickling? We'll see.


I've still been making bread like crazy. I've got the technique to where it doesn't feel like the main event of the day and I don't have to keep looking at the steps in the book. I feel like I can add more variation now and work on getting a really good loaf. I'd say mine "will do", but they still end up with too tough and done a trust on the bottom & not enough rise in the bake, so I want to work on that.


I made a earl grey & apricot cake last week. I over baked it a bit. Oh well it still tasted alright, even better dipped into a beautiful tea mixed by my friend the tea maker.


I'm finally able to pick flowers from my garden and fill every spare jar and the few small vases I have!