Confessions of a Food Hoarder

Cold weather and short days push everyone inside.  Being on duty on Sunday, usually a quiet day, I tackled the back room.  The animal room, the storage room, the miscellaneous room.  The back corner has a food storage shelf.  I found four bags of brown sugar as I sorted and organized.  You never know when you might have to bake 25 batches of chocolate chip cookies!  An unreasonable amount of canned tomato sauce was sorted and noted.  Time to make spaghetti!!  I am a food hoarder.  It is true. 

Then I cleaned the room.  Dog hair, cat hair, cat litter, and dust were wiped away, vacuumed away, and swept away.  The vacuum bag was stuffed and changed.  The floor got mopped.  Much better, thank  you.

Meanwhile, cooking ensued.  Two batches of really great lentil soup from my go-to Insta Pot site Lentil Soup Recipe which fed the Family at work on Monday.  Three loaves of sour dough bread as I continue my quest to conquer this bread type.  A loaf of bourbon banana bread from a great recipe go-to site  Food 52 Browned Butter Bourbon Banana Bread Recipe  This site is my unraveling for kitchen gadgets.  Mike noted the other day that I had every kitchen gadget made and although this is not 100% accurate, it is close!  My latest can be viewed here Coolest-Ever Spice Grinder

We hunted on Saturday.  This was before the cold snap swooped into Jackson Hole, shivering even the toughest hombre.  The day was comfortable, however, only elk tracks were found.  Still a great morning and a nice ride.  So nice we share this love for the outdoors.  And we have the truck and trailer and stock to make it happen. 

An unusually cold front is coming through the valley sending morning lows in the minus readings.  So much for planting any more bulbs in the ground!  Trick or treating will be cold come Thursday night.  And we all moan as we prepare to lose an hour on Sunday, turning our clocks back.  I always feel cheated that day.

Tuesday night after-work activities included un-crocking a variety of ferments made from my garden cabbage.  They have been bubbling away, turning into various flavors of deliciousness.  Here are the flavor combinations:

Johnny's Kraut.  Named after Johnny Robinson - who loves this recipe - this is green cabbage, dill, and thinly sliced lemons.  Tart and a bit bitter from the lemon rinds, this just tastes healthy!  Great on a burger.
Holiday Kraut:  Fresh cranberries come around this time of the year.  I was pretty sure it would flop when I created this recipe last year, but no, it is delicious!  Green cabbage and sliced cranberries make for a subtle flavored mild kraut.  Lovely in its color and delicious all on its own.
Baseball Kraut:  A bit of green cabbage and a lot of onions and red pepper, this kraut is a home run every time!  It's Mike's favorite.  Spiced with paprika and mustard seeds, it tastes and looks awesome on a brats! 
End of the Season Kraut:  This new recipe is my 2019 Winner of the Year!  I literally cleaned out the refrigerator on this one.  Cabbage, carrots, zucchini, red pepper, red onion, garlic, and caraway seeds.  Wow!  This one throws a pack of flavor and deliciousness.  I'll be making another batch soon!

Fermentation draws me these days.  Every week, I bottle a new batch of kambucha, fermenting away in half gallon mason jars in the bathroom, building their SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) layer by layer until there are so many layers I have to throw them away.  My sourdough culture bubbles and brews almost jumping out of the container waiting to be folded into another loaf of sourdough bread or sourdough pancakes.  Here is my most favorite-ever recipe for pancakes; these things are amazing ever single time Best EVER Sourdough Pancakes    Am I going to make beer next with my prolific hop crop?  Probably not.  I doubt I will be making wine either.  Still, there are lots of multiplying bacteria in my life adding flavor and health benefits to those who partake.