Kitchen Failure - where I demonstrate what not to do when making miso paste

I hate to admit this, but sometimes I try something and it is a total disaster.  I suppose it's one of the side effects of being human, but alas, I wish it wasn't.

I also wish I was the kind of person who would quietly hide my failings somewhere dark and dank, where no one would think to look.  Bury failure under a damp pile of leaves, with only worms to whisper its nasty story too.  Maybe, if ignored, the horrible result would decompose into the soil, bettering the dirt so that new, and more successful things could thrive.

However, that's not what I want for this blog.  The goal here is to write about my culinary journey and share it with my four (or is that five now?) readers what I've learned.  Maybe some of it would be useful to someone some day.


This Kitchen Failure is especially embarrassing because I've recently been crowing about how easy and foolproof it is to make miso paste at home.

And it is easy to make miso at home, unless...

...unless you branch out and try some terribly outlandish thing and then it's a gamble.

Growing confidence with how incredibly yummy my standard chickpea miso recipe is getting, I decided to try a 'let's toss all this old stuff from the back of my cupboard miso' recipe.  I went directly against expert advice, but I had to do it.  I had to know if it would work or not.

It's not.

What did I do and what went wrong.

I used 1 pound of each adzuki and black beans (dried). Soaked and cooked them together.  MISTAKE: they cook at different rates, I should have treated them separately then mixed together when cool.  All of the adzuki beans were cooked to mush and some of the black beans were slightly raw inside.

To this I added 1/2 lb of pearly barley (dry weight), soaked and boiled until soft.  MISTAKE: using grain that hasn't been inoculated with koji spores.

The Koji rice and salt were as per usual.  MISTAKE: I didn't add extra salt to account for the additional volume of the barley.

Covered the miso with soaked kombu rather than plastic wrap.  Although this is different than my normal procedure, I don't think we can blame the kombu for this failure because some of the extra batch I fermented in a different jar also turned putrid. Besides, kombu was the pre-industrial clingfilm of Japan.

Fermented for three weeks.  Mistake: in small letters because I really should have waited for four weeks given how cold the house has been.

The results.

When I uncovered the miso a sour rotten smell like sour beer and compost assaulted me.  Miso should be sweet and salty, not sour and certainly not smelling of rotten barley.

Yep, rotten barley.  As in the pearl barley I added without inoculating it with koji first.  I'm feeling this is the main source of my failure, over confidence and ignoring a thousand generations worth of knowledge.  There is a step I could have taken to get the koji growing on the barley - without having to buy koji mold spores - but I was eager to get things done and didn't want to wait an extra day.

What did I learn?

I relearned that grain needs to be altered before fermenting, like malting or using koji, or even soaking in a sourdough sponge.  Without this alteration, the sugars in the grain aren't available and things go sour fast.

I learned that I really should try smaller batches when experimenting with outlandish miso mixes.

I also know that even though I'm down in the dumps about my current failure, I still plan on making miso this New Years.    In fact I'm very excited about it.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from us at the farm.

This is what it looks like on the farm today.

Travel Mug

Where I talk about coffee to go and the alternatives to plastic travel mugs.

As I read about Plastic, the dangers and how to avoid it in one's life, I see people writing about the alternatives: Stainless steel and glass.

To me stainless steel, though wonderful for cooking, is not the most ecologically friendly alternative.  It lasts a good long time, hard to break, makes excellent cooking pots... however, it has it's draw backs.  Food tastes weird when stored in it, it takes a lot of energy to produce/recycle, and it originally draws from an nonrenewable resources.  Even if we recycle every last scrap of stainless steal, from thumbtack to tractor, there are still is a limited amount of it on the planet, and each time we recycle a pot or a pin, a little bit of the metal would have been lost in the wear and tear.  On top of that, if you use a metal implement in a stainless steal cooking pot, it scratches the surface and removes the virtually non-stick quality a new stainless steel pot has.

More importantly, stainless steel is aesthetically non-pleasing.  Sure, a stainless steel bowl will bounce not break when tossed aside by an angry child, but it is missing that certain something that encourages an arthritic hand to carefully comfort a mug of hot broth to both warm the hands, and sooth the soul.

I have a few stainless steel travel mugs that have been given to me over the years.  Plastic top, but otherwise lovely.  They keep the coffee molten hot for literally hours.  The vacuum insulation makes it so that I can put my piping hot cuppa in the mug in the morning, and it will be almost cool enough to drink that evening.  None of that pesky heat transfer to warm my frozen digits, or that earthy texture that I associate with coffee.

Stainless steel has it's uses, 'though I adore it most for cooking pots and tiffins, not travel mugs.



Glass is the other material the plastic-free communities crow about with great gusto.  They call it less energy intensive alternative to stainless steel.  Which it may be.  Glass has been around for a few thousand years or so, and can be stunning when made by artizan hands.  That's seldom done anymore, but when it is - amazing.

The biggest disadvantage with glass is it breaks.  More than that it shatters into dangerous splinters, or it can unless special (do I hear energy intensive) processes are applied to the manufacturing process.  This takes the art of making glass and transforms it into an industrial science.  But don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be without it!

I adore glass, be it mason jars or milk jugs.  Glass makes the best storage sense and (except for special no-break glass that my local recycling centre won't touch) can be infinitely recycled.

But for a travel mug?  There's the breakable issue, which is fine.  Everything breaks eventually.  Glass travel mugs last a darn sight longer than plastic ones.  Besides, beautiful glass cozies made of cork or knitting gladden the eyes.

The biggest problem with glass is that it transfers the heat too quickly.  Pour the coffee into the glass cup, put my coat on, the travel cup is already too hot to hold comfortably.  By the time I can hold it again, the contents are cold!  There is no inbetween period where I can nurse my brew, cradle it in my hands....



Thankfully there is another plastic free alternative.  One that...

a) is from natural materials
b)  is from local materials (just about anywhere in the world)
c) is traditional
d) is renewable (and to a small degree recyclable)
and
e) is at it's best when created by artisans!

This plastic free material is called clay!  I'm talking pottery.

Right now I am in love with pottery beyond all shadow of a doubt.  If pottery was a bloke, and had enough money to scrounge together a small gold ring and some land, I would jump the broom with it (that's old fashioned talk for marry it).  As it is, a lifelong common law partnership with pottery is not unlikely.

Pottery, ceramics, clay, earthenware, what have you.  It's all just heated mud and mud can be found almost anywhere.  Pottery has this extreme comforting quality that glass and metal can't imagine.  And that's what I love most about it.

A potter chooses which mud to use, shapes it to their will or whim, drys it, bakes it, lavishes lovely colours upon it, bakes it again... amazing!

Sure, pottery also has the potential to break when wielded by angry children, but it doesn't shatter into dangerous shards like glass can.  When the pottery finally looses it's battle with gravity, it has nearly a hundred uses on the farm for growing food.  It can sometimes be recycled into some other kinds of future clay.  It's amazing.

Like glass and metal, cooking with pottery is easy when you know how.  It's actually quite nurturing and is my go to pot for comfort food.

When it comes to travel mugs, I think this it makes the most beautiful alternative.

This mug is created by Ann Coleman at Yunomi Studio, an artizan with great skill and infinite patients for the clay curious individuals who flock to her studio (aka, she doesn't get annoyed when I constantly pester her with questions).

The coffee is poured into the centre hole which is then plugged with a plastic-free stopper (a cork).  You then drink the coffee through the vampire-bite holes on either side.  It comes out just the right speed, thanks to the holes on the opposite side stops a vacuum from forming inside the mug which prevents the coffee from coming out at a consistent rate (like my stainless steel mugs).  Cleaning is a bit tricky, but a quick rinse after each use keeps it happy.  A bottle brush can be employed for more stubborn mess.

I tried to get Ann to write a few words about what inspired her to create such gorgeous functionality, but all she said was "I don't like drinking from plastic".

The beauty of this mug goes far beyond it's function and elegant appearance.  It's in the texture, the balance and heft of it when filled with liquid, What's more, it keeps the coffee warm for just the right amount of  time, the heat slowly oozing out into the clay and to the hands that embrace it.


Clay makes the perfect Transition material because it is everywhere.  In an over simplified point of view, all you need is mud, fire and the will to transform the world.

A Fermented Holiday Season starts now

It's that time of year again, time to start thinking about Holiday presents.  This year I've decided that all the adults are getting homemade gifts, mostly food.

It all started with the most recent batch of chickpea miso - best batch so far! - and I thought, this is the type of miso I would be proud to serve my friends (as opposed to my learning batches of miso which were a little bit...um... taste like practice).  If the miso tastes this good, I wonder what other yummy treats I can make.

So here's a list (because these particular friends don't read this blog) of some of the delicious fermented foods I hope to have ready in time for Christmas.

Sweet Miso takes about one month to ferment, but it can be as fast as 3 weeks if I increase the ratio of koji rice to other ingredients.  I have one batch of Chunky Chickpea Miso ready, and plan to put up a batch of Black Turtle and Adzuke Bean with Barley Miso later today.




Kimchi!  Kimchi is awesome in so many ways.  For starters, it is by far the best way to clean out the crisper drawer in the fridge.  You can put (almost) anything in kimchi.  In this case, I used half a daikon, two su choi cabbages, chilis, excessive amounts of ginger sliced thin, Cauliflower, carrots, and anything else vegi related that needed eating up.  Kimchi takes about one week to ferment.



Cultured Butter is easy to make in advance and keeps for ages.  I'll probably start making this a week or two before the Holiday dinner.  Takes one day to culture the cream and the next day to churn it = two days.



With the leftover buttermilk from churning butter, I will bake some bread.  Sourdough Bread loves buttermilk.  With the added dairy sugars the bread will often rise to be lofty and soft, as opposed to the more dense country loaf I make for every-day purposes.  Takes two days to make a great loaf of sourdough, but can be done in one.

Speaking about dairy. my dream is to eventually make my own hard cheese.  Wouldn't it be lovely to give the gift of Cheese?  Even a soft farmhouse style cheese mixed with dry herbs dressed in a beautiful jar or clay pot would be a good addition to a gift basket.  Soft cheese takes a couple of hours, a hard cheese on the other hand can take years.


Of course, you could always spice up your relationship with some hot sauce.  Fermented hot sauce takes about one week, or this one which is ready in two days.


Last but not least, my personal all time holiday favourite:

Cranberry Mead!

The biggest advantages of fermented vs the baked gift, are that fermented gifts last longer, are generally more affordable to make and are a refreshing change from over-indulgence.  They are also an excellent way to use up the last of the harvest.

Going plastic free - or very nearly. A beginning

The goal: to reduce my use of plastic in my life, with a focus on the kitchen and food related plastic.

Why?  I've had a lot of failed attempts at writing why; it all tumbles into long rants about the world going to shit and how we each need to do our part.  My part begins here.

Inspiration:  Began with a book I accidently borrowed from the library called Plastic Free by Beth Terry (a book that the library had kindly coated in plastic to preserve it from the excessive use they anticipated it would get - libraries are funny like that, and apparently not the only ones to plasticize the plastic free book).



Generally, I'm interested in reducing any negative environmental impact I create and moving towards plastic free would be a huge step in this direction.

Another source of inspiration came from digging in the garden last spring.  I noticed when digging that there were hundreds of plastic fruit stickers in my soil.  These are the stickers that grocery stores put on their fruit to make life easier for the till workers.  Always before, these stickers use to disappear into the soil after a few months, but here I was digging in a section of the garden where no new compost had been added for at least 4 years, and there they were, an excess of plastic.  It was such a little, everyday thing this digging in the garden, but it struck home the realization that plastic is forever.



So what am I going to do about it?  

I am starting with simple observation.  I want to know just how much plastic is in my life right now; more specifically, how much plastic do I waste?  I am taking The Plastic Challenge.  For a week I am collecting up all the plastic that I would otherwise toss in the trash or recycling, taking a photo of it, and documenting how much plastic do I waste in a week?

The goal of this week is to develop a baseline for my personal plastic use.  I'm not trying to change anything at this stage, in fact, it may be an overrepresentation of my plastic use as we are going through a major cleaning phase in our life right now.


Here it is, one week worth of plastic:

Week 1 plastic pile

 My theory was correct, almost everything here is food related (or related to raising food), except for the shampoo and mail.  All in all, it weighs in at 3/4 pound.  According to the book Plastic Free by Terry, the average American uses 4 pounds of plastic a week.  


I sorted it into two piles:  Unavoidable and Might Be Able to Do Better.

Things like the envelope with the plastic window in it is necessary.  For starters, I am not convinced that e-communication actually is less eco-damaging than paper letters, but even if it is, I still prefer the paper trail when dealing with official documents.  Apparently this makes me evil - so be it.

This blue string, it's called binder twine.  It is used to bind the bales of hay together so that they are easy to use and transport.  We feed the hay to the animals, so it is a necessity in life.  Unfortunately it's made of a nasty-give-me-blisters plastic (a bit like coarse fentex).  Until relatively recently, binder twine was made of jute or sisal (plant based fibres) which are strong, biodegradable over time, and what's more, supported many third world economies.  Now, short of moving to a tropical climate and growing the jute myself, I don't know where to get natural binder twine.  That's a shame, because each day we cut at least 12 feet of plastic twine off the hay.  The twine goes into a bag where it sits until we can use it for things like tying together hurdles (temporary sheep fencing), which is what this pile of twine was reused as before meeting it's end.  Even though we re-use the twine before sending it to the landfill, we don't use it as fast as it comes in (anyone want an armful of bright blue plastic twine?).

So those are the kinds of plastic waste in my life that are currently unavoidable.  However, there are a few items here that I might be able to do better on.

For example, this tea bag wrapper.  The company brags that the teabag is compostable (which it is, I tried it) and the box is recyclable as well as made from recycled materials.  However, this individual sachet has a plasticized coating on the inside, which I assume is to help keep the tea fresh.  It might not even be a plastic, who knows?  But it feels like plastic and has yet to compost in my worm bin, so it goes in my plastic pile.  The solution, buy another brand of tea, or better still, drink more loose leaf tea.


Plastic bread bags also fall under the 'might do better' title; although, I'm currently stumped as to how.  I'm quite proud of my bread baking abilities, especially the ability to bake a loaf that will last at room temperature for two weeks (or more) before going moldy - using only flour, water, and salt!  One of the elements to this long lasting bread is the bag it's stored in.  Wrap it in a towel and it either goes hard or soggy, but either way only lasts a couple of days before we toss it to the chickens.

I wonder, how can I store bread without plastic bags?  Another question that taunts me is how to freeze bread without plastic?

Re-using plastic bags, even washed ones poses problems.  There are fancy things about chemicals leaching into the food, but more important to me is that the cleanliness of the bag is one of the factors that helps preserve the bread.  It's impossible to get a bag completely clean with home-washing.  Besides, the goal is to keep my bread fresh without plastic, not to re-use plastic.

One of my biggest sources of inspiration for finding solutions to this and similar problems, is to look at history.  What did they use to do before plastic was ubiquitous?  Could I use a bread box or wrap my bread in paper for example?  These are things I'm just going to have to try and discover for myself.  I'm looking forward to the experiment.



For more information on going plastic free, have a look at this blog: My Plastic Free Life, written by the same author that wrote the book I mentioned at the beginning.  I'll also be joining the discussion (I hope) at the Plastic Trash Challenge.

I've also discovered this very interesting Canadian based online store called Life Without Plastic which, as you guessed it, focuses on plastic-free alternatives for everyday items.  I have had a great deal of fun bumming around their site and feel very hopeful that there are possibilities available, if a bit beyond my price range.

  A final thought, this is a great challenge for Transitional groups like Transition Victoria, who dedicate themselves to gathering skills for living in a post-petroleum age.

Recyclable on the left, destined for the landfill on the right :(

The goal of going plastic free brings up a lot of questions, especially regarding food storage, preservation, buying, &c.  I feel that in most areas of my life, I use a darn sight less plastic than my peers, but I really want to cut down my kitchen waste.  That's why I'm writing about this on my food blog and not my (currently sleeping) yarn/life blog.  Let me know if you find this interesting or better yet, inspirational.