Reviving Traditional Foods
Has a lost love of soda pop been nagging at you too long? We’ve developed a love of water kefir or tibicos in our home. A fermented beverage teeming with beneficial bacteria, it’s easily flavored, remarkably simple to prepare and more palatable than kombucha, offering a pleasant alternative to commercial sodas. Similar [...]
We hear it all the time (and I say it plenty!): eat your yogurt for probiotics. But if you choose not to eat dairy foods or cannot tolerate them, finding dairy-free probiotic foods can pose more of a challenge; however, that doesn’t have to be the case. Indeed, there are many, many dairy-free [...]
In the past few weeks, I’ve enjoyed a little treat: fresh, homemade matsoni courtesy of a new company Cultures for Health. Matsoni is a nice tart yogurt hailing from Georgia and was thought to convey long life. Matsoni is also a room-temperature yogurt that cultures well with minimal effort. For those of you [...]
Fermented food, enjoyed across the globe, conveys health benefits through lactic acid fermentation. The fermentation process can transform the flavor of food from the plain and mundane to a mouth-puckering sourness enlivened by colonies of beneficial bacteria and enhanced micronutrients. While fermented food like yogurt, sauerkraut and kefir are well-known many other lesser-known foods also [...]
So this is the plan for our first week of our pantry challenge. The menu is fairly varied, and I’m interested to see how the rest of the month goes! Monday Breakfast: Oats with Raisins, Green Tea Lunch: Leftover Buffalo Pot Roast, Greens Dinner: Butternut Squash Souffle, Mixed Green Salad, Fermented Beets To Do: [...]
In a new segment I thought I’d answer some reader questions. Indeed, if there’s enough interest, I’ll answer reader questions every Wednesday. If you have a question about food, recipes, traditional foods and nutrition or frugal cooking feel free to contact me. Can homemade cider make people sick? Anything food can harbor potential [...]
Aren’t these the happiest little Water Kefir grains you’ve seen? They don’t belong to me–I killed my grains after a prolonged vacation–but they do belong to a member of Mothering.com’s Traditional Foods forum. See how the grains rise and fall with the carbonation? That is good kefir. It’s likely that you’re familiar with kefir–the milk-based [...]
free resources to get started
The Thing About Blueberries . . . is that they don't grind their Harleys over the hot desert tarmac, … [read more]
Confused about grains? You're not alone! It seems that everyone is telling you - to either get … [read more]
Did you know that a simple process can actually increase the nutrients your body absorbs from whole … [read more]
Jenny McGruther is a wife, mother and cooking instructor specializing in real and traditional foods. Her work has been featured on CNN, the Globe & Mail, the Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, Denver Post and WebMD. Click here to learn more.
What People are Saying