Been a while since I've done some fermenting but a trip to the farmer's market meant access to some ingredients. First is some hot banana peppers for garnishing. Second are some pickling cucumbers. A fresh startTwo days in

There's an interesting debate in the fermented hot sauce world on how long you should leave your ferment going. Most people fall on the "couple of weeks" side of the argument but some people swear by longer. A lot longer. Up to this point I've stuck to the couple of

Taking a second shot at making kimchi. My first attempt a few months ago was way too spicy so hopefully this one is a bit more inline with something that won't blow my face off.

Today I "harvested" the sauerkraut I started a little over a month ago. It's just been sitting on my counter doing it's thing and I've just let it do it. I'm not a sauerkraut expert and perhaps I've never had "fresh" sauerkraut before but I'll be damned if this isn't

I've been meaning to play around with fermenting and cabbage a bit so here's take #1. Plain old normal cabbage + salt + four weeks hopefully equals sauerkraut.

I tend to prefer savory flavours when it comes to salsas and hot sauces but I had a batch of ghost pepper sauce that was just too hot for me to enjoy eating so I decided to try and cut it with some pineapple. The result is a  flavourful sauce

It's time to start another pepper ferment and we're trying a slightly different mix this time. Shallots instead of onion, a few "yellow" chilies for flavour and half a Carolina reaper for heat. I haven't tried any of the reapers that I have so I'm not sure if it's really

I like pickled mushrooms. Ends up I don't like fermented mushrooms. Fermenting adds some "funk" flavours to food. This is a positive with things like hot sauces and kimchi but it's overwhelming with these mushrooms to the point that I just can't eat them. :( Fail!

With the success I've been having with fermenting hot sauces, and pickling cucumbers not being in season, I've decided to branch out and try lacto fermenting some different things. First stop is mushrooms. I like pickled mushrooms and they're easy to come by so it's worth experimenting. I'm starting with

I finally turned my latest hot pepper ferment into a sauce. I let this ferment go for three weeks this time instead of two and the extra week definitely adds some funk, in a good way. This trial also took the number of ghost peppers down to just a half

It's been two weeks for my last batch of spicy pickles so today it was time to see how they turned out. For the first time since starting to experiment with fermenting I had a big fail. Biting into the first pickle my mouth was instantly filled with pickle mush.

Results of the 3rd round of hot sauce is still a bit too much heat. This is with one full ghost pepper. Still tasty enough and it is something I'll work my way through but it's not a casual dipping sauce for every day use :) A nice colour but still

Even though my first try at fermented pickles wasn't at all spicy they still taste good so I'm starting a second test batch. This time I've got a habanero pepper in to add some heat along with some red pepper flakes. Freshly chopped.Two days in.

After a two week ferment I'm ready to call my spicy pickles done. They taste like real pickles, have a decent crispness to them and have enough of a tangy bite without the overpowering flavour that you sometimes get from pickled pickles. Not so spicy.The one downside is that

I'm still working on finding a combination of peppers that provides a blast of heat while still keeping the flavour high. Going with two ghost peppers last time was a bit much so I'm trying a different combination. The before shotThis attempt consists of: one ghosttwo habaneros two cherry bombstwo