S Tonin

I use a fairly deep and tall plastic cooler lined with a heavy twin-size comforter and some towels.  My big stockpot *just* fits inside.  Honestly, I don't use the setup all that often, only when I want to slow-cook a big batch of something; I don't really have a good space to set up a cooler for 18 hours.  This is hands-down the best way to make a really rich bone broth/ stock (with a pressure cooker coming in a close second).  

Licorice tea reminded me of the blend I was drinking when my Mom had a bad cold earlier this month (there was a 50% chance if I brewed a pot she would drink at least a little of it, so I was taking it too): echinacea, slippery elm bark, licorice root, dried nettles, blended flowers (chrysanthemum, calendula, rose petals, jasmine, lavender, dried lemon zest), rosehips, and turkey tails, then sweetened with honey or blackcurrant/ elderberry syrup.  Proportions were whatever I was feeling when putting the tea in the pot; it was kind of a spaghetti-against-the-wall approach to (sneaky) herbal medicine.  I don't know if it helped her, but at least I didn't get sick.

M Ljin wrote:I have made plenty of garlic mustard-kraut. It is very delicious! And the spiciness or bitterness is tamed by this method.  

Yes!  I do mine like a kimchi with radish, green onion, garlic chives, and carrot (with the brine having blended tart apple, ginger, chopped garlic, gochugaru, soy sauce, maybe fish sauce this year).  It's still pungent and spicy, but in the good way.  The unopened flowers and more tender stems are really delicious when used, too.

When you kraut the garlic mustard, do you cut it into shreds like one would cabbage, or do you leave the leaves whole?

When I think of summer, I think of foods with the following qualities: light, wet, crunchy, cold, fruity, sour, bright.  So going outward from that, and thinking about what I have on hand (or can make with what I have on hand), I think adding pickled vegetables and tart, light condiments (like vinegars or fruit sauces) would inject a little sunshine into heavy meals.

I'm hooked on homemade grape molasses right now.  It's just grape juice (Concord, with the tartaric acid already precipitated out) reduced down to a thin syrup.  I use it like I would balsamic vinegar.  Just this month I've used it on roasted mixed vegetables, in a marinade for pork chops, and on toast (with plain butter or, even better, miso butter).

I did a lot of fermenting this fall, and eating the pickles as a side dish or a mix-in has really been perking things up.  I do a lot of things with a kind of kimchi flavor profile, and there's just something about the combination of ginger, garlic, and apple that add the right kind of aromatics to cut through the fartiness of cabbage and radishes while bringing out the sweet and fresh elements of carrot or onion.  

Honorable mention: sliced carrots and onions, lightly salted and put in the fridge overnight (Japanese quick-pickling, more or less), then dressed with a light fruit or herbal vinegar.

Didn't someone mention in the other thread that they had a specific name in their culture? (I'm thinking it was Polish/ Eastern European?)  Or tell him they're a variation of "lift" (pink pickled turnips), it's a Lebanese food.  He doesn't need to know it's a pickle, it's exotic.

I haven't made or given anything yet (most of that happens after Christmas, sometimes after New Year's), but I'm going to do flavored salts/ spice blends/ mixes.  I have some flavored vinegars and homemade condiments for my aunt, who appreciates my more gourmet/ artisan (read: weird) creations.

I think there's a lot of emotional work that goes side-by-side with the physical when you're transitioning from one way of living to another.  Like, for me, I've spent more years unlearning what I thought to be true than I did living it in the first place, and I've barely changed my lifestyle in all that time.  So, coming at this from a different angle:

Just by being here, you've already started questioning the status quo.  So I think the next step is pinpointing the areas that are making you the most unhappy, or areas that, by changing, will make you happier/ feel like you have the most agency in your decisions.  Start with the smallest changes that will make the biggest impact TO YOU.  The changes can be tiny and silly, like going barefoot more often or re-growing onion tops on your windowsill.

You might never be able to get your partner fully on board with your end goal, so it might be in your best interest to reevaluate what's ideal vs. what you're willing to concede.  Ideally, any spouse is going to want to meet halfway and try something new and facilitate their partner's personal growth; best case they discover something new about themselves and you take that journey together.  Worst case, they try to stop you from doing something that makes them unhappy, without regard to your feelings.  For almost everyone, it's going to fall somewhere between those extremes.  I think it's good if you (as the partner seeking change) have a clear idea of what you ultimately want and what you're willing to give up or trade-off to get it (or close enough to make you happy).  Maybe your husband doesn't want to move to a sheep farm out in the middle of nowhere, but he'd be cool with a few hens and a kitchen garden somewhere on the edge of town, especially if there's ample space for him to explore one of his own hobbies or passions.

Also this: don't get caught up in what you think you "should" be doing.  I have friends who are way more off-grid than I have any desire or ability to be.  A lot of times I find myself in a shame spiral after I interact with them because I'm not as hardcore about XYZ thing as they are.  Like, they buy tri-axles of whole logs for firewood and process it all themselves without a hydraulic splitter (all through 7 pregnancies!); I personally struggled maintaining the firewood for a 3-person household when it was delivered already cut, split, and seasoned.  DO NOT hold yourself to anyone's standard but your own.  Part of being more resilient and self-reliant is learning your strengths and your limits and living within them, even if they don't look like what you thought they should.  I've watched videos of hardcore off-gridders pulling their own teeth because they don't want to (or can't) pay a dentist; don't feel like you need to be that person to achieve some arbitrary standard of "homesteader."  The "keeping up with Joneses" mentality is alive and well within the broader community (not only Instagram tradwives trying to sell something); reject all of that now, it will not serve you.  

On the practical side of things, my biggest piece of advice: learn more about cooking.  Even if you're the sole cook in your household and do it for every meal, snack, and special occasion, there's still more to know about food and how to get it from the outside world and into your body in ways that both nourish and please you.  Something as seemingly arbitrary as learning to make your own mayonnaise can be life-changing.  This is non-gendered advice; everyone should know the basics of feeding themselves by early adulthood, with few exceptions, and that they don't in today's world is nothing short of a tragedy.  

I've heard that turnips and rutabagas need to age a long time at root cellar temperature to really develop a good flavor.  I tried with turnips a few different ways, but never got something I particularly enjoyed.  (One went for a year and I didn't want to give up on it, but my optimism only extends so far...)

I got a couple pounds of turnips a few months ago and shredded them into a kimchi-style slaw; after 3-ish weeks, they were ready and it's only getting better as it ages in the fridge.  I think the smaller size and addition of aminos in the soy sauce were equal factors in breaking down whatever it is that makes turnips unpleasant to me.

I'm also wondering if using the Chinese technique of fermenting, sun-drying, steaming, and drying again would elevate the flavor.  I've done it with strong diakon and it wasn't bad; they've got their own funk (and crunch) that takes some getting used to, but it's a good way to store them for longer than something would hold up in brine.  

For the last few years, I've been fermenting off all the tomato guts and saving the seed.  In the spring, I make up little seed packets and give them to the local food bank.  I do between 150-300, depending on the year, and they all end up going to either the food aid recipients or the volunteers.  They usually get over 200 families for every hand-out, so even if only 1% of the people who get seeds plant them, that's still two households that are one very tiny step closer to food security.