more on kombucha

So far today has been one of those plant and fungus kind of days. I started a new batch of kombucha and decided to bury the extra mother out in the garden with the kale and sweet peas and this turned into a lovely time gardening. The sun is shining here and it is gorgeous outside! I tidied up the kale and sweet pea area and put up some stakes because the sweet peas that reseeded themselves last fall are now getting tall enough to want to climb on something. The kale is looking good and I noticed the poppies are coming up as well. There is a ton of chamomile coming up every which way. One plant in particular looks nearly ready to bloom. The chard I put in last November has been thankfully covered by some fennel that fell over (why it is sometimes better to not clean everything up) and making a comeback from the snow and doing well with the extra cold weather we have been having the last couple of days.

So I just tasted my kombucha and I have to say it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It is not, however, something I imagine drinking with any great regularity at this stage, particularly when I have some lovely stuff in the refrigerator that I look forward to drinking every day. So I am off to read about how to fix up your kombucha to make it tastier. I ordered a book from the library by Harald Tietz, Kombucha: The Miracle Fungus. He is apparently an expert on kombucha as well as a huge fan. And the happy herbalist has quite a bit to say about how to help your kombucha taste um more palatable and many ideas on what you can do with it as well (add it to a bath, soak your pet in it...) I was reading this, also at the happy herbalist, about using different teas to make kombucha, although I think adding things after the kombucha has fermented is going to have more of an impact on its flavor, based on how this kombucha tastes. I taste nothing like black tea and sugar when I drink it. It is a lot more reminiscent of lemon juice to be honest.

OK so here are some photos of the mother and the kombucha once the mother was removed.



Top of mother; underside of mother- you can see another mother there, round and darker than the rest and that is the mother I used for the next batch I set up today. The last photo is the actual kombucha to drink, in a glass bread dish that *it* was fermented in.

As I said above, I buried the other mother out in the garden with the kale and sweet peas. I feel conflicted about this but let's be honest here, I can't keep all the mothers growing indefinitely and out with the plants seems like a lovely alternative to even the compost pile at this point. It is winter, after all.

I wanted to say too that I am getting used to the smell of the kombucha as it sits here next to me and it is like once you know that is how it smells, it isn't as bad, if that makes sense. I am thinking of adding some pear juice to it? And maybe I won't ferment the next batch quite as long. I erred on the side of caution this time because I wanted it to definitely be acidic enough. Now that I know it is definitely acidic enough I am going to taste it sooner next time.

Snow people today, one princess and one knight. The knight has battled and stands no more but the princess stands on...

Kombucha update-
I see bubbles! It is definitely effervescing!

Today I put the kombucha mother I have been growing into a decent amount of black tea with sugar and water and a little mature kombucha and she is now fermenting and growing in a glass bread pan on top of the microwave. Old meets new, so to speak. I think I will give a look in about a week and test her pH to see how acidic she is.

We are getting quite a snow storm here with several inches of snow falling and even lots of wind and gusting. I was joking around earlier about snowfall in Portland, but really it is coming down in such a way that most people should even stay off of the roads. I think this means (or hope!) that it will stick around for a day or two because Eva is desperate to make a snowman. Last year we got nothing. The year before? we had snow for several days complete with sledding. This year Samuel asked for snow pants and put them on willingly and asked why he didn't want to wear them before. I said I wasn't entirely certain but it had seemed so important to him, why push. I mean it is really only snow pants we are talking about here. And lookee here, age 8 1/2 and he puts them on voluntarily! I tell you these things will happen if only we can wait!

And I made this little lady today. I used an angel pattern I found online somewhere? and was going to call her a fairy but I am not sure if that will stick because Eva looked at me askance each time I said fairy but when she saw the finished product she was quite pleased. We shall see. I want to make a few more and yet they are a mite tedious so I am not sure how many I will actually make. It can be so much fun to make one small thing but I feel I am pushing it when I make more...I guess I can break it up with some other knitting and see what happens.



She is about 2 1/2 inches tall with wild hair covering her wings!

Another glorious day AND I finished the hat I have been working on. This is the third hat I have made with this lovely angora yarn (eggplantish color looks more purple in photo; the mustard and orange yarns are both wool; all at 6 sts/inch) and I think this one is a keeper. I wore it all day to get used to it, because as Samuel mentioned, I was feeling it was a little bright, at least for my head. He said I will only knit brown things for myself and that I am under a brown spell. Interesting, because I do wear a lot of brown but I have a purple vest and blue shoes so maybe an eggplant hat won't be too much after all. I finished up Samuel's new red hat as well (also 6 sts/inch). This year's red hat is knit in three shades of red- the bottom half is alpaca and then a little left over orangey-red from my stash and some new worsted weight for the top which I intend to make mittens out of as well, hoping they will keep the snow out a bit more than the alpaca, which was really soft and not a bit itchy but which also absorbed moisture too easily.

This weeks produce basket is amazing! There are several tomatoes and I have a few brandywines from my garden that I have been ripening in the kitchen. Brandywine tomatoes in November! Also potatoes, collards, leeks, peppers, romanesco, cauliflower, beets and would you believe, chard! So of course I am making chard with chickpeas tonight and beet risotto later this week? I want to find some brown arborio rice for the risotto and wonder if such a creature exists? But I am torn because I would love to juice the beets as well, particularly with the carrots AND apples. Oh, and there is also a kabocha squash, not to be confused with kombucha.

And speaking of kombucha, I have been checking it out and my mother is about ready so that I can try making my own kombucha!

kombucha konvert

So, I am officially loving Kombucha. When I first tried Kombucha, I really disliked it. I mean really. I gave it to Ellen so that someone would appreciate it. Over the summer, a friend (thanks Nicole) recommended a certain flavor of Kombucha and I tried it and to be honest, I still really disliked it. I kept trying it, though, and slowly slowly slowly got to the point where I didn't dislike it. But I didn't like it either. And then one day it hit me- I was looking forward to drinking some Kombucha. I was so excited. I actually liked it. I don't drink very much, certainly not a whole bottle-full. More like a couple of sips a couple of times a day. And the bottles make great water bottles on top of all that!

So funny because Matt brought me a Sambuca flavored lollypop for our anniversary and he thought it was a Kombucha flavored lollypop and was so excited- it will taste just like that stuff you like. That dern Kamchatka, oops I mean Veerboot-sa, oops I mean Kombucha :)