Fermented Grains: The Perpetual Soured Porridge Pot

by Shannon on January 27, 2012 · 1 Comment · in cooking & recipes, nourishing food

One thing I have found since we moved off-grid is that we simply need to eat more filling, hearty, and dare I say starchy foods. When we first got here that was simply bread and butter, corn tortillas, or plain old oatmeal.

Now that my cooking situation is a bit more set up I have been getting back to soaking and fermenting grains. The problem is that our cabin can swing drastically from 70-some degrees during the day and 30-some degrees at night, which would be why my sourdough starter just wouldn’t cut it.

So I decided to give our oats a ferment and see what happened. The results have been great and dare I say low-maintenance, surviving even in our crazy climate and with my lack of daily feedings. The porridge is definitely sour in flavor, but we love it with plenty of butter, fruit, nuts, and raw milk.

Why Fermented Grains?

Over the years I have found that our bodies tend to digest and simply use grains better if they are soaked, but preferably fermented. This has been the case with a sourdough bread vs. a regular yeast bread and now with this porridge.

Fermentation breaks down the hard to digest components of grains and tends to maximize the nutrients of whatever food is being fermented. Win-win.

Here is How I Made the Starter:

  1. Crack whole oat groats into something like a steel-cut oat. It will look like a combination of flour and pieces of whole oats. You can grind it as fine as you’d like, just make sure the oat groats have been broken up and the starchy insides exposed.
  2. Combine a few cups of these (I just use two scoops from our grain bucket, the equivalent of about 2-3 cups) with enough water so that you can stir it easily but it is not too soupy. I use a half gallon jar for this.
  3. You can, optionally, add some whey at this point to kick-start the fermenting process. I did just a couple of tablespoons off of our kefir and it seems to have worked well.
  4. Cover with a cloth or a coffee filter and a rubber band or canning ring. Let sit in a warm place for a few days or until it starts to smell sour and have little bubbles.

Here is How I Feed It:

Every time we make and use up all but one cup of the porridge my five-year-old cracks two more scoops of oats and I stir them into the jar, being sure to incorporate a good amount of air.

I let this ferment for about two days before removing all but one cup and feeding the porridge once again. I’ve gone longer than those two days between eatings and feedings, but I find the sourness is tamed by using it up within a couple of days (assuming it has already soured).

Here is How I Use It:

Be sure to leave 1 cup of porridge in jar. Combine the desired amount of soured porridge with enough water to cover by 1-2". Cook slowly over low heat, stirring frequently, until thick and water is absorbed.

You can also bake with this, which is something I am excited to share with you soon as well.

Learn More About Soaking, Sprouting, and Fermenting Grains

As we have started down this path towards agrarianism we find ourselves having to keep our grocery budget as low as possible while nourishing our bodies in order to do the physical work involved in starting a homestead. Spending the last five years learning about properly preparing grains, beans, and other foods has been an invaluable tool in making this little equation work.

If you are interested in learning more about turning those hard-to-digest grains into something nourishing then you may want to check out the Healthy Whole Grains e-course. This self-paced online class includes 50 videos and over 100 printable recipes to get you going.

Use the coupon code SPROUT20 by February 7th and receive a $20 discount on the course. I am told this is the only coupon code that will be made available to the public, so don’t delay!

 

Soaking Grains, Nuts, and Beans (a series)

by Shannon on January 26, 2012 · 3 Comments · in cooking & recipes, nourishing food

This is a re-run post on a topic I have been thinking on a lot lately. If you are interested in soaking, sprouting, and souring grains please check out this new e-course Healthy Whole Grains.

I’ve been experimenting with sourdough the past few weeks and am very excited with the results. All of this has me thinking of the other articles I have put together on the whys and hows of soaking things. I am finding sourdough to really be the answer for grains, so I’ll be sure to share more in the coming weeks.

Why do you soak (or not)?

 

How to Render Tallow or Lard (and how the science is in favor of animal fats)

by Shannon on January 22, 2012 · 24 Comments · in cooking & recipes, real health

 

This post was originally published in February of 2011… but our love for tallow and lard beats on.

One of the most important changes to our family’s diet over the past few years has been to only use stable fats for cooking. Before this I used olive or canola oil to cook just about everything and because I was told it was healthy I never questioned the slightly rancid taste that is the result of heating an unsaturated fat.

Now I only cook with tallow, lard, coconut oil, and occasionally butter. I use olive oil for salad dressings, but I am developing more cultured dairy based salad dressings since it seems more likely that we will have our own milk before we have our own olive trees.

The Science is in Favor of Saturated Fats

What is most disturbing to me about the smear campaign that lard and saturated fats have gotten is that people don’t even question it. If anyone truly wanted to know the science behind which fats are healthy they might have found out that very basic chemistry teaches that saturation = stability = less inflamation and free radicals in the body. And that it is ignorant to say that simply because a fat is solid at room temperature it will clog your arteries.

Or perhaps they would tell you that both lard and tallow contain only 1/3-2/3 saturated fat, the rest being mostly monounsaturated. (source) But don’t bore them with the details, they’ve got subsidized crops to push and no one makes money when you butcher an animal and render your own fat.

So yes, lard and beef tallow are healthier cooking fats than vegetable oils, including olive oil. They were the main cooking fats used in this country BEFORE the onset of the now epidemic diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. But the USDA recommendations are more about pushing policy than they are about true science.

How to Render Tallow or Lard

There are many ways to do this, all involving a slow and low-heat cooking process. You can do it on a stove top, in the oven, or in a slow-cooker. This is how I do it:

  1. Cut tallow (suet) or lard into small pieces, about 1/2 inch each. This increases the surface area so that it will melt more readily.
  2. Place in a large pot (for the stove top), a large pan (for the oven) or your slow-cooker insert. Some people also add a tiny bit of water, though I never have.
  3. Place your pot over very low heat, your pan in a low oven (250 degrees or so) or turn your slow-cooker to high until it begins to melt in earnest and then turn it down to low.
  4. Cook down until a clear liquid fat has been rendered from the small pieces of fat. I don’t know that there is an exact science to this, your goal is to get as much liquid fat out of those solid pieces as possible, without burning the fat. So this takes me 6-8 hours in a slow-cooker or a few hours in the oven or stovetop.
  5. While fat is still warm strain it into quart jars, being sure to strain off all solid pieces. Straining off the solid pieces will help keep the fat from spoiling for a much longer period of time.
  6. I currently store mine in the refrigerator, though I am researching a few of the ways it was stored before refrigeration. It should keep for months in the refrigerator.

How Others Do It

Have you tried rendering lard or tallow?

 

Five Things I Couldn’t Live Without In Our Off-Grid Kitchen

by Shannon on January 18, 2012 · 3 Comments · in cooking & recipes, Off-Grid Agrarianism

I have been wanting to share our very basic, very unprofessional off-grid infrastructure with y’all for quite some time now. I am always fascinated when reading about how people do the basics of domestic life without modern conveniences. Problem is we’ve passed the three week mark on one or all being sick and, well, priorities have to be made.

Until then I’d like to share with you the top five items I have found to be necessities in our off-grid kitchen. They aren’t fancy gadgets, they aren’t anything extravagent or particularly "foodie", but their simplicity has gotten us through these past three months.

So, if you’re interested, go check out the article Five Things I Couldn’t Live Without In Our Off-Grid Kitchen. And I would love to hear your ideas for what could streamline those daily tasks in the kitchen.

 

The Top Five Reasons We’ve Been Sick For Weeks

by Shannon on January 13, 2012 · 33 Comments · in real health

I used to really think I had this real food and natural health thing figured out. I spent years researching the topics simply because I had been ill for so long and I didn’t want the same for my children.

So up until we made our move off-grid I was quite happy with our family’s fairly low track record of illness. I think I spent two years without so much as a sniffle once I really jumped on board with this traditional food stuff. I did everything they said (or tried to) with great results.

And boy was I full of myself. 

Our Two Weeks of Illness

For the past few weeks we have, one or all, been ill.

It started about two weeks ago with a nauseous three day flu for me. Our three year-old quickly jumped on the band wagon and right around the time I was feeling better the Papa fell hard to it for about five days.

Right around the five day mark our five year old started sniffling… and then coughing… and then sounding like he spent the past 20 years smoking. And then my midwive’s urine test found leukocytes confirming I wasn’t dreaming up that weird thing in the back of my throat. But then a couple days later it went away… right about the time our three year old got the hacking cough.

And just when I thought I had finally missed a round of illness I went to bed last night with a sore throat and woke up with a spasming cough. Just in time to join our still hacking sons and the Papa who just doesn’t feel so great himself.

Oh, and the concerned looks my husband gives me as I uncontrollably cough subtly let me know: I’m due to push a human being the size of a Thanksgiving turkey out of my body within the month.

Health Is Not A Formula

There is no formula for good health, though there are ways to be obedient in taking care of our bodies. God is the author of health – good and bad – and I am finding that in our physical weakness He is glorified and my wrong thinking shines through.

I have learned two things from this experience:

  1. I need humbling in this area and should be thankful that though I physically feel unwell He is using these trials to spiritually mold me.
  2. Many of the things I was doing to get and stay healthy actually were working, as evidenced by their absence and our subsequent illnesses.

Five Habits We Need To Get Back To

Since we’ve been here food, like everything else, has been at survival levels. Most meals have been simply about eating on the cheap, as well as we can, but with an emphasis on calories rather than nutrient density.

There are reasons for this, which I hope to get into in another post, but for now lets just say doing the best you can with what you have isn’t ideal. But there are five things we have definitely not done right.

  1. TOO MUCH SUGAR. Boy howdy have I let this slide and absolutely positively can not be so non-chalant about this anymore.
  2. Not taking our cod liver oil daily. This is one of the only supplements we have regularly taken over the past few years and since we’ve been (almost 3 months) I have not been diligent about it. (Find our favorite CLO here.)
  3. Eating too many grains that have not been prepared properly. As we get used to living without temperature controls, an exponential increase in manual labor, and the generally more difficult life that agrarianism can be, we are eating a lot more grains. I am just starting to get back into the swing of making them easier to digest via fermentation or soaking and need to do this with all of them. (Find sprouted grains here.)
  4. Not eating enough fermented foods. This might be at the top of the list, folks. I’ve just started getting back into this, but still it is a struggle due to our living situation. I don’t think one can emphasize these foods enough for immune and gut health. (Find sources of fermented foods and fermented food starters.)
  5. Not emphasizing pastured meats & vegetables. Lets be frank, I don’t have the storage capacity or money for more than a couple of days of meals emphasizing these foods.

So, what do you think… What else should we be considering?