New Blog URL

Dear my whole two people who visit my site ever.

I'm gonna give your 'a' key a bit of a break whenever you want to type my URL in.

I'm gonna make the URL much shorter so you can read the funny little bit that comes after the
asnanasrakjakankankanlanalanlaahbaajuabiabjkabajhbvakbakhabvuaftayfrayuhbaanaaa.blogspot.com/
and therefore know what the page is about, because I know someone out there does that other than just me.

I'm also going to make the site name actually relevant, seeing as now I'm more into natural movement instead of yoga, sweet potato instead of banana low carb veg, and goaty raw got milk. And fermented everything. And alignment (ok, so my knowledge about alignment comes from about one source at KatySays.com and I may or may not have spent the whole of yesterday reading practically every post in her 25 pages of posts). And natural real products and five different types of salt and not staring at a screen for 12 hours in a day learning about alignment and another type of salt in your bathroom that's got magnesium instead of sodium and real. life.

My new blog name is Out of Den and, you guessed it, it's at outofden.blogspot.com. I wanted it to be Out of the Cave to prove my non-conformist approach to Paleo and how I'm leaving negative (in ways I will explain one day) and somewhat boring approaches to 'health'. But then it sounds like I'm becoming public about my sexual preferences which was NOT what I was going for. And, I should add, there is no Freddie Mercury business going on here.

Fermented Mango Vomit

When a ferment recipe says to leave a gap at the top of the jar, they don't mean a half a centimetre gap.

It's incredibly humid here so I thought I would ferment a thing or ten while I can get them done quickly. I've been making watermelon and its rind, cucumbers with cumin seeds and cloves (I only discovered the taste of cloves the other night on a Christmas party ham, and I'm still trying to work out how to cook with them), asparagus and radish, and I also made some mango ferments.

Just one mango for now. I sliced him up, slid his cheeks into my French jam jars (there's something I never thought I'd say), added some water and starter from my watermelon syrupy almost-alcohol, and left him there while I had breakfast.

Come the next morning and I came to see if he was ready. His lid was tight so I knew he needed a breath of air so I naively picked him up and unscrewed his lid. PHRFRRFRAAAAGHGHH. I think that's about how it went. It was not a fizzzz, it was not a pop!, it was not a bubble bubble rising rising bubble aaaaand overflooooooww..., it was a full on vomit of mango gunk.

Despite the appealing imagery, I licked my sticky fingers covered in goo. The goo was delicious. Still sweet. I probably should've kept it going another day but it was just so sweet and just enough tang to make it taste fermented and I didn't want it to become alcoholic too... so I rinsed him and popped him in the fridge.

I took the other one and brought him over the sink. I very slowly twisted it half a degree and let out some air. Once it had stopped fizzing I cracked it open a teensy bit more. And again. And again. My fingers were slippery from rinsing them from spew so I grabbed a towel to twist a little bit more. I twisted a little and then I realised I'd gone too far.

PHRFRRFRAAAAGHGHH.

Vomit-covered tea towel.

Rinsed them off and put the mango in the fridge, only to be taken out half an hour later as a non-jam, non-chutney, some type of fruity topping for my zucchini pancake (I've been having a lot of those lately, with carrot too).

Fermented Mango

Mango

Water

Starter or a previous batch of fermented fruit or vegetables, optional

Cut up, scoop out, fork out, mash up, or squeeze the mango flesh out of the skin and off the stone. Squeezing the stone helps :) Keep any squares/scoops a uniform size.

Add the mango to a jar that's at least twice as large as the amount of mango that will fit in it, or divide the mango into separate jars.

Add 1 - 3 tbsps starter or liquid/brine from a previous ferment, then fill with water until all the mango is covered.

Add the lid and set aside for 1 - 4 days on the counter, burping when needed.

Excitement

So I tried to make mayonnaise and for the third time it failed me.

NEVER TELL ME I HAVE MIXED FIVE EGG YOLKS INTO OIL ONLY TO MAKE IT DISGUSTING AND OIL-SOUPY.

So I left it and came back to it after dinner. I tried it with another yolk but you're meant to add the oil to the yolk not the yolk to the oil. HALF A DOZEN EGGS GONE. 

There goes breakfast.

But I didn't want to waste my emulsion that was failing to thrive. So I gave him one last shot at becoming a well made, respectable member of our household.

This time I added the oil to the yolk like I was meant to, and prayed to the food gods that my baby would come to life. And he worked! However, just to keep him on the safe side, I kept him little. So I only ended up making half a little jar of concentrated fat. Yum yum :)

However, in the midst of all that initial tantruming, I made dinner (hence I tried it again after I ate). And what was for dinner?

Yams. Oh sweet yams, I would say that I love you more than sweet potatoes but most people don't understand you and thus I must categorise you two together into one amazing unit.

But I have not explored my yams enough to have found this before, and was I excited.

I partied around the room and yelled at my unenthusiastic brother to LOOK at my awesome psychedic yam.

Like, just look at it!

And so I roasted it with some little bity zucchinis and made some yummy chippies for dinner.

On a completely different note, this morning the Fairies that Cater for Women, Monthly (who have generally been very lazy when it comes to me) visited, and I won't go into detail, but I was ultra excited to use this pure piece of silicon.

However, it may have been the excitement that had gotten a hold of me. I'll try again tomorrow, after I work out how to get... a bandaid...

Coconut Yoghurt

Short story: I made some yoghurt.

Long story:

My brother got an ice cream maker for his birthday, and the person who was more excited about it was me. One of the only seemingly pointless kitchen appliances I've been to scared to ask for! Sure, it's tiny, but I'll keep it churning!

My issue, however, was that we were out of any form of canned coconut, and I couldn't make the ice cream.

So on the weekend, I got dad to take me to the supermarket and I bought $20 worth of Aroy-D (I don't care about the unlabelled potassium stuff). Walking through the dairy aisle for dad's food, I saw a little expensive container, and I said Coconut Yoghurt. Last time I'd bought a coconut yoghurt it mysteriously disappeared. I decided to buy the orange lidded pot and keep it in my sights at all times.

And then it hit me. I had all this coconut cream and all these little bacteria. Why don't I combine the two?! It made sense to me. So I hogged the oven for 24 hours and followed the recipe that's posted on Michelle Tam's site but isn't hers.

You may as well go to her site for the guest post, I haven't changed a thing.

http://nomnompaleo.com/post/45263391503/paleo-plans-simple-coconut-milk-yogurt

It was pretty runny. However, if you put it in the fridge (as you should once it's ALIVE...) you'll get more creamy Greek style yoghurt on top, and a thickish probiotic coconut water underneath that you could have in smoothies or whatnot. Or toughen up and mix it together and pour it like (thin) heavy cream on your passionfruit and blueberries.

A note of... warning, however (it's not that bad). If you pour it on something cold like mango sorbet and let it sit for a bit, the delicious fat will solidify and you'll get an awesome cracked effect.

I'll definitely have to hog the oven some more.