The Rite of Spring

As Spring approaches - and it seems to be approaching very quickly, today - I am planning to do another cycle with the Master Cleanse. I have decided to do a cycle every season. I am not exactly sure when I will begin
The Rite of Spring but I will likely start on the first day of Spring, March 20. For this post, I borrowed the title from Igor Stravinsky but it seems fitting. In my case, the master cleanse will be my rite of Spring (as well as Summer, Autumn, and Winter!). Stravinsky's piece also came up when I included it in a list of my favorite classical music pieces. Check out the rest of the list here: List My Five.
Before I start the cleanse, I want to use up the whey that I got from Deerfield Farms. I don't want it to go to waste. I have been adding it to the smoothies that I make for an added protein boost.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

...but if you try, sometimes you get what you need. In all of my posts that use songs or song references as titles, I don't think that I have ever used a Rolling Stones song. It seemed about time and You Can't Always Get What You Want seemed the perfect one for this post. When I got the whey from Deerfield Farm last Wednesday, I was all excited to try my hand at making beet kvass. When I went to the grocery store on Thursday, I was fully intending to buy some beets for the same purpose. No luck - I couldn't get what I wanted. But I tried again today, and I got what I needed! So today, I started the kvass-making process.

Sally Fallon provides a recipe for beet kvass in her book, Nourishing Traditions. It is as follows:

• 3 medium or 2 large beets, peeled and chopped up coarsely (I cubed them)
• 1/4 cup whey
• 1 Tablespoon sea salt
• Filtered water

Add all of the ingredients to a 2 quart container (I used two 1 quart mason jars). Add filtered water to fill the container, stir well, and cover securely. Leave the container(s) at room temperature for two days before transferring to the refrigerator.
That's it!

I gathered all of the ingredients and got ready to put it all together. For a little variety, I added a couple of baby carrots and a celery stalk to the recipe. As I don't have a larger jar to use (other than a plastic container that I don't want to use as the beet juice might permanently stain it), I am using two of my 1-quart mason jars. The 1/2 gallon container to the right of center of the picture is the whey.

I cubed the beets, carrots, and celery (though the celery obviously didn't result in cube shaped pieces!). It is not recommended to shred them as that would produce too much juice and the fermentation would happen too fast. This would result in more alcohol and less lactic acid. It is the lactic acid that we are after, here.

I divided the vegetables equally into my two mason jars to which I had already added 1/8 cup of whey (half of the called for quantity in each jar) and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. From feedback that I have read, following the recipe as written results in a too-salty drink. Rather than using the full tablespoon of salt, I used only the two teaspoons. I am hoping that adding the carrots and celery might produce a somewhat sweeter tasting kvass.

Finally, I added the filtered water to the jars and screwed on the lids. The jars are currently sitting on the kitchen counter (right next to my most recent batch of kefir!) where they will remain for the next 48 hours.


According to Sally Fallon, after most of the liquid has been consumed, I can simply top off the jars with more filtered water to make a second, slightly weaker batch. So, at a cost of $2.49 for the beets I will have about a gallon of kvass when all is done. This is considerably more affordable than buying bottled beet kvass at retail!

While I was in the 'creating' mode, I decided to be experimental with my smoothie for dinner. I used my standard 1 cup of frozen mixed berries (Trader Joe's Very Cherry Berry Blend) as a starter. To this, I added whey, kefir, some milk and raw honey, and a couple of prunes. For the experiment, I added a celery stalk! I wasn't sure if my blender would do a decent job of turning celery into a puree, but it worked. I was really surprised at how good it tasted. The celery was evident but not overpowering. Adding it is going to be a regular thing.

No Easy 'Whey' Out

The title for this post was an easy one for me, yet contrary to the title I did get an easy 'whey' out! So, the song may or may not be obvious to you but it has long been one of my favorites. It is 'No Easy Way Out' and can be found on the soundtrack from Rocky IV.
We were running low on milk, so I made a call to Deerfield Farm yesterday to reserve 3 gallons for today. I was surprised when Melynda answered the phone as I usually get the answering machine. I was further surprised when she told me that she had some whey for me! While I had inquired about having them reserve some whey for me when they made cheese, we hadn't been able to coordinate it up until today. Now I am the proud owner of a half gallon of whey! Well, it is now slightly less than a half gallon as I added some to the smoothie that I had for dinner...
As I haven't made my own yogurt in quite some time, I really haven't has any whey to use for other purposes. Unlike making yogurt and cheese, making kefir doesn't produce whey as a by-product. Now that I have a decent quantity of whey, I plan to make some kvass even though I wasn't terribly impressed by the taste of the kvass that I purchased. I plan to pick up some vegetables on our grocery shopping trip tomorrow so that I can try a couple of different blends in making my own kvass. I don't plan to make too much as I am not sure that I will like my own 'brew' any better than the purchased variety.

Changes

I admit it, I was having a really hard time coming up with a suitable song link for this post.  What I really want to talk about today is a trio of probiotic, fermented beverages and I just couldn't find a related song, band, or album to go along with them.  One possible link was The KKK Took My Baby Away by the Ramones, but only because all three of these drinks begin with the letter 'K.'  While I mention that song here, I decided against using it as the reference for this post.  Instead, I decided on Changes by David Bowie.  This is because adding these three drinks to my daily diet definitely (how's that alliteration?) represents a change for me.

So, what are these drinks?

First, I want to talk about kefir.  I am still not quite sure of the proper pronunciation of this word.  I have heard it pronounced as 'key-fur' as well as 'keh-fear.'  Either way, this is great stuff!  Kefir is primarily found as a cultured milk product.  I mentioned my then-new project of making my own kefir in a previous post - Wouldn't It Be Nice - so I won't go into too much detail about that here.  According to kefir.net, kefir is:

"a cultured, enzyme-rich food filled with friendly micro-organisms that help balance your “inner ecosystem.” More nutritious and therapeutic than yogurt, it supplies complete protein, essential minerals, and valuable B vitamins."

Since I began making my own kefir a couple of months ago, I have been drinking it almost daily - except for the duration of the master cleanse.  At first, I wasn't quite thrilled by the taste but neither did I hate it.  Now, I actually like it.  For that matter, I am also enjoying the taste of plain yogurt now though I really couldn't stand it when I first tried it.  My taste buds have definitely adjusted to a lot of foods that I never used to like.  While I haven't seen any major improvement in my health since I started drinking kefir, I know that I am better off because of it.  As with everything else, healing takes time.  While kefir is available at the grocery stores, I have yet to find any that is made from whole milk and doesn't contain undesirable additives.  Plus, all of the bottled kefir that I have found is pasteurized.

Next comes kombucha.  Kombucha is a fermented tea drink.  It is essentially made by using a kombucha 'mushroom' or 'mother' to ferment any variety of tea.  Because of the fact that it is made from tea, it can come in many flavors.  I have only been able to find one brand of kombucha locally, though I haven't exhausted all possibilities.  Neither Stop & Shop nor Trader Joe's carry it.  I am told that Whole Foods sells it, but I don't get out there very often.  As of now, the only place I have been able to get it is It's Only Natural so I am limited to what they carry.  Today, I picked up some Botanic No. 9 and Gingerade varieties.  I had previously tried the Multigreen flavor but I am not too thrilled with the taste.  It wasn't bad and I would drink it if the others weren't available, but it wouldn't be my first choice.
I am tempted to try to make my own kombucha.  The start-up cost is a bit higher than it was for kefir, but it seems like the ongoing costs would be less.  Rather than using raw milk that I pay $7.50 per gallon to make kefir, I would be using tea and sugar.  One gallon of sweetened tea costs a lot less than $7.50!  In addition to the mother, I would eventually need to buy some larger jars to make the kombucha in.  I currently use the one quart mason jars for kefir and I could start with them, but given the fact that kombucha takes longer to ferment than kefir, I would want to make larger batches.

Finally, kvass is another beverage that has been around for a long time.  There are a couple of different ways to make kvass.  One uses stale rye bread while another uses beets.  Kvass is really new to me.  I read about it in Nourishing Traditions, but have only recently tried it.  It was sitting in the cooler at It's Only Natural right next to the kombucha with a big sign: "If you like kombucha, you will LOVE KVASS!"  Well, I figured that I would give it a shot...  So much for truth in advertising!  While I do like kombucha, I certainly do not love kvass - at least, not the variety that I tried.  The flavor that I purchased was ginger-carrot kvass.  My guess is that instead of using beets to make the kvass, they used ginger and carrots.  It wasn't great but neither was it horrible.  Today on my trip to I.O.N., I decided to give it another shot.  This time I opted for the beet kvass (as I write this, the kvass is sitting in the fridge while I am drinking Gingerade kombucha).
Kvass seems to be a lot easier to make than kombucha - similar to kefir in complexity and time.  It does, however, require whey as the fermentation agent - at least, for the first batch.  Fortunately, whey is easy to acquire - I can separate some raw milk on my own or get some from Deerfield Farm when they make cheese.  While the jury hasn't reached a verdict on kvass - maybe it is just an acquired taste - I am thinking that the relative ease of making it and the ability to customize the taste by using different vegetables will make kvass a staple for me.  We'll see how that goes, though.


Without actually doing the math, it is obvious that making/brewing my own probiotic drinks is a lot more cost effective than buying them retail.  Of the three, kombucha is the most labor intensive having to first brew the tea, add sugar and the mother, and allow to ferment for 7-10 days.  Kefir simply requires the addition of the grains to fresh milk in a loosely covered jar (I use a coffee filter over the mouth of a mason jar secured with the mason jar ring) with an occasional stir during the 24-48 hours of fermentation.  Kvass seems to merely require cutting the vegetables into cubes, adding them to a jar with whey, sea salt, and water, and allowing the fermentation to occur at room temperature for 48 hours.

It will be interesting to see how it works!

Where there's a will, there's a 'whey'...

Yesterday was milk day.  I had run out of milk earlier in the week, so I needed to make my bi-weekly trip down to Durham to visit Deerfield Farm.  This week, the girls were excited to get some of Deerfield's strawberry and chocolate milk.  I had gotten them each a pint of it on the last trip and they really liked it.  Tatyana thinks that it is the best chocolate milk that she has ever had.  On the way there, I saw a sign advertising the Durham Farmers' Market.  As it was scheduled to begin at 3 PM that day, we weren't going to be able to get there this time but the market happens every week on Thursday from 3-5 PM.  Hopefully we can make it next time!

When we got to the farm, Melynda happened to be there - I think that she was preparing to go to the Farmers' Market.  One of the products they make on the farm is cheese.  They don't make any hard cheeses, just cream cheese.  Of course, when making cheese you will end up with whey in addition to the cheese.  I asked her what they did with the left over whey hoping that I might be able to get some of it.  Sure enough, she told me that she would be happy to bottle some for me the next time that they make cheese!  This is going to be very helpful in following The Maker's Diet.  Whey is an integral part of many recipes - though not used as an actual ingredient in all of them, it is used to prepare other ingredients for cooking.  Also, whey can be used in place of vinegar for pickling.  For example, soaking cabbage in a solution of filtered water, sea salt, and whey makes a basic sauerkraut.  Personally, I have never liked sauerkraut, but this is just one example of the uses of whey.  I definitely plan to put whey to a lot of good use in food preparation.  Additionally, mixing whey into my yogurt smoothies will boost the nutritional benefits.

And now for something completely different (well, almost completely)...

A couple of years ago, I had a membership to Netflix.  I enjoyed the flexibility of getting DVDs in the mail as well as the ability to watch movies instantly on my laptop.  It was also possible, with a set-top box, to watch movies instantly on your TV.  Yesterday, I got an email from Netflix offering me a two week trial to come back.  One new feature they have is the ability to configure your XBox 360, PS3, or Wii to be able to serve as that set-top box.  Well, I have a Wii now so I figured that I would give Netflix another shot - for at least the two week trial.  One of the movies that I am looking forward to watching is Food, Inc..  It is available as either a DVD or instantly over the internet.
From amazon.com:

"For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact. Director Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles, talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who's been lobbying for more rigorous standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son. The filmmaker takes his camera into slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. If eco-docs tends to preach to the converted, Kenner presents his findings in such an engaging fashion that Food, Inc. may well reach the very viewers who could benefit from it the most: harried workers who don't have the time or income to read every book and eat non-genetically modified produce every day. Though he covers some of the same ground as Super-Size MeKing Corn, Food Inc. presents a broader picture of the problem, and if Kenner takes an understandably tough stance on particular politicians and corporations, he's just as quick to praise those who are trying to be responsible--even Wal-Mart, which now carries organic products. That development may have more to do with economics than empathy, but the consumer still benefits, and every little bit counts. --Kathleen C. Fennessy"

It should be an interesting viewing...