proving to be invaluable to me on our journey towards being more self-sufficient.
Not too long ago I read a post over at Healthy Homesteading that inspired me to start making a list of the things I want, no need, to start learning and becoming proficient at as part of our journey to be more self-sufficient. One of the first things that came up was learning to create a self-sustaining kitchen of cultures and fermented foods. The idea of becoming more self-reliant is based around cutting as many ties, cutting the string of necessity, from the world as you can. The main one of course on everyone's list if FOOD. Way up on that list for me was not buying yeast, yogurt and buttermilk cultures, as well as learning to naturally store foods through fermentation. It really kills a few birds with one stone. Culturing and fermenting not only make food healthier, they make types of foods that we buy at the store ourselves (sour cream, pickles, sauerkraut, etc. etc.) AND they are a natural way of storing food to avoid spoilage (cold storage fermented veggies last a LONG time!)
Now I've been doing sourdough and kefir on and off for years, but have never 100% integrated it into my life. I still buy tortillas instead of make them, things like that. So I bit the bullet and I purchased a single month access to the Gnowfglins ecourses.
I tend to not spend money on things I feel like I can find myself on the internet but MAN these classes are worth it! She has a number of different plans you can choose from. They each give you access to all the classes she's done so far just for different periods of time. I decided to go with the one-month plan. It was only $11! The classes all have print pdfs you can download and videos to watch. Every single recipe, everything has an accompanying video. I mean the sourdough class has 25 lessons!
Anyways I started just a few days ago and am SO re-motivated. I have learned SO many new recipes already. Okay so I admit I've been a tad obsessive about wanting to watch all the videos and read all the print as fast as possible. But still... within a few days I made amazing long-soaked sourdough tortillas, have some clabbered cheese straining, homemade buttermilk done and in the fridge, raw sour cream culturing on the top of the fridge, the water kefir rebooted (boy was it happy I did it!), and have a friend who's going to send me a new kombucha mother. Tonight I'll be setting up some dough to make sourdough english muffins, rebooting kefir, and upping my milk order at the farm to be able to make cultured butter and feta. Every single one of those things (except maybe the kombucha) has a video and pdf explaining every tiny step.
The fruits of my labor? Well some of them.
And NO I'm not affiliated with Gnowfglins in any way. I just am amazed at what a great resource it is for a very affordable price. And I hope others will find it helpful as I am.