Thank goodness, we finally have a batch of cheese that is not palloumi (what we call our kinda sorta paneer/halloumi hybrid that keeps happening by accident). It’s just delicious, soft goat cheese. Simple. Not perfect. But hey, pretty darn good, anyway.
It’s the nighttime routine these days: kid goes to bed, we (he) make cheese or some sort of ferment from our CSA pick up. This week, it’s a bread and butter pickle, but I’m trying a new method.
Ferment first, with just salt and pickling spices, and then jar it up, replacing the brine with a 50/50 solution of raw honey and apple cider vinegar. After a week or so in the fridge on a slower ferment, they should be ready to eat. Hopefully, this will result in pickles less cloyingly sweet, with the added bonus of not inhibiting fermentation with the raw honey. Stay tuned…
Aaaaaaaand, I might finally be done with the pesto. Maybe. We lost all of our basil plants, so I’ve had to buy basil from the market. Usually, our crop is ridiculously robust, but the plants all turned brown and crispy before getting productive. This time of year, though, it’s cheap enough at the farmer’s market that I easily filled three ice cube trays with concentrated pesto (I’ll add the parm and more oil when I thaw for use) with a $9 bouquet of six bunches.
Heather’s blog hop isn’t hopping this week, but you know, my kitchen just doesn’t stop.
What’s happening in your kitchen?
Thespunmonkey's Blog 
ha! love that last line about how your kitchen doesn’t stop š i have been preserving a lot of blackberries and most recently tomatoes and pickled beets… i haven’t jumped on the fermenting wagon yet but i’m getting pretty interested. i posted about some of the preserving happening at our place in oregon here if your interested http://phishybee.blogspot.com/