Lately: the August Begins edition

I am sitting in our new office, which is really just the location in the old cabin where our bed used to be. It’s 4:00 p.m. on July 31st here in Central Texas, the girls are napping, and I am not sweating. I’m not sweating because it’s only 80 degrees. I know that doesn’t sound like news, but it’s big news. To say this summer has been less brutal than the last two would be an understatement.

The thickest part of summer begins now, on this eve of August. The melons are beginning to yellow, the sunflowers are opening, and the chickens are on the all-you-can-eat grasshopper buffet in this thick of summer. We are planning for the fall garden, grasping for each breeze, and doing more school than homesteading projects in this thick of summer.

Stewart and I have also been taking on a little bit of extra work while it’s too hot for the physical labor of bigger homestead projects. Here’s a roundup of some of my latest recipes, tutorials, and fermentation adventures.

Recipes & Cooking

I’m a big fan of non-GMO masa flour. It’s gluten-free, nixtamalized (which is akin to soaking or fermenting), and therefore gives me a quick option for grain-eating. I share more than a few of our favorite ways to use it in Ten Things You Can Make With a Bag of Masa Flour.

I’ve always enjoyed knowing where our food comes from and the story of how it got there. One night garden vegetables, solar-cooked lentils, and the gift of pork sausage from a neighbor inspired Sausage, Lentils, and Greens with Herbed Tomato Salsa.

When it’s this hot, not many people want to turn their oven on. For that reason, I started a series on griddle breads. The first is this Griddle Scone, flaky and delicious. The second is a Gluten-Free Fried Corncake with Jalapeno-Lime Pinto Beans. The third is a yeasted flat bread that you can find on Plan to Eat next week.

Fermenting

It’s sort of the off-season for me in this full contact sport of food fermentation, though I did sneak in a quick ferment on these Swiss Chard Stems and then these Fermented Jalapeno Slices. We are getting milk again from our neighbors with goats, so I wrote about Getting Back Into Goat Milk Kefir. I make at least one quart per day and we usually use that for our current favorite breakfast, Kefir-Soaked Muesli.  I’m no good at keeping a sourdough starter, so I’m soaking grains in kefir.

Stewart and Elijah both have a few food sensitivities that we are working with. I shared the blessing of fermented foods under these circumstances in Gathering Around Cultured Foods When Food Sensitivities Isolate You.

Finally, I shared a full How To Make Milk Kefir tutorial over at Food Renegade, including my number one tip for making tasty (as opposed to yeasty and yucky) milk kefir.

Oh, and Ruthie’s growing just as fast as those green beans and squash.