Strawberry Soda

No, the stuff in the jar isn't beet kvass. It's going to be strawberry soda.
I saw a recipe for blueberry soda somewhere on the internet. It was cultured using a ginger bug which uses white sugar, but I set out to use whey and natural maple syrup. Only one small problem: we were out of blueberries.
Enter strawberry soda.
I made a syrup of about 2 cups of whole strawberries (I think it would be more like one cup if they were cut up - there were a lot of air spaces) with tops removed. I used frozen. 1 qt of water and between 1/4 and 1/2 cup of maple syrup, boiled, cooled, and tasteless berries discarded. Poured into a quart mason jar and added 2 tablespoons whey and 1/2 teaspoon sea salt. I'll let you know in three days how it tastes!

Ginger Ale Update

I have tweaked my previous recipe to make the ginger ale fizzier - it happened by accident, really. Here is the recipe, modified from Instructables:
1 cubic inch piece of ginger, micro-grated
juice of 1 lemon (1/4 cup bottled lemon juice - the stuff from Costco rocks!)
1/4 cup real maple syrup
2 tablespoons whey (whey from straining kefir makes it extra fizzy)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 quart water
Mix all ingredients in a jar and let ferment for 3 days before sticking in the fridge. Strain before drinking.

Lacto-fermented Pink Lemonade!

I love the lacto-fermented ginger ale recipe on Instructables, but I was out of ginger. So I omitted the ginger, doubled the lemon juice, and substituted maple syrup for the honey. Just one small problem, though. The whey was moldy! What was I to do? I decided to just dilute it and not ferment, but then it came to me - homemade beet kvass! It wasn't moldy and it had good bacteria, but the best part was that it made PINK lemonade! You can't even taste the beets, since it is only 2 tablespoons. Here is the recipe:
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp whey OR beet kvass for pink color
1 quart water
Mix all ingredients in a quart mason jar (or bottle, I suppose) and let ferment for 3 days. This is very strong, both sweet and sour, so dilute it 50/50 with water. Enjoy!
Note: I do not like this as much as the ginger ale!

Mint Soda Experiment

A few days ago (and I was playing with the idea in my head long before) I decided to make a lacto-fermented mint tea drink. No kefir, no kombucha, just tweaked the classic ginger ale recipe (the one on Instructables using honey instead of sugar) to omit the ginger and replace the water with mint tea. And the whey came from raw milk, curdled with lemon juice and strained. (By the way, the "cheese" from this process tastes like lemon-flavored yogurt. Good with fruit.) And I brewed in in a mason jar. Now I'll be honest with you - It isn't fizzy. But it is nice and tart. Oh, another thing. You can kinda taste the salt. But the ginger ale has that too, and I LOVE it. If you can't get raw milk, strain commercial yogurt with live cultures. The way you strain it is: put a coffee filter inside a strainer and put it in a bowl. Pour the yogurt or curdled milk through the coffee filter and leave it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. You get "cheese"in the filter and whey in the bowl.
Now I am wondering how this would taste with chammomille tea. Or if I could make it fizzy by using something a little more "live" than just raw milk. Well, I have a yogurt experiment sitting in the sun outside. And in a few months my ginger should be ready to harvest, so I can make ginger ale. Good stuff. Love ta hear about your cooking experiments!

Win a free case of lacto-fermented salad dressing!

Food Renegade posted this on her blog and there is a free giveaway. Just trying to spread the word (and possibly get an extra entry)!
Here is the link:Click here to go to Food Renegade and enter to win!