Come and get your pickle on at Culture Club's inaugural Community Pickling Day on Saturday February 4.
We have partnered with Glenlyon's Adsum Farmhouse who are growing gherkins especially for the day. So if you don't have your own homegrown cucumbers to bring along, you can pre-order Adsum Farm organic gherkins which will be freshly picked on the morning of the pickling day:
exact change if you've ordered Adsum Farm gherkins
as many clean jars + lids as you'll need for your pickles
salt, garlic cloves, black peppercorns, bay leaves, fresh dill or dill seeds, mustard seeds, leaves containing tannin (grape, cherry, oak, horseradish, green or black tea)
Looking forward to seeing you there!
* * *
We have just updated the Vegie Box page of our blog, so please have a read through and email us if you'd like to order a box of Captains Creek Organics' local goodies. Pickle 'em, juice 'em, cook 'em or just munch 'em.
* * *
There are also two workshops coming up in Trentham that you might be interested in:
We are very excited that Penny Livingston-Stark is coming to talk to HRN about the relocalisation projects she's involved with in California.
Please join us for what is sure to be a night of great food and stimulating conversation.
No need to RSVP, just rock along. Bring your togs if it's hot too.
We just wanted to let you know that we aren't having a January Culture Club. Our first fermie get together for 2017 will be Saturday February 4. Watch this space for details.
If you're around on NYE, come and join the community gardeners in the annual Daylesford NYE parade. Think colourful costumes, big hair, yarn bombed bikes and scooters, political placards, wheelbarrows piled high with plants, straw bales and kids.
We are meeting outside the MS op shop on Duke Street at 7pm on the 31st.
Hope to see you there.
Happy holidays from all us here at HRN HQ!
We're looking forward to another year of relocalising together in 2017. More growing, more sharing, more making, more preserving, more helping, more repairing, and a lot more dancing.
Sourdough, mead, jun, sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, kombucha... Whatever you've been busy making at home, please come along to our second Show + Share day and inspire others to confidently make and mistake, as we discover collectively the exciting world of fermenting.
Meg Ulman won't be there for this next Culture Club. She and her partner Patrick will be at the International Indigenous Health Conference where Patrick will be giving a keynote address entitled Fermenting Country- caring for the ecology of our gut, after which Meg will be taking a fermenting workshop. We wish them all the very best.
We hope you have a great festive season. Don't forget that in some countries sauerkraut juice is sold as a hangover cure...
Were Indigenous Australians the world's first bakers? Come and discuss this delicious history while we take our sourdough making skills one step further from where we left off at last Culture Club's fermented grains workshop.
We will be learning new techniques and recipes so come and learn, try, and most importantly, taste the latest offerings in this country's long lineage of breadly goods.
Did you know that sourdough bread may contain vitamins B1-B6, B12, folate, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, vitamin E, selenium, iron, manganese, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc and potassium –in addition to uniquely balanced proteins and fatty acids? Whoa! This is in contrast to most commercially produced breads, which maintain only a fraction of their original nutrient content after all the processing they undergo.
Come and learn the art, craft and some of the science of making sourdough bread fermented with wild culture, as well as some other fermented goodies made using various grains.
Please note the earlier finishing time of 12.30pm. No need to bring lunch this time. Just your person, your friends and your enthusiasm.
Don't forget HRN has two exciting upcoming events:
This Friday night at 7pm, Charlie Mgee and his band Formidable Vegetable Sound System, will be launching their new album, Grow Do It in Daylesford. They're calling it a kids' album, but that hasn't stopped any of us adults boogying around the HRN HQ while we listen to it.
There will be a delicious supper available, too, to replenish our stores after a big night of dancing.
Here's a sneak peek of Kimchi, one of the songs from the new album:
(If you're reading this as an email, you might need to click through to the HRN blog to watch it.)
If you love kimchi as much as Charlie and would like to learn how to make it, we warmly invite you to come along to this Saturday's Culture Club for our free Back to Basics workshop where we will be making kimchi, sauerkraut, fermented carrots, pickled carrots, and a carrot kvass.
This will be a hands on and hands in workshop. Here's what you need to bring if you'd like to make your own:
Kimchi
Ingredients
- flaked or fine salt
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- a thumb of ginger
- chilli flakes, or dried or fresh chillies
- fish sauce (optional)
- daikon radish (optional)
- sugar
- Chinese/napa cabbage, though ordinary cabbage, bok choy, etc works fine too - need about 1kg
- 1 carrot
- spring onions (optional)
- plastic gloves (optional) Utensils
- clean 1L (or thereabouts) jar
- grater
- chopping board + knife
- mixing bowl
Sauerkraut
Ingredients
- one or more cabbages
- salt
- optional: whey, onion, garlic, chilli, spices (cardamom, coriander, fennel, star anise, caraway etc) Utensils
- large bowl (preferably stainless steel) for pounding into
- pounding tool - eg. pestle
- grater
- large chopping knife
- chopping board
- 2 wide mouthed jars or crock - size depends on quantity of ingredients you want to make up. About 1 litre is a good size to start with
Carrot Ferment
Ingredients
- 4-5 carrots
- salt
- optional: whey, onion, garlic, chilli, spices as above Utensils
- large bowl (preferably stainless steel) for pounding into
- pounding tool - eg. pestle
- grater
- large chopping knife
- chopping board
- 2 wide mouthed jars or crock - size depends on quantity of ingredients you want to make up. About 1 litre is a good size to start with
Pickled Carrots
Ingredients
- 4-5 large carrots
- 4 garlic cloves
- good quality salt
- black peppercorns
- mustard seeds
- 2 bayleaves
- fresh dill or dill seeds
- optional: lemon, chillies
Utensils
- 1 2-litre jar or several smaller jars
- knife
- chopping board
Carrot Kvass
Ingredients
- 1 carrot
- salt
- whey (optional) Utensils
- 1 large jar
- chopping board
- knife
