The Garden, the Harvest, and Why My Husband Called Me Dr. Flox

This was my husband's birthday cake. This is the exact opposite of everything the rest of this post is about. (I'm guessing he liked it, though, since he is the author of this photo.) ;)

I've always been interested in being healthy and in eating healthfully. Lately, however, because of the book that turned my head inside out, I've been feeling a bit like a mad scientist trying to accomplish this goal.

Example #1: My very first soaked flour (whole wheat) pancakes. They were fried in coconut oil and they were delicious. (For soaking I used water mixed with whey I got from the yogurt I made. Crazy, right?)

Walnuts and pecans soaking to later be dried in the oven. (Another very weird thing I couldn't believe I was doing.)

My homemade sourdough starter getting going along with a cup of tea that was used to grow my own kombucha scoby.

Let's see. Raw milk on the right. Lacto-fermented red sauerkraut behind the Brita. I love my vintage suntea jar that was pilfered (with permission) from my gramma's garage!

And below from right to left: homemade yogurt in the bowl, farmer's-market-bought kimchi, homemade feta chunks center (in salt brine), jar of whey, homemade kefir, piima cream, and homegrown and cured sun pickles. The more recent water kefir is missing from this photo.

Back to the realm of what can be considered normal.

A few of the jars of our garden tomatoes that I canned amongst our garden onions. Our baby red potatoes are on the left!

A snapshot into our deepfreeze featuring the Georgia peaches from the peach truck; our local, handpicked cherries; local blueberries we went to pick ourselves; garden green beans; and local, grassfed, organic beef.

Our upstairs freezer: more garden beans and tomatoes and local foraged blackberries (THANKS BETH!!). (Among other misc. items not pictured-)

My little beauties. This is my little treasured sweetheart of the garden.
(An heirloom variety for northern climates that I pinned all my hope for my first successful watermelon harvest on. It came through for me!)

These little babies did not. But I believe that it was due to a mold-type stuff that was on the zucchini originally and then spread to these melons. I think it was caused by all of the rain/moisture we had this year. ? :(

Overall garden pictures. The corn turned out okay but not awesome. Everything else did fairly well, I'd say, except for the tomatoes. The plants all turned brown and died way too early. I think it was probably blight, but I'm letting myself be not 100% sure out of a desire to avoid the truth and fear for next year's tomato crop.

So. Now you know. My kitchen is full of homemade/cultured/fermented probiotic foods. I have been growing and feeding and babying bacteria on purpose. In my kitchen. It's very weird.

Oh, and did I mention I attended a cheesemaking class this summer? I feel like that's also very weird. Cool, but weird.

Whole, healthy food to the Nth degree. Don't look at these unless you're not afraid of being warped. Food Renegade. Nourished Kitchen. Nourishing Days. Cheeseslave.

To name a few.