In celebration of Summer Solstice: odd foods. More probiotic slaw, kombucha, sprouts, mustard, garlic aioli (which I finally got to the right consistency after many failed attempts) and two types of pickles. The first was a Japanese style pickle, called Nuka zuke which are pickles made with a rice bran start. The second batch was miso pickles, which involve burying the veggies of your choice in a vat of miso and leaving them for a few weeks (although some recipes call for at least a year) at which point you get these wonderful salty pickles and the liquid that rises to the top is your own homemade tamari. The pickled garlic is amazing! We used red miso but you can use white too, for a slightly different flavor.
Making pickles is a nice way to preserve some of the summer harvest to enjoy later. Good vegetables for pickling include:
carrots, burdock root, asparagus, garlic, shiso leaves, daikon, beets and Japanese cucumbers.
Recipe for a nice summer day in the kitchen: Start early before it gets hot, green tea and melon for breakfast. Field trip to local Asian Grocery where you can find daikon, shiso, kyuri, red and white miso and all sorts of other things that you don't need like White Rabbit sweets, ginger flowers and fresh coconuts..maybe buy some rice balls and seaweed for lunch. In the afternoon you can cut the veggies, listening to something inspiring like Phillip Glass, Santigold, Ira Glass or my new favorite, The Bird and The Bee. Put veggies in the bases of bran, miso, kombucha etc. and then set in jars on the counter to admire your work. More green tea.
