Preserving the Harvest and Growing Food on Your Countertop

Today I led a workshop and demo for the Grow Gainesville Community on how to grow and prepare easy, probiotic rich, and wholesome foods right on your counter tip! Here are some at home basics that I covered! Who would have thought that fermenting watermelon, brewing kombucha, and growing fresh sprouts could all be done so easily in your own kitchen?

I hope you enjoy this :) For more plant based recipes and tutorials on fermenting, check out other recipes in my blog!

Pickled Watermelon Rind

Materials needed:

Glass jars and screw top lid

Filtered water

Pure sea or himalayan salt

Dill, garlic or any herbs of your choice

Watermelon

Sharp large knife

Cutting board

Instructions:

Cut your watermelon in half. Scoop out all of the red flesh and put aside in a bowl (eat this later!). What you want remaining is the rind. Carefully use your knife to scrape/cut off all the hard outer green rind, leaving behind the white layer that’s between the red and green parts of the melon. Discard/compost the hard green parts.

Chop the white fleshy rind into small cubes, chunks, or long strips, but make sure they are all uniform size and thickness. Pack them tightly into a jar or jar(s).

Add salt into your watermelon rind packed jar.

Here’s my formula:

¾ cup salt per GALLON sized jar

6 tablespoons per 8 cup sized jar

3 tablespoons per quart sized jar

Fill up the jar (after rind and salt are added) with filtered water to the top. Add a screw top lid and shake to mix in the salt. Place your jar in a dark, undisturbed place on your countertop on a plate or tray. Check your ferment daily and top off with filtered water as needed (watermelon rind should ALWAYS stay below the water line!). Use a follower if needed to keep the rind below the water (I’ll use something like a sweet potato leaf to hold it down). It should take anywhere from 2-7 days to ferment, mine usually is done around day 4. You can taste test daily to see when it has the perfect flavor you’re looking for (should take like a pickle and still have some crunch!). Once it’s too sour and too soft you’ve over-fermented and the process cannot be reversed. If you find that your pickles are way too salty, drain out some of the brine and swap for filtered water before storing in the fridge.

For more info on fermenting, see my blog post about another workshop I held that includes several recipes, and for more info on fermenting watermelon rind go here.

Easy Kombucha

Materials needed:

Glass gallon sized jar (without lid)

Coffee filter

Rubber band

1 tea bag of your choice (black, green, herbal, etc.)

Hot water

Mug or tea pot to steep tea

Cold filtered water

1 cup of granulated sugar

SCOBY

Instructions (Step 1):

Make yourself a cup of hot tea with your teabag by steeping in hot water. Put aside and allow to cool until room temperature.

Once cooled, add your tea to the gallon sized jar. Add sugar and SCOBY. You can also add a little leftover kombucha from a previous batch if you have any. Fill with cold filtered water to the top of the jar at its widest point (right before it narrows where the neck is).

Cover with coffee filter and secure with rubber band. Put on your counter top in a cool dark place away from other ferments (or potentially moldy produce) and ignore for 14 days. A new SCOBY layer should have formed on the surface of your kombucha by day 14. It’s done and ready to drink (but will be unflavored, to add flavor proceed to Step 2!). If you let it sit far past day 14 it will turn to vinegar. Kombucha should be poured into new jars and stored in the fridge leaving the SCOBY and a little bit of liquid behind for your next batch. Repeat all of these steps to make a new batch! As your SCOBY grows and multiplies each time you brew, you can divide it up to brew additional gallons of kombucha in your kitchen at the same time. If you don’t need it, you can share extra SCOBY with friends, dehydrate into “candy”, feed to your dog, or throw in your compost. You only need a small piece of SCOBY and a bit of starter liquid in your jar to start a new batch.

Instructions (Step 2):

Put your fresh unflavored kombucha into smaller jars. Add fruit juice, fresh fruit ginger, spices, sweeteners, or anything you want to add flavor. Put a lid on the jar and allow to sit on your countertop for up to 7 days. “Burp” the lid each day to prevent too much pressure from building up and exploding. Taste test daily until it tastes to your liking. The longer it sits the more carbonated it will taste. Fresh fruit may grow mold and should be strained out. Once the kombucha tastes just right to your liking, cap it and stick in the fridge. Some examples of flavors I’ve tried are ginger and honey, lime juice with vanilla and agave, blueberries with cinnamon, pineapple juice, and more! You can find tons of recipes for flavoring kombucha online.

Easy Sprouts

Materials needed:

Jar

Sprouting lid, or cheesecloth with a rubber band

Filtered water

Sprouting seeds (buy online, or in health food stores like Wards)

Instructions:

Pour some sprouting seeds into your jar so you have a thin layer covering the bottom of your jar. Fill the jar with filtered water just enough so the seeds are all covered and fully submerged. Allow to sit overnight.

The next day, pour out the water through your lid or cheesecloth and rinse with more filtered water. Pour that out too and let the jar rest upside down and slanted in a bowl or dish on your countertop so any remaining water can drip out. Leave the jar resting like this. Repeat the rinsing of the seeds 2-3 times daily and make sure to drain the jar and let it rest upside down each and every time. After a day you’ll see the seeds starting to sprout and within 3-5 days or so your seeds should be fully sprouted and ready to eat! Rinse them thoroughly so any hulls get removed and dry them. Store in an airtight bag or container in the fridge. They’ll stay good for about a week.

Seeds you can sprout: mung bean, alfalfa, clover, radish, sweet pea, and more! Keep in mind that sprouts are different than “microgreens” which require a different process of growing in a shallow tray of soil. For more info on sprouting see my full blog post about it here.